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Kerry never actually told V that he’d added him to his Trauma Team Platinum subscription. Frankly, he’d hoped – foolishly, desperately – it would never even come up. Like most hopes, though, he hadn’t been willing to bank on it.
He’d been halfway through laying down demo vocals for the As-Yet-Untitled Boat Song when the call came in. Not that he’d been the one to answer it, like any proper input would’ve done. No, his poor assistant had taken the call from the mixing room, and had practically fought past his producers and manager to deliver the message to him. She’d been near tears by the time she burst abruptly into the recording booth, a couple of much larger men on her tail as she frantically spluttered something that included “V”, “hospital”, and “get there right away”.
It had been all he needed to hear. Few things could drive Kerry out of the studio when he had a good flow going, but that particular sequence of words was undoubtedly one of them. It would occur to him several hours later, as his mind wandered in an attempt to fill the space of a deathly quiet waiting room, that he ought to send his assistant flowers. Or a medal of bravery. Something along those lines. Not an easy task to send a thank you gift to the person you’d usually ask to buy them, though.
In the moment, however, he hadn’t even had the wherewithal to retrieve his phone before he ran out of the studio to his Rayfield, cold starting his baby and tearing out of the parking lot with such speed that any culture-vultures lurking around probably missed him entirely. He broke every speed limit posted from North Oak to the City Center, for once grateful that with only four Aerondights in Night City the NCPD knew damn well who was driving them, and knew none of them were worth pulling over for a mere traffic ticket.
The stench of burning rubber had made its way into the air vents by the time Kerry barreled up to the hospital’s Platinum Members’ entrance, his arrival heralded by a screech and a trail of black tire marks. He flicked a digital key to the valet, engine still running, as he bolted to the doors so quickly the doorman had to scramble to beat him to the punch. Once inside, he nearly had a panic attack at the lack of an obvious reception desk. The place looked like a goddamned spa, and after a long drive with only his spiraling thoughts for company, he was seconds away from just shouting obscenities until someone in this sterile shithole appeared to assist him.
To the hospital’s benefit as much as his, a very smartly dressed woman stepped into the room at just that moment, greeting him with a vacant smile.
“Mr. Eurodyne, it is our pleasure to welcome you to the Platinum Wing of City Center Hospital. Can I offer you a complimentary beverage, or a hot towel?”
“No,” Kerry spat out. “Fuck no! I’m – look, I’m sorry, I received a call that someone on my plan is here, and I don’t even know what’s happening…”
Her smile never wavered, pleasant and entirely lacking in compassion.
“Of course, Mr. Eurodyne. I understand. Your family plan member, Mr. V-”
“Just V,” Kerry interrupted, out of habit more than anything else.
“Of course, Mr. Eurodyne, my sincerest apologies. Our Trauma Team flagged a series of distress parameters from Mr. V’s biometric monitors at 10:18 this morning, and arrived on-site to collect him by 10:21. We’re proud to have fulfilled our three-minute response-time guarantee, as outlined in your contract.”
She paused for a moment as if expecting thanks, but continued on when none were given.
“He was airlifted to us here at the Platinum Wing of the City Center Hospital, where he will receive the full benefit of your plan’s surgery and nano-surgery coverage, as well as physical rehabilitation services and plastic surgery if needed. Please recall that your subscription provides a 90% copay on all medica-”
“Nano-surgery… rehab…” Kerry ran a hand through his rigidly-gelled hair, suddenly feeling like he couldn’t catch his breath. “Can you just tell me what the fuck happened to him? Like, is he…. God, is he alright? How bad is it?”
She hardly blinked, that vacant smile still plastered on. “I’m afraid that per our legal standards and practices I am unable to address any questions of a medical nature, except to advise you of your subscription and benefits as a valued Platinum cardholder. However, if you will kindly follow me to our VIP Members’ lounge and waiting area, a doctor will be with you shortly to address any and all questions relevant to Mr. V’s recovery.”
Kerry exhaled deeply, almost a groan. “Fine, fine. Just…” he waved his hand vaguely, almost violently. “Have at it.”
