Work Text:
V was painfully aware of how long it was taking her to leave her apartment and head to the Aldecaldo camp outside Night City. She'd gone home immediately after receiving Panam's call about the tank being ready; to "restock her gear," she'd said. However, as Nibbles adorably rubbed up against her leg, purring, V realized she might just be lying to herself. She bent down, scratching down the middle of the cat's fuzzy back. He leaned into the affection, purring so loud it echoed in the otherwise silent apartment. Well, silent aside from the constant background noise of Night City.
V frowned. Poor thing had been just about starved when she and Johnny found him a couple weeks prior, little more than skin and bones. Nibbles– as V had lovingly dubbed the sphynx cat, much to Johnny's chagrin– wasn't in such a sorry state now, but he still had a way to go before she'd be comfortable leaving him alone for a long period of time, and she didn't know how soon she'd return to the City.
And so it was that Misty had been asked to check on Nibbles tomorrow morning, and make sure he had both food and water in his bowls.
"V, he's a fuckin' street cat," Johnny said, arms folded across his chest, "You don't have to baby 'im."
She straightened back up and began for her desk. "I know, but..." V tried to come up with an excuse, but trailed off when she couldn't find one. It didn't really matter anyway; she didn't need to justify all of her choices to a dead man, right? What was he gonna do about it? Make some cliché comment about kids these days?
Johnny whistled a low note as he read her thoughts. "You wound me, V."
V waved a hand dismissively in his general direction as she rummaged through her desk for a piece of scratch paper and something to write with. Sure, she could just text Misty how much to feed Nibbles and that she was grateful for her help, but a handwritten note seemed more Misty's style.
At long last, V found an old, mostly clean index card. Soon after, she managed to also locate a pen that wasn't empty. It's the little victories in life. She spun it around her left hand before starting her note.
'Misty,
Thanks for agreeing to-'
She stopped. V could feel Johnny hovering over her shoulder, watching her scrawl the note from his spot leaning against the other side of her desk. That in and of itself didn't bother her. Not anymore, anyway. Since their conversation at the Pistis Sophia, Johnny had been more present in V's peripheral vision, watching her work and offering quips or advice about the gigs she picked up. No, what caught her off guard was the odd, strangled sigh that had escaped his digital lips after she'd started writing, not to mention the sudden tightness in her chest.
V shot Johnny a glance over her shoulder. "What?" she asked, eyebrow raising slightly. His face was twisted into an expression she couldn't quite read, somewhere between confusion, pity, and guilt. The aviators perched on his nose weren't helping her figure him out.
"Didn't say nothin'," he replied defensively, pulling out a cigarette to light so he wouldn't have to meet her gaze.
"No, but you definitely thought something. Same brain, 'member?" V tapped a finger to her temple for emphasis.
Silence hung between them for a couple minutes, with Johnny just... standing there. She caught him glancing at the pen in her left hand, which only added to her confusion. V found herself wishing they hadn't done so well at building walls around their thoughts in their shared headspace. If she focused hard enough, she might be able to carve a hole big enough for her to discern what had him avoiding her eyes, but there was no way to know if that wouldn't also cut into the careful trust they'd finally built between them.
"Hello?" she tried instead.
More silence. Eventually, instead of respond, Johnny stamped out his spent cigarette on the floor and disappeared. Now that had V worried. She searched for Johnny in her mind, sending out a small, probing feeling of worry.
"Was it somethin' I said?" she asked the now-empty apartment with a shrug. After a couple seconds, V was answered only by a vague feeling of 'not wanting to talk.' She sighed, exhaling softly through her nose as a knot formed in her stomach.
Whatever it was, it'd have to wait until they were back in the City. V picked the pen back up and continued writing the note, careful not to let the ink smudge against the side of her hand.
It did anyway. It always did.
