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Johnny hadn’t seen many things in his life that he could truly call “beautiful.”
He’d rarely found the time to notice any aspect of something that could take his breath away. He simply never slowed down long enough.
He’d rarely slowed down at all, not since Mexico; since everything that had followed.
There was always another gig, another three-day bender, another concert, more groupies, another chance at a record label from a corporation he hated; one distraction after another.
Right up until Arasaka. And then it had been too late.
And then there had been countless moments when he had wished that hadn’t been the case. Because Johnny knew, if he was honest, that he really did regret that part of himself. The thoughtless, selfish part that noticed only what it wanted. That part had once been all of him.
At least, it had been all of him. Until Arasaka, and Soulkiller.
Until the Engram. Until him and all that he was had been inserted in the head of a merc, a total stranger, who called herself V.
It took long enough, and it took enough pain from them both.
But that part of Johnny had taken a pretty huge hit after what she did for him at Mikoshi.
It had taken an even bigger hit after what had happened in the last year.
Or the last forty, if one wanted to be technical.
That part of Johnny had shrunk considerably, but it still existed.
He knew it, and V definitely knew it.
As it turned out, it wasn’t terribly easy to rid oneself of almost ninety years worth of learned behavior.
But that was life. Life as he knew it now.
And would know it, he hoped, for as long as possible.
He didn’t regret every decision from his years past.
Many, certainly. More than he could count. But not every one.
What his existence was now, it was a life that he knew was worth every breath, every blink, every second, because he had something to live for. Someone to live for.
Someone that drove him crazy, someone who knew exactly what got under his skin, someone who would smile lovingly to his face while flipping him off.
Someone who was hopelessly, frustratingly stubborn and destructive to a fault; someone who was tougher than nails, who Johnny was sure could lay him out any day of the week.
Vida was all of these things, and more. But she was also the most determined, unashamedly loyal, surprisingly kind and unapologetically gentle human person he’d ever known. Every day, he felt that he saw something new in her, felt something he’d never felt before. As she’d been since the day they’d first met, V was quite unlike anyone he’d ever known. And she always would be that.
She was the hand he held, the mouth he kissed, the eyes he could gaze into until he went blind and the voice he could listen to until he went deaf.
She made up the warmth that lay beside him every night; she was the sensations that he wrapped himself in every time her body met his and they existed as one for hours at a time.
It was after one such instance that he awoke, and the first thing he knew was the taste of her still lingering on his tongue. He still smelled her, still felt every line she had traced on his chest and every kiss she had pressed on his face and all of his body.
Johnny slipped from consciousness to wakefulness when he became aware that he didn’t feel Vida against him any longer, not in his arms or on his chest.
He lay with his arms stretched over her side of the bed. Fingers curling in the sheets, Johnny slowly opened his eyes, wondering what time it was.
He started to raise his head. Then he saw her.
She stood across the room, half-turned away from him, leaning her forehead against the cool glass of the window. He made no sound. She didn’t know he was awake.
He trailed his eyes over her bare back, over every tattoo and the lines of her muscles, down to the lingerie she wore.
The small metal pieces that betrayed her spinal mods glinted dimly in the light from the moon and neons, filtered through the window’s tint. It was a soft light, neither blue nor white, but somewhere in the middle.
Her dark hair, cropped and hovering halfway above her shoulders, also had that same light suffused throughout it.
The room was so still, so silent, that Johnny clearly heard the low breath of a laugh that bubbled in her throat. It was incredulous, and had a measure of sadness in it.
Then, in a tone so low he almost didn’t catch the words: “The Magician. You were right, Misty; god, you were right . . .”
Both arms crossed over her bare breasts, her hands rested lightly on her shoulders.
The most miniscule parts of the cyberware in her hands clicked as she drummed her fingertips on her skin. She exhaled, deeply, contentedly as she lowered her head.
The light from the moon was soft on her face as she turned back to the bed, facing Johnny’s still form. For a moment, only a moment, the light reflecting from the sheer metal of her mods looked less like a reflection, and more like several outlets. As if the moon didn’t shine on her, but from inside of her, and showed from little cracks in her skin.
Transfixed, Johnny didn’t have the breath to whisper the expletive that normally sufficed when his words failed him. It just wasn’t enough, because no words were enough.
She was so beautiful.
As he gazed up at her, Vida’s brow furrowed, somehow equal halves fond and confused.
He loved that look.
“What is it?” she murmured, as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
A second later, she was in his arms, her heart against his heart, her head on his chest as he pressed his mouth to her hair.
He felt the sensation of her low laugh as he held her to him, skin against skin.
“Hey. You okay, jerk wad?”
And there it was. He smiled to himself, kissing her brow a second, then a third time.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
She exhaled, giving his back a gentle rub with her fingertips. “Mm. That’s good.”
They stood silent after that, just breathing each other in. Content, quiet. Whole.
It was a moment Johnny wished he could never lose, never leave. He would have to, of course. But he would never forget it. Never.
He would replay it in his mind, he decided, every day for the rest of his life.
Gently, Vida pulled back from him. Standing on her toes, she reached up with one hand and gently pulled his face to hers. “I got you, Johnny,” she murmured.
Looking down at her through his lashes, Johnny put a hand at the back of her head.
“I got you," he replied as he always did before he closed the distance between her lips and his.