Chapter Text
“Even if I extract Johnny's engram, your brain is irreversibly damaged, and you wouldn't survive much more than six months.”
Alt's words are twirling in V's head so fast he can't quite get a grip on them. It's hard to understand and harder to accept; everything he's been through in the last months, everything they've been through ending up so useless. As if things weren't depressing enough.
Johnny is angry when he talks. His tone is snappy, his words demanding.
“What the fuck, Alt?”
V kind of wants to say that too but he can't bring himself to open his mouth, too shocked, too disappointed, too fucking sad. He thinks about this moment on the roof, where he made his final decision, when he decided he'd trust Johnny and give him control. He remembers thinking about ending it all, about breaking this endless cycle of pain and suffering they've been stuck in, he remembers looking at the pills and having to fight the urge to toss them off the building.
Shit, how he wishes he'd done exactly that. Rogue would still be alive. He wouldn't have to be here right now, he wouldn't have another choice to make.
Alt leaves Johnny and him alone so they can discuss everything. The cyberspace shifts around them, red pixels morphing into something new, more familiar, perhaps, V's apartment. A bitter laugh rises in his throat like bile, he always hated this shithole but now, now he would give anything for this to be the only thing to worry about.
“So this is a fucking load of shit,” Johnny mutters as he slouches on a chair.
V nods.
“It is.”
“Changes nothing, though, I'll still go. You enjoy your last months.”
Thing is, Johnny surprisingly became one of his closest friends. Who is he kidding, Johnny is his closest friend, and even knowing everything, how he's not supposed to still be alive, how he's slowly – albeit unwillingly – killing him, how he's basically the source of all his problems, V doesn't want to let him go.
He's grown accustomed to Johnny's continuous presence, and how boring would life be without him by his side all the time? These six months would feel like an eternity.
Johnny, though, he wouldn't die in half a year. He could reunite Samurai or something, keep fighting the power. His life could still mean something. V knows he wants to live. Even if Johnny does his best to hide it when he talks about his death, there's always this dullness in his voice, a pain that's been there for too long, not as sharp but still as intense.
“I think you should keep the body,” V says finally.
It's funny how without realizing it, he's started thinking of his body as “the body.” It's his, but not really, not anymore. It's a vessel he's sharing with someone else.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? I'm not taking your place. It's your life, V. Keep it.”
“I don't want it.”
He can't see it behind the sunglasses but V can feel Johnny rolling his eyes.
“Could you just listen to me for once in your life? Make this easier on both of us?”
“You know I was never one to take the easy way out.”
“You do like making stuff complicated.”
They smile. It's a nice moment, if not for the impending doom that's looming over them, waiting for the right time to crush their bones under its weight.
Johnny takes a drag of his cigarette and V closes his eyes for a minute, pretends he can smell the tobacco, that he can feel the smoke making its way to his lungs. For a few seconds, it's real.
“I don't want to die alone,” he whispers finally.
No answer comes. When he lifts his eyes from his feet, V sees Johnny looking at him with this unreadable look he gets sometimes, this weird mix of exasperation and fondness and pain and anger and something else he doesn't quite recognize.
“I get it.”
It's not what he expected, but the words are soothing. There's something about being understood that makes one let out a long-held breath.
“When I died... It was the worst. Shit, I know how scary it is, V. But I'm not taking your body.” He takes a deep breath. “Besides, you won't be alone. You've got tons of people who care about you. I won't take that away from you.”
“I'm not leaving you here.” V argues. I want you to stay with me is unsaid but not unheard, an ache in the words, a neediness barely suppressed. It's tough not developing codependency issues with the person living inside your head.
“What do you wanna do, then?” Johnny sighs.
“We could... let this happen naturally.”
“So you want to have a slow and painful death.”
“I just want things to go back the way they were.”
He wants them to keep bickering on jobs, he wants Johnny to keep appearing by his side, he wants those few quiet moments where they're simply there, together, and life happens outside of them. Change is scary.
Johnny stands from his chair and walks to him, stopping only when there's a couple inches left between them. “I know,” he says. “We'll do what you want.”