--
By the time V returned home, it was late, and she felt like shit. Piloting the Basilisk with Panam had been incredible (blasting shit is always fun, after all), but the mental and emotional toll of it all had triggered one of the worst Relic episodes she'd had yet. It had even gotten a reaction out of Johnny, who'd been uncharacteristically quiet all day. It wasn't much, just him making sure she was okay before ghosting off again; he hadn't even attempted a joke at her expense. But it was enough to reignite V's worry that something was wrong, with either him or her. Whatever the hell it was, Johnny had been good at keeping it from her. Another bad sign.
The couple of hours' rest she'd managed in the Aldecaldo camp had made her feel well enough to drive home, but V was desperate to sleep in her own bed, exhaustion clawing its way inside her muscles and weighing them down. After showering all the sand off her, of course. She doubted she'd ever get it all out of her car, but V could at least scrub it off her skin.
The door to her apartment slid open, then shut behind her with a mechanical hiss. As if on cue, Nibbles leapt from his favorite spot on V's bed and loped over to greet her, meowing the whole way to let her know that he was there in the darkness. She knelt down to scratch behind his ears.
"Aw, did someone miss me?" she cooed, "I bet you were so disappointed to have the bed all to yourself, huh?"
V scooped the cat up into her arms, feeling his purring buzz against her chest, and couldn't help but smile a little. Being with Panam and the Aldecaldos was always great– they felt like a family she'd never had– but there was something about Nibbles that offered a different kind of comfort than the people in her life did. Stability and predictability, maybe?
Speaking of the people in her life...
Taking a breath, V rose to her feet, still cradling Nibbles in her arms. "You gonna keep avoiding me, Johnny? It's gettin' old."
Her tone wasn't sharp or accusatory, just tired.
Almost shyly, Johnny appeared across the room from her, back against the window by her bed. Immediately, tension V hadn't even noticed vanished from her shoulders.
He was still wearing his aviators, despite how dark the room was, the dramatic bastard. As he'd come into view, V noticed a pang of that guilt from earlier in her gut. It'd disappeared as quickly as it came.
Neither of them spoke for some time, though it wasn't an uncomfortable quiet. Out of the usual for them, perhaps, but not uncomfortable. There'd been lots of unusual things about her relationship with Johnny that were surprising V lately. Not that now was the time to unpack that, of course. V didn't mind the excuse his thinking gave her to stand there and idly pet the cat.
Finally, Johnny broke the silence. He fidgeted with an unlit cigarette between his fingers for a moment or two before gesturing lamely to V with his metal hand.
"It's just," he began softly, "you wrote with your left hand earlier."
V's head tilted a bit to the side. "Huh?"
Johnny waved his hand again, first towards the desk behind V, then at her. "The note. For Misty. You- you wrote it with your left hand." The words got smaller, quieter as he spoke them.
If his tone hadn't been so genuine, V might have chuckled at the observation.
"And?"
"I write with my left hand."
She still didn't see the problem.
"Dammit, V," he huffed, pulling off his aviators, "You're right-handed!"
"No, I'm not," she said, fighting back a laugh. What the hell was he going on about?
He stared back at her like she was a complete idiot, missing something obvious. "V, come on. You shoot right-handed, for fuck's sake!"
"Yeah, because that's how I learned!" She raised her voice to match his, but there wasn't any anger behind it.
With an exasperated sigh, Johnny pushed off the wall where he'd been standing and began pacing back and forth across the tiny apartment, lighting the cigarette he'd been toying with. Frustration pounded at the thin walls they'd managed to build between themselves in their shared mind, threatening to tear them down. The more he paced, the more slipped through. That he didn't believe her, that she was being replaced by him and couldn't even tell, that he was growing on her like a mold, a parasite—
And then it finally clicked.
She set Nibbles down on the floor, and took a couple steps towards him. "That’s what this has been about? Johnny, you live in my head. You should know I'm not lying to you, especially not about something as gonk as which hand I've always written with," V tried to mimic his own soft tone from earlier.
