Work Text:
V:
The pigeons flew away—from between my fingers, from the edge of this city. It’s not that they didn’t want to stay. It’s that Night City, this damn swamp, never deserved to be a home for any living thing. I watched them disappear, thinking once that we could do the same.
I looked up at the sky. Stars shine, and stars die out. Who can promise the one you see tomorrow night is the same? There’s always a nova rising to cheers, and always an old star falling when no one’s watching, burning up into a streak you make a wish on. They say if you wish on it, it’ll come true.
But I always wonder… is that flash tearing through the dark just the embers of some gonk’s unkept promise, burning out at the end?
"Legend." That’s what they all wanna be. But you only see it clear when you’re at the end of that road—paved with everything you’ve lost. No one behind you. No one beside you. Just you and this city that feeds on souls. Only you know the dirt, the struggle, the screwed-up choices you made.
Yeah, maybe folks remember you for a while. But time’s a giant graveyard. Buries everything, eventually. Forgotten by chooms, faded from a lover’s mind… ‘til even you start wondering if those memories were just a well-edited braindance.
They say "the cure’s gotta taste like shit," like swallowing enough pain buys you a new life. But how can you be sure the poison you’re choking down really cures the cancer called Night City? Maybe it’s just another, slower death. No one gives you answers here. Time’s only job is to make every promise rot.
I promised you, Judy. Promised I’d get you out of this hellhole. We thought we could break free.
But once Night City sinks its teeth in you, it never lets go. It ties you down with eddies, revenge, and strings you can’t even see. Just when you think you’re about to touch freedom, you find you’re buried deeper than anyone.
Now they’ve named a drink after me. On the menu at The Afterlife, right next to Johnny’s. Look at that. Finally a "legend," just like they say. Traded our dream of freedom for it.
I’m a story now. A dead legend, served in a glass. And you, my Judy? Are you still on some shore I can never reach, waiting for a promise that’ll never be kept?
What does the "V" taste like, I wonder? The burn of regret? Or the bitter sting of a road you can never walk back?
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Judy:
The busy tone on the holo is colder than the deepest black in Night City. I keep calling the number that’ll never pick up, listening to that steady beep like it’s the epitaph on a digital tombstone.
"Pick up, V… please…" My voice shakes. Tears blur the holoscreen in front of me, warping the light into meaningless color. "You said we’d leave together… You said it!"
But on the other end, only silence. That hollow quiet swallows every sob. She can’t hear. Can’t hear my tears hitting the holo. Can’t hear my heart shattering. The one who promised to show me the real stars is lying in some forgotten, cold corner of the city now. Turned into a "legend"—a story to go with a drink at the bar.
Everyone’s talking about "V." How nova she was, how she was a real legend, like Johnny Silverhand back in the day. They raise a glass with her name on it, talk about the hell she raised.
But they don’t know. They don’t know the light in her eyes when she made a promise. Don’t know the warmth left in her palm. Don’t know that behind this "legend" is a promise about escape that’ll never be kept.
Only I know. Only I know how much this damn "legend" hurts.
Maybe one day I’ll get on an AV and leave. Carry this bone-deep pain to the other side of the badlands, try to start some kinda new life.
Or maybe I’ll end up like all the other nobodies in this city—fade away in some filthy alley, become another number in the missing persons databank.
Either way, the woman I loved, named V, is gone. She died on the road to becoming a "legend." Died right where our dream was supposed to begin. And my crying… it’ll never reach that empty corner where she is.