Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

V stands at the junk stall and leans against the bench. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and the little market here at the north end of Arroyo is busy. Her eyes look vacantly across the crowd of people milling about the flat space. Shitty wire fencing separates them from the streets, and thick highways create a kind of roof over the space. Nothing is happening. Nothing is ever happening. V sighs and looks down, hair falling limply into her eyes.

As she re-ties her ponytail, she spots him.

He’s got light skin, short and curly blond hair, leather jacket and dark jeans on, and is probably shorter than she is — but that’s not what V notices. V notices the way he walks, not like he owns the place but like it’s still standing by his grace. She notices the scowl on his face, the way it twists his lips. She notices the way he holds his shoulders, like his left arm is heavy, despite clearly having modern, symmetrical chrome. She knows him instantly, like she knows her own self. It’s Johnny motherfucking Silverhand.

V exits the stall immediately, yelling something at her boss about her break as she goes, and doesn't take her eyes off him for a single moment. Maybe she’s finally gone batshit, whatever the opposite of cyberpsycho is, but she’d bet her fucking life on it.

She catches up to him, pushing through the crowd, and grabs his forearm, the left one. He turns to her and yanks his arm back.

“Fuck’s your problem?” he says, eyes alight with anger and nothing else.

It’s so weird, to hear the cadence of his voice so clearly without hearing the timbre of it. Weirder than hearing his voice come out of her mouth. This body has a warmer, wider voice, though she can hear the way he drags it down through the dirt.

“It’s me,” she says, reflexively, “it’s V.”

She knows she looks different now. The long naturally black hair, the low tech eyes, the lack of chrome, the entire way she moves through the world. But, shit, she thought if there was anyone in the world who would still recognise her, it’d be Johnny.

His expression doesn’t change. “Don’t know who the fuck you are, so get lost ‘fore I break your fucking nose,” he says, and turns away from her.

Well, shit. V can’t even think what that means, but she’s not letting him go.

V grabs him again. Before he can punch her, she says, “Johnny Silverhand, right?”

Johnny doesn’t punch her, but he grabs her hand and twists it behind her back in a painful grip. His gun is against the back of her head immediately as he shoves her into the shadows of an alleyway. V isn’t as weak as she’d been when she first got out of the FIA lab that tore one half her soul out in the form of Johnny and the second half in the form of her cyberware, but Johnny’s body is chromed up and he bests her without even trying.

“Who the fuck is asking,” he snarls, slamming her against the wall. The rough concrete presses against V’s face. He doesn’t cock his gun, because it’s obviously already cocked, but he does rub the back of her head with it like he thinks she may have forgotten the threat.

“Just me. Three and a half years ago, I klepped some proto tech from Arasaka,” she says in a rush, heart hammering against her chest. “Slotted the thing cause I’m the world’s biggest gonk, woke up with Silverhand’s engram overwriting my brain.”

“Bullshit,” Johnny says in a growl.

“Dead truth,” she says. “Engram’s gone now, but you — you were in my head. Six months. You don’t… remember?”

He hasn’t shot her yet, which means he believes her enough that he wants more info. But he hasn’t gasped like that makes sense, or nodded like he understood, which V struggles with. Was he not an engram on a chip in some poor guy’s brain? Had he not gone and reconnected with Rogue or Kerry? Was he a second fucking Johnny Silverhand, a copy somehow, fresh from Mikoshi? Or was he hers, and he’d just forgotten? What would even be the difference?

It’s been so long since she’s let herself really think about him. The dying speech he gave her in the AV as they were flown to the lab still haunts her fucking dreams. Even so, it all comes back so easily, like she’s slotting some missing piece of her. The FIA may have got the physical Relic out of her, but all of her psyche that had been changed forever by him was right the fuck here.

“Prove it, or I blow your head off,” Johnny growls, pushing her face against the metal wall.

“Fuckin’ how?” V asks, and is rewarded with a sharp jab to the kidney. “Fine, fine.” She gasps from the pain. “You’re such a little shit,” she says, almost involuntarily.

Johnny flips her around so he can see her face, right arm fisted in her shirt at her collarbone to hold her there, left holding the gun to her forehead. It’s a Malorian, but not his custom one, just something off the shelf. She has the same damn model holstered at her hip. V thinks out loud, for Johnny to hear, because even though she’s starting to think it’s not her Johnny it feels wrong that he shouldn’t know.

“Well, you convinced Ker with like half a bar of Chippin’ In, god knows I can’t fuckin’ do that,” she says, watches as Johnny reacts with a frown, though he tries to hide it. “Rogue, shit, I don’t remember, something about smirking? Or smoking? Whatever, let’s do ‘Saka Tower, I can do that.”

“You’re there,” V starts saying, and it’s like she’s there too, right back with him, “in the AV, headin’ down, Rogue, Spider, Thompson, Shaitan, fuckin’ Blackhand in your ear like the gnat he is,” she says. “Fuck, the gunfire, the rush, the blood, don’t need to hear that from me, anyone would know that. But you plant the bomb, you go deeper to jack the subnet for Alt. You see Smasher. Then you’re somehow on the roof and Rogue is pullin’ you up to the AV and then Smasher fuckin’ gets you, for real this time, gets you for good and they leave, the rest of them, they leave you for dead — except that Saburo wants to look you in the eye before you die.”

Johnny is staring at her like she’s a devil sent from hell, but V keeps going.

“Then, shit, there’s this fuckin’ fire, like every nerve and synapse and whatever else is lit up with impossible pain, pain made of golden light, and you think, fuckin’ figures that even dying isn’t peaceful.” Johnny’s grip in her shirt tightens as he sucks in a surprised breath. “I dunno what happens to you after that, after Mikoshi. For me, you woke up in my gonk head, spent a month trying to kill me then five months trying to save me.”

V still has his dog tags around her neck, under her shirt, and she’s glad he can’t see them and try to take them away. It was the only thing from her old life she’d been determined to salvage. She had flown all the way back to the lab in Langley just to turn down their job offer and tear through their shit until she found them. Reed had squirreled them away along with a couple other items of hers, sentimental shit that he was. She’d left the other things behind. He had been reluctant to give the tags to her; like everyone, he thought she should have a clean break, start anew. But she needed the tags, needed to remember that Johnny had taken a bullet for her, needed a reminder to not put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger. She needed to live.

And now Johnny, maybe a different Johnny but a real Johnny, was here in front of her, and he didn’t know her, didn’t know how much she loved him, didn’t know he’d willingly died for her, didn’t know she would’ve done the same for him.

“Bull. Shit,” he grinds out, and slams her head against the wall. “Bull fucking shit.”

“Alright,” she says, slow and careful, “I’ll do you one better.” She meets his eyes. Somehow they feel like his still, even though they’re a pretty hazel green this time, rimmed with Kiroshi gold. “You killed Alt Cunningham.”

The pistol hits her face hard and she turns with the force of it, pain blossoming across her cheek and mouth. There’s blood on the barrel of the gun. She licks the blood off her split lip and turns back to face him. Johnny is fucking furious. But she killed his ghost, so maybe it’s fitting that now he would kill her ghost. Maybe that way her death wouldn’t be a betrayal.

“She’s there on the chair, writhing,” V gasps out. She hardly recognises her own voice. “You’re too preoccupied with her damn body, your damn ego, to look, to notice she’s on the screens, screaming at you, telling you not to.” Johnny hits her again and it burns with uncomplicated pain. She keeps talking. “You pull the plug and she dies in your arms, by your hand. Great fuckin’ job, Silverhand.”

Her head hits the wall again, a dull echo compared to her bleeding lip and bruised face. When she opens her eyes Johnny is gone, like he was never there. The blood on her lips and the pain in her head are the only evidence left.

V picks a random direction and starts walking. She thinks about texting Rogue, or Kerry, some kind of warning or plea for help — but she can’t get involved in whatever the fuck is going on. As if Johnny could be wandering around again without Rogue knowing anyway, which would mean Rogue hadn’t told him about V, which would mean she hadn’t told V about him either. What the fuck ever, not like she would be anything other than a burden anyway.

When V gets back to work, her boss fusses over her face and tries to insist she take the afternoon off, but V really needs the money. Tara is sweet, a sharp faced woman in her mid thirties with violently blue hair and pale skin. She isn’t exactly the best at business, which is probably why she’s a decent boss. God knows why they needed two people here; what they needed was her boss to hire some huscle to ward off thieves, but ‘huscle’ was a hell of a lot more expensive than ‘regular gonk’, so here V is.

Practically no one had stopped at the little junk booth that morning, but V’s busted face attracts a slightly different clientele. She sells just enough that she makes quota, enough to cover her third of the rent in her shitty shared pseudo studio apartment in the Arroyo H6 megabuilding. When she gets home her housemates Thomas and Shaun are fucking on the couch, and the dishes aren’t done. She’s not so useless that she can’t klep from the ancient SCSM vending machine around the corner, so she goes and does that. When she comes back they’re still going at it, so she walks past the dishes and the fucking to the bed pod in the wall that serves as her bedroom. She closes the shutter and it’s almost quiet. V eats her shitawful burrito alone in the dark. She stares at the cheap acoustic guitar on the shelf over her bed and can’t bring herself to touch it, just like every day for the past year. Then she falls asleep and dreams of Johnny Silverhand the way he was in her head, the way he spoke to her on the AV before she killed him, the way they never said any of the shit that mattered because they both knew it anyway.

-

V is pretty good now at slipping back into nothingness when life turns to shit. She is no one; no one reacts. She goes to work in the junk stall every day, scavenges trash during broad daylight, scampers off at the slightest sound of trouble. She drags herself to the range and shoots targets while her brain fills with static. She’s still pretty quick on her feet, not enough to fight but enough to slip away, and she’s got sharp enough instincts to know when things are about to take a turn for the worse. Probably the reason Tara keeps her around. That and the fact she can cut people up with her glare and figure out what makes them tick, which means she can drive a hard bargain. V doesn’t think about how pathetic it is. In fact, she doesn’t think about anything at all.

She’s wrapping up a sale of some clunker of a deck the following Saturday, one that’s already a fire hazard but the buyer doesn’t care so long as they get it dirt cheap. They pay slightly more than dirt cheap, which adds a little extra to the running total of rent money V is keeping in her head.

“So I hear V was some mid-tier merc who bowed out the game,” Johnny Silverhand says.

She jumps like a fool and spins to face him. Shit, she hadn’t dared think he’d come back, hadn’t seen him approach. Her lip is still tender from his pistol exactly one week ago — it’s probably going to scar — and she bites at it.

V can’t look at him directly. She loves him, so fucking much. He’s a black hole, an inescapable gravity. He won’t even have to do anything — if she gets any closer, she’ll tear herself up in his orbit, stretched out into ribbons of nothing as he moves on unchanged.

She forces a bored expression on her face. “Great,” she says flatly. “You buyin’?”

Johnny is leaning against the table on one elbow, body facing outwards but turned toward her. His blond curls are messier today, and there’s dried blood in there. He’s in all black, pants and top and leather jacket. He looks at her like he’s trying to look through her.

“Y’know, I asked around,” he drawls. “Some overambitious heist ‘gainst ‘Saka, risin’ star, Rogue’s favourite, then just fuckin’ vanished like some cheap whore the morning after.” He grins with all his teeth. This face is wider and rounder than his original one, not quite boyish but nearly, and he has dimples when he smiles.

It’s too easy to slip back into how she used to talk to him. “Wow, personal growth,” she says in a sarcastic drawl, “askin’ questions first and shootin’ later. Colour me impressed.” She drops the drawl: “What do you want?”

“Rogue won’t fuckin’ meet with me. I want an in,” Johnny says bluntly.

“Great, go find one then,” she says, and turns away from him.

Johnny vaults the table into the little stall, right up on top of her. Junk clatters to the ground in a cacophony of clanging metal. The cold steel of his gun barrel presses against the back of her head again. Tara shrieks and a couple of bystanders start backing away; the buzzing of the nearby crowds turns tense. V holds her hand up toward Tara, a signal to chill, to wait.

“Get me in with Rogue. You know me, you know I ain’t bluffing,” Johnny drawls, a bored and lazy threat.

V turns around to face him. He’s leaning back up against the table with one hand and holding the gun lazily in the other, up high and angled down slightly, like he doesn’t really care if the kill is messy.

“Fucking do it then,” V says.

To her surprise, Johnny falters, like he hadn’t been expecting that. He straightens the shot as he stands up, pushes the barrel into the middle of her forehead. “I will.”

“Yeah, I fucking know,” V says, because she does. “But you won’t.”

Johnny doesn’t put the gun down, but he doesn’t shoot. V sees his finger move next to the trigger rather than on it, and she’s not sure if she’s relieved to be right.

“Jesus, you’re pathetic,” he says. “Why haven’t you sucked off your own gun yet?”

V knows it’s not a question he cares about the answer to, but she answers anyway. “You died for me. You’d be pretty fucking pissed at me if that was for nothing.”

“I don’t give a shit about you,” Johnny growls.

V rolls her eyes and does a damn good job of not showing her heart ripping apart. “No shit. I meant the dead one. He’d be fucking furious. So here I am. But hey, I’m alive, right?” She smiles sharply, sarcastically. “But I’m not that V anymore. I don’t got no in with Rogue, I don’t got no ‘ware, I don’t got nothin’ that could help you. So ghost off, okay?”

Johnny eyes her, a suspicious and calculating look that is so familiar. He drops the gun. “Why’d you come talk to me then, huh?”

V isn’t going to answer that one but this time she can’t help the expression on her face, desperate and sad. Johnny snorts in disgust.

“Fuckin’ figures,” he mutters as he turns around.

Johnny vaults the table again and saunters off back into the crowd, and V feels the tension in the air break as the shoppers realise there’s not going to be a murder here today. She slumps down to the ground in shock. Fuck, what was she doing? She probably could get Johnny in front of Rogue, unless Rogue already believed it was Johnny and was choosing not to engage. She could probably help him, assuming that what he wanted was to torch Mikoshi — Arasaka had pulled out of Night City pretty hard in the last few years, and the shard Alt had given her was long lost to time, but she kind of had a lead on Alt, at least. She could pull on Reed’s heartstrings and get the Relic blueprints back, if that would do anything. She could be Johnny’s watching ghost, unable to affect the world but along for the ride with him anyway. But he wouldn’t want that. She didn’t want it either. So it didn’t matter. None of it fucking mattered.

V stands up and starts picking up all the fallen junk from the floor.

-

Another week passes like a blur. V considers getting a new job so Johnny can’t find her, but Tara is so good to her, and has been so kind. They aren’t quite friends, but she’s good people, and that’s hard to come by. On top of that V wants him to be able to find her, even though she shouldn’t want that at all. She watches the crowd of market goers for troublemakers to avoid, for potential buyers. Every now and again she sees a flash of blonde hair and shivers, but it’s never him.

Until it is, seven days after the last time. He doesn’t manage to sneak up on her this time, not for lack of trying. She pretends not to notice him, letting him get right up to the stall without looking at him twice.

“Hey,” Johnny says.

He’s leaning again, of course. It makes his dark leather jacket spread, exposes the faded yellow tank top he’s wearing and the iron holstered loosely on his hip. He’s got gold rimmed aviators on that make him look like a douchebag. V wouldn’t have expected him to wear yellow. Maybe there is someone else in that head with him.

“Hey,” V says, without really looking. She doesn’t have anything to busy herself with, so she turns to face him. “Don’t suppose you’re here for some junk,” she says tiredly, bracing herself against the table with spread arms.

“Sure I am,” he says easily, like he didn’t almost kill her last they met. “Come get a drink with me.”

V laughs out loud, a true guffaw from the centre of her chest. It’s stupid in the way she misses most about him. “Fuck off, Johnny, find someone else to pick up.”

“Six months with me in your head, but you think that’s how I pick up?” he retorts, but he’s grinning. He’s too much like her Johnny. It’s too easy for her to like him, too easy to forget. “Maybe I just wanna hear what shit I got up to in your brain.”

It’s a stupid idea, top tier gonk shit, but it’s something — something bright, colourful, fun. V isn’t sure the last time she had actual fun, so she keeps talking to him.

“No duh, vain shit like you,” she says, but she smiles.

Johnny gives her a smug little smirk. God, she wants to know what he’s been up to, if he’s okay, what gonk scheme he’s cooking up. The fact that he’s still alive after at least two weeks in a body, that he’s not dead in a gutter from an overdose or bleeding out on the doorstep of the last ‘Saka building in town, is almost a surprise. It means he’s probably got some kind of larger plan. She can’t be part of that life, but she wants to. Fuck, it hits her again, how much she still loves him, even this version of him who barely knows her name. She spares a thought for Kerry, wonders if this is how he felt when they crashed into his life. At least he’d come out better for it.

“Fine, one drink,” she says, turning away from him, trying to signal he could fuck off now. “And I mean it, my alcohol tolerance has been shot to shit ever since…” She trails off. “One drink.”

“Preem,” Johnny says. “Let's go.”

V turns back to him again. “Look, you may be on a merc’s schedule, but I have a job.” She gestures at the stall. “I have rent money to make. It’s the middle of the day.” Johnny looks like he’s going to argue, but V meets his eyes evenly. “Gimme an address, I’ll come pick you up once I’m done.”

“Chicks don’t pick me up,” Johnny insists, even though V knows that’s a blatant lie.

“Well good thing this isn’t a date, then,” V says. “Take it or leave it.”

She watches Johnny wrestle with it for a moment, then he relents and tells her an address in Kabuki. God, he must really want something out of her. It’s a bit scary, actually, to be entirely defenceless before him. But then he fucks off, gives her a cheeky little two-finger salute as he turns away. His golden curls match really well with the yellow tank and the gold trim on his aviators, and his body language is all pleased smug satisfaction as he melts into the crowd.

V thinks about the dull ache in her chest, the long decay. She thinks about the sharp rush of being torn apart.

V finishes at the stall as the sun sets. Instead of getting on the metro like normal, she calls Delamain. Del is the only person — AI, entity, whatever — from her old life that she actually talks with any regularity. He’s really nice, empathetic without being worried or overbearing, curious for the sake of curiosity. He doesn’t care if she outright refuses to talk about things, or when she goes long stretches without calling. He doesn’t look at her with pity.

“Hey Del,” she says, “you still got my old wheels?”

He does. He kept them safe for her for the two years she was in a coma, then kept them longer. She’d almost told him to trash them all when she got back, because she couldn’t bear to look at them. She’d ended up selling most of them to get back on her feet, the stupid fancy ones from El Capitan’s gigs, the gold lowrider from the ‘tino guy she beat at boxing, even Claire’s Beast. All she kept was Jackie’s old bike, and of course, Johnny’s Porsche.

It’s the Porsche she’s after. Even the bike basically requires an uplink, and riding it for much longer than half an hour gives her a headache. The Porsche is all analogue, pedals and gears done up like it was 2010. She hasn’t driven a car in over a year — shit, three years, actually. Not since before.

Delamain is subdued as he drives her to the garage, but he asks gentle questions about how she’s going. He says he’s glad she’s getting the car out. His tone makes it sound like it’s progress, but she feels like she’s slipping backwards.

The Porsche purrs under her as she twists the ignition. Del kept it running smooth, and she thanks him, real heartfelt. She puts the address in her satnav, checks the gun at her hip, and pulls out of the garage. V still carries a gun basically everywhere, and she maintains her basic skills and so is still a decent shot — if she’s on a range, with nothing else going on. Without cyberware she’s too slow to be useful on the street, but it’s stupid not to be packing. It’s maybe stupid to take the Porsche, too, painting a target on her back as a rich fucker without the security to back it up, provoking Johnny when he still doesn’t know her. But damn it she wants to, wants to feel cool and competent as she drives out of the garage and toward Kabuki. She wants to surprise Johnny, keep him off kilter, get one over him. Not once had she ever felt on the front foot in their time together. Hell if she wasn’t going to relish it now.

She pulls up to the address. It’s one apartment block among many in Kabuki, a six storey teal blue building crammed between two much taller buildings that look like they’re going to squeeze it into nothing. This part of the city is all hills and neons, buildings that are the same height but never share ground level. The apartment building is pretty run down, which makes sense, and there’s a scummy liquor store on the first floor that makes even more sense. She wonders if he lives here, or if he’d just given her some address to pick him up from.

V realises she doesn’t have Johnny’s holo, and there’s no way she’s leaving the Porsche on the street, so she honks obnoxiously until he appears in the doorway. The expression on his face is so stupid, equally angry and delighted, though not shocked. He must’ve seen her through the window before coming out. He hasn’t changed, still in yellow and black, and neither has she. She’s wearing a black t-shirt, BURN CORPO SHIT across it, because it was what she picked up that morning and threw on without looking. She’s wearing one of her three pairs of identical grey jeans and her one sturdy pair of boots, brown and chunky.

Johnny walks past the passenger door, around to her side, and leans down against the door in a way that V can only describe as sluttily. V unwinds the window.

“Think you’ve got my wheels, doll,” Johnny says, voice all smoky and low. His round face and golden curls make a pretty different picture to the Johnny she’s used to, but the tone and pose are all one hundred percent Silverhand.

“Finders keepers, bitch,” she says, equally low. She watches Johnny scowl. “Get in. I’ll let you pick the music if you behave.”

Johnny looks at her like he’s either going to kill her or fuck her, which is a familiar feeling, except that sex with engram Johnny had been off the table. Hadn’t stopped that glare though, even if engram Johnny had usually been a lot more kill and this Johnny is, at least right now, a lot more fuck. Whatever, V is certain she isn’t going to fuck him. If it had been her Johnny, sure, but not this one. She isn’t certain she isn’t going to do something else stupid though, like die pointlessly for him just because he asked nicely.

Johnny pushes up from the window and saunters around the front of the car like it doesn’t bother him, though he pauses to run his hand over the hood and look at it disbelievingly. Then he gets in the passenger seat, and the only difference between now and back then is that he has to close the door, that his jeans squeak against the leather seats, that he can actually reach and change the radio rather than whining until V does it for him. It feels so much more cramped in here with Johnny physical and real, even if he looks nothing like himself. V’s eyes burn and she stares straight out the windshield, wishing she’d brought sunglasses, hoping he doesn’t see.

“Where to?” she asks.

Johnny’s mouth twitches. “Wanna see Rainbow Cadenza. You know it?”

V laughs. “Sure, yeah. Just don’t be disappointed,” she says, and drives off.

They don’t talk as they drive, and V feels a weird guilt in her gut. She remembers coming back from Langley and finding all her regular joints were gone, or changed, and what a fucking gut punch that had been. How it felt to have the world move on without you. That had only been two years, and now she can hardly set foot in Watson without feeling like her body is going to jump out of her skin. She hadn’t been too sympathetic to Johnny back then when they first went to the Cadenza and it was gone. She’d figured that he’d died and needed to get with the program, but now, fuck. She can imagine it.

“Hey,” she says. Johnny grunts at her. Predictably, he’d set the radio to Morro Rock, and he’s tapping along to some song she doesn’t recognise. “Rainbow Cadenza closed years ago. It’s a ramen place now.” His face snaps to hers. “Or, fuck, it was. I haven’t been in like three years.”

“Then where the fuck we going?” he says, a threat underlying his words.

“Was gonna take you there anyway, figured I could eat ramen and you could get plastered on sake,” she says with a shrug. “Still see the place, kinda. Just, I dunno, wanted to give you a heads up. Unless you got any other suggestions?”

He crosses his arms and looks out the window, but doesn’t say anything. God, that’s the same as it ever was as well. She can’t believe he’s letting her drive, letting her decide where they go. It feels like there’s something wrong with him. She always figured he let her get away with so much shit because he simply had to.

V parks the Porsche and says a silent prayer that it’s still there when she comes back, then leads Johnny through the market to what used to be Rainbow Cadenza. It is still a ramen joint, and V feels a flood of relief that this, at least, hasn’t changed. It’s still weirdly upmarket on the inside, tucked away down stairs behind an ugly neon sign, the interior lit up orange and yellow with red paper lanterns hanging over the kitchen bar.

They take a table in the corner. Johnny sprawls out over the booth seating, legs spread wide, one foot on the seat next to him with his knee bent, and V sits across from him on a chair. V orders ramen and Johnny orders sake. The sake comes quick, and they both slam it back like it’s a shot. Johnny orders three more and downs two of them as soon as they arrive, leaving one on the table. He turns, takes his leg off the seat and faces her, leans in with his elbows on the table.

“Y’know, everyone I asked about you seemed to love you,” he drawls, a bored look on his face. V’s heart twists into some ugly shape. “All the fixers thought you were hot shit, and even the barkeep at the Afterlife said she owed you.”

V huffs. “Claire doesn’t owe me shit.”

“But none of them,” he continues, “knew shit about Johnny Silverhand. Never mentioned him, never said you was a fan, nothin’. And they all talk about you like you’re dead. Why’s that?”

“Everyone woulda thought I was crazy if I went about saying I had a long dead terrorist in my head,” V says. “Have you been going ‘round telling people who you are?”

“A few,” he says evasively. “What happened, V? Why’d you ghost?”

V looks away, reminding herself he doesn’t care about any of it. He’s just easing her into talking about the other him, or Rogue, or both. She leans over and grabs the third sake glass Johnny had ordered, and he grins like a shark as she throws it back. She wants to say something vague, maybe just say that it was because he died. It’s tempting, but this Johnny hasn’t had her beating his ego down for six months, and this Johnny doesn’t give a shit about her; she’s not going to stroke his ego if she can avoid it. The alcohol blooms through her chest, hot and clean.

“Your engram was destroying my brain and body. When I got it out, they couldn’t un-destroy me. Can’t have any cyberware no more. No cyberware, no merc work, no V. Better off they think I’m dead.” V shrugs like it’s no big deal, like it wasn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to her — or second worst, depending how she’s counting.

A server comes and sets down a steaming bowl of ramen in front of her. The steam creates a curtain between them as Johnny really fucking stares at her, mouth twisted into a scowl. Shit, he hasn’t been smoking. That’s weird.

Johnny says, “Getting the engram out. Means you killed me?” His voice is flat and cold.

V looks down into the depths of her ramen. “We couldn’t figure out a better option,” she says. “You… I mean, the Mikoshi shit was evil. Fuckin’ around with someone’s sense of self. Then your engram was doing the same to me.” She forces herself to remain steady, but there is a bit of a shake in her voice. “So yeah, I killed you. You gave me your blessing. It’s my body. You’d do it too, if you were in my place. I’d do it again if I had to.” She’s not sure she would, actually. Her Johnny would hear that uncertainty in her voice; she’s not sure if this one will.

V looks up and Johnny meets her eyes. “Hope it fucked you up good,” he says, nothing but venom. V laughs bitterly, which is more of an answer than she wanted to give him.

She starts eating her ramen, realising only once it hits her stomach how ravenous she is. Johnny is fuming, but he hasn’t pulled his gun so she’s taking that as a win.

“So whose body is that?” V asks between mouthfuls.

“Mine,” Johnny says in a growl.

V gives him a steely look. “Okay, whose was it?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” he drawls, leaning back into his seat. He’s a good liar, V will give him that. So good that V nearly believes him.

“Oh, uh-huh.” V nods like she buys it. “So their memories, their bits of self still wormin’ around in you, that all no problem, right?”

V can see in the low light as Johnny grinds his teeth together, but only because she’s watching for it like a hawk.

“Nah. Nothin’ like that.” He leans over, and, ignoring her protests, takes her chopsticks out of her hand. He plucks out a big bit of synthmeat from her ramen and jams it in his mouth. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he says with his mouth full.

“I’m the only person in the whole damn world who could come close to knowing.” V grabs a new pair of chopsticks from the caddy at the table and gets back to eating.

Johnny stares at her while she eats, like he’s expecting her to get mad, cuss him out, leave, or something. This is pretty tame compared to how he was in her head, especially at the beginning, and V still remembers how to pick her battles with him. She does her best to ignore him as she slurps the noodles. She doesn’t eat food this nice very often anymore, so she savours it.

“So,” Johnny says eventually. “You must’ve gotten up to some shit, huh? I don’t fuck around.”

V eyes him. “Ya know, I’ve said a lot here without ever confirming that you are who I think you are,” she says.

Johnny scoffs at her. “You gonna make me prove myself?” he says, but there’s a curiosity in his eyes.

V shrugs and looks him up and down. She wants something to disarm him, but not enough that he’s mad. There are some obvious thoughts, some less obvious ones. She bites her lip, down on the fresh scar he’d given her two weeks ago.

“Look,” she says, giving up, “just gimme the name of that guy back in Texas who gave you his guitar when you were like, eight or whatever.” She’s being soft on him, by picking something small and easy, rather than something about Kerry or Alt or Rogue or killing one hundred thousand people.

At least, that’s what she thinks, until Johnny tenses. He looks at his left hand as he flexes his fingers slowly. “Fuck, I haven’t thought about Hank in years,” he says quietly. He looks up at her and she sees in his eyes that he’s finally starting to get it, what it means for her to have had him in her head for six months. “What the fuck.” The wistfulness in his eyes twists into anger. “What the fuck else do you know?”

“Not everything. Not much,” V says, too quickly. “Don’t worry, you were always a fuckin’ enigma, even while you were overwriting my whole brain.”

It’s a lot of a lie. She hadn’t directly seen huge amounts of his life via memories, but Johnny had told her a bunch of the other stuff, when they’d been drunk or high, when they’d been certain they were going to get zeroed, when they were tired and sad, when their brains had been more one thing than two.

Johnny’s left hand twitches, then he stands up. “I’m out. See you never, V.”

He leaves, less saunter in his step than usual. V is left with a bill bigger than she would usually like to pay, but that’s pretty normal when it comes to Johnny Silverhand.

Chapter Text

Of fucking course he comes back a week later.

V feels like she could set her clock by it. Trust Johnny Silverhand to walk out on you, promise to never see you again, then show up like he has a scheduled appointment. It’s much later in the day than last week, maybe only an hour until sunset, but V is working late tonight and has a lot more time left before she knocks off.

“The fuck you here for, Johnny,” V says tiredly, before he can even open his mouth. Today he’s in a black tank and leather jacket, but fucking yellow pants, the kind of shit he would’ve spent a whole morning cursing her out over if she ever wore. He looks good, fucking excellent actually, but that’s beside the point. She’s still wearing her grey jeans and brown boots, but she’d chosen a t-shirt that she kind of liked today, black with a cartoon doll and BITCH across it in bright yellow.

“What, a guy can’t shop for junk?” he says, lazily leaning over to peer at an old hoverboard like he has any clue what he’s looking at.

V ignores him and goes back to trying to serve other customers. Johnny lingers, watching her. There aren’t many other people buying, so she busies herself tidying or rearranging the junk. She turns up the radio and half-listens to the news: some tabloid story about a break-in at Kerry Eurodyne’s place. It doesn’t help. She fucks around until the tension of it is unbearable, until she can’t stop thinking about how much fun it had been just to talk to him, even though she’s pretty sure he hates her. She resigns herself to going to talk to him, and then there’s a tap on her shoulder.

Johnny is there, and he says, “Come get a drink with me.” When she starts to protest, he says, “I don’t fucking care, I’ll pay your fucking rent.”

He leads her to his car, which looks like it was stolen all of fifteen minutes ago, but she doesn’t care. He doesn’t say where they’re going, but she doesn’t give a shit about that either.

“You know all this shit about me and I got nothing about you,” Johnny says as he drives.

V shrugs. “Yeah.” The city passes them by.

“So tell me a fuckin’ story,” he says.

V bites her lip and does. She starts with losing her job at Arasaka, which earns her a long rant about her lack of moral fibre and the vapidity of her soul or whatever.

V interrupts him eventually. “What, you never fell victim to corpo propaganda as a kid? Never signed up for nothin’ that fucked your life over?” she says pointedly. “Was brought up on the fuckin’ company line, Johnny. Went to their school since before I could walk. Gettin’ fucked by them in a way that meant losing my job without losing my life was the only good thing they ever did for me.”

Johnny huffs but lets her continue. V breezes through her burgeoning merc career, then haltingly talks through the Konpeki Plaza heist. She doesn’t use Jackie or T-Bug’s names. She keeps it short on detail, as much as Johnny wants her to really draw out the part where Saburo Arasaka gets choked to death.

When she gets to the Relic, Johnny says, “And you put it in your fucking head? Fuck knows how you survived.”

Now V has to address her death.

“Yeah, well, about that,” she says. “I didn’t. Fixer double crossed me. Bullet to the brain. Relic got me back up, and got you up too.”

“You sayin’ you died?” Johnny asks, disbelieving.

She grins at him, hollow like a skull. “You think you’re the only ghost around here?”

V continues the story. Once she reaches the part where engram Johnny appears and almost kills her, Johnny is grinning, but there’s an uncomfortable edge to it that she just barely notices. Luckily it’s around here that they arrive at their destination.

He’s taken her south, down around Rancho Coronado, out to the edge of the city, onto a little concrete lookout that faces northwest to the city. The edge is a harsh cliff, rock bleached white from the sun, and maybe fifteen feet below is the desert. It’s not Night City’s best angle. Most of what stretches in front of them are the solar farms in giant concentric circles, and then the expanse of BioTechnica greenhouses beyond that, lumpy plastic blights against the desert. The parts of Night City they can see are its ugliest, DogTown and Santo Domigo, all dirty concrete and factory smoke. The sun is starting to set behind the city proper, the glare blocking out all of the neon.

V recognises this place. Years ago she met the Zen Master here, and he walked her through a meditation on air. Afterwards, she and Johnny had sat on the edge and talked about it, then watched the sunset across the city. This Johnny couldn’t have known that.

She gets out of the car when Johnny does and watches as he gets a six pack of beers from the trunk. She follows him as he goes and sits on the edge, feet dangling over the drop, and she copies him. He pops the caps off two beers with his belt buckle and hands one to her. The beer is warm, but it could be worse. The sunset hasn’t started yet but it’s close, golden hour, sun out low in the sky.

V sits, sips at her beer, and watches Night City before them. Once, she had felt like the city was at her feet, like she could take on anything as long as she was in its beating heart.

“How many people you tell about me?” Johnny asks finally. V doesn’t take her eyes off the city as she counts in her head.

“By the end, ‘bout fifteen,” she says. “And then prolly a dozen at the clinic that got you out.”

“How many flatlined?” he asks, eyes on the horizon.

V counts again. “I think four. Dunno ‘bout the docs at the clinic. But Rogue and Kerry are the only ones left in the city. Don’t talk to any of them anymore.”

Johnny scoffs a little. “Ker ain’t in the city,” he says dismissively. “I drive the others away or somethin’?” He sounds dry and disinterested, but he’s asking.

“Nah,” V says, “actually, when you’re in a coma for two years and no one tells your friends, lotta them just up and leave, turns out.”

He huffs humourlessly. “Try fifty-seven years.”

V snorts, then lies on her back to look up at the cloudless sky. The ground against her back is uneven and painful. “Why am I here, Johnny?” she asks tiredly.

“Cause you got in the car, V,” Johnny says, mimicking her tone. V doesn’t respond, laying there, staring at the sky. A few moments pass. She hears the clink of his beer bottle as it brushes the rocky ground. “Cause you’re the only fuckin’ person in this city who knows me, and I don’t even fuckin’ know you.”

Shit, she always used to hate it when he’d do that, be a total asshole then suddenly pull back the mask and show something vulnerable. Once, she was practised in not getting thrown off guard by it. Not anymore. She takes a long moment before she responds.

“There’s not a whole lot to know about me anymore,” V says cautiously.

As V lays there, staring at the slowly darkening blue sky, feeling the rock press into her back, she starts to feel something like fear in her chest. What the fuck is she doing here with him? This Johnny is not the same person who died for her three years ago. She isn’t under some stupid impression that she had been the thing that changed Johnny during their time together; his changes had very little to do with her and a hell of a lot to do with dying. Even so, it was undeniable that the Relic had bled both ways. She’d seen herself in him, and he’d seen it too. Towards the end they had both been kind of okay with it, that they were a little bit each other. Even aside from Relic mind-meld bullshit, they’d gone through hell together, crossed intimacy boundaries that no-one else in the world even could. Neither of them were the same person they’d been at the start.

V had never trusted anyone so much in her life as she did Johnny. Now, she finds it impossible to not let that bleed over. It terrifies her, the fact that she knows that this Johnny could tell her, jump off the cliff please, and she would stand up and seriously consider doing so. Shit, fuck, it’s dangerous, he’s dangerous, and she needs to get out of here, right fucking now.

V doesn’t get out of there. Instead she takes a deep breath, relaxes her hands where they have balled into fists, and sits up enough to take a casual swig of beer. If he saw it, Johnny would pounce on a weakness like that like a wild animal. V steels herself and tries to push herself backwards, back into those early days with the Relic where Johnny genuinely was trying to kill her. She tries to remember how she handled him — a lot of it boiled down to the fact that she had a lot of power over him by virtue of being the one who was actually real, and that was lost here. V remembers it being like some stupid tactical game, trying to squeeze information out of him while keeping herself on lock.

V is pulled out of her thoughts when Johnny finally speaks. “Well fuck, then keep tellin’ me what there was to know about you.”

V sits up properly and turns to look at him. “Tell ya what. You get a question, I get a question. Honest answer, within reason. Sound good?” She holds her hand out to him to shake.

“Pretty sure you’ve got me at a disadvantage, but sure,” Johnny says, expression unreadable for once as he shakes her hand briefly. “I’m first. Did we fuck?”

V laughs so hard she nearly drops her beer over the edge. “No, Johnny, we didn’t fuck, Jesus Christ. You were an incorporeal hallucination in my head.” If she were playing smart, she’d stop there. Instead she meets his eyes. “I guess you watched me fuck other people a few times, though.”

V watches the kill-to-fuck ratio in his eyes go way over in the fuck direction as he grins at her all dirty over the mouth of his beer bottle. “Anyone in particular?”

“Actually, my question now,” V reminds him, and he glares. “When’d you wake up?”

His expression is a bit more closed off now as he looks away. “Couple weeks ‘fore I met you. Why didn’t we fuck?”

“Fuckin’ hell, Johnny,” V complains. “You were a sentient brain tumour that was killing me. You showed up in my vision and I could walk right through you like you weren’t there. We were sharing my fucking body. You weren’t into me, and I wasn’t into you.”

She’s fucked up by putting the interest last, but this isn’t a point she needs to fight him on. Johnny assumed everyone with even a passing interest in men wanted him to fuck them stupid anyway. She could live with him knowing she was part of that group.

“Sure I wasn’t interested,” he says sarcastically, which isn’t the angle she expected him to take, not in a million years. Her Johnny had always verbally denied she was anything approaching his type. She’d known it was a lie, at least at the end, but hearing it out loud is something else. V’s stomach does a little flip as Johnny waits for her question.

“Do you really not know whose body that is?” V asks.

Johnny tosses his empty beer bottle off the edge, and they watch as it tumbles end over end and smashes against the rocks below. “Get bits. Thought I was just killing the kid, not —” He gestures at the air like that explains what he means, but V knows.

V doesn’t ask any follow ups. The silence stretches.

“Four you told that flatlined,” Johnny says. “Gimme one.”

“Saburo Arasaka’s personal bodyguard,” she says.

V feels pretty damn pleased when Johnny’s eyebrows raise. “Was askin’ for people you told, not who knew.”

“I know. I told him.”

Johnny narrows his eyes. “You worked with ‘Saka on this?”

“Nah, he had his own weird shit going on. Give you that one for free.” V takes another sip of beer. “How many questions do I gotta burn at once to get the story of you wakin’ up?”

“Oh, probably four or five,” Johnny says with a grin. “My turn. Gimme someone alive who knows.”

“Asshole.” At least he’s teed her up with an easy response. “Kerry, obviously. What’s your plan?”

Johnny frowns at her. “I’m not really a plan kinda guy.”

“Sure,” V says, “which is why you must have one now, else you’d prolly be dead again already.”

Johnny’s mouth twists up in an uncomfortable scowl. He cracks open another beer and drinks from it for several seconds. “My plan is to stick around long enough to make a plan,” he says finally. That feels surprisingly honest from him. He stays quiet, looking out over the city.

“Run outta questions, Silverhand?” V says, not quite teasing.

“Why’d I like you?” Johnny asks.

V freezes up. “What makes you think you did?”

Johnny tuts. “My turn for questions. C’mon.”

V laughs nervously. “I dunno, Johnny, you always baffled me.” Her voice is way too fond, and she reels it back in. “You hated me, at first. I guess… I was this stupid scrappy punk, too ambitious for my own good. Which isn’t why, I think that’s why you thought I was annoying.” She laughs, a little awkwardly, before sombering as she continues, “But I… shit, felt like everything in the world was stacked against us. Relic was eating me up from the inside, two different sects of ‘Saka were after us, kept gettin’ screwed over by everyone, I fuckin’ died twice, but somehow I just kept gettin’ back up. To spite you, to spite Night City, something. Think you liked how stubborn I was.” V thinks for a moment. “I also learned to stop takin’ any of your shit. I think you liked that, too.”

When V looks away from the city, Johnny is looking at her like he’s trying to puzzle her out, trying to see what the other him saw in her.

“Prolly helped that I gave you control to get your closure,” V adds, deciding to throw him a bone. It doesn’t feel fair that he doesn't know all the shit they did. Johnny raises his brows, and V sighs. “Like, control of my body. Fuckin’ hurt, stupid risk, but hey, you got what you wanted.”

Johnny groans when he realises she’s not going to continue. “Fuck, gonna leave me hanging?”

“Think that’s another question, and it’s my turn.” She’s not really sure what she wants to ask. There’s a lot she wants to know, but packaging that into single questions is hard. “What have you been up to? Merc work?”

Johnny snorts at her. “What have you been up to, like we’re catching up over coffee.” He flicks a pebble from next to him off the edge. “Yeah. Got no clue what the fuck is happenin’, so I figure, find someone who knows me. But Rogue doesn’t take walk-ins, so I gotta make a new fuckin’ name for myself.”

“What name’s that?” V asks, then waves him off before he can say anything. “Yeah, yeah, it’s your turn. Hit me.”

Johnny narrows his eyes at her. “Obviously I’m askin’ ‘bout the body swap.”

“Not a question,” V points out.

Johnny pauses and thinks about what he wants to ask. “You said I got what I wanted. What did I want?”

V takes a deep breath and leans back on her hands, looking out over the city. The sky is really red now as the sunset kicks into high gear. God, there were a lot of ways to answer that question. She goes for the obvious. “You and Kerry got the band back together at Red Dirt.” Her voice is all gentle without her really intending it.

Johnny looks at her, like, shit, she doesn’t even know. Like he’s starving. He breaks away from her and mutters, “Fuckin’ bastard,” into his beer.

“I mean, kinda,” V continues. “Denny and Henry couldn’t share a room, so we had some other guy on bass. And only Kerry knew it was you. I didn’t see much of it, ‘cause you were driving.” V stops there and feels pretty bad. This Johnny came along too late for that neat little closure.

“Fuck me,” Johnny says. He looks back at her and his expression breaks into something simpler, angrier. “Need to fuckin’ shoot something.” He stands up. “Come shoot shit with me.”

“I don’t do merc work,” V reminds him, still sitting on the edge.

“Did I say come work a fuckin’ job with me?” Johnny asks pointedly. “I said come shoot shit.” He reaches his hand down to help her up.

“One last question before we hit the road,” V says, making no move to get up. “Why the fuck aren’t you smoking?”

“This fuckin’ body,” Johnny grumbles. “Like I’m allergic or some shit. Don’t fuckin’ remind me.” He shakes his outstretched hand. “Come on.”

V takes his hand, kind of marvels at the idea of him being touchable in a way that her Johnny never had been as he pulls her up from the ground. They end up standing close, really close, with Johnny’s hand wrapped around hers.

He pushes her away, in the direction of the edge, close enough to it that her stomach swirls but not enough that she actually stumbles over. For a dizzying moment she’s certain he’d catch her if she took that extra step, until she remembers who he is.

“I hope you have a place in mind,” V says, after she’s regained her footing and her breath.

Johnny’s face is impassive. “I got ideas.”

He grabs the beers, including his half finished open bottle, which he drains as he walks over to the car. The beers and the empty go in the trunk, and then Johnny turns to look at V. She’s still nursing her beer and Johnny rolls his eyes and wordlessly saunters over.

Johnny pulls the beer from her hands, even as she tries to hold on to it. “You’re such a dick,” V says grumpily.

“Sure, and you’re a cunt,” Johnny replies before he leans back to chug the rest of her beer. V’s heart jumps into her throat. Don’t fucking say it, she wills desperately, but he grins at her once the bottle is empty and keeps talking. “Hey, maybe we fit together after all.”

Thankfully he turns to throw the empty bottle into the car and doesn’t see her wrecked expression. V faces away, back over the city, and tries to control her breathing. Shit, she can’t do this. She can’t have him say the same shit he did last time, word for word, before they faced the worst Night City had to offer together. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. She lights one with shaky hands as she hears the car start behind her. After a moment, Johnny lays on the horn, but she ignores it. She wipes her eyes with the back of the hand holding the cig and tries to let the nicotine soothe her, but it doesn’t do shit. V tries not to smoke all that often, despite the addiction that is constantly nipping at her heels, because it makes her want to fucking die. Even so, she does often enough that she usually has a pack and a lighter on her. Pathetic.

“Fuck’s your problem?” Johnny calls out to her through the open car window. God, maybe she could do with shooting some shit as well. She wipes her eyes again, watches her hand shake for a second, then turns around back to the car.

Fuck it if Johnny sees her weakness. Fuck it if he figures out how bad she still has it for him. V can feel it again, a sword of damocles hanging over her head, death breathing down her neck. She’d almost forgotten how it felt to have a time bomb in her heart. Maybe it’s good to remember what it had been like with him, always afraid, always trying to outrun the crash. Shit, facing down Johnny would probably be easier than facing down the rest of her life.

V gets in the car without looking at him. She can feel his eyes on her. She takes another shaky drag, then exhales as slow as she can.

“Oh-ho,” Johnny drawls smugly, “that other me got you good, huh?” He slams the car into reverse and pulls a squealing turn to head back to the highway. “Fucked you up without even fuckin’ you. Too damn easy. Knew you were pathetic.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut your fucking mouth right fucking now,” V says in a dangerous tone she hasn’t heard out of her mouth since her merc days.

Johnny lets out a mean laugh. “Sure, V,” he says sarcastically, “I’m real intimidated.”

V thinks about going for her gun, but he would probably react faster than she would, and it’d be an empty threat anyway. Instead she smokes like it’s her job, blows it in his direction until he starts coughing and spluttering. He yanks her cigarette from between her lips and tosses it out his window, still open from when he called to her. She wordlessly lights up another, and Johnny unwinds the window on her side too. The cold evening air carries away most of the smoke.

“How’d Kerry take it?” Johnny says, voice raspy. V turns and looks blankly at him. “Me. Coming back. My turn for a question, remember?”

“He pistol whipped your fucking face.” Johnny grins at that, like he’s glad. V scowls and her hair whips in the wind. She feels like she’s drawing a knife as she says, “My turn. When you fucked him that one time, back in ‘08, what lie did you tell yourself to convince yourself you were still straight?”

“Fuck you,” Johnny snarls, taking a turn way too fast. “That never happened. You don’t know shit about me.”

“Hah, guess that’s almost a true answer,” V says, full of venom. Her hand is steady now as she smokes, but her other hand is balled in a fist so tight her nails are probably going to draw blood. “But if you’re not gonna answer truthfully, I’m not either.”

“Fine, don’t, I don’t give a shit.” His tone is tight and his knuckles are white around the wheel. “You’re the one desperate for me. I barely know your name, kid.”

V is pretty sure he’ll kick her out of the car now. In fact, she expected he would have done it already. To her surprise, Johnny keeps driving, tearing around the city streets in a way that will likely get them both killed again. He drives them up north to Kabuki, to the marketplace in the middle of the roundabout, and does a wide handbrake slide into the sidewalk right in front of the stairs heading down. The marketplace looms above them and glitters with neon lights and paper lanterns in the night sky.

V gets out of the car at the same time Johnny does and throws her cig on the ground, stubbing it with her boot. She starts heading towards a transit station, both hands in her jean pockets. She’s stopped by Johnny grabbing her elbow. She twists out of his grip angrily and turns to glare at him.

“We shooting shit or what?” Johnny says, obviously still furious. His blond hair catches the red and orange light from the paper lanterns.

V huffs out a single disbelieving and bitter laugh. Even after his second death, after she thought she understood him, turns out she still doesn’t get the way his brain works. She wants to tell him no, fuck off, that she has better things to do. Instead she finds herself turning wordlessly to walk towards the Gun-o-Rama she knows is here. Pathetic. Pathetic. V storms ahead of him and he follows. She stalks past the storefront and down the stairs in the back to the shooting range. Her hand twitches at her side, near where her gun is holstered.

As she walks down the stairs, Johnny says something to the store clerk. There’s only one other person in the range, but Johnny comes down with the worker who announces that the other guy needs to scram because the range has been booked out. V rolls her eyes and steps up to one of the positions, little half-walled sections of bench facing toward the empty blue-grey shooting range. Johnny comes up to the position beside her and leans against it, body turned to face her.

V faces the range and draws her gun. She lets herself sink into decades old muscle memory and does a flashy little spin as she draws it and checks the ammo. It’s a move she picked up from Johnny, but she decides she doesn’t care. She’s carrying a standard off-the-shelf Malorian. It’s a solid gun, packs a hell of a punch, and is big enough to be intimidating without being ostentatious enough to be an invitation. Johnny doesn't react and also takes his gun out. It itches at V that they’re sporting the same iron, but it’s too late to do anything about that.

When the range activates, V takes a slow breath out and relaxes her shoulders. Her life the past year has been a slow, grey ache. The only thing she cared about was the dog tags against her chest reminding her that she had to stay the fuck alive. Without chrome in Night City, that was a tall order. To keep that promise, the only consistent thing she had was that she practised her shooting regularly. Rebuilding the skills she’d lost after two years in a coma had taken less time than she expected. She could never be as good as she used to be, not without proper Kiroshis and reflex boosters, but she was still pretty damn good at the range. She had never liked SmartLinks or Tech weapons, which helped. She had liked an old school pistol and an overclocked cyberdeck. Old school pistols were something she could still handle, so long as the targets weren’t moving at cyberware speeds.

The targets are familiar — bullseyes painted on rectangles of steel that move at an easy pace along the ceiling tracks. Neither of them are wearing ear protection and the gunshots ring loud in the space. Johnny’s body probably has cyberware to protect him, but V just grits her teeth and bares it. Despite the noise and the ‘ware she’s pretty sure she has the advantage here. Johnny is in a new body, is at least two and a half beers in, and is used to merc work rather than clean shooting at a range. All she has to do is not fuck it up.

After they’ve both exhausted their magazines, Johnny turns to her to grin smugly. He still looks wound up, antsy and angry under the grin. V, on the other hand, feels a lot calmer. When they check the scores, V has beaten him by three points. V could grin smugly in return, but she doesn’t; she just stares at Johnny evenly.

He stares back, and she can’t fucking read his face anymore. “Again.”

They shoot three more rounds, and V beats Johnny in two of them. They tie the last round. She feels better, actually, after a reminder that she’s not entirely useless. The fact that she’s beaten Johnny feels pretty fucking great as well. When Johnny looks back at her, he’s back to looking like he’s going to fuck her or kill her, or maybe both, one after the other. She stares him down impassively, arms crossed. She holds her unloaded gun in one hand, dangling down.

“You gonna let me leave now?” V keeps her voice flat and even. “Or are we gonna keep shooting ‘til you get sick of losing to me?”

“Didn’t do nothin’ to stop you from leaving, babe,” Johnny says, cool and calculated, still eyeing her dangerously. He wields the word babe like a fucking knife. “You can stop following me ‘round like a lost puppy any time you want.”

V grits her teeth. She walks past Johnny and back up the stairs, heading straight for the door and not looking back. She reloads her gun as she’s leaving the store, holsters it again, then makes a brisk pace towards a transit station. On the train, she lights up another cigarette and smokes it slowly, leaning back in the seat. Halfway home she realises he didn’t give her the money he promised, which is annoying, but not really unexpected. By the time she gets to Arroyo, she’s exhausted. The emotional turmoil and adrenaline of being around Johnny has started to crash out. The apartment is empty when she gets in, and she takes a quick but wonderfully hot shower.

V knows she fucked it up. She got too intense and let her guard down, then she revealed how much she knows about him for a cheap shot.

Her Johnny had told her about him and Kerry hooking up one night after she’d hooked up with some guy. She only started hooking up with people after she and Johnny had hashed things out in the oil fields; it felt too weird beforehand. Johnny had okayed the hookup, been absent for it, then reappeared afterwards. He hadn’t been actively into it that night, but he hadn’t not been into it either. She’d made some limp apology-joke about him having to fuck a guy, and he’d said it wasn’t the first time. Then they talked about it, in general and then in specific, with an unexpected weariness from Johnny and a quiet ear from V. Kerry wasn’t even the only guy, though there hadn’t been many. Some tiny silver lining of the Relic bleed was that V’s complete lack of concern about being bi had maybe rubbed off on Johnny a little. She wonders whether it was some kind of betrayal of trust to use that against him, if it was a different him. She tries to imagine how her Johnny would’ve felt about the whole thing, digging into the little cordoned off part of her brain that’s more him than her. Even there she has no clue.

V dries herself off and gets into some pyjamas. She pads over to her little bed alcove and flops down inside. She leaves the shutter open for a moment. From here she can see the sprawl of the city out the window. Then she takes a slow breath in, a slower breath out, closes the shutter and lays down to sleep.

Chapter Text

Another nearly normal week passes, and Johnny doesn’t show on the Saturday.

The week has been broadly fine. Having to catch up on a half day of missed work would’ve been annoying, but Tara slips her a little extra pay. When V tries to protest, Tara pretends that she has no idea what V is talking about. Other than that, it’s been pleasantly normal. V watches the market goers, avoids trouble and catches the eyes of people she thinks might buy. She watches kids chase each other between the stalls. She watches a young couple shyly hold hands as one buys the other a drink. She watches an older lady dance to the new Kerry Eurodyne song when it comes on over the radio and finds herself tapping her foot along with it.

She’s a little disappointed Johnny has broken his nearly month-long streak of visiting her, and she’s a little worried about what may have happened to him, but it’s a relief that she doesn’t have to figure out how to exist around him.

On the day after Johnny doesn’t show, V rides Jackie’s bike to work. She’s gotten the Valentino colours repainted, which feels like a betrayal, but she thinks Jackie would forgive her given it’s in the name of not getting herself killed. The trip takes around fifteen minutes, so it’s short enough that the headache doesn’t truly start before she disconnects. She follows every traffic rule and the ride is not exciting, but it’s much nicer than the commute by train. Tara bugs her about coming out to a bar after work, but V passes. She takes the bike home and has an actual conversation with Thomas, who mostly complains about Shaun. She eats a stolen burrito on her bed with the shutter left up, night lights of the city flooding the room. Days continue to pass. They blur together a little, but it’s somehow not quite as bad as it had been before.

V reaches another Saturday, and she’s not surprised that Johnny doesn’t show this week either. Tara asks her to come out and this time V finally caves. Tara lights up and is genuinely excited as they close up the stall. V is in jeans and boots, but she put on a new top this morning, cropped short and brightly coloured in teal. She’s got a new jacket as well. It’s a loose fitting synthleather thing, simple and comfortable, and it’s bright fucking yellow. It makes her smile. It’s not the hottest outfit she’s ever worn, but it’ll do.

Tara drags her to a bar just around the corner. V realises with a lurch that it’s Red Dirt, where Samurai had played their surprise reunion three years ago. Tara doesn’t notice her hesitation and pulls her inside and starts talking to the bartender. She’s obviously a regular here, and the bartender slips into easy conversation with her while they make her a drink. She buys the first round, much to V’s gratitude.

Red Dirt looks pretty much like she remembers, though her memory of the place is spotty from the pills. It’s a pretty small venue, stage barely elevated from the dance floor, tables against the brick walls. Behind the stage the wall is decked out in Samurai stuff: art, news clippings, photos, record sleeves. They’re not actually playing Samurai, thank god — there’s some small-time local act on stage, and their style of rock is a bit softer and more melodic than Samurai’s. Pretty upbeat as well, almost cheery, and V is tapping along by the time she finishes her first drink. It’s getting pretty packed in here, after sunset on a Saturday night, with all kinds of folk filling up the room.

Sometime later V finds herself tipsy-drunk on the dancefloor. She and Tara are dancing together, alternating between goofy fun and a slow grind. Tara is pretty fucking hot, now that she thinks about it, but she’s not interested in going down that path with her boss, so she spins away deeper into the crowd. V had forgotten how good it feels to dance. She’s at the perfect level of drunk, loose and uninhibited but not yet morose, and the neon lights and the music and the good vibes of everyone dancing rushes all the way through her lungs and down into what’s left of her soul. The bass and drums fill her up, and the singer’s pretty voice runs through her brain, compelling her to move. Tara finds her again after a few minutes and leans up to her ear to say something about synthcoke, and V figures yeah, fuck it, that sounds pretty great actually.

They slip away and each do a bump on the bathroom sink, Tara talking away about how glad she is to see V do something that isn’t work. V laughs her off as the buzzing energy floats through her.

Back on the dancefloor with renewed, synthcoke-driven energy, V dances again. She pairs up with a few different people before she finds herself in the arms of a really hot woman with a killer undercut, precise circuitry-style lines shaved into the side of it. When they make out, V runs her hand over it and marvels at the changing textures beneath her fingertips. They move messily, grinding up against each other. When the woman offers V to come back to hers, V declines; she’s not done dancing. The woman takes the rejection easily and V melts back to the crowd. It’s been literal years since V has kissed anyone, and her body sings with it, making one hell of a harmony with the synthcoke singing in her as well.

It’s so fucking good to be here and high on the dancefloor. The new Johnny tore her up but it’s like it’s kickstarted her into trying to heal again, working over a fresh wound instead of ignoring an old one. The high from the synthcoke is staying strong. She’d been planning on heading out around now, but instead she resolves to enjoy the length of the high.

As she dances, someone comes up close behind her, and their hands rest lightly on her hips. V grins and spins around, and then feels like an ice bucket has been poured directly into her heart because it’s Johnny goddamn asshole shitbag motherfucking Silverhand behind her. She pulls back like she’s been burned, and he doesn't follow. He’s golden in the light, and his curls are longer than she remembers. He’s wearing tight black leather pants and a faded Samurai tank under a black leather jacket. His wrists are covered in brightly coloured beaded bracelets.

“What are you doing here?” V yell-asks, but Johnny shakes his head and points to his ear. Fuming and drunk and high, V leans in to speak directly into his ear and repeats the question.

Johnny puts his hand on her shoulder and leans up to reach her ear. He yells, still barely audible, “Dancing, you?”

V laughs, the relief of him not being here on biz flooding through her body. “Dancing,” she yells into his ear.

V decides that she isn’t going to let Johnny ruin her night, which has been the best night she’s had in three years. She steps backwards from him, slow and maybe a little bit teasing, then leans her head back and lets herself feel the music again, dancing up against the crowd. After a moment Johnny joins her. V doesn’t entirely ignore him but she doesn’t focus on him either, treating him like any other dancer that she’s not quite interested in. It feels good to be alive for once and V wants to draw it out as long as she can. Slowly she feels herself being drawn in closer to Johnny, against her better judgment, as his hands skirt around her hips and lower back. Even through her jacket the touch makes her shiver.

Johnny leads her backwards slowly, to the edge of the crowd, away from the band and the noise, and V lets him. She spots Tara as they move and slips away briefly to say goodbye, giving her a kiss on the cheek. V thanks her and Tara smiles and waves as V is pulled backwards.

Outside the venue is strangely quiet, even with the pounding music muffled behind them. It’s cool out, but in a way that feels refreshing after the heat of the bar. V’s ears ring from the quiet of it all. Cars and gunshots echo off in the distance. A few stragglers stand around the entrance, smoking or just loitering. Johnny is still kind of handsy, leading her with a hand on her hip. V lets it be, pretending for a moment that he’s the Johnny she killed.

“Hey,” she says, fond and tipsy. “Glad you’re not here on biz. Thought I might get ‘nother near death ‘sperience tonight.”

“Just here on pleasure,” Johnny says, leaning back slightly and putting his hands in his back pockets. He looks her up and down, slow and careful, lingering on the exposed skin of her stomach. V flushes from his gaze.

V backs up until she can lean up against the brick of the side wall of Red Dirt. She closes her eyes and sighs, head back against the wall, tilted like she’s looking at the night sky. If her eyes were open, all she would see would be concrete and neon. Johnny steps forward, right up to her.

“Bad idea,” V says quietly as Johnny moves even closer, close enough that their hips brush against each other, and puts his hands on her waist over her jacket.

“Why’s that?” Johnny leans in to press his nose against her neck. He doesn’t do anything yet, just rests there with both hands on her. V twists a hand into the shoulder of his jacket.

“I’ll forget,” V says, facing the skies. “Gonna think you’re the other one. My Johnny. You don’t want that.”

“Yours, huh,” Johnny says, but doesn’t pull away. He places a gentle kiss on her neck, under her jaw.

V whines quietly in her throat, gripping his jacket tighter. She wants it, she wants it so bad, to just pretend that this is the Johnny that loves her. She fists the hand by her side and screws her eyes closed.

“Please,” V whines. She’s not even sure what she’s pleading for. Johnny takes it the wrong way, because he kisses her neck again, this time open-mouthed. “No, I mean — fucking hell Johnny, you gotta — I can’t — the other one, he —”

“I don’t fuckin’ care,” Johnny growls into her neck.

“Why the fuck not?” She feels like she’s begging. “Why are you here? Why me?”

Johnny steps back to stare at her, and she lets go of his jacket. “Could go find someone else. But you’re here. I'm here. You’re hot.” He shrugs and puts his hands back in his pockets and looks unimpressed. “Don’t you want me?”

“Yeah,” V breathes before she can stop herself. She wants him so bad she’s shaking with it. Johnny grins smugly and V jerks her head to the side, staring at the brick beside her.

He steps back into her space, hands on her hips. The tips of his fingers skate just barely over the top of her jeans, against bare skin. “Course you want me.” She’s wrapped around his little finger, and he fucking knows it.

V turns back to face him. She takes one hand and wraps it into Johnny’s blond curls, pulls at it to turn his face up until they meet each other’s eyes. “Absolute stupidest idea of the year,” V says with conviction. “Decade, maybe. I spent six months with him, with our brains sharing the same space. Gonna be,” V hesitates, takes a deep breath of cold air, feels the urgent buzz of synthcoke and continues in a rush, “fuck, honest with you, was never honest with him ‘cause we didn’t need’ta ‘cause o’the brains, Johnny, but I fuckin’ loved him, real fuckin’ bad, like real bad, I loved you and you’re dead.” She shudders out a long breath. “And shit, like I said, didn’t need’ta be honest, I knew you felt the same.” Johnny looks up at her like he already knew, or like he’d guessed. He also looks like he’s high. V asks, “You high?”

He snorts. “Very. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah, some,” V says. “Prolly gonna crash soon though.” She has no idea what kind of synthcoke Tara gave her. She doesn’t know how long the high will last, but coke was never a prolonged experience.

V stares down at him. It’s a really bad idea, but she doesn’t care; her impulse control is shot to shit from the coke, and she told Johnny they were in love and he hasn’t left, so V yanks him up by the hair and kisses him.

Johnny’s hands immediately tighten around her hips. He pulls her in against him, surges against her to kiss her open mouthed and messy. V never kissed him, but she’d lived his memories and been his body while he kissed others, and it’s exactly how she knew it would be — all consuming. He kisses like he wants to devour her, like he knows everything she could ever want. His left hand comes up to the back of her head and he sucks hard on her lip and bites. His other hand moves from her hip to the exposed expanse of her stomach under her crop top. He runs it flat-palmed upwards over her ribs, the hot-and-cool of flesh and chrome sending a shiver up her spine. She hadn’t noticed the chrome before now. His hands are ‘ganic, but there’s some kind of plating over half his palm, his thumb, and his first two fingers.

V gives back as good as she gets, pulling hard on Johnny’s hair, biting at his lips. She uses her height to lean over him which seems to make him mad because he makes a noise like a growl against her.

They break the kiss and breathe for a moment. “Stupid,” V says again, practically into his mouth. All she can think, over and over, is it’s him it’s him it’s him.

“Real leadbrained shit,” Johnny agrees, all pressed up into her. “How sure are you? ‘Bout how he felt?”

“That’s a question,” V says, “and you didn’t answer me properly last time.” Johnny stares at her blankly. “About Kerry. What lie you told yourself.”

Johnny groans and leans his head back. “You’re fucking kidding.” He moves again and rests his forehead against her shoulder. “I hate you, fuck. Fuck you. Was high and drunk and did it out of pity. Didn’t fuckin’ count,” he says angrily. “So fucking answer. How sure?”

V really thinks about it. Despite everything, she knows that this is the worst possible decision she could make. Maybe she can scare him off still.

“You told me that you were more scared of me dying than you were of dying yourself,” she says finally. “You said you were glad it was me you woke up in. You told me about Nicaragua and Kerry and Alt and College Station and the Hand.” V swallows and hooks her finger under the chain of his dog tags. She pulls them on top of her shirt. Johnny’s eyes follow them as they move. He grabs one with his hand, rubs his thumb over the engraving. “Gave me these and promised to take a bullet for me. I promised the same for you. Didn’t fuckin’ work out that way.” V’s eyes burn and she sniffs and looks away from him. “Shit. I’m damn certain.”

Johnny pulls gently on the tags and for a second she thinks he’s going to try to take them from her. Before she can panic, Johnny uses the tags to pull her down and kisses her again. It’s less intense than before, a little more soft, but there’s still an urgency there. V feels like she’s breaking. She can’t handle this. She knows Johnny so well and knows he can’t possibly give a shit about her. A month ago, she would’ve bet her life that telling him any of that would make him furious. She’s not convinced that he isn’t, somehow.

V pulls back and takes a chance to ask another question. “We fuck, you gonna just up and leave? Honest?”

Johnny kisses her again, harder, dirtier. He slots a leg between V’s and grinds against her, obscene enough that if she were sober, V would probably stop him from doing it in public. As it is she just gasps into his mouth with her arms hooked around him. It’s too fucking much.

“Eh. Prolly not,” he says eventually, breathing ragged from the kiss.

