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There was a layer of dust on the strings.
She picked up the guitar, and balanced it across her lap to brush them off with her fingertips. It was the easiest thing to focus on right now, not who had owned it or why it was sitting in her apartment, or how everything else in her life had turned so cold.
Just... long before that.
Campfire ash and childish dreams of something more.
"Always wanted to learn how to play," she mused. "Ever since I was a kid, listening to the radio."
'Yeah,' came the answer, like one of her own thoughts but so distinctly not. 'I could feel it. Back when you touched mine.'
Talking out loud to no one was becoming a bad habit. But it was worse, somehow, so much worse when it was all in her own head.
Still. She imagined Johnny Silverhand - the Legend, the Rockerboy - watching her. Looming over her shoulder, just in the corner of her eye. Curiosity piqued.
Why didn't you?
The question he didn't even have to ask languished between them.
"Not like I ever had any talent for it..."
'Talent can be earned. Just like shootin' off a round, everyone has to start somewhere.'
"Yeah, maybe," V scoffed. She moved her fingers back and forth along the frets, an altogether meaningless pattern. "Not convinced I could ever wrap my head around songwriting, though."
'Maybe not. But it's not like you'd have to.'
"What d'you mean?"
'Want in on an industry secret?'
"...sure."
'That gaping wound in your heart is worth a fortune.'
V didn't answer.
Couldn't, around the sudden vacuum in her lungs.
The searing emptiness in her chest.
'That, right there,' Johnny told her. 'It's the authenticity of it. Any record agent worth his job would pick you up in a heartbeat. They can fake talent, they can write the lyrics for you to sing, but they can't fake authenticity. For that, they have to bleed you for all you're worth.'
"Are you telling me I should sell myself onto the public stage?" V asked, the edge to her voice laced with as much humor a she could force, "And fake it?"
'Nah. I'm telling you what's possible. If that's what you really wanted.'
V shook her head.
"I never said I wanted to be a star," she pointed out. "And I'd rather learn, myself. Even if it took the rest of my life."
There was a warm, if distant, flood of approval through her synapses.
'A little practice would go a long way.' Her fingers tightened on the neck of the guitar, not of her own volition, as though her hand was no longer her own. 'If you wanted, I could-...'
"No. I'm good. Not sure I wanna learn anymore, anyway. I..." V sucked in a measured breath to calm her nerves - she couldn't put the guitar down. "I 'unno. Not now." Not like this. "Maybe later."
The tension in her fingers vanished.
'Sure. Whatever.'
He might've been disappointed. V couldn't tell. And she didn't much care - even her circuits felt fried, and that was ignoring the whole soon to be overwritten and dying thing.
Much as it could be ignored.
She set Jackie's old guitar back in its resting place against the window, beside the bed. Maybe she ought to have put it in storage, but...
Instead, she kicked off her shoes and rolled into bed. She could imagine Johnny watching her, back against the window, keeping a casual vigil, for what little comfort it was.