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Johnny once told V not to waste time. He'd explained the way he spent his hours hidden, waiting to die; wanting to die, even. He promised to trade his life for hers during that same talk.
The conversation has burned itself into his brain. But it isn't his brain, is it?
It's V’s.
Johnny took something that wasn't his. He ruined her shot at survival. And what has he done with this life so far?
Johnny's new place has a ceiling fan and a radio. He always leaves both on. He draped a towel over the bathroom mirror. He eats at least twice a day, most of the time. He wraps the heart shaped tattoo on his arm with bandages. He spends the heap of eddies V left behind sparingly.
Sometimes Johnny drinks. V wouldn't have minded. She was a drinker, too.
She drank a lot during Jackie's offerenda. He remembers how that felt, the blurry numbed out sensation of it all. Drunkenness was a blanket, it wrapped comfortably around her.
For Johnny, drunkenness is an ocean. So he tries not to drink.
If this body were his, he could've given V a proper ceremony. He'd pen her eulogy. The tale of the bravest mother fucker in the world, the woman who saved his life. He'd stand in front of the crowd and deliver it to the dozens of people who loved her. Best he managed to do was a marker on a grave.
Her friends are worried. He knows that from the messages they sent. Messages that should've reached V, not Johnny Silverhand.