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Their fingers clench around the railing, blunt fingernails making an ugly squeaking noise that only he can hear. The metal is cold, probably due to the seabreeze, but they’re not thinking about that right now. V isn’t thinking about anything, in fact; there’s a fuzzy feeling in between his ears and a ringing that just won’t go away. It’s easy to blame it on Johnny and the chip that’s stuck in his skull, but they both know that’s not it. NCX sits on the horizon line mockingly. He can’t seem to look away.
—
He calls Panam, after the ringing has faded to a staticky hum that isn’t too far from his regular. Panam’s been itching for something to do, and V’s careful, rational way of operating has flown out the window. Johnny’s disapproval flutters down their spine, but he’s been silent since the pier. Maybe he knows V needs this, maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe some destruction will do him some good, too. Panam reacts as anticipated – thrilled to hear from V and agreeing to whatever gonk-brained scheme V’s cooked up. They can’t even remember the details to their own operation – probably some cyberpsycho Reggie wants him to apprehend, or a Raffen den that needs raiding. He doesn’t care, as long as a gun is in his hand and they’re shooting. They ride up to the Aldecaldos camp, parking just outside and shooting Panam a text to let her know he’s there. The rest of them aren’t unfriendly, but V doesn’t feel like playing nice. Contrary to popular belief, they are not a nice man. Johnny is still eerily silent, sitting in the backseat of V’s Quadra with his arms crossed. Panam looks like she’s gonna go in for a side hug when she sidles into the car, but leans back into her own bubble when she takes in V’s face. He doesn’t know what he looks like – hasn’t taken a shower since NCX – but it certainly can’t be good. “Alright V, where are we off to?” Simple. Easy. They shift the Quadra into drive.
—
The handle of his pistol is familiar. They’ve used guns since they were ten. Each pistol, no matter the make, always feels the same. Comfortable.
The ringing comes back while he shoots, full force. V can see Johnny in their periphery but ignores him. He’s frowning. V doesn’t care; he doesn’t give a shit what Johnny Silverhand thinks. He’s no better than them – in fact, V’s probably acquired some of Johnny’s tendencies. This reckless jaunt could very well be his fault, actually.
Once the Raffen are cooling on the ground, Panam dives in like a vulture, levelling V with a look – one she usually reserves for Saul. Johnny’s stare burns into his back more than Panam’s ever could.
“You alright? Lookin’ a little… rough.” She chooses her words carefully, like she’s approaching a wounded animal rather than a friend.
“‘M fine,” V shrugs. Their voice is rugged. “Just need t’ shower. Thanks for comin’ with.”
Panam drops it, much to V’s relief. They pile into the car, bringing along at least twelve extra guns to deconstruct and sell later on down the line. Panam flicks on the radio.
—
V doesn’t go home and take a shower after he drops Panam off at camp. Johnny mutters something under his breath but the ringing in his ears is too loud to actually make it out. He drives aimlessly, up through North Oak, all the way into Rancho and onto the dam. He hits downtown, swerving through traffic with a lead foot. Whether or not the spikes of fear are theirs or Johnny’s, V doesn’t know nor care. Feelings are pushed into the fuzz that now sits in their chest.
They find themselves on an old overpass in Heywood, rarely used aside from the odd flash of headlights. The city never sleeps; there’s always a firefight, tires screeching down the road, advertisements playing at max volume echoing through the street.
“Fuckin’ hell, V. It’s been four days, when’re you gonna get back to it? You stink.” Johnny’s voice cuts through the fog, now that they’re still. “Go home, take that fuckin’ shower.”
V doesn’t deign him a response. He’s got nothing to say.
So Mi gave him hope. This is what’s taken host in V’s body, now that hope has been methodically flushed out of their system. Whatever this is.
His phone rings, some fixer on the other line.
V gets back in their car and drives off, leaving Johnny’s hologram behind, leaning against the air where the car used to be.
—
Three days, three gigs. V can’t remember the details of any of them. They work sloppily, and if he could hear the disappointment in Muamar’s voice he’d care. But the ringing is back, and V can’t hear a damn thing.
—
There’s flashes of consciousness pushing through. Someone’s driving the car but it’s not V. He passes out again soon after.
—
V comes-to in their apartment, laying on top of their duvet. Johnny is nowhere to be seen, but the clock interface on their optics tells them it's been a few days since they were last conscious. The city hums through the window, underneath him. It’s been about a week and a half since NCX.
Swinging their legs over the side of the bed, V stands on shaky legs. They’re tired, too nervous to check their messages or missed calls. Johnny must’ve gotten them back to the apartment; he’s lucky he didn’t take him right to Vik’s. The beginnings of a migraine push through the full-body exhaustion — Johnny’s probably upset, somewhere in the recesses of his mind. He brushes it off, pops a painkiller even though he knows it won’t help. Starts going about his business.