V nods jerkily, a phantom tightness in his throat. He's nothing but pixels and code, here, yet the feeling remains, a lump stuck in the back of his mouth, right at the entry of his oesophagus. That weird pain under his tongue he gets when he's about to cry.
No tears come out, though. No words, either.
Johnny lifts a glitchy hand to his shoulder. V can feel – or maybe he's imagining it – the warmth radiating from it. “Let's go home,” Johnny whispers.
They call for Alt in the void. She appears in front of them, huge, ethereal, a red goddess, listens to their choice when they tell her, stays silent for a while.
“In that case,” she says finally, “perhaps there is something I can do for you after all. So you don't... die alone.” She sounds weirdly unsure, hesitant, even, when she keeps going. “Arasaka never properly got rid of Johnny's body. It is maintained in cryogenic sleep, as they planned on using it later to advertise and support their propaganda. If you bring it to me, I will rewrite Johnny's code in it so you can both-”
“Wait a fucking minute,” Johnny interrupts. He's pacing around V, pixels glitching when he talks, anger and confusion tinting his voice. “We went to my grave. You couldn't have told us the first time? Why didn't you say anything?”
“It was not relevant information at the time.”
“Not relevant? We're talking about my fucking body, I think it's pretty fucking relevant! Shit, and you're telling me that in a few years, people would've woken up to see me well and alive, spewing some pro-Arasaka bullshit?”
“It would not have been you, merely another personality implanted in your body.”
Johnny looks like he's about to scream or burst into flames but he does nothing of the sort, instead lets out a deep, long sigh in his hands and when he looks back up, his face is blank.
“You know where they keep it?” He asks, his tone strangely even.
“I do not have the exact location. Nonetheless, I know it is kept in their experimental lab. Since I took control of the security system, no doors will be locked. It should be pretty easy for you to navigate the different floors of the building.”
When V gets back to his body, he can sense Johnny's anger boiling inside him, wild and fiery. He doesn't glitch next to him, though, doesn't say a word, so V give him his space while he looks for the laboratories.
He's confused and mad, too, but at the same time he can't help but feel slightly exalted at the idea of Johnny being real and alive and an actual human. For a while, he forgets that this won't last forever, that he'll still die in a few months. For a while, he lets himself smile, lets himself imagine just what life will be like with Johnny by his side.
His way to the lab shows him the bloodbath he'll be leaving behind. Corpses that look barely human anymore, severed heads and arms and legs, faces exploded with a torrent of bullets, cyberware sparkling from short circuits and the heavy, coppery smell of blood and guts painting the walls and ceilings, the wrecked cries of half-dead people echoing in the hallways, somehow always finding their way back to him.
Art from a terrorist.
He finds Johnny's body hidden in a secret basement, among a number of experimental projects that make V sick to his core. Notes on Soulkiller, a fucking clone of Yorinobu, tech weapons for their soldiers, Braindances to brainwash agents.
He doesn't waste time trying to unlock the freezer and just punches straight through the glass, ignores the shards that stay stuck in the delicate skin of his wrists as he puts a hand in the middle of Johnny's chest, naked, cold and real. His blood-covered hands stick to the metal arm as he gets him out of there gently, afraid that anything too rough would make the body in his arms crumble into dust.
It feels like a dream and a nightmare at the same time, getting to see and touch and not being seen in return, transporting a corpse in the long, monochrome hallways with only him to break the deafening silence and a raging fire behind, burning away the corrupt and the wrong.
Back in cyberspace, Johnny is still painfully silent.
He's silent when he opens his eyes for the first time in fifty years, shivering.
He's silent when he takes the clothes off some random dead guy so he has something else to wear besides underwear,
he's silent when they recover Rogue's body, cold and pale, and V can feel his pain like a sharp point in his heart. He's not part of him anymore but he still feels like he's connected to him in some way, or maybe it's just his imagination, a habit that won't die just yet.
As tired as he is, V can't stand to just leave Rogue there, next to Adam Smasher and everything she stood up against, so he lays her on the backseat of his car and drives out of there, leaves behind the lifeless shells and the urge to scream.