The woman gave him a small but polite bow, before leading him past an indoor garden and through a pair of white double doors at what felt like a snail’s pace. The waiting area was just as cloyingly tranquil, entirely at odds with the frantic energy he felt rapidly eating him from the inside out. Its only benefit was that it was blessedly empty of any other people, likely some privacy perk of his subscription. There were plush chairs and reading material everywhere, which Kerry opted to forgo in favor of pacing erratically around the potted plants and burbling (ceaselessly, endlessly burbling) water features.
He just… God, he just couldn’t believe this was happening. He’d seen V this morning, given him a kiss and a sly smack on the ass as the merc had left his loft in The Glen. They’d spent the night together – a routine that was becoming more and more common, although Kerry still felt the need to invent some new restaurant he’d been wanting to try takeout from, or a show he’d seen that V absolutely needed to watch. Any excuse to justify his presence, really.
As V left the Glen apartment that morning, though, the merc had asked if he’d get to see Kerry again that night. And maybe it was just the buzz of the coffee Kerry had made him (after waking up early and watching multiple tutorials on how to operate his ridiculously complicated espresso machine), but it had certainly seemed like the man had just wanted him near. No excuses required.
The pair of them had been in an odd sort of limbo ever since they’d taken the Seamurai for its final voyage. An exciting limbo, full of possibilities, but full of dreaded unknowns as well. They both knew that there was something more between them than a casual fling. Kerry hoped they both knew, anyway, because he’d been feeling that way for much longer than he’d care to admit. But that was the issue, ultimately. Neither of them had said it – or said anything with even the whiff of commitment, really. Instead, they’d just slowly danced toward the sort of cozy domesticity Kerry had once thought of as the death knell for his interest in a relationship, except that this time he found himself wanting it. Badly, so badly. Pathetically, even.
And now? Well, if something had happened to V before Kerry had sacked up enough to just admit he-
The doors opened rather suddenly, and a man – stick thin and balding – stepped through.
“Mr. Eurodyne,” he said, his professional manners betraying nothing of whatever news he was here to deliver. “My name is Dr. Roswell, Chief of Surgery here at the Platinum Wing of the City Center Hospital. The board of Trauma Team International would like you to know I have personally overseen treatment of your…”
The silence stretched on a moment too long, before Kerry realized he was expected to fill in the gap.
“…Partner,” Kerry supplied impatiently, uncertain of what else to call him. He stopped his pacing, leaving the anxious energy in his gut with nowhere to go but to begin boiling up inside him. “That’s fine, but how is he? And what in the hell happened to him? No one has told me a thing, and I’m about at the end of my fucking rope!”
Dr. Roswell nodded, and though his expression was as bland as ever that motion alone felt reassuring in this cold, corpo-special desert of compassion. “Certainly, Mr. Eurodyne. Mr. V-”
“Just V.”
“Of course, my apologies. V’s biometric alert was activated at 10:18 this morning. Prior to that event, lesser injuries including minor-to-moderate blood loss were filed without action, per your stipulations regarding his high-risk lifestyle. Similar alerts were filed without action yesterday, the day before-”
“Yes, I know,” Kerry scrubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t like it, but I know. Just… get to the point.”
“Certainly, Mr. Eurodyne. As I said, minor injuries were documented this morning by our biometric response team, beginning at 10:12. Intervention wasn’t directed until 10:18, when his data logger reported bleeding in the occipital lobe of the brain, as well as early indications of swelling and a drastic decline in cognitive function. Our loggers reported a loss of consciousness at 10:19-”
“Jesus….” Kerry abandoned politeness and moved to resume pacing his well-trodden route, only to abort his path at the last second and collapse into a nearby chair instead, his head in his hands. “Jesus Christ. Can you just give me a second?”
A moment of silence passed, much less calming than he’d hoped.
“You know what?” Kerry sighed. “Just get it over with. Tell me the rest of it, and I mean all of it. What the fuck happened to him?”
“Without a full examination of the scene by NCPD, I shouldn’t comment…”
“Oh, fuck your lawyers!” Kerry shouted abruptly, raising his heavy head as much as he could manage, desperate to get his point across. “Fuck your gonk fucking lawyers, and fuck you if you won’t just tell me what happened!”
Roswell cleared his throat, looking around anxiously as if concerned the board might be listening in. Perhaps they were, and fuck them too.
