Archive of Our Own

When she stumbled her way into Night City, never in a million years did V predict that she'd end up rubbing elbows with someone like Kerry Eurodyne.

They're not just living in two different worlds; the pair of them've spent the past several years living in entirely different solar systems, making their situation some real prince and pauper bullshit that still makes V's head spin whenever she thinks through the finer details of it all. Him, a rock star just south of his centennial, hair as silver as his tongue, so rich he's probably taken chunks of eddies out of his account at a time for the sole purpose of dumping it in his pool and swimming in it like a cartoon duck. Her, a former nomad-turned dirt-level mercenary, roughly three generations his junior, usually ending her nights without two ennies to rub together as she drags herself back to her rinky-dink Watson apartment. There've been times— honestly, it happens more often than it doesn't— where V's found herself chatting with Kerry, only to realize about halfway through the conversation that she doesn't have a damn clue what the man is even talking about. Parties, concerts, galas, functions, award shows, Lazrpop collaborations, corporate contracts; the only ways a tarmac rat like V had ever experienced music growing up was through an old radio she'd managed to tinker some life back into and a smattering of folks who knew how to strum a few half-decent songs on a guitar. She was motor oil from the undercarriage of a decrepit Galena, he was fancy mineral water that sold for ninety eddies a bottle. Maybe it was a good thing that they'd never be able to swim in the same circles.

But Johnny Silverhand, as he tended to do, both simplified and complicated that idea.

It was a easy enough request on paper, but have things ever really been easy when it comes to the rockerboy riding shotgun in her skull sponge? V genuinely wasn't sure how to proceed when Johnny detailed the steps of his plan to check up on his oldest friend. By that point, he'd had a fifty-fifty record when it'd come to using her body courteously: one time going on what seemed to have been an earnest but ultimately doomed date with an old flame and the other taking it on a wild, substance-filled joyride through seemingly every bar, dive, and strip club in the whole fucking city. Johnny seemed to've taken the tongue-lashing she'd given him after his bender to heart, however, at least enough that he hadn't gotten a new tattoo and diddled Rogue during his second go-around (a thought that made V seriously wonder when her bar for good behavior had sunken this low). Plus, from what little V could divulge from his memories by that point, Kerry seemed to fill the role of being the levelheaded yang to Johnny's horrendously chaotic yin, meaning that should they decide to paint the town red during their reunion, he probably wouldn't be the kind of person who would sit idlily back and let Johnny use a stranger's body to stick a tongue down the throat of every person that made his digital dick throb.

…At least, she hoped.

So, against a large chunk of her better judgement, V swallowed a pseudoendotrizine and woke up eight hours later to a silver-haired rockstar in a silk robe gently shaking her shoulder and offering her a glass of 7 a.m. bourbon like it was something he did for every dirty rimbo that broke into his mansion. And so began one the oddest companionships V'd ever found herself a part of.

For one, Kerry Eurodyne quickly proved that he was very much not a levelheaded man. Maybe when compared to Johnny, but that was sort of like saying that she was less violent of a person than Adam Smasher: when the point of contrast is the highest extreme on the scale, some of the results are probably going to end up skewed. Maybe it wasn't apparent in the beginning, when she was tracking down other members of Samurai for the concert and had to contend with Henry and Nancy's bullshit more than his, but shit quickly started hitting a new level when Kerry rang her holo a week later with a job of his own. That led to a series of ludicrous events all culminating in Kerry pointing a Budget Arms pistol at three women barely older than V was, all because some J-pop band was supposed to cover one of his songs for their upcoming tour without his express permission. Johnny had told V, somewhat apologetically, that fame and what constituted it was something of a sore spot for Kerry. Well, they'd been very, very, very fortunate that the Us Cracks girls were unusually chill with getting threatened at gunpoint for the stupidest of reasons, because V had a suspicion that she and Kerry'd both be getting a big fat scooping of more fame if their several counts of criminal damage and attempted murder got leaked to the screamsheets.

For another, Kerry's intentions with her always felt slightly…unclear…after the reunion concert. He's one of the only people, save for Vik, Misty, and now Rogue, that really know the whole truth about her and Johnny's situation, making it slightly awkward whenever he made a comment that was obviously meant for one of them and not the other (something he slipped into doing more often than not; whether Kerry was aware of it, V had no idea). Dragging him into this whole Relic business was Johnny's choice and she knew he'd felt shitty if he never got the chance to do it, but whenever she spoke with Kerry, V always ended up feeling like a middleman. Him calling her up after the concert only solidified that:

"Kerry?"

The man on the other end of the hollow frowned at the sound of her voice, "Uh, Johnny?"

V bit on the inside of her cheek at that. "Sorry, V this time," she told him, fighting to keep her tone even.

"Fuck, I, uh…" Kerry scratched at the back of his neck, at least having the decency to look self-conscious, "…sorry, don't really get how that show of yours works."

"Disappointed?"

A beat. "Nah, you'll work too. I mean…cool."

If the Relic had chewed her consciousness up completely that night and left Johnny as her body's sole resident, V had a sinking feeling that Kerry wouldn't be as upset about it as some of the other people in her life.

Yet the thing that troubled V the most about Kerry was his complete inability to keep himself in the present. That's arguably the biggest flaw she can find with him— whether he's fretting about bygone eras or fantasizing about some glorious future, the here and now seems to constantly elude the poor man. No matter what Johnny had said about Kerry's protectiveness regarding his legacy, V could tell they both knew this was stemming from something deeper than that. The engram's last words to Kerry for fifty long years was calling his oldest friend in the world a spineless piece of shit, for crying out loud. How much of that song debacle had been rooted solely in a desire to prove Johnny, and by extension her, wrong? By lashing out in such a bold and practically idiotic manner that they'd all have no choice to acknowledge that the Kerry of 2077 was no longer the pussy he'd been told he was in 2023? And for fuck's sake, if Kerry wasn't obsessing over the past, he was making references to some strange future down the line where everything was peachy-keen and perfect. Telling her about how he'd buy her cars, take her on trips, her own future as NC's top-dog— hell, he even floated the idea of hiring her on as huscle for his 2078 tour. It was as if the complications of the present didn't matter to Kerry. As if he felt everything had a way of working itself out if he just "believed hard enough", or some nonsense like that.

For V, already shackled by the weight of her past and too occupied with the biochip to think more than a week into her future, it all felt very immature to her, if not outright dangerous. If she spent more than a moment thinking about either of them too hard, the woulda-coulda-shouldas would eat her alive. How wonderful, to live in a world where the hic et nunc could afford to be a low priority?

But the more stupid shit she accompanied him on, the more V's stance on the man shifted. As they gradually got to know each other more, she came to realize that one of Kerry's biggest strengths is arguably one of her biggest insecurities; that being despite everything seemingly pushing him towards being the contrary, the man has a heart five times bigger than anyone in this city, one that he seems almost proud to wear on his sleeve. Constantly offering to flick her some eddies for rent, buying her meals and mixing her drinks whenever she came over without ever demanding an enny in return, actually going out of his way to bug her about her health despite her initial unwillingness to discuss anything Relic-related in front of him. He'd even stopped talking out loud to Johnny as much, or it could've been that V finally stopped getting so offended by it as time wore on and the pair of them found more even footing to stand on. By the time the Us Cracks situation had reached its amenable (albeit still incredibly messy) end, V found herself genuinely believing that Kerry liked her for her and not simply as a glorified taxi meant to ferry around the digitized ghost of his dead best friend. Maybe it was because she had finally gotten over something in herself, or maybe Kerry realized that he had nothing to prove to his former bandmate. Whatever it was, it was as if whatever fog had settled over them all after the reunion concert was finally lifting, and V found herself actually considering Kerry an honest to god...screw it, no other way to say it: friend.

Again, if V could go back in time and tell her nine-year-old self that the guy she always heard droning through the static on the radio would one day be one of her closest confidants, she's not sure she'd even believe the words coming out of her own mouth. Good fuckin' god.

Five-ish days after the press junket at Dark Matter, V was on her way towards the designated dropbox for a gig, stolen contraband tucked in her waistbag, when her holo buzzed with Kerry's contact picture. After checking to make sure no one was on her tail, she answers with a raised eyebrow, "Kerry, hey—"

"Drop whatever you're doing and meet me in an hour," she's interrupted without so much as a hello, a devious gleam in Kerry's ice-blue Kiroshis. "Night City Marina, pier four, sunset. You're in for a real treat, V!"

And as quickly as he rang her, he hangs up on her, leaving a flabbergasted V standing in the middle of an Arroyo sidewalk.

"Why on earth do you think he needs me at the pier, of all places?" she finds herself asking Johnny, words sagging with suspicion.

There's a brief bit of silence, which V just knows means her beloved brain parasite is shrugging his shoulders inside of her head, "Could he finally cracked, took a hammer and bam— killed his agent right there on the spot. Now he's gonna have you take care of disposin' the body. How's it feel to be Kerry's very own Tom Hagen, V?"

"Don't even joke about that. Thought we were finally through with all this L.B. Kova-whatever drama," V grouses, making a vague motion to the nape of her neck as she starts walking again, "Rate we're going, Kerry's gonna end up killing me before the Relic'll even get a chance to."

"Good point. Maybe he wants to put a pair of cinderblock shoes on your feet instead?"

"Har har."

"But in all seriousness, I've seen that look of his before. Ker used to have an '69 Mach 1 'fore he totaled it into a lamppost in 2009; every time he saw someone he wanted to suck dry, he'd flash 'em the smile, wiggle the brows, and tell them they could take a spin out in his Mustang. Made me fuckin' gag every time I saw it."

"Bet the feeling was mutual every time you pulled the same stunt with the Porsche."

"Shove it, V."

After officially completing her gig and watching another four thousand eddies drop into her bank account, V hops on her Kusanagi and drives across town to City Center, arriving just around sunset as instructed. She approaches the collection of docks making up pier four to find a jumble of NCPD dinghies, what appears to be a repurposed shrimping boat, and one massive, seventy-foot luxury yacht. Obsidian-black with gold trimmings, a massive antenna covered with every sonar and satellite imaginable, and all topped off with a big, fat, glittery "Seamurai" emblazoned on the ship's stern (she can practically taste Johnny's exasperation at that as he groans in the back of her skull). And who else to greet her but Captain Kerry Eurodyne himself, foot propped on the edge of the boat and wearing a look like a kid about to take their parent's car for it's very first joyride, "Ahoy there, scallywag!"

"Ahoy back atcha!" V hollers around a laugh. She's not sure what's funnier— Kerry posing at the helm looking like a poor man's Captain Morgan, or the fact that he chose such an utterly tasteless name for his yacht and then slapped said name across the butt of it like an embarrassing tramp stamp, "What's goin' on?"

"Wanna come aboard? Up for a cruise around the bay, kickin' it with ol' Kerry?"

She feels her smile instantly drop. "What's the occasion?" V deflects, not moving from her spot at the edge of the jetty.

"New beginnings! And life's loops!"

"Can't we celebrate life's…'loops'…at your place? Or my place? Or in a bar?"

