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"I really don't want to."
Sonya sat down on the floor, leaned back against the couch, stretching out sore legs. She had just gotten out of a blessedly hot shower, washing away the grime of her sixth twelve hour day of stunts and fight choreography. Finally clean and comfortable in an ancient tank top and soft sleep shorts, she had been looking forward to a quiet dinner and setting up her new phone.
"Yeah, but you really should." Johnny flopped onto the couch. He was just as tired as she was, having had to re-shoot a lot of the scenes he'd already shot with Audra. His new co-star, an old hand at graphic fantasy and sci-fi films, Sophia Marquess, had been much easier to work with, but the schedule had been brutal. She hadn't batted an eye at the nudity or how often her character was half-naked (all of the grumbles and eyerolls had come from Sonya and Elspeth) but hadn't tried to flash half the set for funsies, either. She'd been professional, intolerant of Johnny's particular brand of charm, and smug she'd been called up.
"Why?" Sonya arched her feet, working out some of the aches. "I really don't care. I care less than normal right now."
Johnny reached down and ran his fingers through her hair and handed her the new phone. Charged, secure in a new military-grade case, and ready for her to set up and use.
"Because you know the value of accurate intel about hostile situations."
Sonya scoffed, ducking her head away from his hand. "Don't pet me and don't patronize me. You know my opinions on this."
(She would have let him be affectionate if he wasn't being a stubborn ass. Now, he had to deal with tired and irritated Sonya, but that was his own fault.)
She grabbed the phone from him with a sigh and held up her brush. "Here, if you want to play with my hair, make yourself useful."
"Then get off the floor and I will." Johnny sounded far, far too amused for the week she'd had. Or the week he'd had. How he stayed amused at everything all the time confused and infuriated her. Sometimes, things had to be taken seriously, and being this tired and this sore after pretending to fight and throwing herself around a castle on ziplines and through other contrivances should be given the consideration it deserved.
"Stop being a baby and get down here with me. The floor doesn't bite, but that couch will eat my ass and suck me in, and I'll never get out of it again."
There was a long pause as Sonya heard her own words. She winced, waiting for it. She was usually so careful to avoid giving him opportunities, because he was so good at finding them on his own. There was no way he was going to resist the easy target she'd just offered him.
"If I don't say the very loud comment in my brain, will you get on the couch with me? I promise to protect you from the perfidy of malicious furniture."
Sonya debated with herself. Sitting on the floor would keep her awake enough to eat dinner, at least. Getting on Johnny's plush, overstuffed couch possessed many dangers to her plans and her person, and not the least of which were her boyfriend's playfully wandering hands and the siren song of slumber.
There were merits to forcing him to join her on the floor. Such as not having to move and making him move as petty payback for him bringing up the subject again. She weighed this against how long she could get him to brush her hair, which was one of the few forms of pampering she accepted. And the possibilities of a neck and shoulder massage.
"If I fall asleep and don't get dinner, I'm blaming you." Sonya pushed herself up on the couch with a groan. "It will be your fault, and you will have to deal with the consequences."
She situated herself with her back to him, letting herself enjoy the warmth radiating off him. The cooler air of spring evenings was something she'd been noticing a lot more lately.
"I think you mean 'everyone,' there, babe. Everyone will suffer the consequences tomorrow, and everyone will blame me, so I promise to make sure you get dinner. It just may not be the dinner we planned on."
Thunder rumbled outside, an ominous warning the heavy storms the local weather station had threatened them with were finally rolling in. Thankfully, after shooting and cleaning up for the day. The set was battened down tight and the spring thunderstorm wouldn't have too bad an effect, unless it was a lot worse than anyone expected.
Meaning craft services' promise of delivering delicious food might be broken, leaving them with whatever they could scrounge in the trailer's tiny kitchen. Which was much better stocked than it could have been, because since the Ice Bucket Incident, Sonya had been far, far more interested in eating as many meals as possible away from people with cell phone cameras.
Everyone had a take on it. Everyone wanted to ask her questions about it. Or show her people saying things about it. And now she wasn't certain which of the people on set were friendly to her and which were Audra's agents (a current tag, apparently?) working to catch her unawares and unguarded.
