Chapter Text
V felt like shit. And not even for the usual reasons like a hangover, a bullet wound, or a goddamn relic malfunction. Instead, it was his own mind torturing him. He couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't focus on the thousand different things he needed to take care of. All he could think about was the stress building up inside him and the fact that his pressure relief valve was clamped tighter than Saul's ass.
Before all the shit went down in Konpeki, he had a way of coping when things got to be too much for him to handle. And it worked. It was embarrassing as hell, though, a secret kept carefully guarded. He could only imagine how quickly it would decimate his rep if it ever got out that V, the up-and-coming hotshot edgerunner, needed a teddy bear and binky when he got upset.
So he kept any regression paraphernalia stashed away where no prying eyes could find it. He would wait for the perfect time to regress, until he was sure no one would walk in on him or try to contact him. It was really only difficult until he finally got his own apartment where could lock himself in and let his inner child come out for a while.
Then the heist happened, and V suddenly had a whiny, judgmental roommate 24/7. Johnny already tended to grumble about how 'soft-bellied' and 'wet behind the ears' he was. If he was to let himself slip into that mindset, even for a moment, Johnny would know, and he would surely be merciless in his mocking. V could take a lot of shit from Johnny, but he couldn't take that. It would break him.
Now, after weeks of holding back his need to regress, he was reaching his limit. Every day was another problem, another shootout, another seizure, and all the fear and grief and frustration had culminated into an ocean inside him. The ocean was brewing into a storm now. It had gotten so bad that all he could do was sit on his bed and focus on not shattering into a million pieces.
His apartment was dead silent until V finally noticed the way he was rocking himself and let a distressed whine slip out. Johnny materialized, hovering nearby and glitching for a moment before V could get a clear look at his face, which somehow seemed both pissed and concerned. He sighed and said, "Jesus Christ, will you just do your... little kid thing already? You're no use all wound up like this."
V blushed, eyes quickly moving away from Johnny's. He wished he hadn't taken off his mask, wished it wasn't still where he left it in the bathroom so he could hide his all too vulnerable face. He settled for burying it in his knees before he weakly mumbled, "I... I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout..."
"Don't bullshit me," Johnny replied with a scoff, "I live in your head, V, seen tons of your memories. I know about your quote, unquote playtime."
Tears welled up in V's eyes faster than he could force them back down. His lip trembled and he tried, he tried so fucking hard to stop himself, but he couldn't. The first sob broke out of him like a dam exploding, and the rest came out in a tidal wave of pent up emotions and insecurities. He hunched over further, head tucked between his legs, his back rising and falling in a quick, uneven pattern as he struggled to breathe.
"Aw, fuck, V... don't... don't cry," Johnny tried with little success to be comforting, sitting on the edge of bed. He hesitated for a moment before letting his right hand rest on V's shaky shoulder. The touch wasn't quite physical, but both of them could feel it as if it were. Though Johnny had basically no practice, he tried his best to be soothing, "Hey, you gotta breathe. You're okay, choom. Just gotta let go. You'll feel better, right?"
"I... I can't-" V choked out, "You... you'll s-s-see..."
"So? I've already seen pretty much everything there is, least when it comes to you. If I was gonna give you grief over anything, it'd be your terrible taste in inputs." Johnny joked, more out of instinct than anything else. It was the wrong thing to say, though, because V just continued to cry. Johnny grimaced and said, "Seriously, V, I know what you're thinkin' an' I'm not gonna tease you, not if it makes you cry like this. I'm an asshole, but I'm not that heartless." What he didn't say, even though it was true, was that he couldn't stand to see V in pain, and he was already the source of enough of it.
V finally peeked up at Johnny, his flickering Kiroshis standing out even more than usual against the redness all around his eyes. His bottom lip was trembling, like V was barely holding back more sobs. It was a pitiful sight, one that made Johnny's heart break and fill with rage all at once. Then V spoke, soft as a whisper and light in a way that Johnny didn't think he could ever sound, "You promise? Won't be mean?"
Johnny knew that if anyone else had said something like that to him, especially back in the 20's, he would've laughed in their face and said the cruelest thing he could come up with. But when V said it, looking up at him with big eyes and a suffocating sadness emanating off him, it just felt like an exceptionally evil thing to do, like kicking the world's most pitiful puppy. He offered V half a smile and nodded, "Promise."
"Can I..." V faltered and trailed off. His voice sounded different, pitched higher than usual and lacking any of its usual boldness. The teary wobble only made him sound even more like a child barely holding it together.
Johnny nudged his shoulder and prompted him further, "Can you what?" V just wiped away more of his never-ending tears from flushed, itchy cheeks, watery eyes focused on anywhere that wasn't Johnny. A tiny little piece of guilt settled in Johnny's stomach, so he told him, "I'm not gonna bite cha. Just tell me."
