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The Afterlife was particularly loud that evening. Loud, overly warm, and smelling of alcohol, sweat, and city filth.
It was fuckin’ beautiful. Even the act of putting his hands on the counter and gripping a glass of tequila was enough to make him briefly understand how so many poor shitheads living in the dregs of Night City’s so-called civilization had managed to retain their belief in God.
The bartender had eyed him oddly, and Johnny noted that she must have some keen senses—the best bartenders did, at least if they wanted to live past their first week on the job. But when she put another glass down in front of him, she cocked her head and said, “you alright, V?”
This one seemed a bit too perceptive for her own good.
“Just fine,” he said, V’s voice carrying his words.
“Tough day?”
“Hm? Nah, not particularly.”
Another odd look. “Alright. It’s just...rare to see you come by just to drink, is all. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you drop in if it wasn’t for work.”
“Well, I’ve gotta relax at some point, don’t I?”
“You sure you ain’t already drunk?”
Fuck, he was plenty familiar with the stick up V’s ass, but was the change really so drastic? He could play an uptight ex-corpo merc, couldn’t he?
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Positive.”
“Alright.” The bartender—Claire, if he remembered correctly from the few times V had come in for a job—gave him one last puzzled look before gesturing to the empty glass between them. “What can I getcha?”
“Old fashioned, beer, and—”
“—a chili garnish,” Claire finished. “Silverhand, huh?”
Johnny offered her a lopsided smile. “Guess so.”
Claire whipped the thing up in a flash, doing so with a certain flair that made it clear why she had landed her job in the first place. She stepped away when she was done, starting to move toward someone else that had just sat down at the other end of the bar. “Lemme know if you need anything else, ‘kay?”
“Will do,” Johnny said evenly. Would V say thanks? “...thanks.” Would she use the lady’s name? “Uh, Claire.”
Musta been the wrong call, because Claire just raised an eyebrow and shook her head with a bemused grin. She probably thought V was high off her infuriatingly straight-edged ass.
Y’know, he didn’t mind the looks. He knew V would likely be getting a few follow-up texts from the scattered patrons who recognized her and found her behavior odd, but he also knew she was more than capable of dealing with them without batting an eye.
Nah, she’d told him it was his night, and so long as he didn’t try anything too stupid, he’d have free rein. He wondered if she’d raised an eyebrow when he found himself at the Afterlife—he could tell she was hanging around, conscious somewhere in the background. If he had to guess, he’d assume that nagging presence was exactly what he felt like to her, though she didn’t seem to have the option to project herself into his surroundings.
He downed half of his drink in one go, perfectly content to sit at the bar and relax ‘till he found something better to do. God knew V didn’t do so nearly often enough, especially considering their predicament. Digging around in his pocket for the pack of cigs he’d picked up earlier, he tucked one between his lips and lit it with a sigh of utter bliss, leaning heavily against the counter and shutting his eyes, missing another subtle once-over from Claire.
Felt like he could breathe again, and goddamn, he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
Johnny still had no idea why V had offered to let him take her out for a spin, but right then he didn’t have it in him to care, being so wrapped up in the euphoria of having smoke back in his lungs—real smoke, real lungs, real lighter in real fingers.
He’d have to thank her a million times. Maybe even get on his knees and kiss one of her ridiculously manicured hands. Hell, he was grateful enough that he’d get on his knees for much more than that.
The resulting mental kick from V made him chuckle.
“Hey now, princess,” he drawled aloud, far too quiet for any ears but his own. “You know we’d both be leaving that arrangement satisfied.”
He felt his face—V’s face—flush straight up to his ears, and this time when he laughed it was just a fraction too loud, drawing the attention of a few of those that sat at the bar, who found themselves staring at a prim, sharp-looking woman who was holding herself just a bit too loose to match her appearance, laughing into a half-full glass of tequila with a cigarette hanging from glossed lips.