“Well…” the man replied, his tone now noticeably lacking that comforting certainty of a professional in their element. “I can’t claim to know, legally speaking. But from my preliminary discussion with our Trauma Team, it appears what may have happened… by their reckoning… is that your partner was caught unawares by some low-level gangers in Japantown. The TT captain’s impression of the scene was that Mr. – or, V, that is – held his own fairly well, until one of them caught him with a blunt object…” he glanced nervously at Kerry. “…a bat, they think, to be more… uh… specific. To the back of his head.”
Kerry nodded, his head dipping back into his hands. If he was going to cry, it wouldn’t be where some shitstain board members could see it. “Ok… thank you. Now the rest of it, the… medical stuff. Is he going to be ok?”
Dr. Roswell sighed, seeming incredibly relieved to be back on solid ground. “He’s in stable condition, thanks to our early intervention. But long-term prognosis is much more difficult to ascertain at this point in time. He experienced no fracturing of the cervical vertebrae, which is good news for his retention of motor function. However, he suffered from three distinct grand mal seizures while being transported, with some minor leaking of cerebrospinal fluid from his nose. All are symptomatic of a moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury. More specifically, it seems as if your V experienced a prior TBI in the recent past, which…”
“FUCK!”
“…complicates things,” Dr. Roswell finished. “We have every hope he’ll wake soon, but until he does… Or, if he does, I should say… I’m afraid I can’t guarantee the extent of his recovery. I’m sure you understand.”
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Kerry shouted, standing so abruptly his chair toppled over behind him. He kicked it hard enough to dent a nearby wall, though the chair itself was irritatingly unharmed. Unsatisfied, he kicked it again, and again, until finally its leg splintered off. It didn’t help, he still felt like he was choking.
“Just… fuck.” His voice sounded pitiful to his own ears. Like he was trying to scrounge up the rage he’d channeled so easily as a punk-ass rockerboy, but he didn’t know where to find it anymore. He was angry, without question. Angry at Night City, for swallowing the people he loved as if their loss meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. Angry at V, for not watching his damn back. Angry at Johnny – that stupid, scophead asshole – for reaching out from beyond the grave just to fuck up the only good thing Kerry had managed to find after decades of utter shit.
Angry at himself, for not just telling V he loved him when he had the chance. He should’ve said it over coffee and toast this morning. Or over pad thai and Watson Whore last night, after he’d managed to make a comment that had V laughing so hard Kerry’s head almost fell out of his lap. Or any of the dozens of other times recently when he’d felt it but kept his mouth shut.
It wasn’t a powerful or righteous sort of fury, though. Not something that would ignite onstage and rile up the hungry masses. Instead, he felt weak, and afraid, and so, so angry. Like a trapped rat.
Dr. Roswell had made a strategic escape at some point, leaving Kerry alone with his thoughts and with one less chair to collapse into. With nothing better to do, Kerry resumed his pacing, letting time slip past him as he drowned in worst-case scenarios. His assistant showed up at some point – minutes or maybe hours later – to deliver his forgotten phone, a jacket, and something to eat. He told her to buy herself some flowers and give herself a raise, but turned down her offer of company. For once, he didn’t want an audience.
She’d handed him a makeup wipe before she left. His mascara must be running.
His lunch was stone cold and still uneaten by the time someone else from the hospital came in to meet him.
“Mr. Eurodyne?” the young woman asked tentatively. Probably some poor first-year resident who had drawn the short straw. “Mr., um…. The patient has been moved from post-surgical observation to his own private room. I can take you there now, if you’d like.”
Kerry nodded, springing to his feet. When had he sat down? He felt like he was losing his mind.
“Is he…”
“Conscious?” she finished for him, when it became clear he didn’t dare finish the question. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Eurodyne. But we are seeing some brain activity. It’s quite odd, frankly, but it may be a good sign. Oh!” she slapped a hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t… They told me not to tell you...”
Kerry smiled weakly. “Thank you for doing it anyway.”
She nodded, looking mortified, before leading him through the maze of immaculately-maintained hallways with a speed that indicated she wanted this whole interaction to be over before she could commit another fireable offense.
“Just through here,” she said, after what felt like an eon of endless and identical halls. She held open a door that looked like all the others, and Kerry forced himself past the threshold before he had the chance to work up a proper fear of what he would find inside.
