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“I can’t believe you dragged his sorry ass all the way back here,” Johnny’s condescending tone is as grating as the drip drop emitting from the leaky bathroom sink behind her.
She sits along the edge of the beer-soaked bed with a bouncing leg. Shotgun laid at the ready across her lap with an itchy finger trained on the cold trigger. She jumps each time Johnny moves in the corner of her eye, the shadows shifting relentlessly as her own anxiety seeps into him. It’s like he’s a sponge soaking up her emotions. She keeps mistaking the visceral, glitch-like lights emanating from his form as headlights peeking into the window, she has to steady her breathing before her heart rips out through her chest.
The motel room is drenched in shadows save for the iridescent lights glaring from beyond the door, peering in as bright slits from the partly closed blinds. The smell of alcohol, sex and god knows what else attacks her nose as she keeps her ears trained on the heavy breathing behind her, trying to phase out the pleasure stricken screeches from the room above, and the sound of a headboard smacking against the wall in the room beside them.
It was enough to make V to tear out her own fucking hair. And Johnny’s cold look was enough to inspire her to turn this shotgun on herself. In fact, that was a shout. Better she blow out her own brains than give Yorinobu the pleasure.
She had done dumb things before. She had gone to sleep with a cigarette in one hand and yet that didn’t burn her nearly as much as Goro’s stupid actions had. Any second that door she has locked her eyes with for the past four hours could be breached, broken down and ripped apart by brute force. She imagines the wood shattering as blackened Arasaka soldiers pour in, blending in with the darkness as they force her head to the floor.
Then again, these weren’t your ordinary cops. They would sooner shoot her dead than dare lay a hand on her.
They fill the room with their empty casings and shells then leave as if nothing had happened. Her body would get torn in half by the barrage of bullets and then with the amount of holes left in her they would hit the sleeping form in the bed. 27 years dissolved in the white light of a flashbang, torn asunder by the thunder of guns-
“Can you stop having wet dreams about your fucking death?! Jesus christ, ” Johnny interrupts loudly, looking outraged.
She clenches her jaw. “Shut up,”
“Shut up, she fucking says. It’s because I kept my mouth closed that you got us into this mess, V!. Shoulda made you ditch this Corpo fucker while we had the chance. Shoulda made you, body listens to me…” His frantic rambling continues under his murky breath and she wonders in what fucking plain of existence he thinks his bitching is helping their situation.
All of a sudden, husky, deep rumblings tear into the room. Like an auctioneer with smoker’s lungs had stumbled in without her notice. V snaps her head quickly to look at the form currently writhing under the bed sheets like some insect trying to break free of the web.
“How is he still alive?” Johnny says as V springs to her feet. It is more of a complaint than a genuine inquiry. V isn’t so sure herself - hell - most of this blood ain’t even hers. The stains ebbed into her clothes were from him after she carried his half-conscious form into this crappy motel room. Yet somehow he’s thrashing about like a newborn, and damn is she thankful he’s one stubborn bastard.
Goro’s face is painfully contorted when she crashes to her knees at his side. Drivel frantically slips from his mouth as beads of sweat collect around his forehead and drip into the pillow; so fast do his lips form incoherent gibberish that her translator can’t even process them quick enough to confirm he’s even speaking Japanese. He could be making up for all she knew; conducting some strange, druidic curse in his dreams. A nd she hopes, that if that is the case, it’s meant for Arasaka. It could very well be their last fucking hope.
V closes her eyes, closes her heart. Enough that she yanks out an injector from her pocket. The container is bright blue and green in colour, shaped in imitations of the ocean and the forests. A drug meant to steady the nerves…
He didn’t condone such things. Using harmful drugs to enhance one’s self. Dishnourable, he said. Self-destructing for the sake of attaining euphoria. But V couldn’t give a damn about his reservations at the moment. He needed this or he was going to tear his bullet-wound wide open; again . Despite her wanting to use the drug on herself initially; for it was he who needed it more. He could argue about it later when he was far away from death’s door and had the bloody option.
She stabs his chest, which rises sporadically against the needle. A gasp flees past his lips, hoarse and rough as if his airways had shrivelled. And for a split second her heart comes to a full stop. The pause is long, too long and Goro refuses to breath . Just as she swears it’s about to be his last breath, just as she’s about to shout and scream his name in fury, his fever drifts away and Goro finally breathes. Steady and normal like a cool river.
She lets out the breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding, wipes the sweat from her brow and tosses the container to the side. She pats his chest without thinking, fingers smoothing over his stained, white shirt to feel for a pulse. Just in case he was tricking her out of goddamn spite . As a beat thrums beautifully beneath her finger tips, she smiles fondly and idly brushes a strand of grey behind his ear. But before she can remove her touch on his chest, Goro’s hand flies to it and holds it there.