She can't tell for sure from this distance, but Kerry swings his head around in what's surely a dramatic display of eye-rolling, "V, please don't make me ruin the surprise! You comin' or not!?"

She doesn't answer that right away, gaze instead falling to the Pacific Ocean. The water patiently waits for her decision. waves eagerly lapping against the dock as the tide pushes in, pulls back, pushes in, pulls back, in a quiet but unmistakable display of power.

V has many strong suits and water is decidedly notone of them. You'd be hard-pressed to find a nomad outside of Thelas Nation who could swim more than a doggy paddle, though, so really, who would be surprised to hear that? The only kinds of sea she ever knew until she came to Night City were the seas of dunes and sand that crisscrossed the Arizona Badlands, and it wasn't like merc work required her to jump in Del Coronado Bay on the daily. And when it came to sailing? No way, no how. One little bump or slip, and suddenly someone's gotta hire a subjock to fish what's left of your corpse off the bottom of the ocean. Hell, even crossing the bridge from Watson into Japantown is enough to make V a bit queasy; if death by biochip overwrite was the thing that terrified her the most, death by drowning would probably rank a pretty close second.

But still, despite V's knee-jerk reaction being to tell Kerry "Sorry, but I'm fine with never stepping on a boat in my life, thank you very much" and remaining on dry land like a proper nomad should, a twinge of shame in her gut keeps her from declining outright. After all, she'd given Judy that exact same reaction recently— her friend had invited her out for a night of diving and BD testing out at Laguna Bend not knowing V was more liable to sink in water than swim through it, leaving her with no choice but to pass on the offer and head back into town. Four days and several long strings of apologetic texts had passed since then and V was still feeling horrifically shitty about the whole thing. Judy'd assured her it was totally alright and they could just do it somewhere else, yet that had only made her feel even worse. With how bad her Relic malfunctions had become, not to mention how dire everything at Arasaka seemed to be getting, time wasn't exactly something V had an abundance of at the moment, meaning every precious minute had to count in full.

V looks the yacht up and down again. It doesn't…seem…unsound? Looks big enough that she won't get knocked around or trip overboard by accident. Plus, if she falls in, it's not as if Kerry'll just let her drown.

Finally, after what must've felt like ages of deliberation on her end, V swallows her trepidation down and sighs, "Okay, yeah, fine, I'm in."

"Music to my fuckin' ears!" Kerry whoops. He's soon waving her on again, more hurriedly this time, "C'mon, V, sun's settin'! Only got an hour or so left of daylight, time's tickin'!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm comin', old man, don't get your leather pants in a knot."

Kerry extends a hand that V is more than happy to take as she steps off the loading ramp and onto a boat for the very first time. It's definitely a vessel that's built for leisure in mind and not function. The deck is wide and spacious, easily able to hold several dozen people at a time, with red carpeting fitted into the floor and several plush white sofas against each wall that probably cost a year's worth of her rent apiece. Kerry leads her to a crescent couch in the rear of the boat and motions for her to sit down; as V gratefully collapses onto the cushions (and tries to hide how green around the gills she's feeling with the boat swaying underfoot), he grabs a blue guitar she hadn't noticed propped against the side of the sofa and settles down next to her with it on his lap. Out of the corner of her eye, V sees Johnny fizzle back into realspace as well, lying over the railing of the yacht and staring into the array of golden clouds circling above.

"Now if I can find the button to raise, uh…" Kerry glances around the deck for something, then seems to decide it wasn't worth the effort as his Kiroshis sync with the boat's operating system, "Dagh, fuck it. Seamurai, all ahead!"

The yacht gives an affirmative beep, slowly revving up before gliding elegantly out of the marina and into the open ocean.

Honestly, it's not near as bad as V thought it'd be. The Pacific is rather calm for the most part, happy to let the three of them drift along its surface without bothering them with rough waves and harsh currents. Kerry begins to strum the guitar after a few minutes of sailing: an unfamiliar but still elegant tune that he seems to still be working his way through, humming bits of lyrics under his breath as though testing out how they sound on the open air. The yacht's speed is brisk but not breakneck, and surely enough, V finds that she's soon relaxed enough to lean back fully into the couch, cybernetic leg drawn up with her arm propped on it Silverhand-style, letting the warm sea breezes and Kerry's playing lull her into a trance. Even Johnny seems content to just lay back and embrace the tranquility of it all, foot bouncing in time to Kerry's gentle melody as they cruise through a golden twilight.

The conversation eventually kicks back up again once they'd sailed for a while. She and Kerry don't talk about anything life-altering or dire, just about…stuff. Inconsequential stuff, like bluesmen, and spiritual needs, and his first songwriting experiences, and life's "loops". Which, as it turned out, was not Kerry's way of describing how the world had a bad habit of throwing the boat's occupants for violent, painful loops (some occupants more than others), but rather a means of remarking on the cyclical nature of existence. One door opens, another door closes. The ending words of one story can be the opening lines of another. Life always finds new ways to change, yet it never stops to do so. V smiles sadly at the notion as she lolls her head back towards engram of the rockerboy bunking in her head, noting the way sunlight shimmers through his ever-glitching form.

All three of them have been thrust into a fair share of new beginnings, hadn't they? Her leaving the Bakkers, Johnny deserting the army, Kerry striking out on his own when the Fourth Corporate ended, and that's just to name a few. Wasn't but a couple of months ago that she and Johnny experienced another sort of do-over— this time in an incredibly literal sense— then decided to knock on Kerry's door and drag him by his ankles along for the ride. Now here they all are, all their paths winding into the others' in the strangest of ways. Wasn't exactly smooth sailing most of the time, but there seems to be a general, unspoken consensus amongst the Seamurai's passengers that breaking into that villa was something of a necessary step forward for all three of them.

V's never been a staunch believer in fate and determinism. Life's loops, though? Yeah, maybe that's something she can get behind.

"You alright, kid?"

V's pulled back into the real world with a small start. Kerry eyes her from across the sofa with something like curiosity. "Talkin' to Johnny?" he asks her, something hanging off his words that she can't exactly place.

She shakes her head, "Nah, just…thinking, I guess. Got a lot of things on my mind."

To her relief, Kerry simply hums his understanding and doesn't press her for details. Even as he talks to her, his fingers never miss a beat on the guitar strings, as though they're operating independently from the rest of his brain, "Me too, kid. Been thinkin' 'bout that Us Cracks fiasco lately. 'Bout how you helped me. A lot," he confesses, then adds, almost admiringly: "You shake things up, V. 'Fore you came along, I was stuck in the mud."

"And now?"

"Got me thinkin' 'bout a new song— a new album, even," as if attempting to make the point further, Kerry lapses back into silence in favor of hammering out a flurry of notes on the Lancaster. "A real fuckin' thrasher with a new soul. Like everything from now on. Had what I think folks call…an epiphany."

"Eh, could just be what folks call 'maturity'," V can't stop herself from teasing him.

Kerry smirks to himself at that, catching her eye again, "You'll see. No more mayhem, no more shady-ass schemes. Done with that."

V can hear Johnny make a point of pretending to vomit over the edge of the yacht.

"Really? You're tellin' me that Kerry Eurodyne— Samurai guitarist and sworn enemy of every J-pop band from here to Osaka— is going straight-edge?" she asks, snickering. "Think I'll believe it when I see it."

"Joke all you want, kid, but that's the truth of it," when V raises a brow, Kerry winks one of his ice-blue optics at her, "Well, startin' tomorrow."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll see."

They settle back into companionable silence again as the Seamurai continues on its predetermined course, giving a wide berth to the massive pillars designating the edge of the Arasaka Waterfront as it snakes towards the edge of the city and bears slightly northeast towards a secluded stretch of shoreline. The sun has almost fully sunken into the sea by this hour, a fiery-red slice of light just barely able to peek over the edge of the ocean. Back on dry land, V can see the cars and trucks picking their way through the growing darkness along 101 North, headlights burning up and down the horizon.

V has to prevent herself from jumping again as the deck suddenly lurches, the Seamurai shuddering underfoot as it comes to a stop some ways from the nearest shoreline. She shoots a questioning look towards Kerry, only to find that he's already risen from the couch.

"All right!" Kerry exclaims, "Now, for a breath of freedom!"

And then he takes the neck of the guitar in both hands, raises it over his head, and smashes it down on the deck of the boat.

V yelps in surprise as bits of acrylic and ebony fly into the air, the Lancaster shattering into a thousand little pieces the instant it's body collides with the deck. Apparently having forgotten that this was a boat cruise instead of a sold-out stadium concert, Kerry bashes the poor thing into the ground several more times before he's finally satisfied, then flings the mangled remains of the axe over V's head and into the bay with a garbled shout. Even Johnny's scrambled upright at the commotion, looking torn between being impressed by his friend's audacity and irritated that it'd come about by Pete Townshend-ing a guitar easily worth the GDP of a small country.

Kerry's already jerking his head at V for her to follow before the smashed Lancaster even hits the water. "You gonna fuckin' help me, or just stand there like a gonk?" he demands.

A potent combination of Johnny's amusement and elation has started to bubble in the back of her head at the sight of what'd just transpired, yet the words that leave V's own mouth are bordering somewhere on horrorstruck, "Have you lost your goddamn mind!? That's eddies down the drain!"

"Hit the nail on the head," Kerry growls, a wild and incensed look on his face as he gestures over the yacht. "Think this is my boat? Really think I'd be gonk enough to buy a yacht and name it fuckin' Seamurai?"

"Then who's the fuck is it!?" she demands, bolting to her feet.

"Leadhead motherfucker," each syllable is spat out like a curse, "L.B. Kovachek."

V's mouth drops open. "Kovachek? That Kovachek?" she echoes, but Kerry's already turned his back to her, "Kerry!?"

By now, her friend has made for the set of stairs leading to the cabin and disappeared down them, forcing V to pick up her pace and follow. At the bottom, she finds a cozy but still relatively spacious lounging area gilded in white and gold, loaded wall-to-wall with couches and bar stools and TVs and various instruments and even a fully stocked minibar. Beer bottles and half-empty handles of booze are scattered about, as though someone'd just thrown a party on the damn thing and hadn't bothered to clean their mess up yet. There's a fizzling sound and a fresh spike of delight pricking against V's skull sponge as Johnny materializes next to the entranceway, a cigarette dangling from his crooked grin.

Kerry's in the process of knocking the liquor handles off the bartop when V reaches the bottom of the staircase, his rant picking up steam as he palms the last one and takes a pull from it. "Never got a chance to thank him—" without missing a beat, he proceeds to hurl the bottle against a TV on the far wall. There's a massive crashas they both shatter on impact, shards of glass and wasted liquor raining over the floor, "—for the Us Cracks shit…and a few other things," Kerry continues, now rounding to the backside of the bar and stooping down behind it.

"Hm. Either he's gone senile or he's finally wizened the fuck up," Johnny hums from his vantage point against the wall, before adding, "could be either."

When Kerry resurfaces, there's a fireman's axe clutched in his hands.

Senile. Definitely senile.