Sonya was good at staying guarded and aware. She was good at controlling herself and behaving and just doing her job. She did have friends on set (who had warned her about some of the others), some of whom she'd known off and on for years through Johnny. And the stunt crew was apparently staunchly behind her, not allowing people to film her while they practiced or worked out.
Except Elspeth. Given how badly Audra's stunt could have gone for her, Sonya was a lot more generous with the intern. It wasn't her fault Artie had involved her in his schemes, and it wasn't her fault Audra had gotten drunk, planned a terrible prank, then gotten drunk again to execute it.
Which was why Johnny wanted her to search herself on the internet. And search tags about herself on the internet. She had very little interest in doing so.
Johnny unwound the wet towel from her hair, tossing it to the floor near the bathroom with a decent enough toss. It landed with a wet splat on the mat outside the bathroom door. However, Johnny's version of 'housekeeping' would not distract her from commanding the universe to feed her the first real Tex-Mex she'd had in years.
The universe owed her. It knew that. She knew that.
"There's enough time for them to feed us. And you can't tell me they don't have plans to get food to people during rain. Or waste all the food I smelled cooking. Fajitas, Johnny. Fajitas. And the cook is from central Texas. They wouldn't, can't, deny me this. They would be taking their lives in their own hands."
She heard Johnny unzip something behind her, and just as soon as she was ready to roll her eyes (she was too sore to properly enjoy him right then, but if he was nice to her, come morning, he'd thank past him for being patient, compassionate, and tolerant of his cranky girlfriend) she smelled the unmistakable coconut and shea butter scent of Johnny Cage's secret, homemade, and entirely too effective hair care products.
Homemade as in - Johnny Cage made and mixed them himself, including a variety specifically for Sonya's long, sun-damaged hair. She didn't know everything that went into it, but she knew coconut, shea butter, and vitamin E for sure. She felt the cool spray splash a bit against her cheeks and neck and back as he added to the dampness of her hair.
"It's a thunderstorm, not just rain," Johnny's voice was far more empathetic than amused this time. His survival instincts were kicking in. (And he'd probably heart the plaintive note in her voice she would deny under torture.) The comb - not the brush she'd brought, but the one from the hair care kit he'd put together for her - ran smoothly through her hair as her attentive boyfriend combed her hair from the bottom up, starting with short, slow strokes.
The first heavy drops of rain pattered against the roof of the trailer, and lightning flashed through the windows. Thunder cracked and rumbled, rolling through a furious basso growl.
"They should suck it up and deliver the food anyway. Some of them owe me." They owed her more than the universe did. After Audra's dramatic departure three weeks ago, and Sonya spending several days with a cold and being kept on light duty by the medics, rumors had flown - and the craft services people who had been involved in getting Audra the ice, water, and buckets had been avoiding Sonya like the plague.
She'd had bruises on her face and arms - even a black eye - from the ice hitting her. She hadn't bothered hiding them, wearing the evidence of her attack like a badge of honor. She'd worked out some of her frustration and anger in the gym, her full routines putting even some of the hardened stunt team to shame. (Not all of them. There were a couple who kept up, and begged for sparring time. Sonya had happily obliged. The same stunt people had been deliriously happy to find out Johnny not only kept up with the workouts, but kicked their butts in the ring just as hard as Sonya did.)
Johnny didn't comment. He knew she was right. He just kept tenderly combing her hair, occasionally brushing his fingertips across her ear or her cheek or her neck. Sometimes, it drove her nuts. Other times, it confused her. Sometimes, she let herself enjoy it. But the idea Johnny loved brushing out her hair for her (to the point he made up his potions and bought special brushes for her), that he couldn't resist touching and caressing - sometimes left her a little in awe. She knew she was impatient, prickly, southern, irritable, and sometimes not easy to get along with. Most of the times, she liked those things about her.
She had standards. Expectations. She was good at what she did, and she knew it. She wanted other people to hold themselves to higher standards and have higher expectations. It had shocked her when she had finally figured Johnny Cage did. She also stopped being as uncomfortable with how he spent his money when she realized some of it was just an extension of that. If he could buy the best quality, why shouldn't he?