Despite what Johnny seemed to think (not that he'd ever admit he felt this way, but she knew), she didn't blame him for what was happening to them. To her. He was still a near complete asshole about ninety percent of the time, but it wasn't like he'd put the Relic in her head, or fired the gun that had killed her, or dumped her in that landfill. And the other ten percent of the time, he could be funny and almost charming. Emphasis on the almost.
So, seeing him this worked up over a problem he'd completely imagined, this worked up about her... V'd be lying if she said it didn't instill her with a little hope for the future of their... whatever the fuck they had.
As she'd hoped, her reassurance didn't fall on deaf ears, and Johnny stopped pacing. His body faced her direction, but his eyes were on the ground. Anywhere but her, really.
"Sure, I write with my left," V continued slowly, "but the only people who were around to teach me how to shoot or throw a knife were righties." She shrugged. "Guess that makes me a traitor to leftie kind or something, huh?"
Johnny huffed a sigh, releasing the tension in his own shoulders and raking his metallic hand through his hair. He shook his head.
"Fuck, V."
She didn't reply immediately, opting instead to stick her hands in the back pockets of her pants and wait for him to figure himself out. For a guy who was so quick with jokes and insults, Johnny sure liked taking his time on his words when he thought they mattered. Not that she really minded. She hadn't minded for a while now, come to think of it.
Johnny let his hand fall back to his side, and for the first time all day, he looked up and actually met V's eyes.
He sighed again, but this time the guilt and worry on his face left, washed away by a relief V could swear had a hint of embarrassment to it.
"You gotta stop scaring me like that, V. Really had me goin' there for a sec."
There he was.
V scoffed dramatically. "I gotta stop? Sorry you never noticed we're both left-handed. I coulda sworn I'd mentioned that before, ya gonk." She gave him a smirk.
"Nope," Johnny replied, shaking his head, "Never mentioned it once."
V chuckled. She really didn’t write much, so she couldn’t completely blame Johnny for not knowing that she wrote with her left hand, like him. That didn’t make this situation any less funny, and she’d definitely tease him about this later, but V didn’t feel like ruining the moment. For now.
"Least that's one more thing we can commiserate about," she began counting off on her fingers, "Ink smudges, coffee mugs with designs on them, writing in a binder..."
"Scissors..."
"Scissors," she repeated, holding up another finger. "Having to write somethin' while your personal's jacked into an access point? Next to impossible."
Now they were both smiling like idiots, worry erased from the two of them, at least for now. Neither of them even noticed how closely they were now standing. Warmth made itself comfortable in V’s chest, worry and anxiety now all but forgotten.
But it didn't matter, because any strong feelings that might have sprung up between the two of them were currently being held in a chokehold by V's physical need to get the sand and sweat off of her skin.
Even as V stripped off her grimy, dirt-coated clothes and finally stepped into the shower to wash the rest of the desert off her, they continued going back and forth, listing off all the ways that right-handed society had wronged them, until they were back in comfortable silence.
V flopped backwards onto her bed, feeling only a little bad about disturbing Nibbles, who'd been asleep on her pillow. She didn't bother crawling under her sheets– it was way too hot for that– and instead chose to spread herself out on top of her comforter. V tilted her head to get a better view of Johnny who, despite only seeing what she could, was watching out the window at the city below.
"We good?" she asked, holding back a yawn.
He nodded in the affirmative. "Yeah. We're good, V.” He paused for a couple seconds before adding, “But for the record, shooting right-handed does kinda make you a traitor."
V snorted in response. Now that she was lying down, it was like all of the exhaustion from the day was hitting her all at once. She let her heavy eyelids close. Naturally, she wasn’t even remotely in what could be considered a “normal” sleeping position, sideways in bed and bent at odd angles. It didn’t take long for her breathing to even out, and for the world around her to drift away as sleep overtook her.
V dreamt of dunes and sand-swept plains.
And Johnny was left wondering– as he did most nights after V fell asleep as of late– when the hell he had started caring this much about the merc who was feeling less and less like a prison, and more and more like the home he’d never had.
And hell if he knew what the fuck he was gonna do about it.