"Gonna get some wicked bad posture from that stick you've got crammed up your ass."

V flips him off from behind her back and earns an affable snort for her efforts.

Meanwhile, having seemingly deciding that his axe-smashing display on the deck was worthy of an encore, Kerry winds up and brings the head of the axe down on the oak countertop with all his might, scattering splinters everywhere when he wrenches the thing free and readies himself for another swing. Before he can take another chunk out of the bar, he lolls his head towards V and shoots her a pointed look, "Well, gonna stand there and watch me all night? Chose somethin' and smash it."

Folding her arms across her chest, V finally offers him an apologetic shrug of sorts, "Might have to sit this one out, Ker."

Kerry pauses mid-windup to huff at her. "Got a steel rod up your ass, you know that?" he says crossly.

V's scowl only deepens at that, "Signed up for a boat ride around the bay, not doin' something that'll wind up getting me thrown in a holding cell for a night."

"For the love of god, quit bein' such a goody-fuckin'-two shoes," Johnny finally chimes in. When V trains her glare over her shoulder, he's rolling his eyes so hard that they're threatening to spin right out of their digital sockets. "You just got out-ruled two to one. We're both in agreement: steel rod."

You don't get a vote in this.

"Based on what?"

Based on being a dead man claiming squatters rights on my skull sponge.

Johnny pauses to blow a raspberry but carries on undiscouraged, "Kerry needs this. Hell, you need this too, V. I can feel it."

She chews on that for a bit, during which Kerry's managed to take several more chunks out of the bartop and is now attempting to pry the damn thing off with his bare hands, but with a sigh and a shake of her head, V finally relents. "Fine. I break one thing of your choices, so you better make it count, Ker," she warns.

Kerry glances around several times, brow furrowed in thought like this is something actually worth the significance he's giving it. Finally, points at an INFUSO espresso machine sitting at the far end of the bar. "Have at it," the ghost of a smile plays at his features as he says that, "but I'll warn ya; once you smash something, you won't stop at just one."

Now it's V's turn to roll her eyes but she approaches the espresso maker as requested. It's lined in solid gold— like everything in this cabin, apparently— and has twelve different combinations of coffee and synmilk to choose from. To be honest, she's never seen one of these fancy-schmancy machines in person: these things retail for thousands of eddies a pop, a right good fucking waste of money when a half-decent percolator or a cheap coffee maker would do the trick just was easily.

The thing dies with a pathetic series of chirps and beeps when she pulls it out of the wall, leftover coffee sloshing in its tank. Sparing a second to frown, V raises ten thousand eddies worth of tech over her head and slams it into the floor with all her might. It breaks as if it was made of porcelain, gears and bolts and old coffee grinds exploding across the wood flooring.

All V does is blink.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh shit, maybe she does need this.

"Ah, fuck it," V declares, "let's rip this boat to shreds!"

"Now you're speakin' my language!" Kerry, having abandoned his efforts to pull the countertop off in favor of gathering up an armful of expensive-looking wine bottles, cheers from behind the bar, "Go on, have at it— this one's on L.B.!"

For several minutes, the pair of them leave the other to their own destructive devices. Kerry sets about grabbing every bottle of alcohol he can find in the minibar and smashing them over the floor while V puts her foot through the paintings hanging on the walls, busts the light fixtures in with the barstools, swings the vinyl player into the wall by its power cord, and stomps both coffee tables into smithereens with her cybernetic leg. Unable to join in on the fun, Johnny glitches from the wall to lounge on one of the couches, watching the destruction unfold around him with an almost childlike sort of amusement. "'Member when you woke up in that scrapyard? That's where he is now; bein' reborn with fuck-all to stop him," he says when V drifts past him, grabbing the boom box off the end table.

Two very different circumstances, rockerboy, V jerks her head towards said reborn man, who's reclaimed his precious fire axe and is currently butchering the living shit out of the cushions and pillows on the opposite sofa. Still not convinced this isn't just old man Eurodyne finally going off his rocker.

"Pot talkin' 'bout the kettle much?" Johnny nods to the radio she's clutching.

Who really needs a boom box and a record player? Just fuckin' gratuitous at that point.

"Then put your eddies where your mouth is and just smash it already."

Smirking, V hurls the boom box into the other TV, reducing both electronics to piles of plastic and sparking machinery. Johnny lets out another approving snort, shoo-shooing her back into the fray with a lazy wave of his hand.

The cabin of Kovachek's yacht looks as though a tornado had touched down inside of it by the time she and Kerry finish destroying everything of worth. Couches ripped apart and gutted, massive chunks taken out of the floor and walls, no inch of the place left unscathed after their little romp of mass destruction. V can't even see the floor for glass, splinters, chunks of cushioning from the sofas, and copious amounts of spilled booze courtesy of Kerry's minibar ransacking. The pungent smell of various liquors puddling together is making V's eyes water, which Kerry only adds to by fishing a pack of smokes out of his pocket and lighting one. Blowing a smoke ring, he stares out over the razed cabin with a look she can only describe as awestruck, "Fuckin' beautiful, ain't it?"

"Something like that," V says breezily, fighting down a slight smile of her own.

"How you feelin'?"

"I'll admit, better than I thought I would."

"That's the spirit, kid." curls of smoke dance through the air as Kerry holds his cigarette out to her, "Anyway, care to do the honors?"

Now V fixes him with a puzzled look, eyes flitting from the cig to Kerry and back again, "The…honors? Like, what, want me to take a drag or something?"

Kerry shakes his head slightly and, if it were even possible, smiles even wider, "No, scop-for-brains, I want you to toss it in. Baptism by fire, or water, or whatever."

"Why?"

"For the fuckin' barrels, genius."

V feels her stomach drop somewhere between her ankles.

"Barrels?" she echoes, voice pitching up slightly when her trepidation makes a horrible reappearance, digging its claws right into her guts, "barrels of what, exactly?"

"Think I fuckin' know?" Kerry brushes her off with another shake his head, even having the audacity to sound peeved at the abrupt sharpness of her tone, "I put out an ask for somethin' that'd go ka-boom and wouldn't you know, I found somethin' that'll go ka-boom. Got a dozen of 'em crammed in the engine room below the cabin. Seller even gave me a demonstration for my troubles; you're gonna love it, kid, it'll be like Fourth of July in early December."

At that, the severity of the situation slam finally slams down on V's shoulders in full. A sudden revelation makes her glance back over her shoulder, attention falling on all the liquor that'd pooled together from the bottles Kerry'd smashed. That wasn't just for revenge, V realizes, but for accelerant: an improvised fuse. He'd turned the entire yacht into a goddamn bomb and didn't have the forethought to even tell her before dragging her aboard!?

"I thought we were just trashing the boat!? Y'know, knocking some shit around, breaking some tables?" V shouts, struggling to keep the fear out of her words as she rounds on him again, "You never said anything about blowing the fucking thing up!"

"V, doll, thought you learned by now that I don't believe in the concept of half-assing my messages? Kovachek fucks with my life, my contract? Fine. Means I get free rein to jam a foot so far up his ass, he'll be tastin' my boot polish in the back of his mouth for a week," Kerry says with an enormous grin, satisfaction and exhilaration dripping off his every word.

"And how the fuck are we getting back to land, Kerry!?"

"Jesus, kid, cool your jets, I thought of that already. Parked the yacht just a ways offshore, deep enough for the Seamurai's watery grave but close enough that we won't be swimmin' all night," he motions back up the stairs as he says that. "Should be an easy-peasy swim, but heads up— water'll probably be fuckin' freezin' this time of year. Speakin' from experience on that one."

"Kerry, I can't—"

"V, relax. I'm tellin' you, it's, like, a football field's swim back to land at most. Babies can paddle that distance."

"Will you fucking li—!"

"No point in livin' if you aren't livin' full blast!"

V can't get another word in edgewise before Kerry winks at her and flicks his cigarette back into the cabin.

She makes a desperate grab for it but barely misses, meaning she gets a front row view to watch as the cabin bursts into blistering flames. Kerry'd doused everything in the cabin in so much booze that it all catches ablaze in an instant, and the room is soon choked with smoke as the fire begins to consume everything within eyesight. All V can do is stare in to the flames, mouth hanging open, powerless to stop the raging inferno as it begins to burn into the hardwood floors— the only barrier separating the explosives in the engine room from the one thing that will set them all off.

Then there's a slight tug on her wrist that pulls her from the entryway and back towards the deck. "Race ya to the beach!" she hears Kerry, somehow still oblivious to her horrified reaction, holler over his shoulder as he drags her away.

They bound up the steps together, V coughing as the cold air burns the whole way down her smoke-scorched throat. When they reach the top, Kerry lets go of V's arm and charges forward in a gold and white blur; letting out one last whoop of delight, he leaps off the deck of the Seamurai, cannonballing into the waters below.

V attempts to follow his lead but alarm slams down on the brakes for her, stumbling to the edge of the boat with her heart beating ferociously in her ears. Seawater swirls and stirs and churns like a restless dream, black waves and white foam beating in furious time against the sides of the yacht. There's a dark band way in the distance that marks the shoreline she should be swimming for, but it's just so fucking far. Seventy-five yards might be an easy swim for someone like Kerry, sure, but for someone like her, in these kinds of waters? The waves crest and crash with reckless abandon, an innocent sort of madness in the way they throw themselves on top of each other, as though the ocean cares little about what gets swallowed up within its gaping, watery maw.

Suddenly, V finds her body won't quite respond to her urgent thoughts. Staring into the depths of the sea, she feels every last bit of panic, horror, and dread collide in her head at once, leaving her rooted to the spot in a fear-induced haze. She might've damn well stood there like the biggest idiot alive and gave her ghost up to a fucking yacht explosion of all things if Johnny's disembodied voice hadn't yanked her back to reality, "Ground control to Major-fucking-V! You gonna stare into the water all night like you're fuckin' Narcissus, or you wanna get your ass in gear and bail 'fore the Maritime Demolitron blows you to kingdom come!?"

"Right…" V says weakly, though she still spares a glance back over her shoulder. The blaze has spread so far upwards at this point that it's eating away at the bridge, tongues of flame flicking out the windows in a moment of rebelliousness while sparks and embers flicker like fireflies as they take to the open air. There's so much smoke pouring out of the boat by now that it's frankly a miracle the NCPD hasn't sent an army of squadcars to meet them on the beach yet. V tears her eyes off the inferno and drops them back into the agitated Pacific just a few feet below her. The waves heave themselves up the boat with mounting intensity, determined to grip the Seamurai by its sides and drag it down themselves.

What did Kerry say before he threw that cigarette? Baptism by fire or water?

An awful grinding noise rises from below deck. V's arms flail about for balance when deck beneath her feet shudders, groans, and then begins to list sideways— in all but name, that's the final ticks of her timer running out.

"V, fuckin' jump!"

Water it is, then.

V takes a deep breath and jumps overboard.

The instant her feet hit the waves, the Seamurai explodes.