V feels something in her heart buckle and break and she doesn’t fucking care anymore. Her life is already fucked, why not fuck it up in some kind of new and exciting way?

“Nova,” she says as she breathes out. She rests her head against his shoulder and groans. “Shit, haven’t done synthcoke in forever. Crash is gonna suck.”

“Then do another bump,” Johnny says, like it’s obvious.

V laughs. “Really can’t afford an addiction at the moment. Hard rule of one.”

“You’re so boring, I don’t fuckin’ get it,” Johnny says, but he pulls her in to kiss her again until they’re both breathless. “Enough fuckin’ teasing.”

V kisses him slower and deeper, and pulls up her holo to text Delamain to come pick them up. Johnny must see her eyes flash because he bites at her lips and says, “You gettin’ fuckin’ distracted?”

“Calling us a cab, asshole,” V bites back, then rolls her hips up into his crotch, feeling the hard length of him against her. Shit, that was unexpected, that he’d be hard already. “Someone’s a bit eager, huh?” she teases.

“You try bein’ outta a body for fifty-seven years,” Johnny grumbles at her before trying to pull her in for another kiss.

V pulls back instead. “You tellin’ me you been back over a month and haven’t fucked? Tell me a lie I’d actually believe, Silverhand.”

“Already am,” Johnny replies, and crashes his mouth back into hers.

When Delamain shows up, neither of them can keep their hands off each other even for the length of time it takes to walk to the cab. V steers them, Johnny walking backwards, until she presses him against the car door. She’s the one who pulls back, who yanks the door open and shoves Johnny until he falls backwards into the back seat. He crawls backwards as she climbs in too.

“Miss V!” Delamain’s cheery and polite voice rings out through the cab. “A delight to — oh — oh my —” Delamain interrupts himself as Johnny pulls V down to lie across him in the car and kisses her like he’ll die without it. His hands grip at V’s ass and he grinds up against her. V pushes Johnny down and pulls back into her own seat.

“Del,” she says, shaky, “hey, thanks.”

Johnny looks into the empty driver’s seat. “You got talking cabs these days?”

“This is Delamain,” V says, trying to get her bearings, “sentient AI, um, car? Friend of mine, does taxi work sometimes. Del, this is, uh, Johnny.”

“A pleasure to meet you. Any friend of V’s is a friend of mine,” Delamain says, perfectly level, like this was normal. Hell, given what Night City is like, it’s probably pretty tame. “Where would you like me to take you?”

Johnny and V look at each other. Johnny is still sprawled across two seats, lying down more than he is sitting. V says, “I’m nearby, but if we go to mine, we’re probably fucking in front of my housemates.”

“They hot?” Johnny asks with a devilish grin.

V laughs. “Yeah, but they’re also both gay guys, so not sure you’d get what you want outta that.”

“You got no clue what I want,” he counters, and grabs her neck again to pull her back over him for a sloppy kiss. Then he breaks away to give Delamain his address in Kabuki.

Delamain starts the car and says primly, “I will give you two some privacy for the drive.” His screen flickers off.

Johnny seems to take this as permission to fuck in the back of the car, because he’s relentless, pulling V down and kissing her until she can hardly breathe, right hand slipping up beneath her crop top to squeeze her tit, the other moving down toward her pants. The cyberware in both his hands covers half of both palms, his thumbs, and his first two fingers. The texture is warm and smooth against her, and his skin is hot. The contrast sends shivers down V’s spine. She’s never had a specific thing for cyberware, but it’s no turn off. V only barely has the wherewithal to grab him by the wrist and pull his hand back as he tries to get his hand into her jeans. Johnny makes some kind of annoyed noise in her mouth, but then she moves his hand up to her other tit and he seems to be satisfied enough that he stops complaining for the moment.

Something V hadn’t expected was how damn needy Johnny is. The memories she’d lived of Johnny fucking were, she supposed, memories rather than recordings, tailored to how Johnny saw himself. But here, between her arms, he’s pushy and demanding. He wants, openly and obviously and with no hesitation. He keeps trying to get his hand down her pants throughout the drive, grinning every time V catches his wrist. She puts his fingers in her mouth and sucks, and that shuts him up for a while as she bites down gently. When Delamain stops the car and tells them they’ve arrived, he groans in frustration when V sits back from him to get out of the car, like the idea of waiting for what he wants is unacceptable. V doesn’t think it has anything to do with her. He’s just like this, confident and indulgent and looking for pleasure.

They are once again all over each other as they go into the apartment building. There’s no lift, but Johnny is only on the fourth floor. That means they have to make it up three entire flights of stairs and Johnny seems pretty determined to not do that, actually. There are other people loitering in the stairwell but he doesn’t care in the slightest as he shoves her against a wall to devour her mouth. It makes V feel like she’s losing her mind, that he’s the one acting desperate when she’s the one who actually cares about this at all. She can’t deny it’s flattering though. In the end V has to physically grab him and manhandle him up the stairs. She’s definitely not stronger than him but she is a bit taller, and she twists her hand in his stupid curly hair and basically drags him by it, demanding his apartment number. He grins at her, a little feral, and seems perfectly pleased when she shoves him against his apartment door once they get there. His head hits the door with a thud but he just fucking groans like he likes that, which, okay, V knows that he does.

V tries the handle and the door opens, Johnny’s proximity likely triggering the lock. His place is bigger than hers but notably more run down, grotty and stained. It’s an actual apartment, with a separate bedroom and even a kitchen-meals area distinct from the lounge, unlike her shared pseudo-studio. V doesn’t really register the layout, because the second the door closes Johnny spins her to push her against the wall, albeit more gently than she did to him. He kisses down her neck and goes for her pants again and V doesn’t stop him this time.

“Fuckin’ finally,” he says as he pushes past her jeans and into her underwear.

Despite his urgency he takes his time, palming her before gently running two fingers through her folds. V is wet already, wet to a degree that would be embarrassing if it weren’t for how hard he’d been back at the bar. She breathes out a long, thin breath as he achingly slowly runs two fingers over but not quite inside her, then upwards toward her clit, spreading the slickness with deliberate motions. His face is just pressed into her neck now, right hand gripping at her shoulder. It’s slow and teasing, and V feels like she needs to get some control back, so she fists his hair and pulls him up for a kiss. His fingers jerk a little as she does and V gasps into Johnny’s mouth before she pushes their lips together. She rocks her hips forwards a little bit and reaches her other hand down to palm his dick through his leather pants.

Johnny shoves at her abruptly, leads her across the apartment to his bedroom and pushes her down onto his bed. V pulls her jacket, top and bra off as Johnny loses his jacket and tank top. His body is soft and smooth, cut only by lines of golden cyberware. It runs up the centre of his torso, up to his collarbones. Lines split from the centre column to run beneath his pecs, all the way around to his back. There are lines in his shoulders, too, and though she can’t see properly, it seems that the lines from his shoulders link down his back. It’s not ‘ware that V recognises immediately, though she would guess that it’s extra fancy anti-EMP threading. It implies he’s also got other, high level netrunning gear, stuff that is beyond her prior needs as a moderately talented solo ‘runner. Her attention is split nearly evenly between cataloguing his chrome and checking him out.

Johnny grins at her gaze, then gets down on his knees by the bed and yanks at her pants, clearly desperate to eat her out.

V has had plenty of good sex. Granted, she hasn’t in a while, but she’d had good sex before Johnny, and good sex while Johnny was in her brain too. As this Johnny gets his mouth on her, she feels pretty qualified to say this is pretty fucking great sex. She wants to be mad that he’s as good at oral as all his annoying bloviating said he was, but truthfully she always knew. He eats her pussy the same way as he kissed her mouth: desperate, focused, with complete confidence.

V runs her hands through his hair and her fingers briefly catch on the port in the side of his head. She doesn’t even mean to, but as she runs her fingers over it, she recognises the telltale profile of a Relic. She still has hers, too — the FIA had digitally extracted Johnny but deemed physical surgery to free the port wasn’t worth the risk. She runs her fingers away from the port, lest Johnny think she was going to try something. He hooks his hands under her upper thighs to tilt her hips, presses his face all the way down, nose against her mons. He looks up to meet her eyes and does something truly devious with his tongue against her clit and any thoughts of Relics leave her brain immediately.

“Shit, shit,” V says between gasps, head slamming back against the bed.

She feels him grin into her pussy as he sucks. His whole head moves as he does. He keeps going, and V is not going to fucking last because it has been way too long and it’s Johnny. He’s really fucking good at alternating between teasing and intense sucking, moving between her clit and her pussy, and he adjusts his technique as she writhes beneath him, clearly searching for what she likes. She gasps again and threads her fingers through his hair. Her heart is hammering in her chest and she whines as Johnny licks exactly right against her clit.

“Oh, like that,” she says breathily. Johnny repeats the motion, again and again, no slower or faster, fucking perfect, and V swears loudly as she comes against his mouth, hips rolling up into his face, heart hammering damn near out of her chest.

Johnny looks so damn smug as he pulls back slowly, chin and mouth shiny slick. He presses two fingers into her folds, over her clit lightly, then down, pressing inside her then drawing his fingers back. He separates his fingers and looks at the strings of her wetness between them, then puts both fingers in his mouth and sucks like he’s savouring the taste. It’s obscene and V blushes furiously, on top of her already flushed face.

He climbs up to the bed and over her to kiss her, and she can taste her own pussy on his lips. He unbuttons his pants and gets his hard cock out, pressing it against her belly. V is struck by the memory of Johnny fucking with his pants on and decides that simply won’t do. She hooks a leg over his hips and flips them, one hand against the bed. The dog tags dangle around her neck, hovering over Johnny’s chest.

“Pants off,” she demands, straddling him.

Johnny grins up at her and strokes himself. “Nah,” he says.

V quite literally goes for the jugular by putting her hand up around his throat, near the base, rougher than she probably should. She squeezes, more a promise than anything, and runs her hand up his throat until she’s gripping him just under the chin.

“Wasn’t asking,” she says. She watches his eyes darken and his grin goes from smug to fucking feral.

He doesn’t answer, but he does start fumbling with his pants. V has to get up off him slightly so he can get them all the way off, but as soon as they’re off she straddles him again, both hands around his throat. She’s not going to actually choke him, but she knows intimately how much even the tease gets him off.

“Fuck, V,” Johnny says, voice rough, as she tightens her grip just a little. “You sure we didn’t fuck? Pushin’ all my fuckin’ buttons.”

V runs her thumb along the long column of his neck and turns his face from side to side like she’s inspecting him. She takes in the soft line of his jaw, the roundness of his cheeks, the tiny freckle by his ear. She hadn’t been planning on bringing up the other Johnny, but if he was going to — well. She leans down over his mouth and the dog tags rest against his chest.

She says, with an edge of cruelty, “Ya know, I keep sayin’ your brain was overwriting mine. Maybe you still don’t get what that means.” She kisses him and presses harder against his throat, then pulls back from both to speak again. “Saw your fuckin’ memories. Lived your fuckin’ life. Remember how it feels to have your arm, your cock. To fuck. To get fucked.” Johnny gasps, all thin and reedy. He pulls her back down for another filthy kiss.

“Fuck that’s hot,” Johnny says when they break away. That’s maybe a bit surprising, but now that she’s decided to not care, V guesses she finds it pretty hot as well. “You bein’ all up in me, shit.” He leans back against the mattress, his golden curls splayed against it, baring his throat to her.

“Yeah? You like that?” V says, a whisper against his throat. Johnny flexes but she holds him down with her body weight. She wants to — shit, she doesn’t even know what she wants. She wants more. “What’s doing it for you? Is it the idea of me being a little bit you, like you’re fucking yourself?” He groans brokenly and she bites at his neck around her fingers. “Is it the idea of me knowing you, as much as any one person can know someone else? Or is it just me being inside your body, feeling your skin as my skin, your cock as my cock, your throat as my throat, all of it fucking mine.” For her it’s all of it, everything. “I remember what you feel like when you fucking come.”

Johnny laughs at that, almost hysterical. He squirms beneath her. “Holy shit,” he says, gasping. “What’d it feel like?”

V takes one hand off his throat and reaches down between them to grab his dick and line it up with her desperate heat. “You don’t remember?” she says. She sinks down slowly onto his cock. It’s been a long fucking time for her, and it’s delicious even through the slight discomfort. His original cock was definitely bigger but she doesn’t give even half a shit about that; it still feels fucking perfect, stretches her out enough to tingle but not enough to hurt. “Maybe I should remind you,” she continues breathily.

V tries to keep up the control, but as much as she likes to be bossy, she can’t quite manage it when Johnny is fucking up into her. She rides him and it’s somehow easy to find the right rhythm, panting at the exertion. She kisses him, on his neck, on the corner of his lips, then properly, open-mouthed and full of tongue, teeth knocking slightly with the rhythm of their fucking.

Johnny groans and grabs at her hips. “V, lemme fuck you.”

“Pretty sure,” V says haltingly, circling her hips, “you already are.”

“Let me really fuck you,” he says.

V slows her hips all the way down and leans back to sit up, resting back on her heels and looking down at his flushed face. “Ask nicely.” One last attempt at staying in control.

Johnny groans, and it turns into a whine, and then he says, “Fuckin’ — please.”

A thrill of arousal runs through her at having Johnny beg for her. “Oh yeah,” she says softly, rolling her hips. “Once more.”

“Please,” he says with no hesitation, then keeps talking, “V, let me fuck you good, fuck, please, please.”

V relents with a shudder, easing off his dick and climbing off him. She follows his lead and ends up on her hands and knees on the bed with Johnny behind her. He rests his hand on her lower back gently as he pushes back into her. V lets out a shaky breath. He thrusts gently a couple of times, like he’s getting his bearings. Then, with a snap of his hips, he really fucks her. V groans loudly.

Johnny pauses for a moment and leans down over her back to speak into her ear. “You good?”

“Yes, god, come on,” V says, dropping from her hands to her forearms and rocking back further onto his cock.

“Easy, V,” he says, “I got you.” His tone is deep and rough. V wants to believe there’s some genuine care there.

V liked being in control, but she can’t deny that the angle is way fucking better like this. God, he fucks her so damn deep, hard and fast. The noise is obscene with how wet she is. V probably won’t be able to come again from penetration alone, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel really fucking good. Sometimes the angle is just perfect and she makes a quiet, involuntary moan. Johnny, meanwhile, is not at all quiet; he makes soft little grunts constantly and swears against her back, his hands gripping into her hips.

V can tell Johnny is getting close when he slows and loses rhythm for a moment. Before she can say anything he pulls out, leaving her with a toe-curling emptiness. He presses his dick against the swell of her ass and strokes himself furiously. He chokes out a string of swears as he comes over her lower back, cock pressing into her skin, hot and stuttering.

“Fuck,” V says in a groan. She starts to move, but she’s interrupted by Johnny’s fingers pressing into her.

“Not done with you yet,” Johnny says.

He kisses the back of her thigh while he uses both hands to get her off; one with two fingers inside her and the other working her clit. With his come cooling on her back and his fingers in her cunt and on her clit, it doesn’t take long for V to press her face into the mattress and moan as she comes again. Her knees feel like jelly and she slumps down onto her stomach. Johnny kisses her thigh, her ass cheek, then up a bit higher. V turns back to look at him just in time to watch as he licks some of his own come off her back and grins at her.

“Jesus fuck,” V says, absolutely wrecked. “You’re gonna be the fucking death of me.”

Johnny laughs at her and swats her ass playfully. “Stay there.”

He leaves, but he’s back pretty quickly with a roll of paper towel. He wipes her back, not particularly carefully but effectively enough, then tosses the gross paper off to the corner of the room somewhere. He flops down on the bed dramatically beside her on his back, then flips over and shimmies up to reach something from a bedside table. It’s a pack of smokes and he takes one out and lights it. V is about to ask why, given that he can’t smoke anymore, but then he hands it to her wordlessly. V turns onto her back so she can rest her head against the pillow, then accepts the cigarette.

She smokes in silence for a little bit. They’re not touching, but Johnny has moved up to sit on her right against the headboard. V sits up too for her next drag. When she exhales, it comes out as a kind of resigned sigh. She hears Johnny inhale, pause, exhale.

“Fuck,” he says emphatically.

When Johnny was alive — hah, when her Johnny was a ghost in her head, rather — V felt like she could never do anything to disturb the balance. The peace between them was, for most of their time together, a fragile thing. Being stuck with someone that closely, that intimately, for so long — the both of them could’ve been the nicest people in the world and it would’ve been just as precarious. When they finally got to real trust, something solid, something like love, even then the day-to-day had been fucking hard. No privacy, no reprieve. On top of that, they both knew that one of them would have to die; they both knew it was going to be Johnny. So they never said anything. V never pushed anything. He was the more volatile one, so she had to be steady. She played cautious because she had everything to lose, and she lost it all anyway. Go figure.

V expected this to feel like she had something to lose again, but the simple fact is that she doesn’t have this Johnny. It hardly feels like a risk at all when she places her right hand over his left on the mattress, when she leans over and kisses him. V almost wishes he could read her mind again, but she tries to put her thoughts on her lips and tongue; she wants to offer an invitation. To get to know her, to fuck again, to be involved in her life in some ill-defined way.

She’s not psychic, and she can’t talk with kisses. But Johnny kisses her back, and when he pulls back he takes the cigarette from her left hand and puts it in her mouth for her to smoke. He pulls it from her lips and kisses her again. All she can taste is tobacco.

V smokes the cigarette right down to the filter, not quite holding Johnny’s hand on the bed, trading lazy kisses and long drags. Johnny takes the cig from her mouth and stubs it out against the chrome in his palm, and V finally recognises it as protective ceramic when she sees the monowire port in his wrist. He throws the stub over his shoulder, then licks the ash off his palm. When he kisses her it tastes like bitter ash and V pushes him back, making a face, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Ugh, that tastes disgusting,” she says, and the silent tension between them breaks. Johnny huffs, his expression a satisfied neutral.

“Look, I gotta take a shower and a piss,” Johnny says bluntly. “Stick around, if you want.” He gets up off the bed.

“Wow, what a charmer,” V says, sarcastic and teasing.

Johnny doesn’t respond, just flips her off over his shoulder as he leaves. V settles back down into the pillows and stares at the ceiling. The high from the synthcoke she took, hours ago at this point, is finally starting to decline. She yawns and decides to rest her eyes until Johnny comes back. Then she can decide if she’s going to stick around.

She’s asleep within minutes.

Chapter Text

V wakes up slowly with a headache. Not the worst she’s had, not by a long shot. It has the fuzzy, dry-mouth feeling of a hangover, but a pretty mild one. V has the impression of having had a pretty good night out last night as she comes to. She remembers dancing with Tara, dancing with Johnny, then —

V bolts upright in bed, eyes wide open. She’s in Johnny fucking Silverhand’s apartment, in Johnny fucking Silverhand’s bed the morning after, and she’s alone. She swallows slowly and looks around for any sign of him. V feels the bitterness rising in her throat. She doesn’t know why she expected any better of him.

V swings her legs around to get out of bed and sees a note on the nightstand, which she kind of cannot believe Johnny would leave. On it is just a holophone number, which is definitely more believable than some thoughtful note. She plugs the number in her holo, saves it as ‘Johnny’, then stares at the ‘new message’ screen for several long minutes. Eventually she settles on something just a little bit honest.

I hate you.

V stands, wincing a little at her stiff muscles, and starts collecting her clothes. Less than a minute later, while she’s pulling on her pants, her holo pings. She opens Johnny’s message reflexively.

v. u wound me

V huffs out the tiniest laugh despite herself, and watches the little Johnny is typing… message in the corner of her vision as she finishes dressing. She can’t find her yellow jacket anywhere, which is really annoying, but it’s not so cold out that it really matters. The idea of Johnny texting is absurd. The idea of him with a holo is somehow even weirder. The fact that he’s responded so quickly puts her at ease, like maybe he wasn’t just up and ghosting her. She receives two messages in quick succession.

coffee on the bench by the way

hope u like it black cause i dont have any of that milk shit

Sure enough, there is a little coffee machine in the kitchen. V feeds it a couple eddies and gets some scalding black coffee in return. She does prefer milk, and sugar too, but learning to drink coffee as it comes was a keystone of both corpo and merc work so she’s well practiced. Still, while Johnny is texting, she may as well ask.

You got sugar? Usually like it with both

Johnny responds, sweet tooth huh? nahsgfhr

V stares at the message with a frown and sends back a bunch of question marks. She goes back to her black, unsweetened coffee. When there’s no response by the time she’s finished the drink, V rolls her eyes, puts the cup in the sink, and starts heading out the door.

As she walks through the stairwell, her mind drifts. She doesn’t quite regret last night, but she definitely doesn’t know how to feel about it. She feels nervous, and not the normal liking-someone nervous, but a deep uncertainty that almost crosses over into fear. She’s making herself very vulnerable for someone she trusts way more than she should. Last night she hadn’t cared, but in the cold light of morning the threat of getting her heart broken — or worse — looms over her. Suddenly, Johnny being back seems a whole lot more real. Less like a strange, intermittent dream, now that they’d fucked, now that he had given her his number and was responding to texts. It feels like he’s with her right now, just a little bit, which is pretty stupid. V stops on the stairs, then sighs deeply and pulls up her holo again.

Hey Rogue, long time no see, hope all’s well. Hate to ask, but I think I could really do with… I’m not sure favor is the right word, but let’s say a favor

V eyes the send button for a moment, then confirms and the text whizzes off. She continues down the staircase, now more antsy, until she comes out onto the street. She texts Tara too, thanking her for the night out and bowing out of work for today with an apology. She’ll find the money somewhere. It’s still pretty early in the morning, at least for a morning after going out, so she suspects Tara won’t even be awake yet.

Next V thinks about Kerry. When it was only her who knew, it felt… understandable, to not tell him. Like it wasn’t quite real if she didn’t tell anyone. Now though, if she’s telling Rogue, she really can’t not tell Kerry. She can’t imagine how the conversation will go, but she sends him a text anyway.

Heya Kerry, you got some time to chat soon? Not urgent, but kinda important. Wanna catch up. Got some news. Lemme know. New single rocks btw

As she sends the message to Kerry, her holo buzzes with a response from Rogue.

V, glad you’re still kicking. What kind of favor?

V sends back, Non-urgent, but kind of… complicated. Would love to talk in person?

Rogue responds immediately. Come by now, let’s talk

V bites the scar on her lip and considers her options. She would basically have to go past the Afterlife on her way back to her apartment. It would be such a waste of time to have to double back, but she wants to get changed into something that she can hide behind. The idea of being recognised makes her stomach turn, and while there probably wouldn’t be that many people left in the Afterlife after three years that would recognise her, Claire would, and maybe a couple of the other mercs she’d worked with. Probably some of the security staff too. V ends up compromising by swinging by a cheap market and buying a big black hoodie, which she puts on and zips up.

It’s a short trip over to the Afterlife. V pulls her hood up as she enters and unties her hair, letting it curtain her face. The bouncer at the door eyes her and stops her with a single hand. After a moment their eyes flash and they expressionlessly allow her past. No-one seems to react to her, other than a couple side-eyes because she is clearly not the usual Afterlife clientele. The place is exactly how she remembers, loud and full of blue lights and posturing mercs. The politics and peacocking of merc life is one thing she definitely doesn’t miss. She skips the bar and heads over towards Rogue’s usual booth. Her huscle stops V with a single glance.

“Relax,” Rogue says, nodding at the huscle. “She’s got an appointment.” Rogue takes V in with her eyes and clearly clocks that she’s trying to lay low. “Follow me.”

Rogue looks basically the same as the day V last saw her over a year ago. Her hair is grey, shaved short on one side but long everywhere else, and it catches the blue lights. Rogue is still all hard lines, hard expressions, hard chrome, and a hard edge to her voice. V follows her to a back room. It’s small and dim and there’s two chairs and a desk there, but neither of them sit down. Rogue leans against the desk behind her. V pulls her hood off and forces herself to smile slightly.

“Thanks for seeing me,” V says, “it really isn’t urgent. Didn’t need to drop anything.”

Rogue sighs. “You never contact me, even when you should. If you’re here, I assume it’s bad.” She narrows her eyes. “Are you okay?”

V is totally caught off guard. “I...” She trails off. “I mean… I’m fine. My life sucks, but I’m fine.” Rogue’s piercing eyes soften slightly with pity. V chafes against it. “How’s the Afterlife?”

“Same old work, same old politics, same old danger.” Rogue shrugs. “What’s the problem?”

V concedes that Rogue isn’t interested in small talk and sighs. “I really do hate to bring this to you, but, fuck, I don’t know what to do.” Her voice gets kind of small by the end of the sentence, and she takes a big breath to start the next one stronger. “It really isn’t urgent. I’m not even sure… what it will entail. But it, um.” V laughs nervously. “I found another Johnny Silverhand.” She had spent the whole walk over trying to figure out how to break the news, and she couldn’t come up with anything better than just saying the damn thing.

Rogue’s eyes narrow further and she leans in, like she’s trying to decide whether or not V has jumped off the deep end into old fashioned ‘ganic psychosis. “Shit,” she says, after a long pause.

V laughs again, this time less nervous and more a breaking of tension. “You’re telling me. New body, same fucking asshole. I’m certain.”

Rogue breaks away from looking at V and frowns into the distance. “This the same thing, with a Relic? He bringing another poor bastard along with him?”

“Poorer bastard than me,” V says, “he got wiped. I don’t really know what the fuck happened, hasn’t told me. Don’t think he trusts me.”

Rogue’s eyes flick back to V’s. “After all that shit you did for him? Typical.”

“No, he’s…” V huffs a breath, trying to assemble her thoughts. “He’s another one. At least I think so. Doesn’t know me. Different him.” V looks down at the floor and bites down on her lip again. “Like a copy, maybe. Or maybe he forgot. Same thing.”

“Shit, V,” Rogue says, this time layered with deep sympathy. After a long moment of silence, she says, “He really fucks you up, doesn’t he?” Her tone is wistful and sympathetic and bitter, and V just nods.

V runs Rogue through the timeline of Johnny showing up, visiting, not visiting, running into each other at the bar. She omits the flirting, and definitely omits the fucking, but she has an awful feeling Rogue knows. As Rogue sighs, V’s holo pings and she pulls up the message. It’s from Johnny, and he’s sent several in a row.

interrupted by shootout u know how it is

u still at mine?

gotta taste u again. who needs sugar

V feels her face prickle with a slight flush and responds, Fuck you. She feels like she’s getting an insight into how Johnny managed to always be stringing some chick along. He responds straight away.

damn alrite if thats what u want

V ignores it resolutely, refocusing on the conversation at hand. “He wanted to meet with you, and I told him to fuck off. But it feels a lot more, I dunno, real now, like he’s sticking around. Thought it might be better to hear it from me before he manages to worm his way into your office.”

“You told anyone else yet?” Rogue asks.

“Nah, got no one to tell really,” V says. “Except Kerry, but I got no clue how to break it to him. Already texted him.”

She watches as Rogue shifts deeply into biz mode. “Whole thing is damn bad news. Johnny hasn’t told you anything about what happened? Or what he wants?”

V frowns in thought and thinks out loud. “No. My guess would be that he either wants Smasher dead or Mikoshi torched, but Smasher must’ve gone wherever ‘Saka has fucked off to and we’ve lost our Grayson lead. Then Mikoshi… that’d be a whole damn operation, basically back to square one in terms of contacting Alt — if he even wants to involve her at all, rather than just blowing shit up.” She shrugs. “Doubt the Voodoo Boys route will work again, but I guess we — uh, he could try. Guess their theory was right, and people are always poking around the Blackwall. Then of course there’s the issue of how he woke up at all. I checked, he’s definitely got a Relic slotted. You hear of any ill-advised heists on the remnants of ‘Saka Tower lately?”

Rogue’s lip quirks up slightly. “Glad to see that your brain hasn’t gone to complete mush,” she says. “Haven’t heard anything. He’s been doing merc work? Can’t believe I didn’t spot him. Under what name?”

V shrugs, because she doesn’t know, and Rogue frowns in thought. V says, “Do you think you’ll meet with him?”

Rogue sighs and leans heavily against the chair behind her. “Of course I will. Jesus, he’ll put moves on me again, the asshole. Hope he takes the no well without you to keep him in line.”

V thinks about the movie date Johnny had taken Rogue on via her body. She thinks about how that didn’t pan out, which was at least partially because of the body situation. She wonders whether it would pan out differently, now that it was just Johnny in there. Rogue doesn’t seem to think so now, but V hadn’t thought she’d end up hooking up with him either. V tries to figure out how she feels about that, about the idea of Johnny hooking up with other people. She feels kind of weird about it, scared that he’ll fuck her over and get bored of her, but shit, she’s been him. She knows exactly how he is, how sex was something fun and easy that could mean whatever he wanted it to. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to go exclusive with her anytime soon.

V has a terrible little realisation that this is way too fucking complicated, because if it was her Johnny, she would be fine with him fucking whoever else, if he wanted. She would’ve enjoyed the idea, trusting that he wanted to come back to her, that he would. Granted, his history of cheating had been because he was just an uncaring asshole, but V had felt how he’d been head over fucking heels for both Rogue and Alt, not quite at the same time when he was alive but definitely at the same time as a ghost. While that wasn’t really something she had much experience with, she understood it. It was something they could’ve figured out.

But this Johnny, this new, short, blond Johnny, who heard her story second hand instead of living it, shit, she doesn’t trust him like that. She doesn’t trust him to do any of this shit responsibly. But she wants to trust him. Keeping them separate in her head is getting harder and harder as time goes on. Not that it really matters — they’ve fucked once. The fact that he’s even texting her is a miracle.

Rogue says, “V, listen to me,” and V’s attention snaps back to her. Rogue’s face is stern but sympathetic. “That Johnny isn’t the one you knew. He’s the one I knew, and therefore a total bastard. Don’t forget that. He’s not gonna let you change him this time.”

V speaks honestly. “I didn’t do shit to change him,” she insists. “Dying changed him. Seeing his legacy was shitall changed him. Seeing you and Kerry and Night City all moved on changed him. I was just along for the ride.”

Rogue levels V with a deeply skeptical stare. “You’re wrong about that,” she says simply. “Stay safe. And tell the bastard he can come ‘round.”

V can’t process that idea right now. Instead, she shoves all of those emotions to the side and says, “When? I’ll text him.”

Rogue raises her brows. “He gave you his holo? Shit.” She huffs in surprise. “Now’s fine, I already cleared out some time.”

V texts Johnny, I’m at the Afterlife. Turns out I do have an in with Rogue, if you wanna meet with her

Johnny texts her back immediately. asshole. knew u were lying. she gonna speak to me?

V responds, You’re welcome. Just get over here

V doesn’t get any more texts from him and assumes he’s on his way over. Rogue offers her a drink and she agrees, even though it’s barely nine in the morning. She tells Rogue to pick something for her. Rogue comes back with two Silverhands because she’s just as much of a bastard as Johnny is sometimes. They drink, and V finishes hers probably too quickly. She asks Rogue for a Jackie Welles as well and Rogue gives her a weird pitying look but obliges anyway. V drinks the second drink much slower. She’s barely made a dent in it when Rogue’s eyes flash as she presumably contacts her security and then Johnny is here again, opening the door without knocking, and he’s wearing her fucking jacket.

V starts to think he might be fucking with her, on purpose, just to be cruel. Since when does Johnny Silverhand wear his hookup’s clothes? Hell, since when does he wear his output’s clothes? V’s mind is blank as she tries to think, tries to remember whether this is normal for him or not. She truly can’t remember either way. It probably helps that his new body is definitely smaller than his original. The fit is just about right. Other than the jacket he’s in all black, which is normal at least. He grins at her, infuriatingly smug as he catches her eye. Then he turns to Rogue.

“Hello, Johnny. Again.” Rogue’s voice is a hard flat line.

“Rogue,” Johnny says, voice curling around his smug smile as he speaks. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but you don’t look so convinced.”

Rogue scowls. “Interesting new look.”

Johnny grins again and does a slow three-hundred and sixty degree turn, arms spread out wide. The sleeves of V’s jacket are slightly too long for him, and her traitorous heart skips a beat.

“You like it?” he asks. “I wasn’t sold on it, but turns out chicks go wild for the boyish charm.” Johnny winks at V. “Isn’t that right, V?”

V flushes with genuine embarrassment as she hears Rogue sigh, long and disappointed. In a desperate bid to save face, V crosses her arms and looks Johnny up and down obviously, trying to appear bored.

“Dunno, you’re a lot shorter and scrawnier now,” she says. “Think I liked the original better.”

As much as she misses the original, if she’s honest she couldn’t give a shit what body Johnny was in if she tried. Johnny doesn’t seem to even listen to her, his eyes back on Rogue. V and Rogue watch as his smug expression slips to something a little gentler.

“Shit, Rogue,” he says, kind of softly. “Can’t fuckin’ believe it. Queen of the Afterlife, who woulda thunk.” His expression turns hard. “Whose dick you have to suck to get out of ‘Saka Tower alive?”

Rogue stares Johnny down with her arms crossed. “Whose dick you suck to get back into a body?”

They hold each other’s glare for a long tense moment. V’s holo pings with a text, but she ignores it. “Right,” she says, clapping her hands together once, “guess I’d better be going.”

Johnny breaks away from the staring contest to look at her. “You’d better.”

She desperately wants to stay so she knows what they talk about, so they don’t talk about her. But she also knows it’s not her place, and there’s a discomfort in Rogue watching her interact with Johnny that she can’t place the reason for.

“Thanks, Rogue,” she says as she starts toward the door. “And sorry.”

Rogue nods at her and V side steps around Johnny to leave. As she passes him, he grabs her wrist and tugs. Before she can orient herself his other hand is in her hair and he’s kissing her. Her heart thuds in her ears and embarrassment flushes her face. He kisses messy and open-mouthed but briefly, then pulls back with a wry grin. His hand is holding her wrist.

“Come ‘round tonight,” he says. He raises his brows. “Take your jacket off me. Maybe I’ll let you keep it.” Then he spins her and pushes her towards the door.

V stumbles back out into the bar, face burning. A few people turn to look at her and she hurriedly pulls up her hood and ducks her face down. Behind her, she hears Rogue say threateningly, “I swear to god, Johnny, if you —” before the door closes and she can only hear the pumping music.

God, she wants another drink, but the Silverhand and the mouthful of the Welles was already making her feel tipsy, and there’s no way she could order without Claire recognising her. V moves through the bar quickly and exits.

Shit, she hates coming here. The H10 megabuilding looms over her and she realises she’s started walking automatically toward what used to be Misty’s shop. She comes to a complete stop on the sidewalk. Someone behind her bumps into her and calls her an asshole. Her chest burns and V starts walking again, toward the megabuilding. It’s a short walk, and everything she passes looks wrong — like it’s the same shape but different colours, familiar ideas stretched into the wrong form. She sits down on the steps leading to the megabuilding elevators. The little food stall that was here has been replaced by three SCSM vending machines, so the stairs are the only place to sit now. V sighs, and pulls up her holo to check her texts. Kerry has responded to her.

Sure. Tonight? I can make some time

It’s pretty subdued, coming from him. V supposes that performing on the moon or whatever would be pretty exhausting. Maybe he’s concerned about her news — she wasn’t exactly a regular texter. She sets up a time to call him, around four o’clock, then stares absently at the street as the cars pass by.

Eventually her mind drifts to the call. She can’t take it at her own place — no way is she risking Thomas and Shaun fucking around while she’s on the holo. She’s aware of Johnny’s invite too, but there’s no way in hell she’s doing it there. She momentarily considers going to Kerry’s place — he’d always had shit security back in the day, and there was news of a break in a few weeks ago, so that’s unlikely to have changed. It’d be rude and kind of fucked up to do so, and even shit security would keep her out these days, so she moves on from that idea immediately. She realises that there’s not a single space in the city that is her own.

At around three o’clock V gets into the Porsche and drives, heading out of the city. She goes out into the Badlands until there are no more cars on the highway. The Porsche isn’t built for offroading but it can handle it if she’s careful. She pulls off the highway and down into what was once a stream, so that she’s hidden from view from the road. She gets out of the car and sits on the hood. She kills time, staring at the clouds, thinking about what to say, until it’s nearly four o’clock. She gets back into the car and tries to settle herself.

Kerry doesn’t call on time. It’s a full half hour after he’s meant to call, right when V starts to think about texting, that her holo rings. She answers.

Kerry always looks good, but his new look is really good on him. Makes him look a little older, more comfortable with himself. His hair is long, natural grey in colour, with multiple shades filtering through. His smudgy eyeliner and bare chest plus vest combo make him look like a real oldschool rocker.

V makes herself smile. “Hey Kerry.”

She had always felt weird talking to him, post-coma. She was worried he was mad at her about Johnny’s second death — hell, she’s still worried. She hasn’t been able to figure out whether that is the case; he’s been simply too busy for her. They’ve spoken maybe once in the last year. She understands. Johnny isn’t with her anymore.

“V, hi,” Kerry says. V barely suppresses a frown. That’s very weird. She’s never seen him anything less than enthusiastic when they spoke, even when he was not really paying attention.

V makes small talk, and Kerry engages. It seems like despite himself he loosens up, and even flashes her a genuine smile as he talks excitedly about his Paris show — he’d been on the moon about a month ago. After maybe five minutes of chatting, V starts to wonder whether she was reading too much into the tension.

“So hey, I uh, got some news,” V says eventually. It’s a bit of a non-sequitur but if she doesn’t get to it she’ll avoid saying it for hours.

Kerry tilts his head at her. “Johnny do something particularly outrageous? Or did you just decide to finally loop me in?”

V’s stomach drops and her eyes widen. “What?”

“So about three weeks ago,” Kerry says conversationally, “I get this call, from this blond kid who’s broken into my house.”

“Oh my god, Kerry.” She feels like she’s going to throw up.

“He pulls the whole routine — you know the one. Never Fade Away, this time. Says he’s got no-one left in the city, doesn’t know what to do — ‘cept that some chick accosted him on the street a couple weeks ago and told him she knows him,” Kerry continues, tone still light, but he isn’t smiling.

“Kerry,” V repeats, “I didn’t know what to do. I —”

“And I think, huh, that’s weird,” Kerry says, cutting across her. “Weird that my good choom V didn’t tell me that our mutual good choom Johnny is back from the dead. But then I think, well, this is maybe a bad time for her. I think, she’ll tell me. And then I don’t hear shit for another three entire weeks.”

“Kerry, I’m sorry,” V says, and it comes out pleading. Her chest wells up with all the fear and despair she’s been ignoring. “I should’ve — shit, Ker, he doesn’t know me.” V buries her face in her hands. “It felt — I don’t know, he was there but he fuckin’ hated me and I —” V takes a breath and it comes out ragged as her eyes burn. “I just — it didn’t even feel real, I couldn’t —”

“Yeah?” Kerry interrupts, unforgiving. “You couldn’t? Couldn’t handle a fucking holocall, V? A single goddamn text?”

V sobs, once, for the first time in a very long time, then jams her fist in her mouth to shut herself up. It’s everything, all of it, it’s Johnny but more than that it’s her chrome and her stupid fucking blurry life. It’s the way Kerry never spoke to her, the way Judy and Panam and River and fucking Vik and Misty and everyone had just moved on without her, left her in the lurch. It’s the way her entire soul has been missing the last twelve months and nobody fucking noticed. There’s a lump in her throat and her breath hitches past it every time she breathes in.

“Fuck you,” she gasps out, lungs burning. “Fucking — when was the last time you texted me, huh? I was in a coma for two fucking years, Kerry! I have no chrome, I’m fucking nobody working a shit fucking junk job and every single friend I ever had fucked off and left me, including you! God fucking forbid I have some god damn shit to work through!”

“That’s — that’s not what happened,” Kerry says, defensive. “Besides, it’s Johnny, that shit doesn’t matter, he’s my —”

“What?” V interrupts venomously. “He’s your what? Get fucked,” she says, and hangs up.

V slams her head down into the centre of the wheel of the Porsche. The horn blares and she lets it for a moment before pulling back and slamming her fist against the edge of the wheel repeatedly instead. God, fuck. She needs to fucking shoot something, or tear something apart with her bare hands, or at least just move.

V kicks the door of the Porsche open and stumbles out into the heat, slamming the door shut behind her. She paces up and down the creekbed, kicking at loose rocks and grinding her teeth. She crouches down into a ball and screams at the ground, wordless and desperate, then leans over and collapses sideways into the dirt. She’s fucking crying again. She feels pathetic.

V grabs Johnny’s dog tags in her hand and squeezes, metal pressing into her flesh. The creekbed is dry and sandy, full of jutting rocks that press painfully against her arm and torso. She closes her eyes and breathes, running her thumb over the engravings on the tags, feeling the rocks dig into her skin. She lays there, trying to numb her own thoughts, as her skin gets tight and sore against the ground.

“Fuck,” V whispers, minutes later, as her eyes slowly dry. She rolls over to her hands and knees, then slowly pushes up to standing from the ground, skin burning with the movement. She brushes the dirt off her t-shirt and arms as best she can. She walks back toward the car and sits against the hood, leaning back until she’s lying on it to stare at the sky.

If Johnny were here, he’d probably call her pathetic. Rolling in the dirt, screaming at nothing. Maybe he’d approve of her telling Kerry to fuck off. She can imagine him, a flurry of Relic static, leaning against the hood of the car with her, digital cigarette smoke clouding her view of the sky. Pushing against her, chafing and painful, a constant, a comfort. Always making her decide what she actually wanted to be. She aches — her fucking soul aches. God, she misses him being always at her back, sturdy to either lean against or push off of. He’d be so fucking disappointed in her, for the way she’s been this last year. V feels her eyes burn again. Shit, this was why she never let herself think.

She gets up off the hood to grab a cigarette from the glovebox and sits sideways in the driver’s seat with the door open, feet on the sand. She smokes slowly and feels a familiar desolate desperation clawing in her chest. A need to get out, out of her life, in any way possible, in the only fucking way possible. She grips the tags again with her free hand, trying to stop the feeling.

Her holo rings again several minutes later, when her cigarette is burned down around the filter. It’s Kerry, and she nearly doesn’t answer. She feels hollowed out, like there’s nothing left inside her. She picks up the call but doesn’t speak, just stares vacantly at her hand holding the smouldering cigarette stub between her thumb and forefinger. She knows she looks a wreck, but it’s only Kerry.

Kerry is silent for a little bit. “V,” he says. His voice is low and gravelly, and her name is too short for her to be able to read much into his tone. She flicks her eyes up at his feed silently. Against all odds, Kerry looks openly concerned for her. It’s the first time someone has looked at her with concern but not pity in a very long time.

“He really fucks you up,” Kerry says.

V huffs humourlessly and looks back at the cigarette. It’s getting dangerously close to her fingers now, but she makes no move to put it out.

“Shit, didn’t think about — about what you were up to. What it all meant, the coma,” Kerry says hesitantly. “When you and him were — it was so fuckin’ weird, seein’ you and him at the same time. And then, when…”

“When I killed him again,” V supplies bitterly.

“Just about the first thing he said to me, y’know,” Kerry says. “Don’t know if you saw that bit. Once we sat down for the story, immediately it was all, don’t get used to me bein’ around, me here is killin’ V, shit’s unacceptable, I’m dying for her.”

V didn’t know that. She sucks in an unsteady breath. The heat of the cig is getting uncomfortably close to her skin.

“And as much as I wanted it otherwise, he was right. I’m a selfish bastard, but even I know that.” Kerry hesitates. “It’s been so fuckin’ hard, V. Ain’t your fault. I oughtn’t blame you. ”

“But you do,” V finishes for him. She twists the hand not holding the cigarette into the seat of the Porsche tightly to keep her other hand steady.

“Sometimes you feel shit in your body that your brain don’t believe,” Kerry says. V’s fingers burn. “Sometimes you know shit in your brain your body don’t feel. Promise you, V, glad you’re here with us and not him.”

V lets out a shuddering breath as something in her heart bends and breaks. She tosses the stub away, shaking out her hand.

“Sorry for not talking to you,” Kerry says.

“Sorry for not telling you,” V says.

The silence stretches. Eventually Kerry says, “God, we’re both fucked up in love with him.” He sounds as bitter as she’s ever heard him.

“You gonna be mad if I shoot my shot?”

“Nah,” Kerry says in a long slow drawl. “I’ve always known the score. Maybe least one of us can be happy. Watch yourself though, this old style Silverhand’s a real cunt, ‘specially to the chicks he fucks.”

“If he’d ever get his damn head out of his ass, we could share him.” She really fucking means it. When Kerry wasn’t up his own ass he was good people.

Kerry laughs, short and bitter. “Knew him near twenty-five years. He ain’t changin’. Only wants me around like a damn toy, stop him getting too bored ‘fore finding someone to actually fuck. Gonk enough to keep goin’ back, so fuck me I guess.”

“I’d be the same,” V says, like that’s any consolation. She looks down at the dirt. “Gotta tell you. We fucked.”

“That meant to be news to me?” Kerry asks. “Always knew you were fucking.”

V’s eyes snap up to Kerry’s in the holo. “What? No, we never fucked, when he was, you know. Before.”

Kerry’s eyebrows raise comically. “Seriously? Johnny Silverhand, ready to die for a hot chick he wasn’t fucking?”

V huffs out a small but genuine laugh. “Swear on it, we didn’t. Said I wasn’t his type even — yeah, yeah,” V waves her hand as she sees Kerry about to interrupt, “obvious bullshit, I know. But we didn’t.”

“Damn.” Kerry looks at her like he’s reevaluating her whole life. “But you did now?”

“Yeah,” she admits.

Kerry smiles wistfully. “Hey, glad for ya.” V thinks it’s a lie. “You were real good for him before. Hope he’ll let you do that again.”

V chafes against the idea that she did shit to change Johnny, but she doesn’t press the issue and shrugs instead.

“Hey, gonna be back in good ol’ NC in about two months,” Kerry says. “Last leg of the tour. I’ll put you both on the guestlist, expect you to show. Then we’ll get fucked up together afterwards, like real rockstars.”

“I’m no rockstar, but I’ll be there.” V sighs. “I’ve got something for you. Johnny’s holo. Assume he didn’t give it to you.”

“Shit, course he didn’t,” Kerry says. “‘Preciate it.” V shrugs again. “Alright, enough pity outta the both of us. Missed talkin’ to ya, V.”

“Yeah,” V says. “Seeya ‘round, Kerry.”

Kerry hangs up the call.

V stares numbly out the door for several seconds. She looks down at the two burns on her index finger and thumb, bright pink and sensitive. She squeezes her index finger and thumb together briefly to feel the pain of it, then turns to sit in the car properly and starts the engine. She has plans in Kabuki.

Chapter Text

Johnny greets her at the door when she knocks at around eight, eyebrows raised, unimpressed. He’s still wearing her bright yellow jacket. V shoves the bag she’s holding into his hands.

“What’s this?” he asks as he steps backwards to let her in.

“Dinner.” She takes a couple steps inside and casts around for somewhere to put her coat. “I haven’t eaten all damn day.”

“Invited you to fuck, not to dinner,” Johnny says flatly.

“Fine, I’ll leave,” she says, reaching for the bag. He pulls it away from her, moving out of her reach to open it and peer into it. Steam billows upwards and the smell of curry floods the room.

“Didn’t say to leave, Jesus,” Johnny says. “Hope you got enough to share.”

V rolls her eyes. “Yeah, obviously.”

As Johnny moves into the kitchen to get them some cutlery, he says, “Got some synthcoke if you want.”

“Maybe later.” Getting high and fucking Johnny once was one thing; making a habit of it was not smart, as much as it would make things easier. “Get what you want from Rogue?”

“Not at fuckin’ all,” he gripes, slumping down into a chair. He rips the plastic bag open and puts the rice and curry containers down on the table, opens the rice and starts to eat directly from it.

“Hey, meant to share that,” V says with a frown. Johnny hands her a fork and pulls the other chair closer. V huffs and sits down. Their chairs are up against each other and her knee brushes his. She yanks the container away from him for a mouthful; he pulls it back.

“You know Rogue sold out to ‘Saka?” Johnny asks with his mouth full.

“Yeah,” V says reluctantly. “She cashed in a connection for us to try and track Smasher. Didn’t get far. Fucked it, sorry.”

“Bitch,” Johnny says, and V isn’t entirely certain whether he means her or Rogue. Probably both.

V resists the urge to push him further and eats the curry in silence, scooping synthmeat and curry from one container and rice from the other. The burns on her fingers hurt as she grips the fork. She accidentally drops a chunk of synthmeat into the rice and Johnny grabs it, scarfing it down as she glares at him halfheartedly. Even eating dinner feels like a fucking competition, and V can’t decide whether she likes it or not.

“Alright,” Johnny says, still with his fucking mouth full, “so what did you do today.”

He doesn’t inflect it like it’s a question so much as demand. V blinks a couple times. “Since when do you care?”

Johnny shrugs and pulls the rice away from her again. “You don’t wanna talk, we don’t gotta talk, whatever.”

“I drove around,” V answers. She stabs a mysterious lump of curry-covered vegetable. “Sulked a bit. Made a phone call.”

Johnny raises his brows. “Wow, riveting.”

“Fuck you,” V says, tiredly and with no bite. “You know my life sucks. Told you there wasn’t shit to know about me.”

“Y’know, you’re way less hot when you’re being all self-pitying,” Johnny says conversationally. “Plenty going on with you. Get off your ass and do it.” V eyes him suspiciously but before she can properly process it, Johnny continues, “You netrun?”

“Used to.” V eyes him warily. “Why?”

Johnny shrugs and doesn’t look at her. “Maybe gimme some pointers?”

“You want to netrun?” she says, disbelieving. “Really?”

He scoffs. “Fuck no, don’t want to.” He gestures down at his body. “Kid was a netrunner. All my ‘ware is geared for it, and swapping in new shit is expensive. Gotta keep at it ‘til I got the eds for something better.” He sighs. “Worked fine for a while but now my daemons keep fuckin’ not working.”

“Yeah,” V says, “prolly haven’t been maintaining ‘em, right? His shit’s gotta be all outta date by now.”

“Their,” Johnny corrects instantly, like a reflex. V frowns at him. “The kid. Their shit’s outta date.”

“Sorry, their.” V wonders how much of whoever they were is left in there. “Netrunning is a perpetual arms race. You get a daemon that exploits some flaw in some ICE infrastructure, then the ICE people patch their defences. Then you gotta get a new daemon, or patch yours up.”

“Doesn’t help me at all,” Johnny says through a mouthful of curry.

V groans. “If you’re not gonna make your own shit, just find a runner you trust who’ll sell you their shit, check in with them every week or two.”

“You know anyone?” he asks.

“Uh, I mean. Not recently,” V says haltingly. “Literally can’t work a deck anymore.”

“Find someone for me, yeah?” Johnny says, shovelling more rice in his mouth.

Before she can figure out how to say no, how to explain how far out of the netrunning loop she is these days, his eyes light up with the telltale glow of a holo call. He looks confused for a moment, then glares at her angrily. Then he seems to come to some decision, because he grins, all teeth and trouble, and leans over to kiss her. It’s a bit uncomfortable, and both their mouths taste like curry, but he’s a damned good kisser and V indulges in kissing him sober.

Johnny pulls back and laughs. His eyes are still lit up.

“Did you fucking answer the call?” V asks, shocked. “Were we on —”

“Chill,” Johnny says, “just Ker. Assume you gave him my number? Asshole.”

V puts her head in her hands. “Fucking — sorry, Kerry.”

She can’t hear whatever Kerry says, but Johnny laughs again. He flicks his fingers and suddenly Kerry’s voice is crackling out from some speaker somewhere.

“ —sshole, you know? Didn’t hear from you for three fuckin’ weeks, not even a text,” Kerry is saying, slightly out of breath, “and now you’re sucking face —”

“Slam it,” Johnny says. He leans back in the chair, arms folded, smug grin on his face. “Got you on speaker. Say hi, V.”

V groans. “Such an asshole.”

“Got that right,” Kerry says. “Now we’re gonna gang up on you, Johnny.”

Johnny raises his hands in mocking surrender. “Ooh, the washed up merc and the nonagenarian in Paris. Fuckin’ terrifying.”

V directs both middle fingers at Johnny. “Flipping him off for the both of us, Kerry.”

“Woman after my own heart,” Kerry says, and Johnny’s jaw tenses slightly. “Anyway, I was calling — thank you, V, for Johnny’s number — to invite you to my fuckin’ show. Back in NC in a couple months.”

“Sorry, busy that night,” Johnny says, but V can see the way he sits up a little in his seat.

“Too bad.” Kerry is unconcerned with his blustering. “You’re on the guestlist. Kicked out half my management team to get you two your own box, no ain’t an answer. Preem seats.”

Johnny rolls his eyes, and then says, “I’m rolling my eyes.”

“Yeah, I know. Can see, dipshit.” Kerry launches into talking about the show he’s just finished — apparently he’s called while literally backstage, fresh from the gig, all hyped up and sweaty. V knows Johnny has a vid feed, and she wishes she did too.

Johnny listens for a while, interjecting occasionally, munching on more curry. V basks in it, in watching Johnny be alive, watching him and Kerry talk and bicker and finish each other's sentences half the time. Kerry tells some stupid story about the bassist in his band and Johnny fucking cackles at it. He never did that kind of thing in her head. The joke goes over V’s head — she can’t tell if it’s some ancient in-joke or just some music jargon that she doesn’t know — but she laughs anyway.

Kerry keeps going on and on, his voice tinny through the holo, and Johnny starts looking over to V instead. He plays it charmingly casual, loops his arm over her shoulders and rests it there. For a moment V is fooled but then Johnny leans over and kisses her again, going straight for tongue.

V pushes him back. “Dude.”

“What she said,” Kerry says, having interrupted his own story.

“What?” Johnny says. The hand around her rubs casual little circles into her shoulder as he grins. “Far from the first time you’ve talked my ear off while I had my tongue down some chick’s throat, Ker.”

“V ain’t some chick,” Kerry says with certainty. Johnny’s little circles on V’s shoulder stop. “And I don’t put up with that shit anymore.”

V sees Johnny’s eyes flick up somewhere in his vision — looking at Kerry in the holo. “Not even if I ask real nice?”

V shivers and Kerry breathes out roughly. There’s something in his tone, something deep and teasing, something that sounds like an invitation. Like maybe he wants Kerry around while they make out, and not just to make him uncomfortable.

“No,” Kerry says firmly. “You want me talkin’ in your ear while you’re makin’ out, you’re gonna have to sweeten the deal. You don’t get me for free anymore, Silverhand.” God, V wishes she could see Kerry, meet his eyes, get a read on him.

Johnny barks out a laugh. “Damn, Kerry Eurodyne with a pair of balls. Suits you.” The expression on his face turns smoldering. “Gonna pass, Ker. Gonna go fuck V. Hope you get your dick sucked good tonight.”

Johnny’s eyes go dim and he leans in toward V.

“God you’re a fucking asshole,” she says, and he hesitates, inches from her face, like he’s considering it.

“Yeah, your insults really not workin’ on me,” Johnny decides. His grin is so stupidly wide it must hurt his dimpled cheeks. “Know you’re full of shit.”

V thinks about arguing, taking the bait. It’s not going to work. Instead she leans in to kiss him and he lets her — lets her lean all the way into him, lets her lead the kiss as she opens her mouth and sucks his bottom lip. They leave the curry to get cold.

They make their way over to the bed basically immediately, Johnny pulling at V’s t-shirt and unclasping her bra as they go. His dog tags rest between her breasts. Once again he can’t keep his damn hands off her, though there’s less urgency than last night. V grabs both shoulders of her own jacket on Johnny's shoulders, tries to push it off, but he doesn’t help. He leaves both his hands on her, one on her neck and the other around her waist, and V gives up on the jacket for the moment.

V pushes Johnny down to sit on the bed and undoes his belt as she leans down to kiss him again. Johnny returns the favor, pulling at her jeans, and she obliges him, shimmying out of them but leaving her underwear. V pushes Johnny further until he’s lying on the bed and climbs over the top of him, pressing a kiss into his neck and freeing his cock. She strokes him, a gentle tease. She pushes up off him a little bit and grins, dog tags dangling over his chest.

“Want my jacket back,” she says.

Johnny stares up at her, face flush. “Take it then.”

What follows is a playful but pointless wrestle. His chrome, even geared for netrunning, makes Johnny stronger and heavier than V by quite a bit, and trying to brute force it — yanking his arms, pushing his shoulders — doesn’t do shit. Johnny does have his dick out, which is a point of weakness; V takes a moment to remember what he likes as she licks her palm, then grips his cock as well as she can, gives him a rough pull and twists her wrist, over and over. Johnny gasps suddenly and V uses her other hand to pull at the jacket, managing to free an arm.

“You fuckin’ cheater,” Johnny says, but he sounds delighted. “Fuck you.”

He said it as an expletive, not a request, but V recalls their texts this morning and smiles teasingly. “Huh, thought you wanted it the other way ‘round.”

Johnny’s stupid grin hasn’t wavered. She pulls and pushes at his shoulders and Johnny lets himself be manhandled over onto his stomach so she can pull her jacket the rest of the way off. She looks at it then tosses it over onto the floor and starts pulling at Johnny’s tee. He helps her get that off too, exposing his back and the cyberware that lines it. Thin golden lines come down from both shoulders and meet at his spine, then trail down in a wide golden seam, right down to his tailbone. V trails biting kisses up along either side of the chrome, running her tongue along the sensitive edge where chrome meets flesh. She leans her weight in the middle of his lower back and sucks hard at the back of his neck. Johnny’s breathing is rough now, and when he shifts against the mattress he makes tiny vocalisations, breathy and a little bit desperate. God, it’s all so hot, and she reaches down to palm herself over her underwear.

“Flip,” V says against his ear.

She pulls off him so he can move, over onto his back with his cock standing up flush over his belly. He strips his pants without even being told to and V gets her hand back on him, stroking lightly as she sticks her tongue in his mouth. He reaches up to cup her tits with both hands, thumbs running over her nipples, the plating in his fingers catching gently and making her breath hitch. She’s kind of straddling one of his legs, and she wonders if he can feel how wet she is against his thigh as she kisses him hard.

“Hey,” Johnny says, pulling back, both hands still on her tits, “think you said something ‘bout fucking me.”

V’s hand stills on his cock in surprise and she tries to hide her reaction. “Gonna need to be more specific,” she murmurs, pushing up on her free hand to see his face better.

Johnny pulls her in by the neck and kisses her long and deep, one hand still playing with her tit. V whines, heart racing, but he’s in no hurry. His hand leaves the back of her neck to wind through her hair. She feels him run his fingers over where her old, broken Relic is still slotted and wonders if he recognises the feel of it.

“Sit on my face first,” Johnny says as he pulls back, insanely casual, “then suck me off with a couple fingers in my ass?”

“Jesus Christ.” V leans in to kiss him furiously, trying to process that request. She grabs his face with one hand as she does, the other braced against the bed, leaning up over him. “Can’t believe you just said that.”

“I know what I want,” Johnny says simply. He grins at her and drops the casual tone as he continues filthily, “I want your preem fuckin’ pussy on my face ‘til you come, then I want my cock in your mouth deep enough you fuckin’ choke on it.”

“And fingers in your ass,” V adds, breathless, still gripping his cheek.

Johnny shrugs against the bed. “Negotiable.”

“Oh, how thoughtful of you. Is the choking on your cock negotiable?” God, his eyes are burning. She kisses him again and rolls her hips to rub against his thigh, and he must feel how wet she is now. He sucks in a gasp. “You want me to fuck you, Johnny, I’ll fuck you.”

“Finger me,” he corrects, but his eyes are still on fire and V feels the way his cock twitches against her. “But I want your pussy first.”

“Fuck,” V says, “yeah, alright.”

She hasn’t done this before so V feels a little self conscious as she pushes up onto her knees, straddling Johnny. She has to climb off him to get her underwear off, and then she just stares at him for a moment. He looks at her, a long slow grin curling his mouth, gesturing for her to come closer with one finger. V swallows all her stupid nerves — he ate her out last night for god’s sake — and straddles his neck, looking down at him. She puts her fingers in his hair and lifts up, shuffles forward on her knees, then slowly eases down.

Johnny licks up into her immediately with a muffled moan. V holds herself over him, thighs tense, feet resting against Johnny’s shoulders. She leans forward a little to brace one hand against the headboard as Johnny works her over, as he moves his hands out from under her and grabs her hips. It’s teasing, light and gentle. Johnny strains upwards to tongue her deeper and she whines. She rocks her hips slightly and breathes out thinly, leaning her head back.

Johnny moves his hands to her hips and pulls her up from his face. “God, treating me with kid gloves. Want you to fuck my face, got it?”

“Fuck,” V says, “are you sure?”

In lieu of an actual answer Johnny scowls and grabs her hips and pulls her down, hard enough that she can’t resist and sits all the way down on his face. His nose presses almost into her clit and she can feel him open his mouth wide to press his tongue up into her.

“Alright, alright,” she says with a laugh, “you’re sure.”

V moves her hand from the headboard into Johnny’s hair, and then puts her second hand there too. She braces herself, pulling against his hair decently hard, which makes him groan. Then she shifts her hips, pushing down and forwards. Basically the entire bottom half of his face rubs against her folds and she shivers.

After maybe five seconds of rolling her hips V pulls back. “Hey, you breathin’ down there?”

“I’ll tell you if I need to fuckin’ breathe, just fuck me already.” Johnny almost sounds genuinely mad. “Don’t make me beg.”

“Beg, huh…” V muses, still hovering over him, then laughs as Johnny pulls her back down again. He wants to be fucked? She can make that happen.

V pulls on Johnny’s hair again, hard enough that she tilts his head up slightly, pushing against the mattress. Then she thrusts her hips forward and down. Johnny groans and she can almost hear the ‘finally’ in it. She imagines briefly she has a dick and is fucking his mouth proper, which is a wildly hot idea but not really practical right now. Still, her heart races and her pussy fucking quivers as Johnny’s tongue circles it. God, he’s good at this, so good it makes her angry.

She fucks his face properly, and it’s so fucking obscene that her entire face and neck and chest flush with embarrassment. She presses herself down, chasing the sensation and ignoring the part of her that worries if it’s too much, until Johnny taps at her thighs and she pulls back. He takes a gasping breath and leans back with his eyes closed.

“Fuck yeah,” he says, choked and breathy.

She fucks his face again, until he taps out, and then a third time, and then, shit, she’s coming, her entire body thrumming with tension, one hand moving up to grip the headboard. It’s potentially the best fucking orgasm of her life, long and twitching and wet against Johnny’s stupid fucking face.

V just barely climbs off him and then flops backwards next to him on the mattress so they’re laying top to tail. Her knees are fucking shaking and she’s breathing like she’s just run a marathon. She doesn’t even need to see Johnny’s face to know he’s got that stupid smug grin again.

“Gimme a moment,” V says, breathless, “then I’ll…” She makes a weak jerk off gesture in the air, hopefully where Johnny can see it.

“Preem fuckin’ pussy,” Johnny says.

He doesn’t sound winded like she is; he sounds desperate, like he’s barely keeping himself from grabbing her. V figures that politeness deserves reward so she turns on her side to face him. She’s not quite lined up with his dick but with a little bit of shuffling she can make it work. He’s flushed and fucking leaking, painfully hard from having eaten her out. She wraps her hand around him slowly and strokes once, a careful tease, twisting her wrist as she reaches the head. She hears Johnny push his head into the mattress and sigh.

Before he can start getting all demanding again, V gets up and crawls around until she’s between his legs, facing his cock. Johnny sits up. He scoots backwards so he can rest against the headboard and spreads his legs wide. It’s a great fucking cock, flushed and hard, probably an average length but maybe above average thickness, somehow absurdly pretty to V’s eyes. He really lucked out with the body. His hair is blond down here, too, tight curls around the base of his cock. The light colour blends with his skin tone, making him look less hairy than he actually is. V looks up and meets Johnny’s eyes. She loosely holds him at the base and then leans in, breathing over his cock, maintaining eye contact. She sticks her tongue out, still not touching. Then she achingly slowly touches just the tip of her tongue to the underside of the head.

Johnny is watching, enraptured. “Fuck, I didn’t tease you,” he says, almost begging. “C’mon, V, help a choom out.”

V obliges and sucks him into her mouth, lips tight, as far down as she can. Johnny whines. If she’s honest, cocksucking has never been her forte — her gag reflex is too sensitive. She can use her tongue, and does, circling around underneath the shaft. She can use her hand to gently stroke the parts she can’t get in her mouth. She can use her other hand too, to massage his balls, to press gently against his taint. Johnny’s thighs twitch around her head and he fists a hand into the sheets by his hips.

Johnny fucks up into her mouth, once, not even particularly hard, and V pulls back coughing.

“My bad,” he groans, and grabs her by the hair. He doesn’t push her back onto his dick, just holds his hand there, and once it’s clear he’s not going to be an asshole about it she leans back in to blow him again.

He doesn’t thrust up again, but as she sucks him off she can tell he really fucking wants to, has to hold himself back from it with tiny aborted thrusts. Then V remembers the other half of his request, and pushes a finger in her mouth alongside his cock. Once it’s good and wet she withdraws and reaches to run it gently, so gently, over his asshole.

Johnny hisses and says, “You ain’t doing that without lube.”

Johnny has lube in his bedside table and V coats her first two fingers in it. She goes achingly slow, pressing one finger to his ass, mouth ghosting over his cock. She licks a single stripe up the underside as she slowly presses a finger in. Johnny hisses then sighs as she pushes past the rim into him. He’s hot and tight around her finger. She works her finger slowly as she blows him.

Johnny huffs a laugh, and when she looks up his eyes are glowing.

“The fuck you doing,” V says, her tone flat and dangerous. Her finger stills.

“Just texting,” he says with a slight whine, “don’t worry. Not gonna use a camera without askin’.”

“Who?” V growls.

“Ker, obviously,” he answers as he rocks his hips, trying to get some movement. “He’s lettin’ me know he’s getting his dick sucked.”

“Like right now?” V confirms.

“Yeah, like right now.”

V breathes out steadily as that sinks in, the image of Kerry getting sucked off, texting Johnny — to let him know? To piss him off? To rise to whatever challenge he’d set earlier?

After a deep breath she gets to work pushing a second finger into Johnny, real slow and careful. He hadn’t reacted much to the first finger but the second he does, arching his back slightly as he presses his shoulders into the headboard with an appreciative moan.

