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They have trouble sleeping, Johnny and V. Kerry already knew that about Johnny from the last time he was alive — and how weird is it that he can say it like that : the last time Johnny Silverhand was alive . Anyway, it seems that dying and coming back to life didn’t cure Johnny of his insomnia. Kerry doesn’t know if he can call it insomnia, because Johnny generally falls asleep just fine: he the first one to snore when the three of them settle to sleep after a good fuck. But he doesn’t sleep long before he’s awakened.
Back when they’d just met and lived in a squat together, it was nightmares about the war. Johnny would jerk awake with a gasp, gripping his chrome shoulder so tightly Kerry half imagined it would dent the metal if it was any tighter. His eyes would be open but unseeing even when Kerry turned on the light. In Johnny’s dark pupils, his friend saw the panic, the confusion, the fear and the sadness all swirling around madly. It was what made him keep being so lenient with Johnny, because he knew what hid under the rage and the anger: a lost boy, running in the dark, calling out for help but never receiving it. Kerry fell in love with that boy and never fell out, even when it turned out to be a curse.
Later in the 20’s, when they toured or Johnny crashed at Kerry’s for a few months, generally after a severe injury on a gig, the nightmares turned to other things. Johnny’s own violence came back to haunt him: he would see himself stand in the middle of a fire, not even trying to move, just waiting for the heat to become unbearable, for the smoke to strangle him, for the flames to burn his skin. He would wake up, panting and trembling, and tell Kerry about it only when he’d taken some Blow.
By the end, he kept dreaming about a crumbling tower, and when Kerry asked him if he ever made it out alive, Johnny would smile at him and say no . His smile was strange, like he knew this dream was some sort of prophetic vision, but couldn’t really find it in himself to care. By then, Johnny was either be rageful, or totally numb, nothing in between.
So, Kerry isn’t surprised by Johnny having nightmares that wake him up after two or three hours of sleep.
Kerry is more surprised about V’s sleeplessness. Sure, V lived through some traumas, too, but from what Kerry knows, it’s about the average kind when you were born and raised as a streekid in Night City. Kerry has some of them, too, like having to fight for water, being offered shelter in exchange for your dignity, being a victim and an aggressor at the same time…
But apparently, it’s not that. V turns and tosses in bed for hours, waking Kerry up because he keeps moving, fussing with the pillow, rearranging the covers. He’s too cold, then too hot, can’t seem to find a comfortable position. Sometimes he just gives up and goes to tinker with his pistols, or deals with fixer shit. Since Kerry and Johnny keep odd hours, too, they don’t really find it weird, and Kerry isn’t particularly worried because once V is asleep, he can sleep for nineteen hours in one go and not look like a zombie when he wakes up.
Tonight is apparently a night where V can't find rest. Kerry fell asleep in his arms with a hand over Johnny’s collar bone, over the place he used to have the scars from the field surgery that had saved his life and granted him The Hand . An abomination Kerry is glad he got rid of during his death. The new arm is much sleeker, a lot more sensitive, and has an incredible bonus in Kerry’s eyes: it doesn’t turn Johnny cyberpsycho. So that’s how Kerry fell asleep, or he thought he did but maybe not because he finds himself with eyes wide open something like an hour later, in that strange state of mind where he isn’t sure he really slept.
One thing is sure: V isn’t sleeping. He sighs loud and deep, and Kerry knows he’s on the verge of giving up and getting out of bed, deeming this night a bad one. Chasing the remnant of his maybe-not-sleep, Kerry turns between the sheets. He finds his input propped against two pillows, scrolling on his favorite app — which apparently contains mostly cute pictures and funny videos of cats — with a tired expression.
He glances at Kerry when he turns.
“Can’t sleep?” the musician asks and V shrugs before dropping the phone on his chest with another weary sigh. He turns on his belly, shifts and moves his head on the pillow until he’s satisfied… Then move again, once more under Kerry’s growing smile before he settles.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” the rocker asks with a gravelly voice, whispering as not to wake Johnny up, too. Let him get a few hours more sleep if he can.