The shockwaves that slam into her back hurl V through the water with a frightening amount of power, pushing her head over heels into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. She can hear the sounds of yacht chunks and debris raining down somewhere…near her, around her, where the fuck even is she? Everything is still violently spinning by the time V feels her body come to some sort of standstill, but her mind is too muddled to make sense of her own surroundings. The only thing she feels is the sensation of sinking: down, down, down into the cold, black infinite.

Unable to open her eyes, feel for her surroundings, or even draw a breath, all she can do is flail her arms through the water in an effort to orient herself, hoping the direction she's clawing towards is taking her towards the surface. Her wrist strikes something hard and metallic as she thrashes about, precious air bubbles escaping when she cries out in pain with more following once the ocean water rushes up her sinuses.

"V!"

Despite the water effectively serving as synthcotton in her ears and dampening every other sound around her, Johnny's rough voice pierces through that silence like a bullhorn. His words are firm enough, but there's an underlying note of alarm within them when he barks "V, ya gotta kick, for Christ's sake! Stop trying to force your way to the surface and use your goddamn legs!"

Gritting her teeth, V pushes the pain into the back of her mind and attempts to kick her legs out. They scissor back and forth once, then twice, three times, four, until she finally gets them in some sort of graceless, inelegant rhythm. Her body screams for air and every kick is sapping what little reserves of energy she still has, but V slowly feels herself begin to move. More bubbles rush up the sides of V's face and it vaguely dawns on her that whatever direction they're going is the direction she needs to be swimming for, so she twists around to chase after them. The light behind her eyelids shifts, gets brighter, stronger. Frantic, it's not long before V's clawing again, throwing as much of her strength as she can into her movements as she scratches and scrapes and pulls and rises.

And then she tastes air.

V sucks in a single harsh breath, the smack of salt on her senses making her gag as she momentarily breaks through the surface of the ocean. Hands scrabbling to stay afloat and legs kicking as hard as she can move them, she heaves herself around so she's pointed towards the shore, eyes landing on a silver something bobbing atop the surf in the not-so-far distance.

Before V can shout for help, another wave slams down on her.

All the air instantly shoots out of her lungs as she's sucked below once more, banging off more debris on her way back down. V's quicker to reorient herself this time around, legs pumping to flip her body back towards the surface, and begins the grueling process of dragging her body back up once again. Her operating system is staring to list off warnings in her HUD but V's too fixated on other things to pay much mind to it. The way her heartbeat tastes in the back of her throat, the soft pangs of exhaustion that ripple up her torso after every kick, the way her entire body seems to be getting heavier and heavier with each desperate motion she makes.

Rising up out of the Pacific is far less grand the second time than the first. V's head barely manages to break the surface as she comes up again, having to crane her neck the full way back just to keep her mouth above water. Through blurred, stinging eyes, V just barely makes out Kerry's pale mess of hair again— he's easily a good thirty yards ahead of her, frog-stroking through in the waters with ease on his way back towards dry land. The silver shifts to tan and gold when he throws a look back over his shoulder, attempting to wave her on.

V tries to call out to him, tries to shout his name, tries to force a single word out of her mouth that will lead to her rescue. Arms splashing and thrashing, it's all she can do to suck in one last shallow breath before her strength fails her, slipping below the waves without a sound.

Black crawls up the edges of her vision as she sinks downwards for the third, and what's starting to feel like the final, time. Hopelessness mounting, V struggles against her own body in a desperate attempt to get it moving but her mind is too oxygen-starved to listen. Any movements she makes are weak, ineffective, and futile against the might of the ocean's will.

"C'mon, kid, kick, for fuck's sake!"

She tries. God, is she fucking trying. Her last desperate series of flutter-kicks barely move her an inch or so, and that's when the last of her strength fails her. V stretches her hands towards the world above, searching for the line that separates them, but there's nothing but icy water all around her. Bubbles stream out of the corners of her mouth as the Pacific presses down on her body from all sides, holding her in the way a coffin holds a corpse.

So is this how it ends. Drowned, like a rat washed down a sewer grate.

The lone piece of her mind still coherent enough for consciousness chuckles at the irony.

Johnny is yelling something else but the words don't make it through anymore. She doesn't register anything else above, below, or around her, floating into a quiet void as the darkness crashes down over her vision.

And then V closes her eyes…

…

…

…

…and Johnny Silverhand opens them.

Johnny lets out a gasp that's half-surprise and half-panic, only to instantly regret it when something cold and salty rushes down his throat. For one brief, horrifying moment, he figures he's back in Mikoshi again until his body adjusts to the odd weightless present its suddenly been thrust into. Every part of him burns in quiet agony, vision sloshing like the last dregs of alcohol at the bottom of a bottle and a pair of bricks sitting inside of his chest where his lungs should be.

No, wait, not his lungs.

V's lungs.

God-fucking shit.

Fighting down dread, Johnny tries kicking back out again but to no avail. He can feel the awful drag of that damn metal leg when he does so— the steel plating not only adds a good fifteen pounds to V's body weight, but it tugs heavily on the water and saps his stamina in a way her 'ganic leg doesn't, making it little more than a glorified barbell fixed to her thigh that threatens to drag Johnny down to a watery grave. Small wonder the kid swam like a slab of concrete. It's a fucking miracle she managed to breech the surface twice with this thing dragging her down, never mind haul herself the whole way back to shore with it.

No, shut up, Johnny. They need air. They need air now.

Summoning any adrenaline to be found in a body that feels more and more like literal dead weight, Johnny presses V's legs together and dolphin-kicks as hard as he can. Even with their sapped strength, the motion propels them forward, just a smidge. Johnny kicks out again, harder this time. Every movement he makes feels like it's going to shatter V's body into pieces but he keeps pushing onwards, upwards, as hard as he possibly can. He cracks V's eyes open just wide enough to see ripples above their head where the waves tear across the surface. Soft streaks of light filter down like holy salvation and Johnny throws himself towards them like a sinner on their deathbed, clawing and pumping and clawing and pumping and clawing and pumping as hard and fast as he possibly can until—

The first gulp he takes when V's head breaks the surface for the third time is probably the sweetest damn thing Johnny's tasted in fifty years. Gasping and coughing, Johnny throws her arms out in an attempt to find any sort of buoyancy, trying to keep the 'ganic leg pumping but too depleted to move the cybernetic one another inch. A small wave gently rolls him forward and a fresh spark of fear freezes Johnny's blood right in its veins when he remembers the force of the one that'd dragged V back under the first time, ripping her from the surface with a sort of vengeance that seemed far too human for comfort.

"V!"

Johnny turns towards where his waterlogged brain thinks it heard her name come from and comes nose-to-nose with his best friend. Kerry's five feet away when Johnny sees him and he closes that distance remarkably fast, panic-stricken face coming into sharp focus as he approaches. "Kid, you okay!?" he screams, blue eyes so wide they're about to bug right out of his skull.

"Ker…" Johnny tries to paddle over, nearly slipping back under the waves for his efforts as yet another wave washes over them both. A set of arms wrap around V's torso and heave him upwards before he can start to sink again; they resurface together with her back snug against Kerry's chest, his labored pants hot in Johnny's ear as he begins to pull them back towards the beach.

Johnny returns to land in reverence: head bowed, crawling forward on hands and knees until he's far enough inland to collapse over the pebbly shore. There isn't a single part of the body that doesn't feel like it's been beaten to hell and back by Poseidon himself— V's arms and organic leg are numb with exhaustion, sopping clothes clinging to her frame and clumps of blue hair stuck to the sides of her face. Each breath is shallow at best, as though the lungs have to relearn how to take in air. But all that matters is that they're out of danger. Johnny even spares a moment to send a silent thanks to whatever fuckass thing is listening that all that drowning hadn't caused V to suffer a Relic malfunction underwater. That probably would've done them both in.

Something lightly touches V's shoulder. "Still with me, V?" he hears Kerry ask above him, "C'mon, say somethin' to me. Not askin' for much here."

Johnny's only answer is upchucking what feels like a gallon of seawater all over Kerry's boots.

He hears a stifled sort of chuckle, then a grunt of effort as Kerry hooks him under the shoulders, flips him over, and drags him away from his mess. Johnny's settled a few feet away, carefully maneuvered into a sitting position so he's upright and not in danger of choking on his own vomit. Now assured of their safety, Kerry turns back to the waves, leaving Johnny to raises V's head with a weary groan in an effort to follow.

As it turns out, the lights Johnny'd seen from underwater were not a form of heavenly deliverance; really, the more apt comparison probably would've been found at the opposite end of that spectrum. The inky-purple night is singed with orange, flames crackling merrily as they consume the blackened carcass of the yacht formerly known as Seamurai. Whatever the fuck Kerry had used to blow the thing apart had certainly done the job. For a boat that size, it was sinking remarkably fast, it's whole ass sticking up in the air like a stripper short on rent as the Pacific drags it to its final resting place. And watching it all is the reborn man of the hour himself, hands on his hips and delighted disdain rolling off of him in fucking waves.

"Suck on this, Kovachek!" Kerry screams into the vast and empty night, throwing up a gonk pair of double birds to boot as the husk of the yacht continues to slip below the surf. "Kiss my fuckin' ass, douchebag!"

About twenty minutes ago, Johnny had a feeling he might've been hollering right alongside his friend when all was said and done. Such a daring and balls-to-the-walls move from a man he used to assume had been fucking neutered in his youth was worthy of any sort of celebration in Johnny's eyes. Then he probably would've heard V scoff. Would've heard her call Kerry an idiot for not telling her the plan. And then she'd've called him an idiot, too, words dripping with a sort of sardonic fondness she only shared with close friends long before they shared it with each other.

V.

His gaze drops to her lap, her hands. The image of his silver arm glitches and shimmers over her own, covering the cloud tattoos layering up her wrist. Her nails dig into her palm when Johnny clenches her fist, but the pricks of pain that follow are all his own.

V, you in there? Johnny thinks, C'mon, kid, gimme a sign.

The silence in his head is loud enough to deafen him.

Kerry's back is still turned when Johnny begins pulling V's shaking body upright. He must hear shuffling, though, because the talking starts back up soon enough, "J'ya see that, V? What'd I say? Like the fourth'a fuckin' Ju-ly!"

"Are…"

"Think I shoulda loaded it with more barrels, or come with black market C-6. Maybe some potassium chlorate and dye for a little more pop? Penny for your thoughts?"

"Are you out…"

"Think I oughta start usin' my own pool a bit more oft—"

"Are you out of your fucking mind!?"

Kerry whips around in surprise as Johnny staggers over, ice in his voice and hands curled into trembling fists. "So you steal some fuckers yacht, cram it's ass up with explosives like a Thanksgiving turkey, and decide you're gonna blow it up. Fine, fuckin'-A, couldn't care less, good for you! But you didn't think 'oh, maybe, just maybe, I should give V a heads up in case she doesn't wanna come'? 'Gee, maybe I should ask if V can, oh, I dunno, even fucking swim 'fore I toss her in the middle of the ocean'!? What, did those years of seein' your goddamn fuck-ass guru in who-the-hell-cares-fuckin' Tangalan finally shred the last scraps of whatever common sense you still had post-2023!?"