“Fuck. Wanna —” Johnny says haltingly, breathing heavily, “voice call him.” He breathes out a long, thin breath. “No video.”

V leans down to hide her eyes and instantly texts Kerry — He wants to voice call you rn????

She says, “You wanna talk to Kerry with my fingers in your ass?”

Johnny doesn’t comment, but he does squirm on her fingers. “Yes or no, asshole.”

Kerry replies to her text with several exclamation marks. V says, “Fuck it, do what you want, live with the consequences.”

Johnny puts his holo on speaker. She barely hears the dialtone because Kerry answers instantly.

“This better be important,” Kerry says. Fuck, his voice. If she thought Kerry sounded hot before it’s nothing compared to how he sounds while his dick is sucked, voice gravelly and taut.

“Nah,” Johnny says, equally strained as V sucks on the head of his cock. “Jus’ wanted to let you know we match.”

V texts Kerry, Holy shit Kerry holy shit

Kerry moans and tries to muffle it.

“Hah, groupie doing a good job?” Johnny asks. His tone is almost normal. He runs his hand through V’s hair again as she licks the underside of his cock and moves her fingers inside him slowly. She takes him back into her mouth, one inch at a time.

“Not bad,” Kerry says after a moment.

“V’s ain’t bad either.” Johnny pulls on her hair slightly and sighs.

V knows they used to fuck the same groupies — not at the same time, but one after the other on the same night. She suspects this conversation or something like it must’ve happened probably dozens of times over the years, but holy shit.

V pushes her fingers deeper into his ass and swirls her tongue again. Johnny groans, loud and wanting. “Oh, shit.”

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck.” Kerry almost sounds panicked. “Johnny, seriously, what —”

“Shut up, Ker,” Johnny says, basically a whine. “Hang up or don’t.”

“Not hanging up.” Kerry’s tone is a clear threat. “If you don’t hang up either, I’m expecting an in person repeat once I’m back.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Johnny says. V doesn’t believe him for a second. “You got a chick or a dude on your cock right now?”

“Does it matter?” Kerry grinds out.

“Not at all.” Johnny leans his head back luxuriously and breathes deep. “Just paintin’ a picture.”

“A chick,” Kerry says.

Johnny laughs. “We really do match.”

V decides to be a bit of an asshole and pulls off his cock. “Hey, you want a third finger in your ass, Johnny?” Johnny glares down at her ineffectively but Kerry gasps over the holo.

“Fuck, turns out we don’t match,” Kerry says breathlessly. “Got no fingers in my ass.” After a moment, he adds, “Hi, V.”

“Hey Kerry,” she says conversationally over Johnny’s dick, because why the fuck not at this point. “Missin’ you a lot right now.”

Johnny growls at that, fists a hand into her hair and pushes her back down onto his cock. Small mercies, once she’s there he doesn’t push further, but he does hold her there, grip firm and possessive.

“Only thing you should be missing is my fuckin’ cock,” Johnny says in a rough growl.

It’s kind of hot, how obviously jealous he is. He just has to be the centre of attention, especially when it comes to Kerry. In protest she holds still for a couple seconds, cock heavy in her mouth but not doing anything about it, until she relents and sucks him and works her tongue. His grip relaxes as she does.

“Aw, go easy on her.” Kerry’s voice catches from whatever his groupie chick is doing. “Oh, oh fuck,” he says desperately, probably a little involuntarily. Johnny sighs and it turns into a tiny low moan.

V continues sucking Johnny off while she works the two fingers in his ass. He’s so fucking hot and tight and he twitches around her fingers as she fucks him in careful thrusts. His thighs shake as she traces her tongue in circles against his cock, and when she manages to find his prostate he gasps comically and swears under his breath. He gets more and more noisy as time goes on. Every time he breathes out is a little vocalisation, and when she fucks him particularly hard with her fingers he outright moans.

“Fuck, V, so fuckin’ good for me,” he says thinly. “Shit. You close yet Ker? I am.”

Kerry whimpers. “God, what the fuck is your problem,” he whines, but admits, “Been on the edge since you called.”

Johnny laughs, soft and breathy. “God you’re easy. Woulda thought that new pair of balls’d help with that.”

“Fuck you,” Kerry says, and neither of them take the bait. “Go fuck yourself,” he adds, like it’s safer. “Shit, shit, I —” Kerry cuts himself off but it’s obvious from his ragged breath that he’s right fucking there on the edge.

“Go on,” Johnny says softly.

That’s clearly enough as Kerry whimpers then groans, hard and desperate as he very obviously comes. It’s pretty fucking hot. Insanely hot, actually. Johnny seems to agree because V can see him biting his lip as he takes a deep breath in — like this fucking holo call doesn’t mean shit so long as he doesn’t noisily get off on the idea of Kerry getting sucked off.

V has a nagging feeling he’s going to hang up before he comes, which doesn’t seem fair to Kerry. She redoubles her efforts on Johnny’s cock, hollowing her cheeks and swirling her tongue. At the same time she fucks him harder with her fingers, angling for his prostate, hard enough that he lets out an involuntary gasp.

“Fuck.” Johnny grips her hair and throws his head back. “Jesus Christ, fuck, harder, come on, fuck me.” V looks up and he’s back to looking down at her, eyes still glowing. She grins around his cock.

“God damn,” Kerry says, rough and winded.

V keeps up her pace and Johnny groans out loud and comes hard down V’s throat. He twitches his hips up just once, like he forgot momentarily, but V manages, twisting her fingers in his ass and swallowing as he comes.

Johnny laughs breathily as he recovers, patting V’s hair gently. “Have a good night, Ker,” he says, then hangs up.

Afterwards, as V crawls up to sit next to him against the headboard, Johnny gets out the smokes and hands her one. V obliges and barely after she’s exhaled her first drag Johnny is on her again, kissing the taste of it out of her mouth. They fall into a similar rhythm as last night, trading between V’s drags of the cig and long kisses. Unlike last night Johnny is pressed up against her, one hand on her thigh, and while she smokes he presses lazy kisses against her shoulder or her neck. V doesn’t finish the whole cigarette this time. Johnny lets her stub it against his palm, and he wipes the ash on the sheets.

He kisses her again once and squeezes her thigh, then leans backwards. “Alright, pants back on,” he says brusquely.

V’s stomach lurches. “Uh.”

Johnny rolls his eyes dramatically and kisses her again filthily. “Maybe shower first,” he mumbles against her lips. “We’re going out.”

“We are?” V asks, heart hammering.

“It’s not even ten. I’m sure as fuck not going to sleep yet, and I’m not so hair-trigger I can go another round.” He pulls back from her. “So yeah, I’m going out. Come if you want, or don’t.”

“You’re an insufferable asshole.” She doesn’t mean it even a little bit right now.

They stumble into the shower together and Johnny moves to get V off again with his fingers, but she pushes him away with a shake of her head. Instead, Johnny crowds her up against the cool tiles and kisses her filthily, then sucks an embarrassing hickey into her neck.

When they dress, V turns and sees Johnny putting on her fucking jacket again. She moves toward him and tugs at the sleeve.

“Hey, what am I meant to wear?” she asks, annoyed.

“You showed up in a jacket,” he says simply, but he rummages through his closet and tosses her something.

It’s a black leather jacket, largely unremarkable, well worn. V hesitates then pulls it on over her shirt. She has to turn away from him. She can’t look at him, not right now. His dog tags are cool against her chest, his jacket is warm over her shoulders, and his hickey is tender on her neck. It’s suffocating, but she’s not sure that she cares. Johnny can choke her out if he wants.

He drags her out to a bar she’s never heard of, a hole in the wall with a certain dirty rockerboy type charm. It’s a bit south from his place, in Vista Del Ray, far enough they catch the train rather than walk. Her megabuilding looms at her across the river until they duck inside and her senses are overwhelmed with neon and alcohol. He leads them over to the bar and has them sit on the uncomfortable bar stools. The drinks are dirt cheap and burn like hell, which Johnny seems to love. V passes on most of the drinks, hyper aware of her looming rent due date, the way they’re inching closer and closer to morning with every passing minute.

Johnny is, naturally, insane. He manages to sprawl all over her despite the barstool seating, a new drink perpetually in his hand. He attracts hanger-ons like flies, men and women and everyone else. The way his hand rests on her thigh doesn’t deter most of them, and it doesn’t deter him either, flirting shamelessly with every woman who so much as glances at him even as he pulls V close. He eyes up the men, too, though he doesn’t act on it; just a glance or two, enough to pull them over. None of them stay for long. He’s an unrepentant asshole, and it comes off more bratty than cool in this new body.

V and Johnny talk. He talks for ages about the couple gigs he’s taken in the last week, mostly to complain about all the godawful chrome in his body, how much he misses his Sandevistan and hates the hacking. She talks through a couple of weirder — but not too weird — gigs she’d taken with the other him: the poor guy with his dick on fire, Ozob the clown and his stupid nose grenade.

It feels so good and so right that it tears at V’s heart. Somehow, somehow, it’s easy. It’s easy even despite how it’s hard. V can see the edge of anger in Johnny when she talks too specifically about what the other him had said or thought. She thinks he can see her trepidation, her fear, as he pulls her against him. But, fuck, V can’t help it; the Relic had carved a Johnny-shaped hole into her soul and while they’re not the same, while there’s some edges and chafing, this Johnny still fills it. Even though he doesn’t love her. Even though he won’t love her.

When it hits midnight V really can’t make any more excuses to herself and gets up to leave. Johnny rolls his eyes — “must’ve driven me mad with how fuckin’ boring you are” — but she doesn’t give in. Before she leaves he grabs her by the face and kisses her, filthy and hungry.

“Could go for another round now,” he says, low against her lips.

“Can’t.” She pulls back.

Johnny shrugs and watches her go for a moment. Before she’s even out the door he’s sliding over to another woman at the bar with a charming and flirty grin. He wants her to see.

V tells herself it doesn’t bother her as she steps into the cold and pulls Johnny’s jacket closer around her.

Chapter Text

Somehow V has spent the last year without realising how fucking boring her job is. Tara is the only thing that makes it even remotely tolerable. They never used to talk much, but when V comes back to work Tara greets her with a hug and chatters on for most of the morning. Turns out she’s a huge music buff, has a band she plays bass for in the evenings and everything. Borrowed memory means V can largely keep pace with the discussion.

Johnny doesn’t text, and she doesn’t text him. It’s fine.

Kerry texts her a lot, and at first she thinks he’s trying to make up for being absent. After a couple days V realises that he's not making up for anything, he’s just needy — begging for attention now that he’s realised she’ll give it to him. And she does give it to him, while leaning against the stall and staring up at the slivers of sky between the highways, while ringing up a customer, while she starts Jackie’s bike to head home. Johnny comes up once when Kerry complains that he’s ignoring his texts and asks V to pull his head out of his ass; when she explains they haven’t spoken, he drops it.

Saturday comes and goes and Johnny doesn’t visit or text.

V isn’t surprised. He got what he wanted from her: an in with Rogue and some fun sex. She can’t even regret it. It’s like she’s been woken up with a jolt, like he’s lifted the wool from her eyes just by existing.

On Tuesday V is on her way home from the stall on Jackie’s bike. She and Tara are going to head to Red Dirt again, but V wants to drop the bike home and change first. Tara was pretty pumped about the band who’s up tonight — a couple friends of hers. V isn’t as excited but she is looking forward to it.

Everything comes screeching to a halt when V’s holo pings with a text from Johnny, the first in eight days.

u live in arroyo right need ur address right fukin now

V blinks. Another text comes in.

ur address and be home

V responds, What???

She eases the bike down into the megabuilding garage and fixes it to her usual pole, then sets about hiding it under some trash as she waits for a reply. She gets one only a handful of seconds later.

V. dead serious.

V bites her lip then relents, texting him her address. She texts Tara to flake out of Red Dirt then heads up the elevator, tapping her foot nervously. When she gets in Shaun and Thomas are both here. Small mercies, they’re not actively fucking, but Shaun is cooking something — actual cooking, on a portable burner she didn’t even know they had — so she suspects they’re about to have some kind of date.

Johnny knocks on the door maybe five minutes later, loud pounding with his fist. When she opens the door, he’s fucking splattered in blood, all over her yellow jacket. He looks pale and he’s gripping his side with one hand, leaning against the doorframe with the other. His honey blond hair sticks to his forehead from sweat and he’s breathing shallow and fast.

“Holy motherfucking shit,” V says. Johnny shifts his hand and V gets a glimpse of an obvious gunshot wound beneath it. He's dripping blood onto the threshold. “Did you get fucking shot?!”

Whatever conversation Shaun and Thomas were having instantly quiets. The only noise in the apartment is the spluttering stove and Johnny’s ragged breathing.

“Nah,” he drawls weakly, “my side is always blown open like this.”

“Shit,” V says, mind racing. She moves to grab his shoulder and help him over to the couch. Fucking hell, the bloodstains are going to be impossible. “Why the fuck come here? Don’t you got a ripper?” She sets him down on the couch. “Ah, shit, hold on.”

Before he can answer she sprints to the bathroom where their first aid kit is. It’s probably years out of date but gunshot wounds are common enough that there should be a shot kit in there, and there is. The fact that all the gear is expired is irrelevant; V knows from experience that expired shit mostly just means the painkillers have faded, but it still works.

When she returns, Thomas blocks her way. “What the hell, Val,” he says, “this some merc? You can’t bring people like that in here, you wanna get us all killed?”

V’s eyes widen with fury. “You don’t like it, you can get the fuck out.”

Thomas flinches, shocked at her tone. He and Shaun exchange glances, and they both scurry out the door.

V refocuses on Johnny, setting the first aid kit on the couch, then ripping open the gunshot kit. She eases him out of her jacket, then out of his tank as well.

“So,” Johnny says through his teeth as V starts trying to treat the wound. “Val, huh?”

V doesn't hear him, focus locked to the gunshot. It’s not as nasty as she thought, pretty clean, small caliber, not hollowpoint. No exit wound. She’s pretty sure it will have missed any major organs, and hopefully hasn’t nicked anything too important. The fact that he’s still conscious at minimum ten minutes post-gunshot means that it hasn’t hit any major arteries, at least. It’s clear he’d jammed whatever meds he had in there, enough to slow the bleeding and tide him over, but whatever it was is wearing off now. There’s so much fucking blood. She can’t breathe.

“I’m not a fucking ripper, why come here.” V pulls out the coagulating antibiotic gel from the kit and smears it deep into the wound. Johnny flinches and hisses. “Yeah, asshole,” she says in response to his obvious pain, “all the shit’s expired so it’s gonna fucking hurt. What you get for coming to me instead of an actual fucking doctor.”

She tries to be gentle but there’s no way to gently stop bleeding; she has to lean her whole body weight down as the coagulant does its job, palms flat against his torso. Johnny groans through his clenched teeth.

“Don’t know any rippers in Arroyo,” he says with a thin breath out. He’s gripping the couch with both hands, taking shallow breaths, neck straining as he clenches his jaw. Sweat runs down his face.

“Moron.” She lets up with her hands slightly and blood oozes but doesn’t flow. Her hands are a fucking mess, wet with his blood, dripping with it. She’s overwhelmed and afraid and fucking furious as she moves on to the next step in the kit. “Fucking get to know one. There’s one south on the river, by the waterfront."

The next step is literally plugging the wound. Gunshot kits were designed to stop you bleeding out before you could get to a real doctor, not to actually treat the wound. V has to push the wad of bio-gauze into the wound, past the skin and in amongst his muscles and soft tissue. Johnny whines pitifully and swears in pain. She watches for a moment as the white material swells and turns red as it soaks the oozing blood.

At least the last step is easy. A big flexskin bandage that goes over the top of the whole thing and seals against his torso. V lets out a long thin breath and presses her forehead into the couch next to him. Her hands are still soaked with his blood, leaving horror-movie handprints anywhere she touches. The whole fucking couch is going to be ruined.

“V,” Johnny says, and V looks up at him.

He grabs her face with both hands and drags her up to kiss him. It doesn’t have his usual hardness, probably because of the blood loss. She can’t help but grab his face in return, instinctual, and her bloody hands cover his cheeks. She kisses back desperately, and he’s hot and panting and alive beneath her lips. His left hand is covered in his own blood and it leaves a mess on her right cheek. She’s leaving giant red smears on his face, bloody fingerprints on his temples. They kiss between gasping breaths, recapturing each other’s mouths over and over. Johnny grabs one of her wrists in his hand and pulls it off his cheek; it sticks slightly and pulls at his skin. Wordlessly, he leans back, eyes dark. With his grip around her wrist he moves her hand and sucks a single bloody finger of hers into his mouth, tongue swirling around it. V pulls back like she’s been burned.

“I gotta —” V says, breathing fast, eyes wide. “Wash up. I gotta wash up.”

She’s shaking as she turns around toward the bathroom. She tries to tell herself he’s not dying, that the kit would hold for a couple hours minimum, more than enough time to get to a ripper. His blood is all over her hands, just the one finger clean. Her wrist has a rough, bloody handprint wrapped around it. She has memories of his, of brawls and cuts and steel strings digging into soft fingers, of the nightmare when they took Alt, but she’s never actually seen him bleed before.

V scrubs her hands in the sink desperately, watching as the water runs red down the drain. She doesn’t turn on the mirror. She doesn’t want to see his blood on her face. It feels too much, too intimate, too intense. Fucking hell, he could’ve died today. He could’ve died and she wouldn’t have even known, would’ve thought he just got bored of her. Fuck, he was bored of her. If he hadn’t been dying in Arroyo she never would’ve gotten a text. But also — he was near dying and he was here. Kissing her. Fuck. She rests her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror screen for a moment, but it doesn’t help. She turns her hands over. There's blood beneath her nails she can’t get out.

As V returns to the main room she realises she can smell something burning. She turns and shit, Shaun left the fucking burner on and whatever he had in the pan is starting to smoke. Furious, V stomps over and turns it off, slams the hot pan into the sink and fills it with cold water. Steam erupts into her face and she splutters and coughs, stepping backwards as her eyes water. Johnny laughs at her and she sees red.

V turns to tell him to shut up, to ask him what the fuck he’s playing at with fucking any of this, to tell him how dare he get shot and come here dying, but her words die on her lips. He’s got a smug grin and a cig in his mouth. Before she can ask how he got over his cigarette issue she follows his arm down to where he’s jammed an epipen and a fast-acting antihistamine into his gut, mirroring the gunshot, both held awkwardly in the one hand. There’s a couple of used airhypos next to him as well, clearly taken from her first aid kit.

Johnny takes a long, satisfied drag and exhales a cloud of smoke. “Check it out,” he drawls, pleased with himself. Asshole is at risk of bleeding out and has given himself a shot of pure, heart-racing adrenaline so he can smoke a fucking cigarette.

V has never been so fucking furious in her damn life, fear rearing up inside her and twisting into rage. She storms over and yanks the cig from his mouth, throws it down on the carpet and stubs it, uncaring about the burn mark. She yanks the antihistamine and the epipen out of him and tosses them to the side. Then, possessed by a fury so uncontrollably, impossibly burning hot it must be a holdover from the Relic, she slaps him clean across the face. His face turns with the force of it and he gasps involuntarily.

“I am going to fucking kill you,” V says, blood rushing in her ears, “before you can kill your god damn self.” For a moment she really means it. Her heart is hammering as she looks him over. The bandage still is in place and not leaking. She’s shaking and her body is falling apart; she’s going to vibrate into fucking pieces, she can feel it.

“Fu—uck,” Johnny says, almost a moan. He laughs weakly with a crazed grin, throat exposed as he tilts his head to look up at her. “And undo all your hard work?”

V meets his eyes and suddenly realises that he’s really, really fucking into this — his blood smearing both their faces, her anger, the pain, the wooziness from the blood loss, the slap. She could fuck him right now and he’d beg for it.

“Jesus Christ.” V can’t think. “I don’t — fuck,” she says, overwhelmed with it all, with the taste of Johnny’s blood in her mouth. She turns and walks straight out of the apartment.

Ten minutes later V is in the elevator on her way back up to the apartment. The blood on her cheek is dry and itchy. She sucks on the cigarette in her mouth desperately then exhales real slow. Once the elevator arrives she stubs it on the floor and makes her way around to her apartment. There’s a faint, spotty trail of blood through the corridors that Johnny must’ve left on the way up.

As she opens the door V runs through what she wants to say. She doesn’t really want to apologise, but she does want to make sure he’s okay, wants to offer to take him to a ripper. She wants to be something better than just angry.

She’s greeted by an empty apartment. Johnny is gone, and so is her entire first aid kit. Later this evening she’ll discover her dinner and some of Shaun’s beers are missing as well, but right now she stares at the empty couch as her stomach lurches. He even took her bloodied yellow jacket.

She pulls up her holo and types out, Least lemme know you’re alive. She deletes it, then types it out again, then closes her holo with the draft sitting in the text box. She sits down on the bloodstained couch and tries not to panic. Fuck, damn it all to hell. It only takes a moment before V caves entirely and opens the holo again and texts him.

At least let me know you’re alive. Please.

V barely sleeps that night. Neither Thomas nor Shaun return to the apartment. She has a stupid long shower, washes the last of his blood from her arms and face in the heat and the steam, then lays in bed alone for hours. Her holo is damn silent.

Work the next day is worse than ever. She tries to disengage like she used to, but there’s something gnawing in her heart that stops her from being able to reach that place anymore. She nearly drops the capacitor she’s holding when her holo pings but it’s just Kerry, texting her some stupid photo of him during soundcheck. Tara has the afternoon off, so she’s alone for the entire afternoon, gripping at the bench with both hands.

When she gets home she has an argument with Thomas and Shaun. It ends with them basically kicking her out — giving her notice to leave, they say. She has about a month to find somewhere else to live. Fucking fantastic. At least she doesn’t have to pay to replace the damn couch. She can’t bear to spend the evening here with them, so she pulls on Johnny’s jacket and heads out the door.

V ends up at a dingy bar somewhere in Arroyo. She’s not certain where. She had left the apartment and walked, picking a random direction and letting her legs carry her. She can’t — she still can’t think about any of it. When she tries, it’s too big, too much, and she shies away from it involuntarily. She slams back two tequila shots and rests her head on the bar. She imagines Johnny sitting beside her without even really meaning to. He had been untouchable; now the real Johnny was very, very touchable, for better and worse. She pulls up her holo, just in case: nothing.

Pathetic, she thinks. Bailed on him and now you’re sulking that he bailed right back. There’s a drawl to her thoughts that prompts her to grab the bartender’s attention and order another drink.

On her way home some asshole bumps into her at the station, and she mumbles an apology. When the stranger realises V is drunk, their expression hardens into a threat and they start posturing, but V is so fucking fucked up that she pulls her Malorian from her belt and swings it up directly to the centre of the dick’s forehead, fast enough they freeze with fists halfway raised. If they have ‘ware she’s in big trouble, but she doesn’t care. They pale instantly and fuck right off, and V keeps her gun on them until she can’t see them anymore. Then she keels over and throws up on the tracks, gripping the edge of the platform until she hears the horn of the train.

V slips back to the apartment late enough that Thomas and Shaun are asleep and collapses directly into her stupid tiny bed nook. She doesn’t cry, but her eyes leak tears regardless, enough that her pillow gets damp.

V doesn’t hear from Johnny the following morning as she takes the metro to work, leaving the bike at home. She doesn’t hear from him as she eats tasteless scop on her lunch break. She doesn’t hear from him on the train home as the sun sets. She doesn’t hear from him as she enters the apartment, which is thankfully empty, though not for long; Shaun and Thomas get home about an hour after she does. They dance around each other for a tense fifteen minutes before V caves and once again grabs Johnny’s jacket and turns to leave.

This time she heads to a diner rather than a bar and eats the cheapest thing on their menu — shit she’s pretty sure is just repackaged and priced up SCSM burritos. She thinks about how she should start looking for somewhere to live but stares absently out of the window instead of doing anything about it.

V puts her head in both hands. “One more night of sulking," she says quietly, “alright? Tomorrow I’ll suck it up and get on with it.” The only response is the chatter of the diners.

The following morning she forces herself to ride the bike to work. During a quiet period she digs out an old terminal from the bottom of a pile of junk and tries booting it up. It doesn’t work, so she spends her lunch break with it cracked open on the floor, cleaning and resoldering connections until the thing finally boots. It’s much harder and slower without her old implants, but it’s not like she doesn’t have the time. As it gets later in the day the customer traffic picks up — people out on the town on a Friday evening, filling the market space, largely heading toward the food stalls. She takes the terminal with her when she heads home. Only Thomas is home when she arrives, but after a half hour or so Shaun shows up and V takes her cue to leave, once again swinging Johnny’s jacket around her shoulders.

As she steps out of the apartment, she finds herself face to face with Johnny, hand raised to knock. She stops in her tracks and relief floods through her, followed swiftly by a rolling anger. He’s wearing her yellow jacket. Most of the bloodstains are gone, but there’s a couple flecks that he’s missed. He lets his hand drop.

His face is neutral. “You headin’ out?”

V casts a glance over her shoulder into the apartment. Shaun shoots her a glare and she steps forward enough to close the door, almost brushing against Johnny, who doesn’t move. “Yeah. Housemates pretty pissed at me right now.”

Johnny grimaces, then shoves both his hands in his jacket pockets and looks away from her, taking a step back. “Right.”

“Thanks for letting me know you didn’t bleed out in an alleyway,” V says, angry but unable to summon the energy for anything more than sarcasm. “Must be real hard to send a text.”

“Kid, you freaked the fuck out and left me bleeding.” Johnny turns back to face her. His expression is hard and closed off. “Don’t owe you shit.”

Now it’s V’s turn to look away. “I know,” she says, and adjusts his jacket up around her shoulders, shrinking into it. “What’re you doing here?”

She hears Johnny sigh. “Prolly saved my life or some shit. Thought I’d say thanks.” V looks back at him, but there’s nothing in his face or stance that suggests insincerity. She swallows past the sudden lump in her throat.

“Just returning the favour.” She’s not sure which version of him she’s paying back anymore.

“Funny, way I heard it I was killin’ you,” Johnny says wryly.

V moves past that without comment. “So did you have some kinda plan for the evening? Or were you just gonna say thanks and fuck off?”

Johnny eyes her up critically. “Was planning to fuck you,” he drawls, pulling his hands from his pockets to cross them over his chest. He cocks his hip. It’s embarrassing, the little thrill that runs through her. “Unless you were gonna give me a repeat and freak again.”

“Fuck you.” Her voice breaks a little but she pretends it doesn’t. “So sorry that you dying doesn’t turn me on.”

“It was the part where I stopped dying that was doin’ it for me,” Johnny says casually, then flashes her a filthy grin. “That and the slap, damn. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

V isn't phased, by sheer force of will. “I’m gonna get dinner,” she says, then steels herself and uses his own words against him. “Come if you want, or don’t.” She pushes past him like she doesn’t give a shit whether he follows.

Johnny barks out a laugh and follows behind her. “Ooh, playin’ it cool are we,” he says scathingly. “Gonna have to put on a better show than that to fool me, babe.” The last time he’d called her babe he wielded it like a knife, cold and cruel. This time is still sharp, but not quite as cruel.

“And yet you’re following me,” V muses, swallowing all her emotions. She turns through the corridors toward the elevator.

“Only one way out of the building,” he points out. V jabs at the elevator button angrily. As they step inside, Johnny says, “Taco place a couple blocks north is good.”

“Preem,” V says casually, still trying to play it cool. She doesn’t look at him, trying to hide that she’s surprised he isn’t just fucking off.

Johnny sighs and steps directly into her line of sight as the elevator lurches. “Get the fuck over it.”

“Over what?”

He gestures at her. “Whatever’s put a stick up your ass.”

V stares outright at Johnny. “You put a stick up my ass!” she exclaims, then warns, “Don’t.” He doesn’t make the obvious joke, so she continues, “No contact for over a week, then you show up dying, ruin my housing situation, steal my meds and my dinner, then don’t even say if you’re alive for three days!” Fuck, she’s shaking again.

“There we go,” Johnny says with a grin. “That’s more like it.” His tone gets a touch angrier. “Not like you texted me either. Then you freaked and left me bleeding out.” His eyes are locked on her, arms crossed, grin gone.

“I freaked cause you were dying and jammed yourself with pure fucking adrenaline for a fucking cigarette!” V is breathing heavily and she squeezes her fists so hard her palms ache from the way her fingernails dig into flesh. She screws her eyes closed just as tight. Suddenly it’s like a dam breaking, everything that was too much to look at before torn open right in front of her. Her caution with him flips into gut-wrenching fury and she opens her eyes to glare at him.

“You were dying and I couldn’t do a goddamn fucking thing!” she yells, rounding on him furiously. “I’m fucking nobody! You don’t give half a goddamn shit about me — well fucking good! I know what you’re like and I know I’m not what you want, so stop stringing me the fuck along and fuck right off!”

She turns away from him abruptly and breathes out shakily. Her shoulders are up around her ears and her eyes burn.

Johnny is staring at her in her peripherals. “Wasn’t gonna die, and you knew it,” he says, quiet and controlled.

V crosses her arms and refuses to face him, itching to get out of there, clenching her teeth. Neither of them speak and Johnny keeps fucking staring the rest of the ride. V starts moving the second the elevator shudders to a stop.

V leaves, walking briskly. She doesn’t look to see what Johnny is doing. She’s not in the mood for it right now. Having no future has been a sad ache for so long — she prefers the sadness to this new hot anger. This tenuous thing she’s had with Johnny, the tension and the yearning, shit, suddenly she’d rather it be fucking done. Clean fucking break or whatever. There’s a bar just across the street from the megabuilding, because of course there is. It’s dingy and pretty empty, booths against the wall, papered over windows, awful fake neon lighting. V walks in and heads over to the counter to order a drink.

As the bartender takes her order — cheapest whiskey they have, neat — an arm slings itself over her shoulder.

“Make it two,” Johnny says to the bartender, leaning into her. “You got food here? Two of whatever’s cheapest.”

V closes her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath through clenched teeth. “Johnny, I —”

“Thanks,” Johnny interrupts, not even looking at the bartender as they put the two drinks down. He takes both glasses in one hand, grabbing them from over the top and pinching them together, fingers in the whiskey. He steers them both over to a booth with the arm over her shoulder, directs V to sit and crowds in next to her, putting down the drinks. He licks the whiskey off his fingers like an afterthought.

V rests her elbows on the table and puts her head in her hands. “Johnny…” she says, this time uncertainly.

Johnny says, “You know what I really hate?”

The fruit is too low hanging to pass up. V lists on her fingers: “Arasaka, the music industry, at least half the people in Night City, the government, people with bumper stickers,” she takes a dramatic breath, “Samurai cover bands, most lazrpop, long sleeve shirts, commercialisation, me, yours—”

“Hate when people think they know what I want,” he says sharply, cutting across her. He raps his fingers against the table. “Can count on one hand the number of times they’ve been right.” V stays silent, staring at the table. It’s plastic carved to look like wood. “I really gotta spell it out? Stop fucking thinking so much. You don’t know what I want. Fucking find out.”

V eyes up her whiskey. She’s not sure how it is that he’s so blasé when she feels like she’s in a fucking hurricane. She fiddles with her glass, running her fingers over the rim. “Fine. What do you want?”

“I wanna eat dinner, get smashed, then fuck each other’s brains out,” Johnny says easily. V looks over at him in surprise, finger stilled against the rim of her glass. He’s looking back at her, no pretense in his expression. “Then I wanna do it again sometime. Not fuckin’ rocket science. Simplest shit in the universe.”

“Nothing about this” — V gestures vaguely between them — “is simple.”

He shrugs. “Could be.” He looks at her like he's waiting.

Johnny is, of course, dead wrong. This could never be simple. She loves a ghost of him; he doesn’t give a shit about her beyond a good fuck. But — shit, an admission like that, from him? It spikes a dangerous hope in her gut, even as she tempers it down.

When V had kissed him that first time, she had done it while letting go how she felt. She had just let herself be in the moment, no matter how fucked it was. It wasn’t ever going to be simple, but if she can keep up the ‘fuck it’ attitude, maybe they can both at least enjoy themselves until it comes crumbling down. Johnny is, in spirit, right about that.

It feels like the second time she’s come to the same damn decision. It feels pathetic. She has a terrible feeling it won’t be the last time.

V picks up her whiskey and downs as much as she can in one go. It burns, and she thinks it might be cut with CHOO2. She runs her hand through her hair and takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I’m sorry for leaving you in the apartment,” she says carefully, eyes back on the fake woodgrain. “Shoulda taken you to a ripper first, freaked the fuck out later.” Johnny huffs like he’s surprised. She supposes she is jumping back in the conversation a bit. Whatever, she’d rather not let resentment lie.

“You shoulda,” he agrees, but his voice is a little softer. He takes a drink of whiskey. “Gave you my holo for a reason. Not exactly trying to ghost you.”

“Sure,” V says hesitantly. It’s nowhere near an apology, but it feels like one.

Johnny puts one arm over her shoulders again. He grabs her chin with his other hand and turns her face so he can lean in to kiss her. His mouth tastes like the awful whiskey and his body is warm as he leans over and into her. He kisses open-mouthed and lazily, lacking the urgency that V is used to from him.

When he pulls back, Johnny grins and bumps their noses together affectionately. V’s breath catches in her throat. “What I gotta do to get you to slap me like that again?”

V laughs and ducks her head into his shoulder, solid and real. It’s too hard to meet his eyes. “Ask real nicely,” she says, forehead against her own yellow jacket. “And go check whether they’ve got our food.”

Johnny does, and he comes back with more drinks — tequila this time, mid shelf — and two baskets of food. Neither of them can quite work out what it is — V thinks it’s bad synthmeat, Johnny thinks it’s very bad potato — but it’s cheap and fried and salty. They eat. V doesn’t get smashed but she gets pretty tipsy; she has no clue how drunk Johnny is but he’s definitely not sober. V wishes they could walk back over to hers, but if she brought Johnny home again she’s pretty sure Thomas and Shaun would shorten her eviction timeline considerably. They talk about nothing, about a novel V started six months ago but never got past the first page, about Kerry’s new single, about Johnny’s cheap guitar that he’s pushing to its limits.

At one point when she’s at her most inebriated, at risk of stepping over from tipsy into real drunk, V finds herself staring at Johnny with a soft smile on her face. He’s so different, but he’s so the same, but he’s so different. Sometimes she sees him out of the corner of her eye and she swears she sees his old black hair, a flash of chrome on his left, like his sense of self is so strong it breaks from his mind into the real. Sometimes he says things that catch her so off guard she feels winded. Sometimes she knows exactly what he’s about to say, could speak it at the same time, word for word.

“Fuck you gawkin’ at?” Johnny demands.

“I’m so glad you gave me a chance,” V says unthinkingly. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Johnny pauses, then huffs and looks down into his drink. “Seven million people in this bitch of a city,” he says pensively. He sounds almost fond. “Ya got lucky.” He turns and smiles at her and V thinks her heart might burst right out of her chest. She knows exactly what he’s going to say as his smile turns to a smirk. “Let’s go fuck each other’s brains out.”

They fuck at Johnny’s place, tipsy and tripping over each other. Johnny eats her out, because he loves to, and she swears he’s getting better at it somehow. V rides his cock. He asks real nice so she slaps him, not as hard as he wants, and he lets her pin his arms as she rides him, panting directly into her mouth. Afterwards, V has a cigarette, sitting against the headboard, and Johnny kisses the smoke from her lips. V gets up to clean up and shower. When she comes back to get her clothes Johnny pulls her back to bed and she figures that getting to work from Kabuki isn’t much harder than from her place, so she stays.

V wakes in the morning up with Johnny’s mouth on her tits and his hand on his cock. She laughs as he climbs over her and pushes her down, then moans as he fucks her, rough and quick, toe-curlingly good as she sucks a hickey desperately into his neck, gasping his name as she comes. They slump back down into the pillows and Johnny all but jams a cigarette into her mouth. God, her budding addiction is going to go haywire after all this. Oh well; there are worse things to be addicted to.

Chapter Text

V’s apartment-hunting is going miserably. Maybe it’s because she refuses to live in a complete shithole, or maybe she’s just unlucky, but there’s hardly anything that fits her admittedly tight budget. It’s also hard to find the time to answer calls while she’s on the clock, despite Tara being incredibly understanding about it all. She’s gone back to taking the train in the mornings and does as much as she can on the commute, squeezing in all her holocall interviews with potential housemates. It’s been about a week since Johnny was shot, which means she has about three weeks left to find somewhere.

It’s Monday morning, so there’s not many customers. V sits in the stall on her old little terminal, plugging away at apartment listings. Her holo pings. It’s Johnny.

kill me fuckin kill meeeeeeeeeeeeeee

V valiantly tries to ignore him as he sends several more texts, variants on the same theme. Eventually she gives up on her housing situation and opens her holo.

She fucks around with the text for a little and then sends: ︻╦╤─✷ BANG!

Johnny doesn’t reply immediately so she follows it up with, What’s your problem?

He responds, ur netrunner kid is the fuckin worst

Getting into DogTown had been upsettingly easy. Whatever the FIA had done three years ago to get her on the whitelist had stuck, and no-one so much as looked up from their post when she had driven in, gun on her hip and a shard full of Johnny’s eddies in her pocket. The kid netrunner in the EBM stadium, Sammy, had been probably the best ‘runner V had met outside of the Voodoo Boys. Her assumption he’d only gotten better with an additional three years was correct. He’d even remembered her, against all odds, and a chunk of Johnny’s daemon money had ended up as hush money instead. The rest had gotten Johnny some passable daemons and a reliable contact.

Come on, he’s fine. Cocky but earned it, V responds.

earned it my ass. little cunt making me wait just to piss me off. last time i listen to ur advice

Last time I give you any, V replies, then closes her holo and stands up to do her actual job.

That evening, V loiters around the market after work until Johnny texts her that he’s arrived. He’s driving yet another stolen car. As she climbs in, V says, “Y’know you can actually own a car?”

“Already do,” Johnny says as he starts the engine. “Some bitch is keepin’ it from me.” He looks at her pointedly, but doesn't push it.

They stop in the city centre for some takeout burritos — actual ones, not SCSM scop — from a neon-drenched drive through. Johnny drives them north, the bag of food hot on V’s lap. He goes up to the north end of Watson, where apartments give way to abandoned industrial buildings and towering smoke pylons. As they drive, the sun sets, and the shadows grow. He pulls over on some side street in the industrial district, across the road from a sprawling abandoned factory. The street is quiet, not another soul in sight. There are hardly any lights on, just sparse flickering yellow streetlights and the dark empty buildings. When Johnny cuts the engine, the night is quiet, shadows deep and blue, with only distant, muffled traffic noises rolling in the background.

“Hey, uh,” V says, “what are we doing here?” She had been pretty content to let Johnny take the lead and had assumed he had some kind of plan, but he hasn't made any move to get out of the car.

Johnny jabs a thumb across the road at the abandoned factory. “Stakeout.”

V has a sudden sinking feeling. “What?”

“Some media fuck’s supposedly doin’ some shady deal here tonight.” He reaches over to stick his hand into the bag on her lap. “Regina — you know her? Fixer media chick? Wants proof.”

“We’re on a fucking job?” V’s heart leaps into her throat. “What the fuck, Johnny, what the fuck?”

“Fuckin’ chill,” Johnny says with an eyeroll. “Dead simple, you don’t gotta do nothin’. Sit there and look pretty.” He grins at her. V does not grin back. “Just gotta take a damn picture. Gave it to me to prove some stupid point.” He scoffs. “Fuckin’ stupid, shit easy job. Eds are eds though.”

“And if it goes bad, Johnny?” V spits out.

Johnny shrugs. “Won’t. Or you can actually drive me to a ripper this time.”

“I’ll get you fucking killed,” she says, desperate.

Johnny looks at her out of the corner of his eyes. He’s holding his burrito with both hands, but he hasn’t unwrapped it yet. “Pretty sure you outshot me.”

“On a range, with targets moving at walking pace. A single fucker with so much as a reflex booster and I’m dead on the ground.”

“Fuckin’ hell, V.” He huffs in frustration. “Easiest gig in the world. We’re gonna sit here and eat and in like an hour some assholes are gonna walk past. We’re gonna take a fuckin’ picture, then we’re gonna sit around for a while. Then we delta. Ain’t even mercs.”

V’s heart is fucking hammering and her palms are sweaty. “And when they see us, because we’re the only fucking car on this whole fucking block?”

“Then they’ll see two gonks making out in a stolen car and think we’re gonks and nothing more.” Johnny shrugs and starts peeling the foil from his burrito.

As far as covers go it’s not terrible, but it’s not exactly great either. If it were V she’d be a block away on a rooftop with a twenty-times zoom on her Kiroshis. “You never heard of a fucking zoom lens? Why are we so close?”

Johnny shrugs a single shoulder. “Easier.” He turns to face her properly and frowns. “You good?”

V is pretty sure there’s genuine concern in Johnny’s voice. In any other circumstance she’d be pretty touched. But — she’s pretty sure there’s some pity there, too. Her hands shake but she grabs her burrito from the bag and unwraps it.

“I’m fine.” She shoves a large bite into her mouth.

“Preem,” he says, unbothered by her obvious discomfort. V takes a second bite of her burrito, but she’s really not hungry anymore.

They eat in silence for several minutes. V wraps her burrito up after her second bite while Johnny munches away. V stares down at her hands as she fumes about the whole situation.

“I’m real mad about this,” V says into the silence, right as Johnny finishes his food. “Dead serious. Don’t fucking do this again.”

“Fine,” Johnny says, voice harsh. He ratchets his seat back as far as it goes, then kicks his legs up beside the wheel. “Question. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“Fuck you.” V tenses her jaw. She doesn’t want to play her question game right now, but, fuck, the rules they’d established, she wants to keep those. Maybe she can weasel out of it with a joke, or something he already knows. Or —

“Come the fuck on.” Johnny’s voice cuts across her thoughts. “You know mine.”

“Everyone fuckin’ knows yours, Johnny,” V says, biting.

Johnny grunts. “You know all of mine.”

V bites at the scar on her lip and feels her heart ache. She really doesn’t want to get into it, but, fuck — he’s right, she does know all of his. She starts trying to decide what tops the list. Killing Johnny is an obvious answer but feels like a cop out. There’s a lot of shit that makes the list — stupid mistakes, bad judgement calls. Worse.

“You trying to pick the worst of a few? Save you the trouble,” Johnny drawls, leaning his head on one hand, arm braced against the door. “Next question’s gonna be the second worst.”

V huffs and makes a call. “You hear about the plane that went down in DogTown three years ago?”

“When the fuck would I have heard about that?” Johnny snaps. “Didn’t pipe fuckin’ news feeds into hell.”

V literally bites her tongue to stop herself from escalating and takes a deep breath. “Well, it had the NUSA prez on board.”

“Jesus, V, don’t tell me you got me wrapped up in the fuckin’ feds.”

“Gonna let me get through this?” V says. Johnny rolls his eyes but stays quiet. “So, President Myers was there, and her netrunner, Songbird. Long story short, Song helped bring the plane down cause she was after some tech in DogTown, but it all went tits up and she got in deep. And Song, she — shit, she was on some next level nutrunner shit. Like, Soulkiller-level, change-the-world shit.

“But — she was sick. Real sick, like I was. Had some Blackwall thing in her head, I dunno. ‘S what she wanted the tech for — said she had a cure. Said it would work on us, too. Roped us in to save her, get the tech, get her out of the FIA.”

V pauses to collect her thoughts. Johnny has been staring at her pretty intensely since she’d mentioned a cure. She looks down at her fingers and fiddles with them.

“We worked with a few FIA agents,” she continues. “I joined up, I guess. I was the only one Song could, or maybe would, contact, so they needed me. Did it through the Relic. She showed up to me like a ghost too. Real weird, really fucked with you. Of course, the FIA told me to betray her, so they could leash her again.”

“And you told them to go fuck themselves, end of story?” Johnny says scathingly, clearly knowing that wasn’t the case.

“Didn’t tell them that,” V says pointedly, glancing at him briefly, “in case they decided I was too much of a risk and put a bullet through my brain. But that was the plan. Then Song tells me she lied. The cure — only one dose. Her or me.” V looks straight ahead out the windscreen. The street is deathly quiet.

“Think I’m startin’ to see how this plays out.” Johnny does not sound sympathetic.

“Fuck you.” V turns back to face him. “I betrayed the FIA, got Song out. Got her all the way to the spaceport — she was gonna take her cure to the moon, get fixed. And, I mean, I’m thinking, maybe if she gets fixed up, she can figure out another miracle cure for us? But mostly I’m thinking, fuck, we can’t let her get cooped up by the FIA again. Even if it fucks our only chance.”

V sighs heavily, looking down at the foil-wrapped burrito on her lap. “When we got there, we were stopped by the FIA guy we were working with, Reed. He was there at the launcher, just me and him. He promised me the cure if I just set her down, handed her over, and —” She cuts herself off and takes a deep breath as her eyes burn. Shit, she thought she’d be able to talk through this. “I couldn’t fucking do it. I couldn’t shoot him. Reed, he’s… He’s a good guy. Shit, all he ever did was hurt her, but he loved her, obviously, clearly. God, he’s so fucking principled, ’cept his principles were set in stone when he was fourteen or something and didnt change when shit got more complicated.”

It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is that she’d spent months, months, at that point, psyching herself up to kill Johnny. The longer things had gone on, the more she dreaded it, the less and less certain was that she’d be able to do it at all. She loved him. He loved her. She’d burned with the desire to live, sharp and precise. She knew she had to do it. Johnny wanted her to do it. Neither of them had realised how bad it would be, afterwards.

Then there had been Reed, and — shit, she couldn’t handle killing two friends, not directly, not with her own hands. She’d given in: a weakness, an impulse. The moment to act passed. Then she’d seen the look in Reed’s eye, the one that said he wouldn’t have hesitated had she not folded. She couldn’t watch as Reed took Song’s body away. The FIA had wanted Song to live; maybe she did. There were worse fates than death.

“Jesus,” Johnny says. “You got a hell of a type, V.”

V flips him off on reflex, not looking at him. “Shut up. All he ever did was hurt Song, but I couldn’t fucking kill him, so I basically signed Song’s death warrant instead.” V laughs bitterly. “Cause that’s so much better when it’s not by my hand, right?”

“Signed hers and mine both,” Johnny says. “FIA fucks were the ones who killed me?”

V bites her lip again. “Yeah.”

“Seventy-five years late, but the NUS fuckin’ military still collects its dues.” Johnny is so bitter it’s caustic.

“So there you go. That’s the worst fucking thing I’ve ever done.”

There’s a long silence. V tries to think of a question. She needs a hard one, in response to that.

“Alright, my turn,” she says, no-nonsense, forcing herself to look at Johnny. He stares back impassively. “What happened when you woke up? How’d you kill the kid in their own head?”

Johnny shifts uncomfortably and obviously, pulling his legs down from the dash. He grinds his teeth and looks away, across to the abandoned factory. Then he glances back at her out of the corners of his eyes. “When your guy woke up. What d’you say? Headache, then he’s over you, hits you?”

“Threatened to kill me, demanded a smoke, called me a whore, slammed my head into a wall, then told me to kill myself,” V says flatly past the lump in her throat, listing on her fingers, “but yeah, basically.”

Johnny leaves all that without comment, which means he’s going to give her a proper answer. “Don’t need to tell you what Mikoshi was like.”

It’s a statement, not a question. He's correct. Even now, there are times when V’s nightmares have that strange, echoey emptiness.

“Woke up from that with a raging headache and I’m fuckin’… I got no clue. Thought it was a dream, or — shit. I’m in a BD or something is what I think, cause it’s like I’m in the body but I’m not. Can see where I am but I can’t.”

Johnny drums his fingers on the wheel, over and over. His other hand reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a pair of aviators, which he slides over his eyes.

“I get this… memory, of breaking into ‘Saka Tower, netrunning not shooting, and it feels fucking normal. Real fuckin’ genius netrunner, this kid. Prolly also coulda done Soulkiller level shit if they cared to. I get all this data from skulking around the outside, enough to make it big, but I — they get wind of the Relic. They want it, the real deal, the secret one, not the shit they sell to rich assholes. Digital fuckin’ immortality.”

Johnny pauses. His fingers still for a moment before he starts tapping again, four fingers in a line, rap-rap-rap-rap. Half his fingers are covered in plating and make a distinct sound against the wheel, turning the four taps into pairs.

“Don’t remember. Gets fuzzy. Next thing I know I'm me again, standing over a kid in an alleyway, but the kid is me. Our blood is fucking everywhere. Then I killed ‘em. Squeezed ‘til there was nothin’ left.” Silence hangs in the air until Johnny sighs. “Flatlined in a back alley after gettin’ in and out of ‘Saka Tower no problem. Night fuckin’ City.”

V doesn’t have anything to say. “Shit.”

“Shit,” Johnny agrees. “Second worst thing.”

V huffs out a stupid bitter laugh. “Killing you, obviously.”

They’re silent for a little while, until Johnny speaks again. “Your turn, V.”

V leans forward and rests her head against the glovebox with a long sigh. It had been a nice distraction, but now she’s bummed out and nervous all at once, palms still sweaty and heart still racing. If Johnny’s plan is for their cover to be some long make-out session, fuck, she needs to lift the mood.

“What’s the best thing you’ve ever done?” she asks, sitting up with great effort.

Johnny laughs, short and dismissive. “Best?”

“Yeah. Go on, fuckin’ brag or whatever. We went through my worst, we know yours. What’re you proud of?”

“What are you fuckin’ proud of?” Johnny fires back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Got anything? Or has your life just been a series of fuck ups and betraying your friends?”

“Fuck, Johnny,” V complains, trying to play it off with her tone, but — it sure fucking feels like it. Still, she turns it right back on him. “If you’re gonna project, do it a little less obviously.”

He scoffs and turns in his seat, arms crossed, glaring out at the abandoned factory through his sunglasses. She picks at the foil on her burrito.

“Shit I used to be proud of,” Johnny says suddenly, “it ain’t shit anymore. ‘Saka Tower rebuilt, Militech filling the void, folk still in the fuckin’ gutter. Some fucking legacy.” The car is silent. “Guess we made some good music,” he says bitterly. “Whoop-de-fuckin’-do.”

“Shit, and I was trying to lighten the mood,” V jokes, but it falls flat. Johnny huffs something that might be a sarcastic laugh. “I don’t have — shit. Don’t think it ever could’ve been one person, even you.” Before Johnny can say anything, she continues, “Closest thing I ever got to doing anything good was a gig for El Cap where we were stealing med supplies for the folks of Santo Domingo. From Arasaka, of course. Handed ‘em out for free.”

“The car guy?” Johnny asks.

She nods. “He’s a good one.”

Johnny falls silent again, but he takes his sunglasses off and puts them back in his pocket. Then he sighs deeply, staring out the window. “Me an’ Ker, we owned this bar.”

“You did?” She frowns in surprise. “Like a real business? You and Kerry, together?”

Johnny huffs out a little laugh at her tone. “Didn’t tell you that one, huh? Had a regular open mic night thing. Got a buncha kids on stage, convinced all the label scouts to come. Prolly got shit deals, all of ‘em.”

“But they got to keep playing,” she says gently.

Johnny shrugs.

The silence is less tense now, and they both let it stretch out. She rubs her hands together, still on edge. She eyes the street nervously but it’s empty.

“So,” V says, forcing her tone into something approaching normal, “when’s this meet? When do we have to start making out?”

Johnny huffs out a laugh. “Shit, make it sound like a fuckin’ chore.”

“How are you even gonna keep an eye out if we’re making out anyway?”

Johnny grins at her. “You come over here, you can see out the window.” He gestures to his lap.

It’d be pretty awkward, sideways in the driver’s seat, but more importantly: “Don’t got optics. No photos.”

Johnny frowns at her. “Those eyes ain’t ‘ganic,” he says.

“Nah, but they’re as close as you can get without an old-school transplant.” They’re dull grey, and the whites are just slightly too white to look natural. She didn’t get any cosmetic options when they put them in. She didn’t have any input into any of the things they changed about her body. Her tattoos, her eyes, her hair, her chrome. All gone. “Minimal functionality. Give me my holo’s HUD and that’s it. Anything else’d fry my nerves.”

“Damn,” Johnny says. “Guess we’ll have to move to the back seat.”

Johnny gestures to her, and V sighs and clambers over the centre console and clumsily into the back. She sits sideways with her back to the street. Johnny climbs through as well and then climbs on top of her. It’s not particularly comfortable, but he can see the abandoned factory over her shoulder.

Johnny stares at her, then cups her cheeks gently with both hands. V feels her face blush. When he kisses her, it’s so slow and gentle she can’t quite believe it. He pulls back to look at her and stares silently. Then he kisses her again, deeper this time, drawing her closer in toward him. She responds in kind.

“Don’t get too distracted,” she rasps out as Johnny licks a long stripe along her jaw.

“Maybe I will,” Johnny says low against her throat.

“And prove Regina right you can’t do this shit easy gig?”

Johnny pulls back. “You’re a real fuckin’ prick,” he says slowly. “Last time I bring you on a job.” He says it like he’s mad at her, but she’s not fooled.

V laughs breathily. “Apology accepted.”

Johnny’s face twists into a scowl and he abruptly surges forward and kisses her again, properly this time, open-mouthed and filthy. “Absolutely not fuckin’ apologising,” he says into her mouth.

“Uh-huh,” V says. “Apology unaccepted, then.”

Johnny consumes nearly all of her vision. Unable to see the street behind her, to know whether there’s danger coming — some terrible anxiety suddenly starts ticking up in her brain and makes her swallow nervously, hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Not that seeing it would help, given how useless she is. Shit, the fear is somehow worse than the sadness and the anger put together. It makes her want to scream, to pout and stomp like a petulant toddler, how embarrassing it is, how unfair it is. Instead she holds her expression neutral as Johnny adjusts his position over her, trying to get more comfortable in the cramped car.

As he turns his focus back on her, V has a terrifying feeling that even this Johnny can see right through her. “Not gonna let anythin’ happen to ya, V,” he says, alarmingly sincere.

She hates it, that she needs to be protected. She feels herself harden as she looks away. “Yeah, Johnny Silverhand, great track record of keeping people safe.” She feels scared and exposed and fucking raw, scared of the street behind her, of Johnny’s piercing eyes.

“Chooms you got killed at Konpeki,” he says flatly. “Never did tell me their names.”

Whatever part of her hardened spreads outwards, tensing her whole body. “I didn’t.”

“My question. Tell me.”

The lump in V’s throat swells and she screws her eyes shut. “T-Bug. Jackie Welles.”

Johnny hums, a cruel little noise in the back of his throat.

“Fuck,” V says, eyes still screwed shut. Her whole body is tensed and her heart is burning and Johnny fucking Silverhand is straddling her, thighs against hers, hands resting on her hips, saying he’ll keep her safe like he gives a shit about her. She shouldn’t fucking be here. He’s dead. Hell, she should be dead. “Why’d you fuckin’ bring me?”

“That a proper question?” Johnny demands.

“Sure, yeah,” V chokes out.

He pauses before answering. “Shit boring job. Wanted company.” He sighs. “Didn’t realise it’d be a problem.”

A problem — V shudders and screws her eyes closed. She keeps them closed and takes deep, slow breaths. She feels like her chest is being ripped in two. She feels like a bullet is going to tear through the car at any moment. She’s avoided anything even close to merc work for an entire year, but it’s not the first time she’s been near or even almost in a shootout. The issue here is that she’s fucking trapped, nowhere to go or hide. V is pretty fast on her feet for someone with no ‘ware, and that plus her general appearance as someone incredibly nonthreatening has meant that slipping away from gunfights has been reliable enough for her day to day, but this is so much worse.

Johnny shifts slightly and she flinches at the noise, then feels the burning of tears in her eyes, which spreads to the back of her nose. The car door digs into her back and her knee presses against the seatbelt plug of the centre seat. Fucking hell, she’s shaking.

Johnny’s warm hands cup her face gently, the plating in his fingers unnaturally smooth against her cheeks. Her eyes are closed but she can feel him lean in slowly, pausing with their foreheads just barely touching. He kisses her, gentle and slow like earlier. V follows him on instinct, then grasps at him suddenly. If she can focus on this — she twists a hand into his hair and pulls, deepening the kiss, one hand running up his ribcage as she bites at his lip. She presses up against him and pulls harder on his hair and he groans quietly against her. She grips Johnny so hard she can’t feel her hands shake anymore, pushes up into him until she forgets the car, the street, the gig. She kisses deep and desperate and thank god, he meets her there, kissing messily, hands leaving her face to grope at her tits. She bites his lip again, maybe too hard — she tastes blood and Johnny gasps wildly into her mouth, but she doesn’t stop. V moves the hand not in his hair down to his jeans, palming him briefly before starting on his fly.

Johnny pulls back from the kiss with a breathy little laugh, hot against her lips. “V,” he says in an amused huff, “you said I gotta not get distracted.” He’s breathing heavily, each breath moving him against her, and she can feel he’s half hard already.

V shoves her face into his neck. “You’ll manage,” she mutters, then sucks at his skin as she continues to fumble with his fly.

His hand grabs her wrist and she stills. “Not that this isn’t really fuckin’ hot, but now ain’t the time.” He still sounds amused.

The rejection, soft as it was, spikes some kind of strange, mortified anger in her. For a moment she’s torn perfectly between doubling down and freezing up. Then she yanks him back down for a kiss, sucking hard on his split lip, tasting blood. “C’mon,” she says desperately, “don’t wanna get off? I’ll slap you hard, choke you proper, let you come in me, whatever, please —”

“V,” he groans, “Jesus, kid, slow the fuck down. I —” Johnny cuts himself off, eyes behind her, then ducks back down for a quick kiss. “Hold that fuckin’ thought,” he says, then leans into her neck.

V’s heart pounds. He must’ve seen his stupid targets. Pressed into her neck, he can presumably see out the window behind her.

V closes her eyes and focuses on taking deep breaths, counting them in and out. Four seconds in, hold, four seconds out. She doesn’t think about how both their heads are perfectly in the window, easy targets. She doesn’t think about how if things go bad all she’ll be able to do would be to sit and watch Johnny die like a moron. In for four, out for four. It’s not working.

Johnny turns back to her and kisses her, once again all slow and gentle. V melts into it and pretends, deliberately, that he’s her Johnny. She pretends so hard she almost believes it, and she finds herself melting into the kiss, cupping his cheek and jaw gently, running a thumb along one of his cheekbones. The weight and heat of his body becomes a comfort, a reminder that he’s real, out of her head, alive, touchable, fuckable, lovable. The kiss is languid and deep, both of them with mouths open, Johnny licking into her mouth and her into his in long, easy turns.

After what feels like an age, Johnny pulls back and mumbles against her lips, “Let’s get outta here.” V opens her eyes and the illusion shatters as she sees the car, the night, and Johnny’s blond curls.

V doesn’t say anything as Johnny climbs off her and back into the driver's seat. She climbs after him into the passenger side. She’s still nervous but their long kiss has smothered it. She feels… numb. Uncertain. Adrift.

“See?” Johnny says. “Fuckin’ child’s play.”

Right as he starts the car, a gunshot shatters both the rear window and front windscreen in painfully loud CRASH! Both of them duck instinctively as the glass of the rear window rains down onto the back seat. V’s heart leaps so far up her throat it’s in her fucking mouth, pounding and twitching.

“Fuck!” Johnny yells. He slams on the gas, car jerking forward as he swings it away from the sidewalk.

The front windscreen is an opaque spiderweb of cracks, a single hole right in the centre where the bullet impacted. Johnny jams the butt of his gun into the glass in front of him as he drives, clearing the glass out so he can actually fucking see. A few other shots ping against the metal body of the car.

Instincts beaten into her years ago have V turning and raising her gun before her brain can catch up to why that’s a shit fucking idea. She faces behind them and catches sight of two figures with guns raised, bulky and sturdy looking types, the kind that her brain instantly classifies as huscle. She takes a few potshots through the rear window as covering fire as they speed away. None of the shots hit, but she sees the figures stop shooting, flinching and moving to cover, until Johnny tears around a corner and she can’t see them at all.

A block away Johnny slams the breaks behind an old parked sedan. “Swap,” he demands.

He hops out of the car, eyes glowing as he cracks the new car’s security. V follows, gun in one hand, stupid burrito bag in the other. They both scramble into the new car and tear off again.

Another few blocks with no tail and they swap cars a second time, which is frankly overkill, but V isn’t complaining. Johnny drives normally this time, until they’re all the way at the other end of the city, down south in Pacifica. To their right is neon and the chatter of people; to their left is the unrelenting dark ocean. He pulls slowly to a stop in a moderately populated street and pulls the handbrake. The tension finally breaks and V slides loosely down her seat with a shaky exhale. Johnny stares straight ahead for a moment, both hands on the wheel. Then he laughs, head thrown back against the seat, still gripping the wheel.

“Ah, shit,” he says, still chuckling as he drops his hands. “Jesus. Fuckin’ cunts.”

V is still shaking, gun in hand.

Johnny looks over at her, grinning breathlessly. “You brought the fuckin’ burritos? Worried about dinner?”

“Don’t leave evidence behind,” V says automatically, another instinct from a lifetime ago. She’s not sure what she’s thinking right now. She’s not sure she’s thinking much of anything.

“Let's go for a walk,” Johnny says. “Bring your food. Gotta eat, kid.”

When she gets out of the car V feels like she can breathe again, and it’s like everything hits her at once: the adrenaline, the adrenaline crash, the anger, the fear, the shame. She braces herself against the car door and bends at the waist, nauseous with it. Her eyes burn.

Johnny doesn’t say anything. It takes a long few minutes, but once the worst of the feeling passes, V stands back up. Johnny is leaning up against the driver side of the car, arms and legs crossed, staring down toward the ocean. He doesn’t say anything until she walks around next to him.

He pushes up from his lean and nods at the beach. “C’mon.”

They walk in silence, Johnny heading directly toward the ocean. The ground turns to soft sand, then hardens as they head to the water. Johnny stops before the waves can reach his boots and stares directly out over the sea. Beside him, V unwraps her cold burrito and bites into it. Turns out she’s fucking starving. It’s dark enough the boundary between the sea and sky is hard to make out, the entire horizon a dark mess. There are no stars.

“Fuck I want a smoke,” Johnny says.

In the dark, with Johnny only in her peripherals, if she doesn’t focus on his voice — it’s almost like it was before. Tonight it’s a real gut punch. He rubs his first two fingers over his lips, like he’s missing having something to fidget with.

“Can’t help you with that anymore,” V says.

Johnny humphs in response. The ocean swells and ebbs before them, and as V finishes her food she turns to look at Johnny. He’s still staring pensively at the water.

“You ever swum?” Johnny asks, staring out at the horizon.

“Yeah,” V says absently. Her emotions feel far away. “Not the ocean. As a kid — Dad signed me up. Was a real brag, having the eds to put your kid in lessons.” She pauses. “Then I made friends with Kerry, who’s rich enough to have his own pool. Crazy. Have you?”

“Uh-huh,” Johnny confirms. His voice is pensive, a little flat. “Weren’t so bad way back when. Cheap to drop your kid off at the local pool all day, all summer. Someone’ll prolly make sure he don’t drown, keep ‘im outta trouble.”

“What about the ocean?” V asks, turning back toward it.

“Nah.” Johnny’s tone is unreadable now. “Think it’d kill us, if we did now?”

V huffs a tiny humourless laugh. “Prolly kill me. I’m real fucking frail these days.” She doesn’t even try to keep the bitterness from her voice.

“Better not risk it,” he says lightly, eyes still on the water.

V finds her breath slowing to the rhythm of the waves as they stand there. She licks her lips. They’re salty.

“Didn’t think you liked the water,” she says.

Facing the ocean, it’s dark enough she can’t read Johnny’s expression. He’s silent for a while. “Eh.” V waits for him to say anything else, but the silence stretches. Eventually he sighs, long and pensive. “Let’s fuck.”

V snorts. “Here?”

“Fuck no.” Johnny turns to face her. “You’re not gonna wanna go back to yours, are you?” It’s hardly even a question.

V shrugs. “You wanna piss off my housemates even more? Fuck, course you do,” V says, before Johnny can get a word in edgewise. “Rather not.”

Turned toward her, the Pacifica strip lights Johnny’s face just enough that V can make out his eye roll. She catches the way his mouth twitches up in a slight grin.

“Mine then.” He looks back to the water.

V still feels strange and numb, like there’s a million feelings inside her but they all cancel out until nothing rises to the surface. Some slowly run through her. She’s unsteady, upset — not even at Johnny anymore, just a general unease. She feels like she doesn’t understand her feelings, and she definitely doesn’t know how to handle them. She bites her lip and acts on a sudden stupid impulse: she steps right up to Johnny, grabs his face in both hands and pulls him in for a kiss. Johnny makes a surprised noise against her mouth and stumbles as she pulls him up to her, but he recovers quickly and wraps his hands around her waist, kissing her deeply. She pushes both hands up his face into his hair and tugs.

“Yeah,” Johnny mumbles into her mouth as he pulls back slowly. He kisses her again. “Let’s fuckin’ delta.”

When they get back into the car, Johnny pauses before starting the engine. “I really fucked you up, didn’t I?”

V closes her eyes. “Wasn’t you.”

“What was it?” he asks. “That’s a question.”

“Shit, everything?” V says, vulnerable and frustrated and prickly. “Losing all my chrome, losing all my friends, losing you, half my fucking brain, my whole fucking life?” She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, clenching her fists. “You know what it’s like, to go from being able to do anything, to having a fucking breakdown in the backseat of a car cause you’re thinking about there maybe being a shootout?”

“Know some of it,” Johnny says quietly. “Fuckin’ sucks.”

“I don’t want your goddamn pity,” V spits out.

Johnny scoffs. “You’re too competent for me to pity. And way too much of a cunt.”

“Competent?” V repeats disbelievingly. “I —”

“Outshot me at the range, immediately gave us covering fire, saved my fucking life last week,” he interrupts angrily. “Jesus fucking Christ. You’re no fucking merc, that’s for damn sure, but not like you’re some guttertrash gonk. Keep up the self pity and I will start fucking pitying you. Y’won’t see me anymore when that fuckin’ happens.”

V stares desperately at her knees and takes a shaky breath. “Fuck off.”

“And there’s the cuntness,” Johnny says flatly.