“Take the next exit,” Johnny tells him, and he sounds tired, empty.
He takes V to that little drive-in theatre where they went, what feels like ages ago. V digs the grave deep enough so the soil isn't so poisoned, like everything else in Night City, puts her gun on her chest before burying her. Johnny stays next to him the whole time, silent, unmoving, eyes glued to her. His jaw clenches when soil hides her face but he doesn't say a word, just keeps standing straight as an arrow, takes a deep breath, the wind blows.
It's anonymous but it's there and it's a lot better than the tower, it's the past, it's the Rogue Johnny has known. The one that liked watching shitty movies sitting in a piece of shit of a car, the one that was there, that still stood up for him, that still fought at his side, even after all this time, even after all the betrayals. The one that wasn't there to see him change, that won't be there to see him come back.
V gets back home without even being fully aware of it, finds himself locking his door behind him with no memory of the drive.
The person he sees in the mirror of his bathroom looks like a stranger. It's wide, wild eyes on a face covered in blood and dirt, a broken nose turning purple and a trembling body, uncontrollable shivers running through it every few seconds. He tries to stop the chattering of his teeth without success, keeps shivering under the jet of boiling water, hypnotized by the red splattering it leaves on the shower's tiles. He stays there for a long time, lets his sins and his anger and his pain wash away in the drain until the water's freezing, little needles of ice prickling at his raw, flushed skin.
Johnny wanders around while he's making himself a pot of coffee but V doesn't acknowledge his presence just yet. He doesn't have the will, let alone the energy to even try to talk right now. Johnny must feel it, though, because he says nothing, just lies down on the couch like he does sometimes, hands behind his head, eyes closed. He looks asleep and younger, too, a few years taken from his face, the usual frown softened, the jaw relaxed. It's nice. V wonders if Johnny knows just how nice he thinks this is.
It's different than usual, though, because there's no glitch, no static sound, no buzzing in his head. Johnny's body is radiating warmth, he's taking space and the world accepts him, accommodates him, air shifts around the shape of every limb, gets sucked in and pushed out with every breath, the room vibrates with every beating of his heart.
V lights up a cigarette and Johnny half-smiles, it's not even a smile, per se, but his face softens a bit, the corner of his eyes crinkle ever-so-slightly.
It takes a while for one of them to break the heavy silence.
“So, Alt said you had six months at best before you flatline. What're you gonna do?”
V shrugs. He hasn't thought about it, doesn't want to think about it. It would make it real. So painfully real, and he's content right now, in his utopia where they're both alive and well, where miracles just happen.
“Might keep working. Might get out of town. I don't know.”
“So no plans to try to find a cure?”
“What's the point? There's none.”
He knows he sounds fatalistic. He doesn't care anymore. Everything just feels so... pointless, now that he's back home with nothing really changed except for the fact that death keeps surrounding him, closing in tighter and tighter around him. Being a living legend, what a stupid dream that was, the dream that started it all. Night City feels empty now that there's no goal to walk towards anymore, nothing to look forward to. He feels empty.
“You should do something you really want to do, then. Something new.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Johnny doesn't add anything and maybe it's because he feels how distant V is being, or maybe he doesn't have much to say himself. V can't bear to stay motionless, to stay sitting, to not do something. As tired as he is, he can't bring himself to sleep, too scared of what's waiting for him in the shadows of his mind, too scared that the bloody flashes he sees behind his eyelids every time he blinks will just come and drown him while he's defenceless against them.
He wants to ask Johnny was he's planning on doing himself but there's something keeping him from it, fear, maybe, that they'll part ways, even though V said he didn't want to be alone, even though they both came back here. Maybe it's a matter of time before everything explodes and V finds himself more alone than he's ever been.
So he says nothing.
He drifts asleep tensed up on the sofa, angry at himself for not being able to fight off the sleep longer.