The water feels unfamiliar and leaves them feeling scraped clean — vulnerable and raw in all the wrong places. Once V’s toweled off and changed into their sweats, Johnny still hasn’t taken up his place on the couch, so V takes it for him, flicks on the television. The news is still talking about the unknown terrorists who attacked NCX last week. They turn it off.
“Johnny,” V calls out to the empty air around him. “C’mon, I know you can hear me. Where the fuck are you?”
Still nothing. The air doesn’t move and neither does V.
“Fuck you,” V sighs, hauling himself back to bed. They’ll feel better in the morning.
—
Morning comes with a sharp breath and a shot of fear streaking through their heart. V can’t remember what the dream was about, only that it involved getting shot at point blank range. The adrenaline is still kicking at his heart, sweat cooling on the back of their neck. Who the shooter was, why they were shooting him, remains a mystery. It’s fucking stupid — V’s been shot at before, will be shot at again — but the residual fear has singed his nerve endings for the day. V’s not sure what he’s doing when they swing their legs off the side of the mattress, but the familiar sound of Johnny zapping himself into existence echoes in his ears after the silence of yesterday.
“You ready to get off your ass and stop feelin’ sorry for yourself?” Johnny drawls, appearing against the windowsill. His arms are crossed, shades on.
V doesn’t say anything — doesn’t have to, with Johnny sitting in his neuropathways — and crosses his arms in return.
“Silent treatment? Real mature, V.” He keeps talking, and God does V just want to punch him. “You gonna stop your moping and get a fuckin’ move on?”
“Fuck you.” V murmurs. He can feel his blood pulsing in ears, heartbeat booming in his head.
“Yeah, okay, fuck me then. Your funeral.” Johnny zaps himself out of existence. V punches the wall hard enough that his knuckles are bruised the next morning.
__
The sound of the holo going off jolts him awake, and they almost miss the call scrambling to pick ot up.
“Hey V!” It’s Kerry, bright like the sun and grinning at them from his villa. “Haven’t heard from ya in awhile, said you’d meet me in Watson but ya never showed, so…”
V blinks themselves awake, pushing himself into a seated position on his bed. The covers are damp with sweat. He better look alright or else Kerry’ll ask questions. He does not want to talk to his input-boyfriend-whatever, not when there’s still an out-of-control fire twisting his guts into a knot and a ringing in their ears that won’t go away.
“V? You there?” He’s been silent for too long, V guesses.
“Fuck, yeah, ‘m here.” V mutters, swinging their legs over the edge of the mattress. “Sorry ‘bout that. Somethin’ came up, couldn’t make it.” It’s vague and Kerry won’t be satisfied with it; V knows this without even needing to look at his face. But he’ll let him get away with it, hopefully.
Kerry scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, alright…” V feels like a real dickhead as they lapse into an uneasy silence. He hears Johnny sigh somewhere off to their left; if he tries hard enough he can almost smell his cigarette smoke.
“I’m gonna be around tonight, if you wanna come to my place.” V blurts. He doesn’t mean to — they don’t want Kerry to see him like this, out of his own fucking mind and buzzing — but fuck if he doesn’t deserve better. Johnny full-on snorts now, and V clenches his fist. It’s already purple and yellow from the wall last night, Kerry will see it and he’ll ask about it and V won’t have anything to say about it.
“Yeah!” He starts enthusiastically, curbs it immediately. “Yeah, sure V, whatever you wanna do.”
Another miserable pause. V wants to tear their skin off.
“I gotta run, Ker. I’ll see ya tonight.” V tries to placate, dropping the call before Kerry can say anything in return. “Fuck.”
Johnny is still uncommonly silent, leaning against the SCSM with his virtual cig. It never seems to run out — even when he smokes down to the filter, another one just spawns in. He has his sunglasses on, making himself difficult to read on purpose, but he doesn’t seem pissed off. If V didn’t know better, he’d say that Johnny actually looked concerned.
__
If he were Johnny, he’d certainly go out and get as high as he possibly could. That’s never been V’s style, though the fact that he entertained the idea in the first place should send a spark of fear up his spine. Instead, they’re just annoyed. To mitigate, V raids a Maelstrom base, collects some data for some fixer, spends copious amounts of money on some new guns and a fancy hunting knife that they’ll never use, and buys some brand new clothes. He doesn’t look at his bank account, doesn’t bother to change into clean clothes before wandering back home.
He needs a shower, maybe a shave, a change of clothes before Kerry gets there. V’s been out of his mind all day, floating off somewhere just to the left. V’s not even sure what time it is, not that it matters anyway.