They drive in silence for a couple minutes as V tries to process any of that. It’s a lurching relief, although if she’s honest, she knew he didn’t pity her. Johnny doesn’t do anything for pity. The real relief is that he doesn’t think she’s useless. Another thing that, if she’s really honest, she should’ve known. He doesn’t do charity either.

“Thanks,” she says eventually, quiet as she can manage, one arm across her middle, gripping her elbow with one hand.

“Yeah, fuck off,” Johnny says dismissively.

V finds herself smiling, then she laughs, long and stupid. “Shit, Johnny. If I’m a cunt, then you’re a fucking dick.”

Johnny grins. “Maybe we oughta fit together and find out.”

Chapter Text

Each morning when V wakes up the first thing she does is text Johnny the stupidest emoticon she can find. She did it once a week or so ago, a couple days after he dragged her along on his job. It had pissed him off to no end, but in the way he likes to be pissed off, where he can blow off steam without getting properly angry. Now she does it all the time. He whines about it, but it’s not like he doesn’t also text stupid stuff. Johnny when he’s bored texts like an asshole: what could be one text split into eight, blurry images of shit that’s annoyed him, single words repeated over and over.

When she opens her holo, she sees again the text from him the previous afternoon: a photo of some shitty graffiti boobs and the caption, reminded me of u.

It’s Saturday, and this morning’s emoticon is ʕʘ̅͜ʘ̅ʔ. Johnny responds when she’s on the train flicking through even more apartment listings; he’s graded it a four out of ten, which is pretty high for him.

At the end of the work day Tara closes up while V stares at her terminal screen despondently, barely even reading the apartment listings as she scrolls past them. Her move out deadline looms, now less than two weeks away. Suddenly the screen flickers and glitches black, and a giant text middle finger fills the screen. V groans and looks up to figure out what gonk kid is fucking with her machine — and sees Johnny, leaning over the bench with a stupid smug grin and glowing eyes. The sun catches his blond curls and the bright yellow of her jacket. She never managed to get it back from him.

“‘Grats on cracking the world’s oldest terminal.” Sarcasm drips from her words as she shuts the thing and stands up.

“Don’t you gotta job to do?” Johnny asks, leaning further onto his forearms against the bench to peer down at her. “Keep blowin’ me off just to laze around?”

V spreads her arms wide, gesturing at the stall. “You wanna buy some junk?”

“Fuck no,” he says with a laugh. “You done or what?”

V looks over to see where Tara is and realises she’s been watching with an appraising eye. Tara smiles and steps closer. “Is this your input?”

“Ah-hah, no,” V says with a nervous laugh. Johnny snorts at her. V swallows and continues with the awkward introductions. “Tara, Johnny. Johnny, Tara.”

Johnny gives Tara a wide, flirty smile. “She done for the day? We got a date.” V blushes.

“Uh-huh, not an input, sure,” Tara says with a smug grin. “Have fun.” She turns to V. “Hey, before you go — just found out we got our booking at Red Dirt! It’ll be a Thursday in a few weeks, would love to see you there!”

Johnny’s flirty grin slips into something a bit less flirty, a bit more genuine. “You play?”

“Yeah, a bit. Bass in a scrappy little band.”

“More than a bit, if you got a Thursday billing,” Johnny observes.

“Hah, we got lucky,” Tara says. “Only the opener anyway. You should come along with Val! Now go on, get outta here.”

Johnny grabs V’s hand and tugs her around the bench. She goes with him, face burning. “C’mon, Val,” Johnny says, shit-eating grin pulling at his lips.

“Call me that again and you’ll regret it,” she says once they’re out of earshot. It’s only a joke because she can’t follow through with the threat.

Later that evening, they sit opposite one another at a quiet diner. Johnny leans in across the table with a slow grin. This face makes him look even more shit-eating than he could achieve originally.

“Most annoying gig,” he drawls. He picks up a french fry from the shared bowl and chomps it obnoxiously.

V hums in thought, fiddling with the straw in her drink. “You want the real answer or the nice answer?”

Johnny raises his brows. “Your game, your rules.”

“Alright, real then,” V says. “Gig was a favour for a choom, bartend at a place me ‘n Jackie always used to go.” She takes a sip of milkshake through the straw. “Guy’s wife was acting weird, followed her to see if she was cheating. She wasn’t, she was getting cosmetics. Dead simple.”

“Boring. Not annoying.”

“Right, right, the annoying part was your fault.” V grins as Johnny shifts backwards in his seat.

“His attempts to flatline you really so pathetic they became annoying?” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No, we were way past the flatlining stage by then. I think you thought the whole thing was boring, wanted to spice it up. Narrated the whole damn gig like a shitty noir novella. Most annoying fuckin’ thirty minutes of my life.” That makes Johnny break out into a grin.

V slouches in her seat, reaches down into the corner of her brain that is still Johnny Silverhand, and pulls out her best impression. “Dame had legs for days and a, um,” she stumbles with a laugh, sitting back up, unable to remember the phrasings or come up with her own, “I dunno, an attitude to match.” Her best Silverhand voice is really fucking good, even here, when she’s also imitating the noir voice he had been affecting at the time. She can get the accent and the cadence perfect. She can’t get her voice low enough to be convincing as an impression, but it would be immediately recognisable to anyone even passingly familiar with him.

Johnny frowns and his grin vanishes for something neutral. “Decent impression,” he drawls, “but I wouldn’t say that shit.”

V realises she hasn’t done an impression like that for him before. “I don’t remember your improv novella, sue me,” she mutters. She feels a little weird about it and grabs some more fries to occupy her hands and mouth.

“Ask me a fuckin’ question,” Johnny demands, still staring at her. “I got another one for you.”

“Alright,” V says, “what’s your question?”

Johnny scoffs at her. “Fuckin’ gonk.” There’s a hint of fondness there that makes V grin like a fool. “What was it like?”

“What was what like?” she asks, picking at the fries again.

“Sharing a brain.”

V hesitates, hand stilling in the air where she was about to grab a fry. She sits backwards slowly into the booth, looking at him. Johnny is watching her closely. He’s hard to read; he’s leaned forward, looking curious and intense in a way V can’t pin down.

“God,” she says, taking a long breath out as she presses her back up against the booth. “Shit. Don’t even know where to start. Weird.”

“Weird,” Johnny repeats, unimpressed.

“You still get their memories, right? Even now?” V gestures toward his body. “Like they're your own?” It’s a guess more than anything. They haven’t talked about it beyond what he’d said about killing them.

“Sometimes,” Johnny says, looking away.

“Well, there was that. ‘S how it started, I guess.” Johnny looks back at her out of the corner of his eyes. “Then, you know I could see you like a ghost. Usually you were leaned up ‘gainst some wall, staring at me with sunglasses on like I was the stupidest asshole you’d ever seen.”

“'Cause you are,” Johnny says casually, without even a grin. “What else?”

V leans forward toward the table. She puts both elbows against the tabletop and holds her head with her fingers on her temples, looking down.

“Our minds were… up against each other. You described it like —” V pauses, trying to remember the exact words. “Like mould growing on fruit. You talked like you could flick through my memories like a book, see every thought I had as I had it. Think you were full of shit, but not totally. You could definitely see more of me than I could of you. I —” V cuts herself off again, biting at the scar on her lip. She tries to decide how much to say, eyes locked to the plastic tabletop. Johnny doesn’t say a goddamned word.

“I could feel what you were feeling, sometimes,” V says. “But it was so hard to tell whether it was me or you. I mean — nostalgia for shit I’d never seen before, fondness for people I’d never met before, hatred for things I’d never heard of before — you know, that’s obvious. But other stuff? Dunno. It was always so… fleeting. Or like, subtle. You were feeling my shit more often, but I think you could tell what was mine and what wasn’t.”

V risks a glance up at Johnny. He’s frowning in thought, eyes on her, left hand flexing slowly on the table.

“It felt like…” V trails off, trying to put it to words. “Like… like you were at my back, all the fucking time. Sometimes like you had my back, sometimes like you were gonna stab me there. Always, always, the feeling of being watched.”

V pauses again, thinking, then laughs bitterly. “Or other times it just fucking hurt. Don’t think you got the pain much. Every type of pain there is, too. Aches, stabs, burns, tingles, pulsing, pressure. Usually that tingly kinda nerve pain or that awful pressure-in-your-head migraine pain.”

Johnny has stayed quiet, watching her carefully as she speaks, like he only wants to listen for once. He’s frowning, just a little bit, and V can’t tell anymore, whether it’s in thought or in doubt.

V bites the scar at her lip and takes a deep breath. “Or — okay, don’t laugh,” she warns, “but… You ever feel like you got a soul?”

V watches as Johnny’s mouth twists in some emotion she’s not sure of.

“I mean, dunno that souls are real, but whatever that feeling is,” V continues. “Like something pulling in your chest? Or —” She stops, trying to remember what it might’ve felt like for him. “That… tug, when you hear a really good song, or when you see the open sky. When it’s quiet and you take a deep breath. Hell, I don’t know, whatever burned in you on stage.”

Johnny stares at her. “Sure,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he’s sure.

“Well, it was like two of those.” She looks down at her drink. “I’d feel that… whatever feeling. And then again at the same time, right up against it.” She shrugs. “I dunno. More than that, but that’s the best I’ve got. I’m no poet.”

Johnny still doesn’t speak as V stares at her drink, lost in thought, more thoughts bubbling up inside her. It’s like he can tell she wants to say more, but she’s not sure that she actually wants to. She swirls the straw slowly. She pulls it up out of the glass and stares at the synthmilk dripping down off it.

“Then I started doing stuff,” she continues, real quiet now, like if she says it quiet enough he won’t hear it. “Like smoking. Hated it before you. Found myself lighting up without even noticing.” She puts the straw down and rests her head in one hand, head turned to stare at the diner wall. “Think I got meaner. And more confident. I don’t know, wasn’t exactly keepin’ track. Didn’t have many friends who knew me before. Wore your — fuck, gonna sound damn stupid — Rogue got me a replica of some old jacket of yours. Your jacket, your sunglasses, your car, your fucking gun —” V cuts herself off and faces down toward the table, pressing both palms into her eyes, her heart in her throat.

“My gun?” Johnny asks. For once, V is relieved by how narrow Johnny is willing to focus in on. “As in my custom fucking Malorian?”

“Yeah.” V laughs, palms still pressing into her eyes. “Dunno where it is now. Ask Rogue. She got my cat; she mighta got my guns too.”

“You lost my fucking Malorian?” Johnny sounds pissed. V looks up at him and catches his eye; she breathes out in relief when she realises he’s fucking with her, his expression wry rather than mad.

“Two-year coma, remember,” she says with a sad little smile.

Now Johnny actually frowns. “No-one kept your shit for you?”

V shrugs one shoulder. “Told ‘em I’d be gone for a couple months. Everyone assumed no news was bad news.”

“Rogue didn’t say shit about it? Give you the cat back?”

“Nah.” V looks away. “Left me a vid message suggesting it’d be better if I didn’t come to the Afterlife anymore, expressing her condolences.”

V’s eyes burn. Fuck, why is it she could talk about Johnny — who she loved, who is dead — without too much issue, but then they get to her stupid coma, the one that saved her life, and she can’t handle it? It’s not even the missing chrome that’s burning her right now, it’s — it’s stupid. At least the chrome was something to be mad about. In the scheme of her and Johnny’s lives it’s actually pretty minor, tapping out for two years. Besides, Rogue never really cared about her beyond biz. She should’ve known that.

She swallows hard and tries to keep her composure. “Not like I need all that merc shit anymore anyway.”

Johnny’s foot bumps against hers under the table. “You had anyone waitin’ for you?”

V laughs and turns further away from him, shielding her face from his gaze with her hands. “Nah,” she manages. “Output went ‘n got married. My ripper got bought out by Zetatech. Friends all got into or outta shit. Kerry —” V cuts herself off. “Well, you know what he’s like.”

Johnny is quiet as she takes in a deep, slow breath, trying to hide how ragged it is.

“Can’t blame ‘em,” she continues, trying to really believe it. “Thought I was dead. What were they gonna do, wait for me to come back? Stupid. Course not.”

Johnny laughs humourlessly. “Jesus Christ, two years,” he says. “You’re forgiving people for that shit? I wouldn’t. Fuck that.”

God she wants to see his face, but she can’t bear the idea of him seeing the tears in her eyes. “Fuck off. Be worse if they’d all fuckin’... stopped. I could’ve been actually dead. Doesn’t mean they gotta stop living.”

“Huh. You wanted the people you loved to keep livin’ after you died? Funny.” Johnny‘s tone is so incredibly pointed that a lurch of discomfort washes over her whole body.

“What’s that meant to mean?” she asks, still not looking at him.

“Exactly what you think,” Johnny says firmly.

A rush of hot anger runs up her spine. It makes her jerk her head up to meet his eyes through tears, jaw tense. Johnny stares at her impassively. “Fuck you. I was fucking living,” V says, furious.

“You weren’t,” Johnny drawls, so confidently he almost sounds bored. He lounges backwards in his seat, folding his hands behind his head. “Shit fuckin’ chooms. Even I could see you’d had your whole fuckin’ soul ripped out, and I didn’t even fuckin’ know you.”

“Fuck you,” V says again, still furious. “I was alive, I was breathing, I didn’t take a fucking gun and —” She cuts herself off harshly and turns away again. She takes a deep breath.

“It’s just,” she begins, frustrated but rapidly losing steam, “I don’t know. Everyone else was so fucked up.” Her volume fades as she speaks. The fury abates, changes and twists into a deep sadness. “They all left. And the ones who stayed — Rogue never gave a shit about me. Kerry didn’t really either. Just cared about you.”

Johnny huffs a disbelieving laugh and V’s eyes snap back to him. “Bullshit,” Johnny says, eyes hard on hers. “Got fuckin’ lectures from both of them ‘bout how I should leave you the fuck alone.”

“What?” V asks, eyes widening. It feels like the sorrow has been somewhat dislodged from her gut with a punch of shock.

Johnny shrugs like it’s no big deal. As he speaks he leans back in toward the table, hands coming back down to rest on it. “Guess Ker didn’t tell me to leave you alone, but he did try to threaten me. Adorable. Rogue was much more specific.”

“And you didn’t listen?” V asks stupidly. Johnny raises his brows at her, as though that doesn’t deserve a response. “Okay, but that’s — that’s because you’re you.”

Johnny grins at that. “And you’re you,” he says, like that means anything. “It’s fucking shit, V. Just sayin’.”

V slumps her head against the table. Even fucking now, always pushing, pushing, making her confront shit she doesn’t want to. “Why do I hang out with you,” she complains, turning her head against the table so she can see him.

“'Cause you love me,” Johnny says, preoccupied with grabbing fries, in the same casual tone you’d use for pass me the ketchup.

V turns her face back into the tabletop and flips him off, nose pressed to the plastic, and listens to him laugh.

—

Almost a week later V sits on the metro and stares out the window as the city passes her by, sun low on the horizon. The lights of the city are growing brighter as the day gets dimmer, the colourscape of the city shifting from golden daylight to harsh neons. The shitty fluorescent lighting of the train flickers as it rocks on the tracks.

She’s antsy. She flicks open her holo and stares at the last texts she’d received from Johnny.

Johnny: u want sushi or noodles?

V: We’re having dinner?

Johnny: no shit. pick

V: Noodles??? I guess. At yours???

Johnny: duh

Johnny: u want my mouth or my cock?

V: (◔↽◔) HMMMMMMM pass. Do you want my mouth or my pussy?

Johnny: cunt

Johnny: that was an insult but i would pick cunt

V is, objectively, reasonably confident that she and Johnny are dating. If she was on the outside looking in, she’d say they were dating. If it were anyone else in the entire fucking world, she’d say they were dating. But it’s Johnny fucking Silverhand. Womanising rockerboy slut, emotionally distant, sex-loving Johnny Silverhand.

The idea of dating Johnny Silverhand isn’t making her nervous. It makes her gleeful, disbelieving, thankful. No, what’s making her shift anxiously in her seat is that she needs to fucking talk to him about it.

She doesn’t really want him fucking random people, though she assumes he is. She’s not done the whole open relationship thing before, but she’s been thinking about it a lot. The idea of, say, Johnny fucking or dating Kerry, for example, makes her feel good. Johnny has been insane about Kerry for decades and the idea of the both of them being happy together — of Johnny letting himself be happy — yeah, she really fucking wants that. She wouldn’t even have it on the table as a possibility if it weren’t for that fucking holocall. The thought of him somehow hooking up with Alt, or slightly more realistically Rogue, is less straightforward — Rogue seemed very much uninterested — but she feels okay about that too, if they hashed it out beforehand.

Hell, she had been him, literally. She felt his skin and his breath and his heart. She’d felt the way he loved Alt and Rogue both, loved Kerry, loved her, all at once. For as much as he was a real fucking bastard, he loved with abandon. She isn’t under the impression it’ll be easy, but, shit — she wants to try.

More importantly, she wants to know. She wants to know they’re dating. Ideally she wants him not fucking anyone else, but she’ll settle for just knowing when he does. The metro pulls to a stop and V stands up with a deep breath.

Johnny’s place isn't far, and the night is pleasant and cool as she wanders through the towering buildings of Kabuki. She can hear muffled guitar even on the stairwell on the second floor. When she knocks on his apartment door, she hears a faint groan and waits several long moments until the music stops, and then the door opens, Johnny scowling before her.

“Wait,” he says as she goes to enter the apartment. He grabs her wrist and punches in a few buttons on the bioscanner lock, then shoves her hand in front of it. V’s heart skips a beat. “There, now I don’t gotta fuckin’ get up every fuckin’ time. C’mon.” V follows him inside in a bit of a daze.

The noodles are steaming in bowls on the kitchen table. Johnny flops down into one of the dining chairs and grabs a pair of disposable chopsticks, snapping them apart and digging in. He’s ordered her favourite noodles, the synth-chicken combo, and even remembered she likes extra fried onion on top. Shit.

She sits down in the chair next to him and snaps apart her own chopsticks. They eat and chat aimlessly, but Johnny keeps eyeing her suspiciously. He’s always been annoyingly good at reading people.

“What’s up your ass?” he says as he shoves the last of his noodles into his mouth.

V steels herself. “Nothing, just,” she tries for a casual tone, “are we like, mainlining?” She pushes her empty noodle bowl further onto the table.

Johnny groans with his head tilted back. “Fuckin’ Christ,” he says, already sounding exhausted. His chair scrapes loud against the floor as he pushes away from the table slightly, turning to face her. “We really fucking doing this?”

“Okay, rephrased.” V tries her damned best to sound unphased, still facing the table. “Are we exclusive?”

Johnny levels her with a flat glare. “Why, you got another dick lined up to fuck you?” He probably doesn’t think she does, but his jaw is tight.

“No,” she says evenly, because she doesn’t.

“Said you used to have an output. Getting bored of cock? Fucking chicks?”

V takes a big, deep, steadying breath. He’s an asshole trying to get a reaction. “No. Are you?”

“Dunno,” Johnny drawls, sprawling backwards in his chair. “Should I be?” He’s trying to play it cool but he’s not fucking looking at her.

She swallows. She’s not really sure what his fucking problem is. “Do you want to be?”

A shrug. “Dunno.” He still doesn’t look at her.

She sighs. “It’s not a fucking trap, Johnny. I’m not gonna freak. I’m just asking.” When he doesn’t say anything, she sighs again and turns her body in the chair to face him. “I just — shit, alright, fine. Here’s what I want: I wanna mainline, and if you wanna fuck anyone else, that’s fine, you just like, let me know first or whatever.” She sounds less confident than she wanted to, but it’s good enough.

Johnny’s eyes snap over to hers and he looks pissed. “What, you wanna sleep around and rub my nose in it?”

“No,” she manages after a moment of surprise. “I don’t wanna sleep around.”

Johnny looks no less mad. “But you’d let me? Some fucking output you are.”

Output? Does he already think they’re mainlining? V was hoping that would be the end result of this conversation. She didn’t think that Johnny would be mad at her for — she isn’t even sure. For not being weird and controlling? Fuck, given the way Johnny tended to treat sex, she thought he’d be keen for an arrangement where he wasn’t tied down. Sure, she knew he had a hell of a possessive streak when he gave a shit, but she wasn’t the one planning on sleeping around. She wasn’t expecting him to be possessive over her anyway.

“Fucking hell, okay, first, you don’t fucking have to sleep around. I’m just —”

“Just rolling the fuck over, showing your belly?” Johnny interrupts venomously, crossing his arms over his chest as he turns away from her in his chair. “Shit, never cared if you pissed me off before. We have sex a few times and suddenly you’re chill with me walking all over you, whoring myself out to the whole city?”

“Excuse the fuck outta me for not assuming that I own you,” V says angrily. “I’m not letting you walk all over me, I’m trying to talk to you. I know you wanna keep fucking, great, but we both know I’m way more invested than you. God forbid we talk about anything. Shit, would you rather me be some possessive bitch about it?”

Johnny grinds his teeth and stares at the wall. Then he stands up and starts pacing.

“You keep saying you know me and then you pull shit like this,” he says angrily, turning back to look at her for a moment before resuming his pacing. “Are we fucking dating, shit! I been taking you out to dinner, goddamn texting you, letting you stay the night — fuck, I bought milk for your coffee in the morning!”

V feels herself blush, face hot. She shifts her chair out from the table and turns so she is facing Johnny more, but doesn’t stand up. “That doesn’t mean —”

“It doesn’t mean — Jesus Christ.” Johnny spins and marches right up to her. “How about this: you better not be fucking other people.” He grabs her face in both hands, standing over her while she sits on the kitchen chair. His palms are all soft synthskin now; no more plating, no more monowire. He stares directly into her eyes and her heart races. “Maybe I do want you to be a possessive bitch about it, 'cause I sure as fuck am.”

“Oh,” V says weakly.

“Yeah, oh,” he says mockingly. “You’re such a cunt. I fucking hate you.” His tone is completely genuine. Then he bends down and kisses her, hard and hungry, fingers digging into her cheeks.

When they break the kiss, V takes a moment to catch her breath as her emotions swirl into each other: worry into surprise into something dangerously hopeful. Johnny’s eyes are hazel rimmed with gold.

She hardens her voice, reaching up through his arms to grip his face like he’s gripping hers. “Don’t fuck anyone else.”

“Okay.” Johnny’s eyes bore into hers. “Don’t fuck anyone else.”

“Okay,” V says.

He pulls her in and kisses her, and V forgets how to think. He’s firm and insistent, and the hands gripping her face relax so he’s cradling her head rather than squeezing. She rises slowly from her chair, feeling like he’s drawing her upwards.

He walks backwards and she follows, mouths locked in long kisses. V feels soft and sweet but Johnny’s kisses are biting and maybe a touch manic. They make it through the apartment to the couch and Johnny grins before pushing her over the armrest. She topples onto the couch with a gasp and readjusts quickly as Johnny clambers over as well, crawling up over her as she laughs.

“So,” she says as Johnny braces himself over her. “No fucking anyone else.”

“That’s the idea.” Johnny trails kisses down her neck slowly.

“Except —”

Johnny leans back up and cuts across her with a hard kiss on the mouth. “Except nothin’,” he says, hovering over her.

“Except,” she repeats, pushing at him pointedly, “I’m pretty sure you promised Kerry a blowjob once he’s back in the city.”

Johnny laughs loudly, pulling back from her. He ducks his head into her shoulder. “Fuck, V, thought you were bein’ serious.”

“Okay, not a blowjob,” she concedes. “But he asked to watch, and you said yes.”

“I say a lotta things.” Johnny shifts to lie down next to her on the couch rather than hovering over her on his forearms. They don’t quite fit, so he’s half on top of her as he settles onto his back. She wraps her arm around and under his shoulders and tucks in against him.

V suppresses a sigh. “Look, I was serious about you just telling me when you were fucking others, even though I like you not fucking anyone better.” She hesitates, then continues, “But with Kerry, it’s — I mean, you obviously liked having him on the holo that one time. Prolly be the same in person. It’s not like you to deny what you want, and I’m saying I’d be down.” It all sounds very reasonable. It probably also sounds a little rehearsed, because it is.

“You fuckin’ rehearse this?” Johnny accuses. “If you’d rather fuck Ker —”

“If I’d rather fuck Kerry, I woulda already done it.”

Johnny laughs at that. “Shit, V. Thought you had.”

V grabs a cushion with her free hand and slams her face into it. “Jesus Christ,” she says, muffled.

She sits up reluctantly, and Johnny follows her lead until they’re sitting normally on the couch. V puts the cushion across her lap and rests both hands on it.

“God, you’re both impossible. When I spoke to him like a month ago, he assumed I’d fucked — you know, the other you.”

Johnny snorts and leans into her side. “Said you were missin’ him while you were sucking my cock. Not a huge leap.”

V sighs and lets herself lean back against him as well. “It’s weird to talk to him without you around,” she admits, looking straight ahead at the turned off TV. “Only met him 'cause of you, and whenever I saw him, god, you wouldn’t fuckin’ shut up. Like you were lit up just by being near him.” She pauses. “Then after you, uh, you know.” V looks down. “Died again. I was convinced he blamed me. Still think he did. Does. Never spoke to me, really.”

Johnny is silent beside her. She doesn’t look at him to see his reaction, just keeps talking.

“It’s also weird talking to him with you here, 'cause he couldn’t ever see or hear you back then. Was just a private running commentary on all his shit decisions. Y’know I assumed you wouldn’t say all that shit to his face?” V does turn to him now, but he’s not looking at her, tense and quiet. She laughs a little. “Turns out you were mostly just saying what you’d say if he could’ve actually heard you anyway.”

Johnny shifts, bringing one foot up onto the couch, knee bending to pull up near his chest. He leans his left arm on it, flexing his fingers absently, eyes on the opposite wall. He's not really leaning against her anymore, though they are still touching.

“Felt like I was a weird… conduit, medium, somethin’, for you two,” V continues. “You two were electric, and I was just… I dunno.” In the way, she doesn’t say. “I mean, he’s,” she gestures vaguely at the air, as though that could describe wildly in love with you, “and you’re, I dunno, you got something about him.”

“I got something about him?” Johnny repeats dryly.

“You want me to get into it?” V says, a mild threat. Johnny doesn’t say anything and she takes that as a yes. “Name one person other than Kerry who you woulda been just simply glad to see after coming back.”

“Alt,” Johnny says, tone and face neutral, eyes on his fingers. He touches each finger of his left hand to his thumb repeatedly in turn, a silent loop.

V takes a careful breath in. “Yeah,” she says softly. “Alt and Kerry.”

He turns to her, the beginnings of a scowl on his face. “If you’re implying —”

“I’m not,” V says quickly, trying to hide her flinch, looking away again. “You brought her up, not me. I’m just — forget it. Forget it.”

After a long moment of silence, Johnny speaks. “We fucked once,” he says evenly. She glances over at him again, and he’s back to staring at his fingers as he taps them together. She already knows, and Johnny knows she knows, but she lets him continue. “It sucked ass. Was high outta my mind and Ker —” Johnny stops himself and balls his fist. He flexes each knuckle in turn. “He wanted it too bad.”

She bites the inside of her cheek. God, this was easier when she had him inside her, could feel the shape of him. Easier when he knew her better than she knew him.

“I had to move in with my dad when I was fifteen,” she says after a pause. “Mom found out ‘bout my girlfriend and, uh, didn’t take it well.”

“And?” Johnny says derisively, looking at her with an expression to match.

V sighs and looks down at the cushion on her lap. “Shit, just — lotta things change, but some things are — not the same, but… similar, yeah?”

Johnny laughs at that, bitter and short, kicking his foot off the couch. “Sure, kid,” he says dismissively.

V turns away from him, stung. She bites at the scar on her lip, the one he’d given her back when he met her. “God, you’re — know I fucking mean it this time when I say you’re an asshole,” she forces out. “Shit. Don’t have to agree with me. Not gonna —” She cuts herself off, not knowing how to properly tell him off.

“Finish your damn sentence,” Johnny snaps.

She puts her head in both her hands. “Just — hold on.” She takes the deepest fucking breath she can, then turns to actually face Johnny. He’s scowling at her. “I’m not trying to imply shit about how you feel. We’re fucking mainlining. I’m trying to be, like, vulnerable with you. Don’t be a fucking ass about it.”

His scowl hasn’t changed. “Dunno what the fuck you’re expectin’ but if its for me to be nice —”

“Please, I’d have a better chance becoming ‘Saka CEO,” V interrupts scornfully. She glances away but then forces her eyes back to him as she continues. “Just thought, shit, if you — if we’re gonna talk about — you should know something kinda vulnerable about me. Not expecting this to be a one-way street. I’m not saying it’s the same, but it’s not like I got no frame of reference here. It all fucking sucks. And,” she adds sharply, “I’m not taking your shit, not like that.”

Johnny breaks first, looking away from her with a quiet exhale. “Not interested in fucking Kerry.”

“Alright.” She doesn’t believe it. “I’m only interested if it’s with you.”

“Good,” Johnny says, a little harder, then he moves on abruptly. “Was Dad a cunt as well, or just dear old Mom?”

“Jesus,” V mutters, but she takes it as the apology it is. “You’d think so. Honestly, they were both Arasaka fanatics through and through. Mom was… worse, but Dad had more money, which kinda meant a shittier time for me. Relatively speaking.”

Johnny is eyeing her like he’s assessing her worth. “Somehow keep forgettin’ you’re an ex-’Saka bitch.”

She huffs a laugh. “Wow. Maybe I’m in line for ‘Saka CEO after all.” Johnny’s mouth twitches up slightly.

She should just drop it now, while Johnny has the ghost of a smile on his face, but against her better judgement her thoughts keep fucking swirling around Kerry. She groans and puts the cushion back on her face for a moment, before lowering it and speaking again.

“Just — dead serious about Kerry,” she says, not looking at Johnny. “I mean, shit, I love you or whatever” — and, god, that might be the the first time she’s actually said that to him and not about the other-him, fuck — “but, it’s Kerry. He’s… him and you, you’re… somethin’ else.” V curses herself for saying it. That’s the kind of shit that he doesn’t wanna hear.

To her surprise, Johnny doesn’t say anything, just sighs beside her and sinks back into the couch a little.

V swallows. “Plus, it would be super hot.”

Johnny laughs, surprised. “Fuck off,” he says indignantly, but the tension is broken and he grins at her. “We’re hotter. You’re hotter than him.”

She scoffs loudly. “Hotter than Kerry Eurodyne? International sex symbol Kerry Eurodyne? Half my generation’s sexual awakening Kerry fucking Eurodyne? No way. You’re just biased.”

Johnny leans into her shoulder. “What, toward you?”

“Nah,” she says, “against Kerry.”

Johnny laughs into her mouth as he kisses her.

—

Just under a week later, V lets herself into Johnny’s apartment carrying two takeaway containers of steaming rice. He greets her with a stupid grin and glowing eyes.

“V’s here,” Johnny says as he takes the food from her. He flicks his fingers and swaps his holo over to speaker.

Kerry’s voice crackles through the air. “— she hear me?”

“Hey, Kerry,” V says as she dumps her jacket — the one Johnny had given her — and her shitty old terminal by the door.

It feels nice, eating dinner with Johnny, chatting with Kerry. Kerry hasn’t bothered asking anything about what either of them are up to, but V gets Johnny to talk about the gig he took yesterday, and Johnny bothers V until she finds something to talk about from her week at work. As they finish eating the conversation drifts to music, and pretty quickly becomes a continuation of a conversation that V is not part of. As best she can tell, Kerry is writing something and getting Johnny’s input on it — or maybe vice versa, or both.

“Fuck, hold on,” Johnny says eventually, and he gets up and moves toward the living space, gesturing for V to follow. Johnny grabs his guitar and sits down on the couch with it. There’s only one couch, so V sits down next to him.

Against all odds, V recognises the guitar. “You’re playing an eTone?” she blurts out, unable to stop herself.

Johnny looks over at her with his eyebrows raised. “You know guitars?”

“Not really.”

“God, Johnny, should just take one of mine,” Kerry says.

“And get some bounty on my head propped up by your endless eddies? Pass.” Johnny strums the guitar. “Does its job just fine. For now.”

Kerry’s sigh comes tinnily through the holo. “Whaddid ya wanna show me?”

Johnny plays some little riff he’s been working on. Kerry listens and they talk about it, then he plays something back. They bicker more than they agree, and V starts to tune them out. She gets up and grabs her terminal and sits back on the couch. At first she angles the screen slightly away from Johnny as she scrolls apartment listings, but it’s pretty apparent he’s fully focused on the call so she relaxes into a more comfortable position.

V doesn’t notice when Johnny stops playing fragments for Kerry and starts playing something in full; she doesn’t notice when he stops talking and Kerry’s voice vanishes. She’s too focused on redoing the maths on how far she can stretch her rent budget, and how far she can reasonably commute to Arroyo. She’s been hoping to score another apartment in the same megabuilding as she’s living in now, but it’s not looking good.

She hears Johnny shuffle on the couch and when she looks over he’s leaning toward her, still playing the guitar.

“You lookin’ at apartments?” he asks.

She doesn’t recognise the song he’s playing, but it’s stripped back and melodic, just as much fingerpicking as strumming.

V tilts the computer away. “Yeah, uh. Yeah.”

Johnny slides his fingers down the strings, face neutral as he glances down briefly at the frets. “What for?”

“Living in,” V answers, and Johnny gives her a flat look. He doesn’t break until V sighs. “Housemates and I aren’t gettin’ along.”

“I coulda paid for their couch,” Johnny says.

“Yeah, well,” V says dryly, “think they were more concerned with me letting a merc in than ruining their couch.” She sighs. “They want me out in, uh, four days.”

“Since when?” Johnny sounds halfway offended.

“Since the day after you ruined their couch.” V sighs and goes back to the listings. “So fucking hard to find a three or two bed that has a spare going, and the one beds are so fucking expensive,” she complains. “Been going nuts trying to get all these housemate interviews in. Keep gettin’ rejected.”

“Y’didn’t tell me.”

V looks over at him and he’s watching her intently. The song he’s playing has morphed into something more repetitive, less fingerpicking; something that needs less attention.

She shrugs. “I was kinda processing shit at first. Y’know, gunshot. Then, dunno, guess I didn’t want you to worry. I’ll sort it out.”

Johnny strums and says, “You don’t find anything, could crash here for a couple weeks. Just ‘til you do.” He’s back looking at the frets.

“You serious?” she asks, half expecting him to be kidding.

She’s been over multiple times a week for the past nearly three weeks, sure, and they’re officially mainlining now, but — even temporarily living together is pretty different to that.

“Wouldn’t offer if I weren’t,” Johnny says, not looking at her.

“Right, well.” V pauses, trying to collect her thoughts. “I guess if you’re sure, then yeah, if I don’t find something. Thanks.” She hesitates. “Better than my original backup of sleeping in the Porsche.”

“Fuck, been there,” Johnny says with a slight laugh. “She’s a beauty, but she ain’t comfortable. You can fuck in there, but it’s tight.”

V laughs and shuts the terminal, placing it on the floor by the side of the couch. “Always dreaded what those poor seats had seen.”

Johnny’s eyes gleam as he looks at her with a shit-eating grin. “Could give you a demonstration.”

V groans and leans back against the couch away from him. “It’d be so cramped,” she complains. “Although, you’re shorter now. Might be easier.”

“More importantly,” Johnny says, scooting a bit closer, fingers not faltering on the guitar, “you recognised this guitar on sight. You play?”

V laughs at the sudden change of topic. “Nah, don’t play. Six months sharing your stupid brain, some shit must’ve rubbed off.”

“Nice try, but eTone didn’t fuckin’ exist fifty years ago.”

V sighs. “When I got back to Night City last year, I bought an eTone acoustic. Haven’t touched it since. I know them as the cheap brand, that’s all.”

For a moment Johnny almost looks disappointed. “Can I borrow it?”

“You can have it,” V says. “God knows I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Nah, it’s yours. ‘Sides, once I get the eds I’m ditching this piece of shit brand.”

V gives him a sideways glance. “You could ask Kerry for cash. Bet he’d drop a few thou on you without even blinking.”

Johnny returns the glance. “Same to you.”

V holds his gaze for a moment, then huffs. “Idiots, both of us.”

Johnny keeps playing, back to the more complicated fingerpicking he was doing before. V is no expert but now that she’s paying attention she picks several times where he stumbles or misses notes; his frustrated little sighs help make it obvious.

“Hands are the wrong damn size,” he mutters.

He strums, loud and abrupt, then mutes the chord with a slap of his palm. V looks down at her hands and wonders how bad hers were for him. He’s pretty pissed as he sets the guitar down and stands up; she can see it in the tense line of his shoulders, the way his jaw is set.

V’s mouth quirks up in a tiny grin. “Too small?”

Johnny starts pacing. “Somethin’ like that,” he mutters.

“Ever thought about learning keys or synth or something?”

He glances sideways at her over his shoulder. “Already have. Can play alright. Was a solo act for fuckin’ years, gotta have some idea how to play the shit I wrote.”

V hums overly thoughtfully. “Maybe you should pivot. Bit more flexibility, y’know?” He’s really frowning at her now, and she maintains an innocent smile as she continues, “I mean, no one listens to metallic rock —”

“Chromatic,” Johnny corrects through gritted teeth.

“— anymore anyway —”

“'Cause they got no taste.”

“— I mean, it’s all just boring old geezer noise, way uncool. It’s all the same shit!” V suppresses her grin as Johnny glares at her and his jaw twitches. “It’s all like three identical guitars layered over each other and some guy screaming into a mic. Talk about boring. There’s this ‘Saka backed band that —”

“Shut the fuck up,” Johnny says, taking several steps toward her. She’s really struggling to keep a straight face now. “You wouldn’t know good fucking music if it bit you on the fucking —”

Johnny cuts himself off as he meets her eyes. She sees him realise she’s deliberately winding him up, and the corner of his mouth quirks up in a dangerous grin even as he glares at her.

“You little shit,” he says, closing the rest of the distance between them.

V grins up at him guilelessly. “Me?”

Johnny climbs on top of her, straddling her lap, and grabs her face. “Bein’ a dick on purpose, huh? Gettin’ me all riled up?”

V keeps grinning. “I’m a dick? Does that make you a cunt tonight?”

Johnny answers her with a furious kiss, pushing up on his knees to loom over her, tilting her head back with his hands on her cheeks.

“Fuck you,” he says, a single breath into her mouth, gripping her cheeks hard enough to hold her mouth open slightly. “Gonna fuck you real fuckin’ good.”

V grabs his hips and tries her best to grind up against him. Johnny rocks down in response, but he doesn’t let up from her face.

“Kiss me,” V gasps out.

Johnny does, just as furious as before. He latches onto the scar on her lower lip.

“‘S yours,” V says breathily as she pulls back slightly. At his frown, she says, “Scar. Y’gave me it, months ago, when you —” Johnny cuts her off with another kiss, this one somehow harder and more desperate than before.

“Oughta give me one,” he mumbles into her mouth. “Fair’s fair ‘n all.”

“Maybe later,” V says, instead of saying something sensible, like, What, no, you’re insane. His hands loosen slightly and V pushes up into him, sucking at his lips in return.

“Gonna be good for me tonight?” Johnny says, still mumbling into her mouth.

V laughs. “Absolutely not.”

Johnny’s eyes burn right before he crashes back into her mouth for a kiss. He’s relentless, both hands moving upward to tangle in her hair and hold her in place as they make out. He pulls at her hair and nearly devours her mouth, kissing her over and over again, messy and desperate with his tongue. V runs her hands over his chest, his back, his hips. When she ghosts over his crotch he bucks into it with a groan against her. He pulls back from the kiss and sits back in her lap, staring at her. Then he gets up and starts undoing his pants.

“Pants off,” he says, nodding at her as he yanks down his jeans.

“Fucking make me,” V replies with a grin.

Johnny looks up from where he’s untangling his jeans from his ankles. “You leave ‘em on, maybe I just get mine, leave you out to dry.”

He steps out of the jeans and pulls his underwear off in one quick motion. He looks ridiculous, tank top on with his cock out, and he must realise that because he immediately pulls the top over his head and tosses it to the side. V lets her eyes wander over his naked body.

Even in this soft, short body, there’s still something about him that screams Johnny Silverhand. His hair is soft and curly, honey-gold blond, and his face is wide and boyish — but there’s a sharpness in his eyes, a danger in his grin, something about the way he holds his shoulders. V is pretty certain she’d find him hot in any body, but she can’t deny he looks good here. It feels weird, sometimes, to love him in this body that is not his. So much of it are relics from its original owner — the thin lines of golden cyberware that snake his body, up the centre of his torso and along under his pecs around to his back; the bare, untattooed skin; the hazel and gold Kiroshis. He used to have monowire ports in his wrists and ceramic plating on his fingers, but they’re gone now, replaced with synthskin and a SmartLink in his left palm.

“You wouldn’t,” V says, calling his bluff. “You’re way too horny for pussy.”

Johnny grins at her, all sharp and dangerous edges. “You forget that you’re the dick tonight?” V makes a ragged little noise involuntarily and Johnny’s grin gets even sharper. “You taking ‘em off or what?”

“Do it yourself,” she says, way less assertive now.

Johnny watches her, clearly expecting her to cave and take her pants off. V leans forward and takes her shirt off, then unclasps her bra. She rubs her fingers over the dog tags against her chest, then grabs both tits, one in each hand. She meets Johnny’s eyes and pinches her nipples, then rolls them slowly. Johnny takes a deep breath as he watches.

“Ain’t your pants,” he says eventually. He wraps a hand around his cock and strokes it slowly.

V runs one hand from her tits achingly slowly down her stomach, down to the fly of her jeans. She pops the button and unzips the zip. The heat of Johnny’s gaze makes her flush. Instead of taking her pants off, she slips her hand inside, under her underwear as well, and palms herself. Her eyes slip closed as she pushes two fingers through her folds, gathering the wetness there, then moves to circle her clit. She leans her head back with a sigh as the gentle pleasure flits through her. After a moment she opens her eyes again and looks at Johnny, who is watching like a hawk, still standing in the middle of the room, one hand on his dick. She smiles and pulls her hand out of her pants, then licks her fingers obscenely, tasting herself.

“Fuck,” Johnny breathes out. “Hold on,” he says, then disappears somewhere in the apartment.

He's back quickly, and he moves immediately to straddle her again, bare skin on denim.

“What —” V starts to ask, but is cut off by Johnny’s mouth, hot and insistent.

His hand reaches into her pants and he pushes roughly through her folds, ignoring her clit entirely. In fact, he barely fingers her so much as runs his fingers through her, getting her wetness all over his fingers. He withdraws his hand and redoubles his making out efforts, so much so that V loses track of where his hand is. She feels like she loses track of most of her thoughts as well, until Johnny makes a little huffed grunt and leans backwards. He rocks his hips but not against her, and V looks down and realises that he’s got his finger in his ass, slicked with her wetness.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathes out, gripping Johnny by the shoulders. “Jesus — did you get —”

“Yeah,” he interrupts, and passes a tube of lube to her with his right hand — his left is otherwise occupied. “C’mon, yeah.”

V slicks her fingers immediately and reaches down between his legs. Johnny withdraws his finger and V pushes one finger in. Johnny groans, bowing his head and rocking forwards as he does. Fuck, fuck, he’s so hot and tight.

“Shit, I gotta get a strap,” V says. She fucks him slow and deep as he rocks his hips.

Johnny groans. “Shit yeah you do. Rogue used’ta —”

“Maybe don’t bring up exes mid-fuck, Johnny?” V says pointedly, fucking up into him harder even as she grins.

“Ah —” Johnny says, gasping, “ah, that meant to discourage me, ain’t workin’.” He exhales, then sucks in another breath. “She wouldn’t fuck me now anyway,” he continues, with the certainty of someone who asked. He leans his head against her shoulder and sucks at her collarbone.

“Wanna ‘nother one?” V says breathily.

Johnny nods with a groan and V slowly pushes in a second finger. He’s goddamn riding her fingers, thighs straining as he straddles her and moves his hips, cock bobbing with every movement. The hand that was in his ass braces against the couch back beside her and his other rests on her ribcage. Her hand is flat between her thighs, two fingers crooked upward to fuck him.

“Can you come just from this or do I have to jerk you off as well?” V asks.

Johnny lifts up slightly before pushing his hips down hard. “In your fuckin’ dreams can I come untouched,” he says, grinding against her fingers. She wiggles them a bit and he chokes out a moan.

“Alright, alright,” V says. She noses into his cheek then kisses him hard on the mouth, panting and messy. “What if I had a strap?” she asks, then takes a slight risk: “You think you could come just from my cock?”

Johnny laughs breathlessly, clearly not put off by the word cock at all. “Yeah, shit, prolly not, but — want another finger, V,” he says.

V wants to push further. “You want my cock?” Johnny laughs again. “C’mon, please. Do you? You want it?”

“Christ,” Johnny says, but his tone is only barely complaining. “Yeah, V, I’d take your fuckin’ cock,” he says, exasperated, but then he continues, getting more and more worked up, “take it real good, let you fuck me with it real fuckin’ hard, into the, ah, the goddamn mattress” — he tips his head down onto her shoulder — “ride you just like this, shit.”

“I’d fuck just like you do, like you’re fucking yourself,” V says, right into his ear, and he shudders hard against her with a gasp.

Then he laughs and says, “I am a great fuck.”

V pulls out to get more lube, hurried and desperate. She pushes back in with two fingers, then carefully starts with a third. God, her underwear is fucking soaked, and she has goosebumps all down her spine from Johnny’s hot breath on her shoulder. She’s so horny and sensitive her nipples tingle at any brush of sensation; the dog tags are a fucking tease around her neck.

Johnny trembles in her lap as she works her third finger in. “Oh, fuck yeah,” he groans, leaning back from her shoulder so he can look at her all glassy-eyed. He shifts back onto her fingers and hooks both arms around her neck. “Fuckin’ — shit.”

“God you look good gettin’ fucked,” V says, pushing him harder.

He grins at her through his wrecked expression, vain to the very last. She isn’t sure what will be too much or too rough, but she knows Johnny isn’t really bothered about being gentle and won’t be shy about telling her if it’s too much; she fucks her fingers into him hard, angling to try and find his prostate. She finds it and he sucks in a harsh gasp.

“Shit, shit, get your damn hand on my cock,” Johnny demands.

V obliges and Johnny’s moan is fucking filthy as she jerks him off, as he rocks between her fist and her fingers. She adjusts on every thrust to try to hit his prostate.

“Shit, V,” he says in a long, low groan. “Gonna eat you out so fuckin’ good for this.”

“Gotta come first,” V says, then leans up to kiss him, shoving her tongue in his mouth desperately.

V works his cock hard and fucks him harder with her fingers. Johnny whines then groans loudly, bowing his head down into her sternum, arms still resting on her shoulders. He’s so fucking obscene, V almost feels delirious with it, the way he rides her, the way he fucking grunts on every exhale. Anything Johnny did he did to the max, to one hundred and ten percent, to the most hedonistic and indulgent end. She thrusts her hips up against her hand, imagining if she was fucking him properly with a strap. Memories of how it felt to have a cock — his cock — and how it felt to fuck someone filter through her head and she really imagines it, fucking him for real, feeling him tight around her. She feels genuinely a little lightheaded.

“Oh, fuck, V — babe, fuck —” Johnny says, crumpling inward. He moans as he comes, hard and sudden and gasping. He grinds down and spills all over her hand and stomach, so fucking much, panting hard into her chest, vocalising every goddamn exhale. His ass clenches wildly tight around her fingers. She keeps fucking him, right over his prostate, and his cock twitches with it, more come seeping out over her fingers with each thrust as he fucking whimpers.

After a moment he says, “Shit, enough, enough,” and V withdraws both her hands slowly. Johnny hisses as she does, clearly over sensitive. He collapses against her — probably getting his own come on his stomach and thighs — with his head in the crook of her neck. He mouths gentle kisses there as he breathes deep. V’s left hand is all gross with lube and her right is covered in come; after a brief hesitation she wipes the come off against her jeans the best she can, then runs her hand through his hair, gently running her nails over his scalp.

Johnny rests against her and breathes for a minute and V sits there, scratching his head, horny out of her fucking mind but willing to wait it out.

“Damn,” Johnny says eventually, then laughs breathlessly. “Hope you weren’t wantin’ me to stick my dick in you tonight. Got nothin’ left.”

V tightens her grip in his hair and tugs him out of her shoulder for a breathless kiss. “Gotta stick somethin’ in me,” she says, a little desperate.

Johnny laughs again as he leans backwards in her lap. He looks down between them. “Made a mess,” he says wickedly, then grins at her. “Gonna get somethin’ to clean up, then I’ll give you the best head of your life.”

“Promises, promises,” V teases as he gets up off her, wincing as he does.

He comes back with a damp tea towel and cleans her up, kissing the skin of her stomach as he does. He wipes her hands too, almost delicately, then pulls her up by the wrist. He puts the towel in the kitchen sink and then washes his hands. V does as well. Her urgency is fading a little, but she can’t deny it’s sweet.

“Bed,” Johnny says, and swats her ass playfully. “And pants off.”

“Again,” V says with a grin, “take ‘em off your damn self.”

When they make it to his bed Johnny pounces, pushing her backwards and climbing on top to devour her. Her fading arousal flares to life again when he puts a knee between her legs and grinds down into her purposefully, giving her something to writhe against. He pulls back, all the way back off the bed, and with a sigh starts pulling her pants off. She gives him a triumphant grin.

“Can’t deny you if you’re gonna fuck me like that,” he says, tossing her jeans to the side. “Move it.”

V shuffles back up the bed and Johnny follows after her on his hands and knees. Once they’re both on the bed he lays down on his stomach, propped against his forearms, then leans down to eat her out.

V leans her head back and sighs, long and relieved. It turns into a breathy moan at the end as Johnny tongues her clit. He reaches his hand up and fingers her, pushing two fingers inside immediately.

“Christ,” he whispers. “So fucking wet, V.”

“Was real hot,” she says, a little defensive. “Like you wouldn’t be way hard if you did that to someone.”

“Uh-huh,” he says absently. “Fuck.”

He adds a third finger, then leans back in with his mouth to suck her clit.

She’s like putty beneath him, melting down into the bed as he teases her and fucks her real slow with his fingers. After several minutes of him slowly, slowly winding her tighter and tighter, Johnny pulls back and looks up at her, mouth and chin shiny slick. Her thighs tremble either side of his head.

“What d’you want,” he breathes.

“Fuck me,” V begs, desperate.

Johnny huffs a tiny little laugh next to her stomach and moves his fingers slowly inside her. “With my cock? Can’t, no way I’m gettin’ hard again tonight.” He kisses her bellybutton. “Fingers do?”

“Worked for you, didn’t it?” she says, a little snippy, rocking her hips.

Johnny grins up at her. “Sure did,” he says. “Want a finger in your ass as well?”

V shifts uncomfortably. “Haven’t, before.”

Johnny shrugs. “Cunt it is.” He shifts his mouth back to her pussy.

He fucks her hard, fingers curling against her g-spot with expert fucking precision. After the show Johnny put on earlier and the slow wind up of him eating her out she’s not going to last. Even so, her orgasm catches her off guard, bubbling up suddenly and crashing through her whole body, leaving her knees weak. She gasps and writhes against him, whimpering as he doesn’t let up with his fingers or mouth.

“Johnny,” she whines, “Johnny —”

“Want you to come again,” he says, fucking her with his fingers, hard and consistent. “Think you can?” He tongues lightly over her clit and V grabs his head with both hands, gasping. “Please? For me?”

“Shit, I don’t — oh fuck,” she gasps out, just barely. “Maybe, maybe, fuck.”

It’s too much; she feels so full, so wrung out, and even Johnny’s gentle little movements against her clit hit so hard her whole body jerks in protest, but — she’s close, obscenely close — just —

“Less clit,” she gasps, “more — more inside —”

Johnny obliges, moving his fingers faster, kissing her thigh instead of her clit and fuck, Jesus, she feels like — like if she lets herself come she’s going to piss, or explode, or break, or something.

”C’mon,” Johnny says gently. He slows for a moment as he climbs up the bed and kisses her, sloppy and uncoordinated. He fucks her fast again with his fingers, in and out, curling upward on each stroke. His thumb rests against her clit, barely moving against her with the rhythm of his fucking. “C’mon, babe, just gotta let go for me.”

V shudders and does — she lets go and comes again, twitching and desperate against the mattress, lungs fucking burning as she breathes in, eyes tearing up. It’s intense, borderline too intense, as her whole body tenses involuntarily and she groans, long and low. The flood of wetness is embarrassing but Johnny is by her ear, and he’s murmuring, “Yeah, that’s it, so fuckin’ good for me, shit, you’re so fuckin’ hot, that’s it,” directly into her rapidly liquifying brain as he fucks her all way through it, until she’s whining, until he slowly pulls his fingers out.

Johnny grabs V by the chin and turns her face and kisses her. It starts hard and desperate but slows, pretty quickly, becoming languid and messy.

“Haven’t come twice in a row like that before,” V mumbles into Johnny’s mouth, once she can form sentences again. He grins smugly and she realises that she probably shouldn’t have mentioned that; he’s gonna be insufferable. “Shut up,” she says, before he can even say anything, pushing him away halfheartedly with a hand against his chest.

Johnny doesn’t speak and lets himself be pushed back. He leans away to grab his cigarettes and a lighter and puts one in V’s mouth. She puffs as he lights it, then takes a long drag. He sits up against the headboard and V follows his lead. Johnny slings his arm over her shoulder and pulls until she’s leaning in against him. He kisses the smoke of her second drag off her lips.

V stays the night. When they go to bed she lays awake, staring at the ceiling for what feels like an age, listening to Johnny’s even breathing beside her. At some point he makes a little noise and shifts in his sleep, rolling over against her. She leans over and kisses him on the top of his head, and then she shudders, full bodied. It feels impossible, unreal, but here she is, and here he is. She’s smiling as she finally slips into sleep.

Chapter Text

Everything V owns fits into three Decker, Tanaka & Rogers® Size-M EZ-Move™ boxes.

Technically the acoustic guitar doesn’t fit, but the third box isn’t even half full, so it kind of balances out. She has a paltry collection of clothes, two sets of bedsheets, two towels, a small toiletries bag, the old portable terminal she borrowed from work, and a cheap Militech pistol she bought before she saved enough for the Malorian. It feels strange and pathetic, kind of empty, to see her whole life collected into a small enough space that it’ll all fit in the tiny Porsche. On the plus side, it definitely makes moving easier.

Ever since Johnny had offered his place as a backup, V had basically stopped looking for apartments. She knows she should keep looking, but rent prices have risen in the last year while her wages stayed the exact same, and she hadn’t quite realised how lucky she’d been in dodging that increase with Shaun and Thomas. She'd offered Johnny money and he’d told her an amount that was at the upper end of her budget but within it, so at least she wouldn’t be burning through cash.

Despite offering his apartment Johnny had not offered to help her move, and V hadn’t asked. It takes her two trips to get everything down the elevator, and it does all fit in the Porsche — one box on the front passenger seat, two on the back seats with the guitar on top.

When she pulls up in front of Johnny’s apartment building, V realises she doesn’t know where to park. When she visits she usually just gets on the metro, or occasionally rides Jackie’s motorbike. Leaving the Porsche on the street seems like a great way to get it stolen, and she has no clue whether the building has a garage. Reluctantly, she texts Johnny to ask. She’s not even sure if he’s home.

V is nervous and uncomfortable as she waits for a reply. It’s so fucked — the intimacy she had with the other Johnny was so far beyond something as mundane as living together that it feels laughable to be even a little concerned about this. But this Johnny isn’t the other one, and this Johnny hadn’t shared that with her. Weirdly enough, this Johnny doesn’t seem to be concerned at all with her moving in. Presumably because it’s temporary.

A knock on her window startles her out of her thoughts. She turns and Johnny is there, eyebrows raised, looking very unimpressed in a faded Samurai tank. She unwinds the window.

“Move over.” Johnny leans into the window on folded elbows. “I’ll park.”

V looks pointedly at the box taking up the entire passenger seat.

“Get out of the fuckin’ car, V,” he says tiredly.

“Asshole,” V grumbles, but she climbs out of the tiny car anyway. Johnny ruffles her hair obnoxiously as she does and she flips him off as she rounds the car to grab the box from the passenger seat. He sinks into the Porsche and outright groans as he tips his head back and wraps his hands around the wheel.

“Can’t fuckin’ believe I let you keep her from me so fuckin’ long,” he says. “Lookit her. Kept her good as fuckin’ new.”

“Should I give you two some privacy?” she says dryly.

“Get that when I park,” he says, grinning.

V carries her box up the stairs as Johnny drives the Porsche off to wherever the garage of the building is. It’s not heavy but it is bulky, and it's awkward climbing the stairs. She waves a hand over the door and then pushes it open clumsily with her shoulder. She puts the box down in the kitchen-dining space and eyes it warily. They haven’t really talked about exactly what the plan is — V doesn’t think she’ll be on the couch, but she’s not sure that putting all her clothes in Johnny’s wardrobe is the right call.

In fact, without knowing where the garage is or having access, she can’t even go get the rest of her stuff. Ten whole minutes pass with no sign of Johnny so she texts again to ask where he is. His response is mercifully quick.

fucking the car don’t wait up <3

V sighs heavily and starts making coffee.

An entire hour later, V is flicking through channels on the TV when the apartment door opens. “You’re a real cunt for keepin’ that car from me,” Johnny says as he enters. He’s got her acoustic guitar and no boxes, the asshole.

When V gets back with her boxes Johnny is strumming her guitar on the couch. She drops them down in the kitchen and then flops down next to him.

“Real piece of shit,” Johnny says, gesturing at the guitar. “Was shit to begin with but you haven’t taken any fuckin’ care of it.”

V shrugs. “Could hardly even look at it. You’re lucky I didn’t throw it out ages ago.” She fidgets on the couch, her gut sitting uncomfortable within her. She’s not really sure where they stand right now.

“New strings’ll fix the worst of it. Not damaged at least,” he says pensively. “Y’got the day off, right?”

“Uh-huh,” V says, eyes back on the TV.

The guitar twangs musically as Johnny presumably puts it down, then he’s on her, one hand running up her thigh, the other on her jaw to turn her face so he can jam his mouth into hers for a messy kiss. Johnny speaks quietly against her lips. “Let’s make the most of it, huh?”

After they fuck, V unpacks her linen into the hall closet and hangs her towels in the bathroom. At Johnny’s insistence, she unpacks all her clothes into the unused end of Johnny’s built-in wardrobe. You got like five shirts, I got a million shelves, fuckin’ put ‘em in, he’d said, and V had ignored the coiling of her guts and done so. While she unpacks Johnny ducks out and comes back with dinner.

“You remember whose question we’re up to?” he asks later, mouth full of fried dumplings. They’re sitting at the kitchen table, side by side.

V frowns as she dips a dumpling in soy sauce and pops it in her mouth. They haven’t done the question game in at least a week. She tries to remember as she chews.

“No clue,” she says eventually.

Johnny hums thoughtfully. “Let’s flip for it.”

“Flip what?” V laughs. “Don’t think anyone has minted a coin in about thirty years.”

Johnny makes an annoyed and uncomfortable face and shifts in his chair. Then he leans over into her space and jams his hand down into the back pocket of her jeans, pushing to get between her ass and the chair. V makes an annoyed noise and shifts as Johnny pulls back triumphant, lighter in hand. He looks at it and his triumph flips to disappointment as he turns it over in his hand.

“God, shitty lighter,” he says, as though he’s only just noticed.

It is — it’s cheap and disposable neon yellow plastic with no markings, not even a brand name. He grabs a knife off the table and scratches at the surface of one side.

“There, flip-able,” he says easily, handing it back to her.

He’s carved a shitty, messy heart into one side and shit, V’s idiot real heart skips a beat. It reminds her of the tattoo she used to have, the one the other Johnny had gotten for her — Johnny + V in an equally shitty heart. When she’d been in Langley, the FIA had, as part of her treatment, swapped all her synthskin out for specialised, low-tech, organic synthskin. The tattoo — and all her tattoos — are long gone.

V swallows and pretends like the heart hasn’t gotten to her, even though he almost certainly noticed. “Your call,” she says, holding it on her thumb like a coin she’s about to flip.

Johnny grins, insufferably smug. “Hearts.”

V flips the lighter and it spins in the air before she catches it, then reveals — blank side up.

“Ooh, bad luck,” V teases. “Guess that means it’s mine.”

Johnny watches her expectantly, then groans when she frowns instead of talking. “Fuck, if you don’t got a question why’d you even flip? Should’ve let me have it.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” V says. “Uh. Shit, you gonna get your tattoos? Or a biosculpt, even?” Johnny immediately tenses and leans back in his chair with an uncomfortable frown. “Or, shit, don’t wanna kill the —”

“‘S fine,” he interrupts gruffly, still frowning. He sinks even further into the shitty dining room chair. “Maybe.”

V waits for a long moment, unsure if she’s going to get any more of an answer.

Johnny crosses his arms over his chest and looks across into the kitchen. “Don’t even know the kid’s name,” he says eventually. “Dunno what’s worse — keepin’ their body as is or erasing it.”

V breathes out a long unsteady breath. “I always assumed you’d biosculpt mine.” Johnny glances over at her, an unreadable expression on her face. “Y’know. If he’d — if things had’ve worked out different.”

“Is that what you would’ve wanted?” Johnny asks, deadly serious.

“Dunno,” she says, quiet and honest. “Spent most of my time refusing to think about it. I think I would’ve just wanted him to figure out how to live. If that meant a biosculpt, then yeah. Guess so.”

He’s still staring at her, big hazel eyes rimmed with Kiroshi gold. He breathes out slowly, then turns his eyes away from her again.

“Johnny Silverhand is fuckin’ dead,” he says, stretching a hand out in front of him in a gentle arc, as though miming a headline. He drops his hand. “Ain’t gonna look like some sad sack chasin’ a ghost.” He hesitates. “Might get some of the tats. Fuckin’ weird, to not have ‘em.”

He abruptly sits up in his chair and grabs his chopsticks, then jams a whole dumpling into his mouth. “My turn,” he says, chewing. God, it’s like he does it deliberately. “Why’d you leave ‘Saka?”

V blinks hard, genuinely taken aback by the question. She racks her brains — weeks and weeks ago she’d told him the rough story of getting the Relic, but she must’ve only said that she left Arasaka, not why.

She swallows uncomfortably. “Not ‘cause I grew a conscience, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

Johnny shrugs one shoulder.

“Uh, I got fucked over. Boss wanted a promotion, I took the fall.”

“The fall for a promotion?”

V smiles bitterly. “Two ways you get promoted at Arasaka: sabotage or murder. Sabotage is more for the pencil-pushers — I was in counterintel. My boss had me try to kill his boss. It didn’t go well for either of us. Was lucky they let me leave alive.”

Johnny’s mouth is curled up in distaste. “But you went to merc work. Didn’t go and try to sell out to a competitor?”

V regards him curiously but answers the question. “Nah. Had a friend doing merc work already who was always sayin’ I needed to get out of the rat race. Turns out he was right. ‘Sides — when they fired me they shut off all my ‘ware and I was totally out of it for like three days. Took a couple weeks to properly recover. That friend and his mom put me up. I did some jobs with him to try and pay back that kindness. We worked well together, went into merc work proper.” V frowns. “Why do you…?”

He shrugs. “Curious, I guess. Fuckin’ sue me. Dunno how you even start working for ‘Saka, let alone how you stop.”

V shrugs as well. “I got in ‘cause my parents were both employees. They split not long after I was born, but they both stayed with ‘Saka. Both in accounts — sabotage more than murder. Mom was perpetually middle management, so she just did her job. Dad was higher up, which meant he spent more of his time fending off would-be saboteurs and sabotaging others than anything else.”

“Makes you wonder how they get anything done,” Johnny drawls, dry as a bone.

“Those types don’t,” she says, staring off into the distance. “All just bullshit, spinning wheels for the sake of it. I knew that even while I was still there.” She sighs deeply. “I went to their school, then their college, then worked for ‘em — it all felt the same. Pressed us into sharp little workers so gradually it didn’t even feel like it.”

“Evil,” he says flatly.

“Yeah,” she says slowly, poking at a dumpling with her chopstick. “Used to fight you on that. Knew a lotta people there — they weren’t evil. They were just people. But I get it now. More than the sum of its parts.”

“Somethin’ like that,” he says bitterly. He flips his chopstick over his fingers like he used to do to his cigarettes when he was in her head. He hesitates, chopstick held between two fingers, wobbling slightly. “Your folks still around?”

V’s eyes find the floor. Technically it’s her question now, but they’re not playing the same game as when they started. “Think so. Mom basically stopped talking to me when I went to live with Dad —”

“No loss there.”

“— and Dad, dunno. We weren’t close. Stopped talking to me once I got fired.”

“Dick.”

V shrugs. “Could jeopardise his career if he did. Against company policy to associate with terminated employees. He’s got his life to maintain.”

“Ain’t just that the big picture’s evil,” Johnny says, “it’s that it encourages even lowly fuckers do evil shit like that.”

V pokes at the dumpling again, pushing it around on her plate. “So do I get to ask about your parents now?”

“If you want me stormin’ out the door, sure,” he says with a wry little grin.

V laughs, tipping her head down, then finally grabs the dumpling and pops it in her mouth.

“Thought you knew all that anyway,” Johnny says, deliberately neutral.

V chews faster, then swallows. It hurts as it goes down, her throat tight. “Not really,” she says, voice rough from swallowing. “Got, I dunno, glimpses. Most of what I saw was more recent stuff. He told me some things, but not really anything about your folks.”

Johnny hums, eyeing up the last dumpling. After a moment he grabs it in a flash, like he’s worried V might try to take it first.

“Was thinkin’,” he says casually, mouth full again, “wanna watch all the Bushidōs.”

V’s lip quirks up at the sudden subject change. “Pretty sure they’re all garbage.”

“Yup. Blood, tits, and gore,” he says fondly. “You got a better idea?”

Turns out the first two are only available in BD format so they skip straight to Bushidō 3: Live Fast, Die Never. It’s dumb, but it at least tries to have a plot, its characters are fun to watch run around on screen. The special effects are pretty funny and the leads are wildly hot. The first three came out while Johnny was alive and he clearly has a great deal of nostalgia for the series, even if he won’t admit it.