It's agitated. It's memories twirling in his head, it's red and it's Smasher's voice and it's Rogue's face as she gets buried, it's screams and headaches and agony. V wakes up with his throat tight and raw, tears spilling out of his eyes with every sob that shakes his shoulders. He yells into his hands until he can't breathe, until his head pounds and his lungs hurt.
The smell of cigarette makes its way to his nose, welcome and comforting. Johnny is still there, doing nothing, just sitting, eyes closed, blowing rings of smoke. His face is open, a wild mix of emotions painted on his features, sadness, hurt, regret, pain, longing, anger, fury, relief, hope. All of this, a bittersweet cocktail to be seen by the world, by V. It's trust.
V relaxes back on the couch and lets himself think about his future, opens the dam in his head, lets the thoughts flow, the doubt creep in, the fear settle. And once things stop moving so fast he takes his time to examine them, one by one until he can put some order in his mind.
What's something he's always wanted to do? What's his secret dream, the spell he's been protecting himself from? He knows it's somewhere, deep enough inside him where even Night City can't reach, unknowingly kept alive, surrounded by thick, guarded walls. He just has to get through to it, to let go of the survival instinct that's been hiding it. He needs to accept it, to welcome it.
Memories flow through him, warm smiles, a young girl laughing, the sound of an engine, excitement, curiosity, wonder. Running on a beach, once, the salty smell of water, the grains of sand between his toes. Waves crashing lazily on the shore in a slow rhythm, the warm light of the sun carressing his face, and then slapping him hard, red skin, burning and frustration, his features feeling tight and dry, cells flaking off his forehead, a cold, wet towel patting his face and soft hands applying lotion.
It's faded and blurry but it's his, his memory to treasure and cherish and showcase in glass. He hasn't thought about it in years, since before everything, before Jackie, before things got out of control and Night City swallowed him whole.
“Wanna go to the beach,” he says without opening his eyes. “Swim in the ocean.”
“I can't say I was expecting that.” Johnny doesn't add anything.
“You'll come with me?”
It's a fact asked like a question, not definitive enough to end with a period, a fact that doubts, a fact that doesn't want to be left behind. It's a fact that hides other facts but neither of them know that yet, still lost within themselves, still blind to their truths.
“Don't expect me to go scuba diving again.”
It's enough of an answer for V. He smiles. Goes back to his memory. Peaceful.
“When do you wanna leave?”
V shrugs. “I don't know. I feel like I should... I feel like I owe it to some people to call them, tell them the news. You should talk to Kerry, too. The band.”
Johnny sighs. He seems about as motivated at the thought of talking to people as V, but they both know they have to. After everything they've been through, after the past few months and all the help they received, it would be to betray their friends to ignore them. It's not like they can keep what happened a secret: the Arasaka thing has to be on every fucking screamsheet and news channel right now.
Shit. V looks at his holo for the first time since he got home, dozens of notifications, worried text messages, missed calls. He gets back to Panam first, dreading the moment she'll answer.
“You are such a fucking asshole. I can't believe it's been fucking hours since you got out of there and you haven't even texted me to let me know, I don't know, that you were still alive? Do you have any fucking idea how worried I was about you?”
She's angry, of course, she has every right to be. As annoying as it can be, Panam's brutal honesty is always there to bring V back to reality, to remind him that hey, some people care about you, you reckless fucker, you don't have to do everything alone, but it's a tough thing shaking off years and years of habits and trauma and loneliness. Still, he winces at the hurt tone in her voice, swallows back the pathetic sorry he's about to say, closes his eyes as he looks for the right words.
He knows that sorries alone aren't worth shit to Panam.
“I... didn't feel like talking to anyone,” he finally lets out, and it's true. “I mostly slept.” That is less true, but how does one explain everything that's happened in so few words? He needs hours, days, even, to untangle to mess of thoughts in his head enough to give them a sense. “Should've shot you a text at least, m'sorry about that. It's just been so... much.”
She sighs, arms crossed tightly on her chest.
“Alright. I don't wanna fight at the moment so I'll let this slip. How'd it go? Are you... Is he gone?”
She sounds unsure as she talks, so unlike her, soft and awkward.