He shoves open the door to his place, startling Kerry out of a nap on his shitty couch.
“Christ, V!” Kerry curses under his breath, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “You tryin’ to give me a heart attack?”
V doesn’t say anything, not even as Johnny appears in his periphery. He takes off his holster, pulls their extra pistols out of their jacket, dumping them on the table in his stash. The place is already cluttered enough — they’ve only been home long enough to trade out firearms and get the occasional few hours of sleep since NCX.
“Sorry, didn’t know you’d be here this early…” V mutters, meandering over to the washroom and stripping out of their bloodied clothing. He avoids the mirror, ears ringing with each step.
“Early, he says,” Kerry mutters. Of course he’s able to crack through the piercing ring echoing in their head. “It’s ten PM, V.”
There’s a part of him — or maybe Johnny — that wants to lash out, hit Kerry where it’ll hurt him the most, that soft underbelly he has on display whenever V’s around looks particularly easy to poke at today. Kerry should be angry — V would like Kerry to be angry — but he only seems mildly pissed off. V clenches his fist, squeezes his eyes shut; they’re coiled like a spring, ready to shoot up at any moment.
“Relax, hotrod. Or are you plannin’ on getting into it with Kerry today?” Johnny’s wandered over to the mirror, leaning against the wall behind him.
V doesn’t deign him a response, but his fist uncurls and he flexes his fingers.
“D’you wanna take a shower? I sorta need one.” He can feel Kerry’s eyes on him, feels it when he gets up and joins V at the mirror. Johnny’s flitted out of existence, leaving them alone — his job or keeping V sane done for the day.
“Yeah. I could use a shower after the day I’ve had, let me fuckin’ tell ya…” Kerry chatters as he undresses, pulling off V’s layers of clothing when they don’t move. He starts the shower, makes sure the water is warm, and pulls V in by the wrist. Kerry doesn’t stop talking as they wash up, but V doesn’t hear most of the words, just lets himself be moved and manipulated enough to get clean. It’s pathetic, and he’s grateful that Kerry doesn’t mention it. He just talks about nothing in particular — his manager, a fancy guitar he just bought, his car. When they’re done, V’s aware enough to dry off and change into their sweats and one of Kerry’s tank tops.
“Thanks,” V mutters once they’re curled up on the couch together, watching sitcom reruns. Kerry doesn’t say anything, just lays his head on V’s shoulder and sighs contentedly.
They fall asleep there, but V’s phone rings sometime around three thirty in the morning. V leaves Kerry asleep on the couch, heading out for a job without a deadline. He’ll tell him it was urgent.
__
“You’re a real dickhead, y’know that?” Johnny comments while they’re driving through Heywood. He’s sitting in the passenger seat, flicking digital cigarette ash out the window.
“Damn, the Johnny Silverhand calling me a bastard? What’d I do to deserve the honour?” They sound sardonic, teasing, but Johnny knows them well — doesn’t miss V’s hand clutching the wheel a little tighter. Johnny doesn’t say anything, but he wants to; the flash of pain in his head tells them that he’s annoyed.
V isn’t sure where they’re going, only that he pulls into the alleyway behind the Coyote, cutting the engine and leaving the car mindlessly. They come back to the real world after they’ve pulled open Jackie’s garage and taken a step inside.
Everything is untouched, an exact replica of when he saw it last. A time capsule. He could pretend that he’s just waiting for Jackie to come back with their takeout order, if they wanted. Instead, V wanders into the smaller room — the room that probably served as a sort of bedroom, if he had to guess. The mandala is still there — half done and ugly, but so very Jackie Welles. The surge of grief that settles in their chest isn’t a surprise, but the intensity could’ve knocked him off his feet. V slumps, back hitting the wall as they slide down to the floor.
“What’re we doing here, V?” Johnny’s voice echoes as he materializes on the couch. There’s an indent there — Jack, no doubt — but Johnny doesn’t sink into it. There’s no hint of mockery in his voice, not now, while he watches V sit in the space his dead best friend used to occupy.
“I dunno,” V mutters, “maybe I jus’ wanted to reminisce.” He leans his elbows on his knees, kneading their hands together. Johnny smokes idly on the couch. The noises from the city fade into a background hum, and V wonders why he ever came back to this city in the first place.
They don’t have a straight answer — maybe it was homesickness, maybe they missed the constant noise, the adrenaline of running from the cops day after day, stealing just to get by. Maybe it was just Night City, dragging everyone into its impossible orbit. If they’d stayed away, none of this would’ve happened. If he’d stayed away, they would’ve never met Jackie, Mama Welles, Panam, Judy, Kerry or Johnny. If V had stayed away, maybe he wouldn’t be dying; but if they hadn’t come back, maybe they’d be dead in a ditch in Atlanta.