“Nothin’,” V replies, eyes roaming over Kerry’s face and the musician sees his shoulders relax somewhat, as if just looking at Kerry has an appeasing effect on him. The singer just raises an eyebrow and V groans, hiding his face in the pillow.
“It’s silly.”
“Well, you know I love silly stories.”
Another muffled huff, then V’s sparkling eyes reappear.
“You know, that gig I did yesterday?”
“The Romeo and Juliet one?” Kerry asks after a moment of thinking. Not only does V rarely speak about his gigs to him — he does with Johnny, because Johnny generally goes along with him — but the superstar isn’t that interested to know about every detail. It would probably make him lose sleep, too.
Yet the musician seems to recall the target was the heir to a rich and influential family, apparently being held against her will by her own grand-parents because she planned on donating most of her fortune to charity. The charity in question was to help the victims of water poisoning caused by her family's industry. Apparently the heir had fallen in love with one of the activists, who was the one who’d contacted V.
“Yeah. Well, I went with that merc, Helen?”
Kerry nods, he’s been hearing about this rising star for a while now. When Johnny is unavailable, V generally asks Helen along.
“The client knows the flat is under heavy automatic security but couldn’t tell us more. So we went to do recon. We climbed the unfinished building on the other side of the street to get to the right level. We were setting up to watch, when suddenly, we stumbled upon construction workers sleeping on site — I mean, I thought they were squatters at first. It surprised us and vice versa so here we are at a standoff. I don’t wanna harm them but they’re really panicky, don’t speak english and have no translators. I try to understand what’s happening when suddenly a fucking rocket —” V explains, whispering so loudly Kerry puts a finger across his lips to tell him to keep quiet. Kerry can’t help but smile at V’s outraged expression that someone dared launching a rocket at him.
“A fucking rocket,” the merc repeats more quietly, “comes right at us. Apparently we made so much ruckus it alerted the NCPD drones patrolling down the street, which identified us as a threat and just fired. Helen and I ducked, but the construction workers weren’t all so lucky… One got hit by the rocket square in the chest, another fled right into a hole in the ground and fell four stories high…”
V trails off, looking haunted.
“And then Helen and I were dashing madly down the stairs, firing at the drones and hoping the NCPD won’t just be waiting for us when we get to street level. I swear it was the worst recon I ever did,” he finishes, a note of anger in his otherwise really weary voice.
Kerry stays silent, only strokes V’s cheek tenderly. He can feel his input’s pain at innocent lives being lost. It’s exactly what made Kerry and Johnny fall in love with him: after all he’s been through, V still cares, and he cares so much it’s sometimes difficult to bear.
“I keep seeing him fall,” V confesses as he closes his eyes and shuffles closer to Kerry. “Then I keep thinking about the fact it could have been Helen. Then it makes me think about Jackie when we escaped the Konpeki Plaza… and if not that, then i think that i haven't heard from the Aldecaldos in two months and they should have come back by now, or I think about what Dino said about this mysterious BD circle who’s been releasing really hardcore content and I need to fuckin’ find them before they settle in my fuckin’ city for real but I —”
“Hush,” Kerry interrupts him firmly, still stroking his nape gently, “you’re getting all worked up, no wonder you can’t sleep”.
V lets out a dry chuckle and turns away to face the ceiling.
“I can’t stop, it’s running in a loop in my head.”
“I know.”
He does, it happens to him too, though a lot more rarely since V is in his life. Kerry just moves so he can rest his head against V’s shoulder and caress his stomach, his chest, tracing over the tattoos on his skin.
V catches his hand after a while and brings it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. He looks calmer.
“I keep thinking about everything I could have done to prevent it,” he admits and Kerry smiles. V is an over planner and a control freak when it comes to his work, even more so now that he’s mostly a fixer. He wants to make sure his clients get what they paid for, and to keep his mercs alive, too. Guilt and "ifs" are what’s keeping him awake, and it’s one of the things that makes Kerry sure V is a good guy.