The scene itself was underwhelming. Contrary to every trashy paperback romance he’d ever read, V didn’t look small and fragile in his hospital bed. He looked… well, he looked just like he’d looked that morning when Kerry had been the first to wake for once, and had indulged in the chance to look at his man without the fear of being caught with an expression that was just a bit too open, a little too honest. V had looked unbeatable and invincible to Kerry, then. He still did, which made the truth of the situation that much harder to reconcile.
God, Kerry never would’ve thought he’d miss the man’s snoring. He was silent, and much too still.
Kerry was vaguely aware that the young woman, still loitering in the doorframe and looking like she wanted to bolt, was rambling off instructions on visiting hours and the process of ordering food. He ignored it all, dragging a chair next to the bed and taking one of V’s cannulated hands in his own. He wasn’t going anywhere.
--------
“Ker….”
“Ker, wake up.”
“Come on, man…”
Kerry shot upright, his heart racing like he’d just taken a rough hit of something questionable. It took him a moment to make sense of his surroundings. The crick in his neck. The white hospital walls, painted red and gold by the setting sun. The pair of brown eyes that watched him warily.
“…. V?” he asked, dumbly. His groggy mind was still working to recall the specifics of his hellish afternoon, but… those eyes. He knew they were significant. Knew he’d been terrified he’d never see them again.
A cold spike of fear shot through his heart, as he saw their corners tense with a strange mix of sympathy and judgment. A look he recognized, but not from V.
“No. Johnny.”
Kerry froze, a wave of emotions crashing over him with such intensity he half hoped it’d just drown him. He realized, after a moment, that he was still holding V’s hand. Johnny’s hand. He let it go.
“Is…” Kerry cleared his throat. “Is he…”
“Yeah, V’s still here. I think, anyway. Not like he uses a whole lot of his brain as it is.”
Kerry surged forward with surprising speed, prepared to smack Johnny over the head. Luckily, he recalled at the last second that the asshole was still piloting his input’s fragile skull. He redirected the smack to the pillow instead, which only earned him a smirk.
Dickhead.
“Well whaddaya know,” Johnny drawled. “Ker-bear’s got claws. I didn’t realize you were with the guy for his towering intellect... Figured the features you’re concerned about were all located south of the border. My, how you’ve changed.”
Kerry scowled, collapsing back into his chair with a groan. “Fuck off. Just ‘cause he doesn’t get a semi from the sound of his own voice, it doesn’t mean he’s not smart. Smarter than you. And don’t call me that.”
Johnny’s smirk widened, briefly, before a wince made it clear he’d aggravated the headache that was no doubt pounding like a war drum between his ears. V’s ears, Kerry corrected himself stubbornly. Regardless, the smile faded, but the smugness remained.
“Well, well, well… don’t tell me you actually like the nickname. You really have gotten soft in your old age.”
Johnny wanted another violent reaction, Kerry knew that far too well. But it still took more willpower than it should’ve not to give it to him.
“V knows it drives me fuckin’ nuts,” he replied evenly, “that’s why he says it. Doesn’t mean I want to hear it from you, though. He gets special privileges, you don’t.”
Johnny cocked his head to the side, curious, and Kerry felt a twinge of satisfaction as the motion prompted another wince.
“Look, is V in there now?” Kerry demanded, not willing to indulge Johnny’s compulsion to divert every conversation into an argument. “Is he… I don’t know, awake? Or however it works. Can he hear me?”
To Johnny’s dubious credit, he seemed to take Kerry’s serious tone to heart. “Nah, he’s not in right now. I guess asleep is as good a way to put it as any, it’s a metaphor you can wrap your stoner brain around.” He prodded his temple carefully, quickly drawing his hand away when he learned his lesson the hard way. “That street rat really rattled his pretty little head, I think he just needs a little more time to recover. For now, you’re stuck with me.”
Kerry relaxed, if only slightly, but the sudden release of even a fraction of the tension he’d been carrying for hours left him feeling several pounds lighter. He'd have loved a little more guarantee that V was safe inside there somewhere, but at this point he'd take what he could get.
Johnny gave him a look, one that was uniquely him. A Silverhand special. The sort of look Kerry had learned long ago meant the guy had found himself a bear, and he was eager to poke it. He’d always been that way, Kerry recalled bitterly. It was like he couldn’t help it. He wasn’t satisfied with anything until he’d seen it explode.