V had been pretty convinced the film would just be a prelude to more sex, but Johnny doesn’t do anything other than cram up next to her on the couch, an arm looped lazily over her shoulders. Afterwards they head off to bed and V expects it to be weird, getting into bed with Johnny without fucking him first, but it’s just kind of normal and mundane, even with the winding anxiety in her gut. She falls asleep with Johnny’s gentle breathing beside her.

—

Thursday evening, just two days later, Johnny and V are at home, sprawled on the couch, halfway tipsy and watching Bushidō 4. They had started jammed up next to each other, Johnny’s arm hanging loosely over V’s shoulders, but as the movie got worse V had slowly melted further across the couch, loose-limbed and just drunk enough to feel the urge to sprawl across the cushions. Johnny is sprawling as well, and their legs are overlapped lazily, with Johnny resting a hand on V’s knee.

The third film had been fine, but this one — shit, it’s pretty bad. Not in the absurd, over the top, fun way V knows the later films are. It’s just kind of boring mush interspersed with gore and tits. V can practically see Johnny’s patience wearing down, like a timer in her HUD.

When Johnny’s eyes light up with a holocall, it’s no surprise that he answers it immediately. V mutes the movie but doesn’t pause it.

“Saving my fuckin’ life, Ker,” Johnny says, leaning away from V and into the couch. “Who knew the Bushidō films got so fucking boring.”

“Uh, everyone?” Kerry’s voice crackles through the room. Johnny put the call on speaker automatically. “Ain’t exactly high art. Hey, V.”

“Hey,” she replies. It feels good that he just assumes she’s there.

Johnny rolls his eyes. “What d’you want?”

Kerry scoffs indignantly. “Maybe I just wanna talk to my best choom, huh?”

“Really? Worse than the fuckin’ movie,” Johnny says. “Least the movie has tits.”

Like he timed it deliberately, as he speaks the busty leading lady in Bushidō 4 does an admittedly pretty hot backflip over a speeding car. She’s topless and the camera really luxuriates in the slow motion.

Kerry sighs. “Just letting you know, I’m back in the States now.”

“Oh, nice,” V says enthusiastically.

Johnny shrugs, eyes on the screen. The tits are gone, and now the very buff lead man is bench pressing a bus. Bushidō 5: Body of Law is the film that famously went as hard on the cock and balls objectification as it did the tit objectification, but at least Bushidō 4 doesn’t mind lingering on its attractive male leads.

“When’re you back in the city?” V asks.

“Exactly two weeks today!”

Johnny grins. “Counting down ‘til you get to see me, huh?”

“Counting down ‘til I get to sleep in my own damn bed,” Kerry says with a scoff. He holds out for a few seconds, then says, “You should come ‘round to North Oak. We can —”

“We’re not goin’ to North Oak that Thursday,” Johnny interrupts flatly. V frowns at him and he catches her eye, face neutral. “We got plans.”

“We do?” V asks.

“Isn’t your choom playin’ Red Dirt then?”

“Oh, yeah,” V says as she remembers. “Shit. Yeah, sorry Kerry.”

“Hope she’s any fuckin’ good,” Johnny says grumpily, crossing his arms, eyes back on the movie. It’s a mush of machinery and gunflashes, action so sloppy it’s barely comprehensible.

“You ditching me for V?” Kerry accuses. His tone is teasing but it twists at V’s guts slightly.

“Nah, just not ditching V for you.” Johnny watches the Bushidō mush for another couple seconds then sighs and twists on the couch to face V, their legs tangling together further. “Come with us.”

“To Red Dirt?” Through the holo, Kerry’s voice crackles and buzzes as he laughs. “V’s choom’ll prolly wanna kill me if I show up and crash their gig.”

“Then don’t fuckin’ crash it,” Johnny says.

“I’m real recognisable, Johnny. Couldn’t show up to Red fuckin’ Dirt without most of the club clocking me immediately.”

“Wear a fuckin’ hat or something,” Johnny grumbles. “C’mon, Ker.” He sounds almost whiny, and V knows Kerry will cave even before she hears his long-suffering sigh. In his defence, historically Johnny has been pretty reluctant to admit he wants Kerry anywhere near him.

“Dunno when my flight gets in,” Kerry says, “so —”

“Just fuckin’ meet us there, god,” Johnny interrupts. “We’ll wait.”

Kerry huffs a slightly disbelieving laugh. “Yeah, alright, fine,” he says, a little uncertain. “So which Bushidō are you watching?”

Johnny steamrolls into a long, rambling rant about all the flaws of Bushidō 4. V untangles their legs and spins on the couch, slumping down across it with her legs dangling off the side and her head next to Johnny’s thigh. Johnny is handsy and loves to lean and slouch all over her, but he’s not really cuddly. V is content just laying next to him, especially as he scratches his fingers though her hair, then rests his hand on her shoulder and taps little rhythms as he speaks.

“Why are you still watching it then?” Kerry eventually interrupts.

“We’re gonna watch ‘em all,” V says lazily. She’s been staring at the muted film but not really focusing on it. Right now they’re back in a gore section, screen filled with splattering blood.

Kerry laughs. “Fuck. Cruel and unusual.”

“If it gets too bad I’ll just get V to blow me,” Johnny says, hand moving back up into her hair.

“Fuck you,” V says.

Johnny grins down at her lazily. “Yeah, or that.”

Kerry laughs, and it’s a bit nervous. “Eh, hope you don’t mean right now.”

“Like you wouldn’t love it, gettin’ off on us again.” Johnny is dismissive, but more casual than cruel. He hums like he’s considering it with a wry little smile. “Nah, movie’s near done anyway.” He nods toward the screen. “Bushidō chick’s putting her tits away, means they’re wrapping up.”

V should really make Johnny project Kerry’s vid feed somewhere when he calls so she has any clue how he reacts when Johnny says ridiculous shit. His silence is driving her nuts. Since that first call weeks ago, where she’d blown Johnny while Kerry was on the line, nothing remotely like it had come up. They’d talked plenty since, and god knows Johnny had no shame about talking about sex and did so all the time, but neither he nor Kerry had mentioned anything about Kerry watching. At least, they hadn’t while she was in the room.

Johnny leans his head back against the couch and exhales slowly. “So you got a private jet these days or what?”

Kerry clears his throat. “Oh, uh-huh, got a whole fleet of ‘em. Each member of the band gets their own. Separate one for our luggage too. We make all the roadies jam into an old prop plane like sardines.”

“Fuck off,” Johnny says with a laugh.

“Nah. I fly commercial business. If you tip the staff well they’ll pretend not to see you do a bump or two.”

“Cushy.”

Kerry laughs at that. “Oh, come on, let’s hear it. I’ve gone soft, pampered, more money than sense, yada fuckin’ yada.”

A smug grin curls Johnny’s face. “You said it, not me.”

On screen, an explosion lights the entire frame in blinding white light as the two leads kiss, and then the credits slowly fade in. Johnny pulls at V until she sits back up and then tugs her against him. He seems to consider kissing her but doesn’t, nosing in against her neck before sighing.

“Tired, V?”

“A little,” she says through a yawn. The dark room, the easy conversation — it’s been lulling her to sleep slowly without her quite realising.

“Too tired to fuck me?”

She snorts. “I can wake up for that.”

Johnny grins into her skin. “Seeya ‘round, Ker.”

“No show tonight?” Kerry says, trying and failing to stifle his own yawn. V’s heart skips a beat and she tries to keep her body relaxed against Johnny as she watches keenly for his reaction.

Johnny huffs a little laugh through his nose, breath hot against her neck. He seems unbothered. “Thought you were hoping I wouldn’t.”

“Mm, weed kicked in since then.”

Johnny turns his head to kiss her. She melts into it easily. When he pulls back, Johnny says, “Nah. Seeya later.”

“Sure,” Kerry says. He sounds surprisingly unconcerned, with both having asked and with the rejection. “G’night.”

“Night Kerry,” V says, and Johnny's eyes dim as he pulls her in for a long, sleepy kiss.

The kiss deepens and V feels herself start to wake up as Johnny bites gently at the scar on her lip. He shifts backwards and she follows until they’re both lying along the couch, V on top. He reels her in for another kiss, hooking one hand around the back of her neck while his other roams her body, leaving little shivers in its wake. She fists both hands into the collar of his tank top, directly under her, as they kiss.

As Johnny starts working a hickey into her neck, she says, “Can’t believe Kerry actually asked to watch.”

“Mm, I can,” Johnny says against her skin. “Higher he gets, less shame he has.”

V is finding herself in a bit of a mood. “Shameless enough to beg for you?”

Johnny pauses, then sighs into her neck. His hot breath plays along the cooling trail left by his mouth. “Really don’t want Ker begging for me.”

She knows she’s pushing her luck. She leans over Johnny and kisses him hard, a little bit biting, before she pulls back just barely enough to speak. “How do you want him?”

Johnny growls and kisses her, all tongue and teeth. He flips them over, smooth as anything, without even breaking the kiss. V’s heart hammers in her chest as Johnny runs his open mouth over her jaw.

“A million miles away while I fuck my output,” he says low against her ear.

V laughs, happy to just drop it, and leans up to kiss him filthily. Johnny really pushes down into her as they kiss, legs tangling with hers. His whole body weight is a hot comfort pressing against her, real and solid in a way that makes her shudder. She can feel his cock hard against her as he rocks his hips, just slightly, like a promise of what’s to come. Even that makes her groan and try to pull him closer; she succeeds somehow, wrapping a leg up and over his ass and rocking upward against him.

“Eager,” Johnny teases, right into her ear with a dangerous grin that she can feel the teeth of against her earlobe. He licks her whole ear, one flat stripe with his tongue, bites the shell of it, then sucks on her earlobe briefly, making her shiver. “How do you want him?”

“Huh?” V says, but then her brain starts working and she gets there before Johnny has to clarify. “Kerry?”

Johnny hums in the affirmative against her neck as he kisses slowly down it. His hands slip under her loose t-shirt, running up over her stomach to cup her tits gently.

“I —” V cuts herself off, uncertain. “Really?”

Johnny doesn’t say anything as he pushes her shirt up until her tits are exposed, fabric bunched around her underarms. V pushes him back as he leans to get his mouth on her, just enough to yank her shirt off over her head before grabbing Johnny’s cheeks and yanking him down for a bruising kiss.

The thing is that V likes Kerry, and she certainly thinks he’s hot, but in terms of wanting, mostly she wants him and Johnny to be happy. Sure, she wants to watch Kerry suck Johnny off or fuck him, and vice versa — but she’s not really fantasising about fucking Kerry. If she’s fantasising about anything, it’s both of them fucking Johnny.

Johnny runs his teeth and tongue down over her neck and chest, down to her tits. He flips the dog tags up out of the way then cups both tits with both hands and buries his face between them. V blushes and laughs; feels ridiculous, his smooth face between her tits, his hot tongue leaving cool trails across her skin. He sucks a nipple into his mouth and swirls his tongue around it, eyes closed. V closes her eyes and sinks down into the sensation of Johnny’s mouth, of his body on hers, his cock pressed against her thigh. She sighs and it melts into a moan as Johnny works his tongue.

Johnny surges up to kiss her again as one hand drifts down to palm her over her jeans. V squirms and reaches to get her pants off. Johnny grins and pushes himself up so she has the space to get them down to her knees, then sits back to get them the rest of the way off. He yanks his own pants down just past his knees, then falls back down on top of her, catching himself on his hands either side of her chest. This time when he kisses her his cock presses hard against her soft belly, and she shudders.

“Didn’t answer me,” Johnny mumbles against her lips.

It takes a moment for V to remember that he’s referring to Kerry. She huffs a disbelieving laugh, then swallows nervously. “You look hot as hell when you’re getting fucked.”

“Hah, ain’t letting Ker fuck me,” he says. “Or blow me, or any shit like that, ‘fore you ask.” He kisses her again, deep and demanding. “Assumed you’d wanna get fucked by him.”

“Nah,” V says with a tiny shrug. “I might if you thought it’d be hot to watch,” she admits. “I mean, can’t deny he’s hot.”

Johnny doesn’t deny it and instead hums neutrally, which feels like some kind of miracle. He ruts up against her and grins at the way her breath catches. “You and some chick, now that’d be hot.”

V grabs him by the hair. “You’re lucky I like you. Usually hate when guys say shit like that.”

Johnny laughs. “Fuckin’ hypocrite.” He leans in close against her, one hand running back between her legs. “Wouldn’t wanna share you anyway.”

Johnny shuts up after that and, after a brief tease with his fingers, fucks her hard into the couch, face to face, her legs hooked around his waist. V moans through it and it’s so fucking good — she says something to that effect and Johnny grins into her mouth.

“Best you’ve ever had?” he demands, pulling away from her face to stare down at her. When she laughs instead of answering, he slows all the way down, an aching tease. “C’mon, babe. Want the truth outta ya.”

“Johnny,” V whines, just as much about the tease as the question. She knows he won’t let up so she tries to just rip the bandaid off. “Yes, c’mon.”

He grins and fucks into her once and her breath catches on a needy moan. “Yes what?”

“Yes you’re the best fuck I’ve fucking had, don’t be a fucking asshole about it,” she gasps out, rolling her hips against him. “C’mon, c’mon.”

Johnny obliges her, bracing himself on his elbows and really fucking her, deep and intense. She fists a hand into his hair and pulls, hard, and he moans and pulls against it, leaning his head down forward.

“Fuck, V — Jesus — take it so good,” he says between gasps. “Fuck. Top ten, easy.”

“Fuck you.”

She pulls him in for a kiss and bites at his lower lip hard enough that he whines into her mouth. She wraps one hand around his throat — she doesn’t like to actually choke him, but a firm grip is all it really takes to set him off.

His thrusts get harder for a moment before he pulls out of her and reaches down to jerk himself off, but she grabs his wrist. “Nah, keep going,” she gasps out. Johnny groans and frees his wrist from her grip and reaches down to line himself up. He doesn’t hesitate to thrust back into her. He keeps fucking her, and it’s almost enough that she comes just from that, despite the lack of stimulation on her clit.

When Johnny comes he bites down into her shoulder with an unusually quiet grunt, and fuck, it’s been a long while but the feeling of someone coming inside her is as hot and weird and dirty as she remembers, enough to make her moan and whimper. Johnny collapses boneless against her.

“Alright, maybe top five,” he says breathlessly.

“You’re the worst,” V says without any bite.

Johnny chuckles as he kisses her collarbone, then her sternum. He sucks a nipple into his mouth briefly before moving lower.

Her breath catches and her face burns as she feels the sensation of his come leaking from her. “Are you —”

“Think the best fuck of your life isn’t gonna make you come?” Johnny says as he kisses her stomach. “Think so little of me?”

“You just get off on eating pussy,” she says breathlessly as she gets a hand into his hair.

Johnny grins dangerously. “That too.”

He starts with a lot of attention to her sensitive clit, making her gasp and squirm. For a moment she thinks that he’s avoiding dipping lower to avoid his own release, but then he moves down and licks into her, deep and hard.

“Jesus, you —” V stammers out, “fuck, are you — are you — your own —?”

Johnny pulls back and laughs, then turns and sucks at her thigh. “That what you wanna hear? That I’m eating come?”

“Fuck, Johnny, I don’t — don’t fuckin’ say —”

“Maybe I am,” he interrupts.

He licks back into her, playing along her entrance and then delving into her. He works upwards and sucks on her clit as he moves to finger her, two fingers pumping as he swirls his tongue slowly around her clit. The pleasure swells within her, quickening her breath.

“You like it? Yeah?” she says breathlessly. Johnny hums a yes into her pussy. God, it’s unfair how good he is at this. “Fuck. You like tasting —?” She cuts herself off.

Her face burns and her legs are jelly and his tongue is so fucking hot and soft. Johnny doesn’t seem to be put off at all — if anything he likes it, because he moves back down to lick into her pussy properly, pulling his fingers out to suck them clean before replacing them with his mouth.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “Can’t believe — god, you — Jesus.”

She can’t bring herself to say what she’s thinking — that he’s so fucking hot eating come, that she wants to see him suck cock, see him with come on his face, in his mouth, watch him get fucked properly. Her hand fists desperately in his hair.

He pulls away from her and bites gently at her inner thigh. “V, c’mon, fuckin’ say it,” he says, almost begging as he moves back to eat her out again.

“Like eating come?” V gasps out, and Johnny groans desperately against her. “Yeah? Want more? Want someone to fuck your face?” She’s rambling now, as Johnny fucks his goddamn tongue into her and runs his thumb over her clit. She grabs his head and grinds against him, holding him there firmly. “Fuck your face and come in your mouth, all over your face, be so fucking hot, you — eat it outta my —” She gasps involuntarily as Johnny licks upwards and swirls his tongue just fucking right over her clit. God, she can hardly think.

“Get a proper strap that comes,” she continues breathlessly as he fucks her with his fingers again, “can suck me off, lemme come down your fucking throat, my cock hard in — in your — shit, Johnny, I’m gonna —”

V cuts herself off with a choked whine as she comes, rolling her hips upwards into Johnny’s hot mouth, both hands squeezing his skull, cunt pulsing around his fingers. She pulls immediately at his hair, and Johnny laughs as she yanks him up hard for a desperate kiss. He tastes only of pussy.

“Shit,” she says against his mouth, both hands fisted in his hair. She lets go abruptly. “Got a bit carried away. Sorry. Didn’t mean —”

“Shut up,” Johnny mumbles, laying over her. “Real hot. I’d suck your dick any day.”

“Fuck, that’s — Jesus Christ. Stupid hot, Johnny.” She laughs in disbelief as he grins lazily. “But not — d’you wanna like, fuck some guy together?”

“Nah, ain’t into dudes,” he says firmly, grin slipping into a frown.

“But —”

“Last I checked you gettin’ a strap don’t make you a man,” he says harshly.

“Yeah, no shit,” V says huffily. “Not what I was gonna say. You have fucked —”

“Don’t,” Johnny interrupts, almost desperate. He leans his head down into V’s shoulder. “Not fuckin’ now, V.”

“Alright,” she says gently. “Alright. I get it. S’fine.” She cups his cheek with one hand and guides him up for a kiss, and he follows her lead, kissing her back gently. “Gonna have to get that strap though,” she adds, and Johnny laughs softly against her lips.

—

Four days later, a sleepy Monday evening, Johnny and V are yet again sprawled over their couch, empty takeout containers on the coffee table. V is lying back into the cushions as Johnny lays on top of her, pressed together from chest to hip, legs tangled. He’s kissing slowly down her neck when he stops and groans.

“Alright?” she asks, carding her fingers through his hair, catching on his neuroport briefly.

“One of mine,” he says into her neck. V makes a confused noise and he gestures upwards with his head. “Song.”

“Oh,” she says. The music has been soft in the background, and she’s been ignoring it entirely. The song isn’t one she recognises. “You telling me Johnny Silverhand doesn’t fuck to his own music?”

Johnny huffs a little laugh. “Not this one. Never really liked it.”

V can wait a song length. “No? Don’t think I've even heard it.”

He shrugs against her. “First thing I put out after Samurai broke up. EP needed an extra song and this shit was the closest I had.” He sighs. “Ker’s on backing guitar. And fuckin’ keys. And vocals.”

She can hear it now that she focuses, Kerry’s voice behind Johnny’s.

“Not a word to fuckin’ anyone,“ he warns, “but Ker did the solo too. Couldn’t get the fuckin’ thing right on recording day. Asshole.” His lip quirks in a tiny wry smile. “Ker and I toured it together for a bit. An EP each. Used to joke we’d each written half an album and we should just stick ‘em together.”

He lays on her silently as the chorus plays, head against her chest, their legs slotted together easily. She runs her fingers through his hair absently as she listens. Despite everything she still doesn’t have a good ear for music — it sounds fine to her, pretty middle of the road rock, exactly what you’d expect a bar with a Samurai poster to churn out over the speakers on a Tuesday night.

“Henry produced it,” Johnny adds suddenly as the second verse starts. “Shitty bassist, had an ear for production though. Prolly the last music thing he did ‘fore the accident.”

“Accident?”

He snorts. “Fuck, really? So much for sharing a brain.” He sighs and turns his face into her chest. “Yeah, gonk was doin’ net work for some corp. Got brain fried, real crispy.”

“Shit,” V says quietly. “Didn’t know that.”

“Folks always said he was wasted on Samurai. They were right, fuckin’ trained monkey could play bass better than him.”

“How long was he netrunning for?”

“Fuck, ages. Since before Samurai. Whatever he did he was good enough they kept him even while he was fucking off to tour with us.” Johnny gets quieter as he continues. “Had to relearn how to walk, talk, think. Lost five years. Memories came back eventually. Was almost clean when Samurai broke up, but that all went tits up.”

“Shit,” V says again. “What was he working on? For who?”

“Not a goddamn clue.”

“Seriously?”

“Fuck off,” Johnny complains, without any bite. “Didn’t even know what Alt worked on, like I’m gonna keep tabs on goddamn Henry.”

“Y’didnt?” V says, a little tentative. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Tried, way over my head. Stopped trying to get it ‘fore the end of our first date.”

Johnny is clearly in some kind of contemplative mood, if he’s willingly talking about Alt. “You went on actual dates?” she asks, a little disbelieving.

“Go fuck yourself,” he says, tone a touch harsher than she’d like.

“Hey, c’mon. Didn’t mean anything by it. You’re not exactly a romantic.”

Johnny shrugs and turns his head away from her, still against her shoulder. “Went bowling once, early on,” he says, real quiet.

V hesitates, uncertain how to proceed. After a moment she decides to just be honest. Trying to spare his feelings or whatever would piss him off. “Like with the red and white, uh, things? That you knock over?”

He grunts in the affirmative. “Had to bowl right handed. Fuckers didn’t want the chrome fucking up the balls. Total bullshit, woulda been fine.” He pauses. V hears him swallow, and his voice is rough when he continues. “She wiped the floor with me. Always was good at everything she tried. We fucked in her car after.” He laughs suddenly and briefly. “Put two fingers in her pussy and a thumb in her ass and said she was a bowling ball. Slapped me with my own chrome for that one.”

V huffs out a tiny laugh. “Jesus Christ. Deserved it. With your — like she hacked your arm?”

“All the goddamn time.”

“Damn. Think I would’ve liked to meet her.”

“My fucking ex?” Johnny says, disbelieving and harsh. “If she was still here I wouldn’t —”

“Yeah, I know,” she says before he can finish. “Still.”

He’s quiet for a long moment.

”She prolly woulda liked you,” he says eventually, contemplative. “Long as you weren’t tryin’ to fuck me.” He grins sharply. “So guess she wouldn’t’ve liked you at all.” V rolls her eyes.

After another, longer moment of quiet, Johnny pushes up on his elbows to look down at her, expression serious. “Didn’t you? Meet her?”

They haven’t talked about V’s little trip past the Blackwall in any detail. “Kind of,” she says hesitantly. “She — I mean, I don’t know. The other you said she was different, changed. Only met a fragment of her. She’s been running ‘round the net as a fully realised AI for a while now.”

“Changed,” Johnny echoes.

She shrugs against him helplessly. Johnny keeps staring, even as she looks away.

“Messy. You love the guy in your head, he loves Alt, you all get in the same virtual room…”

“It was messy, but not like that,” she says with a tiny laugh, still looking away. “Fuck, felt it so strong I almost felt like I loved her. ‘Sides, like I could ever begrudge him, you, both, for having people you care about.”

Johnny hovers over her as she stares at the cracked pleather of the couch cushion.

“Jesus fuck, all those times, you were serious about me fucking Kerry,” he says suddenly.

V turns and frowns at him, completely baffled. He’s staring down at her in genuine surprise. “What?”

“Thought you just had some fantasy but you don’t, do you? Jesus.” He slowly shakes his head in disbelief. “Y’just really mean it. ”

“I…” She hesitates, caught totally off guard. She swallows and looks over his shoulder at the ceiling. “Yeah, I thought — I thought I was clear. We could figure it out. If we wanted.”

Johnny drops his head down into the crook of her neck. “Fuck,” he says with a laugh. “Thought you didn’t want me sleepin’ around? What about Rogue?”

She bristles a little at that — fuck if she hasn’t always been pretty damn open about what she wants. “I don’t want you just sleeping around — I mean, it’d be different, if we, you know. Talked about it. If it was someone important, or whatever. Rogue, Kerry, whoever, we could figure it out.” V stares up at the ceiling, heart racing. “Didn’t Rogue turn you down?”

Johnny laughs again. “Yeah, fuck off.” He kisses her, quick and easy, then pulls back to stare down at her. The shock has faded and now he’s grinning. “Shit. You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Is that a fucking problem?” she demands, nerves getting the better of her.

“That the chick I’m fucking mainlining wants to have a threesome? Are you fucking kidding?”

She groans and stares up at the ceiling, but she’s grinning now. “Threesome isn’t really —”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny interrupts. He kisses her neck languidly. “Don’t need to bring anyone else into this,” he says quietly, lips brushing her neck as he speaks. “Pretty damn satisfied with you.”

V shrugs, a slow warmth expanding in her chest. “Need, want — different things.”

Johnny hums as he sucks a genuine hickey into her neck, and her breath catches at the pleasure-pain feeling. He pulls back slightly and licks it, one broad flat stripe of his tongue.

“Asshole,” she grumbles, and she feels his lips curl into a smug grin against her skin.

“You fucking love it,” he says confidently. He shifts slightly and sets about sucking another hickey beside it. “You fucking love me.” He sounds smugly delighted and the warmth in V’s chest kicks up to burning.

“Fuck off,” she says, because he’s right.

“You do.” His smug grin presses into her throat. “Want me to mark you up, don’tcha? Show off that you’re mine.”

V whines desperately as he sets to work on a third fucking hickey. “Johnny,” she says breathlessly, almost reverently. Johnny continues with the hickies and she pants as he does. “Johnny — fuck. You fucking mean that?”

“Mean I wanna fuck you,” he says, raspy against her neck. She shudders, and Johnny continues before she can say anything. “Shit, shame about Rogue. You woulda looked so fucking hot eating her out. Guess I coulda shared for that.”

V laughs. “She's into women? Guess I should’ve known.”

He hums as he licks a long stupid line around her collarbones. “Somehow keep dating chicks that swing both ways. Alt, Rogue, you.”

“Hah, and — not dating, but Kerry too,” V says. “All of us just flocking to you.”

“Always forget Ker’s into chicks,” Johnny says pensively. “Always seemed to be on some guy’s cock.”

She shrugs. “Has a preference, I guess. Not like you gotta be equally into both to swing both ways.” She pauses. “The three of us, we could…”

Johnny sighs, real deep, and rolls until he’s lying side by side with her on the couch. He’s still half on top of her as he stares up at the ceiling. “Y’know when the last time was Ker and I could have a real conversation without it turnin’ into a screaming match? About sixty-five goddamn years ago.”

V doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“Believe it or not, like to keep it like that,” Johnny continues.

“Not saying to just fuck him,” she says, then continues before Johnny can say anything. “I really think you two — us three — could make it work, if you wanted.”

“Don’t want it,” Johnny says. “Never fuckin’ wanted it.”

V doesn’t say anything to that, either.

Chapter Text

Night City has really busted out its best weather this Thursday morning. The skies are perfect baby blue and the sun is bright, beating down on the city without relief. It will be sticky hot by the middle of the day, but V’s trip into work is incredible, the city humming and glowing even under the harsh sun. It gets less wonderful as the day wears on, as it gets hotter. The metal of the junk reflects the heat back up and the stall is sweltering even with its lack of walls.

Work has been better than usual for the last week and a half. With the immediate pressure of finding an apartment lifted, last week she had returned the terminal she’d borrowed without asking, somewhat sheepishly. Tara hadn’t minded, and was impressed that she managed to get it working in the first place. Since then, she’s been doing repairs on the junk during quiet times at the stall — as long as they’re pure hardware issues, she doesn’t actually need cyberware to fix them, though it would certainly be helpful. It feels good to actually use her brain, especially as a lot of the standard fixes require ‘ware she doesn't have, so she has to figure out workarounds.

Even with the heat, between the work and her plans tonight V is in a great mood. She and Johnny have a date tonight, a real proper one — they’ve booked a table at a mid-tier restaurant that Tara had been gushing about since she went a couple weeks ago. They don’t usually bother with dates like this, instead preferring nights in or unstructured nights out at a bar or club. She’d pitched it and he’d grumbled and rolled his eyes but he hadn’t said no, which is really the best she could’ve hoped for. She’s buzzing with anticipation. Living with Johnny has been shockingly easy as well. He’s a dick, sure, but in very predictable and avoidable patterns. Hell, it feels like he’s trying to be less of a total ass. V feels a little vindicated that Kerry and Rogue were wrong about her changing him — no way he’d be this chill pre-death, and no way it’s been long enough for her to have any impact.

On her lunch break, V heads down toward the river to maybe get a bit of a cool breeze off the water. As she walks, she calls Kerry. He’s back in the States, so she doesn’t even need to worry about timezones.

“V!” he answers, and she can basically hear him bouncing on his toes. “How’s my favourite junk connoisseur?” His hair is tied back and he’s in a loose black sleeveless shirt, no makeup, very little jewellery. It feels oddly intimate, seeing him so casual. Somehow more intimate than the skimpy robe he’d been wearing when they first met.

“Junk connoisseur? Seriously?” she replies, swinging the bag with her lunch in it as she walks. Just SCSM scop today.

“Thought it would be better than ex-merc,” he says with a shit-eating grin. “Johnny there? What’s up?”

“Nah, no Johnny, just me on my lunch break,” she says as she finds a bench with a bit of shade. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Kerry rolls his eyes. “Ain’t a disappointment, V. You gotta have a little more confidence.”

V shrugs and neatly sidesteps that whole can of worms. “Wanted a favour, actually.”

“Ah, course, wouldn’t be calling to just catch up with ol’ Kerry,” he says dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest. “Just leveraging me for my fame, my eds, my rakish good looks —”

“Kerry,” V interrupts, trying not to make it sound like a whine.

Kerry’s grin is fucking blinding. “Uh-huh. What’s the favour?”

“Was hoping me and Johnny could borrow your house for the evening? Sick of watching Bushidō films on Johnny’s tiny screen.”

She'd tried to find a cinema, but the things just didn’t exist anymore. They had when she was a kid, and there were probably abandoned screens and theatres around town somewhere. But the only one she knows of is the old drive-in the other Johnny had taken Rogue to, and she doesn’t want to take him there. These days BDs are so overwhelmingly popular that the novelty of a real life big screen was reserved for rich old guys, or rich guys into old media.

They could watch it at home, but honestly, she wants to make it a bit more of a proper date. Dinner and a movie, as it were. Kerry’s place is maybe a weird date location, but at least it’s something.

“One condition,” Kerry says. “Call me when you fuck there.”

V laughs. “Sure thing,” she says with a grin. “I’ll do my best to convince him. Wasn’t planning on fucking in your house, so don’t be disappointed if you don’t hear from us.”

“Bet Johnny would be,” Kerry says, with a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

While they text meaningless shit pretty frequently, this is the first time they’ve actually talked one-on-one since she called weeks and weeks ago to tell him about Johnny. They haven’t even talked about the blowjob thing, aside from an occasional oblique tease as they text.

“Thanks, Kerry,” she says. “I really will try. I’m working on it.” She smiles, a little hesitant. “We’ll see you in a week, yeah?”

Johnny picks her up after work, and they swing by the apartment first to change. V really isn’t a dress up kind of gal — even at Arasaka she’d never enjoyed dressing up, per se, sticking to a boring and easy clean cut corpo aesthetic. But she suspects Johnny will get a kick out of it, and it has been a whole year since she’s worn anything other than jeans and a t-shirt and her comfy work boots. She’d gotten the outfit a couple days ago, and she actually really likes it. It cuts a nice line between hot and practical. She’s wearing a solid white bustier under a long sleeved white sheer top, tucked neatly into a pair of very nice black synthleather pants that, god, were a fucking pain to get into. The bustier is simple and structured, more like a corset, and it shows off her moderately small tits really nicely. The sheer top over it makes it a little more classy while still being a tease. She’s paired it with some silver pumps and she lets her hair down from her perpetual ponytail. She doesn’t bother fucking around with makeup.

She’s ready first, and is getting herself some water in the kitchen when she hears a long wolf whistle behind her. She's flipping Johnny off before she even turns around. Johnny is in black on black on black: black button down that is undone down to the middle of his chest, black blazer with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, black textured pants tucked into calf high black boots. On his bare chest there’s a silver pendant on a leather cord, resting right over the golden cyberware that runs down his torso. He’s got solid black sunglasses on too, grinning like a fool, golden curls haloing his pretty round face. He looks really fucking good.

“Hot,” he says, unashamedly checking her out. V might be staring a little herself, so it’s not like she has a leg to stand on.

“You’re not seriously wearing those sunglasses, are you?” V begs.

Johnny grins wider, shrugs, and takes them off, tossing them with a clatter onto the kitchen table. He’s got eyeliner on too, and god, he’s never looked so much like a rockerboy in this body. He looks so fucking smug. Unfortunately, it’s a good look on him.

The restaurant is really good, and while it’s more expensive than takeout it doesn’t break the bank. In combination that makes it the best restaurant V has been to in many years. The date is really good too, Johnny stealing shit from her plate, kicking her feet under the table.

Johnny tells a story from the early Samurai touring days. They were in some small town, and every last person on the tour got wickedly sick, vomit and fever and aches, not just the band but the roadies too — except Johnny. So their leaving had been postponed and he’d been loosed on the town, but the town was small enough that the bars didn’t open until after dark. And so Johnny, nineteen and antsy and bored, went to a local art gallery.

“Weren’t like I’d never been to one before,” Johnny says. “Weren’t like I was some ignorant hick. But the art they had there, shit, was weird stuff I hadn’t seen before. And there was this fuckin’ painting.”

Johnny stares off in the distance. “Wasn’t one of the weird ones. Was of the desert. Tiny little fuckin’ canvas, maybe” — Johnny holds his hands about eight inches apart — “this big. But, shit, it fit the whole fuckin’ desert in there. Wasn’t super realistic like a photo neither. Just got the fuckin’ vastness of it, y’know? Huge, beautiful, fuckin’ ancient, all packed into this little frame. Thought, shit, that’s exactly what I want our songs to be like. Little fuckin’ things, but they got a whole world in ‘em. Tried to explain it to Ker, and he got the gist, but but I never fuckin’ found that painting again. Didn’t think to get the name of the artist. Can’t even remember the name of the town.”

“Maybe Kerry would remember the town?”

Johnny scoffs. “No way. Nance might, but I ain’t goin’ though all the shit of explaining all this.” He gestures vaguely at his body, then shrugs. “Been decades. Thing’s lost by now.”

This topic was not prompted by a question, but V feels like he’s asking one. She thinks she has an answer.

“When I worked at Arasaka,” she says slowly, “they had a ball, this big fancy dress up type thing. Did it every year. Different host each time, all way high up people. So they could show off all their eds, really. The first year I got invited, the guy who hosted did it at his place rather than booking out a venue — put Kerry’s place to shame. He had land, and enough money to water it, and he had a fucking horse.”

V pauses. Johnny raises his eyebrows in a go on kind of way and she sighs.

“I dunno. Maybe this sounds dumb to you. But I — I’d never seen an animal so big. Or any animal, really.” V drops to almost a whisper. “The way it moved. And it was big, and brown, solid brown all over, and it smelled kinda bad, and its face was huge and its teeth were kinda scary when you could see them but its eyes were — I don’t know, deep? Not sad, but… kinda sad? And I —” V shakes her head. “Seeing it move, run — never seen anything more beautiful.”

“They took that from us,” Johnny says, eyes boring into hers.

“Yeah.” Once upon a time she would’ve fought him on it, but she’s not that naive anymore. “I got this tiny glimpse, of what it could’ve been like. What it used to be like, maybe. Just this horse, running.”

When they get back to the Porsche Johnny shoves her up against it and kisses her hard, one hand desperately tugging at her mesh shirt to untuck it from her pants so he can get his hand up under it. The bustier is too firm to push aside so he reaches to palm her tits over the top of it, rucking up her mesh top further, sending shivers up and down her spine. She whines, suddenly a little desperate as she draws him in closer, fisting a hand into his curls. Her other hand slips easily into his open shirt to caress his ribs.

“Should dress up more often,” he mumbles low against her jaw.

V grins and runs her hand up from his ribs to tap over his little silver pendant. “Yeah? Had fun gettin’ an outfit together, doing your make up?”

“Havin’ fun lookin’ at you.” He breathes in a long breath through his nose, pressed against her cheek. “Have more fun undressing you.”

She laughs. “Not fucking you in a public parking lot.”

“Still so fuckin’ boring,” he says, but when he steps back he’s grinning. He runs both hands over her top, from her chest down to her naval, a cross between smoothing her shirt and feeling her up. He tucks it back in, fingers dipping into her pants briefly, then rests his hands on her waist.

She grabs his wrists with a smile. “Lemme drive?”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Had the thing for fuckin’ years, I drive it for a week and a half and you already want it back?”

“Just tonight.” She leans in, ghosting her lips over his.

Johnny twists his hands until he’s grabbing her wrists instead of the other way around, then moves their hands down to her sides, pinning her against the car. V leans down and kisses him, pulling gently against his grip — not enough to break it, just enough to feel the tension. Johnny leans into the kiss, holding her wrists in place firmly, making her groan quietly.

“Fine,” he says grumpily as he pulls back. “Fuckin’ drive. Have’ta make it up to me though.”

V drives, and Johnny folds himself into the passenger seat with his arms crossed, feigning real annoyance. It’s so familiar from the engram Johnny that it itches her brain. He fiddles with the radio and stares out the window — until he realises that V is not heading toward Kabuki, at which point he turns to face her.

“Where you takin’ us?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

V grins back at him. “Wait and see.”

Johnny probably figures it out once she starts heading out to North Oak, but it’s not until she’s literally pulling into Kerry’s driveway that he speaks.

“Ker ain’t back yet,” he says, inflected more like a statement than a question, but there’s a slight uncertainty in his tone.

“Nah,” V says as the gates open for them. God bless Kerry, actually getting them on his security — she wasn’t sure he’d remember. She pulls up beside the shiny Aerondight that he never drives. “Sick of watching Bushidō on your tiny screen, thought we could take advantage.”

Johnny laughs. “Fuck, sure, why not,” he says, opening the door and clambering out. “Shit, this place is ugly as sin.” He sighs. “How’d you get whitelisted?”

V looks at him blankly over the top of the Porsche. “I asked?”

“Great.” Johnny rolls his eyes. “Now he’ll know who to blame when we drink his nice booze.”

V sets up the movie while Johnny fucks around in the bar that passes for Kerry’s kitchen. She only recognises the screen as such because she’s seen it on before — otherwise it reads as just a strange wall feature. It’s in the living area overlooked by Kerry’s bedroom, the one with the giant nude painting. There’s four white couches, all arranged facing a small coffee table in the middle of the room. She rummages through Kerry’s cupboards until she finds some big plush blankets and pillows, then piles them up on the couch that faces the screen — a somewhat successful attempt to make the firm cushions more comfortable. She yanks the coffee table a little closer too, then kicks off her pumps and settles into the pile.

When Johnny finds her he groans. “Shit, Ker’s fuckin’ screen gotta be in the room with the giant painting of his ass, huh?”

V, piled on top of a nest of blankets, turns around to face him over the back of the couch — and face the painting, too. It’s huge and ostentatious and very Kerry. “It’s behind us, chill.”

Johnny has a bottle of some kind of alcohol and two glasses in hand. He sighs deeply as he walks toward her, hands her the bottle, then vaults the backrest and thumps down onto the couch beside her with a bounce. Before she can start the movie he climbs over her, pushing her onto her back and kissing her breathless, feeling her up with one hand while his other awkwardly holds the two glasses.

V pushes him back slightly. “Kerry had one condition, to let us in,” she says breathlessly, staring up at the ceiling. Johnny hums a little hm? against her neck. “Said if we fucked we had to call.”

Johnny leans down and snorts into her neck. “What he don’t know won’t hurt him,” he says, then licks a long line along her neck, up to her jaw. V squirms and laughs.

“Prolly has cameras,” she says, but she winds a hand into Johnny’s hair.

Johnny pauses, eyes lighting up for a few long moments. “Uh-uh, and now he don’t.” He bites at her neck gently, just to tease, and she sighs.

“We gonna watch the movie?” It’s a genuine question — they could just fuck here. She wouldn’t stop him. She’d feel pretty shit about not holding up her end of the deal with Kerry, but, well, there’s only so far she’s going to push him.

Johnny squeezes her tit over her shirt and bites down into her shoulder, just shy of hard enough to properly bruise. “Fuck,” he says in a groan. “Gonna make me wait, huh? Bitch.” He sits up on the couch, looking down at her.

“Fuck right off,” V says. “Can make you wait even longer if you’re gonna be an ass about it.”

Johnny holds her gaze for a moment, then breaks it with a huff and a tiny grin. “Alright, alright.” He reaches out his hand to pull her back up to sitting. “This one of the good ones?”

V grins. “It’s one of the well known ones,” she says. “You’ll see why.”

They shuffle around in the blankets until they’re both comfortable, Johnny leaning into V’s side, an arm resting over her thighs. It’s a stupid thing, but V loves how much Johnny doesn’t give a shit about being the one to lean against her, to be the proverbial little spoon. He doesn’t even seem to care that she’s taller than him, which is surprising, given she’s pretty sure his original body would’ve been taller than her. V has dated or fucked guys who always insisted on being the biggest and strongest out of the two of them, always making sure she was leaning into them, for whatever macho bullshit reason. She’d assumed Johnny would be the same; turns out he doesn’t give a single shit about that kind of machismo.

V starts the movie as Johnny pours them drinks, which they both shot. Johnny does a second shot, then puts the glasses and bottle on the table as V shifts in her seat with a big stupid grin. She hasn’t seen many of the Bushidō films, but she has seen this one. This one is infamous.

The opening scene features the leading lady from the previous films in a swordfight with some evil corporate robot, and is borderline obscene. Her opponent cuts clean across her chest in the first blow, perfectly removing her top and bra but not even nicking flesh. Her pants go in the second blow, leaving her in a skimpy little G-string. The camera indulges heavily in slow motion as she fights, lingering on her tits and ass to the point of absurdity.

Johnny laughs into her shoulder. “Sure this is Bushidō? Ain’t just got us watching softcore porn on Ker’s couch?”

“Bushidō 5 basically is softcore porn,” V says, then grins again. “It gets worse. Or better, depending on your perspective.”

“Gonna go ahead and say better,” Johnny says, right before the leading man enters the fight.

He’s already shirtless and glistening. The evil robot swordfighter villain thing immediately lunges on him and, with a sharp flick of its sword, in basically the exact same way as with the woman’s tits, slices perfectly through the guy’s pants. It leaves him in underwear literally designed to leave as little to the imagination as possible — it basically covers the head of his cock and nothing else, somehow. God knows why anyone would ever wear anything like it, unless they were specifically in a movie where they couldn’t quite show a whole bare penis. It doesn’t even look sexy, just absurd. But the shaft is there, and the balls are there, and just like the woman’s tits are implausibly perfect, his dick and balls are implausibly perfect. The camera loves his cock and balls as much as it loves her tits and ass, and there’s a truly stupid slow motion backflip shot from basically between the man’s legs.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Johnny says, and V laughs, leaning her head all the way back into the couch.

“Still saying better?” she teases as the camera zooms out to focus on the actual action for a little bit.

Johnny shrugs and shifts a little uncomfortably. “Guy’s not even fuckin’ hard. You get off on this?”

“It’s the opening scene,” V says with another loud laugh. “Give ‘em time.”

Bushidō 5 is just as fun as V remembers. The plot is wildly stupid and while the two leads are largely naked, everyone else is dressed normally. It gives it a strange, surreal feeling, seeing decked-out corpos in full suits having serious action movie conversations with two near naked people. In the last third they get hit with some evil drug from the evil corp that is a weird hyper viagra or something, and the chick’s nipples stand hard and so does the guy’s dick, and they stay that way for the climactic final fight against a giant multi-armed samurai robot. The choreography is dumb but delightful and it’s so fucking funny to watch the guy’s rock hard cock flopping around in every scene. She and Johnny do more shots as well. V does one, and Johnny does at least three, but she’s not paying attention.

“Oh, fuck,” Johnny says through laughter, leaning into her as the credits roll. “Fuck, that’s the best one.”

V laughs, perfectly tipsy, and Johnny laughs with her as he grabs her by the face and pulls her in for a long, messy kiss. He climbs over her, like he had before the movie. V shifts against him and he’s already half hard and she laughs loudly.

“Bushidō do it for you?” she asks, not even teasing, just stupidly gleeful and drunk.

Johnny kisses her again. “Leads were hot, what can I say,” he says into her mouth. She can feel his grin against her lips and she leans up to kiss him again.

Johnny pushes both his hands up her stomach under her shirt, over the bustier. He groans against her neck as he tries and fails to get his hands under it without undoing it. He shoves his hands under her to unfasten the clasps on her back, and then immediately gets his hands under the bustier and drags them around to the middle of her stomach, then upwards to grip her tits with both hands. Johnny growls in frustration and lets go of her tits to push the mesh top up until it's pressing uncomfortably to her armpits, flipping the bustier as far out of the way as he can — which is not very, given it’s still hooked around her arms. It’s enough that he can dip his head down and push his face between her tits, pressing them in together against his cheeks. The dog tags around her neck press into his nose as he gets his mouth on her, licking and sucking, moving to bite at a nipple.

“Jesus Christ,” V says breathlessly.

“Perfect fuckin’ tits,” he growls, then starts kissing down the centre of her stomach, still holding her tits in his hands as he moves lower. V laughs and sits up slightly to get both tops off properly. She tosses them to the side and grabs at his hair, twisting it hard around her fingers and grinning widely when he groans.

His hands run down her sides and grip her hips for a moment before running down over her thighs. He pulls her legs apart as he licks a long line up her stomach and she laughs. He does that a lot — just licking her skin, flat tongued, usually her neck or jaw or thigh. It’s stupid but really hot, like he just has to fucking taste her, her skin, her sweat. V works with him to get her pants off. They peel off of her like a second skin.

“Perfect fuckin’ pussy,” Johnny growls, right before he bows down to lick into her slit. She’s pretty fucking wet already — an hour and a half of Bushidō tits and cock plus Johnny’s intensity has really gotten her going. He eats her out slowly, like he’s savouring it. He has both arms hooked around her thighs, hands wide and hot against her hips as he circles her clit with his tongue.

She comes like that, without even any fingers, just Johnny’s tongue on her clit. It builds in her like a wave, filling up her gut and pussy as she writhes. She throws her head back against the blankets and pants heavily, legs held open by his arms, her hand pulling desperately at his hair as her orgasm runs through her, leaving her limbs jelly soft.

She sits up, pulling at him as she does, until he’s sitting up too, and she smashes her face into his for a searing kiss. He tastes like her pussy as she licks into his mouth and he groans.

V keeps pushing until Johnny lays backwards toward the other end of the couch, V following him to lay on top. She kisses down the side of his mouth to his chin, then licks along his jaw in one long line to his ear. He chokes out a laughing moan as she does, so she licks one long line down his neck as well, and he laughs breathily again.

His shirt is already basically open; she just has to undo the bottom two buttons until she can push it off his shoulders. Johnny pulls his arms out of the sleeves and leaves it under him as he grabs her face to pull her down for another kiss.

V braces herself against the couch with one hand and reaches down into Johnny’s pants with the other. Asshole isn’t wearing fucking underwear so her fingers find his cock immediately and he stutters out a little breath. She kisses just under his jaw, then lower down on his neck, then his throat. She hardly strokes him, more just palming his cock with one hand as the other grips his shoulder and she kisses over his chest. She licks wide and flat against his nipple and Johnny laughs again, then groans.

V moves further down along the couch, following the golden line of cyberware down Johnny’s body with her mouth. Her hand leaves his shoulder and comes to fumble with his pants, pushing them down to just above his knees as she kisses just above his belly button where his cyberware ends, open-mouthed and wet. His stomach twitches beneath her mouth and she grins against his skin.

V scoots further down and licks Johnny’s cock from the base to the tip, relishing in his little gasp. She swallows her awkwardness and says roughly, “Perfect fucking cock.”

Johnny laughs, leaning his head back. When she doesn’t immediately start sucking him off, he groans and says, “Fuck, V, c’mon,” as his hand threads its way into her hair.

V sucks him off slowly, indulging in the tease, pulling off to lick up the sides and kiss all over his cock. She kisses his thighs, his balls, kisses up the side of his cock and then the head, wet and messy and slow.

“Johnny,” she says in a breathy whisper, right against his cock, “what do you want?”

Johnny groans. “Ride me?”

“Yeah.” V grins and pushes herself up, manoeuvring until she’s straddling his thighs. “I’ll do whatever you want,” she promises. “Well, almost,” she adds sheepishly, and Johnny grins up at her.

“Yeah, ride me,” he says, hands moving to her hips. “Actually — fuck, pants off properly first.”

V leans up on her knees again and Johnny kicks his boots off. As he does, V's gaze wanders and lands on Kerry’s giant stupid painting. Honestly, she hadn’t even realised he was nude in it the first time she saw it — she thought he was just wearing tights or something. Kerry had corrected her pretty much instantly on that. V laughs, bowing her head down, then helps Johnny get his pants the rest of the way off.

“What’s so fuckin’ funny?” he demands, dragging her back down for a brief kiss.

“Kerry’s stupid fucking painting.” She repositions herself on top of him.

“You ride me looking at Ker’s ass, I’m dumping you.” Despite his words, Johnny is grinning, a clearly empty threat.

V grins back as she lines up his cock, then slowly sinks down, bit by bit. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she says breathily, then laughs at the absurdity of it all. “Fuck, Johnny.”

God, she loves to ride him, loves the control it gives her. It’s one of the great things about fucking Johnny. V quite genuinely equally likes to lead or follow in bed, equally likes to top or bottom. Previously she just ended up doing whatever her partner didn’t want to do — all of her exes had a preference, even the ones that insisted otherwise. It meant she didn’t often get to switch it up. But Johnny seems to like switching just as much as she does. She never knows whether he’s going to ask to be pinned or to pin her, to fuck or be fucked. It’s fucking great.

Johnny lets out a real proper moan, loud and wanting with his head tipped back as she sits all the way down, taking him to the base. “V, fuckin’ hell,” he manages.

“Yeah? Is it that good?” V says with a laugh, rolling her hips slowly.

“Yeah,” he says, gripping at her hips, “that fuckin’ good.” He fucks up into her and she gasps. V braces herself gently against his chest and rocks down onto his cock.

“So, top three then?”

Johnny laughs, genuine and open. “Get to fuckin’ work bouncing on my cock, maybe I’ll bump you up.”

V grins down at him and stops her movement entirely. “Oh, think you’re gonna have to ask nicer than that.”

He makes a frustrated noise beneath her, thrusting upwards. “Think you’re gonna —”

He’s cut off when V grabs him by the jaw, palm flat over his mouth. Her other hand settles on the front of his neck, just resting there. He stares up at her, pupils blown wide.

“I’m in charge,” she says evenly. As much as V loves the control, she’s not exactly adept at dirty talk, but damn if she isn’t going to try. “So when I say you’re gonna have to ask nice, that’s what you’ll do, yeah?”

After a moment of staring, Johnny nods, V’s hand still gripping his face.

“Good. Are you gonna be good if I let go?”

He nods again and V removes the hand from his mouth, leaving her other resting gently against his neck. When he stays silent she grins widely.

“What do you want?” Johnny looks up at her silently, like he thinks it’s a trap. “No wrong answers. C’mon, baby.” V doesn’t call him by pet names hardly ever, but it feels right here, and he doesn't complain.

He groans. “Want you to fuck yourself on my cock,” he says quietly.

V hums thoughtfully. “Oh yeah? How much?”

She watches Johnny swallow and shift his hips slightly. “Whole fuckin’ lot.” He swallows again, then closes his eyes. “Shit, babe, c’mon. Fuckin’ please.”

“Yeah,” V says breathlessly, arousal shooting through her. It never gets old, hearing Johnny say please in that desperate tone, catching in the back of his throat. She rocks forwards and then back down into his dick and they both moan. “Shit,” she says between pants, “shit, shit.”

For all that V would love to properly boss him around, make him beg, she always finds in the moment she isn’t quite certain how far he wants her to push. If they talked about it beforehand she could do it, but Johnny is allergic to discussions like that. It hardly matters — the sex is really fucking good regardless. She works into a proper rhythm, fucking herself just as he wanted, and Johnny whines at it, hands gripping hard into her hips. The couch beneath them, while quite firm, is surprisingly bouncy.

As she fucks him, V leans down slightly. “Fuck, you think — think Kerry got these couches for sex?” The bounce is way too much for how hard the couch is, and it’s just fucking right to make the rhythm easy.

“Shit, probably.” Johnny’s hands grip her ass briefly before running up to her lower back. “Hold on, wait,” he says, gripping firmly into her hips. She slows down, moving back to just rolling her hips. Fuck, even just rolling her hips and feeling his cock move inside her is so fucking good — better, maybe, than the proper thrusting, at least for her.

Johnny catches his breath for a moment and moves both hands to rub over his face, then rests them at his sides. V stops moving entirely and is about to ask if he’s okay when he says, still breathy, staring at the ceiling, “We meant to call Ker?”

V laughs in surprise, tipping over to bump their foreheads together briefly. “He asked,” she says gently, “to call him if we fucked.”

“What d’you tell him?”

Crazy time to have this conversation, with Johnny’s dick rock fucking hard inside her. “Told him I’d do my best.”

“Want me to?” His head is tilted all the way back, not looking at her, and he’s still breathing pretty heavily. V adjusts her position slightly and his breath hitches.

“Do you want to?” she counters.

He resolutely doesn’t look at her. “Tell me to.”

“Tell you?” V questions. Johnny doesn’t elaborate or look at her, but his face is flushed and he’s still breathing heavily. “Alright,” she says gently, then grins and puts a bit of authority in her voice. “Fuckin’ call him.”

Johnny draws in a shuddering breath. “Nah.”

V blinks, confused. For a moment she’s going to just drop it. But, well, he asked her to tell him, and when he turns back to face her there’s something in his eyes, a dare, that makes her want to push. She leans forward slightly and starts working her hips again and she’s certain she doesn’t imagine the flash of disappointment across his face.

She keeps rolling her hips at an easy pace, until Johnny groans — and then she stops abruptly, pulling off his cock entirely and hovering over him on her knees.

Johnny groans frustratedly and flexes his fingers against her hips. “V, you fucking —”

“Think I told you to make a holo call,” V interrupts, voice firm. Johnny doesn’t do shit he doesn’t want to do — if she’s pushing too hard he’ll tell her to fuck off for real, maybe flip them and be in control himself. Even so, it makes her nervous to push like this. She watches his face keenly.

Johnny laughs, leaning his head back into the couch. “Want it that bad?”

“Think you want it that bad,” she responds, trailing one hand up his chest to rest at the base of his neck. “Told me to tell you to,” she says, a little hesitant now. She swallows and pulls on her resolve. “So I’m fucking telling you.”

Johnny reaches up with both hands and grabs her face, drawing her down into a messy kiss. “C’mon, want you on my cock, please,” he says quietly against her lips.

Fuck, that tone is almost enough to get her to do just about anything. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Gonna call?”

Johnny remains quiet for a moment, then says, “Ain’t giving him a feed for this.” V laughs as she lines up and takes his cock inside her again. His fingers relax from where they’d been gripping her hips and he groans, tilting his head back. “And he ain’t — ah, ain’t fuckin’ sticking around.”

“Sure,” V says, breathless, as her gut lurches eagerly. She rolls her hips again and Johnny groans. He reaches with one hand and piles up the blankets behind his head to prop it up so he can watch her without straining his neck. V braces herself with both hands either side of Johnny’s chest, pulls up then sinks back down.

“Fuck,” Johnny says. “Ease up, fuck, while I —”

Johnny cuts himself off as his eyes light up. At the same time his fingers twitch against her thigh, and then the holo dialtone pours from a speaker somewhere. When Kerry picks up, there’s a long moment of silence.

“Johnny?” Kerry says, a little uncertain.

“Hey Ker,” Johnny says. He sounds just a little bit breathless.

“What’s up?” Kerry’s voice is real hesitant. “V there?”

“Yeah,” Johnny says. “Made me call, ‘cause we —”

“Shit, hold on,” Kerry interrupts desperately. There’s a clattering noise, and Kerry yelling something at someone.

Johnny laughs and it moves his cock in her and they both groan quietly. V shifts her hips at the feeling of it and moans, then bites her lip hard.

There’s a clunk over the holo, and then Kerry’s heavy breathing. “Okay,” he says in a rush, “alright, just had’ta — get some privacy.”

“V had a question,” Johnny says. His voice is much more breathy now and his fingers dig hard into V’s hips. V frowns down at him, and he grins and taps a hand against the couch.

“Oh,” V says. “Hah, fuck you.”

“Other way ‘round right now,” Johnny with a stupid grin.

Kerry swears quietly under his breath. “You fuckin’ her right fuckin’ now? Like you’re inside her right fuckin’ now?”

“Might be,” Johnny says teasingly. V lifts up then back down once and he gasps sharply. She rolls her hips, then bounces once more. Johnny groans.

“Shit, V. Your question,” he manages.

“Fuckin’ — alright, fine,” V says. “Was wondering if you bought these couches for sex.”

Kerry laughs. “The white ones? Guilty.”

Johnny laughs as well. “Fuckin’ slut,” he says, tone so affectionate that it makes V blush. Kerry makes a choked noise. “Shoulda fuckin’ known you’d get shit ugly uncomfortable couches just to fuck on.”

“Like you wouldn’t, if you ever had the eds,” Kerry says, breathy and defensive.

“Please, mine would look good,” Johnny says easily, then closes his eyes. “God, fuck. Gotta get back to fuckin’ V. Thanks for the booze, dickwipe.”

“Thought y’might keep me on the line,” Kerry says in a terrible attempt at sounding casual. V wonders if he’s already got his cock out. She doesn’t want to influence Johnny’s decision here, so she leans back slightly, eyes up toward the ceiling.

“Fuckin’ hell, Ker,” Johnny says in a long groan. “Ain’t doin’ that, man.”

“Ah, come on,” Kerry says easily, and V can hear the smile in his voice. “You called.”

Johnny huffs, and if she didn’t know better V would say he almost seemed embarrassed. “Jesus.” His tone is complaining but V can already tell he’s going to fold. Hardly even needed convincing. “Consider this fifty-seven fuckin’ birthdays worth of gifts I missed bein’ dead.”

Kerry laughs. “You ever get me a birthday gift while you were alive?”

“Fine, it’s all fuckin’” — Johnny pauses for a moment, clearly doing the math — “all fuckin’ seventy-seven of ‘em.” He thrusts up into V and she can’t help the noise she makes, a high pitched little ah. “V, you good?”

“Yeah,” V says breathlessly, working her hips slowly.

“You even know when my birthday is?” Kerry asks.

“Fuck off,” Johnny bites out. “Know mine?”

“November sixteenth, asshole,” Kerry says, then groans quietly.

Johnny huffs and turns his face away from V. “April seventh, cunt.” Kerry barks out a surprised laugh, and Johnny speaks over him. “Better not fuckin’ hear you, Eurodyne.” It’s a real shitty threat, his voice far too breathy to carry much weight. Still, Kerry shuts up, clearly not interested in pushing his luck any further right now.

V leans forward, lifting up slowly from his cock, until he’s just barely in her. She stares down at him and he turns back to meet her eyes. Then she presses herself back down onto his cock hard, in one smooth motion.

“Fuck,” Johnny says as V groans. His hands dig hard into her hips again. V leans up again, then down, and works her way back into a rhythm, the bounce from the couch easing the way. Shit, the friction, the drag of his cock, the way he fills her — it’s so good. Her fucking toes tingle from it as she really fucks herself on him, panting hard from the exertion.

“Shit, V,” Johnny says, breathing heavily. He moves his hands from her hips to rest either side of his head, and V gets what he wants immediately. She starts moving even as he continues, “Babe, gotta —” He cuts himself off as she grabs his wrists in her hands, pushing them down into the couch, pinning him. “Yeah,” he breathes out.

Johnny braces his feet against the couch and fucks up into her. It ruins V’s rhythm but it makes her choke out a desperate curse as she readjusts. She rides him like that, pinning his wrists by his head, rocking against him as he fucks up into her, dog tags dangling down onto his chest as she does.

V pulls both his hands up over his head and shifts to hold them there with one hand. She’s not strong enough to actually hold him down, especially holding two hands in one, but it’s more the idea of it than anything else. With her free hand, she grips his chin and kisses him desperately, teeth clacking.

V leans back from the kiss and runs her hand down from his chin to wrap around his throat — another thing more about the idea than the reality. V isn’t going to actually fucking choke him, but she’ll squeeze gently, put a bit of pressure, enough for Johnny’s breath to catch. That’s all it really takes to set him off anyway. His little exhales are voiced now and he looks incredible beneath her, face flushed red, eyeliner smudged just a tiny bit. Fuck, it’s so good, fucking herself on his cock, deep and precise, but she’s unlikely to come again unless she gets stimulation on her clit as well. Means she has plenty presence of mind to mess with Johnny a little.

“Wanna come?” V says quietly, kissing at his jaw.

Johnny groans and leans his head back. “V, fuckin’ hell.”

“Oh, is that a no?” V asks innocently, trying to slow the pace. It’s kind of hard, because Johnny thrusting upwards is doing a lot of the work. She moves the hand around his throat down to his sternum instead and yeah, that makes him complain, a pretty little whine from the back of his throat.

“V,” he says again, this one much more like a whine. “Course I wanna come, you fucking cunt.”

She grins, wide and a touch mean. “Wanna come in me?” She slows down further, rolling her hips in a lazy circle even has he tries to fuck up into her. “Wanna come in me, eat it outta me after?”

“Yeah,” he says breathily. “Yeah, c’mon, please.”

“Fuck,” Kerry says quietly, voice breaking over the holo.

V freezes, and Johnny’s movements stumble to a stop. They’d both fucking forgotten, carried away by the intensity of it all. V looks at Johnny who meets her eyes with the same uncertain surprise.

Then Johnny pushes easily out of her loose grip, grabs her face with both hands, and pulls her down into a desperate kiss. He licks up into her mouth as he rocks his hips again.

“V,” he says, strained, “don’t make me do all the work, asshole. Don’t fuckin’ stop.”

“Fuck you,” V says, grinning down at him. Still, she does as he asks, rolling her hips and then settling into a rough rhythm again, one that has Johnny groaning. She’s going to need him to come soon though, because it’s fucking killing her thighs to keep up the pace. The bouncy couch definitely helps.

Johnny’s hands lay hot over her hips. He runs them up her stomach to her tits again, rolling her nipples beneath his thumbs, making her gasp. One hand stays there while the other moves slowly back down over her stomach. Her muscles twitch under his fingers. When he reaches her clit she groans, bowing her head forward.

“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, “yeah, that’s it.”

V keeps up the rhythm even as Johnny slows his hips, picking up the slack to maintain the intensity. Johnny’s fingers on her clit lose all coordination as he says, “Oh fuck, fuck,” and comes inside her with a long, low groan. He grabs her by the shoulders to pull her down against him and shudders as he stops thrusting entirely, pressing himself up into her as he comes, mumbling something incoherent about how good it is. Fuck, his hot come, his twitching cock inside her — V’s face burns at the feel of it.

V collapses her head down into his shoulder and catches her breath — for about half a second before Johnny’s fingers are back on her clit, while his cock is still fucking inside her. It’s stupid hot, his cock and come inside her as he circles around her clit in the exact way she likes. The tension builds stupidly quickly, her breath heaving, until it snaps. V comes with a moan, pussy pulsing around Johnny’s presumably sensitive cock. It’s so much she feels it all the way inside her, up to her chest, the sharp tingling pleasure of her orgasm ripping through her. Johnny whines at the feeling even as he rocks his hips up into her.

She gingerly lifts up, letting him slip out of her before collapsing back on top of him breathlessly. Johnny runs a hand through her hair then pulls her into a kiss. V melts into it and they both catch their breath between lazy kisses.

“Don’t want you to eat me out now,” V says after a few moments, voice rough. Her head rests in the crook of his neck. “Too much, sorry.”

Johnny grins. She can feel his cheeks against hers. “Depriving me of my dessert. Fuckin’ monster.”

He makes no attempt to move, and V takes the rare opportunity to genuinely cuddle, pressing her face into his neck. One of his hands trails up her back then runs fingers absently through her hair.

“How’s it goin’ Ker?” Johnny asks after a moment. V can still feel his grin.

“Fine,” Kerry huffs out, voice clearly strained.

“Lasted through that, huh?” Johnny lets out a tiny laugh. “Or you too fuckin’ old to keep it up?”

“Lasted,” Kerry says curtly, “unlike you.”

Johnny laughs loudly, pressing his head back against the couch. V smiles widely into his neck then kisses there gently. “You’re a real prick, Eurodyne,” he says fondly. “Might wanna hurry up, I ain’t hanging on the line for long.”

Kerry huffs out a little fuck you but he seems to take the advice seriously because his breathing picks up. V presses languid kisses all over Johnny’s neck and collarbones, and he lays back with his eyes closed, one hand loosely in her hair. When Kerry comes he does so with a choked whine, clearly trying to stay at least a little quiet.

Johnny doesn’t really react, and he doesn’t say anything until a minute or so later, like he’s trying to pretend he didn’t stay on the line specifically to hear Kerry come.

“Might crash on your couch tonight,” he says sleepily, eyes closed.

“Take the bed if you want.” Kerry’s voice is now back to normal. “Got cleaners comin’ through ‘fore I get back, so y’don’t even gotta worry about laundry.”

“Your bed also made special for sex?” Johnny asks is a lazy drawl, running a single finger over V’s shoulder in loose circles.

“Fuck me and find out.”

Johnny barks out a loud laugh. “Hard fuckin’ pass, Ker.” Kerry sighs in a way V can’t read. “We’ll see you in, shit, a week, right? Red Dirt?”

“Yeah, man,” Kerry says, a little uncertain.

“Bushidō 5 was great, by the way,” Johnny adds, shifting a little against her. “V, god — move your fuckin knee.” V huffs and shuffles as he asks until they’re comfortably slotted together. “You seen the Bushidōs?”

