Chapter Text
The concert had been a bad idea. He should have called it off the moment he’d popped the pseudo and V’s knees had buckled, leaving her to dry-heave into the filthy toilet bowl they’d been speaking over moments prior.
But while apprehensive, V had been determined, and hell, Kerry needed this, really, truly needed it in a way that made something in Johhny ache to see, and he couldn’t walk away again. He couldn’t dangle some sick form of closure in front of Kerry’s face one day only to pull it away the next—that was something he would have done back then, maybe. But not now.
Not now.
『He wasn’t a gonk. He’d seen the look in Kerry’s eyes that night, the same look he’d seen way back in the day when things were real bad and he’d casually invite Kerry to stay at his place for a few nights. It was something they never talked about after, but the cocktail of shame and gratitude on Kerry’s face when they met next always spoke for itself.
Shit had never been easy for Kerry. From what he’d gathered, it had only gotten harder while Johnny had been gone. He hadn’t told V, but he’d turned over the pros and cons of pulling Kerry back into the trainwreck of his life for weeks before he’d finally asked her to head over, wondering if it was crueler to dig everything back up after so many years than it was to just leave him in the dark, but he’d found his answer thanks to a dose of pseudo and a wild night out.
According to the net, Kerry had tried to off himself. Whatever “peace” Johnny imagined he’d found along the way evaporated into thin air. Something was haunting him, and if Johnny was gonna be hanging around for a while anyway, it made sense to try to set things right before he fucked off the mortal coil himself.』
So he played the gig, and he did so well enough that he caught odd, too-long stares from Nance and Denny, and he let Kerry take the lead like he should have more often back in their halcyon days, and for a moment he let everything but the harsh feeling of guitar strings pressing into V’s sensitive, un-callused fingertips slip away into nothing. The only time his hands left his instrument was to wipe V’s bleeding nose on his sleeve, turning away from the audience but knowing full well nothing was escaping Nancy’s sharp eyes. Nothing ever did.
And then it was over, just like that. He was off the stage and talking to Kerry and suddenly sensation was flooding back into his pounding head. He said what he needed to say, looking at Kerry for one last time through V’s eyes, long and hard, searching his face for any hint of that chilling emptiness he had seen back at the villa.
It was still there, faintly. Johnny knew Kerry well enough to understand it would never fully fade away. But that night it was fiercely overshadowed, and Kerry was practically glowing as he strummed Johnny’s guitar—it was with a newfound peace of mind that he handed control back to V.
It turned out that had been a mistake, too.
Even though V turned her face away from him the moment he reappeared in her field of vision, he saw the light of agony in her eyes, caught the violent tremor in her hands that she stifled by pressing them hard against her thighs. Kerry, too caught up in his own thoughts, only stuck around for a few more minutes before he left the two of them alone—and as much as V might have wished for Johnny’s attention to remain on anything but her, this was not a night that she would get her wish.
After it became clear that she wasn't going to look at him of her own volition, he reached out across the bar and turned her head toward him with a few fingers beneath her chin.
V didn’t fight it. She held his gaze, too tired to mask her pain, and Johnny’s brow furrowed. Her eyes were glassy, watery with tears she was too stubborn to allow to fall, and her face was about five shades paler than usual, which was saying something. Kerry would have had to be blind to miss that she was in a bad way.
“Can’t believe that asshole up and left you like this,” he muttered.
V shrugged. “Makes sense,” she said hoarsely. “He’s your choom, Johnny—doesn’t even know me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Johnny insisted. “He knows you’re important to me, that should be enough.” Although, hell, maybe that was the reason in itself: Kerry had always been happiest when Johnny was only his.
He brushed it off.
“Shoulda made sure you were okay to get home, at least. Christ.”
“Don’t be mad at him,” V sighed. “Besides, thought you’d be happy. Kerry was. Wasn’t that the point?”
“Yeah.”