When his amusement faded, he almost felt bad for V. Her poor friends were gonna think she was finally starting to lose it—not that there wasn’t any truth in that. He didn’t mind quite enough to leave the Afterlife, but he had to admit that part of him wasn’t sure what he was doing there to begin with. Felt strange to say that a place fueled by the ego and adrenaline he’d once chased with his finger on the trigger wasn’t really his scene anymore, but oddly enough he had a dreadful suspicion that he’d lost whatever it was that tied him to such places. If the Atlantis was still around...nah, never mind. That had been Rogue’s territory anyway, no matter how much he’d liked to prowl through it.
He couldn’t help but wonder what exactly it was that he’d lost apart from his life. His reputation had outlived him in a way that every merc in the city would kill for, and he had been undeservingly awarded with a second chance at everything he’d failed to do before his death. He was somehow still discovering parts of life that he’d never so much as glimpsed back in his prime—that is, back when he’d been…corporeal.
And yet, he wasn’t quite the same. Not wrong, just different. That hadn’t been true when he’d first woken up in V’s head, but it most certainly was now, and for the life of him he couldn’t place the fucking reason.
Ah, hell. He was doin’ exactly what you’re not supposed to do when you’re planning to drink like the world's ending—he was tripping over his own thoughts, spiraling, drawing dangerously close to an existential shithole he’d prefer to avoid on his first night out in what felt like an eternity.
He glanced around, parsing the crowd. There were a few people even Johnny recognized; folks V had worked with, for, or against, a few big names he knew jack shit about but rang a bell in V’s part of their shared brain, and, of course, Rogue. She sat in her booth, occupied with whoever it was she was doing biz with that day, and he allowed himself a minute or two to simply study her, to sift through mannerisms new and old in an attempt to see if he recognized anything beyond her face.
Even that got boring after a while. Turning back to the bar, he caught Claire staring, and waved her over without a second thought.
“The fuck is someone supposed to do here?” He asked, and Claire raised an eyebrow, nodding to his drink.
“Thought you’d already figured that out, V.”
“Nah, I mean—” he cleared his throat. He was being too…laid back. With his words, especially. “I mean,” he tried again, attempting to keep his speech clipped and formal in that particular way V could slip into like it was nothing. “Is there anything…entertaining to do in this city?”
“Uh.” Claire gave V’s body another once-over, and then finally sighed, apparently deciding that whatever this was, it was way above her pay grade. “I’m sure there are some fights you could enter. Street races—could definitely hook you up there. And if the After ain’t your thing tonight, guess there’s always other clubs. Heard corpos are big on Embers these days.”
Johnny pulled a face on instinct; a half amused, half offended sneer. “Yeah, not looking to get mixed up with corpocunts tonight.”
Claire laughed outright at that. “Shit, you really are drunk, aren’t you? That mean you’re talkin’ out your ass, or finally speakin’ clearly?”
Scrambling to recover himself, Johnny just shrugged. “Eh. I dunno. Worked enough with those fuckers to last a lifetime.” Half true, he supposed.
“Hm—other end of the spectrum, then. You could head to the Totentanz if you’re looking for equal opportunities to blow out your eardrums or meet your untimely end in the parking lot.”
Johnny snorted. “Closer to my scene, I guess.” His eyes snagged on something over Claire’s left shoulder, hung in a place of honor behind the bar. A slow grin spread across his face, and Claire turned around to see what he was looking at.
It was a true piece of shit.
He remembered that guitar—it was his very first. It looked alright at first glance and sounded half presentable when it was tuned right, but it didn’t stay that way for long, and on more than one occasion he’d had strings completely snap right under his fingers. Fuckin’ thing was impossible. Kerry had insisted it was a bad luck charm after a few gigs went south, flat out refusing to get onstage with Johnny when he played it, and after one too many instances of the instrument flipping him the proverbial bird, he’d finally shelved the fucker.