“Yes and no. Out of my head, but turns out Arasaka still had his body, so long story short, he's... I mean, he's alive. He's there.”
She's silent for a few seconds, as if processing the information, and then she takes a deep breath, and another, and talks.
“What about you?”
“They couldn't do anything. Still dying.” V sighs, a quiet plea, a please don't push plea, and she understands because she nods but doesn't add anything.
Maybe she doesn't understand his situation, but she's a good enough friend that she accepts it, accepts that he's keeping some things secret, that he's not doing well and doesn't want to talk about it, she accepts and she says take care and she hangs up without any more questions.
“You should probably call the rest of your people soon if you want to avoid similar situations,” Johnny says, standing by the window, and V hates that he's right.
He dials Misty's phone number next before thinking better of it. Misty has been there since the beginning, before everyone and through everything, along with Vik. As tiring as it is, he knows he should take the time to go see them. Misty gives good hugs, warm and long, and boy, does he need a hug right now.
V gets out of the apartment building before he changes his mind, leaving Johnny behind, and drives to Misty's Esoterica on autopilot, so much that he barely remembers getting there when he opens the door.
There she is, with her wild hair and loose sweater, and her eyes shine bright when she spots him in the doorway, a smile drawing itself on her painted lips. She walks around her counter and takes him in her arms, buries her face in his chest and holds tight. V can feel the tension leaving his body in slow waves, his muscles relaxing in the hug, and he holds her back, tiny in the circle of his arms, tiny but not fragile, so, so strong, and he misses her, fuck, he misses the days when they would hang out with Jackie after a job, when they would talk and eat and laugh together.
He starts crying without realizing it, it's like a dam breaking, tears spilling out of his eyes, out of control, a waterfall on his cheeks, a sadness held inside for too long. Some of the tears feel different, like they're not his, and V thinks maybe he's crying for Johnny, too, all the pain and sorrow he left him now bursting out of V, their emotions blending together in an explosive mix. Misty takes them all in, though, she doesn't move away, doesn't let go, she just lets her hands run along V's back softly, comforting, like she's always been.
It feels like they've been like this forever when V finally lets her breathe and he sniffs ungracefully, wiping his eyes with a palm, lets out shaky exhales.
“Come sit with me,” Misty says and she takes his hand, guides him to the back of the store, on the old couch that holds so many memories. V follows, lets her lay him down with soft gestures, lets her place his head on her thighs, run her fingers through his hair.
It feels good, like she's taking away all the darkness with only the tip of her fingers, soothing, circling motions on his scalp, the nape of his neck.
“Tell me,” she says with that sweet, gentle voice of hers. She doesn't have to add anything for V to know what she's talking about, and he finds that with her, he doesn't mind talking as much.
And so he talks. He tells her about the tower and the bloodbath, about Rogue and Adam Smasher, he tells her about Mikoshi and Alt and the cyberspace, about Johnny and death and purpose, and she listens silently, her hand still moving in his hair as he sobs on her thigh, weak and vulnerable and broken.
“Oh, Vincent,” she says finally, when she's sure he doesn't have anything more to add, when he's a pathetic mess on her couch. “You have no idea what a strong, beautiful soul you are. You've gone through some awful stuff and yet here you are, still alive, still fighting. Things aren't easy, but I find they have a way of arranging themselves for the best if you only give them enough time. You just have to let go of what's holding you back in order to be able to see the bright side.”
She's always had the right words for him. She's always had the right words for anybody, really. V has seen so many people entering her shop with a skeptical look and every time, Misty drew them to her, talked the words she was so good with and they left in awe, wondering just how she could do it, how she could read them, see into them so easily.
It's one of Misty's many mysteries.
She's also the only one V allows to call him by his real name. She just knew it, from the first time they met, she said V for Vincent and he was so shocked he couldn't talk, it was like she read it in the back of his eyes, and the way she said it made it feel real, made it feel like home. So V said yes, V for Vincent, and she nodded and only ever said his full name in moments like these, when he needed grounding.