“What, got nothin’ for me? How about, ‘thank you, V, for letting me use you as a puppet for the evening!’” She laughed softly to herself even as he grimaced. “C’mon, Johnny, it had to be fun. You have a good time, at least?”
“Sure.”
“Goin’ monosyllabic?” V frowned. “Never a good sign with you.”
“Wasn’t worth it, is all.”
That earned him a dry chuckle. “Just yesterday, you were treating it like the most important thing in the world. Something change?”
“Really gotta ask? Fuck, V, just—” Johnny’s voice threatened to fail him, but he continued a moment later, nearly inaudible. “Just look at you. Yeah, it was important.” He took her face gently in his hands, and V’s eyes fluttered closed in sheer relief.
“But not more important than you.”
“Hands’re cold,” she slurred, the flare of warmth in her chest the only acknowledgement of Johnny’s words. “Feels nice. Keep ‘em there, just for a sec.”
“This is what I mean,” Johnny said sternly. Something in him was mounting itself into a particular mania he begrudgingly recognized as his preferred method of masking fear. “You’re barely conscious. We’re getting a ride home from Nance.”
“Can’t ask her to do that,” V whispered. “Not my place, Johnny.”
“Fuck your place. I’m not watching you crash the Porsche because you passed out behind the wheel.”
V pulled a face, sitting up straight with a herculean effort that left him aching. “Right, yeah, can’t risk your precious car.”
“Now you’re just being difficult.”
“Damn right,” she grumbled. “You're allowed to be difficult when your blood’s leakin’ out your ears.”
Johnny blinked. “Your—”
He gripped V’s chin, tighter this time, and turned her head to the side. “Move your hair.”
V rolled her eyes, but complied with a shaking hand, holding her curls back so he could see.
Sure enough, blood had trickled from her ear down the side of her jaw, and Johnny cursed vehemently.
“New plan. Goin’ to Vik’s. Go get Nance.”
“Jesus, Johnny. It’s not a big deal.”
“Bullshit,” he hissed. “Go. Now, V.”
A knowing look was dawning on V’s face. Aware that she couldn’t cause too much of a scene without the Red Dirt's patrons thinking she was toeing the line of cyberpsychosis, she opted instead for sliding a hand across the bar and taking Johnny’s chrome fingers in her own, holding tight. To anyone else, it would have looked like she was simply making a fist.
“You’re worried,” she said gently, her eyes boring into his even through the shielding grace of his aviators.
“And you’re stalling.”
“Really, I’m fi—” a choked hitch of her breath cut V short, and that was his only warning that things were about to get bad.
A wave of white-hot pain, felt just a bit too far away to be his own, seized V’s nervous system. Her agonized gasp and the convulsive coughs that followed were hidden from the crowd by the blaring music, but she drew a few pairs of eyes, Nancy’s included, when she leaned down to press her forehead against the surface of the bar, hands clutching at her hair as her chest heaved, desperate for oxygen.
Not bothering to waste the time it would take to walk around the bar, Johnny materialized behind V in a flash, one hand rubbing her back in soothing circles as his chrome hand gripped her shoulder, keeping her from tipping out of her seat.
He fucking hated this. He hated it. Johnny had mostly gotten used to his current state of existence, he’d even grown to take some comfort (hell, far more than he’d like to admit) in V’s constant presence, but in moments like these nothing in the world could hold back his fury.
He should be there. He should be picking V up, holding her close to his chest, and driving her to Vik’s, where he would stay by her side, hand steady around hers, until she was well enough for him to bring her home.
If V had been aware of anything but the screaming pain in her skull, she would have scoffed and told him that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Shit, Johnny had eyes, he knew that well enough. But—and it had taken him a long, long time to realize this—just because someone was strong enough to handle everything alone didn’t mean they should. Sure, V could drag herself out of the bar and curl up in the back of the Porsche until she could see clearly enough to drive, but she shouldn’t have to.
He should have been there for her to lean on when she needed help standing on her own. And yet, there they were; V leaving a small pool of blood on the counter where her nose pressed against it, Johnny holding her in the futile hope that it could do something, anything, to combat the pain.
