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They're a room apart.
It shouldn't be possible, everything said it shouldn't. Lines of code, declining health, and the goddamn relic he was packed into. They shouldn't be a room apart, let alone breathing, in separate bodies, fifty feet apart.
Is it selfish to want to go back to the way it had been….?
Cold, shaking hands hold onto the fabric of the thin, shitty blanket he had been provided in this horribly sleek hospital room. The sterile, white surroundings burn his eyes, every blink he's forcing away tears as he wakes. All he knows are the chills that wrack through him like he was nothing but a useless body on a shelf. Maybe he had been.
Out here, unprotected and painfully real, he can feel every bit of cold, every hit of pain that comes and goes. There's no IV drip by him, nothing hooked up to him for any sort of relief. No, there's nothing to soothe the ache and burn that seems to radiate throughout his entire body. Though, he guesses, he's not supposed to be comfortable here.
His head throbs as he barely barely manages to lift his head off the horrendous mattress. Splotches of red and black paint his vision the more he forces himself up. Maybe it's the haziness, but as each mark in his vision fades and is replaced elsewhere, he can just slightly see the state he's in. Rather, the body.
Cool metal leaves it's mark on his wrist. The wrist of the hand that's supposed to be metal. Through and through, it was supposed to be metal. Wiring here and there, something linking up his mind to the chrome. That's not his hand.
Over the pounding in his head, his thoughts run a mile a minute. And first conclusion he comes to, is that it didn't work. Of course that's the first thought. There's not even a monitor linked up to him to track the way his heart starts to beat out of his chest. It's wrong, everything screams that this reaction is wrong, but that doesn't stop the panic that spreads.
Where is V?
God, if this didn't work, if V was gone- Fuck, fuck, shut up.
If there was one thing his head was good at, it was screaming. Whether it be into a mic, at the people around him, or just at himself, it was always loud. Here, there were no drugs to take to shut it up, either.
When he and V got here, they both knew the chances of failure, and what would happen if they couldn't get the relic out… But, as much as he distrusted this goddamn corporation and it's rats, V trusted it, and Johnny trusted V. How fucked up is that? He followed where V went, like he was the one who wasn't shouting orders just a week ago. He trusted V more than himself, and that fucking said something, even if he'd never admit it. He doesn't succumb to weakness, nor guilt. That's not something Johnny Silverhand does—he can't.
In front of a court of law, he wouldn't let those words fall from his lips. He pleads not guilty to every charge, with a self-centered reason why something happened like that instead. The trail of bodies that followed him are just casualties, people who agreed to fight and die by his side. He can't be held accountable for it when every party signed away their right to breathe by entering Night City's grasp. The city claims souls, from men hopeful to get up the corporate ladder, to people just trying to find a dry place for the night.
He and V aren't so different from that, not when they scrounged for eddies and safety among each other. Two men who just wanted to be something, go out with a bang and never be forgotten, or live in the stars. People written into history books, feared or beloved among the masses. That's all they ever wanted. Insignificance wasn't an option.
Together, somehow, they were going to make it. Johnny thought they were going to make it. Hand in hand, minds intertwined in every way. But they're here, both further and closer than Johnny's mind can grasp.
Fear runs on loop in his mind, several trains running too close to each other and nearly missing each time one sped past on their tracks. It blurs his vision, like a mean high each time his head throbbed again. He doesn't get anxious, he swore by that for the longest time, but the more he sits here, and the colder he feels the metal digging into his wrist, the more it starts to ramp up. There's not another person to share the burden, no one to take it off his shoulders.
It's like ice against his skin, that metal he tugs over and over again. Each movement coming with a sharp ache he so desperately wants to ignore, just like the red splotches throughout his vision. It fucks up his vision beyond the tears threatening to fill his eyes. He can't make out the shining silver in the mess, but he can bend his hand just enough to feel exactly what is is. That takes but a second before he's bruising himself to get out.