"Can I have a hug?" V blurted out, dissolving back into poorly repressed sobs.
The question caught Johnny off guard. Not because of the request itself, but because V was clearly so terrified of it being rejected. He opened his arms and said, "C'mere, you li'l gonk, 'course you can have a fuckin' hug."
V hesitated for a moment, as if Johnny's invitation was a trap. But then the fuzziness in his head craving affection won out, and he practically dove into Johnny's arms. Those arms wrapped around his back, pressing him even closer. The sensation of being held by an engram was strange, like Johnny was both solid and not at the same time, like he was really there with him but could disappear in a millisec. It only made V hold on tighter.
V kept his face buried in Johnny's shoulder for what felt like an eternity before he finally pried himself away. It felt like loads of grief and fear had been lifted from his chest, only fuzziness and deep-seated exhaustion left.
Distantly, he heard Johnny talking to him, but he couldn't make it out. The words were there but his brain was processing them at a snail's pace. Only one word ended up making it through: naptime. V knew he wouldn't be able to put up a fight about it, and he didn't want to either. He wanted to curl up and sleep forever.
V sniffled, swiping clumsily at his tear-stained cheeks before taking a look around the apartment. He was really small now, but still too embarrassed to let himself really let loose. Even with Johnny's promise. Not to mention, he still felt too shaky and dead tired to get up and retrieve his stuff from its top secret hiding spot.
Instead, he just shifted onto his side, worming his way under the covers. Though he was calmer, just sniffles and a hiccup here and there, he still felt the need to pull the blanket over his head and hide from Johnny before tucking his thumb into his mouth. His fingerless gloves were still on, and he frowned at the taste of fabric on the tip of his tongue. But to take the gloves off meant taking his thumb out and he couldn't bring himself to do that. He was tired.
The bustle of Night City was loud, with cracking gunshots and sirens and the metro rushing by and screaming matches between disgruntled neighbors. The noise never stopped, but it had become almost like white noise to V. Like growing up in a house near train tracks and eventually finding yourself lulled to sleep by the clunky rumbling you once despised. V found himself drifting off, finding a familiar comfort in the sounds he grew up with.
As his eyes slid shut, he heard Johnny glitch as he disappeared, then heard his voice in his head, softer than ever before, "Sweet dreams, V."
V woke up with a relic malfunction notification, a raging headache, a painful emptiness in his stomach, and Nibbles curled up against his side. He also, to his surprise, woke up feeling small. That had never happened before, he always had his "regress sesh" at night and woke up the next morning feeling adult and ready to go. Why was the fuzziness still clouding his brain?
His stomach growled loudly, pain stinging to let him know that he needed to focus on food. Johnny must have felt it in some way too, because he appeared, leaning against the shuttered window, and said, "Finally starved enough to get us some grub?"
V looked at him, lips pushed out in a childish pout. He shifted somewhat, pulling himself up enough to tuck his feet underneath himself, but remained on the bed. He wanted to say something, maybe even something witty like his big self would, but words were hard when his brain got small and he couldn't find the right ones. So he just hummed disinterestedly, and clumsily yanked the gloves off his hands
"Oh..." Johnny said as he watched V take his pillow and hug it to his stomach like it was a stuffed toy, his left thumb going straight to his mouth. Johnny almost felt like a gonk for not sooner realizing he wasn't dealing with the smarmy merc but still the little kid from last night. "Not feeling like a big boy yet?"
V tried to glare at Johnny, but with his thumb in his mouth, he looked about as threatening as a kitten. Johnny couldn't help but laugh. V huffed before murmuring, "Imma big boy."
"Sure ya are. That's why you can get up and get yourself something to eat. Big kids can feed themselves, right?" Johnny replied. If V were a little bit bigger than he was, he might have felt mocked. But Johnny's voice was actually kind of soothing, almost gentle if not for the rasp of his smoker's lung. And he wasn't wrong, V needed to eat, even if the thought made him want to puke.
With a grumble, he climbed off the bed and hobbled over to the SCSM next to the bathroom. As he stood, his optics stuttered, once again being pushed a notification about the relic. He ignored it. His legs felt weak, almost trembling as he tried to shift his weight from one to the other, but he made the short walk. Leaning against the machine, he pressed the button for a breakfast burrito. Twelve eddies for cheap synth eggs and bacon in a stale tortilla. Not the most appetizing, but nothing from a SCSM ever was.
Bending over seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, so he lowered himself to the floor, quite ungraciously. Legs splayed out in front of him and back against the SCSM, he managed a couple of bites of the burrito before the hunger gnawing at his stomach shifted to nausea.
When he started to wrap the remainder of his food back up, Johnny appeared closer, crouched in front of V, "C'mon, this is your first meal in two days. Eat some more."