Sure, he’d gone flat broke buying its successor, but he couldn’t deny that he played better when he didn’t have to fight his axe every step of the way. It always had a special place in his heart, though, special enough that Rogue had apparently klepped it after his death and held onto it for fifty fuckin’ years, which surely said something he was a bit too distracted to string together.
Johnny didn’t bother asking Claire if he could play it—Rogue was enough of a hardass that he knew she wouldn’t let anyone near it even if there was a gun pressed to her forehead. Stubborn bird, that one.
He chuckled, running a hand through his hair. Seemed to be a trait he liked in his women.
Johnny could practically feel V roll her eyes at that, but if he focused, there was a spark of warmth in his chest that wasn’t quite his, and as he stood from his stool and flicked Claire the eddies he owed her for the drinks with a low word of thanks, he savored the sensation until his scattered mind turned back to his new, self-imposed purpose.
He found what he was looking for without much searching. The Afterlife had a small setup for a band, though it seemed they usually opted for the services of a DJ that curated their music for the evening. He wondered how much convincing he would need to do to get that night’s DJ to let him up on stage.
Now that was a sensation he certainly wasn’t imagining. Something under V’s skin violently protested that idea, and Johnny, briefly caught off guard, found himself leaning back against the bar to collect himself.
“Shit,” he projected silently, hoping his thoughts found a way to reach her. “Didn’t think you were the type to get stage fright. Thought your job woulda been enough to get you over that.”
There was no coherent response—in fact, at times during the night, he thought he’d felt V go…dormant, almost, and for a moment he wondered if that had happened again, until he focused a bit harder.
In the back of his mind, Johnny could sense V’s turmoil, half of her wanting to beg him not to sing—at least not in her voice—while the other, stronger half silenced it with the reminder that she’d given Johnny a night to himself for a reason, and she wasn’t going to go back on her promise if she could help it.
He exhaled heavily, shaking his head in something near disbelief.
A corpo bound to not only to a rockerboy, but to her own honorable word—what an upside-down fucking life they were living, where the snake bows to the rat and the rat bows right back.
“Promise I won’t embarrass us,” Johnny assured her. “Heard you sing—know you’ve got talent. Untrained, sure, but I’ve got the experience to back that up. I’ll know when to stop so I don’t fuck with your vocal chords too bad.”
The feeling he got in response, while certainly hesitant, was one he took to mean “...okay.”
Setting about his impromptu quest and finding the DJ’s booth unmanned and rigged to play something pre-recorded, he started humming to himself.
V’s voice really was nice. Or, fuck it, who was he kidding? V’s singing voice held a quality that he hadn’t heard in a long while. It was lower, and it cracked if it was pushed too high, but it carried a natural texture that lent it a rough edge and a raw sense of spirit. Sure, she wasn’t any sort of prodigy—her skill was average overall (and that particular thought earned him another mental kick), but, Johnny continued pointedly, as he had always said, technique wasn’t everything. What mattered was passion. Love of your craft. Most people listening to music were listening for emotion, for connection, for catharsis and community; they didn’t care if your voice was a bit ragged around the edges.
None of that mattered, anyway. From the first time he’d given in and allowed himself to listen to the way she sang in the shower, or in the car with the radio turned all the way up, or softly to herself as she rode her bike, the wind tearing away the tune before it even reached her ears, he’d been transfixed.
What was that thing Ker had said once?
Johnny had asked how the hell Kerry knew he was in love with this guy he’d met on tour only three months ago, and Kerry had rolled his eyes, saying something that was doing its best to elude him as he fiddled with the knobs on the amp set up on stage. No one had noticed him yet, save for Claire, who had been watching since he walked away from the bar looking like he’d stepped into another world, and no one paid him any mind when he snagged the mediocre guitar that had been left there by whoever played last. Or maybe it was just there for the hell of it—he’d never known a musician to forget their axe after a gig.
Except for that one time that he and Kerry—
“Fuck, that’s right,” he said with a grin. Whatever shit Kerry had said all those years ago supplied itself readily.