Handcuffs secure one wrist to the bed, with the other cuff connected to a post on the railing of the bed. Every pull on the metal makes his skin burn, splitting the sensitive skin where his silver arm is supposed to be. Why? Why? He can pull as much as he wants, the amount of bruising doesn't matter. He's held there for a reason, whatever that may be… At the very least, that has to mean V's somewhere else. Is Johnny a danger to him? Is that why?
As his vision clears of the red and black marks, and his body struggles to do any more push and pull, Johnny lets his head fall back against the mattress. It's a painful kind of weak, restless with a screaming mind and he can do nothing but stare and hope, somewhere in his head that it's okay. He has to hope that V's okay.
It's all flushed away in an instant, however, when V's sharp voice is all that floods his ears. Loud, aggressive, scared. A jumble of words bounce off the walls, and through the wall separating the two of them. Each thing more clear than the last as V grows louder and louder. Incoherent words turn into threats, then simply yelling.
Yelling Johnny's name.
His stomach twists unbearably, bile burning at the walls of his throat the more he hears screaming. V is all he can hear. It's all his ears tune into. Not the shouting by anyone else, not the people attempting to shut V up. It's just V. It's always V.
"Johnny! You fuckin' hear me?!"
He does.
He hears him even if the sounds pelt his brain like hail, even if it hurts like hellfire. V's voice cracks on the harsh words, on Johnny's name, repeated over and over, and over again… If he lets his eyes close, he can imagine he's right there, wiping the tears from V's face—he doesn't have to think to know that his previous host is choking on his own cries. As much as V hid it before, he knows exactly the way his voice conveys everything his face doesn't. Flat and monotone to everyone else, but not to Johnny, never to Johnny. Just a few days in his head taught him every little thing V did.
Is it wrong to wish he was back in there, rather than here?
The shouts would quiet and they'd both be safe wrapped in each other's arms, not so very far. They're alive, goddammit, but Johnny would rather be anywhere else. It's cold here, everything with a terrifying sheen of unfamiliar. Had he told V no, if they turned back around, he wouldn't hearing pleading—begging—for him. It would be okay if they hadn't done all this… Johnny would be safely tucked in V's head, surrounded by warmth, not in this freezing cold, sterile room.
It's cruel. He's cuffed to the bed as if he's some kind of animal, a creature to be frightened by. Maybe he would be if his body would work, if he could just pick himself up or get out a single sound, he'd call for V's name the same way he did for Johnny. The most he can do is pull in strangled breaths that only send more pain throughout his weak frame.
Does V even know he's alive?
Does he know Johnny wants to shout for him too?
Instead, he'd stuck in this bed. Bound with chains and creeping agony. There's nowhere to go, all he can do is listen to sobs for him. Over and over… V doesn't let up, he pushes and pushes like he should. V fights because he's strong, his brain damaged beyond repair and yet he's the one fighting to get to Johnny. It should be the other way around. It should be Johnny screaming until his voice broke, like he did on stage.
If he made a sound, that meant he was alive. Every time he shouted into a microphone, it showed that he was alive. There was blood in his veins and his heart was pulsing in his ears. The crowds were always just as loud as him, filling whatever venue they managed to snag for the night with liveliness, with heat and passion. They were alive.
He doesn't feel that so much now. In the cold, with only V's voice to tell him there's someone there, waiting for him. His skin is cold to the touch, each time his fist tightens with a wave of pain, there's no warmth to the grip. Any passion he had turns into the simple need to get out. Thinking is useless when all of his thoughts revolve around the same few things they had for the last week… V, and finally being out. He has to run somewhere different now, but no amount of tugging at the cuffs release his hand and he's too weak to keep trying.
Johnny Silverhand, reduced to a weak, frail body without so much as a glass of water at his bedside. No one to accompany him when he had woken up, he wasn't there for V, either. These cuffs have to be punishment for something.