She tenses, looks at his face but he’s still asleep.
“ あなた ” He whispers.
The word was uttered so quietly that her translator couldn’t pick it up...or maybe the damn thing was just broken. Through the melody of his voice, the tone was sonorous, amorous; she had never heard him speak like that, the hairs on her arms tingled at the sound of it. It was as though his voice was reaching hopefully out for something, fiddling for a memory locked away deep in his mind. The kind yet desperate handling of her hand kept her rooted, kept her frozen in time as his fingers brushed against her knuckles and suddenly the whole world and her enemies faded away. He was warm, so warm. Pleasant against the cool air emitting from the busted AC. Her nerves set alight like tiny fireworks because the amount of love poured into whatever that word was...it could only be worthy of another being. And whatever that word was, it was not meant for her, this touch was not meant for her. Yet she remained; still and lost in the sensation, in the moment. Selfishly relishing it because she realised she couldn’t remember the last time someone touched her like that, when someone spoke like that around her. And V shuddered that it was Goro of all people who was making her feel like this. She wanted to bottle his voice, a keepsake forever. She wanted to draw his hand and hold it to her cheek.
There was a moment back then, a mere moment, where she thought he wouldn’t make it. That she wouldn’t make it. V had almost headed straight for the exit just as Johnny demanded. Until she bolted up the stairs despite his shouting. There was no way in hell she was leaving him, she couldn’t take the risk. And when she saw the que of Saka soldiers pouring into the hallway? Mind blank.
All she can remember is being sticky and tacky with blood. Her throat sore from shouting his name and shouting profanities at those surrounding him. Then he gripped onto her shoulder, huffing with raspy, jagged breath as they came out the burning, crumbling building...
If she lost him…. No , she didn’t need to think of the ‘ifs’ . He was here, alive with her. So she remained, frozen and unmoving. As if the mere flutter of a fallen eyelash may pour a hand in the calm waters of this tender moment.
But it wasn’t an eyelash that broke the moment. The fat hand that disturbed the waters of her transfixation was Johnny.
“Damn, you think I don’t feel the fluttering in your black, merc heart?” He scoffs, suddenly looming over them as he stands on the bed like some great raven eyeing up a meal. Ineffectually scolding at her and at Goro.
She cringes. Not once was she going to get used to this man sharing her every emotion. “If you don’t knock it off, I’m gonna rip off your tacky arm and shove it so far up your ass I’ll see it through your eyes,” She pries her hand away from Goro’s chest, huffing and puffing. V stands up and turns her back before she can get lost in being near him again. Already her mind was swimming with endless possibilities: Who was Goro reaching out to? What did that word mean? Why did he say it like that? Why did her chest ache…?
“I’m a ghost in your head dumbass. Best case scenario; you'd only end up doing the same to yourself. But do go on, V. Show me who’s boss,”`Johnny retorts smugly, putting on a sickly sing-song voice because he knows she hates it when he talks like that.
V has one last glance at Goro, now fully at ease that he was sleeping soundly. She heads for the bathroom as Johnny tails behind her. Tugging on the sink, no water, V then grips either end of the white, ceramic sink. Left staring into the mirror with a blank expression.
She looked like shit, to put it nicely. V is half-convinced the hollow woman staring back at her is a stranger, wearing her ivory skin too tight in sick imitation so that the bones of her skull are strikingly visible. There are dark crescents eclipsing under her white, cybernetic eyes that speak of many nights spent wide awake and glaringly afraid. Her hair is dishevelled, smelling like gunsmoke and debris. Something within twinges in disgust at the tortoise-shell bruises dotting her cheek and bottom lip, puffing her skin and turning it blue and green. And the smeared blood on her neck; a clear-cut handprint pressing into her throat…
The bruises, the blood. That was from when her and Goro ran like hell. But everything else?
She casts a look to the shadow standing behind her. Who returns her look via the mirror. Johnny leans casually against the wall with his hands folded, which might have told her he was enjoying seeing her like this. But for once Johnny wasn’t smiling, sharing her horror and perhaps noticing for the first time how bad her situation was getting.
“I don’t blame you,” She says. It was on instinct; seeing Johnny’s eyes flicker to her face and then the floor. Pulled at her heart enough that he had to have felt it too. She didn’t mean to look at him, but it was hard not to when she was so up in her head. Last thing she wanted was him feeling bad for all of this, and last thing she wanted was him seeing her cry.