Fucking useless, was what he was. No. Worse. If he hadn’t insisted on taking the fucking pseudo—
“Johnny,” V managed, her voice barely there. “Stop. Can feel you tearing yourself a new one from here.”
“Just standing in ‘till you can do it yourself.”
“‘M not mad at you.”
“You should be, but we'll work on that later. For now, I want you to stand up and get Nance. Or are you gonna try to tell me you’re fine again?”
“Nah,” V whispered, painstakingly pushing herself up and holding onto the bar as her numb legs struggled to remember how to keep her upright. “Point taken.”
Johnny stayed next to her as she got her bearings, and matched her halting pace when she eventually decided to brave the lively floor of the bar, keeping a hand protectively on the small of her back as he shot looks at anyone who got too close. Sure, it wouldn’t do shit, but it would at least make him feel a little less murderous if he believed he could step between V and the guy who had just checked her out from the table near the stage. Pretending he could do something was good enough for him right then. Anything to take his mind off the way V was shaking, and how fever-hot her skin was beneath his hand, burning through the thin fabric of her shirt.
They made it after what felt like an eternity. Though V’s eyes had been trained on the ground, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, Johnny had been glancing periodically at Nancy, who in turn was watching V’s progress like a hawk. Times like these, Johnny was just glad to know someone smart enough to read between the lines. To see the story V and Kerry had hidden beneath some nonchalant pitch for a concert to honor Johnny’s memory.
Perfect for a fuckin’ media. Guess she really had found her calling.
“Need something?” Nancy broke the silence first. V, to her credit, kept her head on her shoulders and simply nodded, plenty familiar with staying calm in the face of intimidation after her years with Arasaka.
“I do,” V said, her voice even hoarser as she raised it above the noise of the bar. “I’m, uh—I’m real sorry to ask, but if you’re planning to head out soon, would you…” V grimaced, swallowing what remained of her pride. “Would you be able to give me a ride?”
Nancy frowned, and it seemed that even after all those years, her disapproval was still just as withering. When she’d looked at him like that—and she had, often—he’d found that there were, in fact, things he was still afraid of, and one of them was standing in front of him. V, similarly, seemed to shrink beneath it until Nancy finally spoke. Apparently the older woman was far scarier in V’s mind than those ‘Saka wraiths had been—proving once again that V was wise beyond her years.
“Kerry really just leave you here?” Nancy asked finally.
“Uh,” V uttered, still breathless from her trek across the room. “Yeah?”
“Alone?”
A sigh this time, defeated. “Yeah.”
“Jesus.” Nancy stood from the bar, ignoring the small crowd of people that had come over hoping to simply stand near her, and took V by the arm as she made a beeline for the back door. “If he roped you into this, he could’ve at least had the decency to take you home.”
“That’s what I said,” Johnny muttered to no one.
“Where’s your ripper, kid?”
“Oh,” V said hastily as the door slid open and they stepped out into the night. “Really, home’s fine. If you could just take me there, I—”
“Hell no,” Johnny hissed just as Nancy firmly said, “Don’t think so.”
Well, shit. Johnny was more than willing to let Nancy do the talking here. He had a feeling that V was more likely to listen to her, anyway—probably because Nancy could scare the shit outta you when she wanted.
“Handled yourself well on stage—a little too well—but you weren’t as stealthy as you thought.”
V, who had been out for the majority of the show, cocked her head in confusion when they stopped in front of Nancy’s car. Nancy just gestured to her nose, and V visibly deflated.
“So where am I taking you?” Nancy asked again, voice considerably gentler. “I can get you to my ripper if you don’t have one.”
V smiled sheepishly. “Don’t think I could afford that if I sold all the chrome in my body,” she replied with a warm chuckle, and when Nancy smiled back, V conceded. “Uh. It’s a little clinic in Watson. Just get your GPS to take us to Misty’s Esoterica.”