She worked through the various steps to set up her phone, knowing she'd have to turn it over to the folks on base when she got back for them to do all their tricks to it. But as it downloaded her apps and photos and the rest, becoming a functional smart phone, she just stared at it.
This little device carried so much of her. Memories. Notes. Thoughts. Emails and messages. It let her talk to her Mom back in Austin and Jax back in Virginia and Kenshi in LA. It let her find recipes and workout tricks and the best books.
It was a hand-held gateway - a window to the rest of the world. Including what the rest of the world thought of her.
"It's okay to want to know," Johnny's murmur wasn't patronizing or teasing. "And it'll keep you awake for dinner."
Sonya clenched her jaw as more thunder and lightning echoed overhead, flashing into the dimly lit trailer. She felt the wind buffet it, and though it rocked, it stayed steady. She had been surprised at the quality of the trailer Johnny had rented for the shoot - it was roomier than she expected, with far more amenities than she'd thought it could have, and it was solidly planted into the ground. With its own generator, solar panels, heating, cooling, and more than enough room for the two of them to live comfortably during filming.
She hated the colors inside. Marketed as 'sunset,' it was mostly orange and yellow with beige and red highlights.
It wasn't shrugging off the spring storm, but it wasn't making her think they were one bad gust of wind from a trip to Oz. (Once, she would have laughed at that thought. After having visited several other realms, she was much less sanguine about ignoring the possibility of inter-dimensional travel via tornado.)
So far, Johnny had tried to talk her into searching herself online with needling, nagging, negotiating, arguing, asking, and even once - pouting. The one thing he hadn't done was point out the real reason Sonya was willing to find out what the internet thought of her - even though she knew he knew. He knew she knew that he knew.
But he hadn't called her out on it. She appreciated it, because she knew she wouldn't react well to it. Nor was she going to admit it. Telling someone she was scared of what millions of strangers thought of her reaction to being assaulted with freezing water and pelted with ice? Scared of being hated by people she wouldn't care about if they met face to face Worried about the reactions of her friends and squad back home? Her mother?! Her grandmother?!
Why did she even care?
What was it about a global-scale gestalt, aggregated opinion, a viral notion of her suitability to be with Johnny, that had her so shook?
But it wasn't what they might think that was the problem, was it?
She clenched her jaw. Closed her eyes. Put the brand-new phone (a much fancier, newer, nicer model than the one broken by the Ice Bucket Incident) upside down on her bare leg, feeling the warmth and weight of the device on her skin like it was a ten thousand pound block of buzzing notifications trying to drag her back off the couch and onto the floor.
Johnny was actually brushing her hair now that he'd combed it out, using more of his coconut scented spray. She hated how relaxing it was when he did this. She wasn't a cat who could be petted into submission. She wasn't!
But damn if it didn't feel good.
"You know what the problem is? Other than people being too afraid of some weather to bring me my fajitas? Right now, I only care a little. If I see it, I'll care a lot. I don't want to care a lot."
Johnny's nimble fingers moved into her favorite part of him doing her hair. His fingertips pressed into her scalp and he gently massaged. Outside the thunder roared again, but aside from the lack of fajitas, she didn't care about the storm at this point.
He kept massaging her scalp. Maybe in part just to keep her calm through this conversation. As plans went, it wasn't his worst.
"Yeah. There's that. There's also the possibility that you're Sonya Blade, you'll disagree with their assessment of your character and you'll get Elspeth to help you tell off the internet. While I'm not the biggest fan of that possibility, it was factored in to asking you to search yourself."
She leaned back into the massage. "Smug ass. What other 'possibilities' did you consider when coming up with this dumb plan of yours?"
Johnny huffed out a single laugh, obviously holding in more. "While a murder spree isn't off the table, I figured you like your career too much to throw it away. At least, until you get Kano. Binge drinking was considered and discarded, because you won't let people see you drunk. Mostly, I figured I'd get yelled at and maybe have to sleep on the couch, or you'd make Artie think you're going to castrate him."