“Know how I knew?” He’d asked, laughing lightly to himself. “The guy makes just about the worst food imaginable—but the other day, no, don’t laugh, I swear to God—the other day I woke up, and he’d made me breakfast, and it was the best shit I ever tasted.”
“Bet you fifty he just ordered out and you were too hungover to notice,” Johnny had shot back with a grin.
Kerry had thrown a pillow at his head with a snort. “Oh, shut up, you cynical fuck. I mean it. One day you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
He had a feeling V wouldn’t appreciate that particular train of thought—first, the implication that her singing was awful (it was far from it), but more importantly, the implication that his perception of her had been changed by something resembling love.
From her complete lack of reaction, Johnny figured she’d checked out again, to which he heaved a naked sigh of relief. The last thing he needed was V getting all paranoid about love—that word had always done things to her, set her off-kilter. He’d seen enough of her memories to know that she tended to dance around it like it was all she’d been born to do.
Besides, it wasn’t like he loved her, anyway. Of course, he—
“Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered to himself. “Is this what drinking does to me now? Am I destined to get all introspective and shit every time I wanna do a shot? Christ. I really have gotten old.”
In a blessedly timed distraction, he stood up to examine his handiwork and found the stage set in miraculously working order. By now, Rogue had taken notice of whatever the fuck it was she thought V was getting up to that night, and was watching with unimpressed amusement as the merc in question settled her borrowed stratocaster’s strap over her shoulder and set about tuning it by ear.
Johnny didn't need to look up to know he had gained a bit of attention. Half of the people watching, knowing V from work seeing as her rep had become a thing of eager interest over the past two months, were setting themselves up to watch with eager grins. He knew those looks—they expected a drunken, stilted performance they could laugh about later with their chooms.
Smiling down at the guitar in his hands, tuned up and ready, he switched the audio input from the DJ’s station to the amp and allowed the crowd one last moment to imagine the disaster they were about to witness as the Afterlife was plunged into a brief, deafening silence.
Johnny was gonna give ‘em something to talk about, alright.
He played something familiar. His favorite, steeped in old sorrows and something like love cut short; and yet, the moment the opening chords to Never Fade Away had been hammered out and V’s voice was screaming into the mic, something about it was different. A word Johnny had never had cause to use surfaced in the back of his mind, ignored in the heat of the music, in the weight of the crowd’s gaze as their eyes widened and they let out disbelieving barks of laughter when they realized, shit, wait, she ain't half bad!
It was closure. Not the absence of the agony he had poured into the song, just the acceptance of it.
It changed the sound. V’s voice changed the sound. The stage, the year, the odd, mutual understanding between woven minds changed the sound.
V’s voice pitched and rolled as he guided it. Surged up and bottomed out. Reached crests so high and out of reach that he was sure she would feel it for days to come, but he couldn’t help it. It felt right. Fuck, it felt right. It hadn't ever felt right. Something had always been missing. Something had always…
If any old-timers had been there, they would’ve seen a girl on stage singing like she was the reincarnation of Silverhand himself. They would’ve seen the way she held her guitar like one hand was a bit stiffer than the other, they would’ve seen the way she leaned into the mic, they would’ve seen the way she moved her hips and hands and head like it was her last day on earth.
But then they would have seen that her eyes were filled with something Silverhand’s hadn’t held even once, as far as they knew. Her eyes were shining with joy. With relief. With hope. She was a beacon, just for a moment, of what it really meant to scream those words into that mic, and everyone listening saw it: she’d found her peace.
Silverhand hadn’t. At least, not back then. But if he had, maybe the sharp, calculating eyes of Rogue Amendiares would have lingered just a bit longer, and allowed her flash of familiarity to tear itself out of shock and into a horrified haze of recognition.
And Johnny—well, Johnny found his own haze of recognition as he tore V’s throat to ruins.
Recognition, and realization. That maybe he wasn’t missing something vital. Maybe that nagging inconsistency deep in his chest wasn’t something that he’d lost.
Maybe, against all odds, it was something he’d found.