“V and I had an interesting discussion this morning, after that adorable little lover’s breakfast you made him,” he said. Even when filtered through his input’s voice, Kerry could recognize the tone that meant Johnny was trying his hardest to seem aloof. “Really riled him up, actually. People just hate the truth, don’t they?”
“Oh?” Kerry said, more than asked. He knew the conversation would continue on regardless.
“Yup. You’ll get a kick out of this, actually.” Johnny wasn’t even attempting to hide how carefully he was watching Kerry’s reaction – or perhaps he just didn’t know where to begin playing it cool with a face that wasn’t his own. “Kid asked me if I was cool with you two sleeping together, like he wanted my blessing or something.”
Kerry’s heart stuttered, though he kept his expression as passive as he could. Whatever reaction Johnny wanted from him, he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
Even so, V asking Johnny... That was something, wasn’t it?
“Hmm,” he grunted, as noncommittally as he could manage. “And what’d you tell him?”
Johnny scoffed, like he knew what Kerry was playing at and only found it funny. “Told him that particular cart and horse aren’t even on the same planet. Just ‘cause you’ve fucked a few times doesn’t make you Romeo and Juliet. Or Romeo and… I don’t know, some other Shakespearean gonk. Hamlet?”
Johnny must’ve seen the anger that was returning to Kerry’s face, fueled by all the stress and anxiety of his morning from hell. But he plowed on regardless.
“I mean, the kid just doesn’t operate the same way we do. He thinks a couple of shared orgasms are basically true love’s kiss, and that means I get subjected to all his sappy little daydreams. Someone had to tell him that’s not your style, and since you’ve been too chickenshit I figured I’d pull that bandaid for you. No need to thank-”
“God DAMN IT Johnny.” Kerry clenched a fist in his own hair, for a lack of anything better to do with it. He’d love nothing more than to punch this lifelong pain-in-his-ass square in the jaw, but he couldn’t stand to hurt V. “God fucking DAMN it! How could you do this to me?”
“Do what?” Johnny demanded, indignant, as if he genuinely didn’t know. “Don’t try to act like that isn’t you. I’ve got your number Ker. I know you better than you know yourself, and you’ve been a player from day one. A few decades isn’t nearly enough time to change that. People don’t change, not really.”
“They DO, Johnny.” Kerry leaned forward, emphatic – almost frantic. “They do. You wouldn’t know, you delta’d just in time to avoid the consequences of the life you’d been living, the way you’d been treating people. Hell, I thought that WAS the consequence. But people do change, just not all at once. If you live long enough you hit the same walls for decades, until you realize you built them yourself. You fuckin’… you get beat in the head with action and reaction, over and over, until eventually you realize sometimes things are your own damn fault. Sometimes its corpos, or society, but sometimes it’s YOU. And you either sack the fuck up and try to handle it, or you burn out completely.
“I’m not the boy you knew back then, I haven’t been him for more than half a century. But you haven’t been around to see that. D’you know I haven’t dated anyone in half a decade, haven’t even slept with anyone in more than a year? I might’ve enjoyed that life a lot more when I was young, but I can hardly stand it now. I can’t stomach intimacy at all these days, unless it feels like something real. And V has felt more real to me than…. Well, anyone I can remember. Definitely more real than anyone I’ve known since I quit the hard stuff a decade ago and got a little more of my brain back. But you wouldn’t know about that either, would you? You’ve been fucking dead. You don’t know me at all.”
Johnny chuckled, a cruel tinge to his amusement. “Oh, come on, Ker. You were always way too willing to fall for that spiritual wellness crap. You’d buy anything as long as the salesman called himself a shaman. I thought you might’ve wised up a bit by now, though. You can’t honestly tell me you were a paragon of health when V and I showed up. You looked like you’d been dragged through hell ass-first. If that’s not burning out, I don’t know what is.”
“I wasn’t healthy,” Kerry responded, his tone evened slightly. “I’m still not. I’ve had a shit time these last few decades, and I’m still trying to pull myself out of it. I’ll probably be trying to fix my head little by little until the day I die. But V…”
Whatever he had with V, it was the only good thing in his life he hadn’t had to create by himself.
“Oh, come on.” Johnny shook his head, stubbornly powering through another wince. “We both know why you find V so appealing. Don’t make me spell it out for you.”
Kerry’s eyebrows raised with genuine confusion.