“That’s because you care.”
“I care too much.”
“No, you care just enough. I think it’s normal to feel guilty because two men died for nothing. But it’s not your fault, the NCPD is just trigger happy, especially in the areas they have sponsors living nearby, and those workers shouldn’t have been there. They should have been home, safe and sound, and not sleeping on the construction site because they can’t afford lodgings.”
“Carefull, you’re starting to sound like Johnny,” V snorts good naturedly.
“You know he’s right on these things.”
“Yeah, don’t tell him.”
“I heard it,” Johnny interrupts, turning to face them. He’s probably trying to sound smug but he’s still blinking sleep away so the effect is just cute.
“We woke you up?” V asks with a frown.
Johnny shakes his head no.
“Nightmares.”
“We didn’t feel you thrash around,” Kerry replies with a worried expression.
“I think I woke up just when it started… Like my brain said ‘nope, not doing this again’ and woke me up.”
He looks confused about this, troubled by the fact his brain wouldn’t happily subject him to more horrific memories of his past.
“Heh, that’s an improvement,” V comments.
“I’m still awake after…” he checks the hour on his holo, “an hour and a half. So I basically took a nap.”
Both Kerry’s inputs sigh dramatically, prompting a laugh out of him.
“Ok, let’s… Let’s do something else, ok. Watch a movie or something, since we’re all awake?”
“Sure,” they reply with little enthusiasm, but Kerry has some for three. With a grin, he throws the covers back and puts on his gown before going to the lounge room downstairs to set up the home cinema.
Johnny and V join him as the screen finishes lowering itself over the portrait of his naked ass. Kerry has pulled out the plaids and after telling them to settle, he goes to make pop-corn.
When he comes back, he sits in the middle, and both men put their head on each of his shoulders.
Two hours later, Kerry has finished the bowl of pop-corn and he’s sniffling softly as the credits for A Nomad Story scroll down. He missed it when it came out in theaters, but the critics were unanimous about this being the movie of the decade, with magnificent photography, good old school acting and a heart wrenching universal story about love and loss.
As he wipes his cheeks with the sleeve of his robe, he glances down to see if his inputs liked it, only to chuckle when he discovers they’re both asleep. Johnny's head is actually resting on Kerry's lap, face buried against his stomach. The musician can’t recall feeling him settle like this so he must have been really engrossed in the movie. V is snoring softly, drooling against Kerry’s neck, mumbling something in his sleep.
Kerry smiles, and tries to move. He really needs to get up because he feels all stiff for one, but also because he needs to pee. He gently pushes V the other way, not worried about waking him up now that he’s asleep. He could sleep through the armageddon. With Johnny he’s more careful, but manages to extract himself. Stretching, he groans when his spin pops and shakes himself before walking to the bathroom.
When he comes back, thinking about watching another movie, he finds Johnny seated on the couch, looking at V with a strange look. From the way he is breathing, hard and fast, Kerry can tell this time it’s a nightmare that woke him up.
Johnny jumps and turns swiftly to Kerry when the man comes into his field of vision. His hands spasm over the blanket he’s still holding, and when his eyes meet Kerry’s, they look lost. With a frown, Kerry closes the distance between them in two strides.
“Hey, hey,” he calls gently, “you’re ok, you’re safe.” Johnny looks at his lips like he can’t hear Kerry’s voice, but can read the words on his lips. He relaxes, sighs softly and lets his forehead bumps against his friend’s.
Kerry brings his hand to his nape, stroking it gently. He feels Johnny’s chrome hand slide under his robe to feel his skin, thumb rubbing over the muscle of his thigh.
“What was it, this time?” Kerry asks in a whisper after a moment of silence.
Johnny shakes his head, and frowns like he can’t really remember.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m back in Mikoshi, or the Black Wall. And I wake up but the sensation follows and I don’t know if it’s real or not.”
Kerry makes a soft sound of commiseration and brushes their mouths together.