Wide-eyed and speechless, Kerry attempts to backpedal across the beach but Johnny's quick to close the distance even on V's unstable feet. "And then, and-fuckin'-then, you didn't even think to fuckin' stay with her! Just jumped ship like a sorority girl partyin' on daddy's Miami Vice yacht, bailed off back to shore, and you only thought to come back when you just so happened to finally turn the fuck around!"

"I-I didn't think—"

"Yeah, right there's the fuckin' problem: you never think! It's all fun and games for you until your gonk-ass plan forces a kid who can't swim for shit to jump into the ocean and find her way back to dry land like she's the next comin'a Gertrude Ederle! That sound like fun and fuckin' games to you!? Does it!?"

"I'm sor—!"

Johnny doesn't even realize he's throwing the punch until he sees the shimmer of his silver arm fly in out of the corner of his vision. Kerry reacts impossibly fast, ducking under the blow and stumbling back on his heels. His eyes, somehow, have gotten even wider. "Johnny...?" he whispers in disbelief.

"Y'know how fuckin' scared she was, watchin' you swim off!?" even with Johnny's consciousness naturally pitching it down, V''s voice is beginning to border on shrill as the words continue to pour forth, "She was drowning! She needed you to come back for her and all you did was wave her on! She nearly fuckin' died, Kerry!"

"Johnny!"

He swings again.

But maybe V's strength is failing him, or could be Johnny's just so angry that he can't generate the force he needs, because Kerry manages to catch V's wrist before her fist can slams into his face. Screaming in frustration, Johnny attempts to punch him with his free hand, only for Kerry to catch that one as well. He tries twisting, tossing, throwing V's weight around in a furious effort to break free, yet his old friend's hold on her wrists remains firm and unbroken.

"Johnny!" Kerry shakes him slightly. Truth be told, his tone catches Johnny more off-guard than the shake does— in seventy years of knowing him, he can't really recall a time where Kerry's ever sounded this grim, "Look at me, look at me!"

Chest heaving and arms aching, Johnny forces himself to meet his eye.

"Where's V? What happened to her?"

The quiver of panic in his voice seems to split the very ground they're standing on.

Johnny rises out of a different kind of depths at that, resurfacing back into the real world with a blink and a hard shake of V's head. "She passed out under the water. Think her leg was draggin' her down," he says; without the rage in her voice giving them life, his own words now seem cold and spiritless to his ears, already dead when they hit the open air. "She would've drowned if I hadn't taken control."

It takes a moment for him to process that, but every last ounce of color has drained out of Kerry's face when he finally manages to do so. Releasing V's hands, he teeters another few steps back, fingers raking his hair into silver stripes as he anxiously runs them over his scalp. "She couldn't swim. She grew up a nomad, of course she couldn't swim," he mutters Johnny's words back to himself with a sort of awed disbelief, and then he trains his horrified eyes back on him, "Why didn't V tell me she couldn't fuckin' swim!?"

"'Cause she's a—" he's is barely able to stop himself before he can complete the thought. Kerry looking like he's just committed a murder and any words Johnny can use to finish that sentence will probably only make things a helluva lot worse, so, letting out a small sigh, he attempts to pivot, "I dunno. You were bein' nice and I don't think she wanted to be a stick in the mud. Things got hectic when she realized what you were doin', didn't have time to tell you what the issue was."

"But then I just jumped in, swam the whole way back to shore. I didn't even think to stay with her," Kerry rambles like Johnny hadn't said anything at all, now so overwrought that he's beginning to pace across the shoreline.

"Yeah, that was fuckin' gonk of you, but what's done is done," Johnny responds. "Can't do much about it now except wait for her to wake up."

"What if she doesn't?"

"Stop talkin' like that."

"Oh god, what if I got her killed?"

"Jesus Christ, Ker, she's not fucking dead yet!"

Those words burn the whole way out of V's mouth: cutting and venomous, his own dread making them come out far harsher than he'd intended. Kerry flinches so hard that it makes him freeze up mid-pace, and the rush of guilt that follows from seeing it nearly swallows Johnny whole. "I mean…fuck, hell, no, she'll… s-she'll be alright. She's gotta be. I mean, if that there'd been the end, think I'd've felt her…" he trails off, struggling to come up with a tangible bit of reassurance to latch on to and sighing bitterly when he fails to find any, "…I dunno, slip away, I guess? Think…I think I'd've been able to tell if she was gone for real."

Kerry blinks, "You think, or you know?"

And when Johnny's words fail him again, he finds his gaze falling back down to V's left hand, staring as the superimposition of his own arm where it sits on top of hers. It's a ghost, a lost soul refusing to find peace. The image of his silver wrist and fingers continues to glitch in and out, unable to stabilize, flickering back and forth between something solid and something translucent. As though it's aware it's not really supposed to be there.

"Know," he tells Kerry at last, more firmly this time. "She's still in there. Kid'd never go out like that— not without puttin' up a harder fight."

His friend still doesn't look convinced— Johnny can't really blame him; what he said was perhaps drawing more on gut instinct and less on any basis of fact, but he's never been one to let facts rule his decision-making anyway— yet to his undying relief, his words do seem to calm Kerry down. A bit of color returns to his face by the time he's done processing Johnny's statement, though the baffled expression remains. "But how're you standing here talkin' to me? Meanin', I thought she needed to take some pills or somethin' to let you take over? That's what I remember, at least."

Johnny shakes his head, "This is different."

"How?"

God, even describing this shit in layman's terms is one shade light of impossible, and Kerry, bless his soul, has never exactly been the brightest bulb on stage. "Think of this…thing, like we're drivin' a car together. V's at the wheel, I got shotgun. Takin' the pills is like V's getting out of the driver's seat and lettin' me take a spin for a bit while she sits in the back," Johnny tries to explain, V's hands gesturing wildly like they're literally grasping for the best ways to describe their mess of a situation. "This time? It's like…like V passed out behind the wheel, so I had to push her out and take control, else we'd both wreck right into a wall."

Even though he's throwing him a look like Johnny'd just given the explanation in Pig Latin, Kerry does give him a single shaky nod of acceptance, "Happen a lot?" he slowly asks.

"J-Johnny!"

"You ain't dyin' yet. I got you."

"Once," Johnny responds, voice flat, and doesn't offer anything else.

He mentally braces for his friend to start bombarding him with probing questions and demands to elaborate, but none ever come; either his nebulous reply is answer enough or he's tired of getting answers that make his head throb, but Kerry has enough sense to not push this topic further. "So how long before V wakes up?" he asks instead, brows rising ever-so-slightly.

Good question, to be honest. Last time V had one of these episodes and forced Johnny into the driver's seat, she was out cold for about two hours— had to swallow a pseudoendotrizine to keep her down for a little bit longer, since coming to half-dead in the middle of a war-torn Pacifica didn't seem like a fantastic option for either of them. Johnny's not sure how accurate his gauge is at telling when she's going to be kicking him back into the passenger seat, but it's been a good while since it's happened involuntarily like this and it's not like V's showed any signed of improvement during that time. Could be an hour before she wakes back up, could be twelve, could be longer. Fuck, Johnny really hopes it's not longer. Novelty of walking 'round on your own two legs again quickly wears off when you're not sure if the owner of said legs is ever gonna be waking back up to reclaim them.

"I don't know," Johnny says for what feels like the millionth time this conversation, thumbing the sleeves of V's Samurai jacket, "just gotta hope it's sooner rather than later."

Unsurprisingly enough, Kerry doesn't seem satisfied with that answer, either, "So we're just supposed to…sit back and wait?"

"Nothin' else we can do."

"And when do you think she'll come to?"

"Frankly, Ker, your guess is as good as mine."

A cold ocean wind barrels over the beach and races for the hills beyond them.

Kerry shoves his hands in his pockets. Though he's calmed down significantly, Johnny can almost hear the howling of all the different emotions as they swirl over his features like a hurricane. Worry, anger, disgust, terror, a bit of relief, a whole lot of shame. His voice betrays none of that turbulence when he speaks, however; it's quiet, almost beaten down, as though he's ready to just lay down and pass out. "S'pose all we can do is that, then:" Kerry says, slowly lowering himself to the sands, "wait."

While the other man settles himself, Johnny's attention flits over back towards the water. Nighttime has now fully settled over Del Coronado Bay, white pinpricks of stars beginning to emerge against the canvas of the sky. Like a child approaching their bedtime, all this activity appears to've tired the ocean out, an almost drowsy look to the foamy waves ebbing and flowing against the seashore. The Seamurai has stopped sinking for the moment— she's almost completely vertical now, the flames starting to smolder out as the last ten feet of her stays surface-side, the air trapped in the hull momentarily keeping her afloat. Far, far, far off in the distance, the neon lights of Night City burn on across the bay. Never slowing, never stopping, never changing. The last bastion of the NUSA before you hit the cold, uncaring Pacific.

It's strange. When you're out of the city, you almost forget how beautiful it can look from so far off. Johnny supposes there's a metaphor buried in there somewhere, but it's true. It really takes an up close and in-person look at the City of Dreams to see the million different ways they've found to pave the rot over. Otherwise? Night City's just a lie like any other. Built on loud promises, and ruled by quiet deaths.

"Johnny."

Blinking, Johnny looks back down at the expectant Kerry. "Siddown with me," he murmurs, patting the space next to him. "Just…hold your breath a little ways. Reeks somethin' real."

He does, settling himself on Kerry's left and propping both of V's elbows on her knees. For what feels like the first time since they were snot-nosed teenagers fresh back from the CAC, Johnny and Kerry take in the world in comfortable silence, watching the flaming Seamurai bob on the surface of the water like an oversized fishing lure. The tide keeps stretching up and receding back, never able to reach them.

Fuck, Kerry was right. It really does smell like a horse's ass out here.

"Wanted this to be a fun night." When Johnny glances over at that, surprised, he finds Kerry staring out over the bay with dull eyes and a somber expression. A far cry from the defiant, revitalized version of him that'd ripped his former manager's yacht apart with his bare hands not thirty minutes ago. "Thought it'd be fun to just…y'know, kick back and chill with the kid. Raise a glass to new beginnings for once," he says softly, almost mournfully.

Johnny's regret is a katana blade that's wedged in V's chest, every word he hears only serving to push it deeper in, "If it makes you feel better, V was havin' a good time 'fore the whole…" when his words putter out, he substitutes them by waves a hand towards the wreckage.

She'd never fucking tell anyone, hard-nosed cunt that she is, but god, had V needed this. And in more ways than one, too. For the past four months, weariness and despondency has clung to the kid like a nasty smell— always exhausted, muscles constantly aching, brain fried to a blackened crisp, and a niggling feeling in the back of her mind that keeps telling her how someday soon, she's probably just gonna fuckin' drop in an alley and never get back up again. It's impossible to share gray matter with someone for that long and not know them like your own shadow after a while, and the universe hadn't exactly taken a break from beating her into the damn dirt every day. Yeah, it was stupid Kerry hadn't told her what his little cruise of mass destruction was really for, but it offered something that V sorely, sorely needed after all she'd been through, even if she couldn't quite put a name to it: catharsis. Not even directed at anything, just a good ol' fashioned release of bottled-up emotions. Shit like that curdles in you after a while, gums up your gears, slows you down further. So focused on fighting through and chugging on that somewhere along the line, V'd forgotten what living felt like. What better way to experience life again than through the one person they know who understands the importance of how to live?