"No..." V whined, sounding all too much like a toddler one straw away from a meltdown. He didn't want to. It tasted yucky and his tummy felt full just from the few bites he had and he was so tired of having to take care of himself. Just thinking about it was making him want to cry, tears burning hot in his eyes but not falling.
"You're not feelin' good. Trust me, I know, bud. But you gotta eat or it won't get any better. One more bite, okay?" When V only met his gaze with wariness, Johnny took off his shades and added, "For me?"
V made a soft little disgruntled noise, but did as he was asked and took one more bite, a small one, but a bite nonetheless. It made his stomach roil in dissension, but he kept it at bay. His eyes flicked over to Johnny's, going to give him a dirty look for making him force the awful food down, but when their gazes met, Johnny smiled, reached out to tousle V's hair, and praised him, "Good boy."
V's face brightened up, both with a slight smile and a bashful blush. Something warm and soft swelled in his chest, a feeling he couldn't quite place yet craved. Though he certainly still ached, the worst of the malfunction had passed. The full night's rest and a meal—as meager as it was—had driven away most of the lead in his bone. He almost, not quite, but almost felt kind of good.
When Johnny moved to the couch, beckoning him over, V was quick to follow. He paused halfway there, looking thoughtful before holding up a finger. Giving Johnny one last hesitant glance, he ducked into his stash and opened the locked box hidden in the corner. There were plenty of fun toys and different colored pacifiers and sippy cups and such, but V needed just two things. First, he picked up his cat plushie and hugged it close. Holding it in the crook of his arm, he reached in and grabbed his favorite pacifier, red with little black stars.
When he returned back to the living area, stuffed cat in hand and pacifier in mouth, he almost expected Johnny to burst out into hysterical laughter and his face went aflame just thinking about it. But Johnny looked at him, smiled easily, and asked, "Ready to settle in now, kid?"
Cheeks still tinged pink, but a bashful smile hiding behind his pacifier, he nodded. He took his seat next to Johnny, criss-crossing his legs up on the sofa, and mumbled, "Holo?"
"Hm." Johnny scratched his chin, trying to think of a suitable holovid for a child that wouldn't make him want to blow his digital brains out. Finally, with a smirk, he asked, "You ever seen Spongebob?"
V shook his head, "S'that?"
Johnny's smirk widened into an almost mischievous grin, "Oh, only the greatest cartoon of my generation. You're gonna fuckin' love it."
Though Johnny wasn't a netrunner like V, he was capable enough to find an old rip of the show on the net and get it up on the screen. Part of him wanted to start at the beginning, but he wanted V to get the best first impression of the show possible, so instead, he loaded up the episode "Band Geeks" and let it play.
Just as Johnny thought, V was enthralled by it, watching with a smile on his face and giggling at all of the best jokes. When the episode ended, he quietly asked for another, and Johnny was happy to oblige. They moved on to other classics, such as "Graveyard Shift", "Pizza Delivery", and "No Weenies Allowed".
After a few episodes, Johnny finally noticed that V had slowly drifted closer and closer until he was curled up against Johnny's side. Concern crept up in the back of his mind when he thought about how instinctively he wrapped his 'ganic arm around V, pulling him closer. It was a kind of intimacy Johnny wasn't used to, fluffier and sweeter than anything he had with Kerry, Rogue, or even Alt.
Though that scared him, more than he would ever admit, it also felt surprisingly good. And the fact that V was happy, that Johnny had actually managed to not fuck it all up yet, only boosted that warmth in his nonexistent chest. God, when had V wormed his way so thoroughly into Johnny's heart?
After a couple of hours of cartoons and cuddles (a situation Johnny never could've imagined himself in before being slotted into V's brain), V pulled away, his previous mirth replaced with a sudden shyness as he tugged pacifier from his lips. After a pause, gathering himself and his words, he half-heartedly joked, "I'm all grown up again."
"Were you ever truly grown up?"
"Oh, hardy har har," V scoffed. He started moving around the apartment, hiding away his pacifier and cat, tossing out the half eaten burrito, and grabbing his discarded gloves and mask. Once he had the familiar, comforting gear back on, he spared a glance in Johnny's direction and said, "Thanks. For bein' nice when I was...y'know..."
"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't. You're makin' me go all soft," Johnny muttered, putting on his sunglasses. He had resisted the idea before, and he certainly wouldn't voice it even now, but he was starting to think that V was changing him as much as he was changing V. If they didn't get their shit sorted out and he ended up wiping V from his body, there would at least be traces of him left, within Johnny. It was so damn poetic, Johnny wanted to write a song about it.
V shrugged, "Maybe it's not such a bad thing."
"Don't know about that but either way, we should delta. Got shit to do."
As if on cue, V's holo started ringing, a notification with Panam's name popping up. V shook his head and mumbled, "Merc work never ends," before answering the call, "Hey, Panam, what's up?"
Just like that, they were back to the blood, dirt, and sweat of the city.