Nancy’s eyes lit up blue for half a second before she nodded to her car. “Get in.”
As Nancy circled around to get into the driver’s seat, Johnny peered around the back and laughed, drawing a glance from V as she opened the passenger door.
“Maelstrom tag’s still here,” he explained. “Man, must be drivin’ her crazy.”
V rolled her eyes but spared him a small smile. A moment later, she sank wearily into the passenger seat, closing the door and fumbling with the seatbelt as the car’s engine flared to life. Her hands were still shaking, and badly—her fingers lost their purchase on the seatbelt, and the thing flew back up with a sharp snap.
Johnny appeared in the backseat as Nancy glanced over at her. V wouldn’t have caught it, but Johnny knew her well enough to recognize that look.
Nancy leaned over, fastening V’s seatbelt herself and putting a hand on her shoulder for just a moment before she turned back to the road and tore out of the parking lot.
All he could do was focus on trying to keep himself calm. But if Nancy was worried—and she was, he’d seen that look before, he dreaded that look—maybe things were worse than he’d thought.
After a few minutes, V had practically melted into the upholstery. She was leaning against the window, face pressed against the glass, an edge of delirium overriding her compulsive desire to be polite in search of something, anything, cool enough to bring relief to her fevered skin. Moments later, her eyes drifted closed, and Johnny lurched forward as if to personally tell Nancy to keep her awake.
Luckily for him, Nancy had always been perfectly functional without his often unwanted input, and she cursed softly before taking a hand from the wheel and gripping one of V’s. It was lying palm-up beside her thigh, completely limp, and her fingers barely twitched in response.
“V?” She said sharply. “Hey, do me a favor, will ya?”
V stirred at the sound. “Mm?”
“Tell me a story.”
Johnny saw her brow furrow in the reflection of the window.
“‘Bout what?” Her words were tripping over one another, slurring far worse than before. Johnny felt rather than saw it when Nancy tightened her grip.
“Anything. What did you do over the weekend?”
“Went diving,” V whispered.
“Diving, huh? Alone, or with someone?”
“With someone.”
“This ‘someone,’” Nancy prompted. “They special to you? Your input, or something?”
V smiled. “Yeah, she’s real special. My best friend, I think. She—she—” V’s words trailed off, and she shook her head as best as she could manage against the window.
“Sorry.” V sounded like she was a thousand miles away. “Uh. What—what did you ask?”
Nancy wordlessly pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. Hand still tight around V’s, she calmly repeated, “asked if she was your input.”
“Oh. No, no. Nothin’ like that. She had a—she had a crush on me, but I had to turn her down. Might've turned out different if we'd met a few months ago, but...well. I'm kinda caught up with someone at the moment.”
Johnny sat forward at that. V had refused to give him a reason for the rejection at the time, brushing him off with some fancy bullshit excuses he had the rare grace to let lie. He couldn’t help but wonder if V even remembered he was there—he hadn’t felt so much as a hint of acknowledgement since she’d started drifting off.
“And that someone. Are they your input?”
“No,” V repeated, the word barely a breath, and Johnny kicked himself when his heart sank. The hell was he doing, getting so hung up on someone who—
“Sometimes I wish he was.”
Oh, fuck.
She definitely didn’t remember he was there.
“V,” he prodded, trying halfheartedly to get her attention. He wasn’t sure which he wanted—for V to wise up and stop talking, or…
“I’unno. S’weird. ‘Cause—see, everyone keeps acting like we should hate each other, right? And we did, at first. He still might, maybe, he can be a real good actor.”
Well. That stung. Did she really not see it? Or was she—
“Have you asked him?” Playing therapist seemed to be keeping V conscious, so Nancy kept at it, much to Johnny's cynical amusement; but he couldn't deny the fire rearing up in his chest, refusing to be extinguished, demanding to be known.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“‘M afraid. Don’t wanna lose him. He’s—he’s losing me, anyway, and if I screw up and he pulls back, I—I don’t think I’d be able to take it. We don't, uh...we don't have much time left as it is. I don't want the rest of it to be something we regret.” Her next admission carved at his ribs, reaching a vicious hand toward his heart. "Sometimes it's best to play it safe. I don’t wanna hurt him. Don’t want him to hurt me."