“Not really,” Kerry says uncertainly. The longer the conversation goes on, the more weirded out he sounds. V is feeling a little similar, but she’s pretty willing to follow wherever Johnny leads. “Seen, uh, the first couple, back in the day. One of the later ones.”

“Fuck, man. Should watch five with us sometime. Dude has his fuckin’ cock and balls out the whole damn movie.”

Kerry laughs, still uncertain. “Y’know cock and balls ain’t enough to make me like a movie?”

“Enough for me,” Johnny says. “‘Tween that and the tits, Christ. Fuckin’ stupid.”

“It’s basically softcore porn,” V chimes in, and Kerry laughs disbelievingly. “Oh, shit,” V says suddenly with a giant grin, “we can use Kerry’s shower.” Johnny snorts, unimpressed. “It’s unreal, seriously.”

“When have you used Ker’s shower?” Johnny asks, a tiny bit accusatory.

“After we blew up his manager’s boat,” V says fondly. “Got all gross in the bay. Kerry was a gentleman and offered his place to shower.”

“Kerry? Gentleman? Bullshit.”

“We didn’t fuck,” Kerry says, almost defensive.

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Yeah, don’t give a shit ‘bout that. Guess that was gentlemanly by your standards.”

“Look who’s fucking talking,” V says. “Don’t think you’ve had a gentlemanly thought since you left Texas.”

Johnny grins up at her. “What, want me in my Sunday best? Hair tied up, hands behind my back, opening doors for you?”

Kerry laughs. “Sunday fuckin’ best, I’d pay to see that.” He’s a little loud, a little awkward, like he’s trying to remind them they’re not alone.

“Twenty grand.” Johnny is still grinning.

“Ten.”

“Deal,” Johnny says quickly. “Send you a pic or something.”

“Nuh-uh,” Kerry says. “I ain’t payin’ ten grand for a fuckin’ picture. Wait ‘til I’m back.”

Johnny rolls his eyes for probably the fiftieth time this evening. “Yeah, whatever.”

“You’re gonna look so dumb,” V says with a wide grin, lifting her head to press their faces together.

“Ouch,” Johnny says.

V twists her neck and connects their lips in a slow kiss. She moves up, braces herself on her forearms either side of his head and kisses him deeply, long and a little messy, sucking on his lips in turns.

Kerry clears his throat deliberately.

Johnny smiles against her lips. “Jealous, Ker?”

Before Kerry can respond, V says, “Don’t be a fuckin’ asshole.” She leans away from him. “You’ll piss me off.”

“Maybe I get off on pissing you off,” Johnny says, still grinning.

“That’d explain a whole lot,” Kerry says dryly.

Johnny grins even wider. “Soundin’ pretty chill there, Ker. I gotta work harder?”

V sighs and rests her head back against his shoulder. “Johnny, shut the fuck up. Kerry, you sure you’re good with us crashing?”

Kerry clears his throat, genuinely this time. “Mi casa es tu casa,” he says wryly. “Just please don’t fuck in my bed.”

“Promise,” V says, and Johnny pinches her side.

“Alright, we’ll see you soon, man,” Johnny says.

“Yeah,” Kerry says. V struggles to read the emotion in his voice — uncertainty, anticipation, and something else she can’t place. “Yeah, alright. G’night.”

—

The following day, Johnny shows up to the stall around noon with a bag of takeout food and V feels a little like she’s gone insane.

“What, no lunch break?” he says when she frowns at him, as though he brings her lunch at work all the time.

“I mean, yeah, I just —” V cuts herself off. Not worth asking him why he’s here. “Nevermind. Sure, lemme tell Tara.”

Johnny drags V by the hand across to the river and they sit on a bench to eat. He’s brought her takoyaki, the little fried octopus balls, and they spear them with toothpicks as they look at the water.

“Hey,” Johnny says. “Think you could take two cocks at once?”

V splutters and coughs around her takoyaki. Johnny watches, amused, making no move to help.

“Fucking hell,” V says. She should’ve expected something like this; not like Johnny to do something nice unless he has something specific he wants out of it. In this case, information. “You’re gonna need to be more specific.”

“You suck me off,” Johnny says casually, “and some other guy too. Not both of us in your mouth at once, that’d be shit.”

“Uh.” Her mind goes blank. “Sure. I guess so. Really thought you meant, uh, one on either end.”

Johnny reflexively makes a displeased face, then seems to stop to think about it. He looks like he’s considering it when he says, “Would you?”

V should probably take this as him asking for permission about the Kerry blowjob thing. “I mean, yeah, either,” she says, forcing some certainty into her voice. Maybe she can push it a little as well. She swallows and pulls on all of her meager bravado. “You said not in my mouth at the same time, but we could. Tip to tip, me in the middle, ya know?”

Johnny makes a little contemplative noise in the back of his throat but it sounds a little strangled. He’s not looking at her.

“Back and forth, between you and whoever,” V says, a little pointed at the end.

Johnny turns and eyes her, a hint of challenge in his gaze as he crosses his legs casually. “You’d like that? Me loaning you out for the night, showing you off?”

“Dunno,” she says, trying to be coy. “What kinda loan?”

He scoots closer to her on the bench and his voice drops quieter. “Your mouth?” His eyes flick down to her lips, then further down her body. He meets her eyes again. “Your pussy?”

V hums teasingly, like she’s considering it. Her face flushes bright red but she forces the words out anyway. “You do like eating come out of me.”

Johnny sucks in a harsh breath.

“I mean, I dunno, Johnny, this is pretty dependent on who the other dick belongs to,” she says pointedly, though he’s hardly being subtle. She pulls away from him slightly. “I assume you’re talking about —”

“Good to know,” Johnny interrupts, standing up abruptly. He leans down to kiss her once, deep and promising, then grins. “Gotta delta.”

V watches him stroll away, mind reeling. She eats the rest of the takoyaki.

Chapter Text

A couple days later, V finishes up at the store in a really good mood. It’s been surprisingly relaxed for a Sunday at the market. Tara waves goodbye at her with a coy smile as V heads over to her to her bike. They’ve both been pretty wound up lately — both eagerly anticipating this coming Thursday, Tara for her Red Dirt gig and V for Kerry coming back to the city. V has also secured a rare day off for next Saturday, the day of Kerry’s actual gig, so she and Johnny don’t have to rush in the evening.

It hits her, as she grimaces at the heavy rain clouds overhead — fuck, somehow she’s happy.

V keeps grinning as she heads over to the bike. She and Johnny are going to watch Bushido 6: Street Score tonight, eat some shitty takeout, fuck before or after or, if the movie is really bad, during. As she hooks a leg over her bike, her holo pings with a text from Johnny. She stops and pulls it up.

gig gonna run late. raincheck?

V sighs, shoulders slumping. She starts fiddling with her holo, searching for the symbols she wants until she eventually assembles an appropriate emoticon.

.·°՞(>ᯅ<)՞°·.

She follows it up instantly with, Nah no problem. Don’t get shot!

Johnny replies quickly. workin w rogue. if i get shot she’ll save me

That’s equally a relief as it is a concern. Rogue is very competent, but she wouldn’t work with Johnny on just any gig. He’s never said, but V has been suspicious that they’ve been poking around Arasaka stuff — it’s not like Johnny to let go of a grudge.

V responds, Tell Rogue not to get shot!

Her holo is silent after that, no Johnny is typing… message, so V closes it and starts her bike.

As she rides back to Kabuki, she lets her mind wander. Johnny doing merc work has never bothered her, though maybe it should. She can’t imagine what else he would do — other than music, of course, but it’s even harder to make money with that than it was back in the early 2000’s. The main way she deals with Johnny being in perpetual danger is by largely not thinking about it while it’s happening. She does have a lot of trust and confidence in his abilities, even in this body. His daemons are razor sharp, his instincts are excellent, and while he doesn’t have a Sandevistan he has reflex boosters and subdermal armour and enough chrome to take a few punches. It’s her own body she’s got an issue with, not his.

By the time she gets home to Kabuki her head is aching, but she knows it will fade after she unlinks from the bike. As she puts the bike away she puts in an order for some takeout.

A while later, after she’s showered and eaten and is flicking through bullshit on the TV, she gets another text from Johnny.

shit boring ambush fuckin waiting bullshit. what u doin

She responds very quickly. Not really anything. Sorry, pretty boring

V grins at the image of Johnny, antsy, forced into waiting. She sends another text.

If you send me a dick pic while on the job I’m deleting your number btw

Johnny really must be bored; he texts back near instantly, three texts in a row.

full of shit. either way youll be in my bed

but not tonight. ambush overnight. rogue sprung it on me. got fuckin nothin to do

ok tonight but not w me

V starts and stops typing a few times as the messages come in. She smiles — he’s right, she is full of it. Her smile slips away slowly as she reads the rest of the messages. An overnight ambush is pretty serious.

Wow, sucks. Can you at least have a nap? The hell you need such a long ambush for anyway?

There’s a long pause before his next text, long enough V isn’t sure if he’s going to respond.

saka

Shit, now V is really frowning. She’d been suspicious they were planning on going after Arasaka, but she hadn’t thought she was right. Certainly not tonight, not something Rogue apparently just dropped on him. She guesses he might’ve been lying that he didn’t expect it, but he’s blown off proper dates for gigs and never seemed to give a shit about trying to hide that from her. She can’t imagine he’d care enough to lie about it. V bites her lip.

Shit. Do I need to be worried?

Johnny doesn’t text her back, and she bites harder. Rogue is sensible, and wouldn’t take them out on something stupid and risky. That said, she wouldn’t be directly involved if it were some small time job. She turns the TV off and drums her fingers messily against her thigh. She might need something to keep her distracted tonight.

Her holo lights up — with a fucking call. From Johnny. Shit.

“Hey,” she says, answering immediately. She knows she looks worried, can’t help it. “Are you —”

“Fine,” Johnny interrupts. “Just a data transport truck. Good opportunity. Relic info.”

V frowns. His tone — it’s hollow. His face is blank, eyes moving between her feed and the ground. “What’s up? You never call.”

“I’m never on seven hour long ambushes.”

God, something is clearly up with him. He’s not even trying to hide it. Something with ‘Saka? Something with Rogue? Whatever it is, it’s serious enough that he called. V bites her lip again and taps her foot against the side of the couch, trying to decide how far to push him.

“Hey, for real,” she says gently. “What’s up?” Her mouth quirks in a tiny wry grin. “You piss Rogue off?” Start small, then work up to what’s actually bothering him.

He shakes his head. “Not that kinda —” He cuts himself off and sighs. “What you know about the Tower nuke?”

V frowns further, confused. “I know what you know, I think.”

“What’d they tell you? At school, ‘Saka, whatever.”

The more he talks, the more concerned V gets. There’s something in his expression that gnaws at her gut. It reminds her of — fuck, it reminds her of the empty look she’d seen in the other Johnny’s eyes when they visited his unmarked grave.

“Uh, the official ‘Saka line is that it was a NUSA-Militech op,” V says, deciding to take the question seriously. “In the initial aftermath, pretty much everyone thought that ‘Saka detonated their own nuke to deny control of the area to Militech and the States. It’s what NUSA was pushing, obviously. You know — if they can’t have it, no-one can.” V shrugs. “But that was revealed to be an outright lie in the forties. Now the general agreement is NUSA-Militech nuke, NUSA-Militech op. Though, lotta people in NC still think it was ‘Saka.”

She pauses. “Your involvement — I dunno. I was taught you were in the Militech op. Kinda painted you as some extremist willing to do whatever just to blow ‘Saka up, no plan or thought beyond that. Died in the explosion. No-one really knows what actually happened in there.” The ghost of a wry simile passes her lips. “‘Part from you, I guess.”

“You remember me setting the nuke?” he asks, staring at the ground again.

“Yeah,” V says, very quietly. She can’t look at him. “Yeah, I remember how it —” She cuts herself off. The weight of it, heavy over her shoulder. The sound of the zipper. The exact shade of yellow of the nuclear warning symbol. The tactile buttons under her fingers, the little beep as it armed. The way it felt to set it, to know that a lot of fucking people would die because of her actions — his actions. She fucking remembers. She felt the weight of it for six months. She still feels the echoes of it now. “Try not to think about it much,” she says quietly.

“Rogue says I didn’t,” Johnny says. He looks up at the holo feed.

V blinks several times, heart pounding. Her stomach drops to the floor. She meets Johnny’s eyes. “What?”

He shrugs, like it doesn’t bother him, but he hasn’t looked away, and his fucking expression — it’s empty. “Says Blackhand’s squad had it.”

“But…” She trails off, her frown deepening. “But you…”

Those memories, they’re so fucking clear. And not just that; the guilt he — her Johnny — had shouldered, so heavy it had leaked to her and weighed on her. How could he be wrong? She doesn’t even know how to process it, or what to say.

“Shit,” she says. “Fuck. That —” V stops herself, then huffs a single humourless laugh. “Almost said that sucks. Guess it… does. Doesn’t. She wouldn’t — fuck.” V bites her lip, mind racing as she stares at the wall. “What the fuck,” she says quietly.

If he didn’t set the bomb — and Rogue wouldn’t fucking lie about this — but he remembers doing it, then that means — that means his memories aren’t just bad, they’re wrong.

“That’s. Did they…” They're not just wrong, she realises. They’re tampered with. A hot flush of real, genuine anger flashes through her and she whips her gaze back to Johnny’s eyes in the feed. Her face sets into something hard and angry and her jaw tenses. “You gonna go after Mikoshi again?”

Johnny shrugs again, expression still cold. “Eventually. Don’t wanna fuck it up.”

“Good,” she says, voice hard, breathing heavily. “Good, that —” She cuts herself off and stands abruptly, needing to get the angry energy out.

“Fuck,” she says as she starts to pace. “When we saw Alt, she said — she said your memories were warped, but I just… I thought you just remembered your stupid fucking dick bigger than it actually was” — Johnny huffs in genuine surprise — “with your giant ego, bigger crowds or whatever, wrong dates, didn’t think they’d —”

“V,” Johnny says, and her face snaps up to the holo feed. Her eyes must be a little crazed, and she’s near panting.

“She still recognised you,” V says desperately. “Alt did. Rogue did, Kerry did — fucking immediately.”

“Your guy. Didn’t know?” His fucking voice. It’s still so flat, so hollow.

V shakes her head. “No,” she says, looking off at the wall again, still shaking her head. It doesn’t feel real. “No, we had no idea.”

The call falls silent. Fuck. Fuck. No wonder he looks so fucked up.

“It’s awful,” V says suddenly, “having yourself changed like that. Without…” She looks down at the floor and is grateful for the way her hair falls in front of her face. “And you’re never sure. Did I always like that? Did I always want that? Did I —” She stops herself abruptly. “I… I would tell myself that people change all the time. Shit happens to them, and they…” She takes a deep breath. “But it wasn’t like that.”

“No,” Johnny says. He sounds so small and so tired. “It’s not.”

For a long, long while they sit there in silence. V paces again, slower this time, until she gets sick of it. She moves to the bathroom instead and starts folding laundry to put away. The repetitive task gives her hands something to do as her mind circles in on itself.

Fuck, it’s — she doesn’t know what to say. She keeps having to bite her tongue from speaking because stupidly, somehow, she feels like they’re her memories too. Her gut has been punched out of her and she feels lost, adrift, just as though she’s been told it’s her past that isn’t true, not his. Whatever Johnny is feeling, it must be something like that, but far worse. She’s surprised he isn’t blowing something up as they speak.

Fuck, she knows exactly how much that fucking nuke had defined him after coming back from the dead. The other Johnny had described it as the only thing he did that ever mattered. He hadn’t said it out loud, but V knew he’d hated himself for it. Not that it was ever that simple; he’d still believed in the idea behind it. She’d never fully understood how he held all of it in his head, how sharply refined his sense of self was despite the mess underlying it. She can’t imagine how he’s feeling now.

It’s not like he’s innocent. They must’ve known about Blackhand’s squad and the nuke. Rogue, Spider, Thompson, Santiago, Johnny — they all were equally culpable. But shit, that’s different, isn’t it? To be equally at fault rather than primarily? Shit, was it even Johnny’s idea in the first place? It should be a weight off his shoulders, but, god — V knows that it won’t be that simple.

V folds the laundry particularly slowly, and by the time she’s done it’s been maybe twenty minutes. She doesn’t want to hang up, and Johnny clearly doesn’t want to either. He’s not looking at her, instead staring absently at something off-screen, head bowed slightly. She realises they’ve been breathing slowly in sync, matching each other without quite realising.

“Hey,” V says gently, her voice cracking slightly. “You want a distraction?” She does. She wants a distraction quite desperately.

“Is it a good one?” Johnny asks, tone completely flat.

“Mediocre,” she says.

“Shoot.”

“Okay,” V says slowly. “Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or a dozen duck-sized horses?”

“Horse-sized duck.” Johnny mimes a gun with his left hand. “Bang.”

“If you didn’t have a gun?” V asks.

“Same again.” There’s no humour in it, no grin as he speaks.

“I think a duck the size of a horse would kill me,” she says. “I think I could kick a dozen tiny horses.”

There’s silence for a moment. “You were right,” he says. “Real mediocre.”

V huffs out a little laugh. “You got any better ideas?”

Johnny finally looks up at her in the feed. He watches her for a long moment, face impassive. “Gonna hang up on me if I get my dick out?”

V barks out a loud laugh. Fuck, that’s one kind of distraction. “Nah. Is Rogue there?”

He shakes his head. “In the other room.”

V smiles at him stupidly, and he turns away. It’s so fucking stupid that when he pulls shit like this — suggesting jerking off over the phone after a foundational belief of his was blown to smithereens — all V can think is that she fucking loves him.

Johnny closes his eyes and his shoulder shifts. V assumes he’s reaching for his cock, but she can’t fucking see. She heads over to the bed and sits down as Johnny tilts his head back, resting it against a wall.

“Gonna get those preem tits out for me?” he asks roughly, eyes still closed.

“Not if you got your eyes closed,” V says teasingly with a little grin. A ghost of a smile passes over his lips and he opens his eyes, immediately looking up to the holo feed.

She strips her shirt quickly, then undoes her bra and takes that off too. She thinks about what Johnny would do if he were here and grabs her tits, one in each hand, a little rough. She squeezes just like he would, kneads them slightly, and leans her head back with a long slow sigh. When she looks back at the feed Johnny is staring hungrily.

“You gonna set up a video feed for me?” V asks quietly, voice low. Unfair that he can see her tits but all she’s got is his face.

V watches as Johnny moves around. She can’t tell what he’s actually doing, but after a few moments a new feed pops up in the call. This one is actual video, rather than the virtually assembled projection of a normal holo call. He’s propped his physical holo up on something and it’s angled down at him. His head is out of frame but she can see his torso, his arms, and, fuck, his cock, half hard and spilling from his open fly. She can also see the dusty flooring beneath him, and how dim it is in whatever room he’s in. He’s left the holo feed up as well, so she can see his face.

He’s stroking himself with his right hand — a habit from his old chrome, she remembers. In the dim light, she can just barely make out that his left arm is somehow injured, blood dry and crusting on his skin. She bites her lip and refrains from mentioning it.

V refocuses on his cock as Johnny strokes himself and tips his hips up ever so slightly into his fist. A little shock of arousal runs through her at the sight and she gasps. Johnny grins smugly.

“Real pretty cock,” she says quietly as she kneads her tits. “Fuck. I’d suck you off if I was there.”

“Damn right you would,” Johnny says, squeezing the base of his dick.

He moves his hand away and licks his palm then goes back to his cock. He’s fully hard now, flushed and wanting. With his left hand he grabs his balls, presses them up into him then rolls them in his hand as his right twists over the head of his cock. He doesn’t seem to care about the dried blood on his arm. V watches keenly, eyes locked to the video feed. He breathes out, long and slow, head tipping back and eyes fluttering closed.

V moves one hand from her tits and scoots back on the bed, shoving her hand into her sweatpants and into her underwear, finding her clit immediately. She’s not really wet yet, despite how hot she’s finding this. She imagines Johnny’s mouth on her and circles her clit, a little gingerly.

“I’d fuck you,” Johnny says roughly. He makes a circle with his first finger and thumb, the rest of his fingers loose, and thrusts the head of his cock through it a few times, just over the very tip. “Fuck you real hard. Forget your own damn name.”

V laughs breathily, his rough tone really fucking doing it for her. She moves her fingers lower, feeling around her entrance. “Like to see you try.” Her fingers press inside gently and find wetness.

“Wouldn’t just try,” Johnny says. “Babe, c’mon, make some noise for me.”

V laughs properly this time. “We can’t all be ready to go in thirty fucking seconds,” she says. “Don’t have your mouth here to help.”

“Fuck,” he says, rolling his fist over the head of his cock then pumping the full length of it. “Fuckin’ love your pussy.” Halfway through his sentence V gasps shakily and then groans. “Eat you for fuckin’ hours.”

Yeah, she’s wet enough now. She dips her fingers further inside herself, then spreads the wetness over her lips, up to her clit. Fuck, that’s better. She circles her clit easily, nice little tight circles that press pleasure through her and up into her gut. She lays back on the bed with a huff and moves away from her clit again, real slow, as she kneads her tit with her other hand. Penetration isn’t going to cut it but teasing around her entrance always gets her going and her breath catches with the rough tingling pleasure. She watches Johnny jerk himself off, thinks about him alone in some abandoned building — except that he’s not alone. Rogue is in the other room. Shit, fuck, she knows Rogue isn’t interested, but damn if V hasn’t always thought she was wildly hot in a scary kind of way.

Johnny whines, fucking into his fist. “V, babe, gonna show me how wet you are?”

“My holo’s in the other room,” she complains, dragging her thoughts away from Rogue. “Trust me — I’m so fuckin’ wet for you.”

“Asshole,” Johnny says breathily. “Got video for you.”

“Yeah, well,” V says. “Gonna have to make do. Gonna —” She cuts herself off with a gasp as she pushes her finger inside herself, then laughs slightly. She still hasn’t shaken those thoughts. “Shit. You think Rogue can hear you?”

Johnny laughs, startled. “I’m upstairs. Prolly not. Wouldn’t surprise me if she listened in to make sure I wasn’t doing anything stupid.”

“Stupid like jerking off?” V says with a grin. “Like moaning real loud while you get yourself off?”

“What, you want her to hear me?” Johnny growls, slowing his pace.

“Be kinda hot, if she caught you,” V says thinly, head tipped all the way back, breathing heavily.

V knows Rogue isn’t going to catch him, but she lets herself imagine it anyway — imagines a slightly better video feed, Rogue stalking into the room with her hard, fiery eyes, grabbing Johnny angrily with her perfectly manicured nails. Johnny could grab her right back, bend her over, fuck her as good as he fucks V. Fuck, she realises suddenly that she’s not just horny about Rogue — she’s fucking mad at her. Furious. Her wires are crossed something fierce.

“Fuckin’ hell, V,” Johnny says, breaking her out of her weird fantasy. “Dont think it’ll fuckin’ lure her. Don’t think she said no ‘cause she thinks this body ain’t hot.”

“You’d be hot in any fucking body,” V says unthinkingly. She thinks she hears Johnny’s breath hitch, but she’s not sure.

V abandons her tit — she was really doing it for show more than pleasure — and reaches her hand down to her clit as her other hand slowly fucks two fingers into her. She sighs and tips her head back, breathing heavily, face burning hot.

“But — probably not worth it,” V says. “Too, ah, messy.”

“V,” Johnny says, “you’re into chicks.”

V laughs. “Yeah.”

She’s not sure what prompted that, but — okay, now she’s imagining that she’s there, with Johnny, with Rogue. She imagines pushing Rogue down on his cock, a touch cruel. She imagines fucking him while Rogue watches. She imagines eating Rogue out while Johnny fucks her, Jesus Christ.

“When was the last —” Johnny starts to ask, voice strained as he works his cock, one hand playing with his balls.

“God, years ago,” V interrupts. “Didn’t really — at all, after the coma.”

Johnny gives himself a long, easy stroke and breathes out shakily. “Y’miss pussy?” V laughs, a little nervous about this line of questioning. “Just askin’.”

“Fuck, sometimes, I guess,” she says in a rush, slowing the fingers inside her and refocussing on her clit. “Not — y’dont need to worry.”

“Ain’t worried,” Johnny says easily. “Fuck, been teasing too fuckin’ long, V.”

V grins breathlessly. “Yeah? How you feelin’?” Johnny twists his hand over the head of his cock and she watches delightedly as he shudders. She tips her hips up into her hand, just a little bit. “If I was there —”

“You’d’ve come on my tongue already,” Johnny growls. “I’d be fucking you, so good.”

“Yeah?” V whispers. She works her clit in slow tight circles. “Want me to blow you? Or —”

“Fuck you from behind,” Johnny grits out, hand working his cock fast now. He sits up from lounging, up onto his knees. “Grab your hips and just —”

“Fuck,” V says.

She closes her eyes and leans her head back as she fucks her fingers into her again, in time with circling her clit. God, she’s so wet, and she imagines Johnny fucking her from behind, hard and possessive, hands on her hips. Some part of her brain sings at the idea and she imagines him really fucking her, holding her down, until she can’t fucking think anymore, can’t think about anything but his cock and his hands holding her into the mattress.

“I — oh, fuck,” she says, drawing in a sharp breath as her orgasm crests. She whines as she comes, eyes screwed closed, rocking her hips up into nothing, against her own hand. She crooks her fingers and the pleasure spikes hard enough it’s almost unpleasant, deep into her gut and then shakily down the backs of her legs.

“Yeah, shit,” Johnny says, his voice absolutely wrecked. “God, V. Fuck yeah.”

V draws a shuddering breath, then looks up at the holo. She registers quickly that he hasn't come yet. “You close?”

Johnny huffs out a breath and nods as he jerks himself off. He bites his lips and rocks his hips slightly.

V bites her lip. “I don’t know what to —”

“V,” Johnny says desperately, “just fuckin’ tell me — say filthy shit all the time usually, just —”

V says the first thing that comes to mind. “I love it when you fuck me,” she says breathily. “Fuck, I love it when I fuck you.”

Johnny whines and V grins. Shit, she — she can imagine what he wants. It’s what she wants.

“Love all the different shit we do. Don’t think I’ll ever get bored,” V says, voice a little ragged, words spoken between heaving breaths as she circles her clit again. She’s not going to come again, but it’s still a sensitive kind of pleasure. “God, you gotta fucking rail me when you get home. Hold me down, or — fuck, or I could ride you, pin you —”

“Yeah,” Johnny interrupts in a quiet breath.

“Yeah,” V echoes, still circling her clit, “pin you down and ride your cock until you’re begging to come, then I’d fuck you —”

“Yeah,” Johnny says, a little whinier. V watches his hand working his cock, fast and deliberate.

“Grab your hips and really fuck you,” she says, “push your head down into the mattress, rail you —”

“Yeah, V, shit yeah,” he says, bowing his head and closing his eyes.

God she wants it too, to stop fucking thinking about anything other than her body and sex, to be fucked out of all her feelings. Shit, V likes being dommed as much as she likes domming, but she doesn’t usually feel like this. “Fuck you just right,” V says, her voice strained, “get you to come on my cock, hold you face fuckin’ down on the mattress, fuck you until you can’t even fuckin’ think anymore.”

V watches as Johnny comes with a groan, dick twitching as he spills directly onto the musty floor. He thrusts his hips into his fist through it, slowing as he calms down with big deep breaths.

“Hold you to that,” he says roughly, slumping back on his ass against the wall.

Fuck. V closes her eyes, letting her limbs melt into the bed, but she’s already feeling a little antsy. “God I hate you. I want a cigarette so bad.”

Johnny laughs loosely, tipping his head back. “Fuckin’ have one then.”

It’s not just the lack of nicotine that’s making her anxious. If she were on this job — back in the day — she’d be worried about her own ability to stay sharp, if she’d just learned something as shit as my memories have been fucked with.

She huffs and forces a little smile. “Hey, not to kill the mood, but are you gonna be good on a gig?”

“Fuck off,” Johnny says harshly, his smile flipping immediately to a scowl.

“Just don’t want you to get killed over something stupid.” V swallows nervously. “If you’re not —”

“I’ll be fine,” he interrupts gruffly. “Fucker. Couldn’t let me bask for even a goddamn second, huh?”

V eyes him for a moment. He seems genuine, and shit, it’s a better reaction that she feared. “You say you’re good, then alright. Didn’t want you to hang up on me before I checked.” She shrugs, then grins, though it’s obviously forced. “Hey, maybe I just get off on pissing you off.”

“Sure are good at it,” Johnny says, hanging his head. She can see his face anyway, and he looks almost fond. He tucks his dick away and does up his pants while V settles down into the bed pillows. He turns the video feed off as well.

“You got what, another five hours?” V says after a minute or two.

“Mm, shut up,” Johnny says softly. In the feed he looks almost peaceful, eyes closed, clearly lying against the floor, golden curls splayed out behind him. V pushes herself up out of bed, that driving energy back in her bones. She heads out to the kitchen and starts doing the dishes, just for something for her hands to do.

“V,” Johnny says a few minutes later. Her eyes snap back to the holo. “Gonna head back down to Rogue.”

“Wait,” V says. Her gut sets hard. “Can I talk to her?”

Johnny frowns. “Call her yourself.”

“Don’t think she’ll answer.”

She sees his jaw tense, but he relents. “Sure.”

V can tell he’s walking, but can’t see or hear anything in the feed. As he moves she takes a few deep breaths, unburying the anger from where she had pressed it down. By the time Johnny speaks, she’s furious, but she has it on a tight leash. She rests her hands against the edge of the sink, wet and soapy.

“Nah,” Johnny says, presumably in answer to some question V can’t hear. The little speaker icon flicks on and Johnny’s voice has a slight echo when he says, “Have at it.”

“Rogue. Hi,” V says, tone as hard as it is wary.

“V,” Rogue says evenly. “Hope Johnny’s not treating you like shit.”

“Wouldn’t stick around if he was. Been taking care of myself just fine for a whole year,” she says, tight and controlled, sharply edged. Her old merc voice. “Hope biz isn’t treating you like shit.”

“Say what you wanna say, V,” Rogue says firmly.

“Alright.” She can’t see Rogue’s face, and she turns away from the feed to not stare at Johnny. She sets her jaw and takes a deep breath, letting some of her anger surface into her voice. “Why didn’t you tell us that his memories were fucked, back then?”

It sucks, not seeing her expression. “I didn’t realise until too late,” Rogue says after a moment, tone as firm as ever. She’s always near impossible to read, but without seeing her face it’s pointless to even try. “By the time I figured it out, I thought it would be cruel to —”

“Cruel?” V interrupts. “He died thinking that nuke was solely on him.” More anger filters into her tone and she lets it, lips curling into a sneer. “He fucking died thinking he was solely responsible for killing tens of thousands of people and you thought saying his memories got fucked was cruel?!”

“V,” Rogue says, tone perfectly level. “I had my reasons. You two were —”

“Fuck your reasons,” V interrupts venomously. “You made a bad call. And he —” She cuts herself off hard, jaw tensing. No fucking point. Now isn’t the time for this, if there ever is going to be a time for it at all. Her eyes burn with tears. “Whatever. Guess it doesn’t matter now, huh?”

V pauses, then looks at the feed and meets Johnny’s eyes. She says quietly, “Let me know when you get in, yeah? Wake me up, call me at work, I don't care.”

“Sure,” Johnny says. There’s an emptiness in his expression again and her stomach lurches. She doesn’t believe him for a second.

“Stay safe,” she says, then hangs up.

V stares numbly down at the soapy water in the sink. She pulls her hands out suddenly and flings them down, water and suds flicking onto the floor and cabinets.

“Fuck!” she yells, stepping backwards. “Fuck, shit —” she pulls away, turning as she does, stumbling away from the kitchen and toward the living space. She reaches the back of the couch and tips herself over it, landing face down into the cushions, bent with her legs dangling over the back, and just fucking yells, down into the couch. Hopefully it muffles enough her neighbours won’t hear. Then she lets her body slump entirely, collapsing loosely over the backrest.

Johnny is a little part of her brain, memories and impulses, tucked away in some far corner. It’s not an engram, and it’s not integrated, not anymore. It's not like he’s there, and it’s not like she has his entire life’s memories sitting there either. But she has enough that if she really tries, really wants to, she can remember things that are his, and can feel ways that are his. Like how she can remember the Tower assault, or fucking Alt and Rogue and a half dozen other nameless girls, or playing on stage, or a few snatches of a lonely childhood, or one of the three guys Johnny had let suck him off. Those memories, they weren't like watching a BD, either — she remembers being herself in them, somehow, remembers the thoughts she had and the way she reacted as though it was natural to her. She didn’t remember them as Johnny Silverhand, she remembered them as V, but her name was Johnny, and she was a man, and she was somehow herself as much as she ever had been in her life.

All that was to say that right now, despite this being a situation that Johnny had never encountered in his life or death, despite it being something she hasn’t encountered either, not properly, she knows fucking exactly how Johnny is going to react to it as her face presses uncomfortably into the couch cushion, because it’s how that part of her wants to react to it too. She wants to break something. She wants to break something then shoot something then fuck something. At the same time, she’s fucking exhausted. She doesn’t want to think. She wants to be too fucking high for a single thought to pass through her brain. It’s unsettling — she doesn't usually feel those leftover impulses anywhere near this strongly.

No fucking way he is coming home after that gig. No fucking way he isn’t going to launch himself into some hellish bender, booze and drugs and violence and sex. She doesn’t care if he fucks someone else — okay, no, she cares a whole fucking lot if he does, a whole fucking lot — but she’s more worried about his safety. Worried about him getting himself killed in some back alley after pissing off the wrong drunk idiot, or making some stupid move against Arasaka, or misjudging his body’s tolerance and overdosing in a grimy club bathroom.

She could intercept. Find out from Rogue where they were and wait around until their gig was done, grab him before he fucked off, try to lure him back with the promise of a whole lot of sex and booze at home. It was unlikely to work, and Rogue isn’t going to tell her where they are anyway. Giving up their loation would be stupid, because some chick hanging around waiting might just give the game up enough to fuck their plans, so Rogue won’t do it. She can’t show up after the scheduled time because she knows Johnny and she knows he’ll be out of there the second he can be. Besides, she probably wouldn’t be enough.

She could find him afterward and tag along. He’d probably hate that, dragging his largely sober output around to cockblock him. If she got high or drunk or both she’d be useless in under half an hour and he’d probably ditch her. She wouldn’t be able to find him anyway. She has no merc connections any more, and no self respecting fixer would sell out a merc that works for them unless they had either a good reason or a lot of eds, and V has neither.

Maybe she could ask Rogue to make sure he didn’t do anything too stupid. She probably has the resources to have someone tail him, and it’s not like he was likely to be subtle about it.

Fuck, Rogue.

V has never really known how to feel about her. She had always been unreachably cool, aloof and powerful, a legend who kept living. Then she’d gotten saddled with Johnny and seen her as an idiot twenty-year-old — arrogance not yet earned, surprisingly cruel, carefully manipulative, starkly principled. All shit that Johnny had had in spades too — why they hated and loved each other in equal measure, she supposes. Not that twenty-something Rogue was all bad — she had been practical, grounded, something that Johnny always lacked. She cared deeply about the people close to her. Now V can only see Rogue as yet another friend who ditched her. Maybe that’s unfair. She supposed that she and Rogue were never really close, even though she’d taken V under her wing. Rogue had been a mentor, not a friend. It must be the borrowed memories that make V feel like it was more friendship than biz, and the way Rogue dropped her after Langley made that clear. Still, there’s a real bitterness there V can’t shake. Hell — Rogue took her fucking cat.

She sighs and texts Rogue anyway. V has only been lying here wallowing for maybe twenty minutes. They have hours left.

Hey. Think Johnny’s gonna go on some bender after this. Can you spare someone to make sure he doesn’t kill himself?

V rolls off the couch onto the floor with a thump. She’s really craving a smoke, or a drink, or a line, or a fuck — all the stupid Johnny fragments swelling up in her brain. It’s been a while since smoking made her want to die, but she has a terrible feeling that tonight it fucking will.

V pours herself a drink instead, something with gin and lime, because it’s what she finds in the cupboard that isn’t tequila. She drinks it slowly and pulls out her lighter — ugly neon yellow, with the heart Johnny has carved in one side. She runs her thumb over the shitty engraving as she stares at her drink.

Rogue replies, eventually. Can’t send a merc after one of my mercs, V.

Stupid. Stupid. She’d already fucking thought about how a fixer wouldn’t go after their own merc without a good reason — fucking of course that’s more about optics than ethics. God, she’s so fucking useless.

V responds, Right, course, sorry. Good luck with the gig

The only option left for V is to just fucking let him do whatever and hope he doesn’t die doing it.

V manages to sleep, and when she wakes it’s long past the time the ambush is meant to be. She has a text from Rogue letting her know that the ambush went off without a hitch and Johnny had fucked off immediately. She thanks Rogue for the update. It really was good of her to text. She catches the train to work — the idea of a headache from the bike today fills her with genuine dread.

Mondays are usually pretty slow, so she has far too much time to think. She spends the day at work drafting a text to Johnny, and she sends it in the evening, even though she fucking hates it.

Hey. So, dunno how to say this, so bare with me. Know you’re on some hellish bender right now. I’m not going to lie and say I’m not frustrated and mad or whatever. But also, I really really get it. So come the fuck home. Otherwise I’ll have to come find you.

It’s really weird, coming home to the apartment while Johnny is totally absent. She tries to keep busy but she’s way too fucking wired to do anything productive. Hell, the sink is still full of soapy water from last night. She leaves it be. She pours herself a single drink and watches TV and drinks it as slowly as she can. She flicks her shitty carved lighter on and off absently.

In the early morning when she wakes up, V reaches for her holo and, in what feels like a moment of weakness, texts Johnny.

Love you.

Chapter Text

V doesn’t hear from Johnny all Tuesday. Work passes in an agonising blur. It sucks, coming home to his apartment without him there for the second night in a row. She doesn’t text again.

By the time she goes to bed on Tuesday her lighter is empty. It’s disposable, so it’s not designed to be refilled. She runs her thumb over the heart.

On Wednesday V spends her morning at work trying to figure out how to find him. There are hundreds of bars in the city, thousands of drunken idiots. She’s way out of the nightlife loop these days. She wouldn’t even know where to start. She’s pretty tired from worrying — she’d managed to sleep last night, but poorly. Tara keeps giving her concerned glances, but V dismisses her.

In the early afternoon V gets a text from Johnny and literally drops the co-processor she’s holding. It clatters to the ground and breaks, but she’s too busy with her holo to even notice. It’s just coordinates. She leaves so fast that she texts Tara she has an emergency instead of waiting around to tell her in person.

It’s agonising, taking the train back to get the Porsche. She taps her foot anxiously and near sprints to the apartment garage, nearly tripping in her haste. She fucking guns it, drives recklessly in a way she hasn’t in over three years, and it’s sheer adrenaline or luck that she doesn’t wreck the thing. She has no idea if he’ll still be at the coordinates, or why he texted. Something about the text being just a location sets off alarm bells — she kind of expected him to just turn up sometime wordlessly like nothing happened, if he didn’t delta entirely. The coords lead out east into the Badlands, and then off road into the desert. The Porsche rattles and shudders over the terrain, and it’s going to be dirty and probably scratched up — a problem for later.

V finds a car — a beat up Thornton, clearly stolen, giant gash up the side, unlocked — and then she finds Johnny, passed out across the two front seats.

He’s sunburned to hell, sweaty, and when she touches his forehead he’s burning up. His left leg is covered in blood, but not a life threatening amount. The car is running, AC blasting, but he hardly stirs when she pulls at his shoulder. There’s obvious, deep drag marks leading to the car and V can see it, Johnny crawling in the sand, hauling himself up into the car. A mostly empty bottle of gin rests by his head. Fuck, he’s in bad shape. V jams him with an airhypo but he doesn’t move. His breathing is shallow and his pulse is too fast. The numbness of an emergency overtakes all V’s emotions as she gets to work.

It’s real fucking hard to move him, but through sheer effort and adrenaline she does. He’s covered in sand. It gets all over her as well, sticks scratchy to her sweaty arms and shoulders. She parks the Porsche up close and drags him across into the back seats, leaving him slumped awkwardly. She leaves the stolen car, doesn’t even think to check what’s in it as she drives away. V is operating on pure instinct, no higher functions. She drives to the ripper in Arroyo, because it’s the last ripper she went to and her brain is full of a strange fuzz. She leaves Johnny in the car to get the ripper and they work together to get him into the clinic, and then V collapses into a chair by the shitty cot Johnny is laid into, passing out near instantly.

She sleeps light and restless, and when there’s a groan from nearby she jolts awake immediately. Johnny is awake, looking like death warmed over, peering around the room desperately. When he turns back to her and sees she’s awake he freezes, eyes widening. Then he slinks back down into the bed, almost sheepish, looking away from her.

The silence stretches. V wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and accidentally smears rough sand there, scratching and awful over her lips.

“Alright,” Johnny says, looking back at V. His voice sounds rougher than she’s ever heard, like his throat is full of sand. He almost sounds like his old self. “Let’s fuckin’ hear it.”

V takes a deep breath in, then a long breath out. In her haste and worry, she hadn’t actually thought about what to do after. “Got nothin’ to say.”

Johnny scowls. “Fuckin’ pussy. Just gonna —”

“Shut the fuck up, Johnny,” V says tiredly. “Like anything I could possibly say would make any fuckin’ difference.”

“Like you don’t even care that I —”

“Of course I fucking care!” V shouts, turning to face him, furious. She blinks and turns away again, eyes on the wall. “Of course I care,” she repeats levelly, reigning herself in. “But I’m not wasting my breath on shit you already know.”

It’s not like he thinks this was a good idea. It’s not like her chewing him out will do anything other than get them into some dumb shouting match. It won't even make her feel any better, probably. He just wants to make it worse. Explosive, sharp and painful. Well, fuck him — she isn’t giving him what he wants.

“Mad at me?” he asks goadingly.

“Yeah,” V says, her voice carefully neutral. “More sad for you though. Glad you ain’t dead again.” Fuck, she hates winging this. Means she’s probably going to say something stupid.

“Fuck you,” Johnny growls. “Fuck you, I don’t — I fucking can’t —” He cuts himself off. V doesn’t look at him.

Johnny is quiet for a moment and V looks over at him from the corner of her eyes. He’s staring at his hands. They’re shaking. “Don’t even know what else they changed,” he says quietly. “And I — it was my fucking fault. The fuck am I meant to do? If it wasn’t my fucking fault?”

She’s still pretty angry, and she lets that fuel her for a moment. “Still was your fault, if that makes you feel any better.” She regrets saying it immediately and flinches.

Johnny scoffs, cold and bitter.

V hesitates, then scoots her chair up close to the bed. She reaches for his hand and he doesn’t pull away.

“I — shit, I dunno,” she says quietly as his hand wraps around hers. “When my life got fucked the first time, Jackie picked me up and I kept going. When it got fucked the second time, you picked me up — kind of — and I kept going. Third time, well, you saw what I was like.” V threads her fingers through his. “Fuck, dunno what my point is. None of that is the same, not even close. My turn to pick you up or something? If you’d let me.”

He scoffs disbelievingly. “You can fuckin’ try.”

V squeezes his hand briefly and then stays there, holding it silently. She waits, calmed by the warmth of his palm. She’s mad that he went acted like a fucking idiot, but she gets it. She really fucking gets it, more than anyone else possibly could. It makes it hard to hold onto her anger. She suspects he cheated and she’ll be real mad about that, once she works up the courage to ask him.

Johnny takes a deep breath in, then out. His fingers twitch around hers, then he pulls his hand away. “Made out with a bunch of people. Had a chick suck me off,” he says gruffly, turning away from her.

V sucks in a breath. She doesn’t say anything, but she leaves her hand resting on the bed beside him. Fuck, she knew he would. Fucking stings. Fucking aches. She had been willing to let him fuck whoever and he was the one who insisted they be exclusive, yet here he fucking was. She’s mad, but — shit, talk about extenuating circumstances. He’s even telling her, unprompted.

“Sorry,” Johnny says, voice low and rough.

A jolt of surprise runs through her. She’s not sure she’s ever heard Johnny apologise with any sincerity, even at the oil fields. V stares at her hand where it still rests against the bed. “You mean that?”

Johnny takes a moment before responding. “Yeah, I do,” he says, sounding surprisingly resolute, still not facing her. “Shoulda just called you. Won’t —” Johnny stops himself and sighs. “Try not to do it again.”

V pulls her hand away. “Don’t got no excuses? Didn’t mean anything, was drunk, high?”

Johnny shrugs. “Was wasted and sky fuckin’ high, yeah, and it didn’t mean anything. Hearin’ me say it help?”

“No.” She’s not sure — she feels like she should forgive this, because she knows who he is, but fucking hell. She’s been so willing to bend for him. She’s sick of it. “Question,” V says quietly. “If you had a do-over. What would you do different?”

“A do-over of what, my fucking life? Woulda taken those fucking bullets in Nicaragua, saved everyone the goddamn trouble,” Johnny says, suddenly bitter.

V looks over at him and he’s resolutely not looking at her. She has a terrible feeling he means that, too. “Meant the last few days.”

“Dunno,” he says after a moment, still staring anywhere but at her. “Wanna say I’d just not do it, but I ain’t trying to lie to you.”

She doesn’t really know what to say. “Alright.”

Johnny shrugs against the shitty bed, then groans and leans as far into it as he can, pressing his head backwards into the mattress. “Feel like a fuckin’ dog’s shit run over. What’s wrong with my leg?”

“How the fuck would I know?” V snaps angrily.

“No fucking ripper report?” Johnny snaps back, just as harsh.

She leans to the end of the bed, grabs the clipboard there, then shoves it into his face. She stares at the floor and wills herself not to cry. She listens to his fingers tap against the clipboard, a slow tempo.

“Are we good?” Johnny says eventually.

V exhales a long thin breath. “Maybe.” She takes a deep breath in. “Could be. Can be. Just need… I dunno. Time, maybe.”

“Well,” Johnny says softly, “we got plenty of that.”

V goes and gets the ripper, who checks Johnny over and applies some horrid sunburn treatment that has Johnny hissing with pain and gripping the sheets, but the redness fades soon afterwards and his skin looks smooth and fresh. The ripper confirms his leg wound is fine, too — gunshot graze. Hardly even needs rest. There’s thin, long cuts in ribbons up his left arm, starting at the hand and knuckles, like he drove his hand through glass. The synthskin and chrome means that they’re also fine after a quick treatment.

V drives, and Johnny complains the entire ride home — about her driving, the radio, the traffic, his wounded leg. It’s a pantomime of normal, like he can force it back to the easy teasing they had before. It doesn’t work, but V doesn’t stop him.

—

The following day is Thursday and V is the one closing up the store. Tara has taken the afternoon off in preparation for her gig tonight — overkill, probably, but V isn’t going to begrudge her that. It was the kind of thing that was a potential breakthrough for Tara and her band, might let them go from playing a couple times a month in nowhere bars to somewhat regularly in Red Fucking Dirt. Tara is on around 8:30 pm, the opener for the much more popular band at 11 pm. Kerry is meant to be back in the city today as well, though he’s not said when he’s actually arriving. V leaves the store open a little later than usual, though no extra customers show, then wanders her way down to Red Dirt, Johnny’s leather jacket warm over her shoulders.

It’s pretty quiet still when she enters, maybe a half dozen people total loitering around the bar and another half dozen around the stage. There’s still an hour until Tara is on, so she leans against the bar and orders a drink from the bartender, who makes small talk with her as they pour her drink. As she takes it an arm slings itself over her shoulder and Johnny leans up against her. Part of her drink sloshes over the side as he bumps into her, and as she turns to complain Johnny leans in and kisses her, quick and practically chaste by his standards.

“Hey,” she says, giving him a little smile.

Things are still weird between them — unsurprising, given it’s been not much more than twenty-four hours since she went and got him from the desert. Johnny seems to be pretty intent on behaving like everything is normal, and the more he pushes it the more V feels like she should fold as well. It’s hard to deny Johnny, especially when he’s being his version of affectionate. It’s just that nagging fear, the certainty she’d had when she first met this version of him, that he didn’t give half a shit about her — it’s returned in force. She feels like she’s waiting for him to fuck off again, to get bored. That she’s a novelty whose shine is rapidly wearing off, or that the rush of having a second chance at life is fading and he’s going back to old habits.

“Hey babe,” he says, grinning stupid wide. He settles beside her, bumping their hips together. He looks fucking stupid, aviators on inside and at night, gorgeous golden curls around his wide boyish face. He’s not dressed up like he did on their date, but he is wearing his nice pants and boots, as well as her yellow jacket that really may as well be his now.

“You’re in a good mood,” V says teasingly. She swallows her feelings as best she can — Kerry doesn’t deserve to wade right into the tension. She grabs his glasses off his face and hooks them into the collar of his tank top. He’s done his eyeliner tonight too. Vain little shit, dressing up for Kerry.

He scowls, but it’s clearly put on. “Want me to be a dick instead?”

“Save all the dick for Kerry,” she says, aiming to tease but not quite nailing it. He laughs anyway.

“Finish your drink, then we’ll head to the stage.”

“Already?” V asks. “Still got like, half an hour.”

“Fuck, you never been to a gig before?” Johnny rolls his eyes. “Lucky they ain’t big. Gotta get to the front early if you want a good spot. Ain’t gonna be an asshole trying to push through as they go on stage.”

V finishes her drink and Johnny drags her up to the front of the room. The half hour seems to pass pretty quickly as they chat about absolutely fucking nothing. Johnny really is in a good mood, smiling more often than not, leaning into her. She feels strange, trepidation gnawing at her gut.

Kerry texts the both of them a few minutes before Tara is scheduled to come on to say he’s still a while off. Johnny rolls his eyes and for a moment looks genuinely annoyed. Then he sighs and refocuses.

“Still not convinced they ain’t gonna be hot garbage,” Johnny drawls.

V shrugs. She hasn’t seen them, and she’s pretty sure Johnny would think her music tastes are trash anyway.

The band makes a dramatic entrance, all noise and pulsing lights. Tara looks fucking fantastic — her bright blue hair nearly glows under the lights and the silver buckles studding her otherwise full black outfit catch in the shining lights. Her bass is the same shade of blue as her hair. She catches V’s eye and grins, and V returns it. Johnny cracks a small smile as well. They kick into their first song and the room crackles with energy. The bass drum thuds in her chest and the guitar comes screaming in high and wailing. As far as V can tell, they’re pretty good — rough around the edges in a really compelling kind of way. More people drift toward the stage and V watches Johnny as he grins properly.

V has enough knowledge of rock these days to recognise they’re playing covers. Their second last song is vaguely familiar in a way she can’t place, and beside her Johnny groans loud enough V can hear it as he puts his head in his hands. Must be a Samurai song, then.

Johnny learns up to her to speak into her ear and says desperately, “They’re butchering it, V, they’re fuckin’ torturing me.”

After Tara’s done the crowd tightens a little as people start crowding in for the main act. Johnny’s hand finds hers and he leans in to speak into her ear again. “Let’s get a booth.”

Johnny heads to the booth and V gets more drinks for both of them. Her gut writhes terribly and she gets herself an extra shot which she does at the bar, then brings her vodka soda and Johnny’s beer tequila abomination back to the little two seater Johnny has secured. She sits opposite him. Despite Johnny’s groaning at their Samurai cover he seems to be pretty impressed with the performance overall and he talks animatedly about the show.

Time seems to pass achingly slowly and too fast all at once. Johnny keeps fucking talking, like if he just keeps talking V will eventually give up her hangups and things will stop being tense. The thing is, she’s not even mad anymore, not properly. After a bombshell like your memories are fucked, a blowjob and some making out while stupid high is pretty fucking tame by Johnny’s standards. She believes him when he says it meant nothing. She fucking craved it too, the need to not think, the need to get so fucking blasted that not a single thought would pass through her brain, to get fucked into feeling nothing but skin and muscle and sweat. Fuck, she still wants that, she realises as she finishes her drink — the third for the night. Usually she’d tap out at two.

No, she isn’t that mad — she’s just certain he’s going to leave. If he wasn’t going to leave, he’d have called her out already, faced the issue head on, made her say what was bothering her. Johnny doesn’t avoid conflicts — he fucking loves them. The only reason she can think why he’d be avoiding this one would be if he truly didn’t give a shit about how it resolved, either way. V can only assume he’s starting to lose interest. Hell, she’s surprised it lasted this long.

She gets up and heads to the bathroom, stumbling tipsy through the crowd. As she washes her hands, she gets a text from Kerry to both her and Johnny — at the bar, where tf are you???

V texts back as she enters the bar again: baathroom!! see you soon!!! heading overnow!!!

She sees Johnny first, his bright yellow jacket making him easy to spot even in the dim lighting. She watches him slide up to the bar and spread next to a figure in a white hoodie, hood pulled up over their head. She starts to head over but pauses when Johnny leans in slowly and shifts his stance. She’s seen that body language on him a million times, towards her, towards other women. He’s flirting.

Her heart fucking pounds loud in her chest for a few terrifying moments — until her brain kicks into gear and registers that the figure next to Johnny is a guy, and then she finally recognises him as Kerry. Relief floods her, then curiosity. She slinks closer, keeping out of their lines of sight — pretty easy, given they're both facing towards the bar — until she’s close enough to catch the conversation.

“Lemme buy you a drink,” Johnny is saying. His voice is low and teasing, and it’s clear that Kerry somehow hasn’t recognised him. God knows how — they’ve been catching up over the holo at least once a week for a couple months now. Johnny leans easily against the bar, standing pretty damn close to Kerry.

Kerry sighs and doesn’t even look at him. “Thanks, choom, but I’m waitin’ for someone.”

“Waitin’ for me, I think,” Johnny says, his tone pure flirt. He rests his arm along the bar and his fingers brush Kerry’s forearm. “Just a drink, choom.”

“Thanks but no,” Kerry says, a little firmer, still not looking at him as he pulls his arm away.

The bartender hands Johnny a drink and V watches him watch Kerry over the rim of it. “Say,” he drawls slowly, “ain’t you Kerry Eurodyne?”

Kerry stiffens, then laughs uncomfortably. “Nah,” he says, pulling his hood up a little. “Get that a lot though.” He turns to face Johnny, finally. At this angle she can see his expression — he still hasn’t recognised Johnny.

Johnny hums thoughtfully. “Dunno, you’re hot enough to be him,” he says, still very flirty. “And you got his awful sense of style.” He grins wider, less flirty and more shit-eating, though he stays leaned in with his arm reaching toward Kerry. He drops the flirtation from his voice, drags out the drawl a little more as he says, “And his total idiocy. C’mon, Ker, you so fuckin’ famous now you won’t even accept a drink from an old friend?”

Kerry’s eyes go wide and he tenses for a moment before he scowls. “You goddamn fucking asshole.”

Johnny laughs, loud and long. He leans backwards as he does, widening the distance between them. “Good to see you too.”

Kerry’s scowl breaks into something wary. Johnny rolls his eyes and grabs Kerry by the shoulder, then pulls him forward off his chair for a proper hug, one arm around his shoulders and another around his middle.

Kerry’s eyes are shining when the hug breaks and Johnny looks away immediately, reaching for his drink and taking a large swig. “Can’t believe you didn’t recognise me,” Johnny says, voice rough from the burn of the alcohol.

Kerry laughs. “Didn’t realise how twinky and short you were. Real cute.”

“Go fuck off back to the moon,” Johnny says with very little bite as V moves up to the both of them. He spots her and smiles wryly. “Hey, V. Look what I found.” He nods toward Kerry.

V grins widely and pulls Kerry into a big hug, wrapping both arms around his middle. Kerry returns it easily. She squeezes maybe a bit too tightly, screwing her eyes closed — it is good to see him. She feels a real kinship with him, and it’s some kind of gut punch to be reminded of one of the many people who survived Johnny Silverhand.

“Welcome back!” she exclaims as she pulls back from the hug, really forcing the cheer. If Kerry notices, he doesn’t show it. One of Johnny’s hands finds her lower back and he pulls her back against him, a hand over her hip. For all his blustering and attempts at aloofness, Johnny really was shit at pretending he wasn’t weirdly possessive. Earlier this week she would’ve been delighted. Tonight she feels nothing but conflicted, right in her gut.

“Great to see you, V,” Kerry says. His eyes flick down to Johnny’s hand on her hip but his easy grin doesn’t falter. “Did I miss your choom? How was it?”

V opens her mouth to answer but Johnny beats her to it. “Missed them by, dunno, a whole fuckin’ hour,” he says dryly. “Actually weren’t half bad. Fuckin’ butchered Dissolute Game, but they got the soul for it.”

“Shit, didn’t know anyone still knew that song fuckin’ existed.” Even as he speaks Kerry is staring at Johnny, eyes roaming over his face, shoulders, chest, legs.

Johnny grins and steps away from V slightly, then does a slow little turn, holding his arms out. “Like it? Woulda liked something taller, but I think I’m making it work.”

Kerry shakes his head faintly. “Whole thing’s fuckin’ nuts,” he says softly. “You keepin’ the blond?”

Johnny shrugs. “Cheap dye would fuck the curl pattern, and I don’t have eds to waste on the good shit.”

Kerry laughs, soft and disbelieving. “If your choom’s done, wanna delta? Hate this stupid hoodie. Loud in here too, hardly hold a conversation.”

Johnny groans. “Hoping we’d get high and drunk and fuck around on the dancefloor.”

“Get high and drunk and fuck, eh?” Kerry’s face is lit up with a shit-eating grin.

“Pushin’ your luck, Eurodyne,” Johnny warns.

“You’re covered up with the hoodie,” V interrupts, “and people aren’t expectin’ you back in NC yet, right? C’mon, a little bit of fun?” She doesn’t want to talk.

“Fuck,” Kerry says, looking at the both of them. “Fuckin’ hell, Silverhand, you got big pleadin’ puppy dog eyes now.”

“They workin’?”

“Shit.” Kerry looks away, but he’s smiling. “Yeah, damn it. Alright.” He turns toward the bar to order a drink.

Johnny nudges his nose into V’s temple as he puts a hand back on her hip. “Too easy,” he says into her ear. V leaves the low hanging fruit alone. Shit, she’d still be okay with him fucking Kerry, despite everything. She almost laughs out loud at herself when she realises.

As Kerry receives his drink, the bartender leans forward, their red-to-black gradient hair flopping forward over their face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but are you Kerry Eurodyne?”

Kerry looks back at V and Johnny and makes pointed eye contact. He may as well have said I told you so out loud. “Look, I’m just here with a couple chooms,” he says as he turns back to the bartender. “Don’t want any big fuss, okay?”

“Sure, not at all,” the bartender says, shaking their head. “Not a word outta me. Just wanted to say I loved Second Conflict. Real shit, you know? Drink’s on the house.”

Kerry gives a wide, charming smile as he takes the drink. “Thanks, always great to meet a fan,” he says, and flicks a finger at them. The tip he’s just sent must be pretty generous because the bartender’s eyes widen, but Kerry placates them with a wave of his hand.

Johnny comes up behind Kerry and leans all over him, his right arm over Kerry’s right shoulder, his whole chest pressing against Kerry’s back. He has to lean up on his toes slightly to put his head on Kerry’s left shoulder. He reaches around with his left hand and grabs Kerry’s fresh drink and chugs it down. “Get us another one? And, hm, seven shots of your good tequila,” he asks the bartender, who raises their eyebrows but complies.

Kerry squirms and tries to face Johnny. “The fuck are you —”

“Shut up,” Johnny interrupts, flicking Kerry in the side of the head with two fingers. When the bartender comes back, he leans closer over Kerry’s shoulder as they pass the drink. “Thanks,” Johnny says. “What’s your favourite Eurodyne song?”

The bartender starts pouring the shots. “Uh,” they say, a little hesitant. “I dunno, User Friendly?” Their eyes flick over to Kerry’s face, then back to Johnny’s.

Johnny grins. “Not his best. I like Drowning Down, but I’ve always been more of a Silverhand fan.”

Kerry sighs. “‘Scuse my friend. He’s out of his fucking mind.”

“Just the way you like me,” Johnny says. Kerry’s still got his hood on but Johnny ruffles his hair over the top of it anyway. He leans away from Kerry and looks to V. “Shots, c’mon.”

V gets one shot and Kerry and Johnny get three each. Thoughtful, to only get V one, given her shit tolerance. The bartender even breaks out the salt and a few synth-lime flavoured bars to do them proper.

Johnny meets V’s eyes and licks the back of his hand, then sprinkles salt on it and holds it out to her. She only hesitates for a moment before she licks the salt from his skin, does the shot, then sucks on the fake lime. The tequila burn is tempered by the salt and lime. It’s been years since V has done the whole tequila shot rigamarole and she’s forgotten how fun it is. Four drinks now — she’ll be really properly drunk.

While V does hers Kerry does one of his, licking salt off the back of his own hand. He sets up to do a second but Johnny grabs his wrist and licks the salt up first. Kerry makes a shocked little noise as Johnny does his shot and takes the lime bar from V to suck on. The bartender had gotten them one each, but Johnny seems keen to share.

Kerry fucking stares at him as he does, and Johnny just grins back silently. Kerry grabs Johnny’s hand and Johnny doesn’t complain as he licks a long line against the back of it. He dusts it with salt and licks it off, then does his shot. As he reaches for the lime Johnny hands him the one he and V had shared and Kerry takes it unquestioningly.

Johnny laughs as he licks Kerry’s hand again for his second shot, taking the lime back. Kerry does his third from Johnny’s hand again, and when he reaches for the lime Johnny shoves it roughly into Kerry’s mouth. While Kerry sucks on the lime, Johnny licks Kerry’s hand for his third shot, tongue wide and flat against his skin. When he’s done the shot he eyes up the lime in Kerry’s mouth and for a moment V thinks that Johnny is going to lean in and fucking take it from him with his mouth; instead Kerry grabs it and presses it to Johnny’s lips, still hesitant despite it all.

“What’s gotten into you?” Kerry says to Johnny as he lets go of his wrist. He’s grinning, but there’s a real uncertainty to it. Johnny loops an arm loosely around V as he leans in toward Kerry to answer him.

“Buncha booze, bit of synthcoke, some good music, not locked in a fucking soul prison.” He shrugs and examines his empty shot glass. “Best fuckin’ friend still alive and finally back in the city.”

Kerry’s face goes soft, and then he turns away. “Shut up,” he says. He takes a deep breath then looks back at Johnny. “You serious that you liked Drowning Down?”

Johnny frowns. “Be a weird fuckin’ lie,” he says flatly.

“It came out after you —” Kerry cuts himself off. “Didn’t think you’d’ve heard it.”

“Fuck, Ker, y’think I didn’t listen to your damn back catalogue?” Johnny says. Kerry stares at him and Johnny sighs torturously. “Really need me pumping up your ego? Only got better, man. Lucky I’m halfway plastered, ain’t saying it again.”

Kerry looks away again. “Alright,” he says roughly. “Wasn’t — alright.”

“C’mon,” Johnny says with an eyeroll, “let’s go dance.”

The live act is good and the dance floor is full as Johnny drags V and Kerry out into the middle of it. V is drunk enough that she wants to dance, but without any synthcoke — and with the fourth drink working its way into her system — she’s starting to feel a bit morose. At first they dance stupid but V can nearly see the alcohol seeping into Johnny as he gets sloppier and handsier. Kerry has been withdrawn and uncertain even here while dancing, and he seems to withdraw further as he gets drunker. Johnny, meanwhile, starts grabbing at her, grinding up against her filthily and yanking her down into a kiss.

“V,” Johnny says between filthy kisses as he grabs at her, “let’s fuck.”

V laughs despite herself, though it’s a little desperate, pushing him away from her neck. “Fuck off, on the fucking dancefloor —?”

“Nah,” he says, “bathrooms.”

“Surely you’re too drunk for that.”

Johnny laughs. “Ain’t no such thing.”

The alcohol slips through her veins, making the room spin. She grips at his shoulders as he tries to lean his face into her neck.

“Wanna show you off,” Johnny says low against her ear, one hand wrapping around her waist. “Don’t want any fuckin’ one else in this damn bar but you, V.”

V turns to speak into his ear. “Liar,” she says, and Johnny flinches against her. “You also want Kerry.”

Johnny laughs, relaxing in her arms and pressing his face into her neck. “Maybe we oughta talk about that.”

Jesus Christ. Weeks and fucking weeks and it’s after he fucking cheated that he maybe wants to actually talk about any of the shit she’s been trying to get him to admit to. Fucking hell.

She turns toward Kerry. “Ker, help me,” she begs, “he’s a fuckin’ monster.”

Kerry looks at them like he’s in genuine pain for a moment before he offers a grin. “I can’t do shit about that.”

“Hey, man, you’re the one who ain’t dancing,” Johnny says, spinning away from V to bump shoulders with him.

Kerry is clearly unsure how to handle the doubly new dynamic of a Johnny who is alive and not actively hating him. V steps up to him and grabs both his hands.

“Dance with me!” she exclaims, and pulls at him to twist their arms in an uncoordinated push-pull kind of dance. Kerry relents, following her lead and dancing stupid with her, and when Johnny crowds in between them like the attention whore he is Kerry laughs, ducking his head until the hood covers all his face.

Despite being a rockstar Johnny dances a bit stiltedly, but he does have rhythm. Kerry, on the other hand, dances like he was born to do so, graceful and sharp. V knows she’s pretty awkward on the dancefloor, but she’s drunk enough she doesn’t really care. Kerry certainly gets a lot of interest from the other dancers, including, V can’t help but notice, from Johnny, who can’t keep his eyes off him. Kerry meets her eyes briefly then grinds up against Johnny, who just laughs and lets him. As Kerry loosens up V does as well. Despite the gloominess tugging at the edges of her mind, it feels good to move her body, to hear the music.

Eventually the energy fizzles as the last live act exits the stage and people start to migrate to other, more active clubs. V grabs Johnny by the hand and Kerry by the wrist and pulls them both over to a booth in the corner, tucked against the wall, as far away from the music as possible.

“Gonna getta drink,” she says, pushing them both toward the table.