Fortunately, the assurance does appear to put Kerry a bit more at ease, the faintest of smiles finally fighting its way back onto his features, "Good. Honestly, if she did, then I'm hella glad. Makes me feel like less of a shitstain for the way all this turned out."

Johnny can't get another word in before an earsplitting metallic skreich bucks him back into the real world once again. Both he and Kerry whip up just in time to watch the Seamurai's rear end succumb to the same fate of every rear end after a midnight Caliente trip when one last bright orange fireball explodes out of the stern, showering the air with flames, sparks, and even more debris. With her two-person audience watching on, the poor boat surrenders at last and finally allows the waves to pull the rest of her down into her grave. In a matter of seconds, the thing is gone, a puff of smoke and some bubbles the only bits of evidence remaining to tell the tale of the Seamurai's magnificent final voyage.

"And thar she goes," Kerry gives the ocean a mock salute, raising his voice ever-so-slightly so it can be heard over the restive surf, "Rest in fuckin' pieces, you overpriced bath toy."

Johnny chooses to hold his tongue, instead finding himself delving back into the recesses of their consciousness, hoping for a sign. A flicker. Just fuckin' something that tells him he's not on his own for good, L'chaim, kid.

Yet there's nothing. Not even a slight stir in his head. Just an immense, nauseating hole where life should be.

Fuck, how had he ever beared this before?

The smoke clears, but the reek remains, smothering the stretch of beach they're sitting on with it as the wind pushes it northwards. For a while, the only thing they do is sit there quietly, hurtling through their own worlds as they follow the ocean's cyclical motions. The waves are starting to bring bits of the boat ashore now. Scraps of paneling, some toasted sofa cushions, pieces of the satellite dishes, even a section of the exploded stern, '—eamu—' printed over it in tacky cursive writing.

"'Member that gig we played back in May of '06," Kerry asks out the blue, catching Johnny off guard. "The one out in NOLA, our last performance there 'fore the whole city sank into the fuckin' gulf?"

Tipitinas— some two-story bar on Tchoupitoulas Street that was so old and decrepit, it felt like they were literally an encore away from caving the whole place in. Johnny nods.

"You remember the group that played before we did? Some goddamn EDM band whose entire set consisted of hittin' computer keys and tappin' on their fancy launchpads. One of 'em said somethin' to Denny, hell if I remember what, but the next thing I knew we were all rakin' our housekeys down the sides of their shitty little band van," his friend says with a listless chuckle. "Henry found a brick and busted the windows in. Pissed over everything he could reach, then decided to cap it all off by taking a shit right on the driver's seat. Smelled like horde of cats had crawled in and died after we were through with it."

"Ran off with all their equipment, too," Johnny recalls. "Sold most of it once we got back to the city. Bunch of pompous fucks, but they sure had some high-end shit in that rust bucket of theirs."

The other man hums, eyes fogged up with far-gone memories. "Y'know somethin'? I don't even remember what they said to her that made us go so berserk. Might've genuinely been something arrogant and fucked-up, meanin' we enacted some proper revenge for it. On the other hand, it might've been somethin' totally irrelevant, which just made us a right-ol' gang of assholes who took a crap in a Chevy Express." A beat passes. Kerry's next exhale is somewhere between a sigh and a groan, "If I'm bein' honest, Johnny, I don't think we were in the right on that one. I think we were all just a bunch of angry kids itchin' to pick a fight."

"Look at you now;" Johnny nods towards where the flaming rump of the Seamurai had vanished, "Now you're an ancient fuck who's itchin' to pick a fight."

"You're scratchin' ninety right alongside me, asswipe."

"Relic still makes me look like I'm thirty-three. You'd shit bricks if you could see it."

"I dunno, Johnny. Looks to me like you're comin' up on twent—"

"Don't fuckin' finish that sentence."

The storminess of Johnny's words wipes any remaining traces of good humor off of Kerry's features. Taking the recommendation, he lapses back into silence, drawing a leg up and working his heel into the shore as he sets his gaze back towards the bay. The minutes tick by slowly following that. Johnny feels each second slip past, each one only gnawing another hole in his gut.

And then, mercifully, Kerry speaks up again, "Mind if I pick your brain 'bout somethin', Johnny?"

"Depends."

"Depends on?"

"Depends on what you're 'bout to ask me."

"Just…" Kerry hesitates over his next words, casting a sidelong glance at him as though trying to measure the reaction before it even comes, "Just kinda figured this was what you wanted?"

Johnny shoots him an incredulous look of his own, "The boat?"

"The body," Kerry corrects quietly. "I mean, c'mon, Johnny. Arasaka literally ripped your soul outta your meatsuit and stuffed you in their…horrifyin' cyberspace netrunner jail, and half a century later you crawled outta it like a fuckin' cockroach. Just kinda assumed this was where it was all leading? Johnny Silverhand's magnificent encore."

"You do…" Johnny finds himself trailing off at that, hating how thin his words sound coming out of her mouth, "…you do realize that'd mean killing V, right?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. I know you, Johnny— probably better than any person still kickin' in this damn city, Rogue included. And between 'the means' and 'the ends', I know which one you tend to prioritize. You get a new body, free second chance…and all you gotta do is wait."

"So what, you assume I'm just gonna let V burn herself out, then pull an Invasion of the Body Snatchers on her? Fuckin' hell, Kerry, you really think I'm that shitty of a person?"

"Didn't exactly see you bendin' down to apologize to every guy and gal you walked over en route to 'Saka Tower back in the day."

That's not an unfounded accusation by any means but Johnny still winces at it all the same, "I didn't—"

"I don't need whatever you consider to be an apology, Johnny," Kerry cuts over him, tone heavy but not unkind. "You were an asshole then, and granted, I think you're a bit less of an asshole now. Could be you've legitimately changed, could be V's a better influence than you give her credit for, but you've already paid enough of a price for what you did back in the day. Now what I need's the truth. Is this your endgame? Get chummy enough with V that she gives up the wheel, then ride her body up to the Tower like it's 2023 all over again? Is she just collateral damage for a story you already know the ending to?"

There's a warning slipped inside of that question. An almost brotherly protectiveness that's been sharpened down into a very real threat; if one of them has to go, then Kerry's already made it clear who he'd choose to keep around.

Johnny can't really say he blames him.

Neither he nor V would claim it wasn't a rocky beginning. For several months, Johnny had explored 2077's Night City through the eyes of its angriest, haughtiest, and most foul-tempered transplant. V was a fucking nutcase even before she'd shoved his own nutcase persona right into her skull sponge. Annoying, petty, violent, prideful to a fault, argumentative as all hell, and spending most of her time spinning her wheels and butting heads with him instead of trying to get them to Mikoshi. V'd been so tightly wound and insufferable that by the time he'd spent a few days up there, Johnny was wishing he could use the goddamn high strings pulling on her to strangle himself if it'd spare him from hearing her bitter, mopey, droning thoughts playing on torturous-fuckin'-loop all day.

The ouroboros circles the world with its own tail in its mouth, slowly consuming itself into nothingness. Round and round and round Johnny and V went, destined to devour each other whole. It was hard not to. They'd spat a lot of venom at each other in those first few weeks, reopened plenty of wounds and rubbed salt into every last one of them for good measure. He called her a bitch, she called him bastard. He called her an idiot, she called him a killer. He called her a coward. She called him one right back. Days passed, and their frustrations grew so strong and so all-encompassing that after a good while, it felt like they were snapping at themselves just as much as they were snapping at each other.

But then there were those days. Those odd, illuminating days, whether it was a gig she took or a lead on the Relic or some random occurrence that just so happened to fall into her lap, where Johnny would look at the kid and it'd be like staring into a mirror. Similar senses of humor. The same hair-trigger temper. A mutual disgust for liars and cheaters. A million different regrets and failures bogging them both down that neither ever shared with anyone, not even the closest of friends, because pain is simplest when you're bearing it alone. But the one thing that always set them apart was that V had a will to survive. To outlast the Relic; to rise above all the shit surrounding her; to cling to the hope that there was something out there for her beyond anything that Night City could ever offer. Something she'd be able to find for herself one day, even if no one else believed she could.

And Johnny was killing her.

After Alt died, Night City had sunken it's teeth into the back of his neck, never to let go again. Her death made him realize that sometimes, the only way to carve the rot out of something is to drive the knife right into the heart of it yourself. In many ways, he hadn't even fucking cared about surviving anymore. Let the city have him, precious bones and all; if his demise was what was needed to kill the NC of old, then so be it. Ashes to ashes, dust to fucking dust.

So that's what Johnny did. Or at least, that's what he thought he'd done. His lone solace in Mikoshi was that he'd changed something, and then he woke up fifty years later to the same damn town with the same damn people still roaming its streets.

V didn't see it all like that. To her, Night City wasn't something to kill— it was something to be better than. Because even at her nadir, she still believed there were things out there worth finding and fighting for. Even bastard terrorists like him.

They hated their situation. Even hated each other for a while, because hate is easy to keep stoked and burning. But eventually, their hatred smoldered and burned down to cinders, never to be reignited. She was too beaten and he was too jaded, spending weeks searching for solutions and always coming up empty handed. And the longer this went on and the more the Relic eroded the lines that kept then separate, the less Johnny seemed to despise the kid. She was still irritating, and stubborn, and cared way too much about things she couldn't control…but fuck it, someone in this apathetic wasteland of a town had to be. More time passed, they came to understand the other more, and the little things that Johnny had once found frustrating about his little ex-nomad edgerunner eventually turned into things he found annoyingly endearing about her. Her inability to netrun for shit, meaning she solved problems with her fists first and her head never. Her unwavering attachment to her great-grandfather's Samurai jacket despite hating every song they'd recorded with a burning passion. Her steadfast adherence to her own moral code, even when everyone in the merc world gave her crap for it. Her undying loyalty to her friends that made her drop everything and bolt to them at three in the morning on no sleep— including him. He'll never forget the image of her standing before Kerry's front doors in the dead of night, about to break into the home of one of the most famous people in the city at the risk of her own life, all because he'd asked her to.

And Johnny was killing her.

God, he was fucking killing her.

"Once, maybe. When this whole thing started," he finally admits, her hands tightening.

"But not anymore?"

Johnny takes his eyes off Kerry and drops them down. Dangling from V's neck is a mid-length chain, silver and still dripping water. At the end is a small ring, the bullet that Dexter Deshawn had fired into her skull strung up with wires and suspended in the center. On either side of that pendant are his CAC dog tags, once locked in an air vent for seventy years and now hanging like mortal sins against her chest. All three pieces of metal jingle quietly off each other when Johnny cups them, the metal cold and fragile against her fingers.