"Actually castrating Artie isn't off the table. The little bastard got me attacked with ice and water on camera. He should be fearing for his safety. Jax could have seen the video. Kenshi might have been told about it. And Kitana's not known for 'proportional responses,' either."
Johnny's fingers stilled. "I had not considered those possibilities. This makes it more imperative we search you."
"We, pretty boy?" Sony raised her eyebrows. "Don't stop massaging. It's your most persuasive argument yet."
Johnny resumed massaging her scalp. "We, pretty lady. Because I haven't searched you yet, either."
Sonya sat up in surprise, turning around to face him. Unbound blonde hair fell around her in a curtain as she stared at him. "Say again?"
Message unclear. Repeat and clarify, over.
"I haven't. Not without you. Not without your permission. When I started playing Elspeth's social media games, I thought it was a fun lark to pass the time on set and get myself some PR with younger fans - or potential fans. I was doing what I do best - showing off and being a clown, because it was fun. Artie ran with it, but I figured - what was the harm? It was fun videos on the internet. Then the rivalry started, Audra took it too far, and now we're here."
Sonya sighed, then laughed. She studied his face, looking for it - and found it. The slight twitch of his left eyebrow.
"You're going insane, aren't you? Not knowing is eating you alive!"
Thunder rumbled over head as the storm hammered down around them.
"...oh my god yes." Johnny let out the words in a single breath. "Do you know how hard it has been to respect your boundary on this? Sonya, I want to know." He paused, then shrugged. "I kinda need to, but I'm trying here."
She patted his cheek. "Good boy, Johnny Cage. You did good. Thank you. Fine. Fine! We'll look. After dinner. And fajitas would go a long way to improving my outlook on things."
Just as she was about to give in an actually pout at him to see if she could convince him to go out of their warm, safe trailer and into the thunderstorm to get her fajitas, there was a knock at the door.
Johnny looked up at the ceiling. "Raiden? If that was you, I take back almost everything I have ever said about your timing."
He jumped up off the couch and skipped to the door, flinging it open dramatically. Sonya got to her feet behind him and what she saw made her almost giggle.
Almost.
Looking like a drowned cat (complete with yet another cat-ear headband) stood in their doorway, a large, zippered, waterproof 'keep warm' container held up. Her hair was plastered to her face and neck, and her clothes were soaked through. Her water-resistant windbreaker had lost all resistance and was as drenched as she was, and she was shivering.
"Special delivery? Please tell me this is actually for you! I can go back to the kitchen and warm up!"
Sonya pursed her lips into a thin line. She remembered the interns were in a hotel about forty-five minutes from set and given both how late it was and the weather, Elspeth might not see her hotel room until tomorrow.
Sure, she wanted her fajitas, but not bad enough to trap someone on set so she could get them! She wasn't a monster! She wasn't! She and Johnny could feed themselves! She would even enjoy watching him make a pained face when she ate a microwave burrito dipped in hot sauce.
"Get in here before you drown, kid. You're going to catch a damn cold."
Sonya mentally slapped herself upside the back of the head for sounding like her mother in front of Johnny. That just wasn't acceptable, no matter what the situation was.
Elspeth hesitated, but Sonya pushed past her boyfriend - who appeared to be having some kind of system error at seeing Sonya invite anyone, much less the social media dynamo who had started the whole avalanche of issues, into their trailer.
She reached out and Elspeth held up the bag of food, but Sonya grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. Johnny finally had the presence of mind to grab the food and take it to the kitchen to dry off.
"But...I..." Elspeth was shivering a little inside the trailer, and Sonya made a mental note that whoever had sent a nineteen year old intern into horrific weather with just a windbreaker to deliver food was going to get their ass kicked. Possibly on video.
The internet should like that, right?
"Call the kitchens. Tell Fernando I said you're with us and I've kidnapped you for health and safety."
Elspeth fumbled for her phone, but Sonya stopped her. She really was like a wet kitten. All ears and sad faces and completely unsure what to do with herself. "Hold off on that, kid. Come with me. Johnny, if you mess up those fajitas, I will end you."