“You're tired,” she states when she feels him drifting off under her fingers. “I know you fear nightmares, but this is a safe space. Let yourself go,” she smiles, pointing her dream catchers and crystals and candles.
V does feel safe there. And so he does just like she said, he lets himself go, and falls into a deep, dreamless slumber. He stays vaguely aware of Misty's presence, the touch of her fingers, her smell, her voice as she murmurs words he can't quite understand.
She's still there when he wakes up. She's dozing off herself, and even with all his efforts to be gentle, V wakes her up when he sits.
“Hey, V. How are you feeling?”
Her eyes are sleepy but she still asks, thoughtful as she is.
“Better. Thanks.”
She smiles, brings him a cup of flowery-smelling tea and brushes his hair back in place with one hand.
“Don't mention it. You know I'm always there if you need me.”
She is.
It's early in the morning, the sun isn't up yet, and Misty does a reading for him with her new tarot set.
“The pain belongs to the past,” she says. “Ahead lies the unknown and fear, but also self-realization and relationships blossoming. Are you planning to leave Night City?”
“Not permanently,” V mutters, shaken, as always, at how easily Misty can read him. “I feel like getting away a bit. Going somewhere peaceful, where time stands still.”
“Then when you doubt yourself, remember this reading.”
They talk about other stuff while they wait for Vik to get there and bring them breakfast, about how her relationship with Mama Welles improved, about her new set of crystals that she carries with her everywhere so they can absorb her energy.
Vik is happy when he enters the shop, he wraps V in a short, tight hug with a smile on his lips, though it falters when V tells him that he's still dying, that there's nothing to do. He doesn't offer any pity, though, Vik is not like that, and instead insists that V enjoys his last months and visits him more often when he's not sick and on the brink of death. He tells him to bring Johnny, too, some time, because it's about time he meets the fucker for real.
V leaves around noon, his heart full, happy he made the decision to come here yesterday. He needed this so much.
“Johnny?” He asks when he steps out of the shop, only to remember that Johnny isn't always with him anymore.
There's this empty space in his mind where Johnny's engram used to be. There's an echo that answers him when he talks, it's dark and cold and unfamiliar, like it was never his in the first place. V can't remember what used to be there, if something was ever there once. It's like an open wound, raw and bleeding, like everything that wasn't him was just violently ripped out, leaving behind a complete mess, bloody, torn flesh that would heal into a gnarly scar.
According to Alt, though, it would only get infected, kill him slowly, filling his head with puss until his brain is mush and his heart gives up.
“Don't think about this,” he mutters to himself and he runs home, trying to put some distance between him and his thoughts, keep them at bay, very, very far away.
Johnny is in the shower when he enters the apartment. It's alien, the sound of someone else living in V's space, the sheer domesticity of it.
“Honey, I'm home!” He jokes and Johnny snorts from the bathroom.
Moments like these, he wishes they would stretch into forever, light and easy and everything he needs. They don't last, though. They never last. When Johnny gets out and lights up a cigarette, the moment is gone, the memory of it lingering in the air around them with the steam from the water.
“I went to see Kerry yesterday.”
“How'd it go?”
“Weird. Good.” He doesn't add anything, takes a drag of his cigarette. “When are we going?” he asks after a while.
V shrugs. Truth is, he hasn't really thought about it; he said it yesterday and left it at that, still not sure, inside, that this was really happening. He doesn't really have anytime to waste, though, so the sooner, the better.
“Could be today.”
Johnny nods. “You know, I was thinking about it, and we shouldn't just go to any beach. We should go to California.”
“California? That's on the other side of the country!”
“So what? Got anything better to do? 'Sides, we could see some other stuff on the way. Make this worthwhile.”
Johnny sounds especially eager when he talks, pacing around the floor with his arms open. He's cute, like that, he looks nothing like the terrorist he's supposed to be, like the anarchist that nuked Arasaka out of spite. There's something childlike about him, maybe it's the way he's bouncing or gesturing or smoking, even, but V likes it. He smiles.
“Yeah,” he says. “We should do that. A road trip.”