“Sounds like you’re hurting yourself as is. Keeping that sorta thing bottled up…people can tell, y’know?”
“But if I tell him I love him—”
Love him. Johnny froze up so fast that had he been corporeal, Nancy’s next turn would have thrown him against the window.
“—and he doesn’t feel the same, then I—I—”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
V didn’t answer for long enough that Nancy threw a sharp look in her direction, her nails digging into the skin on the back of V’s hand.
“V? Come on, keep talking to me. Why wouldn’t he want you?”
After a long, shallow inhale, V whispered, “I’m not like him.”
“Tell me how.”
With her voice full of pain that Johnny knew had nothing to do with the agony wracking her body, V mustered up the courage to answer.
“Because,” she murmured. “I represent every single thing he’s ever tried to fight against. Everything he hates. Would probably just see me as another woman tripping over herself trying to get into his pants, anyway. Someone pathetic.”
There was no way she really thought that little of herself. Right? This was—this was V, who had a prideful streak to rival his own, who had insisted that all of her implants be plated with gold, who walked down every street like she owned it, who could wrap a room full of powerful men around her little finger with nothing but five minutes and a few pretty words. Up and coming heir to the Afterlife, whose name was passed between the lips of Night City royalty on a regular basis.
V, who had pushed back against him from day one, never giving in just for the sake of making peace, who kept him honest, balanced his rage, and treated him with undeserved kindness from the moment he had first shown her something other than cruelty. How could she think he would see her as just another groupie, mindless and doe-eyed, following his every word like it was gospel? Hell, V was one of the first people that could keep up with him since Rogue—but unlike his time with her, when V had given Johnny a second chance, he found that he was determined not to waste it.
The car had stopped somewhere beyond his recognition, and by the time he shook himself out of his disbelief, Nancy had leapt out and opened the passenger door, holding V up as she unbuckled the younger woman’s seatbelt and wound V’s arm over her shoulders in an effort to haul her to her feet. This time V’s legs were somehow even more uncooperative than before, and Nancy cursed under her breath as V’s knees buckled. Nancy maneuvered them so V could slump back against the car, her eyelids fluttering as she tried to focus on the world around her.
Somewhere along the way, her nose had started pouring blood.
“Come on, kid.” Nancy urged. “Gotta tell me where to go from here.”
“Misty,” V mumbled as if it were an answer.
“Gonna have to be good enough,” Nancy whispered. “Alright. Let’s go, V. Not much farther.”
Though she showed no sign that she had heard, Nancy dragged V up, managing to stumble a few more feet from the car to the door of Misty’s shop before V went down again. This time, when Nancy tried to pull her back up, she was entirely unresponsive, dead weight in her arms.
“Shit,” Nancy hissed.
Johnny, hovering over her shoulder, felt his chest constrict. “V?”
“Fuck it.” Nancy carefully set V down on the stairs before she stood up and started slamming her fist against the closed door.
“HEY!” She shouted, drawing the eyes of practically everyone in earshot. “Open up!”
When nothing but silence greeted her, she tried again, knocking harder. “It’s a fucking emergency! Open the goddamn door!”
Johnny, blocking out everything but V’s shallow breathing, knelt down before her and threaded his fingers into her hair.
“Stay with me, princess.”
V whimpered, her head turning ever so slightly so her cheek was pressed against his palm.
“Sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about, so you’re gonna hang in there till we can set some things straight. You hear me, Ava? Stay with me, now.”
The door slid open above them, and moments later V was being pulled away from him, Nancy working with Misty to carry V through the door and toward Vik’s clinic.
Johnny, in a rare state of complete shock, managed to get to his feet, where he stood frozen in the shop’s threshold, everything moving too fast and somehow not at all.