She guided Elspeth toward the bedroom of the trailer, pulling the curtain shut. She grabbed towels out of the bathroom and thrust them towards her. "Dry off. Change clothes. Then call the kitchen, okay? You're shivering and you shouldn't be making deliveries without a golf cart and an umbrella."
Teeth chattering slightly, the girl peeled off the soaked windbreaker. Sonya turned around to give her privacy, pulling out clothes that would come closest to fitting her.
"I drew the short straw. Only three carts and too many deliveries. Fernando said to make people wait, but Greg said to rush it out to the big names first and yelled at me to go."
Greg. One of Audra's sycophants. The set coordinator had wanted to try to sleep with her. He'd told anyone who asked it was his goal. He'd also made jokes about sleeping with Elspeth, Sonya, and several other women. She had refrained from violence so far, but she was going to revise that policy.
If Johnny didn't beat her to it. One of the things she loved about him what how he treated the people who worked for and with him. And how mad he got when someone treated them poorly.
Sonya shook her head. "Nope. I can wait ten more minutes, even for fajitas. Or even come get them ourselves. How many deliveries did you make?"
How long were you out there?
She set the clothes on the bed. "You're staying here until it's safe to be out there again. You can eat with us. Call who you need to call. The dryer is in the cabinet in hall on the right. Toss the clothes and towels in there. I'm going to go rescue the fajitas from Johnny."
At least they would have an expert for their search? Sonya sighed, but she knew what Johnny would say.
She came back into the kitchen, and he was laying out plates and cups. "I heard. I'm good with it. I might slap Greg tomorrow, too. I can get away with it. You can't."
Sonya huffed. She knew he could, the ass. His ultimatum to Advent had gone exactly like he expected it to. They apologies, sent Sonya a check, bought her a new phone (it had taken a bit to get to them from the US) and bought her a couple of years of fantastic cell and data coverage. They'd dropped Audra and brought in Sophia.
And tried very hard to avoid Johnny walking off their movie. It turned out, Elspeth and Artie had created buzz about Johnny Cage and the Elustria sequel. Big, giant, enormous, and loud buzz. The kind of buzz the studio and production company usually had to pay millions of dollars to fake.
Johnny's in-character antics on Elspeth's videos and his obvious love of and excitement for the movie had been like catnip to the internet. He had even announced Sophia's arrival and introduced her on one of Elspeth's videos.
Advent Films didn't want to make Johnny even a little upset.
"Watch me."
Johnny winced. "Play nice. I promise I'll make his life hell and embarrass him on the internet, at the very least."
Elspeth came out of their bedroom, absolutely swallowed up in Sonya's old hoodie and sweatpants, looking shamefaced. "Umm...thanks? I don't want to impose, I mean, I can just like sit over..."
"Nope!" Johnny swept into action. "You are stuck with us! Call your people. Brag. It's okay. I would. And then sit down to watch the amazing, spectacular, and somewhat hideous sight that is Sonya eating Tex-mex. She loves the stuff, and we'll have to act fast to get any for ourselves."
Obviously despite herself, Elspeth giggled and pulled out her phone, taking it out of waterproof pouch. "If you're sure..."
"I'm sure." Sonya spoke calmly as she started to dish up the food. The bag must have been heavy, because there was a thin stoneware pan with the peppers, onions, and meat that kept it warm and just shy of still sizzling. The smell alone made her mouth water - and there was plenty for three, even assuming Sonya ate as much as she wanted.
"I'm southern, Elspeth. I invited you for dinner. That means you are a guest, not an imposition. Grab a soda or something from the fridge and eat or I really will eat it all."
Elspeth nodded, still smiling shyly. She quickly texted Fernando, and then made a quick call. "Hey you. Yeah...umm...delivery duty, like I said. So Sonya and Johnny are keeping me, because rain. You get back okay? Is your chair okay? Are you okay?"
There was a pause as whoever was on the other end of the line replied, and Elspeth got a dopey grin on her face. "Okay, good. Stay warm. Stay dry. I'll see you tomorrow. Love you!"