“Good, cause it ain’t my fault,” He responds impulsively.
“I know, I know. I just...didn’t want you feeling...I wanted you to know that...” She mumbles now wishing she hadn’t brought it up, willing him to understand her intentions through her frenzied babbling. “Might not have...the chance soon,”
She swallows around the lump in her throat as tears start to fall.
“Don’t get mushy on me, V,” Johnny then appears at her side. The intense stare he gives her; his voice creeping out from a new, dark place as he refuses to accept her fate. “Talking like you’re already dead. I ain’t joining in on your pity party. Why? Cause you’re gonna keep kicking ass you hear me? Don’t you dare lie down and take it,”
Her laugh melds with a choked back sob as she grins from ear to ear. “I’m a scrapper, Johnny. I ain’t lying down anytime soon,”
He smacks the sink. “Good,” Johnny then motions to the main room. “I think that’s one thing me and your little Corpo pet can agree on,”
“He has a name you dolt,” She reminds him, keeping her tone affectionate. “Goro?”
“Used to be Takemura,” He keens, rolling his eyes.
“Hah...yeah,” Is all she just about manages. She couldn’t recollect when she first started using his first name; popular knowledge the Japanese were on a last name basis for strangers. Yet, whenever she had resorted to his first name, Goro never mentioned it. Never seemed bothered. It was so natural by now that it took Johnny’s remark for her to notice it.
She liked that Goro didn’t seem to mind it.
V then tugs on the sink once again out of vain hope when Johnny vanishes. And when she finally understands she can’t pull blood from the stone, she opts for the shower. Dangerous considering Arasaka could bust in at any second, but her skin feels tight and unsavoury, like wearing the hide of a dead animal.
Before V can step into the walk-in shower and remove her clothes, she throws up a continuous fit of coughs as another wave crushes against her. Her throat convulces, her chest expands and then clenches like a balled fist. Her hand flies to her mouth and she can feel her lips wet with the same slickness that spreads over her palm. At first, when she finally manages to regain her breath, V keeps her hand on her mouth. Both in fear of seeing the blood, and to muffle the shaky gasp so she won’t wake Goro.
V turns the shower on, stepping in fully clothed. Lets the cold water run down her figure and the chill makes her skin come alive in goosebumps. Cloth hugging her tightly and it’s the closest thing, she suspects, she has had to an embrace for a long time.
Everything was so completely and utterly fucked. She would fight, fight relentlessly and dirty if she had to - that was she did best - However, she couldn’t shake that this warpath was draining more than just her body. This relic business had not only marred and scarred her appearance, but her soul too. She thinks about her failures, about Jackie; how their screwed up plan and dumb ambitions for more in life ripped away a son, a lover, a friend. How even after Jackie, she cocked it up with Judy. She could still remember her breath in her ear, the smell of her shampoo. She just wanted to be happy, just for a little while . While she could still confidently say she was V and just V, not some twisted blend of V and the voice in her head. And when Judy saw beyond the levity-riddled facade V liked to put up? When she looked deep into V and didn’t recoil, didn’t push her away? But sought her out? When Judy wanted more?...
V sinks against the tiled, shower wall. Falling down until she was hugging and crying into her knees under the shower head as water and tears mix together.
She wanted to live, yet in her desperation to live she was wasting her life as she knew it right now. Pushing the people who cared about her most away as she raged throughout Night City looking for a cure. Was she forgetting how to live? Or was she so focused on living that she was forgetting what it truly meant to be alive? What was it going to take for her to stop screwing things up? Her ultimate demise? She was on borrowed time and still she was no less selfish than she was before. She had to make it through this so she could right her wrongs. She didn’t come back from the dead only for the world to rip her away when she had so much unfinished business.
Look at you; trapped in some dingy motel with a man you couldn’t save in time. Always taking, never giving back. Obsessed with being loved, yet had no interest in loving….
“V?” A voice calls out.
V raises her head; leaning in the doorway is a weary Takemura. Instinctively, she shields her body until she remembers she couldn’t even be bothered to undress. And then a wave of shame befalls her, breaking down on her like a ton of bricks. What a sigh she must have looked.
She wipes her face. “Hey-” Then she looks him up and down in outrage. “The hell you think you are walking around? You got shot remember?!”
Seemingly ignoring her comment with a mild gruff; V watches as Goro saunters over. Hand pressed against his bandaged chest, where her hand had previously been, and he leans over her in the shower. She looks up, transfixed as water gets in his hair and slides down his face; worried about his silence. He turns off the shower casually then lowers himself to his knees in front of her so they are eye-level.