“I really don’t wanna die, Johnny.” V murmurs, breaking the silence. All the background noise fades back in.
“I know, kid.” He replies. The words hang in the air for a few minutes. “Moping about it ain’t gonna do fuck-all, though.” He takes a drag of his cigarette, exhales slowly. “You still got some life left in you. Don’t waste it.”
V swallows, nods. He’s not quite ready to get up yet, and despite his words, Johnny sticks around, smoking endlessly while V sits and breathes.
__
After leaving Jackie’s garage and dropping in on Mama Welles, V heads to their apartment. There’s still a faint buzzing in his ears, but the hum of the car drones it out well enough. The hum is almost gone by the time he’s going up the elevator, dialing Kerry’s number on the holo.
“V?” He sounds surprised that they’re calling. “What’s up?”
“Hey Ker… You around tonight? I was thinkin’ I’d take the night off, come over.” He sounds meek, maybe a little apologetic, but Kerry is one of the few people who’ve gotten under V’s skin, nestled somewhere close to their sternum and stayed there.
Kerry’s face splits into a grin. “Yeah, yeah! I can… Let me clear whoever I had comin’ around tonight, producers can wait.” He chuckles, runs a hand through his hair. “It’ll be good to see you, V.”
__
He’s wrapped up his last gig, stopped at his place to clean up a little bit, and now they’re on the way to North Oak. Johnny’s in the passenger seat, nodding his head along to the music he claims to hate.
“Hey…” V starts. Johnny groans. “Thanks for uh… earlier. Needed that.”
“Just don’t get up to anymore gonk shit.” Johnny settles on, smirking. His eyes are unreadable through his glasses, but V’s willing to bet they’d be smirking too.
He pulls up to Kerry’s a few minutes later. Johnny flits out of existence to give them some privacy, and V wanders up to the front door. The ringing is back — sits at a low timbre — but it’s easier to push past it this time, slide the door open and follow the sound of electric guitar into the private living room. Kerry doesn’t stop as he enters; he’s onto something, V can tell by the set of his jaw and the furrow in his brow. Or is that one of Johnny’s memories? The ringing gets a little louder, but V sits down next to Kerry anyway, scooting in closer when he gives up on the riff and sets the guitar down. V pulls in a little closer, tucking their knees up and leaning their head onto Kerry’s shoulder.
“Feeling clingy today, huh?” Kerry teases, lifting an arm over V’s shoulder and pulling them closer. V shrugs non-committally. “Okay, it’s been awhile. I missed you too.”
Kerry leans his head against the tufts of V’s hair, humming idly to himself. The minutes tick by in silence until Kerry decides he can’t stand it.
“You had somethin’ to eat today? I haven’t. Wanna go grab scopdogs from the corner store?”
“You could afford real meat, but you wanna get scopdogs?” V laughs, lifts their head off Kerry’s shoulder. “Sure, yeah. I could eat. Your car?”
“Not if you’re driving.”
__
Kerry falls asleep after they get back, head cushioned by V’s lap. He snores, but V doesn’t mind — silence has always been more disconcerting, and North Oak is probably the quietest place you can find in Night City. Kerry’d kept the ringing in his ears at bay, but it’s creeping back in the longer his snores.
“When are you gonna tell him the NUSA was a bust?” Johnny materializes, smoking his cigarette on the couch next to them. He’s not judging — has no place to, frankly — but that only leaves genuine, quiet concern, for Kerry and V. If he hadn’t seen Johnny’s shift in real time, V wouldn’t believe it.
“Not gonna,” V dismisses, “it’ll just stress him out.”
Johnny scoffs, rolling his eyes as he whips off his aviators. “What’s gonna stress him out is you dyin’ out of nowhere.”
V doesn’t say anything, but his eyebrows furrow like he’s considering it. Their real thoughts hang in the air, better left unsaid. It’s not like Johnny doesn’t know what he’s thinking; the more their neurons intermingle the worse it is. Johnny knows — or feels — nearly all of V’s thoughts. He doesn’t say anything else, just lights a digital cigarette and sighs. His disappointment bleeds through their mind, pushing into the divots of V’s brain.
“‘M sorry,” is all V has to say for himself. He moves Kerry just enough to allow himself to lie down next to him, presses his forehead to his back and breathes. Johnny flickers out, whether or not it’s for V’s privacy or he’s just pissed off is up for debate.
For now, V is alive. It gets worse every day — he coughs up more blood, needs to spend more time off his feet — but he’s alive. And he’ll make sure it fuckin’ stays that way.