“It’s real, you’re here,” he affirms, gently gripping Johnny’s cheeks. “You can feel my hands and the heat of my body. You can hear my voice…” he trails off as the other man tilts his head until their lips press harder together. Kerry welcomes him in, licks inside his mouth, sucks on his tongue briefly before nipping at his bottom lip. Johnny groans, shuffles closer and lets his hand roam higher.
With a last kiss, Kerry draws back to look at him with a worried expression. His skin is cooling down, cold sweat covering it now, but his eyes look clearer. Johnny groans lowly before diving back in for another kiss and Kerry laughs into his mouth.
“Sometimes I don’t feel like it’s real either,” he admits against Johnny’s lips. The man smiles, a wry expression that silently translates his regrets. He nuzzles against Kerry’s cheek, playfully bites his earlobe before looking at V.
“You know, I always felt like we’ve been dealt shitty cards,” Johnny murmurs. “But it’s like… You know — what Misty says about karma.”
Kerry nods, hugging Johnny against him.
“V is an ace.”
The other man nods, huffs against Kerry’s neck.
“Or maybe a wild card,” Johnny adds like an afterthought.
They stay silent like this for a moment, before the resurrected rocker snorts.
“Look at him sleeping.”
Curious, Kerry disentangles them and looks over his shoulder at his other input. V is deep in slumber now that his brain finally let him fall asleep. He’s sprawled on his back, one hand down his shorts, holding his limp dick and snoring with a happy face. He sleeps like the innocent. Kerry grins; he kinda wants to draw a dick on V’s face. When he looks back at Johnny, he can tell the man feels the same and they laugh maniacally, but discreetly, so it sounds like they’re wheezing like old men.
“Think we can transport him back to bed?” Kerry asks when they are done snickering.
“With all the cyberware, even I can’t, he’s heavier than he looks.”
The singer knows because sometimes after sex V sags over him. Kerry loves it, feels safe under his mass of muscle and chrome so he smiles dopily, which earns him a disgusted expression from Johnny.
“We could get the spare mattress here, though. He can have the couch,” Kerry suggests.
So that’s what they do, then they decide to roll a joint, and then to play guitar. They play softly with no amps, even if they both know it wouldn’t bother V. He’s snoring rhythmically, so Johnny and Kerry use his snores as a bass line.
“We should record it,” Johnny says when they stop to listen to him. Kerry hums, feeling sleep calling him once more. They both settle on the mattress next to the couch, having pushed the low table further away.
In the low light, Johnny watches Kerry blink sleepily.
“You happy?” he mouths and the question makes the musician frown then nods softly, a gentle smile blossoming on his lips.
“Never been happier,” he replies, still a bit confused about the sudden inquiry.
“Because of V.”
Kerry looks at him, turning on his side to better observe him.
“Not only,” he replies, reaching out to brush Johnny’s mouth with his thumb. Their gazes meet and Kerry gets lost in his friend’s dark eyes, turned black by the night. He can’t say it out loud yet, but he hopes the message gets through anyway. Johnny doesn’t comment, but some lines around his eyes and mouth relax. It’s strange to think he was… worried, about that. Johnny used to be so good at pretending he didn’t care.
“You?” Kerry asks just as softly.
Johnny catches his hand, flesh meeting flesh. He holds it as he turns his head until his lips brushes Kerry’s palm. In his chest, the singer’s heart beats faster and he smiles wryly at himself: he’s still such a fool for this man. Johnny stays silent for a good moment, so long Kerry hinks he won’t answer. He closes his eyes, unable to fight sleep any longer. He won’t push tonight, he knows better anyway and he’s too tired now with V’s snores like a comforting lullaby in the background.
Johnny moves to wrap his arm around Kerry, holding him closer and entangling their legs together. The singer makes a happy but sleepy noise and feels himself drift.
“I don’t think I really knew what being happy meant until now. Took me a while to understand what I was feeling,” Johnny finally answers, voice rumbling through his chest like a purr.
Kerry smiles at him and feels a matching expression on Johnny’s lips against his forehead.
Maybe he’s already dreaming.