He looks perturbed, clearly waiting for her to say something. He reminds her of Padre in this moment; her teenage self clambering into the Coyote with a bent nose and a busted lip. And he would fuss and curse and demand which soon-to-be-sorry bastard had jumped her. Yet she would never give them up, too afraid of word getting out that tough V had gotten jumped at all….
“Look, I’m fine I just-”
“You are not fine, do not insult my intelligence,” He interrupts, now grimacing in sympathy.
God she was surrounded by blunt men. She shamefully looked away; willing the remainder of the tears to fade, or for him to merely mistake them as water-droplets. There was then a silence so thick it ebbed with...exhaustion.
“I...apologise. You must understand, I have awoken in this...piss soaked motel, beaten and bruised, only to find you not only alive, but crying in the shower,” He pleads understanding.
V hesitantly raises her hand, showing him the blood that had not yet washed clean. “Just scared myself is all. Sorry if I woke you,”
“Hmm, you concerned me greatly. Not even blood loss or the drug you gave me could...as you say, knock me out,” He grumbles.
“Shit. I know you don’t approve of that crap Goro, but I-”
“Do not apologise. I understand why you did it. I suspect it made my nights easier,” The look he gives her is so soft it threatens to set her off again.
“Do you wish to speak of it?” He asks.
“Arasaka could kick in the door any sec,”
“We will deal with Arasaka if and when they come. For now let us focus on you. You are no good to me in this state, V,” Goro then settles, pressing is back against the glass plane of the shower. “Talk to me,”
“I just uh…” She feels the blooming of a joke teter on her tongue. ‘Therapy? I can think of better things to do in the shower’ Ready to smack this...severity that tingles and dances along her skin and in the air. To say something dumb so Goro might cringe and withdraw his austere stare. However, V bites her tongue, sinks her teeth into the joke and scrapes it off her tongue with the front of her teeth,.
“I’m scared, Goro,” V confesses. Her voice sounds unfamiliar, evento her. Shattering against his name. “ So fucking scared,”
“Of death?”
She was taken aback. Was she so simple that he thought it was mere death that kept her awake at night? Everyone feared the inevitable to some degree. You can harden yourself against it, pragmatise it so that it might not be the worst thing to happen to you. But total lack of fear? That meant your survival instincts were off.
“Partly...more so about having not lived my life as best I could. Of dying and having never amounted to anything. And, in my aim to live it up, fucking it up just as much. Like I’m missing the bigger picture...” As she hears herself, there must be a slim chance she is making any sense. Her convoluted emotions were a tornado in her head, why would they be any clearer aloud? “I just...have so much unfinished business...I’m scared everyone who ever gave a shit won’t bat an eyelid when I’m gone,”
On the other hand, Goro smiles with a softness she’s only seen him reserve for sunsets, wandering cats and finally good food in his mouth. Her heart soars because of course he somehow gets it. He would. And perhaps he realised his mistake.
“I want to live,” She says again. ‘I want to live, I want to live, I want to live,’ she repeats in her head the more her and Goro stare at one another. ‘ I don’t want to leave you behind’
“You will, and if not in this world, then in the hearts of those you have affected. You will not die easily, V. Nor do I think you will go out quietly. You are... scrapper, remember?” He hums.
Tears begin to trail a path down her cheeks once again she chuckles sadly. “Scrapper, yeah. That’s me...though I can’t think of many who would hold me fondly in their hearts,”
Goror straightens his back. “What we have done together...it has outgrown simply serving my own interests. Getting to Hellman, to Hanako, I did it for you as much as myself. Which is why, V. That even if you fight with all you have, and the world still relents. I will carry you in my memory...and my heart,”
“Really?”
“I cannot even count on one hand of those who would’ve come back for me. I still question the why of it, why you did not escape while you could,” He gestures to his chest. “You risked your life, the one you would do anything to keep, in order to make sure I got out alive. You should have left me, we should have separated,”
“Only way you and I were separating was if I had to drop you off at the cemetery,” V says sternly. Not waiting to give him a chance to doubt or feel guilty for her actions. “And I wasn’t about to let that happen,”
“You should have,”
“Fuck that,”
He rolls his eyes, ‘like dealing with a child’, he said to her once. She cringed when he first said that, like he saw her as a child. And that was the last thing she wanted him to think.
“Do me a favour, V,” He says after momentary silence.
