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An unrelenting burning sensation spiders across V’s every nerve. Along the edges of cyberware it intensifies as the chip in his head fizzes with energy. Johnny sits on the ledge across from the mercenary, those usual glitches in the man’s form absent. Mouth set in a thin line which V has slowly come to recognize as concern, Johnny’s ringed fingers are limply folded together between his knees, elbows propped on thighs as he leans forward looking at V. The ghosts of Johnny’s emotions have become more tangible, that point where V isn’t sure what’s his or the rocker’s had finally arrived.
“I’m tired, Johnny.” V admits in a small voice, feeling cold taps of rain begin to fall overhead. He turns his face up into that calming chill, a reprieve from a failing nervous system which felt like it was cooking him from the inside out. He tries to think back to the point where he deserved this.
“We can do this our way. One last blaze of glory, a real Jackie Welles kind of send off.” Something close to a smile flickers across V’s face at the memory of how excited Jackie had been for that damned heist. Finally making it to the big time. A spot in Night City infamy at last. When all it really did was leave a gaping ragged hole in the lives of his friends and family that hurt far more than the gunshot to V’s head ever did. Having been so firmly wedged in the corpo lifestyle, V had never been exposed to loss like Jackie’s. It was as if someone tore out every piece of cyberware and every single bone, then shoved it all back in haphazardly. Every breath, every blink, every little aspect of being alive felt wrong. Dream-like in the worst possible way.
While Johnny hadn’t been there to experience it in real time, the fissures left within V’s mind, gaping like the grand canyon with no end in sight, were enough to swallow both the construct and the man up in black grief. V didn’t want to put that same kind of sadness on those who were still around, those who still gave a shit about him. Fishing his phone out of a pocket, the merc thumbs it open and stares into its too bright screen with a frown. He needed to say goodbye.
Sighing, an action which kicked out all of V’s mental scaffolding, he scrolls through the abysmally small amount of contacts that were in his phone. With three of them being people who were dead. Johnny’s form flickers to sit next to him, leaning to peer over the man’s shoulder. An emotion which V knows isn’t his own shimmers over his mind like static on a television screen.
“You’re calling Kerry?” He asks, trying to sound casual even when V can feel that tight anxiety squeezing around his mind, making his chest ache in sympathy for emotions which the construct fell far more acutely. Delegating not to answer Johnny’s question V taps the call button and waits.
And waits.
“Don’t know how you got this number, leave a message.” Voicemail picks up and V endures the hurt disappointment two fold. Johnny, finally given the chance to say a proper goodbye to someone who’d he’d left the first time he ran into the jaws of death, denied that a second time. Knives twist in V’s chest and skull. It’s only as an afterthought that he realizes that the voicemail is still recording. He coughs awkwardly.
“Uh, hey Ker.” V winces at using Johnny’s nickname for Kerry. “Just, uh wanted to say–” Words trail off. What the fuck did he want to say? What was there to say between them? Thanks for all the sex? Thanks for understanding the situation that he was trapped in and still sticking around? Stay golden Pony-Boy? Agonizing over all those infinitesimal details which felt too large to put into words that could mean anything significant V scrubs a hand over his face.
“I’ll see ya, Ker.” Hanging up at the same time his head drops forward, phone gripped loosely in his fingers which droop between his knees. Maybe this was a bad idea.
“More than I did, more than I should have done.” Johnny’s voice is stiff with something that V hadn’t heard since the oilfields. Actual sadness, bone deep. This might be worse than actually dying, the ache which can’t be alleviated and will persevere after V’s already chrome dust on some Arasaka thug’s boot. Would people mourn him like they mourned Jackie? V could only hope people gave enough of a shit about him. Delamain might be upset. Or as upset as an AI could become.
Mustering up enough resolve to make one more phone call, V thumbs through his numbers again before landing on one. Confusion, then a kind of wounded understanding passes from Johnny to him and it nearly makes V hang up. Listening to the dial tone he closes his eyes. This was a number he’d dialed a few times over the last few months just to hear the voicemail pick up, just to pretend someone might be there.
“Hola! It’s the one and only Jackie Welles! You know what to do after that beep, choom.” It still makes V choke on a laugh at his best friend’s tone. He’d recorded it two days before the Konpeki plaza job, damn proud of himself even if V had made fun of him ruthlessly over noodles that afternoon. Misty of course loved it, because she loved Jackie. Everyone had loved Jackie. Scuffing a hand over the back of his neck, hair wet with the now steady rain, he smiles sadly at the ground.
“Hey Jack, yeah I know, fifth voicemail, what am I an obsessed fan? I… fuck I dunno what to do here Jackie.” V’s face prickles with warmth, chest suddenly too tight for the anguish. “We’re in the final hour and I could really use a friend like you about now. You know, wasn’t until your ofrenda that I really realized that you were gone. The look on your mom’s face.” Swallowing a thick knot in his throat V’s vision swims and he blinks hard to clear it.
“Maybe I still don’t believe it. Expecting you to pick up. Does that make me fuckin pitiful or crazy? Probably both.” A long pause stretches out as V raises his gaze toward the neon signs, glittering, grimy windows, a dully glowing sky hazy with light pollution and rain. Wet concrete which only reeks of stale trash and the grease of a thousand food vendors below. Johnny had disappeared. V is alone. He sighs and a kind of heavy resolve clicks into place.
“I’ll see ya soon Jack. Keep the engine running for me alright?”