The shouting voices go from the room next to his, to the hallway by them. Never once does V falter—Johnny would applaud him for it if he could bring himself to pick up his other hand; all it does is send sharp waves of pain through his muscles—not beyond his voice cracking and the desperate gasps Johnny knows are the cause of the moments V goes silent.
The seal to the door breaks with a hiss of air and a sigh of relief sits at the back of his throat, for just a minute. He uses what of his strength that he has to push himself against the head of the bed and lift himself up, eyes scanning to see who would walk in.
It's not V. Of course not…
Though, he can see the outline of his shoulders—hands grabbing harshly onto him, pulling him back. Everything he can see of V's body says fear, while the slightest view of his face shows anger. Relief was so close, V is right there.
A man in a white medical outfit walked in instead of V, his V. His head spins the more he stays in this upright position, but he grits his teeth and stares out to the person—doctor?—coming to his bedside. Words are quietly muttered to him, but don't make it to Johnny's ears over the yelling. V yells for him. Why can't he just see him? He's ten feet away, why can't V come in?
Really, he should be tracking the man who stands painfully close to him, but all his eyes see is the way V's hands keep reaching to, and slipping from, the door frame. Barely coherent wails falling from the man's lips. What has Johnny done that's so wrong to keep V away like this? He's not dangerous. He can barely hold his head up.
"Johnny!"
God, he wishes he could make a sound. Wide eyes stare to at door, uncaring as a hand squeezes his bruising wrist. V is right there. Make a fucking sound for the love of god- He can't. At the most, his adam's apple bobs in his throat and he only whimpers loud enough for the man next to him to hear, not V.
"Your friend talks a lot…" He can barely make out the words over V's useless shouting. The doctor speaks in a low tone, one Johnny wants to shrink away from. It promises hurt. He knows that kind of gravelly voice well. "Do you know why you're here?" Is this some kind of checkup, or a threat without the gun to his head?
Johnny's eyes never leave the doorway where V keeps trying to push into the room. Adrenaline is a hell of a chemical, how's V even standing when Johnny can't do so much as lift himself up off the mattress the rest of the way. Nodding his head feels like it takes an entire weeks worth of energy.
"Then you know why you can't see him, yes?"
No.
With that, his gaze immediately comes to the man towering over his bedside. Why wouldn't he be able to? His chest tightens with every breath, staring harshly up at the doctor. What has he done this time? Existed? Survived? Their agreement was that he and V would be together when they woke up, if everything went smoothly. He can only imagine whats going through V's head.
"You're a terrorist, Silverhand… Fifty years in Mikoshi wasn't enough for you to forget, right?"
How does it boil down to that? He served his time, while getting his head fucked with and memories erased, even altered to the point of not knowing reality from what his head told him. When he was alive the first time, he had the excuse of The Hand, of cyberpsychosis, for everything he didn't remember. Now, he knows everything isn't the way he remembers at all, from Alt and Rogue. Hell, from Kerry too. Mikoshi isn't an excuse if he can't prove what he did, or didn't do.
He's too weak to fight, but a growl rumbles in his chest the closer the doctor began to lean down to him. His unbound hand pulls up closer to his chest, as if to prepare for a hit he knows could happen. It's clumsy, unsteady, but he holds onto the fabric of the shirt he's dressed in. The same white as everyone else's clothes in this god forsaken place, uncomfortable and borderline painful.
"You aren't leaving here, and you aren't seeing V again."
Johnny wants to slap the bastard's smug look off his face, but all he can do is stare with widened eyes. They can't take V away from him. They can't. After everything, they can't take them away from each other.
"Johnny, c'mon- Johnny!!"
The sound of something hitting metal is the last thing he hears before silence falls over the room. Clothes shuffle just outside the room, and Johnny can just make out a figure grabbing V by the shirt to sling him over their shoulder. His stomach sinks, bile sits at the back of his mouth…
They're taking V away from him.