“No, please, go ahead. Spell it out.”
“You’ve wanted to fuck me from day one. I saw it the first time we met, wasn’t hard to clock. V’s as close as you’re ever going to get, especially now.”
Kerry laughed, so abrupt and loud it actually startled Johnny, and the pang of seeing that familiar expression of surprise cross V’s face made something inside him twist. “God, you really are a self-absorbed prick, aren’t you? Even for a rocker, you’re something else. For what it’s worth, I don’t want you like that, Johnny, and I never have. Don’t know how many times I have to say it, to you or the fans.”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“And there you were five minutes ago, pretending you didn’t know Hamlet…” Kerry muttered.
“Whatever,” Johnny scoffed, still utterly confident. “You used to spend all kinds of time and energy trying to get me in bed with you. Now you’re getting what you wanted, and from someone who’s happy to give it to you. Must be your lucky day.”
“You know, not everything’s about you. That thought ever crossed your mind?”
“Hmmm…” Johnny pretended to think, his tone thick with sarcasm. “Nope. That’s a new one.”
“Might be worth remembering, if you can manage it.” Kerry slouched so deeply into his chair he could almost hear his publicist nagging him about posture. The intense emotions and lack of sleep in the last 24 hours were finally getting to him, now that some of the anxiety that had carried him through it was finally wearing off.
“Look, Johnny," he said. "I loved you back then, but like a brother. Still do, although I couldn't tell you why. And maybe I had a bit of a hero worship for you when we first started out, yeah. You were more than a decade older than me, and you talked like you knew exactly how the world worked – or why it didn’t, more often than not. And the crowds… you just knew how to play to them, how to get them to listen. In a way I worried I could never match. Still worry, I guess.
“But that’s the problem,” Kerry continued. “There’s a voice in my head that’s always telling me I’m not good enough, that I don’t have what it takes, that I also need to push myself until I break or my music won’t have enough edge to it. And that voice sounds just like you. So yeah, I followed you around back then, and I probably pestered you constantly. I poured you into bed after all those benders when you’d driven anyone else with half a brain away. I let you talk down on me way more than I should’ve, because I thought you knew something about me that I didn’t. And I spent a lot of time and energy trying to make you happy, but it wasn’t so I could get in your pants. Not like it’s an exclusive zone, anyway. Really, I just wanted you to be happy because I wanted to think I could be too. I wanted to be you, and I wanted that to be a good thing.”
“Damn Ker, I…” Johnny exhaled, heavily, after a long pause. The room was thick with decades of emotion, left unresolved and buried for far too long. “Shit. You’re my brother too, you know that? And I don’t want to be that voice in your head. One poor sucker dealing with my commentary is more than enough…”
Johnny’s – V’s – voice had taken on an expressionless monotone, one that Kerry knew meant he was feeling more than he’d like to admit. “For the record, though?” he continued. “I do think you’ve got it. Always did. The crowds knew it too, you just never noticed because you were too busy trying to see yourself from their perspective. And if I’m honest, I don’t even remember most of what I must’ve said to you back then. I was probably hexed out of mind, more often than not.”
“I know,” Kerry responded, with a small smile. “Worked that out with one of my shamans a few decades ago.”
Johnny snorted. “Right. Well good on you. Look, I know I’ve been an ass, and I’m gonna keep being one. But I care about you – care about V, too. The little shit has grown on me faster than I’ve been growing in him. Jesus, sorry…” he raised his hands apologetically, seeing how hard Kerry took his poor attempt at humor. “Sorry. This is what I mean, I just say this kind of shit and forget that sometimes it sticks. But the point is, I care about both of you, and I didn’t want to see either one of you hurt the other. Seems I was wrong, though. Sort of glad to be, too. First time for everything.”
“Won’t be the last,” Kerry replied, still smiling, if only slightly.
“We’ll see about that,” Johnny mumbled. His head tipped to the side, cushioned by the plush pillows of his luxury hospital bed. He seemed suddenly fatigued. “And Ker?”
“Yeah?”
“What I’m about to say, I’m saying from the bottom of my heart, ok?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“I don’t want to fuck you either.”
--------
The next time Kerry woke, a pair of brown eyes were watching him. Entirely different, and yet somehow the same.
“V, that you this time?”
“Yeah... Did Jo-”
“I love you.”