When he'd given his dog tags to her, they came with a promise that he'd take a bullet for her when the moment arrived. And V— stupid, stubborn, cowardly V— gripped the very bullet that'd killed her and swore she would do the same for him. There was fear in her voice, but no uncertainty. Willing to throw her life away for him without a moment of hesitation, all because he said he'd do it for her.

He has to.

"V's a good kid, Ker," Johnny's voice barely makes it above a whisper, "and I can't be the fuckin' death of her."

He gets no reaction to those words. Kerry looks at him with a blank face, as if attempting to process the sincerity of what he's just said, but after some time he turns away. Another breeze rolls over them from the water, chilling Johnny right to the bone as it presses V's damp clothes into her skin.

"So that's how it always has to be, hm?" Kerry says distantly, as if saying it more to himself, "No one in Night City gets a happy ending without losin' somethin' along the way."

Johnny has a million responses to that and he doesn't utter a single one. Kerry doesn't bother trying to coax any out of him.

It feels like another year passes them by on that beach before someone breaks the silence again. The sky is black as coal when Kerry finally stretches his arms out, breath fogging on the air the second the words leave his lips. "Alright, no sense in waiting here all night for her to come to. Let's get outta here 'fore the wind flips and we both freeze to death," he says good-naturedly as he pulls himself to his feet. He jerks his head back towards the highway as Johnny rises to follow him, "C'mon, I'll call a cab, take us back to my place."

Johnny shoves V's hands in her jacket pockets, rolling some pebbles under the heel of her boot, "Might be for the best if I just del—"

He doesn't manage to finish that sentence before a light smack to V's shoulder sends a still-unsteady Johnny stumbling back a pace or two. "Not on your fuckin' life," Kerry snaps at him, proceeding to hold up a trio of fingers, "One, I got her into this mess, so I'm gonna be there when she comes back to. Two, if something goes wrong and we need to get V to a doctor, I got three rippers on speed dial and a Trauma Team package that'd have an AV crashing through my rooftop in ninety seconds if I so much as piss a bit too long. And three, you really think she's gonna wanna wake up and just be fine about everything that happened on that boat?" When Johnny can't muster up a good rebuttal to any of those points, his oldest friend lets out a good-natured snort. "Thought not. Chill at my place 'til she wakes up. If you need to stay overnight, you can take my guest bed."

It'd be stupid to refuse an offer that generous, and Johnny still feels dead on V's feet from all the near-death experiences he's had today, so he can't find it in him to turn the invitation down. He falls behind his friend as they trudge off the beach together, picking through the reeds and scaling the dunes back towards the nearest road. Curious, Johnny throws one more glance over V's shoulder, noting the way the Pacific's foamy waves stretch skywards as they strike off the rocks. It's like the ocean is waving goodbye, thanking them for an enjoyable evening together.

Kerry's hanging up the holo with his cab service by the time Johnny reaches him. "Mind if I ask you one more thing, Ker?" he asks.

"Shoot."

"Back at the beach— tried punching you and you ducked under it. Decent 'flexes for an old wrinkly fop, by the way," the other man rolls his eyes and waves him off with his hand: acceptance and a prompt to continue all rolled into one, "Point being, you seemed to know it was me right after. What gave it away?"

To Johnny's everlasting surprise, Kerry's first reaction is to snort. "You swung with your left, jackass. 'Less I've been seein' shit in the mirror dimension this whole time, V's not a southpaw." When Johnny spares another glance at her hand at that, Kerry adds, "Plus, when dodgin' under that haymaker felt less like a reaction and more like a bad case of deja-vu, that sorta sealed it for me."

And that just drives the blade hilt-deep.

Johnny rakes V's nails against her palm, trying and failing to hide a grimace as the image, and his shame, sinks in, "Look, I know you said you don't want any of my apologies—"

"Don't you fuckin' dare, Silverhand."

"…Then just…know it's there, if you ever wanna hear it."

Kerry stares at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted, for an eternity and back. When he finally does find his words, there's a plethora of emotions on his face that're battling each other for dominance: surprise, anger, confusion, sadness, even something that almost looks like gratitude, "I know, Johnny."

Johnny nods.

Kerry nods back.

The weight of the world seems the slightest-bit lighter.

"So how long for a cab gets here?" Johnny quickly changes the topic, pulling the folds of V's jacket tighter over her chest. The temperature's rapidly dropping without the sun, the early-December weather a hard slap of reality to the face, and Johnny's not exactly eager to find out if V's Arizona truckrat blood'll ice over because of it. Far in the distance, the moon is swinging it's legs up and over the trash piles it'd been hiding behind, soaking them in silver as it prepares to climb further into the night.

Kerry checks his holo again, "'Bout twenty minutes. Who knows? Maybe V'll wake up 'fore we even get back to the mansion."

*~*~*

Heaven smelled like synth-lavender, lukewarm tequila, and fish that'd been left on a table for a week.

V slowly wakes without opening her eyes, content to bury her face deeper into the crook of her elbow instead of peeking at her surroundings. She's not sure what she expected upon her arrival at the pearly gates (or her plunge into the bottomless pit— felt like a toss-up at this point), but it definitely wasn't…this. It's a shade away from paradise, like a poor man's version of it. Whatever she's lying on is almost unnervingly soft, while a soft piano melody plays somewhere below her that's such a welcome reprieve from the classic rock and heavy metal she's spent the past four months listening to. V's warm, pleasantly so, blindly shifting herself towards where the heat feels strongest. Yet despite all that, there's a sort of stiffness to her own body that doesn't feel very, well, heavenlike. Her muscles too taut, her limbs too brittle, her mind too foggy. As though she's slipped her own skin off for a bit and it's gotten a touch too small for her when she's tried to put it back on.

V finally forces herself to roll over once the rigidity of her own body becomes too much, and her grunt of effort quickly morphs into a groan of discomfort when she flips directly into a burst of light so goddamn bright that it manages to blind her even through closed eyelids. She tries to bury her head back into her other arm but it's far too little, far too late as the sides of her temples begin to throb, signaling the incoming migraine.

Wait a minute.

Should headaches exist in heaven? That seems kind of backwards.

Where the fuck is she?

Moving as if still in a dream, V picks her head up out of her arms and finally blinks her eyes open.

It takes a moment for her optics to adjust to the sunshine streaming in unimpeded through the glass walls, bits of dust dancing atop the rays as the light washes the space out in a blinding white haze. Rolling green hills, large orange mesas, and towering palm trees stretch up along a bright blue skyline, but the marble-paved driveway down below is only serving to reflect the sunlight directly into this little space she'd somehow passed out in. The bedroom is open, spacious, lavish, and absolutely fucking filthy. Clothes are draped over the expensive sofa, dangle off the arms of the treadmill, pile up as high as her torso in the corner, layer over the ground so thickly that V can barely see the floor underneath all the dirty laundry. Old brewski cans and dirty wine glasses and half-drunken liquor bottles have been stacked atop of every surface in sight, some looking like they'd been there for goddamn months. The bed is the worst of it. Comfortable, yes, but the white sheets look more lived in than the rest of the room put together, and not in a good way. They're crusty and wrinkled, not to mention completely covered in crumbs, old blots of alcohol, smears of spilled condiments, and…well, V supposed that explained the fish smell.

Groaning, V pushes herself upright until her back is propped against the headboard. Rather than the cargo pants and black tank top she wore onto the Seamurai, she's dressed in an oversized beige t-shirt (she tugs it the full way down and reads the lettering upside-down: "Night City Annual Charity Turkey Trot – November 2071"), what feel like an old pair of boxers below it, and a thick black sock on her 'ganic foot. But perhaps strangest of all is that her cybernetic leg has been swaddled toe to tip in bath towels, leaving a big damp patch on the bed where the water had seeped out.

"That was Kerry's idea."

V nearly jumps out of her damn skin again at the sound of Johnny's voice. He glitches back into realspace at the foot of her bed, sitting cross-legged over the grimy sheets and looking at her with an almost bored expression, "Thought the saltwater was going to ruin the thing, so this was his best solution. Think he'd've tried laying you down in a bathtub full of rice if he had enough of the damn stuff."

"Wha…rice? Why rice?"

"Before your time."

"Whatever, old geezer," V says affectionately as she reaches down to unwrap her leg. Peeling back the towels reveals her steel-plated cybernetic: slightly damp but still in one piece, thank god. Flexing it tells her it's just as stiff and foreign feeling as the rest of her body but she'll gladly take that over having to get it repaired or replaced. Amusingly enough, someone had also put a black sock on her metal foot as well, which V peels off and tosses towards whatever pile of filthy clothing is closest.

Johnny's been sitting on his words for a bit. V can feel the way they're buzzing in the back of her throat ever since he's fizzled in, waiting for her to finish up before he lets them fly. "How you feelin', kid?" he finally asks when she's done.

"Frankly, woke up here and thought I'd fuckin' died," V admits freely. She blinks her bleary eyes at him, cradling her aching forehead in her hands as she mumbles, "Where even are we?"

"Kerry's place."

"In North Oak?"

"Nah, in fuckin' Temple City."

"Smartass," V mutters under her breath. She raises her head just high enough to look at him in full and has to fight to keep her face neutral when she finally gets a good look at him. For being nothing but data and code streaming through her head, Johnny looks surprisingly haggard. The bags under his eyes look more prominent, his hair seems slightly rattier than usual, and he's even holding himself differently— more hunched, as though there's something physically weighing on him. Strangest and perhaps most troubling of all is that he's not in his usual getup. He's swapped that Kevlar vest he wore during the Tower raid for his old Samurai tank, one he's only put on for a few of his many, many appearances. V's always found it odd how much the vest seemed to add to Johnny's presence; he seems scrawnier without it, far more exposed, to the point that it makes him feel like two different people even though she knows it's the same man sitting across from her.

It's so unsettling to her that V tries to crack a joke to distract herself, flashing him a weak grin to boot, "You look like shit, y'know,"

That, at the very least, makes Johnny smirk. "Look who's fuckin' talkin," he retorts, catching her eye at last, "Not looking too hot yourself, princess."

Jesus, even his eyes seem flat and dull. As if every last bit of life within them's been burned down to the wick.

Between him looking like he hasn't slept in three days and her feeling like she's still got a foot in the grave, V's starting to feel herself to choke on the tension winding its way around them, so she quickly attempts to usher the conversation along again, "Mind telling me how we ended up here, Johnny?"

"Kerry called us a cab," is his barebones answer.

"…Okay, let me rephrase that. Last thing I remember was sinking into Davy Jones'…Chest—"

"Locker."

"Whatever. And now I'm sitting in Kerry Eurodyne's gross-ass guest bed wearin' a shirt from a race I didn't run and feeling like my head's bein' split in two," V grouses. "What happened?"

Johnny shrugs. His face is impassive but V can't help but notice there's a slight pull to it, as though he's making a concerted effort to keep it that way, "Your gonk ass passed out underwater, so I pulled you back to shore. Gave Ker a dressing-down for being a fucking idiot, we called a cab to take us here, I passed the hell out, and you woke up three minutes ago. That's the long and short of it," he tells her, voice clipped.