She sits up straight with added detrmination at his request. “Anything,”
“Do not stop fighting. Take comfort in what I have said, but do not give up. Not for anything or anyone. Make everything we have worked for worth it,”
V’s lips curl into an affable smirk. A spark glinting in her eyes as she reminisce everything they have accomplished together thus far. “Since you asked so nicely...I could give it a whirl,”
He shakes his head, grumbling. “No, you will not give it a whirl. ” He cringes behind the restraint to not smile. “You will lead a warpath in this deranged city if you have to. Be as unforgiving as this cruel place has been to you... and come back to me,”
She sucks in a sharp breath. What did that mean, exactly?
“Why? You going to be waiting at the end of all this?”
Goro gets back on his feet, still crouching. Leans over just enough that he can grip her shoulder with a firm strength. It was friendly at first, when he smoothed her wet clothes with a light squeeze. But something flickered in Goro’s eyes when his hand remained there. V couldn’t pry her eyes away even if she wanted to. Something was here, sizzling like an unspoken truth that they both knew. Could he feel it? Could he fathom what she felt for him?
“Only if you wish it,”
“I do wish it. I...don’t want us to be finished after all of this. Gone through too much shit to just cut our ties and leave it as that. I can’t fuck this up like I have with…” She cuts herself off. Grimacing; this would not be like Judy, she will not fuck this up like Judy...not this time.
And V did wish it, she wished for it so hard. She longed for the chance to come back from all of this and see him alive and waiting for her. She longed for some kind future with him, the details blurry and haphazard, yet appealing enough that she gathers the courage to reach for the hand that holds her, drawing circles into his skin with her thumb and willing him to stay here with her.
He doesn’t yank it away, but his gaze is pulled towards it like a magnet. “You are afraid of having not lived your life?” He inquires with a raspy whisper.
She hums. Wondering where this was going, and afraid he was about to poke holes in the thick tension surrounding them. “Living without having ever lived,”
“You are afraid of dying before you can live,”
“Yes,”
“You are afraid of pushing me away?”
“Most of all,”
“Then, you needn’t worry. You could never push me away, V. I am not going anywhere. Not tonight, not ever,”
“Goro…”
“Be alive tonight. With me,”
He says it like it's a solution to long thought about conumdrum. As if it was practical sense for him to lean closer, apprehensive and slow, giving her the out she may need as he leans on his knee. At first, V wants to ask what that word meant, who it was for. She wants to ask him if he’s sure, he didn’t seem bothered when she brought this up in that text. She wants to know what his other obligations were. What changed. And if this was really just a solution. Just something to pass the time, offering himself to make her feel alive. Because she didn't want an offering, she wanted his love. Because he had hers before she could even realise.
But as soon as Goro’s breath trickles against her face, seeping into her skin and spreading warmth throughout her body like a fire. Untamed and wild. She closes her eyes, closes her mind, and intercepts the distance. Breaking it with a kiss.
She doesn’t care what changed, doesn’t care that the prior word, the prior touch, wasn’t meant for her. This was. He was awake, alive and embracing her. Kissing her and willing her to give into her desires. All of this was hers and only hers and she would commit every inch of him to memory so if she died, she could remember this.
Her hand scathes from his hand and charts a path up his arm, eventually settling on his broad shoulders. She tightens her fingers, encouraging Goro to push himself into her firmer - his own hand, stroking her shoulder and cradling her jaw - and inspiring her to open her mouth as the rhythm of his lips becomes faster, hurried, desperate.
They stand, grabbing and holding each other as they shakily reach their knees. She is still soaked, and is glad to be rid of her heavy attire as Goro begins their disrobing by helping her to shrug off her coat. He is gentle, so so gentle , like she will break if he goes too quick. Yet his mouth tells a different story, hungry and damn near forceful . It makes her head spin from the conflict.
She is pressed against the wall, the sheer chill racing up her spine it makes her gasp. To which Goro takes as an opportunity to gently bite her bottom lip, dragging it away, and as her lip slips away he chases it with another firm kiss. His hands, large and stronger than she anticipated, hold her in place by her hips.
“We should...ah..” She gulps as Goro tilts his head to capture her throat with his mouth. She grates her fingers over the back of his chrome neck, finding it irritating she could not drag her nails and send shivers down his spine there, and grips the back of his head where flesh still remained. Arching her back to make her next words all the more alluring. “Move this to the bedroom, don’t ya think?”
Goro mumbles something in his mother tongue against her neck. And just when she thinks he’s made up his mind to remain, he pulls back and takes her hand. Squeezing it and his lips tug with a…
A mischievous smile?
She feels like she’s getting a glimpse into the Goro of his past, his younger days, as he pulls her out of the bathroom. There’s a sudden light emanating from his white orbs, a youthful glimmer that makes her stomach jump and flip. It stays there even as he lowers her onto the bed. Parting her legs with his knee....