V orders drinks for all of them — a vodka soda for her, Johnny’s stupid tequila beer mix, and a cosmopolitan for Kerry. She pulls Kerry’s drink preference from the deep, old part of her brain that once belonged to Johnny. She comes back with the drinks and finds the two of them sitting together on the one side of the booth, Johnny on the outside, Kerry leaned in close to talk at a reasonable volume into Johnny’s ear. Johnny has his arm slung over Kerry's shoulders. When she puts the drinks down on the table Johnny pulls her in for a kiss that is somewhat tame by his standards but still far too intense to do with an arm around your platonic best friend. V breaks the kiss, pausing against his face. For a moment she aches, so sharp and painful that she has to close her eyes and lean her forehead against his. Then Johnny grins, and V pulls back. She sits across from them in the booth and takes a big mouthful of her drink and feels the room move around her. Kerry takes a swig of his drink as well while Johnny stares at him.

Johnny slaps his hand against his shoulder in a friendly manner. “Put you through a lot of bullshit.”

Kerry’s head snaps up from his glass to look at him.

Johnny shrugs, turning away. His arm is still over Kerry’s shoulders. “Was a fuckin’ idiot, when we coulda just been chooms instead.”

Kerry rests both elbows on the table. “Not like I made it easy,” he says roughly. “Both got real good at pushin’ each others’ buttons.” He sighs deeply. “Johnny, I —”

“I’m right at my sappy bullshit limit,” Johnny warns, cutting across him. “Better make it count.”

Kerry laughs and puts his head in his hands, braced on his elbows against the table. “You’re a real fuckin’ asshole.”

Johnny grins. “You too, man.”

The conversation moves on. V rests her head on one hand and listens as Kerry talks about his flight, his upcoming gig, the lost luggage he got into a shouting match with the airline over. Johnny keeps his arm casually over Kerry’s shoulders. He’s not leaning into him, and it would look pretty friendly if it weren’t for the way he runs his thumb over his shoulder occasionally, like he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. V feels like a spectator more than a participant.

Eventually, V leans forward on the table with a sigh, then extracts herself from the booth. “I really gotta head out,” she says. “Got work tomorrow.”

Johnny grabs her by the forearm. “V,” he whines.

V’s eyes flick to Kerry, then back to Johnny. “Stay out,” she says. “I’ll head back.” He can stay out, have his fun. Fuck Kerry. Fuck someone else. Fuck — fuck something. They haven’t fucked since before the memory bullshit. Since jerking off over the holo, if that counted.

Johnny briefly looks conflicted, then he sighs. He pulls his arm back from Kerry’s shoulders and twists against him, leaning backwards against his chest.

“Think I gotta call it, Ker,” he says apologetically, looking up at him with his big puppy-dog eyes. Kerry looks down at Johnny, wide-eyed. “You’re prolly too old for big hangovers anyway, huh?”

Kerry frowns slightly. “Hey. You good?” he asks, completely genuine.

Johnny closes his eyes and turns his head away, but he stays pressed against Kerry’s chest. “Fucked it all up,” he says after a long moment. “Still prolly as close to good as I’ve ever been.”

Kerry’s face screws up awfully and he suddenly grips Johnny’s hair, fisting it tight. He leans down to press his face into his fist. “Missed you somethin’ fierce,” he mutters, closing his eyes. V stands by them, watching quietly.

Johnny swallows and sits up, pushing Kerry away. “Fuck off,” he says roughly. “Didn’t miss you for a moment.”

Kerry tenses and moves away too, turning to stare into his drink. But then he sighs, and looks back to Johnny with a little smile.

“Sure you didn’t. Keep tellin’ yourself that.” He bumps his shoulder with Johnny’s affectionately.

Johnny leans forward like he can hide his face behind his hair. It’s still too short. “Don’t gotta rub it in,” he mutters, and Kerry laughs, grinning like a fool. V sees Johnny’s hand tighten around his empty glass.

“Alright, if y’both are leaving I ain’t staying by myself,” Kerry says, pushing at Johnny. “C’mon, let’s delta.”

The three of them leave. As they step into the cold night air, Johnny tucks up against V’s side. Kerry offers them a lift — of course his driver is coming to pick him up — but Johnny declines before V can say anything. They get the train home, and are largely quiet. Johnny is still pretty drunk, leaning into her, nosing against her neck. V is drunk enough that she doesn’t stop him, staring morosely at a single spot on the seats opposite them. Her limbs feel heavy and when the train stops she feels like she’s moving in slow motion as they walk home. When they arrive, V makes Johnny drink a bunch of water, and does the same herself. He calls her a cunt in response.

“V,” Johnny says as they’re getting into bed. He looks at her, and his eyes are just a little vacant. He’s going to have a bad hangover tomorrow, maybe as bad as hers. “Glad you stayed.”

She turns away and takes a deep breath, unsure how to respond. When she turns back to face him, he’s lying down in the bed already, stripped bare.

“Don’t…” he mumbles, eyes closed, trailing off into something she can’t quite catch as his face twists into the pillow. He keeps mumbling, but it’s all incomprehensible.

She climbs into bed next to him slowly, pulling the blanket over both of them. He makes a little noise as she does, pressing further into the pillow. V falls into an uneasy sleep, and she doesn’t dream.

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.

Chapter Text

V and Johnny do, in fact, sleep for around fourteen hours. Or, V does at least — Johnny doesn’t, because when she wakes up he’s reheating some takeout and making coffee, buck fucking naked in the kitchen. They don’t fuck for four hours, but Johnny does eat her out, and she jerks him off, and then they shower and lounge around for the afternoon.

Things aren’t exactly fixed. They’re still kinda weird, and V still can’t really trust him, but at least she knows he’s not actively trying to fuck off right now. She can handle that.

Kerry sends the both of them tickets via group chat about an hour before the gig, right around when V starts asking Johnny if they need to bother him about it. They catch the train, jumping off a few stations early to get dinner before getting back on.

V has never been to a gig like this before. She’s hardly even been to small time gigs, although if she really digs she can pull up dozens of Johnny’s memories of what that was like. The bar gigs he went to were all small, crowded, grungy, loud, and sweaty. This stadium is pristine. Thousands of people, all being funneled through precise lines lit by neon striplights, through baggage check and weapon confiscation to their designated seats.

Kerry wasn’t kidding about the preem tickets — she and Johnny have their own private box, a glass walled room that seats six and hangs above the crowd. The view is excellent, albeit a little distant. The front of the box is solid glass right now, but can open up so that there’s just a railing at chest height, the rest open air.

Johnny has been weirdly touchy all day, seemingly constantly reaching for her hand. Despite the vague feeling that he’s trying to put on a show of being a good input or something, by the time they make it to the venue he’s complaining incessantly — at the expensive and soulless stadium, the over-produced stage dressing, the music playing over the speakers as people find their seats, the sterility of their box seating, the lack of a mosh pit or even standing room. He’s clearly not trying to be that nice.

They mostly talk over the opener. Johnny makes her shut up for the first few seconds of their first song, then shrugs with a disappointed expression and turns back to her. Turns out the box has fucking volume control — another thing Johnny immediately launches into a rant about — but it is convenient to be able to turn the music down enough they can actually have a conversation. The opener exits, and then there’s nothing for thirty solid minutes.

Then the lights go down, and Johnny turns off the sound control and opens the front wall. They both stand at the edge of the box against the chest high glass railing. Beneath them stretches the crowd, a mass of bodies writhing even with the assigned seating, then beyond that is the darkened stage.

V has never seen anything like it. All the lights flare at once, jets of flame race up into the sky, dozens of giant screens flicker to life, and a single spotlight illuminates Kerry as he hits a screaming chord, the volume rivalling when fucking Space Force One crashed right in front of her, so loud it hardly sounds like music. Kerry is decked the fuck out, knee high boots that lace all the way up with golden eyelets and silver laces, sitting over stupidly tight black leather pants. He has a tiny jacket over his bare chest, and his long grey hair is loose around his face. His chest and face shimmer under the lights. As he moves the gold all over him glints and shines. There’s the jewellery around his wrists, neck and fingers, and of course the cyberware in his throat, chest and face. They throw golden reflections all over his skin. His guitar is shiny black with a curling silver pattern over the body. He looks up, directly into the camera, and his face is duplicated eight times across the screens, larger than life, his searing blue eyes shining in the bright light. He grins and leans forwards toward the mic stand in front of him.

“Hope you’re ready to get what you deserve, Night City,” he says, low and promising, his grin turning dangerous.

Beside her, Johnny throws his head back and fucking laughs, sounding almost delirious. “You absolute motherfucker,” he says, somewhere between delight and anger.

They stay like that the rest of the gig, pressed against the front of the box, side by side. Johnny can’t take his eyes off Kerry, and V alternates between watching Johnny and watching the show. Sometimes he looks delighted. Sometimes he looks fucking furious. Mostly he looks amped up, like he’s snuck some synthcoke while she wasn’t looking, but V is pretty sure if he had he’d have offered her a line as well.

Kerry does three fucking encores, and when he comes back for the last one, he hesitates before grabbing the mic, the first time he’s shown anything other than blinding showmanship on stage.

”Thank you, thank you,” he says into the mic, low and a little rough, a real rockstar voice. “Last one for the night, and I mean it this time.”

He pauses again as the crowd loudly laments the final song.

“Y’know, sentiment and nostalgia, they’re real double fuckin’ edged swords,” he says, one hand on the mic stand, eyes low on the crowd. He strums a chord, slow enough to pull it out into an arpeggio, easy and teasing. Johnny shifts beside her, and when she glances over he’s leaning forward and frowning. “Ain’t nothin’ worse than bein’ stuck in the past, ‘cept maybe bein’ stuck in a future that ain’t comin’.” He strums again, the same chord, hard and fast this time, wheeling his arm upwards with the force of it.

“But I’ll tell ya fuckin’ what, Night City,” he yells, right hand held high over his head, left on the neck of the guitar, mouth jammed right up against the mic, “past, future? It can all fuckin’ burn! Alls we got is right the fuck now, and baby,” he pauses and looks up, not at the camera or the crowd but at their box, at V, at Johnny, “I been startin’ the goddamn fuckin’ fire.” He looks down and grins like something private has amused him. “This, though… consider this one a little indulgence from an old rockerboy.” He turns to the band behind him and the mic just barely picks it up as he shouts, “Three, four!”

All night, Kerry has played Kerry Eurodyne songs. Despite writing a solid half of all Samurai’s output, and despite a handful of Samurai songs being much better known by the solo covers Kerry did of them, he’d avoided anything Samurai. In fact, as far as V is aware, he’d avoided them all tour, sticking to his new album and a few old Eurodyne favourites.

It takes V an embarrassingly long time to realise that this is a cover. It sounds pretty different to the original. Johnny must’ve realised right away. Hell, he might’ve realised from the single chord and Kerry’s little intro. His knuckles are white with how hard he’s gripping the railing, and he stares at the stage, not glancing away even when V bumps their shoulders gently. She bites her lip, running her tongue over the scar there, and reaches her hand toward his hesitantly. He takes it straight away, seemingly without thinking, eyes still locked to Kerry, and squeezes her hand as hard as he’d been squeezing the railing.

Kerry is playing Never Fade Away.

—

After the gig, V hauls Johnny around backstage — or, she tries to, but Johnny is the one familiar with the venue and V has never even attended as a normal concert-goer. He ends up tugging on her hand and taking the lead. Whatever mess of emotions he’d experienced at the end there he’d clearly managed to stomp down by the time the song was over, returning to his whining and eye-rolling. Security stops them and Johnny goes to give his name before stopping himself, seemingly realising that Johnny Silverhand is not going to have the intended effect here. V gives her name instead and they get through — “yes, V and her plus one, right through here.” Johnny grumbles about it.

Johnny pulls her through the backstage corridors to Kerry’s green room. It’s got his name scrawled on the door in thick waxy eyeliner pencil and Johnny snorts when he sees it.

“Fuckin’ sentimental bastard,” he says, less fondly than V expected. He rubs his palm across the name roughly, smearing it until it’s nearly unreadable. Then he wipes his palm on V’s shirt, right over her stomach, rubbing the eyeliner residue from his palm and staining it. She glares at him and he shrugs.

“It’ll wash out,” he says, rubbing the rest of it off against his jeans.

Johnny pushes in without knocking, but the room is empty. V is surprised but Johnny doesn’t seem to be.

“Damn, no wonder Ker’s gone soft,” Johnny says, taking in the room.

It’s big: two couches, a mini fridge so big it's hardly mini, a cupboard next to the fridge, an entire row of mirrors along the wall. The couch looks nice and the walls, fridge and cupboard are all a bright, clean white. The carpet is plush and grey and the lights are set just a little bit low. Johnny goes immediately for the cupboard and mini fridge, rummages around, and breaks open an expensive looking bottle of tequila. V watches him stare at the shelves for a half second, then shrug and drink straight from the bottle.

He turns and grins slow and dirty at her as she stands just barely in the threshold, then stalks over to the couch. He collapses onto it, legs spread obscenely. He holds the tequila out to her and gestures with his other hand. V resists the urge to give in as she slowly wanders closer.

“One thing about Ker, he knows his booze,” Johnny says slowly around his wide grin. “‘Nother thing, he knows his drugs.” He produces a small plastic bag filled with a handful of tiny white pills.

“Where’d that come from?” V asks with a frown, moving forward more deliberately.

“Over there,” Johnny answers, nodding his head toward the cupboard. As soon as she’s close enough Johnny grabs her hand and yanks downward until she stumbles over him onto the couch. She catches herself awkwardly, one foot on the ground, the other leg bent kneeling on the couch between his legs. Johnny grabs her by the face and kisses her hard and messy. The bag of pills presses against her cheek.

“What’s the pills?” V asks, pulling away.

Johnny grins at her. “No clue.” He puts the tequila down on the side table just to his left. “Prolly something dumb and psychedelic. Ker was always a sucker for a post show trip.” He opens the bag, licks his finger and reaches in; a single pill sticks to his damp finger. He holds it out to her.

“We should ask Kerry first,” V says hesitantly. “So we know what they are. Could be old man medicine.”

Johnny laughs. “Pussy.” He licks the pill off his finger and swallows. “Trust me,” he says, leaning his head back against the couch, “Ker ain’t putting his meds in his fuckin’ green room.” He reaches for the tequila again. “Get drunk at least. God, we’re fuckin’ rockstars, kid.”

V takes the bottle from him and drinks. The tequila is good, she’ll admit. “I’m no rockstar.”

Johnny takes the booze back and has another swig before putting it down. “Had me in your head. I’ll give you honorary status,” he says as he pulls her back in. “Fuckin’ get up here, can’t be fun half standin’.”

It’s not, and V lets herself be rearranged; eventually she’s straddling him, plain and simple. Johnny leans in and kisses her, pulling her in by the cheeks. He kisses deep and biting, and V pushes past her nerves and leans into it, pressing down into him. She keeps thinking he’s going to stop, pull back, but he doesn’t. She shifts down against him almost involuntarily and he groans, just a little.

Johnny pulls back suddenly, rests his head into her shoulder, and laughs. “Hah, fuckin’ — ecstasy, or somethin’,” he says, delighted. “Damn, maybe Ker was plannin’ to keep on partying. Crazy fast acting.” His eyes are blown wide as he looks at her, and his grin slips a little, from something smug and sharp to something a little softer as the drug takes effect.

V fumbles for the bag but Johnny beats her to it. He pushes his finger into her mouth briefly to wet it, then reaches it into the bag. Once again a pill sticks to it. V grabs his wrist and swallows his finger like it’s his cock, quick and deep then pulling back slowly, swirling her tongue until she pulls his finger all the way out, swallowing the pill. Johnny stares at her, then slowly puts his finger in his own mouth, mimicking her motions. She sees a glimpse of his tongue swirling around it. He takes a deep breath, eyes locked to hers.

V knows ecstasy. She’s done ecstasy; not often, not for a long time, but enough to remember how it feels. It feels like everything is perfect, like you love everything and everything loves you. Seems unfair to stay sober if Johnny’s going to be experiencing that. Besides, it’d be nice to indulge in the idea that he loves her, that the world is anything other than cruel. Maybe getting high out of her mind would be good for her.

Johnny kisses her again, sloppy and uncoordinated. He outright moans and grinds up against her when she opens her mouth to kiss him properly, tilting to slot their mouths together. Fuck, Johnny was a noisy, needy bitch normally; he was probably going to be obscene on ecstasy.

Johnny, clearly impatient, grabs V’s hand and brings it to his cock. She rolls her eyes but obliges him, feeling him up through his jeans. He fumbles with her shirt and pulls it off, then leans his face into her tits, grabbing them with both hands. She shivers at the contrast between the cool air on her back and his hot hands and mouth on her front. He pushes the cup of her bra down to get his tongue on her nipple and she breathes out thinly, shifting her legs wider over his lap. Right about now V starts thinking about how Kerry — or any of the crew or band — could enter at any moment, and how Johnny must know that too. She hasn’t really considered that when Johnny had said do you wanna let him watch he would mean the very next time they saw Kerry — fuck, maybe she should’ve.

Then she feels the drug take effect. It comes on quick and strong, like a wall, like a fucking on/off switch, like no other drug she’s had. Suddenly everything is sensitive and her mind is racing and everything is good. She’s so fucking happy it blindsides her, like her heart is a balloon being pumped full of air, like she’s filling up with light and being lifted. All of her worries seem small and far away, easily dismissed and pushed past. Nothing matters other than the fact that she’s in the arms of the man she loves and he’s alive and she’s alive and his skin is here beneath hers and —

“Shit,” she gasps, leaning back, collecting herself. “What fucking E is this.”

Johnny laughs. “You been doin’ the cheap shit, V. Welcome to the big leagues.”

All she can see is Johnny. All she can see is his stupid blond curls and his dimples and his eyes, his eyes with pupils blown wide enough they almost look dark like his original ones.

“Fuck,” V breathes out, putting both hands on Johnny’s face, thumbs on his cheekbones. She leans right in, foreheads knocking. The love — it fills her up and overflows out of her throat and mouth. “I’m so stupid in love with you,” she says, breathy against his lips.

“Course you are,” he says breathlessly, staring at her. In her suddenly high as fuck state, she thinks he might be staring at her the same way she is at him. “Holy fuckin’ shit, V.”

V kisses him, and it turns deep and desperate straight away. The fact that Kerry was basically guaranteed to walk in on them doesn’t seem to bother Johnny and it seems a lot less important to V as she leans into Johnny further. She palms him through his pants again, then starts fumbling with his belt, one handed, the other hand braced against the couch back by his head. She gets his cock out and strokes it and Johnny groans through a wide grin. Fuck, the ecstasy makes things so much easier, to live in the moment and let her worries float away.

Behind her, V hears the door open.

Before she can speak Johnny slams a hand over her mouth. He pushes her head to the side so he has a line on the door and leaves his hot hand over her mouth. She shivers, mostly bare back on display. Whoever is in the door wouldn’t be able to see Johnny’s cock from the angle, but, shit.

“Hey, Ker,” Johnny drawls, casual as anything, like he doesn’t have his hard dick out. It’s probably the ecstasy more than anything else, but he sounds real pleased. “Fuckin’ killed it out there.”

“Johnny,” Kerry says, a little breathless. “Fuckin’ hell. Make yourself at home, why don’t ya.” He’s clearly trying to sound casual but he did just walk into a room where V is topless and straddling Johnny.

She can’t see Kerry at all so she watches Johnny’s face as he closes the pill bag, balls it up, then throws it overhand at Kerry. “Keep up, asshole,” he says. He’s grinning, and his cheeks are slightly flushed.

V is sick of being ignored and pulls Johnny’s hand off her face. She twists in his lap to finally face Kerry. As she does, Johnny moves the hand that was over her mouth down along her arm until he reaches her hand, entwining their fingers together.

Kerry still looks somehow ridiculous, like the idea of a rockerboy made flesh and then aged up some fifty years. He makes it work, though. He’s half in his stage gear, knee high laced boots and stupid tight pants, but he’s replaced the open vest with a grey tank, and he’s taken off a lot of his jewellery.

“Hey, Kerry,” V says, only a little bit pointedly.

Kerry looks up from where he is fumbling with the bag of pills. “Hi V,” he says, then gives her a charming smile. God, it makes her heart race and swell, the emotion buzzing around her body. He pops one of the pills. “Did you have fun? How was it?”

Johnny snorts quietly against her neck as she answers. “Hell yeah, you were incredible,” she says and he visibly preens.

Johnny places a wet kiss on her neck, then sighs. “Never Fade Away was a real cunt move,” he says, pressed into her skin, tone mild. Kerry looks warily across the room. Johnny’s voice gets slightly rougher when he adds, “Was good though.”

V turns back to Johnny and suddenly remembers that his damn cock has been out this whole time. She licks her palm showily and strokes him, squeezing her other hand around his.

“Fuck, finally remembered?” he teases with a laugh, then draws a shuddering breath. “You fucked on ecstasy before?”

“Once,” V says. It had been a guy, a guy she didn’t remember the name of, or really anything about, because the other Johnny had been there, watching, pupils blown wide just like Johnny’s were now.

Kerry collapses down on the couch next to them, limbs loose. He groans and shuts his eyes. After a short moment, he peers over at the two of them, eyes immediately flitting downwards.

“Nice cock,” he says, in the most obviously put-on, trying-to-be-casual voice V has ever heard in her life.

Johnny scoffs at him. “As if you’ve ever seen a dick you didn’t like,” he says dismissively, but he moves V’s hand and instead strokes himself languidly. Kerry’s breathing catches as he watches.

Johnny leans his head back and then turns, slowly, to face Kerry, meeting his eyes. They stare for a long moment, Kerry twisting a fist into the couch, Johnny with his hand on his cock and his other hand holding V’s hand, tension in the room so taut V can hear it tearing and ripping under the strain. For a moment V is certain he’s going to do it, that Johnny is going to break and pull Kerry in for a kiss — but he doesn’t. He turns away and the tension snaps. Kerry turns away as well with the force of the release and exhales loudly.

Johnny pulls V back in for a kiss with both hands on her face. It’s slow and almost thoughtful, kissing with his eyes closed. He pulls back but just barely, and opens his eyes to stare directly into hers. She feels like he’s trying to read her mind, and shit, she wishes he could.

“Hey, Ker,” he says, staring directly into her eyes, holding her face with his hands, “you wanna get your dick sucked?” V can’t look away from him.

Kerry fires back, tense and bitter, “Why, you offering?”

Johnny doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t move. “Offering V.”

Despite how much V has pushed, and despite him literally asking for it, it still feels kind of unreal, for Johnny to want this. For him to say that he wants it, to actually act on it. She wishes that this wasn’t after he cheated, after they have this strange, almost-but-not-quite-resolved tension between them. Well, at least it will still be super hot.

“V?” Kerry asks, uncertainly — not questioning Johnny, but questioning her.

V turns to smile at Kerry and kind of shrugs. “I mean, if you’re down.”

Kerry grins at her. “Be mad to turn down a blowjob from you.” His eyes are locked on her and god, god, the fucking ecstacy — she feels so damn good, Johnny’s body hot beneath her, Kerry’s stupid grin filling up her chest, the drugs rushing through her blood.

“Damn right,” Johnny says, voice hard and possessive. He pushes her back until she stands and then he twists on the couch, sitting sideways with his back against the armrest, one leg bent up near his chest and the other bent sideways. His cock is still out and still hard and he palms himself as he watches V like a hawk. His eyes don’t leave her, and he doesn’t look over to Kerry.

V gets down on her knees on the carpeted green room floor in front of Kerry, who moves forward on the couch. She undoes his belt and pants, slow and teasing. When she glances over at Johnny, his eyes are fixed to where her hands are moving over Kerry’s crotch. She pulls his pants down to just above his knees and mouths over his dick through his underwear. Even through the fabric he’s warm. All sensation seems to be amplified as V moves her mouth in a slow tease.

“Pretty sure the goal is to suck his dick, V, not get his briefs wet,” Johnny says flatly.

“Oh, you the expert on givin’ blowjobs now, Silverhand?” Kerry says, glancing over at him.

“Nah, he just doesn’t know what foreplay is,” V says as she leans back. “No damn patience.” Despite that she does start pulling his underwear down, and Kerry lifts his hips to help. She can’t get them past his stupid boots, but down to his knees is far enough.

“No patience — I’m the one waiting in line to get his damn cock sucked.”

Kerry says, “Want me to —”

“No.” Johnny doesn’t even let him finish the question.

Kerry opens his mouth to say something else but it turns into a gasp as V sucks his cock into his mouth. “Oh.”

His cock is hot and heavy and still soft as V works her tongue around the head, tasting the salt and musk of his skin. She pulls off briefly to lick messily down the sides, getting it nice and wet, before taking the head in her mouth again and working the base with her hand.

Kerry moves a hand to run through her hair, pulling it away from her face. V doesn’t mind cocksucking usually — was always hot getting someone off — but she isn’t crazy about it or anything. Tonight the ecstasy makes every touch like a revelation, blooming and spreading inside her. Kerry’s cock in her mouth is like a slow explosion of warmth, down and out from her mouth all the way to the tips of her fingers. The way he gets harder — and bigger — in her mouth makes her head spin.

“Her gag reflex sucks,” Johnny advises, nearly sounding bored, “so no face fucking.”

“Sure,” Kerry says breathlessly. “Jesus fuck.”

V works Kerry’s cock carefully, listening to his little breathy sounds, relishing in the easy pleased warmth of it all. She wonders whether he’s usually this quiet or if he feels like he has to hold himself back for Johnny. Hopefully she’ll find out.

V angles her head to look up at Kerry. He’s leaned back against the couch, breathing hard, face flushed. She looks over at Johnny and finds herself meeting his eyes directly because they are locked on her mouth around Kerry’s cock, expression bordering on desperate. V pulls back from Kerry and he whines quietly. She turns her head to look at Johnny again, and lifts her hand to gesture to him to come closer. When he doesn’t move, she sighs and walks over on her knees, leaving Kerry and grabbing gently at Johnny’s cock. He gets the idea and twists on the couch so he’s not sitting sideways anymore, scooting forward, and V sucks his cock into her mouth. She goes nice and slow and he relaxes for her easily. Johnny, completely unconcerned with what noises he makes, groans loudly as she swirls her tongue around the head.

She pulls off Johnny and shuffles on her knees back over to Kerry. She tries to leave one hand loosely on Johnny’s cock, but she can’t quite reach comfortably, and her hand ends up on his knee instead. She licks her tongue against the underside of Kerry’s cock and wraps her lips around it. Kerry sighs dreamily. His dick is slightly bigger than Johnny’s is now, a fact that she folds into her back pocket for if she ever needs to really piss Johnny off. As she pulls back from Kerry again and turns, Johnny shuffles closer, then closer again, until his thigh is pressed up against Kerry’s, until she can move from one cock to the other by just turning her torso. Kerry’s thigh is bare but Johnny still has his pants on. V takes pity on him and doesn’t ask for him to take them off.

V focuses mostly on Kerry, pulling off to suck Johnny off occasionally, to keep him from getting too impatient. Johnny’s noises stay pretty quiet, but he groans every time she comes back to him. Kerry has been steadily getting louder. V wishes she could watch his and Johnny’s faces as they figure out whatever the fuck is going on between them. She suspects they’re not figuring anything out at all, but Kerry is getting if not more comfortable then at least hornier. Kerry whines, and he moans, breathy and pretty and high pitched, like he’s auditioning for the role of archetypal twink.

Fuck, it’s all so much. Kerry in her mouth, heavy and hot and twitching, then Johnny in her mouth, familiar and just as heavy, stoking a warmth within her that is slowly turning from gentle waves to something searing hot. Her knees ache slightly from the floor but it barely registers, just a slight discomfort as she moves. She gets a bit sloppy with it, drool spilling from her lips as she moves between their two cocks, a hand alternating bracing on Kerry’s or Johnny’s thigh as she sucks them both. Johnny’s hand weaves in and out of her hair as she comes and goes, while Kerry grips at her shoulders. She feels like she’s in a strange dream, hot and light and soft, soundtracked by Johnny’s soft groan whenever she gets her mouth on him, by Kerry’s increasingly desperate, pretty little noises. It barely even registers that she’s wet, damn near soaked, just a slight discomfort when she shifts on her knees.

V takes Kerry deeper into her mouth, and his thighs twitch around her as he moans. He must be close. His hand moves into her hair, carding through it then gripping. He doesn’t move her, just holds her hair like a lifeline as he gasps. Another hand winds its way into her hair and Kerry groans, deep and rough. V looks up and sees that Kerry has one hand gripping his thigh, fingers digging into the flesh, and realises that the second hand on her head must be Johnny’s. She looks up at him and Johnny is staring, mouth slightly open as he breathes heavily, pupils blown wide.

Johnny’s hand in her hair tightens and pushes her down on Kerry’s cock. She and Kerry both moan in uncoordinated harmony. He pulls her back, until Kerry is just barely in her mouth, then pushes her down again. Kerry’s hand on her head scrambles, twisting her hair then letting go. He tries to comb through her hair but Johnny’s hand is in the way; their hands overlap and Kerry grips hard, half holding her hair and half holding Johnny’s hand as he uses her mouth to fuck Kerry.

Johnny is usually pretty good at knowing her limits for this kind of thing — unfortunately for V’s attempts to curb his massive ego, he is pretty great at sex, and he learns pretty damn quick. But Kerry’s cock is slightly bigger than his, and the angle is all different, and he pushes her harder, right on the borderline of too hard — but, fuck, Kerry is making noises for real now, less like he’s in a porno and more like he’s getting his dick sucked. V’s eyes water when Johnny pushes her too far down but she works through it and fuck, holy shit, Kerry comes with a groan that rapidly becomes a whine, desperate and real as his hand twists in her hair hard enough to hurt.

V swallows most of Kerry’s come but there’s still some in her mouth when she pulls off him with a gasp. Before she can talk herself out of it, she climbs up the couch, up into Johnny’s lap, straddling one of his legs, one thigh pressed up against Kerry. She kisses Johnny, pushing Kerry’s come into his mouth as they kiss. Johnny takes a moment to realise what she’s doing and then makes a fucking feral noise against her, gripping her face with both hands and squeezing, kissing her like he’s never done before, sucking on her tongue like he’s going to die. He’s breathing hard, desperate against her. Behind her, she can hear Kerry breathing heavily.

“Fuck, V, baby, fuck,” he says desperately against her lips, both hands gripping her cheeks, “you’re insane.” Johnny pulls back slightly, face flush. His voice is hoarse. “Dead fucking insane.”

“You good if I kiss him?”

“Yeah,” he says breathily, “fucking anything, yeah.”

V doesn’t even have to move. She twists around in Johnny’s lap until she can grab Kerry by the back of the head and pulls him into a kiss. He opens up to it immediately. Kerry kisses soft and teasing, one hand coming to rest on the back of her thigh just under her ass.

It’s not long before Kerry pulls back with a warm smile. “Ya know, Johnny’s been real good. Think he deserves his dick sucked.”

“Fuck off,” Johnny says as V laughs. She kisses Kerry again until she feels Johnny’s hand in her hair. “Do want my dick sucked though.”

It’s Kerry’s turn to laugh as V pulls back away from him and turns back to Johnny. His face is flushed gently, breathing harder than normal, and his pupils are still blown the fuck out from the ecstasy. V imagines she looks similar. She climbs back down to the floor, but Kerry interrupts her and reaches across the couch for a cushion for her knees.

Sucking Johnny off is familiar at this point, and she falls into an easy rhythm, bobbing her head and spiraling her tongue. Johnny heaves a sigh, like a great release of tension. One of his hands is loose in her hair. When she glances up he’s leaning his head back against the couch, facing the ceiling. Her eyes flick over to Kerry, who is watching keenly, palming his softening dick with one hand. V closes her eyes and focuses, sucking harder and prompting a little moan from Johnny. She uses one hand to play gently with his balls as she gets him off. The other hand rests on his thigh until Johnny reaches for it with his free hand and slots their fingers together, palm against palm.

A second hand joins Johnny’s in her hair and she recognises immediately it must be Kerry’s. She looks up as Johnny’s head snaps up from the couch to stare hard at Kerry. V, keen to distract him, takes him deeper and briefly sucks hard, moving her hand from his balls down lower to run over his perineum toward his asshole. Johnny groans again, looking back at her.

“Fuck, V,” he says quietly. He doesn’t look back at Kerry, but he doesn’t push him away.

Slowly, experimentally, Kerry pulls her up on Johnny’s cock, then pushes her down again. She groans and closes her eyes. Kerry moves her to get Johnny off, gentle and careful; she doesn’t let him lead entirely, pulling and pushing as needed to keep the right rhythm, but Johnny probably can’t tell. It looks like Kerry is in charge, and it almost feels like it too.

It doesn’t take long for Johnny to be groaning desperately against her, hips moving in little aborted thrusts as she gets him off with practised efficiency. When he comes he puts his hand directly over Kerry’s on her head to hold her down, and Kerry huffs out a long, deep breath, like he’s trying to calm himself.

V pulls back from Johnny’s cock and carefully opens her mouth as she tilts her head back, showing Johnny his own come on her tongue, watching his face and his dark eyes. She closes her mouth and looks deliberately at Kerry and then flicks her eyes back to him, an unasked question. He watches and doesn’t stop her as she gets up into Kerry’s lap, as she opens her mouth and kisses him with tongue, with Johnny’s come. The noise Kerry makes almost makes her laugh, a desperate whine into a groan into a whine again, and he grips her hips hard and bruising.

She and Kerry keep making out, until the taste of Johnny is gone from their lips and all that is left is skin and spit. Johnny shifts beside them, and then V feels Johnny’s hands skirt around her waist and back. He undoes her bra. His hands come around to palm her tits, kneading them gently, caging her in from behind. He leans into her and kisses at the back of her neck. Her whole body tingles as they both touch her, leaving shivers all up and down her spine as Kerry sucks her lips and Johnny bites at the back of her shoulder. She pulls back from Kerry’s mouth to sigh and lean back against Johnny, tipping her head back to rest against his shoulder. Johnny’s hand runs around her hips and rests on her stomach, warm and solid, tingling all the way up to her throat.

“Think it’s your turn, sweetheart,” Johnny says against her ear. He bites at her earlobe teasingly and she shivers. Kerry sucks gently at her breast, making her breath catch.

Johnny pulls her away from Kerry until she’s sitting on the couch facing outwards. He gets down on his knees on the floor, grabbing the cushion V had knelt on before. He pulls at her pant legs insistently until she sighs and undoes her pants and yanks them and her underwear down, flipping her hips to get them down over her ass. Johnny pulls them the rest of the way off, leaving her bare, even though he and Kerry are both still basically fully clothed. He pushes her legs apart slowly, palms hot and firm against her thighs. V takes a deep, steadying breath as Johnny kisses the inside of her knee, then slowly kisses his way higher. His kisses get wetter and harder as he ascends, until he’s sucking a hickey into her upper thigh. She’s so wet already from everything else, and every point of contact is so warm, a warmth that blossoms up through her skin into her chest. Beside her, Kerry leans in to kiss her breast again, soft and careful.

When Johnny finally licks over her clit she can’t help the strangled moan that escapes her as her hips twitch upwards of their own volition. She’s been wound so tight, so slowly, so sweetly. As always, Johnny fucking loves eating pussy, and he never gives it anything less than one hundred and ten percent. He circles her clit delicately before diving down to her entrance, tonguing at her and moving his whole damn head with the motion. The noise is obscene. Beside her, Kerry continues feeling her up, mouth latched to the side of her neck now.

“Fuck,” she says, breathing hard, grabbing Johnny’s hair desperately. “I’m so…”

“Wet?” Johnny finishes for her, a wicked grin on his face as he leans backwards. Fuck, his face is wet now too, shiny with it. “So fuckin’ wet for us, Jesus Christ.” Kerry makes a choked noise into her neck. Johnny leans back into her pussy and licks once all the way up her slit, brief and stupid and obscene. “You want a turn, Ker?”

Kerry makes a pathetic little noise against her neck and looks down at Johnny. Their eyes meet and Johnny’s stupid smug grin doesn’t falter. Kerry says, “Fuck yeah.”

Kerry gets up off the couch, tugging his pants back up over his ass but leaving the fly undone and his dick mostly out. He gets down on his knees in front of V, beside Johnny. V trembles, her torso cooler now without Kerry pressed against her. Johnny doesn’t really move away, so Kerry ends up real close to him. The two of them are basically shoulder to shoulder, Johnny angled sideways so Kerry can face her straight on.

“When was the last pussy you ate?” Johnny asks conversationally, as though nothing about this bothered him. Kerry, who still looks like he can’t believe any of this is happening, huffs out a single laugh.

“Shit, I dunno. Prolly years at this point.” When he turns to face Johnny their faces are so damn close they’re almost touching.

“You’ll do fine,” Johnny says easily, and bumps their shoulders together. “She’s aching for it.”

“Hey,” V complains weakly.

“Don’t worry.” Kerry leans in toward her. “You never forget.”

Kerry licks into her clit as Johnny kisses the inside of her knee. She shivers and huffs out a long breath of air as Kerry circles her clit deliberately and slowly. He abruptly speeds up and sucks and she gasps, her hand coming to grab at his hair. It’s long, as long as Johnny’s was in his real body, and she twists it around her fingers. Kerry almost exclusively works her clit, only occasionally dipping lower. It’s weird how different it is from Johnny eating her out — she’s never had different people eat her out so soon after the other that she could compare in such detail. Their fucking tongues are different shapes. If they keep this arrangement up she thinks one day she could tell them apart by mouth alone.

Johnny’s hand joins hers in Kerry’s hair and he pulls him back, gentle but insistent, and leans in to replace Kerry’s mouth with his own. Kerry grunts, annoyed, as he pulls back and turns to kiss her thigh. Fuck — she would never admit it but while Kerry is good Johnny is excellent, like he made it his life’s mission to become the best fucking pussy eater in all of Night City. After he brings her right up to the edge he pulls back again and lets Kerry take over. Kerry is getting better with every passing moment as he learns what she likes and doesn’t like, and V is a fucking mess above them, breathing heavy with her legs spread as wide as they can go, one leg up on the couch. Just about every exhale of hers is a moan, and the longer it goes on the more she can’t stop herself from getting louder. Maybe it’s the ecstasy — okay, it’s definitely at least partially the ecstasy — but it’s also the both of them between her legs, so controlled and careful, so fucking hot.

Johnny kisses the inside of her knee as Kerry eats her out, then up higher. He follows his own path from earlier, pushing upwards, pressing in against Kerry. Their shoulders press together until Johnny moves higher and then he moves his shoulder in front, underneath, so they fit. He presses in further still until he is cheek to fucking cheek with Kerry, whose pace has turned desperate, clearly not focusing on V anymore. She watches as Johnny turns his head toward Kerry, pushes his face out of the way with his nose in Kerry’s cheek, faces mashed together, until he can get his tongue on her clit.

V leans her head back and tries to control her breathing. God, Johnny is such a fucking asshole, but damn if she isn’t more turned on than she’s ever been in her life. She can feel that Kerry hasn’t backed down and is still pressed against Johnny between her legs, the two of them open-mouthed against her, hot and demanding. She closes her eyes and focuses on Johnny’s tongue, on Kerry’s beard against her inner thigh. Then, Johnny’s tongue is gone, and Kerry doesn’t come to replace it. V looks down and — holy shit.

Johnny and Kerry are making out, desperate between her legs. She watches as Johnny, never one to do anything by halves, really fucking kisses him, mouth open, one hand gripping his cheek to tilt his head so they fit together, the other still on her thigh. He moans desperately as Kerry does something and pushes in against him harder, hard enough that it pushes against V’s leg and shifts her on the couch. Kerry’s hand comes up to wind through Johnny’s curls and V can just barely see as his other hand brushes lightly over Johnny’s soft cock, still hanging out of his pants. Johnny’s hand on V’s leg squeezes. She feels like she can hardly breathe, like if she draws a single breath Johnny will snap out of it with an explosive anger.

He doesn’t explode — instead he abruptly turns and in one motion is on her pussy again, face turned away from Kerry like he’s hiding in her. V moans because holy fuck, and then looks back down and meets Kerry’s eyes.

Kerry is wide-eyed, the expression of disbelief cranked up impossibly higher than before. V feels like she probably looks similar and gives him the best I don’t fucking know what his deal is look she can manage. Kerry lifts a hand to his lips and rubs his fingers over them, then looks down at his fingers like he’s expecting to see something there.

Then Kerry shrugs, a real fuck it kind of shrug, and puts his hand in Johnny’s hair and pushes him down into her cunt hard.

V and Johnny both groan, and V sees Kerry’s wicked grin as he pulls on Johnny to yank him back from her pussy, pushing him away, and then he dives in there himself, tongue wide and flat as he licks her.

Johnny fucking growls at Kerry and yanks him back by the hair, harder and meaner than Kerry had done to him. Their faces are level and while Kerry grins Johnny looks pissed, but a hot kind of pissed, the kind where his eyes burn and you can’t tell if he’s going to fuck you or kill you. Kerry, eternally pushing his luck, presses a hard kiss against his mouth and Johnny pushes him away, breathing ragged.

“She’s mine,” Johnny practically growls, then pushes him away further, almost cruelly, and turns back to eat V out again, insistent and hard against her clit.

Fuck, Jesus, that kind of possessive behaviour never used to do it for V but when it’s Johnny, it feels like all she ever wanted. She was his — the other his — in such a deeply fucked up and impossible way that it feels right for him to claim her. She wants it as badly as she wants to claim him, dangerously and completely. She wants to leash him, or have him beg for her, or bite into his neck so hard that everyone will see it and know. She wants him to mean it, and for a fleeting moment she really believes he does.

His tongue is fantastic but she needs him inside her, too. “Johnny,” she says, voice thin and desperate, “please, your fingers —”

V cuts herself off but Johnny gets the idea, pressing two fingers inside her almost straight away. She moans and looks hazily around the room. Kerry is sitting on his haunches behind Johnny, still looking a bit baffled; she gestures to him, indicating for him to come join her on the couch. He does, and she gasps desperately into his mouth as she kisses him and Johnny fucks her and god, she comes so fucking hard, pressing her face into Kerry’s shoulder and moaning loudly, every touch hot and burning all the way to her heart and stomach and spine. Johnny fucks her all the way through it, until she’s oversensitive, pulling at his hair and begging. He slows and then pulls back to meet V’s eyes with a savage fucking grin, wide and dangerous.

Kerry leans his head into V’s shoulder with a laugh. “Hell of a hello, Johnny.”

Johnny’s grin fades as he leans back on his haunches and tucks his dick back in his pants. “Put your damn cock away,” he demands.

Kerry grins down at him from the couch and palms his dick but makes no move to do as he’s told. “What, while you’re on your knees?”

“Fuck you,” Johnny says as he stands up. There’s an edge of real anger in his voice, and he won’t meet Kerry’s eyes, staring off at the wall instead.

Kerry makes a considering noise. “I mean, if you’re offering…”

“In your fucking dreams,” Johnny says, some of the bite fading. He sighs and looks down at the two of them. V is naked and flushed, recapturing her breath. Kerry is mostly dressed, dick out from his open fly. Johnny looks hesitant, almost uncertain, an usual emotion on his face. He looks over to V and she smiles at him. Her smile has an edge of worry that she tries to hide by grinning. She’s not sure if it helps.

Johnny turns and walks back across the room to the mini fridge. Kerry looks at V and they exchange a glance — V gives him a well, fuck kind of expression without even meaning to. Kerry scrunches his mouth up in thought then stands up and redoes his fly. She reaches for her pants as well, leaning up on the couch to pull them and her underwear up. She quickly pulls her shirt on, not bothering with her bra. Kerry is still standing, staring at Johnny’s back as he looks through the fridge. When Johnny turns around he’s holding three beer bottles by the necks in one hand.

Kerry steps toward Johnny with a considering look. Johnny watches him, face closed off. Kerry steps forward again. V can barely see Kerry’s face from the angle but she can see it when he breaks into a wide grin. He slaps a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and brings him in for a half hug, simple and chaste. The beers clink as Johnny is pulled in. Johnny doesn’t seem to know what to do with his arms, but the hug is pretty brief. When Kerry pulls back he leaves his hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Real glad you’re back, Johnny,” Kerry says simply.

Johnny laughs, head back, and when he looks back down he’s grinning, wide and easy. “Shit, Ker. Me fuckin’ too.”

Still grinning, Kerry pats him on the head. “Keep forgetting how short you are. It’s really cute.”

Johnny grabs his wrist and pulls his hand off his head. “Don’t push your luck,” he warns, with a glare so sharp V feels like she’s seeing his original face for a moment. He pushes past Kerry to hand one of the beers to V.

V is sitting not quite in the middle of the couch, with about one person’s space to her left and a squishy two to her right. To her surprise, Johnny sits down to her right, holding one beer out in front of him until Kerry grabs it and crams down next to him. Johnny wraps an arm over V’s shoulders and while he’s leaning in toward her, he’s very much pressed up against Kerry as well.

They drink the beers in silence for a moment, until V says, “So this what rockstars do? Lounge around with beers alone backstage?”

Kerry leans forward to grin at her past Johnny. “After sex, sure,” he says.

“Coke and parties come later,” Johnny adds, leaning his head back. “Jesus. Boring until I get some real drugs in you, huh?”

V laughs. The ecstasy is definitely still fucking with her; everything feels warm and easy.

“V? Boring?” Kerry says, disbelieving.

Johnny groans and leans into Kerry’s shoulder, arm still around V. “Like you wouldn’t believe, Ker,” he complains. “She’s always talkin’ ‘bout how she’s gotta go to work and can’t stay out and won’t get high and fuck me in the bathrooms —”

Kerry interrupts with a loud laugh. “Christ, I wouldn’t fuck you in the bathrooms if that’s how you were gonna be about it.”

“Yeah you would,” Johnny says.

“Yeah I would,” Kerry acknowledges, folding immediately.

“Call him next time then,” V says, no bite, closing her eyes. The warmth of Johnny’s arm seeps from her shoulders through her whole body. Johnny shifts beside her and she feels his lips press against her neck, then higher against her jaw, and then finally on her lips as he kisses her languidly.

“Rather have you,” Johnny says quietly, face pressed against hers.

“You know no one's askin’ you to choose ‘tween us,” she mumbles, then turns toward him to kiss him better. She runs a hand up his cheek and realises that Kerry already has a hand in his hair, scratching at his head. She pulls back slightly and opens her eyes; Kerry is leaned in with his face against Johnny’s neck. She feels like toffee, drawn out slow and sweet.

“Kerry,” Johnny says in warning as Kerry presses his lips into his neck. Kerry sighs and presses his forehead there instead.

”I’ll kick you out,” Kerry says, such a transparently false threat he doesn’t bother to try to sound serious. “Me and V will just have our fun the rest of the night.”

“Not that much fun,” Johnny says. He turns to face straight ahead and leans back into the couch. “Said she wouldn’t fuck you without me.”

Kerry looks up from Johnny’s neck to meet V’s eyes, surprised. “You two actually talked about this?” he asks incredulously.

“Talked to my output ‘fore letting her suck some other dick? No shit,” Johnny snipes.

“Your output?”

“Talk is generous,” V says, jumping over the output comment. She kind of thought Kerry already would’ve realised. “Johnny asked if I could take two dicks. Real epitome of romance.”

“You ain’t dating me for romance,” Johnny says.

V laughs, struck by the sudden absurdity of dating Johnny Silverhand. She laughs hard, body curling with it, pressing her head into Johnny’s shoulder, a little hysterical as the ecstasy in her blood catches the laughter and bounces it around her insides. Tell this to her three and a quarter fucking years ago. Kerry and Johnny are both quiet while V slowly comes down from her laughing fit, calming into little intermittent giggles. Johnny’s hand finds hers again and holds it. He’s been so keen on that, yesterday and today. It’s nice. The ecstasy swirls and she fucking loves him.

“Man. You’re really fuckin’ mainlining?” Kerry says once V has calmed down.

“Did you not fuckin’ realise?” Johnny demands. “What did you think all our Bushidō dates were? You know she’s staying with me, right?”

“Jesus, no, neither of you said shit about that.” Kerry shakes his head gently. “Fuck. Mainlining. Look at you, all soft.”

Johnny kind of shrugs against the couch. “Fuck off. You said I’d like her.”

“That what did it? You date girls that Kerry picks for you?” V asks, then laughs at her own joke, pressing back into Johnny’s shoulder.

“Ker has shit taste in women,” Johnny says dismissively.

“But great taste in men,” Kerry says, leaning forward again to grin at them both.

Johnny rolls his eyes but can’t hide his pleased little grin — or maybe he just doesn’t bother to try hiding it.

“Disagree,” V says. “You and me, we just have the same shit taste.”

Kerry laughs. “Ah, shit. Can’t really argue with that.”

There’s a relaxed kind of silence for several long moments before Kerry opens his mouth again. “He asked you to take two cocks, huh?” he says, all faux-casual.

“Uh-huh,” V says, eyes closed as she leans against the couch.

“You kinda only took one dick though,” Kerry says, still trying to sound casual. “One at a time. Technically.”

V snorts, but Johnny speaks before she does, leaning his head back into Kerry’s hand where it’s still in his hair. “Get me high enough and we’ll fuck her together properly.”

“I’m not fucking you while you’re off your ass high again,” Kerry says, only slightly bitter.

V feels Johnny tense against her, but all he does is raise a middle finger at Kerry. V feels light and floaty, and she forces herself to speak. “Hey, Ker, where’s the afterparty?”

Kerry takes the obvious subject change gladly. “Label’s putin’ something on at Riot,” he says. Johnny snorts. Kerry continues, “Yeah yeah, fuck labels, but we’d be drinking on their dime.”

“Sold,” Johnny says, stretching out against the couch. “Let’s fuckin’ delta.”

Chapter Text

V is the first to wake, face pressed into a hard couch, mouth dry and acidic, head throbbing. Opening her eyes feels like cracking open some ancient tomb as she rolls over onto her back. It takes several moments but she recognises Kerry’s house, with its high ceilings and expensive, uncomfortable furniture. She’s in one of the ground floor living rooms, the one with the giant screen that she and Johnny had borrowed just a week ago. She’s lying on one of the four hard white couches, one of the smaller ones, all of which face a low coffee table in the centre of the room. The wall that is a giant window is behind her. The sun is fucking blaring into the room and V knows Kerry wouldn’t have a house that didn’t have opaque-switchable glass in every window, but fuck if she knows where the switch is.

She shifts and looks across at the couch next to hers. It’s the bigger one, facing directly away from the screen towards Kerry’s big stupid naked painting. Kerry and Johnny are passed out together on it, Johnny laying over Kerry with his head against Kerry’s chest, a bottle of booze tipped over next to where Kerry’s arm hangs down. Seems like they all have their clothes on.

V remembers —

A joke: Johnny trying to pitch her on fucking in the bathrooms. They were both too far gone by then to have much of a go at fucking anywhere, but Johnny had seemed smug and stupid and confident when he had said it, crowding up against her. She’d said no, and then Kerry had said something into Johnny’s ear — almost certainly I would — as he draped himself all over Johnny. Johnny had pressed his forehead into hers with Kerry against his back and said, Let’s go fuck Ker in the bathrooms, and — she wasn’t exactly sure if they had or not. She was pretty sure they hadn’t, because she didn’t remember what the bathrooms looked like at all, let alone any fucking.

V sits up on Kerry’s couch, grinding her teeth together to suppress a groan. Her stomach flips with nausea as she does. She takes deep, slow breaths.

She remembers having some real weird shots, layered with bright colours, the centre layer literally glowing like neon. She remembers Johnny pressing a pill into her palm; she remembers Johnny pressing a pill directly onto her tongue. God, she remembers Johnny grabbing her wrists and telling her Enough for now, sweetheart; she’d tried to protest but he’d been adamant. She remembers Kerry pressganging Johnny into salt and lime tequila shots, which they did off the back of each other's hands, off their forearms, off their necks.

They had danced a lot, stupid and free, out on the dancefloor without a care. She had danced a slow and filthy grind against Kerry, remembers him making out with her on the dancefloor. Johnny had come up behind her, and she thought he might’ve been pissed, but — he wasn’t. He just slid right up against her back, put his mouth into her neck and his crotch up against her ass. He and Kerry both were too plastered to be getting hard but the point was clear, and V is reasonably certain Kerry had kissed Johnny over her shoulder — or at least he tried to. He’d tried all night, she remembers that for sure: pushing his luck, hands all over Johnny, pressing their bodies together at any opportunity, lips on his arms, neck, lips. Johnny pushed him away each time he tried to kiss his lips, but didn’t seem to mind Kerry hanging off him all night. The rebuffs didn’t seem to bother Kerry at all, and somehow the fact that he always took it with a big stupid grin — and the amount of shit that Johnny did let him get away with, the grin that Johnny had when pushing him back — made it come across as more teasing than pathetic.

Wincing from the sunshine streaming through Kerry’s windows, V makes her way toward the bar, straight for the coffee machine. It’s been years since she’s used the bar but she doubts Kerry has changed anything, and he hasn’t. The only difference from three years ago is that a cleaner has come through, so the place is spotless. V makes four black, unsweetened coffees and chugs one, before carrying the three back to the lounge room and sitting on the couch, one mug clasped in her hands, the other two on the table. Her head is killing her.

V remembers that when Kerry stepped away to call his driver, Johnny had pressed his forehead against her temple and said, Don’t let me fuck it up with him.

Johnny wakes up next, stirring against Kerry’s chest then rolling directly off the couch into the floor with a thump and a low, pained groan. He says something, but it's rough and muffled against the ground.

“What?” V says.

Johnny pushes his head up to look at her. “Where’s my fuckin’ coffee,” he grumbles, seeing the mug she’s holding.

“On the fuckin’ table,” she says, voice rough. It's probably cool by now.

Johnny doesn’t have the grace to look contrite and pushes himself up to his hands and knees, crawling over to the low table. She watches him shotgun the entire coffee in about three seconds. He picks up the second cup.

“That one’s Kerry’s. You drink it, you’ll have to remake it.”

Johnny stares at her completely blankly and blinks once slowly. Then he takes Kerry’s mug and drinks from it, one large gulp.

“You’re an asshole,” she says as Johnny rests one arm along the coffee table and leans his head against it.

“You’re a dick,” he responds, forehead in the crook of his elbow.

“Hah,” she says with a little laugh, “maybe we fit together after all.” Johnny looks up at her with such a withering and murderous glare that she laughs out loud. “Oh, c’mon. Made you coffee and everything.”

“No painkillers though,” he grumbles, words muffled by his arm and hangover.

“I don’t know where Kerry keeps his meds.” The hangover needles her annoyance into real frustration as she rubs a hand over her eyes. “Christ, I try and do a nice thing—”

“V,” Johnny interrupts tiredly. “Thanks. Really.” V huffs as all of her frustration turns over into unbearable fondness and she removes her hand from her face. She stares down into her remaining coffee, face flush. “What you thinkin’?”

She swallows uncomfortably. “I’m thinking that I’m totally fucked.”

When she glances at him, he’s smiling softly. “Fuck, kid, me too.” He grabs Kerry’s coffee again and drinks the rest of it, then takes both empty cups and pushes up to his feet.

“Where you going?” V asks.

“Piss,” Johnny says, “more coffee, a smoke, maybe find Ker’s meds.”

“Gonna have to skip the smoke,” she reminds him.

Johnny groans and crumples over, head almost between his knees, then stands up a little and shuffles off toward the bar.

When he comes back he looks just as wrecked but he’s carrying three cups of steaming coffee. He puts two of them on the table and sits down on the floor next to where Kerry is lying on the couch.

“Kerry.” Johnny pushes at Kerry’s shoulder. “Kerry. Wake the fuck up.”

Kerry blinks awake with a groan, frowning at Johnny for several seconds before he manages, “Who — Johnny? What —”

“V made coffee,” Johnny interrupts, pushing one of the fresh cups into Kerry’s face. Kerry groans again and pushes up on one elbow, enough to take the coffee with his other hand. “Where are your fuckin’ painkillers? Me and V are suffering here, choom.”

“I got better than painkillers,” Kerry says. “Gimme a sec.” He drinks the coffee, then raises it in a salute to V. “Thanks.”

It’s Kerry’s turn to stumble away, though he crawls more than walks. Johnny slumps down onto the floor, rolling away from the couch until he’s sprawled flat on his stomach.

Kerry comes back a few minutes later with what must be some stupidly expensive airhypo hangover cure. He gives himself a dose first, as he’s walking back to the lounge, then sits on the couch next to V and gives her a dose. It rushes through her and lifts her headache immediately, and her nausea vanishes. It’s not perfect, but it's a pretty fucking close.

“That’s incredible,” she says in a groan. “God, Kerry, I could kiss you.”

“Yeah?” Kerry says, and leans in and kisses her once, easy and sweet. It’s unexpected but not unwelcome, and the ease of it makes V grin.

“Hey,” Johnny says from the floor, sounding entirely unbothered, “you makin’ out with my output?”

“Uh-huh,” Kerry confirms, looking down at him. He’s still face down against the floor. “You gonna stop me?”

“You don’t gimme that hypo, I’ll stop you,” he threatens.

Kerry ungracefully clambers down from the couch to the floor and crawls over to Johnny, who is flat on his stomach, then jams the airhypo into the back of his neck. Johnny groans.

“Fuck,” Johnny says. After a beat, he says, “Damn. Where was this shit sixty years ago, huh?”

“Some BioTechnica backroom for fifty grand a pop, prolly,” Kerry says, pushing up to sit with one leg bent, knee near his chest. He leans back on one hand. Johnny doesn’t get up from where he’s starfished on the floor, but he does turn his head so he can see Kerry, and V behind him. “So,” Kerry says, leaning backwards to look at V, “you got plans for today, V?”

“I had ‘hangover recovery’ pencilled in, but prolly won’t need the day for that anymore.”

Kerry grins at her. “Trust me, ya still gotta do the routine. Ain’t right otherwise. Plus, if you don’t get full of carbs and electrolytes it’ll wear off and you’ll be a hella lot worse. I gotta diner in mind, I’ll call my driver.”

“‘M I invited? Or you stealing my output?” Johnny says into the floor.

“Course you’re invited,” Kerry’s tone is so teasing V can practically hear the ‘but’ before he actually says it. “But I ain’t payin’ unless I get a proper kiss outta it.”

Johnny sits up with a real deep sigh, hanging his head like he’s trying to hide behind long hair he no longer has. “This desperate shit. It’s a bad look for you, choom.”

Kerry is silent for a moment. V can’t quite see his expression, but she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself by shifting to get a better look. He takes a steadying breath.

“Look, diner’s cheap, ain’t out of your price range. You want me to take you out, you fuckin’ know I’ll do it. You don’t? Say so. I’ll drop it.” He turns his head and V sees his face; conflicted, maybe sad, maybe something else. Resigned. Disappointed. She gets it — she’s also given in to Johnny again and again and again, against her better judgement.

Johnny’s eyes are on Kerry but his face is impassive and unreadable. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. His eyes flick up to V briefly, and she realises she’s staring at him pretty hopefully and schools her face into something more neutral. Johnny looks back at Kerry again and swallows. He shifts and knee-walks awkwardly over to Kerry. He grabs his chin with one hand, inspecting him. Kerry is still and quiet as Johnny turns his head from side to side. Johnny leans in, resting his forehead against Kerry’s. Kerry takes a shaky breath. Then Johnny turns to Kerry’s cheek and presses a single kiss there. He drops Kerry’s chin and stands abruptly, taking several steps toward the window.

He turns to face Kerry and V, crossing his arms and dropping into a lean against one of the pillars set in the giant window on the other side of the room. “Let me drive,” he says flatly. “Fuck gettin’ a driver.”

V stands up from the couch, a sudden cold certainty in her gut. She isn’t letting Johnny get away with this shit. Doing it to her, that’s one thing. But to Kerry? After last night, after everything? Fuck that. “No,” she says clearly, eyes locked on him.

“What, you wanna drive?”

V grits her teeth and reaches into the anger she feels, tries to let it crowd out the fear. “No, you don’t get to treat Kerry like that.” In her peripherals, Kerry looks up at her in surprise.

Johnny also looks surprised, but it's underlaid with mocking disbelief. “What?”

“You called him on the holo, both times. You asked me to suck him off. You were moaning into his goddamn mouth last night!” V says, letting her frustration well up in her chest. “You clearly fucking want him, I’m saying go for it, he’s saying go for it. What’s your fucking problem?”

“V…” Kerry says tiredly.

Johnny’s jaw is set tight and his eyes burn with fury. “This really a conversation you wanna have?” he says, a low and angry threat.

“Is it a conversation you want to have?” V counters, unintimidated. “I may not have a fuckin’ clue what’s wrong with your head right now, but I know a hell of a lot about what you were feeling fifty years ago.”

Johnny grinds his teeth so hard V can see his jaw move from across the room. His arms twitch but he stays leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You don’t know shit.”

“I do,” V says, taking a long step toward him.

After her Johnny had told her about hooking up with Kerry, he’d told her about hooking up with other guys. And then, long after that, weeks later, he’d said he never got why he kept Kerry around.

You loved him, V had said with a frown. It had been so achingly clear to her, from every memory she’d seen, from the way he spoke about him. He’d laughed, said, Nah, wasn’t like that, but then he’d frowned. A week later, they’d caught up with Kerry just for the sake of it; V spent the night trapped between them, speaking Johnny’s words for him when he asked, a live wire connecting them. She hadn’t gotten drunk — towards the end she couldn’t stand the feeling, the lack of control. When she got home, Johnny had materialised mid-dramatic collapse onto her bed, laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. Jesus fucking Christ, he’d said, disbelieving. I loved him.

“It’s not fuckin’ worth it, V,” Kerry says bitterly. “Let’s just —”

“It is worth it, god.” She takes another step towards Johnny. “This is what you want, right? Someone to stand up to you?”

Johnny groans and pushes off the wall, pacing. “Want you to shut the fuck up.”

“And I want you to stop being a complete cunt,” V says. “You’re the one who kept saying shit could be simple —”

Johnny turns on her suddenly, eyes blazing. “Simple?!” He goes back to pacing, more agitated than before. “Y’know why it was simple with you, V? You were some fucking nobody I didn’t give half a shit about! Could’ve bled out in an alley for all I fucking cared!”

V sucks in a breath and takes a half step backwards.

“Didn’t give a shit about your fuckin’ sob story,” Johnny continues, gesturing wildly as he speaks, pacing away from her. “Didn’t care how bad I fucked you over, or how you push back against all my shit, how fuckin’ stupid stubborn you are, how honest, how damn easy it is to — fuck!” Johnny cuts himself off with the swear and spins on his heel to start pacing back the other way. He won’t fucking look at her.

“You didn’t fucking matter!” Johnny exclaims, gesturing at V and finally looking at her. “But you” — he turns and points at Kerry — “you, motherfucker, have been a goddamn thorn in my side since we were six-fucking-teen. Can’t fucking shake you.”

“Johnny,” Kerry says, still sitting on the floor, “shit. You want me to leave, fuckin’ tell me so.”

Johnny growls as he paces. “You oughta fuckin’ leave.”

“My fucking house,” Kerry says, standing up.

Johnny’s eyes snap to Kerry’s from where he’s been glaring at his own feet. “Gonna kick me out?”

“Yeah,” Kerry says, then shakes his head, “shit, no, I don’t fucking know, Johnny! We were getting on so well —”

“And it’s gone tits up already! Fuck, this shit was never —” Johnny cuts himself off and starts pacing again. “Motherfucker.”

V feels numb, watching from a distance, you don’t fucking matter bouncing through her head like an evil mantra. She knew — fuck, she knew he didn’t care, but —

“Was never what? Gonna work? What was never gonna work?” Kerry demands, stepping closer to where Johnny is pacing. He tenses and relaxes his fists in turn.

“Us!” Johnny exclaims, twisting to gesture at Kerry before he turns back to pacing.

Kerry grabs him by the forearm and Johnny wrenches his arm back but stops walking, glaring back at him. “Us?” Kerry demands. “Was working just fine, ‘til you decided you were too chickenshit to —”

“Oh, I ain’t the coward outta the two of us,” Johnny says venomously, cutting Kerry off.

Kerry steps back. “Yeah, you are. Afraid to let anything fucking good happen to you.”

“Nothing good ever fucking happens to me,” Johnny spits out.

“Oh, get the fuck over yourself,” Kerry sneers. “You ain’t got a fucking monopoly on misery. If good shit doesn’t fucking happen to you it’s your own goddamn fault!”

“Fucking exactly!” Johnny exclaims, face scrunched into an ugly scowl. “I destroy every fucking thing I touch, Kerry!”

Kerry huffs dismissively. “Not V.”

Johnny laughs cruelly. “Nope, fucking did that. Just ‘cause you’re shit enough you didn’t notice. On a goddamn fucking timer ‘til I do it again.”

“Not me,” Kerry says, with a quiet certainty.

“Yeah I fucking did. Read all a-fucking-bout it,” Johnny sneers. “Shitty ass suicide attempt, couldn’t even —”

“Get fucked,” Kerry interrupts furiously. “You think that was about you? Had a whole goddamn life in those fifty years, Johnny. Fell into a slump after my divorce. Now I’m writing music — good music, real shit. Touring again, working, not getting blasted all the fucking time. It was the other you that kicked my ass out of that slump. Dunno if you fucking noticed, I didn’t go back to it when you fucking died again!”

Johnny has frozen in place, eyes wide, every muscle tensed, like a wild animal ready to bolt.

Kerry grabs Johnny’s face with both hands. “You tried to destroy me, and you fucking couldn’t. Didn’t stick. Even with your goddamn nuke. So fuckin’ try, Johnny, just fuckin’ try to destroy me. You can’t.”

Johnny's eyes are wide and he’s breathing heavily, angrily. He grabs Kerry’s wrists with both hands but he doesn’t break away.

“I did my decades of being strung along. I ain’t doing them again,” Kerry continues, hands gripping Johnny’s face harder. “You’re gonna give me a yes or no right fucking now and that’s gonna be the fuckin’ end of it, got it?”

For a long moment they just stare at each other, and then — then Johnny surges forward, hands leaving Kerry’s wrists to grab his face as he kisses him, hard and hungry. He groans as Kerry kisses him in return. He lets Kerry walk him back until they’re against the window, lets Kerry shove him there with a grunt. He gets one hand down on Kerry’s ass and his other hand up in his hair, tangling there messily and tugging. Kerry moves to Johnny’s neck and bites, then sucks there, clearly set on creating one hell of a hickey. Johnny fucking whines.

“Kerry, fuck,” he says breathily. “Shit, Ker.” Kerry shifts to press his forehead into his collarbone. “Take me to your shitty diner.”