"You didn't find time to do a couple of keg stands with Kerry before you hit the hay?"

"Headache's from almost drownin', V, not a hangover."

She knows that's the truth of it. Her brain parasite's a bit (a lot) of an asshole who's never been known to turn down a free glass of anything once it's been offered to him, but the one thing he's never been with her is a liar, so V eventually nods her acceptance, "How long've I been conked out?"

Johnny won't meet her eyes.

"Rockerboy?"

His lips've pulled themselves into a taut line as he turns towards the window, following the dips and crests along the North Oak horizon.

"You know I'd rather hear it from you than finding it out from someone else," V's voice barely makes it over a whisper, weighed down by both dread and acceptance. "How long were you behind the wheel today, Johnny?"

"Yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"You were down for fourteen hours, V."

…Fuck.

The implications are laced between the spaces of his words yet V can hear them clear as day. Last few times this had happened, she was back in control anywhere from a few minutes to a mere hour later, but this? This was Johnny being thrust into command while her consciousness sat like a corpse in the back of her own head, unable to take back in control. Not until more than a half a day had passed, at the very least. Not even any knowledge of what had happened between getting pulled under and waking back up, not a flash of familiarity nor a feeling of recognition. Just a cold, cloying, empty gap in her memory— still drowning inside of her own mind.

The omega blockers and pseudoendotrizine pills only worked for eight hours a pop. Pills run out. The biochip can only march forward, not back. Fourteen hours could so easily turn into a full day, then two, then a week, then a month, then…forever.

V adjusts her weight so she's leaning forward. As she does so, she takes note of the way she moves. Slowly, stiffly, resistantly, her muscles protesting her own body's movements. Like it's already been readjusted for someone else's use.

"We're getting close to the endgame, aren't we."

It's not a question. Johnny doesn't treat it as one. The only response he gives her is a tired look of his own, the same conclusions written all over his features.

"Gonna have to call Hanako soon. Force her to crawl out of whatever fuckin' 'Saka bosom she's holed up in and meet with us in person," V murmurs. She readjusts herself again and hears a familiar jingle underneath the t-shirt— neither Johnny nor Kerry had removed the chain holding the pendant and dog tags, and the cold metal feels weirdly comforting against her bare chest. "We'll talk to her, see what options she has for us. I know you don't want to," she adds when Johnny's face tightens with displeasure, "I don't either, but…"

"We're runnin' out of the two things we need. Time and options," he finishes for her, voice hard.

V nods, "If this happens again…I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to make it back, Johnny."

"Won't let that happen."

"Don't think there's anything you can do to stop it."

Johnny grits his teeth and turns away.

V allows her head to fall back against the headboard, drawing her knees into her chest and staring off into the distance. Two flavors of fear have settled into her bones: one fiery but powerless, the other cold and anxious. She takes a long and slow breath to ground herself somewhat as the truth of the matter washes over her.

They knew this was going to happen. Have known for a while, even come to accept it after some time. But acceptance doesn't make staring fate in the eyes any easier. It just gives you hope that there's a shred of good fortune out there that can change the ending of the story. False hope? Who knows. Some would say it's better to have that than no hope at all, but jury's still out if that's the stance V wants to take concerning her own life. 

So instead, she turns to Johnny. "Thanks," she says, "for saving me, I mean."

His shoulders rise and fall in a silent sigh. "Didn't leave me much of a choice, kid," he says quietly.

"I know. But still…thank you."

Silence.

"You know I'd do the same for you, right?" V asks after a beat or two.

Johnny's mask doesn't dip or waver. He offers her no reaction, no assurance, no acceptance of her words. The only thing V sees is a slight shadow flicker in his gaze as his eye catches hers. And then he angles his face down and away, staring at the floor, leaving her unable to tell what she'd just saw settle there.

"Hey! Mornin' up there!"

V whips around at the merry sound of Kerry's voice, his bootheels click-click-click-ing up the stairs behind the bed. He's dressed in his usual white tank, black pants, and shin-high combat books, his silver hair sopping-wet like he'd just gotten out of the shower. Kerry reaches the top of the stairs and, without warning, hurls something shiny at her face. It's only by virtue of her edgerunner reflexes that V's able to raise her hand and catch it a moment before it breaks her nose.

"Ah, you're back then," Kerry remarks. Before V can ask him what the hell that means, he continues, "How you feelin', kid? How's your leg? The towels help?"

V spares a glance at the thing Kerry'd chucked at her before responding— it's a breakfast burrito, to her surprise, the foil wrap still warm against her fingers. Looking at it only makes her realize just how damn ravenous she is; she hasn't eaten anything since before her gig yesterday, almost a full twenty hours in the past. "Felt better, not gonna lie," she says as she peels the wrapper down. She tries to cast a sidelong glance at Johnny but only finds the empty space he'd been occupying. He must've hopped back into her head when she wasn't looking, "Though I've had days where I've woken up feeling a helluva lot worse, so I guess it balances out."

Guilt and worry each find a place on Kerry's features as he rounds the bed and sits down next to her. Now that she's gotten a closer look at him, it honestly looks like he didn't sleep a wink either last night. The shower washed most of it down, but it can't mask the sleepless and distressed look in his eyes when he trains them on her. "Fuck, V, 'bout last night…" he starts to say as V begins ripping into her meal, raking an anxious hand through his hair, "…I am so fuckin' sorry about blowin' up the Seamurai."

"S'alright, Ker," V tells him around a bite of sausage and eggs.

"I didn't know you couldn't swim, never would've made you come if I had," he swears, blue eyes slightly panicky. "Honest to god, we'd've gone to a bar or somethin', or maybe just let the thing drift off—"

"Kerry, it's fine. Really," she interjects again, more firmly this time, her words toeing the line between fondness and exasperation. "You didn't know. Why the hell would I hold that against you?"

"You almost died, V!"

"I didn't, though."

"I could've fucking killed you!"

"People've been trying to kill me ever since I came to this goddamn city," V points out matter-of-factly. "Hate to break it to ya, Ker, but between me and the Us Cracks chicks, killin' people's just not in your wheelhouse, so you might as well stop trying."

That's what finally calms Kerry down a bit. His body releases just a bit of it's tension and the nervous glint in his gaze appears to evaporate as he lets out a heavy sigh of relief. It's honestly…kind of touching, how worried he seemed about her. V feels her own pang of guilt ring throughout her body just letting that thought cross her mind, but there's a bit of relief there as well, like there's a weight she'd been lugging around and she's finally sliced the damn thing off her ankle. Rather than look any deeper into it, she distracts herself rather effectively by cramming the rest of the burrito into her mouth.

"Odd fuckin' helluva situation you two have," Kerry fills in the silence as she finishes up. "If you just woke up, and it's ten a.m. now, then that means you were out of commission for…shit, 'bout fourteen hours or so."

"Yeah, I know. Johnny told me."

"Thought I heard you two talkin' up here. That happen often? You gettin' knocked out for that long, I mean."

"Sometimes," V says as nonchalantly as she can, hoping she doesn't sound dodgy. Last thing she needs is for Kerry to start fretting about her all over again— especially about something completely beyond any of his control. This was her and Johnny's fight, not his, "It is what it is sometimes, I guess."

V mentally braces for Kerry to keep prying or ask something else regarding Johnny but all he says is "Get enough sleep?"

"Y-yeah, uh, think so. Just hungry was all. 'Preciate you lettin' me crash here for the night," V balls the empty burrito wrapper up as she says that, intending to shove it in a pocket, only to remember she doesn't exactly have a pocket to shove it into, "And I hate to ask, Kerry, but my clothes aren't at the bottom of the bay, are they?"

"Only thing they're sittin' at the bottom of is my washing machine."

"Oh, so you do own one of those?" V smirks, jerking her head towards the multiple clothing piles scattered around the guest room.

Kerry snorts, not really looking all that offended but also not giving her the gratification of sassing back. He slowly stands, then offers her a hand to help her get to her feet. Again, V takes it, ending up gripping his arm with both hands when her legs struggle to hold the rest of her upright. "Well, guess we'll have to dig around to see if I've got something that'll make you look a bit less…" Kerry trails off as he eyeballs her mussy hair, ugly t-shirt, and unsteady stance, an eyebrow raised in contemplation

"Tragic?"

"Was gonna go with 'seventeen-year-old boy-ish', but that fits too."

Now it's V's turn to snort.

"Point being, you still look like someone who jumped in the ocean and almost drowned in it. Feel free to stay here as long as you want, mi casa es su casa," Kerry tells her warmly, taking most of V's weight as he guides her towards the stairs. "We can watch something stupid, order some grub that won't make your stomach rot. Gotta bottle of Centzon and a few things on the TV I've been wanting to catch up on anyway."

"Might take you up on that," she says tiredly, but a grateful smile's found its way onto her features all the same. "'Prcieate the hospitality, Kerry, really."

"Least I can do for almost killin' ya, V."

"For fucks sake, will you stop talkin' 'bout that."

"Whatever you say, my illustrious guest of honor."

V's laughing the whole way down the steps.

*~*~*

Thirty minutes later, V and Kerry have collapsed on the couch in his massive TV den, Watson Whore blaring in the background. V's donned a pair of sweatpants and one of Kerry's more expensive-looking tank tops, laying on her back with her legs resting on top of her friend's lap while she nurses a glass of tequila. Kerry, his order of sesame chicken balanced on top of her shins, is shoveling food into his mouth at warp speed, eyes glued to the television screen as Phillipe Gautier prays to the porcelain god in full blown ninety-inch 8k-definition glory.

The episode goes into commercial and Kerry swaps his lunch for the remote. V watches him do so, a thought boring it's way deeper into her skull sponge. Her eyes flick this way, that way; Johnny's still in her head, but there's no urgency nor irritation from him. He's simply content to sit back and view the world from her eyes for now, hanging back in the passenger's seat.

V hums to herself as she takes a sip of her drink.

A few more second of silence and finally, she can't let the thought stay unaddressed. "Mind if I ask you a weird question, Ker?" she asks as Kerry winds the episode forward.

"Go for it."

"After you guys got back to shore, did you and Johnny…I dunno, talk about anything?"

Kerry simply shrugs, not even looking up, "Eh, nothin' in particular."

And that's the that on that, she supposes.

V leans her weight back into the couch, half-lidded eyes set on the TV once again as the episode resumes. The sun shines warm and bright through the windows, bouncing of the Westbrook skyscrapers so far down below. Night City and everything within it feel a far ways off as the three of them pass the day by with junk food and garbage TV. And it's easy, tranquil, just as it was in the golden hours of twilight on the Seamurai, Kerry strumming the guitar for her and Johnny as relaxed as she was. Far from the worries that lay in wait back in the city proper.

They'll have to go back eventually. They can't run from it, can't hide or cheat or hope to outlast it. Can only try to meet it head on when it comes. But maybe, just this once, there's no shame in ignoring it for a little while. After all, the world always finds new ways to change, yet it never stops to do so.

Life's loops, or whatever.

Yeah, V could get used to that.

V could really get used to that.