The other person hung up and Elspeth looked up and seemed to realize they'd heard. She shrugged. "Umm...Rosie. She's an intern with special effects, and...well, we came here together and now we are together? I've known her since middle school, but apparently we're both blind, because..."
Johnny laughed. "Tell us the tale, as you eat."
They ate, and Sonya listened patiently to the tale of Elspeth and Rosie, who had apparently somehow missed being into each other since middle school. Rosie, because assumed being in a wheelchair meant Elspeth would never be interested, and Elspeth because she assumed Rosie was 'too cool' to date an internet nerd like her.
They were both wrong. Elspeth, it turned out, was a good storyteller, interjecting humor at the right places, and making fun of herself and Rosie in the right ways to make both her and Johnny overly invested and rooting for the two by the she to their awkward and confused confession of 'undying puppy love that needed serious obedience training' and their decision to actually try to date while working in a castle on the other side of the world, where no one they knew could see them fail.
After dishes were done and trash disposed of, Sonya sighed. "Well, kid. You're here for it. The big moment where I do what Johnny and Artie had been telling me to do for over a week."
Elspeth made a face. "Google yourself? Ugh. That the worst. Had to do that for an assignment in school and I found the most unflattering pictures of myself from like, childhood, on the Insta from school events. I wanted to die. Being a kid was so much less cringe when parents didn't post your baby bathtub pic to Facebook."
There was a level of exasperated disdain with which she named and shamed Facebook that Sonya was impressed. It took a lot to put that much emotion in a single word. She knew. She could do it.
"And...for what it's worth," Elspeth took in a deep breath, and Sonya paused. "OhmygodIamsosorryIdidn'tthinkyou'dgethutandIdidn'twanttomakeathingandrivalsandIjustwanted to showIcouldadvertisethingsmywayandI'm so, so, sorry."
Johnny let out a low whistle. "Damn. You did that in one breath. Now take a second one and chill. Believe it or not, Sonya is on your side."
Elspeth blinked. "Huh?"
"She yelled at my agent for taking advantage of you - which he did. And told him to fix it, which I am helping with. You didn't start that rivalry, the internet did. But we need to see it and we need to deal with what people are saying about Sonya."
Elspeth nodded. "Oh. Okay. Wow. Thank you. Holy shit, thank you. Umm...I want to help. I have a bunch saved, and I can show you tags and we can...no. Sorry. Getting ahead of myself."
She took a deep breath. Again.
"You're the expert." Sonya gestured at her. "Tell me. I don't know what to do. I don't trust Artie, and Johnny's accounts are controlled by Artie's people."
Elspeth looked thoughtful, then shrugged. "They're bad at their jobs. Real bad. Anyway. Once we find it all, and find the right things, we can post stuff of you, about you. Even, maybe, for you, on your own accounts. That has dangers, but...it also has possibilities. I can help! If you want."
Johnny leaned forward. "How bad is bad?"
Elspeth gave him a flat look. "I chose you for my videos and posts because I thought you needed all the help you can get."
Sonya laughed, leaning back against him. "Oh, Johnny. What is it the kids used to say? Burned? Hire her and make Artie let her run your accounts."
Johnny shrugged. "Yeah, sure. We'll call him in the morning, our time. Wake him up in the middle of the night for it. He'll be too sleepy to argue much."
Elspeth was blinking in stunned disbelief. "Wait. What? Really? What? Huh?"
Johnny grinned. "If you want it, the job's yours. I want to stay relevant. You can do that. Now. Let's google things and traumatize Sonya."
Sonya groaned.
~ * ~
The next morning, Sonya Blade's Instagram was found by nearly a million people. There were a handful of photos already. Her with puppies rescued from overseas. Her teaching self-defense to teenage girls. Her standing in the rain while recruits did push-ups. Her on the obstacle course, holding up a stopwatch with the new record time, Johnny in the background cheering like a loon.
But the top picture was Sonya standing in front of a castle, water dripping from her face, her eyes narrowed and focused, her fists clenched. Bruises were forming on her cheeks and under her eye.
The caption was two words: "Who's next?"