“Alright.” Kerry exhales roughly. “Okay. I’m gonna go get ready to leave. Fix shit with V while I do,” he instructs, then pulls back. Johnny yanks him back in for another harsh kiss before letting him go. “Fuck,” Kerry mutters, then pushes off from Johnny's body and walks out of the room, glancing back over his shoulder multiple times until he’s finally gone.

Johnny looks over at where V is still standing, watching numbly. He takes a step toward her and she stumbles back, falling down onto the couch. She stares up at him and they lock eyes for a long, tense moment.

“You knew I didn't give a shit,” Johnny says, voice hard, not breaking eye contact.

“Course,” she says, voice cracking horrifically. Her whole body is screaming at her to break eye contact but something about Johnny’s gaze is locking her in place. Her chest is tight and every muscle is tense.

“You know I give a shit now,” he says, in the exact same hard tone.

“Fuck,” she says, voice still wrecked. “Do I?”

“Yeah. You do.” He looms over her.

She breaks eye contact, finally. She tries to laugh to release the tension but instead it comes out choked and pathetic, like a sob. “Fuck, course you didn’t care. Be weird if you did.”

Her eyes burn as she stares at the pale, expensive leather of the couch. He doesn’t — she knew, she knew, but — fuck, she wanted him to care. She hoped. She thought, maybe —

“Whole thing’s fucked,” Johnny says, tone still tight. “Not exactly fun for me neither.”

“I just —” She hesitates for a moment. If there were ever a time to fuck this whole thing up, it’d be now. “Fuck, Johnny. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know if you give a shit about me beyond a decent fuck. I don’t —”

“Christ, V,” he interrupts, sounding exasperated. “Know what I fuckin’ hate the most about you?” Her heart leaps right up into her throat and her stomach falls to her knees as she flinches. “Despite bein’ so damn stubborn, and so damn honest, and such a fuckin’ cunt, somehow you got no fuckin’ confidence that anyone gives a shit about you.”

She stares at the armrest of the couch. “Do you?”

There’s a pause before he answers. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “Course I do.” He pauses. “Glad I’ve still got you.”

V laughs suddenly, overcome with the absurdity of it. She finally manages to lift her head to look him in the eye. “Got me? I don’t know that you do.”

For a moment, he looks devastated. Eyes wide and pleading, expression slack with surprise. Then he collects himself, expression closing off, eyes hardening. He turns away slightly.

“Right,” he says quietly. His eyes flick back to her. “Right, I —” He cuts himself off then spins and sits down next to her on the couch, turning slightly toward her.

V shifts a little to face him too, but she keeps her eyes on her hands where they rest on her knees. God, this whole fucking thing — some kind of irony that right when Johnny would start to actually sort his shit with Kerry that he would finally fuck it up with her. Not that he was fucking it up now — it’s just finally coming to a head. She feels fucking terrible, like she’s tearing her own heart apart.

At the same time, there’s a satisfaction to it. Pulling off the barely-formed scab, reopening the wound. “You wanted to be exclusive. You insisted. And then you went and fucked around, and, I know it was like, pretty extenuating fucking circumstances, so it’s not like I’m even mad about it anymore. But it’s just…” She trails off, expecting him to interrupt, but he doesn’t. “I got no clue how you feel. I got no clue why I’m here. Feel like I’m just some novelty or something, to keep around ‘til you get bored.”

He laughs humourlessly. “Really did fuck it up. Christ, V — it ain’t like that. Ain’t like that at all. I —” He cuts himself off, then clears his throat, a little awkwardly. His voice is low and cracks when he says, “Is it too late to ask for a second chance?”

V sucks in a harsh breath and flinches with her whole body, curling inward, turning to face away from him. For a single moment it’s 2077 and she’s cold and sore and dying and sitting on scrap metal out in the middle of a trash pile, listening to Johnny beg her to mark his grave.

“What do you want from me?” she says, voice shaky around the giant lump in her throat.

“Just you,” he says roughly. “Fuck, V, everyone else in my life who spent any fuckin’ time with me hated me. Friends, outputs, you name it. With good fuckin’ reason — fucked ‘em all over, betrayed their trust. Was a real fuckin’ bastard. Been… trying,” he admits awkwardly. “Trying to be less of a total dick. Not every day you get a second chance at living.”

Fuck, fuck. He has been trying. She knew. It was fucking obvious. Shit, she can’t — god, she loves him. The last time he’d begged her for a second chance, she’d given it to him, and he’d lived up to it. She can’t make herself look at him, but she can reach her hand out. He grabs it and squeezes like a fucking lifeline.

“Know I fucked it up, but… I want another shot with you. Do right by you. Used to think y’didnt hate me — the other me — ‘cause of the way the Relic worked or some shit. Thought once you were actually around me, as a real person, reality’d set in.” Johnny sighs and twists his hand so he can rub a thumb gentle over her knuckles. “Glad I was wrong. Real glad.” He huffs another bitter laugh. “Or, fuck, maybe I wasn’t wrong. Wouldn’t exactly blame you if you hated me now.”

She laughs, tears pricking her eyes. “Y’would blame me. You’d be mad.”

He snorts. “Okay, yeah. Would be mad. Think this one’s on me though,” he says, squeezing her hand like a reminder.

She swallows and tries to will away the tears in her eyes as she closes them. “I don’t do third chances.”

“But second chances?” Johnny asks quietly.

She huffs. “Yeah. If I like the guy.” She opens her eyes again and braves a look at him. He’s already looking at her and she gets to watch him smile, slow and hopeful. Yet another time she’s giving in to Johnny. This one feels like less of a mistake.

“Yeah?” His smile gets wider, more teasing. His thumb runs over her knuckles again. “What about if you love him?”

V rolls her eyes, some fear or tension within her snapping. In its wake she feels warm and fond. Hopeful. Even now, he can’t resist being an asshole. The tears in her eyes finally break free but she sniffs and says, “Hmm, dunno. Then he might have to beg.”

His smile gets even wider. “I’ll fuckin’ beg for you, V. On my goddamn hands and knees. Right fuckin’ now if I gotta.”

She laughs, properly, and more fucking tears fall, making the laugh hiccupy and strange. Johnny leans in, really slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull back. When they kiss, it feels like something relaxes within her, some coil within her chest unwinding. She resists the urge to deepen it as she reaches one hand up to cradle his jaw.

“Y’know,” he says quietly, right against her lips, “thought the Relic made the other guy fall for you.” He pauses. “Wasn’t the Relic. Was just you.”

V takes a moment to process that, and then her heart skips several beats in a row. Her chest feels so full it’s like it’s going to burst. It bubbles up inside her until she laughs, pressing their faces together harder, stupidly, noses pressing into cheeks.

“Okay, alright. Second chance. If you can keep saying shit like that, you won’t fuck it up again,” she manages, grinning like an idiot. She’s way too close to his face to see his expression, so she pulls back. “I love you, in case you’d forgotten.”

Johnny's eyebrows raise. “I didn’t say shit,” he says, but a tiny little grin plays at the corner of his mouth. It widens as he says, “Hadn’t forgotten. Nice to hear it though.”

She laughs, tipping back on the couch into her own space. It hurts her chest. “Fuck off.”

He squeezes her hand in his. “Not planning on fucking off,” he says simply. It feels monumental, from him.

“Good. Me and Kerry would have to track you down and kill you again if you did.”

Johnny snorts. When she looks over at him, he looks relaxed, and he’s smirking at her.

“Alright. We good? I’m fuckin’ starved,” he says abruptly, letting go of her hand and crossing his arms. “Sooner we go eat Ker’s shitty breakfast sooner we can come back here and he can fuck me stupid.”

A surprised laugh forces its way out of her chest. “Jesus. What am I meant to do? Watch?”

He flashes her a grin, boyish charm out in full force. “Yeah. If you want in, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Then the grin drops from his face. “Unless you don’t —”

“Shit, of course that’s still okay,” she interrupts with a laugh. The fondness that fills her is fucking unbearable and she grins so wide it hurts her cheeks. “You’re ridiculous. I fuckin’ love you.”

Johnny laughs and V feels like her heart is swelling with genuine fucking joy. “Fucked up. Tellin’ you I’m gonna fuck someone else and that’s your reaction.”

V rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. Not just someone else. Kerry.”

Johnny turns away from her with a return eye roll. He leans against her comfortably, shoulders pressing together, then huffs out a satisfied half-laugh with a tiny wry smile. “Shit, V.” He slings his arm over her shoulders but looks away from her. “Thanks for not letting me fuck it up immediately, kid.”

“Full time job, keepin’ you in line,” V says with a grin, and Johnny shoves her over on the couch away from him. She tips sideways with a laugh. As she pushes herself back up, he leans in and kisses her. It starts brief and sweet, and then it’s like everything catches up to the both of them and it deepens into something long and languid, too slow to be desperate but still needy. He cups her face with both hands, leaning into her as they kiss, deep and tender.

Johnny breaks the kiss and ghosts his mouth over her lips, pressing their noses together. “Hella glad you found me, V.”

When Kerry returns V and Johnny are still making out on the couch, and they break apart gently when they hear his footsteps. Kerry still looks cautious. She flashes him a big smile and he seems to relax a little. He’s gone and showered and gotten dressed, in well fitting jeans and hoodie she assumes he’ll pull up over his head in a poor attempt to lay low.

“Oh, so you get to freshen up all nice, but me and V gotta go in our clothes from last night?” Johnny says accusingly.

“It’s a fuckin’ diner. Not like you to care,” Kerry says.

“Some fucking date you’re takin’ me on,” Johnny says. He gets up and walks over to Kerry, grabs him by the face and pulls him in for a bruising but brief kiss. When he pulls back, hands still cupping Kerry’s face, Kerry looks almost stunned. He taps Kerry’s cheek twice gently with his fingers. “Gonna borrow your shower,” he says, then lets go and keeps walking, toward the bathroom, leaving V alone with Kerry.

“Jesus Christ,” she says in a rush, leaning down into the couch. Kerry laughs, a little breathless, and sits down on one of the other couches. She closes her eyes and counts her breaths for several minutes, trying to centre herself and largely succeeding. She feels good, actually. Real fucking hopeful.

After maybe ten minutes of quiet, she sits back up. Kerry is lounging on the other couch, scrolling his holo. “Are you alright?” she asks.

“V, I’m fuckin’ ecstatic,” Kerry responds mildly, looking over at her with a wry smile. “And baffled, frankly. You good?”

She laughs. “Yeah, shit. Really good. Didn’t realise he —” She cuts herself off. “Dunno.”

He looks at her for a moment, then gets up to come sit with her on the couch. “Fuckin’ tell me about it,” he says as he flops down next to her. “Hate him. Love him stupid.”

She laughs harder at that, leaning into him a little bit. “Fuck. Really meant it about sharing.”

He sighs. “Yeah, kid. Didn’t think it was actually on the table.”

She hesitates. “Are you, uh, okay with that? I mean —”

“Shit yeah,” he interrupts.

“Like, genuinely? Don’t wanna kick this issue down the road, y’know?”

“Oh, V,” he says, more fond than patronising. “You’re a good kid. Promise ya, this kinda thing ain’t new to me.”

“Kinda new to me,” V admits.

Kerry turns to face her better. “You good with this?”

“With you, absolutely,” she says easily. God, Johnny has been in love with Kerry for decades, even if he hadn’t realised. She’s felt it. “I know you and him got history. Not worried about — dunno. Any of it. He’s a real bastard, but he’s somehow got —” She cuts herself off with an embarrassed laugh. “Don’t laugh. Was gonna say a big heart.”

He grins lazily at her. “No laughing. Get what you’re tryin’ to say.” His expression turns a little hesitant. “An’ you and me…”

She looks away from him with a shrug. She likes Kerry, but she’s not sure she wants to date him. “I dunno,” she says quietly. “Friends that fuck?”

“Works for me,” he says immediately. “And you two talked about this? Like, before?”

“Yeah, but barely,” she says with a laugh. “Shit, I’ve been trying to talk him into it for months. Since that first holocall.”

“Was that really his idea?”

“Completely. Nothing to do with me.”

Kerry laughs, then cups her cheek and kisses her lightly. It doesn’t have the burning intensity of his kiss with Johnny; it feels simple, nice, friendly.

They’re interrupted almost immediately. “Makin’ out with my output again,” Johnny says dryly.

Kerry huffs a tiny laugh as he pulls away from V and turns to face Johnny, who is leaning against the wall just inside the living space. His hair is still wet, only quickly towel dried, and it hangs much longer with the curls stretched out. He’s clearly raided Kerry’s closet and is wearing jeans and an old Samurai tank. The jeans are slightly too long, so he’s had to roll them up at the ankles. Kerry fucking blushes at the sight and Johnny grins.

“Thought you might follow me to the shower, V.”

“I don’t think Kerry has shit I could change into,” she replies.

Johnny rolls his eyes. “He’s a twink with a thing for skinny jeans. There’s shit that fits me, there’ll be shit that fits you.”

Taking the obvious hint, V gets up heads for the shower as well. Johnny catches her as she passes and kisses her deeply before shoving her off toward the bathroom.

She showers very quickly, wondering desperately what Johnny and Kerry are talking about. She wraps herself in a towel and darts upstairs to rifle through Kerry’s extensive wardrobe. She does find something that fits: a loose fitting grey Mastermind tee that still has the tags on — no fucking way is she wearing Samurai merch, but Denny’s merch is fine — and some jeans that fit well enough to wear out.

V has only been gone maybe fifteen minutes, but when she comes back downstairs Johnny and Kerry have moved. She follows the sounds of music to find the both of them in a different living space, both with guitars, Johnny watching Kerry as he plays something that she recognises from one of their holocalls. Kerry is playing Johnny’s guitar, the one the other Johnny gave him after Red Dirt. Johnny has some guitar of Kerry’s that she doesn’t recognise.

“Hey,” she says limply after a moment, when neither of them notice her.

Johnny looks up. “Finally. Fuckin’ starved.”

Kerry’s driver ends up taking them to the diner. It’s moderately cheap, but it’s the kind of hole in the wall place that somehow makes food better than places triple the price. There’s several four-top booths along one wall, and a long bench runs parallel. The booths are all against windows that look out onto the bustling street. The seating is bright red pleather and the tabletops are bright yellow plastic. The whole thing is well lit from the sunlight outside, and there’s only a few other people milling about.

They take a booth, Kerry sliding in to sit next to the window. V makes sure Johnny takes the spot next to Kerry, and she sits across from them. He and Kerry have gone back to whatever their longstanding music conversation has been, the one that they’ve been stringing along through holocalls over the weeks. They still bicker more than they agree, but when Johnny whacks Kerry around the head for saying something he thinks is particularly stupid, he lets his arm settle around Kerry’s shoulders and doesn’t try to pretend it’s casual, fingers playing over Kerry’s collarbone. He leaves it there as they order.

The conversation dies down when the food comes, and Johnny unhooks his arm from Kerry to eat. V hadn’t realised how fucking hungry she was until the first bite of her pancakes; she scarfs them down desperately as Kerry watches Johnny silently.

Johnny flicks the side of Kerry’s head. “You’re staring,” he says through a mouthful of eggs.

“Sorry, just…” Kerry looks away and picks at his food. “Fuckin’ weird how much you look like you, even though you don’t look nothin’ like it.” Johnny frowns into his eggs. “Was the same with V. Uncanny, how much she changed when the other you was in charge.”

“Only did it for you, what, twice?” she says hesitantly. “Really that obvious?”

Kerry nods. “Like night and day. Dunno how to even describe it.” She huffs but smiles slightly.

Johnny turns to look out at the rest of the diner. His whole body tenses. “You miss him?”

V reacts first, laughing bitterly as she looks down at the table. “Yeah. Brain still feels kinda empty. Dunno that’ll ever go away.”

“He was here so briefly, for me,” Kerry says uncertainly. “Don’t really think of him as different to… I dunno. But you’re really here.”

Johnny lets out a long breath, then shoves more eggs into his mouth. “I’m really here, and you really gotta finish your fuckin’ muesli so we can get back to yours,” he says with his mouth full.

Kerry picks up his coffee mug. “Why? The diner’s real nice.” It is — the sun is shining down on the city as people go about their day, and the diner is filled with a pleasant background chatter. It’s bustling and lively and colourful and everything V has ever liked about Night City.

“Can’t fuck me here,” Johnny says casually, and Kerry splutters around his coffee. “Or, guess you could, but think we’d get tossed out.”

“And the media would be on you like flies,” V adds as Kerry recovers.

Johnny scoops the last of his eggs into his mouth and grins at her. “Maybe Ker can make good on his promise to fuck me in the bathroom.” He kicks one foot at hers affectionately as he speaks and she grabs it with both of hers briefly, before he wriggles it free.

“Shit, Johnny,” Kerry says. “Said I’d fuck you in a club bathroom, not the bathroom of my favourite breakfast spot.”

“God, neither of you’d fuck me here?” Johnny sighs dramatically. “Losing my touch.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kerry says, then grabs Johnny by the hair and pulls him in for a scorching kiss. V watches as Johnny leans the fuck into it, crowding against him, one hand resting against his neck then skating up to cup his jaw.

V eats more of her pancakes as the two of them really fucking go at it, bordering on inappropriate enough to get them kicked out. Johnny groans loud enough that Kerry pulls back with a gasp.

“Fuck,” he says desperately, forehead against Johnny’s. “Let’s delta.”

“Damn, thought I might sell you on fucking here,” Johnny says breathlessly. “What about your breakfast?”

“Fuck my breakfast,” Kerry says, and Johnny laughs at him.

“Nah,” he drawls, “rather fuck you.”

Kerry barks out a stupid laugh and pulls all the way back from Johnny. “You good to go, V?”

V looks at the last few bites of her pancakes. Not the first time she’s abandoned food because of Johnny’s insatiable horniness. “Sure, yeah. Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

When they pull into Kerry’s place, Johnny is out of the car immediately, pulling V by the forearm. Once Kerry climbs out Johnny grabs him too, pulling him away as he thanks his driver. The driver parked under the overhang, in what passes for a garage, so Johnny marches them both inside through the small side door. It leads directly into the lounge they’d woken up in and he drags them both over to the couches.

The second they’re near the couch he drops V’s forearm, then spins Kerry around and shoves him down onto the couch. Kerry laughs, disbelieving and breathless, as Johnny clambers into his lap, grabbing at his face to kiss him. They kiss between gasping breaths; true to form Johnny is near devouring Kerry, and V gets glimpses of tongue as they kiss, heads tilting, capturing and recapturing each other’s mouths over and over. She sits down on the other end of the same couch, turned sideways to watch, tucking her legs under her. Neither spares her so much as a glance as she shifts around on the couch.

Johnny leans back from the kiss and bumps his nose against Kerry’s gently. Kerry sucks in a gasp at the gesture. “So, Ker,” Johnny says with a filthy grin, “y’got Johnny Silverhand in your lap, and he’s desperate to play out every fantasy you’ve ever had for the last seventy fuckin’ years.” Johnny kisses open mouthed at Kerry’s neck as Kerry breathes out slow and shaky. “What’s first?”

“Fuck,” Kerry says, head leaned all the way back to stare at the ceiling.

“Good start,” Johnny says, voice low, “but gonna need to narrow it down a bit.”

Kerry sounds fucking broken when he continues, “You better not be — Fuck, man, said you were straight for decades. Are you sure —”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Johnny says, frustrated. He grabs Kerry’s face with hands on both cheeks and locks eyes with him. “Makin’ out half the goddamn morning and you think I haven’t fuckin’ gotten over — you ain’t even the only guy I fucked,” Johnny says, then actually hesitates. “Shit, Ker, I gave you your fucking yes. What the fuck else do you want from me? Just fuck me. I’ll love it.” He kisses Kerry’s parted lips briefly. “I’ll come in your fucking mouth if you want. Or on your face, or your cock, or in your ass, or —”

“Fuck, shut up, shut up —” Kerry says, desperate, and slams his mouth onto Johnny’s. Johnny groans and tilts his head to slot their mouths together. After a long moment Johnny breaks the kiss again.

“C’mon, tell me what —”

“Gonna blow you,” Kerry interrupts, speaking into Johnny’s open mouth with their noses pressed together.

“Yeah, alright,” Johnny says breathlessly, “then what?”

“Then I’m gonna fuck your little twink ass,” Kerry says roughly.

Johnny surges forward to capture his lips and kisses him hard, pressing his whole body down. “Fuck yeah. That a new one?” he asks eventually.

“Twink part’s new.”

“Wanted to top me, huh,” Johnny says breathlessly as he starts undoing Kerry’s belt. “Wanted to shove me down, shut me up? Always figured you’d want me to rail you.”

“Shit, course I did,” Kerry says. “A guy can want more than one thing.” He starts working at Johnny’s pants too, fumbling the belt buckle. “You taken it up the ass before?”

“Yeah, heaps,” Johnny says easily. V hears Kerry’s unsteady gasp even from the other end of the couch. “Love it. Get a woman who likes a strap, I’m tellin’ ya.”

“Or a guy with a dick,” Kerry says pointedly. He gasps as Johnny gets his hand in his pants and wraps his fingers around his cock.

“Or both,” V adds. Both men turn abruptly to stare at her, like they’d forgotten she was there. She grins.

Johnny huffs out a laugh and grins back. “You good?”

“Real good,” she says, still grinning. “I’ll go if you want, but —”

“Stay,” Johnny interrupts. He looks back at Kerry. “Yeah?”

“I —” Kerry cuts himself off, then turns to V. “You really sure?”

“Yeah,” she says with a smile. She means it. “Already told you so.”

“Already — and yesterday you were giving me shit for talking to V ‘bout this,” Johnny says accusingly.

“Didn’t really talk,” V says.

“You were showering,” Kerry adds, then turns back to Johnny. “Fuck,” he says, still sounding disbelieving. V grins, adjusting her position against the armrest, settling in to watch.

Johnny, ever impatient, captures Kerry’s mouth again roughly, his hand palming his cock. Kerry pushes him back from his lips, and Johnny whines, leaning down to his throat instead.

“Gotta get up so I can suck you off, man,” Kerry says breathlessly.

Johnny grins at him and instead shuffles down onto the ground, on his knees between Kerry’s open legs. V watches keenly as Johnny grabs Kerry’s cock with one hand and strokes it again, his face inches from it.

“Jesus,” Kerry says, “holy shit, I was gonna blow you.”

“What makes you think I’m gonna blow you?” Johnny says, eyes on Kerry’s cock. He purses his lips and blows cool air over him, and V sees Kerry’s whole body shiver.

“Said I wasn’t the only guy,” Kerry says suddenly.

Johnny looks up at him sharply. “This the conversation you wanna be fuckin’ having right now?”

“Just curious if this is your first blowjob,” Kerry says lightly, then grins. “Wanna know in advance if it’s gonna be shit.”

“You’re a real fuckin’ cunt, Eurodyne,” Johnny says with a scowl. He leans in abruptly and takes Kerry into his mouth, all the way to the base, and Kerry draws a startled gasp — and then Johnny makes a choked noise and pulls off just as fast, coughing and spluttering. Kerry’s face turns worried as he grabs at Johnny’s hair, and V laughs out loud.

“Fuck you,” Johnny says to V. “Fuck. Used to do that no problem.”

“Have to train you up,” Kerry says breathlessly. “Fuckin’ chill, man. We all know you’re a good lay.”

“Good?” Johnny echoes, sounding offended. “Gonna be the best damn fuck of your life.” He licks slowly up the underside of Kerry’s dick. “Haven’t sucked real cock, for what it’s worth,” he adds, then takes Kerry into his mouth, real slow this time.

God fucking damn. Johnny with a cock in his mouth, lips stretched, eyes wide and pretty as he looks up at Kerry — V can’t help the barely voiced groan she lets out as she shifts against the leather. Johnny’s eyes flick over to her for a moment before he looks back to Kerry.

“Well, be careful,” Kerry says, voice shaky. “Strap might not care about teeth, but I do.” He breathes out unsteadily, then swears under his breath. “Bastard, watch it,” he warns. V can’t see what Johnny’s doing inside his mouth, but she can take a guess it involves his teeth.

When V had sucked him off, Kerry had been all pretty noises and delicate little moans. She had suspected he’d been putting on a show, and it’s all but confirmed here — right now Kerry isn’t pretty, he’s rough and strained, voice pitched right in the middle of his speaking range, tiny ahs on each exhale. He groans loud as Johnny pulls off with an obscene pop.

“Johnny —” Kerry whines, and this does come out pretty high pitched as he arches his back and leans his head into the couch back.

“Not yet,” Johnny says and kisses Kerry’s inner thigh. “Gonna fuck me, remember?” He bites down on the soft flesh there, pulling back to stretch the skin between his teeth before relenting.

“Get up here,” Kerry says, “gonna suck you off, too.”

Johnny climbs back up onto the couch as Kerry gets down on his knees on the floor. Thinking of last night, V pushes up off the couch and grabs a cushion to shove under Kerry’s knees.

As she hands Kerry the pillow, Johnny catches her wrist and yanks her down for a searing kiss. He nudges their noses together as he pulls back. “Still good?” he asks, not quite teasing.

“Absolutely,” V confirms. “Completely, totally, fucking excellent.”

“Sentimental shit,” he says with a stupid grin, but he kisses her again, softer. He pulls back and gestures to the end of the couch with his head. “Go on. I’m busy.” V sits back down and watches, tucking her legs underneath her.

Kerry splays his hands over Johnny’s thighs, rubbing slowly over the black denim. He leans into Johnny’s fly — his belt is already undone — and undoes it with his teeth, dragging the zipper down and nosing into the opening. Johnny, impatient, lifts his hips up and pulls his pants and underwear down in one quick motion, shoving Kerry out of the way as he does. His cock springs up, already stupidly hard, and V has to suppress a laugh.

“Hey, I was having fun,” Kerry complains halfheartedly.

“Time for fuckin’ party tricks later,” Johnny says, grumbling. “God knows we’ve spent enough time not fucking each other.”

Kerry huffs a tiny laugh, eyes locked on Johnny’s cock. “Shit, you always needy like this?”

“I’m not needy,” Johnny says, offended.

“Yeah, he is,” V says.

“Just ‘cause I know what I fucking want —” Johnny starts saying, until Kerry licks a long stripe up the underside of his cock and his words turn into a strangled little groan. “Swear to fuckin’ god, this body is so fuckin’ sensitive,” he gasps out. “Silver fuckin’ lining.”

Kerry sucks Johnny’s cock into his mouth slowly, a half inch at a time. V can’t see what his tongue is up to but whatever it is must be pretty great because Johnny is already panting, left hand grabbing at Kerry’s hair. His hips twitch up and Kerry takes it with a little grunt. Johnny moans, real fucking loud.

“Shit,” he says, “god, Ker. Better’n V.”

Kerry pulls off his dick real slow, then looks up at him. “Don’t be an asshole,” he says roughly. Kerry looks over at V, who smiles back.

“Eh, I’m alright, pretty pleased to take second best blowjob,” V says with a shrug, unbothered.

Johnny laughs as Kerry takes him into his mouth again. “Nah, that blowjob still tops the list. Talkin’ ‘bout on average.” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he speaks again his voice is rough. “Fuck. Ker’s got decades on you. Sorry, sweetheart.”

V scoots up along the couch until she’s sitting right up against him, and he reaches for her, pulling her into a kiss. He melts into it, easy and sweet. His breath hitches occasionally as they kiss. After a long moment, she pulls back, laughing into his mouth. His right hand winds up into her hair, keeping her close, while his left runs over Kerry’s scalp.

She turns to look down at where Kerry is working his cock. “Shit, Kerry. You’re so fucking hot like this.”

Kerry pulls back and grins up at both of them, preening at the compliment. “I know. Not so bad yourself.”

“Stop flirting with my output and suck my damn cock,” Johnny demands, pulling at Kerry’s hair.

”Tell her to stop flirting with me,” Kerry says, but he leans down to take Johnny back into his mouth.

Johnny looks at V. “Stop flirting with my —” He cuts himself off with a shuddering breath, leaning his head back against the couch. “Shit. Stop flirting with him,” he says, barely managing to get the words out. “How’d you get so damn good at this?” Johnny says in a single exhale. Kerry starts to pull off and Johnny pushes him back down. “Rhetorical question, you fuck.”

V goes to move back but Johnny tightens his grip around her head. She stays, pressing a small kiss to his jaw.

Johnny is in a real talkative mood it seems, because he won’t shut the fuck up. “Can imagine you got good by sucking a lotta cock,” he says, voice all breathy. His voice sounds the least like his original like this, the higher tones really coming out. “Shit, little slut for cock, right? For my cock? Wish we’d done this before, or that I had my body now, coulda fucked your mouth better.” Johnny thrusts his hips up, not fast but deep, enough that Kerry’s whole torso moves with it, arms braced against Johnny’s thighs. “Shit, so — fucking good, Ker, Jesus —”

Johnny draws a long breath out, clearly trying to calm himself, turning into V’s shoulder as he catches his breath. His face is flushed and his hand is gripping Kerry’s hair iron tight. He turns back to watch and continues to run his mouth: “The long hair suits you. Little too much like mine though, you fuckin’, ah, bitch — better’n the bleached short shit though, saw pics — nothin’ for me t’grab if you’d kept it like that —” Johnny gasps and cuts himself off again with a groan.

Kerry looks obscene on Johnny’s cock, face flushed, spit dripping down his chin, eyes closed as he deepthroats him like it’s fucking nothing, like he does this shit daily. He alternates between taking Johnny deep and, presumably, doing something fancy with his tongue. One of his hands is cupping or squeezing Johnny’s balls, V is pretty sure. If she knew where Kerry kept his lube, she’d go grab some so Kerry could finger him too.

Johnny’s stupid monologuing has stopped in favour of breathy little noises on each exhale. “Ker, I’m — shit, so close, come on —”

Kerry pulls back slowly and Johnny whines, high pitched and pathetic. “Gonna fuck you, remember?” Kerry says.

“I fuckin’ remember,” Johnny says angrily, “I don’t gotta be hard for that.” He pulls at Kerry’s head, trying to get him back on his cock.

“Want you to come on my dick,” Kerry says, a little petulant. He sits back on his haunches and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Y’want me to go get the lube?” V asks.

Johnny huffs and Kerry laughs. “Shit, I’ll go find it,” Kerry says. “Actually, scratch that — come up to bed.”

“I get to find out if your bed is special for fucking?” Johnny says, already pushing V aside so he can get his pants the rest of the way off.

Kerry rolls his eyes. “It’s just a real nice mattress. Nice and strong though.” His eyes sparkle with mischief. “Maybe some fastening spots on the headboard.”

They make their way upstairs to Kerry’s open plan bedroom, V trailing behind slightly awkwardly as Johnny and Kerry both strip the rest of their clothes. It’s pretty funny watching both of them walk around with their hard dicks out, bobbing around stupidly.

Kerry pauses at the top of the stairs and lets Johnny go ahead, then grabs at V’s shoulder as she passes. “You good?”

She smiles. “Yeah, Kerry, I’m good.” Over Kerry’s shoulder she can see as Johnny stops by the bed, looking back at them curiously.

“You wanna like, participate or something?” Kerry asks.

“In general, yeah, but right now — I dunno, don’t you wanna just fuck him?” She shrugs. “Like as a first — second time, or whatever? I mean, he’s insatiable, we’ve fucked a lot.”

“I’m right here,” Johnny says dryly, crossing his arms.

Kerry ignores Johnny and shrugs. “Hey, your call. I don’t mind an audience or a third.” He gives her a wicked grin. “Maybe we should see if he can take two cocks.”

“Oh, I can,” Johnny says, goading and filthy.

Kerry catches her eye with a smirk that Johnny can’t see. She does her best to not react. “I don’t have a strap. Maybe we just play it by ear?” she says, a little hesitant.

Kerry’s smile turns genuine. “Sure, V. Just chill. If something ain’t feelin’ right, y’just gotta say so.” He takes a step forward and puts his arms on her shoulders, then both hands on the back of her head.

“Uh-huh, same for you,” she says with a matching wide smile.

Kerry kisses her slowly, like he has all the time in the world, like Johnny isn’t waiting for them. V follows his lead, running her hands slowly over his ribcage, then down to brush over the head of his cock. Kerry gets his hands up her shirt and cups her tits, hands hot and gentle.

“Back to making out with my output, huh?” Johnny says wryly.

V and Kerry completely ignore him and continue making out. She gets her hand on Kerry’s ass and squeezes, puts on a real show.

“Hey, alright,” Johnny says, taking a step toward them. “Gonna fuck me or what?”

Kerry grins into her mouth but still doesn’t acknowledge him. He pulls her closer and ruts up against her, just enough for them both to gasp as the top of his cock rubs along the soft skin of her stomach where he’s pushed her shirt up.

“Hey,” Johnny says, sharply now. He’s stepped right up next to them, and he yanks Kerry back from V with his hair. He looks at V first, eyes dropping obviously to her lips. Then he turns away and grabs Kerry again and pulls him down for a hell of a kiss.

“What part of fuck me isn’t gettin’ through your thick skull?” Johnny demands against Kerry’s lips.

Before Kerry can respond V grabs Johnny and slams her mouth onto his. He lets out a surprised noise but melts into it as she bites at his lips. He grabs her head with both hands.

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” she says quietly when she pulls back. “So needy.”

Johnny leans back in to kiss her again languidly. He doesn’t break the kiss as he reaches one hand off her head to grab the back of Kerry’s neck. He pulls Kerry closer and then turns to kiss him, just as slow.

“Gonna stick it in me, Ker?” he says quietly. V presses a kiss to Johnny’s neck, open-mouthed and soft. “Or do I gotta beg for it?”

She steps sideways out of Johnny’s grip until she’s behind him, then wraps her arms around his waist. She leans her head down to press a kiss to his shoulder blade. “Real hot when you beg,” she says into his skin.

Johnny huffs. “When have I ever begged for you?”

“First time we fucked,” she answers instantly, running her hands over his stomach, trailing fingers up his cyberware. Kerry laughs and she continues, “Was riding you, you wanted to be on top. Begged me to let you fuck me properly.”

“Oh yeah,” Johnny says breathlessly. He shivers as she presses against the sensitive edge of his ‘ware. “Then I fucked you into the mattress.”

“You don’t gotta beg, I ain’t gonna deny you,” Kerry says. “Go get on the bed.”

Johnny laughs. “You first.”

Kerry hesitates, then does, sitting down on the bed facing outwards. Johnny extracts himself from V and climbs into Kerry’s lap, kissing him filthily. She walks around to the foot of the bed.

“How you want me to take it, Eurodyne?” Johnny says, forehead pressed against Kerry’s.

Kerry laughs breathlessly. “Seems like you wanna ride my cock, Silverhand.”

Johnny captures Kerry’s lips briefly. “Your fantasy, Ker,” he says. “Asked how y’want me.”

V sees Kerry’s whole body move with a gasp. “Shit, then I want you face down on your hands and knees. Wanna fuck you into the damn mattress.”

Johnny groans at that and tips his head backwards to stare at the ceiling. “Shit yeah.”

Johnny climbs off Kerry and sprawls out on the bed, on his stomach. V moves again, this time to the opposite side of the bed to Kerry, so she can face Johnny directly.

“Hey,” he says, with a real stupid grin.

“Hey,” she says back, looking down at him — blond curls messy and tangled, round face dimpling with his smile, the pale expanse of his back with its golden cyberware spine before her. He props himself up on his elbows, arching his back, and she leans down to kiss him. He sighs into her mouth. She pulls back to watch Kerry trail kisses all the way down Johnny’s cyberware to his ass.

“Top off,” Johnny tells her. Normally she would resist that type of demand but frankly all the teasing has been going on way too long. She takes her top and then bra off immediately. “Nice tits,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at him.

She has a decent view like this. She can see the lube on the bedside table, and while she can’t see Johnny’s asshole it’s pretty obvious what Kerry is doing as he kneels on the bed between Johnny’s legs. Johnny sucks in a deep breath and pushes his head into the mattress.

“Fuck yeah,” he says, writhing against the sheets.

V moves back around to the foot of the bed so she can watch as Kerry fingers Johnny, working one finger slowly in his ass. For all that she’s fingered him, and for all that they’d talked about her getting a strap, she’d never actually gotten around to it. She’s pretty keen to see Johnny get properly fucked.

“V,” Johnny whines, “can’t see your tits now.”

“I couldn’t see your ass,” V counters. Kerry pushes in a second finger.

“You’ve seen my ass,” Johnny bites out, then gasps suddenly and groans. “Fuck, Ker.”

Kerry pulls both fingers out and slaps him on the ass, more teasingly than hard. Johnny’s breath catches. “I said hands and knees,” Kerry says firmly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny grumbles, but there’s a shake in his voice he can’t hide.

Once he’s on his hands and knees Kerry pushes back in with two fingers, all the way. Johnny groans and presses his forehead into the mattress, immediately dropping to his forearms instead of hands. “Fuckin’ — another finger, Ker, c’mon.”

“Shit,” Kerry hisses under his breath. V looks away from Johnny to take Kerry in — he’s breathing deep, biting his lip so hard it looks like he might draw blood, and his cock is rock fucking hard between his legs, straining upward. His grey hair hangs forward, sticking to the sweat at his temples.

She steps around the bed to stand next to where Kerry is kneeling on the mattress and pulls the hair from his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. Kerry smiles at her, wild and uncertain. “This some fucked dream?” he says, and then hesitates, seemingly caught off guard by his own question.

She shakes her head. “Don’t think so,” she says quietly. “Fuck, I hope not.”

“Lemme fuckin’ tell you,” Johnny says warningly, “if this were a dream you’d be fucking me proper by now.”

Kerry laughs, seemingly snapped out of it, and fucks his two fingers hard into Johnny.

“Said another finger,” Johnny grits out, even as he rocks backwards. Kerry huffs and starts with a third finger.

Johnny is so fucking needy, and so fucking loud. By the time Kerry has the third finger in he’s panting, groaning on every fucking exhale.

“Johnny, Jesus, you’re so — fuck, you’re so loud, so fuckin’ desperate for it,” Kerry says wildly as he pulls all his fingers back and starts slicking up his cock. V has a perfect view, standing beside and slightly behind Kerry.

“Oh, ‘cause you’re so damn composed when someone’s got their fuckin’ fingers in your fuckin’ ass,” Johnny huffs out.

“You’ll have’ta find out,” Kerry says breathily. He presses the head of his cock to Johnny’s ass.

Johnny braces himself against the mattress, one hand up past his head gripping into the sheets. He breathes out a long, thin breath. His next breath is stuttery as Kerry pushes in slowly. He presses his forehead into the mattress and bites desperately at the sheets.

When Kerry gets about halfway in, Johnny seemingly can’t hold back any more and groans deep and long. “Fuck, Ker, Jesus.”

“You good?” Kerry rasps.

Johnny pushes back further onto Kerry’s cock. “C’mon,” he says, “M’good, just — only had fingers in this — fuck, this twink body makes your tiny dick feel fuckin’ huge.”

“Watch who you’re calling tiny,” V warns with a grin.

Kerry doesn’t seem to hear her and says, “Fuckin’ huge, huh? My cock too much for you to handle, Johnny?”

Johnny whimpers. “No,” he says, breath ragged. “It’s fuckin’ nothin’. Can barely even —” He cuts himself off as Kerry pushes in further. “Ah, Jesus Christ, Kerry, fuck.” He drops all pretense as Kerry bottoms out. “Fuck, Ker, so fuckin’ good.” Kerry rocks his hips and he whines.

After a brief pause to add more lube, Kerry maintains an achingly slow pace as Johnny pushes his face into the mattress and bites the sheets to try to stop himself from making noise. It doesn’t really work. Every exhale is voiced and every other thrust turns into a swear or groan. He’s fucking obscene.

“Shit,” V says aloud. She’s been so transfixed she hasn’t even gotten her pants off. Kerry glances at her and grins. “He good for you Ker?”

“Real good,” Kerry says haltingly, raspy and breathy. “So. Fuckin’. Tight.” He punctuates each word with a short thrust. There’s a muffled fuck you from Johnny.

“I don’t have a cock, but…” She trails off teasingly. Kerry barely stutters out a laugh and she continues, “Maybe Johnny could eat me out?”

Johnny spits the sheets out of his mouth. “Yes, fuck, please,” he says. Kerry fucks into him hard and he moans — unmuffled by the sheets it’s loud and obscene, voice cracking.

V moves back around to the other side of the bed, where Johnny's head is. God he’s fucking wrecked — glassy eyes, face flushed, bottom lip bright red where he’s been biting down on it too hard. She strips her pants and underwear as fast as possible and then climbs onto the bed and situates herself so that Johnny’s head is between her thighs. There’s not enough room that she can lie flat on her back, so instead she holds herself on her hands placed just behind her so she can angle her hips up.

Johnny buries his face into her as soon as he can, licking at her clit even as she’s still adjusting her positioning. “Shit,” she says, shifting again so she can put one hand into Johnny’s hair. She lifts her gaze from Johnny and meets Kerry’s eyes across Johnny’s back. He looks pretty fucking wrecked, sweaty and panting, and as they lock eyes he grins wildly.

For once, Johnny is off his pussy eating game. He’s by no means bad, but he’s clearly distracted. Kerry’s thrusts push him into her pussy rhythmically. He’s still making noises, muffled as he eats her out. It hardly matters that he’s distracted though, because V is pretty distracted herself, and his little noises more than make up for any lack of focus.

Johnny sucks hard against her clit and then moves up, gasping. “Someone better —” He cuts himself off with a gasp and leans his forehead against her stomach. “Better touch my cock, fuckin’ yesterday.”

“Nah,” Kerry says, leaning forward and grabbing Johnny by the hair. He pulls Johnny’s head back until his back arches and he has to go back to his hands rather than forearms. It pulls him away from V’s pussy, but she doesn’t mind. “I’m coming ‘fore you do.” Kerry lets go of his hair and grips Johnny’s hips hard. He keeps up his brutal pace, and V has a front row seat to Johnny’s stupid wrecked expression.

Johnny looks up at her and his face is basically in line with her tits. She moves forward and leans down a little so he can mouth at her chest sloppily.

“Jesus,” Johnny says in a rushed exhale against her skin. “Jesus, Ker, you gonna fuckin’ come in me?”

Between pants, Kerry says, “Yeah, yeah, fuck yeah I am.”

“Fuck, feel like I could — shit — come just like this.”

Kerry laughs, breathy and surprised. “Shit, really?”

“Prolly not, but — fuck, maybe.” Johnny gasps and then groans. “Fuck, just —”

“Yeah,” Kerry says roughly, “yeah. Tell me what you need.”

“Need you to rail me.” Johnny’s voice is fucking ruined, raspy and breathy. “Like you woulda in twenty twenty-three, or twenty twelve, or two thousand fuckin’ three, shit.” He rocks his whole body backwards to meet Kerry’s thrusts.

“Jesus, Johnny,” Kerry says, voice wrecked now in a different way. He bends over until his face is against Johnny’s back and V can’t see his expression. “Tryin’,” he says. “Fuck, I ain’t twenty anymore.”

Johnny laughs hysterically, or maybe sobs. He bows his head down, away from her gaze. “I am,” he says, and whatever awful emotion is there is garbled by his laugh and Kerry’s rhythm until it’s alien and unrecognisable.

Kerry doesn’t say anything, just keeps going with his face against Johnny’s back. V suddenly isn’t sure she should even be here, much less be involved, but she reaches for Johnny anyway and runs her fingers gently through his hair. He makes a tiny little noise and leans into it, then into her tits as well, presses his open mouth there.

“Y’wanna be jerked off?” she offers quietly, but Johnny shakes his head. “God, y’both are so hot.” Johnny laughs at that, a tiny huff through his panting breaths.

Kerry adjusts his angle and thrusts slower but seemingly deeper, or maybe just harder, and Johnny whines at it. “Yeah, just like —” He cuts himself off with a gasp and then he groans and bows his head down, top of his head pressed into V’s chest. Every noise Johnny makes sounds like he’s trying to hold them back and they’re being ripped out of him. “Oh fuck, fffuck!”

He grips one hand into her thigh and the other into the sheets and fucking comes like that with a groan, body tensing, cock untouched, shaking and desperate. V doesn’t exactly have a great view of his dick but it hardly matters; the mere idea of it is obscene.

Kerry stumbles in his rhythm and hisses, “Shit, shit. You just — did you —” as he slows down.

Johnny groans. “Yeah, now fuckin’ come in me, Eurodyne, don’t you dare pussy out now.”

Kerry groans but collects himself and says, “Pushy brat.”

Johnny makes a choked noise like maybe he’d really like to be called a brat as Kerry keeps fucking him, until he stutters in his rhythm and moans into Johnny’s shoulderblades.

“C’mon, Ker, fuck, please,” Johnny says, not goading but softly, and V watches Kerry come too, swearing and shuddering above Johnny, forehead pressed into his back.

Johnny pulls away from V slightly to collapse against the mattress and lets out a grossed out groan as he lays in his own jizz. Kerry slumps on top of him, loose-limbed over Johnny’s back, kissing absently at his shoulder.

V stands up. Johnny looks up at her and makes a questioning noise. “I’ll be right back, don’t worry,” she says with a smile.

She slips out to Kerry’s ridiculous bathroom. She’s really fucking horny and really fucking wet but now really isn’t the time. Kerry has a towel warmer — perks of being rich — and she grabs two warm dry towels, then wets two hand towels with hot water and brings all four back to the bed.

Kerry and Johnny both haven’t moved. She starts with Kerry, sitting down beside him and wiping gently with the hot damp towel over his back. His back twitches as she passes over it and he sighs. He rolls over to the side onto his back with a grunt and takes the towel from her.

He groans as he presses it into his face. “God fuckin’ bless you, V.”

V moves on to Johnny, wiping over his back and ass, ignoring his grumpy little noise. She gets him to roll to his back and wipes the worst of his come off his stomach. He closes his eyes and relaxes with a little sigh. As she moves away to grab one of the dry towels Johnny catches her hand and pulls her down into a lazy kiss.

“Could get used to this,” he mumbles with a wide grin. “Gonna fetch us some water ‘n snacks too?”

Beside Johnny, Kerry stirs and twists to smack him in the side of the head. “Be nice,” he says, muffled slightly by the towel still over his face.

“Fuckin’ asshole,” she says, pressing her forehead to Johnny’s. “We’ll gang up on you.” Kerry grunts in agreement.

“Promise?” Johnny says with a slow smile. Shit, she feels so fucking happy, but it’s fragile, trembling in her chest.

She pulls away to examine the scene. “Shoulda put a towel down, saved the sheets,” she says quietly. They’d fucked right on top of the comforter and she starts trying to get it off, just to get more usable space in the bed.

“Didn’t think I’d come like that,” Johnny says with a big smug grin, tucking both hands behind his head. “Fuckin’ nova. Not bad for a first time.” His voice is hoarse and he looks kind of hazy.

“Thought you said you’d taken it up the ass before?” Kerry asks, pulling the towel from his face. He shuffles on the bed back towards Johnny. Johnny shifts up against him, leaning into his chest. He ends up tucked into Kerry’s side, Kerry’s arm behind his head.

“Not an actual dude’s cock,” Johnny says. He pauses for a moment then continues, a little indignant, “What am I, a fuckin’ homosexual?”

V, fumbling with sheets, looks up at him in alarm. Kerry, clearly on the same page as her, also snaps his head around to stare, weary and uncertain. Johnny’s body is relaxed and his face is neutral.

Johnny bursts into laughter with a stupid grin. “Jesus, your face,” he says, then pulls Kerry in for a long and languid kiss. He reaches and palms Kerry’s cock and Kerry makes an annoyed sound, batting him away. Johnny grins into Kerry’s mouth as he pulls back.

“Pretty fuckin’ homosexual to me,” Kerry says.

Johnny laughs again. “I’unno, V’s here. Basically came with my face in her tits, that’s gotta count for something.” His grin drops as he twists to face V. “Shit, you didn’t come.”

She laughs, dropping the comforter onto the floor. “Y’all were pretty busy.”

“I don’t sleep with chicks without them gettin’ off,” Johnny says. Kerry scoffs disbelievingly into his shoulder and Johnny pushes his face away halfheartedly with one hand, not even looking at him. “Fuckin’ get over here.”

“Johnny,” she says, “it’s fine, I —”

“Wasn’t asking,” Johnny says sharply, eyes burning. “Come sit on my fuckin’ face, asshole.”

Her gut lurches with arousal, but she stands by the bed and smiles sweetly. “Ask nicely, or maybe I’ll have Kerry instead.”

Kerry laughs loudly at that. “I’ll be nice,” he says. “I’ll do whatever you ask, V.”

“Suck up all you want,” Johnny says. “I eat better pussy than you. Right, V?”

She stares at the two of them: Kerry lounged with a lazy smile against the pillows, Johnny tucked against him, staring at her with surprising intensity in his big hazel eyes. “No fucking comment,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest in a big X shape.

Johnny grins dangerously and Kerry leans back and laughs. “God, V,” Kerry says, “just fuckin’ shut him up.”

As she looks at the two of them she is suddenly emotional. Kerry looks so happy, a lightness to him that she’s never seen before, even in the last year where, in the brief times she saw him, he seemed actually pretty happy. And Johnny — nude, sweaty, pressed easily against Kerry, looking at her with equal parts glee and hunger, seemingly comfortable with them, even having taken Kerry’s cock, even if the body isn’t really his. She looks away from them, heart pounding.

Then she swallows and sits back on the bed, lounging backwards and spreading her legs. She doesn’t even need to speak. Johnny pushes up off Kerry and flips over to his stomach as he approaches her, diving immediately for her pussy, hooking arms around her thighs.

“Fuck,” she says with a laugh, “Johnny, god, such a slut.” Johnny flips her off and licks up her entire pussy, eyes up on her face.

Kerry cackles. “Slut for pussy, slut for cock, who woulda thunk it.”

“Everyone thought he was a slut for — shit,” V stutters as Johnny swirls her clit slowly, “shit, thought he was a slut for pussy. Oh, fuck, Johnny.” She tips all the way back until her head is against the mattress.

Johnny is so fucking good at eating pussy, and right now he’s not fucking around. Based on her one time with Kerry, Johnny is better, hands down — not that she would ever say so out loud, both to spare Kerry and to not pump Johnny’s ego. He sucks her clit, swirls his soft tongue around it, then pushes two fingers into her and curls them upward. The sensation sparks deep inside her, up to her gut, and she can’t help the moan that spills from her lips. She’s so fucking wound up and wet and Johnny knows fucking exactly how to get her off.

He eats her out with purpose, a desperate affair with his tongue and fingers. V groans and leans back, sinking down into the sensation, gripping harder into Johnny’s hair. When she comes it’s a gentle rolling crest that spreads over her whole body, legs shaking as she rides it out with a low moan, thrusting up into Johnny’s mouth. She feels Johnny’s stupid smug grin against her.

She slumps down onto her back with a huff. Johnny crawls up over her, bracing himself on his forearms and leaning over her to kiss her deep and slow. His whole body presses against hers, hot and a little sweaty, cock soft against her thigh.

“Fuck,” she whispers, tilting her head back. Johnny runs his mouth down past her jaw and bites her neck, then sucks hard to leave her with a hickey. Most of her previous ones have faded.

The bed beside her sags as Kerry flips himself to lay next to her, shoulders against hers. Johnny licks her neck like a fucking idiot and she shudders. Kerry reaches a hand lazily up into Johnny’s hair, who pulls away from her neck to kiss him instead. He leans against one arm to reach but otherwise stays laying on V.

“Now who’s fuckin’ needy, huh?” Johnny accuses as he pulls backwards.

“Hey, I’m just layin’ here,” Kerry says lazily. “You kissed me, man.” He pauses and then laughs, tilting his head back. “Fuck, you kissed me.”

“Gonna brag about it?” Johnny says, bowing his head down to bite at Kerry’s shoulder. “Hate to burst your bubble, it don’t make you special.”

Kerry hums in the back of his throat and pushes his hand more firmly into Johnny’s hair. “How many people you let come in your ass, huh?”

“He’s got you there,” V says.

Johnny leans hard into Kerry’s shoulder. “Fuck off. Speakin’ of, I gotta fuckin’ shower or somethin’, Christ. Always this gross after?”

“Pretty much,” Kerry says. “D’you like it?”

Johnny levels Kerry with a flat stare. “Came just from your cock and you’re askin’ if I liked it?”

Kerry grins smugly. “Meant the aftermath, but sure, yeah. Let’s hear it.”

“Alright.” Johnny is still staring at him. “Mighta been the hottest fuck of my life,” he says, then turns away.

Kerry swears under his breath as V says, “Wow, fuck you. Do I rank?”

Johnny’s eyes dart over to her, checking she’s not upset. When he sees she isn’t, he grins and shrugs. “Eh, you’re up there.”

“Top three, right?” she says.

He grins wider and leans back over to her, pressing his forehead against hers. “Think I said top five. Bet with some creativity you could bump your ranking. Maybe take third?”

“Hm, podium finish,” V muses lazily. “Would I get a medal?”

“Nah,” Johnny says.

V grins. “Won’t bother then.”

Johnny captures her lips again, slow and easy. V’s eyes flutter closed as she relaxes into it, mouth moving gently against Johnny’s. He noses at her face softly, kissing her cheek, her jaw, her neck. V sighs and lets all her limbs relax and she feels Johnny melt against her too. He presses his nose into the crook of her neck.

Then Johnny sighs, and rolls over her to flop beside her on the bed, leaving V in the middle between him and Kerry. “One of you better have smokes.”

Kerry rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’ needy.”

Despite his complaint Kerry rolls across the bed and reaches into his bedside table, fetching a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He puts one between his lips, then leans across V to pass one to Johnny. Johnny adjusts to sit up a bit, lying on his side and propping himself up with one arm. He takes the cig and immediately puts it in V’s mouth as Kerry lights his. V wordlessly leans over to light her cigarette off Kerry’s, taking a slow drag. Fuck Johnny for making her like this.

Kerry withdraws a third cigarette and tries to pass it to Johnny, who rolls his eyes and pushes it away.

Kerry frowns. “You wanted the fuckin’ smoke. Here it is.”

V laughs, exhaling smoke. “He can’t. He’s allergic.”

Kerry is silent for a moment, staring at them both, lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. Then he laughs, so hard it shakes the bed, enough that he almost drops the cig and has to fumble it to make sure it doesn’t drop onto the sheets.

“Shut the fuck up,” Johnny grumbles. “Fuckin’ asshole.”

Kerry keeps laughing, rolling onto his back, one hand on his stomach and the other holding the cigarette. “Oh, that’s too fuckin’ good,” he wheezes. “Why even ask?”

“He likes the taste,” V answers, then turns to kiss Johnny. He’s frowning, looking properly grumpy, but he still relents and returns the kiss, licking into her mouth eagerly. As she pulls back, she hears Kerry exhale beside her.

Johnny looks past her at Kerry. “Lemme taste it off you too,” he says, a little too quiet to be demanding.

Kerry has to lean all the way across her to kiss him, until he crawls over her and wiggles his way in between the two of them. V smokes until Johnny and Kerry break apart, then pulls Johnny back to her lips. He goes willingly with a little grin.

V bumps their noses together. “Attention whore.”

Johnny grins. “Some kinda whore, sure.” He kisses her again, filthy and open-mouthed. “Sex whore, actually.”

She grins into his mouth. “Ah, the classic whore.” They kiss again, V awkwardly holding her cigarette out of the way, Johnny’s hand hot and soft against her neck. “What’s next on the list?”

“Wanna fuck Ker,” he says, pressing their faces together. Behind him Kerry laughs. “Fuck you while he fucks me. Watch him fuck you. Fuckin’ finally get you a strap, have me from both ends. Or him.”

“Don’t forget you promised we’d fuck V together,” Kerry says. V pushes up a little on her arm to look over Johnny’s shoulder at Kerry, who is grinning lazily, cigarette in his mouth, lying flat on his back. He gestures to V’s hand. “You actually gonna smoke that, or…”

V fumbles the cig, pulling it to her mouth as ash rains down on her tits. Johnny leans down and licks the ash from her skin, making her squirm. “You’re fucking disgusting,” she complains, pushing at his face. He leans back up to kiss her and she pushes him away harder. “Go kiss Kerry, I don’t wanna taste gross ash.”

“Alright, princess,” he grumbles with an eyeroll, rolling over in place and then leaning in to Kerry.

V closes her eyes and smokes. She enjoys the warmth of Johnny’s body against hers and the easy comfort of Kerry’s bed. Eventually the cigarette burns down enough that she taps Johnny on the shoulder and passes the cig over to Kerry, who stubs it in an ashtray by the bed, where he has already stubbed his.

“Alright, assholes,” Johnny says, breaking the easy silence. “I fuckin’ gotta get the come outta my ass, it’s disgusting. Come shower with me, or don’t.”

He doesn’t wait for either of them to respond and climbs over Kerry and off the bed, stumbling a little. Kerry grabs his arm and he turns back to face them. He looks good — hair golden and mussed, hickeys on his neck, soft skin on display. Kerry’s grip slips a little down to his forearm, and Johnny twists his arm so he can grab Kerry’s forearm in return. He raises his eyebrows.

“Hey,” Kerry says. “You really still don’t remember shit? From when you were in V’s head?”

Johnny blinks and frowns, turning to properly face them. “Ker, I wasn’t in her head. They made a fuckin’ copy of me, man.” He shakes his head. “Can’t remember. Won’t remember. That other guy, he’s dead.”

“That’s fucked,” Kerry says, sounding kind of disbelieving. “That’s super fucked up.”

Johnny laughs humourlessly. “Sure is. You gonna shower with me or what?”

Kerry is silent for a moment. “Yeah,” he says eventually. He sits up. “Yeah. Guess we just keep goin’, huh?”

Johnny rolls his eyes, but he uses his grip on Kerry to haul him to his feet. As Kerry stumbles Johnny grips him by the shoulders, spins him toward the bathroom and shoves the middle of his back. Then he turns back to V. “You comin’?”

V grins. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, shimmying off the bed. “I’m coming.”

—

A month or so later, on a dreary, overcast day, V heads to the columbarium.

Johnny is busy all day today, gigs during the morning and a date with Kerry in the afternoon that V is planning on joining once it runs into dinnertime. She has the day off work. There has been something leaden in her chest all day, a sluggishness to her limbs that only gets heavier as she approaches the grey concrete niches.

She visits Jackie first, runs a hand silently over his niche. She passes Alt and says a silent thanks to her, even though she hadn’t ended up asking for her help. When she reaches Johnny’s niche — under Robert John Linder — she stares at it for a long moment, some strange feeling twisting inside her chest. She opens her mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. Then she spins on her heel and leaves, long strides across the pavement.

She gets on the next bus to the city and then transfers to a train, getting off at megabuilding H10. She still feels weighed down but there’s an energy propelling her now. Misty’s old shop has been part of the Zetatech ripper business for a long time now, but V isn’t interested in that. It takes some scrambling over fences but she manages to wriggle into the back alley, and then take the elevator to the top of the building.

It all looks different, of course. A lot of the area nearby is still under construction, covered in plastic wrapping and caution tape. The pair of plastic chairs are gone. The energy propelling her leaves her all at once and she sighs, body sagging, a deep and quiet sadness overcoming her.

V climbs up and sits on the ledge, legs dangling over the side of the building, and reaches into her pocket for a smoke. She lights one, puffs it a couple times then takes a long drag. She exhales smoke up into the sky.

“Had a crazy fuckin’ few months,” she says quietly. “Unbelievable. Maybe crazier than our few months. You’d… I dunno what you’d think.”

She never let herself do this before, not really. Couldn’t stand thinking about it. If she didn’t have her thoughts on lock, she’d spiral. It was easier to just numb herself, to not think about it. It’d been kind of nice, to talk to Jackie, until it had been devastating. With Johnny, it had always been devastating. She takes another long drag.

“Think I’m gonna miss you forever, y’know?” Her free hand curls around the ledge. “Even when, hah, even when you’re right next to me. I just…”

Johnny doesn’t — didn’t — believe in an afterlife. Hell, V is pretty sure she doesn’t either. But maybe there’s some whisper of his code out there. Maybe when they peeled him out of her, fragments of him escaped to the wind.

“Hope you’d be okay with it. Can’t imagine it’s what you would’ve wanted. I mean. I guess you always wanted me to live and be happy, right? So maybe… maybe you’d be okay with it.”

She looks down over the edge. Beneath her people walk through the streets and car horns blare. “I bet if you were here you’d be jealous,” she says with a laugh. “Fuck, don’t be jealous. Dunno if you’d be more or less jealous because it’s yourself.”

She fiddles with the dogtags around her neck, eyes on the roughened metal as she runs her thumb over the engraving.

“I love you,” she says quietly. “I know you knew, but I wish I had’ve said it. I wish you had’ve said it to me, even though I knew. I wish we could’ve —” She cuts herself off, throat constricting. “Oh, fuck,” she says as she starts crying. She bends over, until her head is between her knees, eyes burning, tears hot on her cheeks. The wind whistles by, making the tear trails turn cold.

She screws her eyes closed and lets herself imagine him. Not the first time she’s done so, but — when he appeared to her, his flickering engram form, there was more than just sight. It wasn’t just that she was seeing him. She could feel him, like a phantom limb, a mess of static warmth, hanging in the air beside her. She has pictured him, occasionally. She hasn’t let herself indulge in that extra feeling.

So she pretends, for a moment, that she can feel him. She digs deep into the parts of her that are still him and closes her eyes and pretends he’s next to her, swinging his legs over the drop, both hands against the concrete. No — one hand with a cigarette, the left. He leans back and exhales smoke into the sky. She can feel him breathe. She keeps her eyes closed.

“No point in what ifs, right? No point in wishes. No point in —” She cuts herself off again as her throat closes over and draws a ragged breath. “This other you,” she says roughly. “He’s so… it’s so weird, y’know? He’s just like you, ‘cept for all the ways he isn’t. But mostly he’s you. Still such an asshole.” She laughs, eyes closed. “Real cunt. Ego the size of the damn moon, entitled, general dickhead.

“But you don’t need me to tell you that shit. He’s just as passionate as you. Somehow, he believes in me as much as you. He loves as much as you, even if he won’t admit it, just like you. Secretly a total sap.” She huffs another laugh as she imagines the memory rolling his eyes. “Rogue turned him down, just like she did you. Guess that wasn’t my fault, huh?”

V sighs, wringing her hands, eyes still closed. Beside her the memory of Johnny stubs his cigarette against the ledge. She tries to take another drag but her hand shakes as she lifts the cigarette and when she breathes in it’s stuttery and shallow. “I’m sorry,” she rasps, barely able to get the words out as her throat burns. “Know you said it was fine but it wasn’t. I just… you said you forgave me. Hope that’s still true.” He’s motionless beside her.

She ashes the cigarette blindly against the concrete. “Went to your niche. Felt wrong. Two of you — hell, three of you — that niche weren’t yours any more than it’s this new Johnny’s. Which, uh, it is,” she says, then laughs at herself. “It’s both of yours. But it’s not yours, y’know?”

She shrugs, gripping the ledge with both hands. “Guess I wanted to, I dunno. Apologise properly. Say goodbye.” She laughs, hiccupy and awful through tears. She sniffs. “Shit. Say goodbye, then go have dinner with you and Kerry.” She laughs louder, sniffling and wiping her eyes desperately. “Fuck, I didn’t tell you about Kerry. You’re fucking him. Hell, you’re dating him.”

She imagines Johnny having some kind of reaction to that, indistinct and intense — a sharp breath in, a tensing of the shoulders, turning away. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “It’s working okay right now. Weird, but okay. Good, even. Really good. We’re dating as well. Not me and Kerry, uh, you and me. And you and him. And then we fuck, so I guess I’m like, fuckbuddies with Kerry Eurodyne? Fuck, my life is insane.

“You seem… happy, maybe. Or, I dunno. You don’t seem miserable. I think you maybe love me. The — the new you, I mean. I mean, you basically said you did.”

The response to that she imagines unbidden, obvious and strong, not literal words but a feeling in her chest, in her gut, in the parts of her that are kind of still him — fuckin’ of course I do.

She barks out something between a laugh and a sob, bowing her head. Her eyes are still closed and she screws them shut tighter, until strange indistinct spots swirl in the blackness of her vision. She tries to clear her throat.

“So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Fell in love with you again. Uh, shit, didn’t mention the year — I had a pretty bad year. Kept alive.” V’s throat almost completely closes over again as more tears prick at her wet, puffy eyes. “For you. Kept alive for you. Glad I did.” She sniffs.

“When I first saw you — him, I mean, the new one, and he didn’t recognise me, and I thought he was you…” She coughs a little and keeps speaking through her rough throat. “At the time, was all just adrenaline and fear, but… been thinking about it lately. About letting go but not letting them change me. Think I broke my promise. Think I changed a whole fucking lot.

“But… this new you still liked me. Loves me, probably. Eventually. Felt kinda like I was becoming a person again. So maybe I didn’t break my promise. Does that count? I let go of a lot. Was it too much?”

The memory of Johnny doesn’t have an answer for her, real or imagined.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Guess that one’s on me to answer. Asshole.” A fresh set of tears well in her closed eyes as her throat burns again. “Ah, fuck. You fucking asshole.” She ducks her head and lifts the collar of her t-shirt with one hand, pressing the inside of it to her eyes. “Shit. I really fucking loved you.”

Then she lets herself cry, hiccuping and wet, gripping the building ledge with one hand, eyes still screwed shut. The wind picks up, carrying the stench of the city with it, whipping her hair around her face. The memory of Johnny beside her, a strange static hum pressed into the air, lights another cigarette. There’s no sound from him, but she can feel the click of his lighter in the back of her throat. She considers joining him, but the wind would make lighting a real smoke difficult.

V takes the deepest breath she can and holds it until her lungs burn and her chest tightens and her brain screams for air. Then she exhales. As she breathes out she lets go of the imagined Johnny and he fades into nothing. She opens her eyes.

The city is bright, even in the overcast afternoon. A million lights try to grab her attention and she ignores them all, letting them blur in her vision. She looks down and grabs the dog tags again. They’re an identical pair, one looped on a smaller chain around the main chain.

She snaps the small chain holding the second tag to the first and holds it in the palm of her hand. She lifts it slowly and kisses it, lips gentle against the cold metal. Then she stands up from the ledge, hopping back down onto the roof proper. She places the tag on the edge. Then she breathes out slowly, then back in, then turns and heads back down the stairs.