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I was gone for a few hours with Johnny beside me, lurching over me and watching my every move. Once in a while he’d glitch, say something under his breath about me and disappear back to wherever he belonged. I rested my legs over concrete slabs of the parking garage I had found myself settled into during one of my nighttime “Get away from everything” drives. I had found myself craving the feeling of nature, fresh air almost, which of course was so scarce here. I had tried North Oak a majority of times, admittedly not one of my favorites. It was like lying to myself, the sight of an artificial tree made me almost sick to my stomach.
There was one little spot I had discovered within the past couple of weeks, a patch of small, bladed grass near the bottom of the parking garage. I could just barely see it from where my feet hung over, nobody but Johnny and I knew about it, it was almost like our spot. We (Probably mostly me) dreaded the day it was found out about and ultimately removed.
The city made my heart ache from here, it always made me think about how much there was to look at. I stared — October wind shivered in my ears, past the city, and the next, past the blinking towers that blocked anything past the couple stars visible in the sky and past the pothole filled streets. all in my eyes, all at once as far as I could see from here.
Johnny regarded me sternly. “I wish you knew how fuckin’ cold it is. Even I can feel it.” He said, opening his mouth to say something else, took a breath to speak, then didn't, leaning against the steel pole next to us. I turned around, scooting back a little so my feet were barely resting over the edge, I cocked my head slightly in Johnny’s direction, the yellow lighting of the parking garage giving him a soft yellow tint that just barely fell over his entire frame. “You never like getting out.” I responded. He hesitated to sit next to me. “I’ve never liked getting out.” He parroted. “I like staying in. All the bad shit happens when you’re out. You never have a day of damn rest, V.”
Johnny is mistaken. For me, there is no in, Johnny believes an entire day of sitting around and eating takeout is a day's worth of in. For him, not having to be around anyone else is an in.
I was always out, under the eye straining lights of the city or passing by new restaurants that im sure Jackie had told me about at some point, in the desert just short of Panam and I’s meetings, under short lived artificial trees and bar hopping until i got my days worth to feel like ive done something. It was hard to believe Johnny even knew I was dying if he believed a day spent his way was a day spent well.
It was hard to say that Johnny and I had grown to like each other, much more than I had planned when we first got to know each other, I did appreciate the company more than I could express, some days it became a little overwhelming but I'm glad that he’s here. With him I didn't have to face myself alone, my own cruel claws, the mass of my body when it became too heavy. On those days he was soft. Just soft enough to talk up a simple praise. Something simple enough to make me turn around and not give him any attention, or throw a weird tint on my face just enough to get a reaction.
Is it possible to call this love? I think so. But I also think that is an impossible word if it didn't come from him too. I've never asked past simple “Goodnight Johnny”s that would sometimes end with “I love you.”s if I was tired enough to not think about it too much. And sometimes he’d sit on my bedside if I was too sleepy and bedridden, pet me gently, run a hand through my hair, down the nape of my neck and following the path of notches in my spine. Simple intimacy that made everything feel a little more human.
Johnny looked at me once more. I could see the look behind his glasses silently begging me to get some kind of food in me. “Cmon Kid, let's get some grub in you. I'm surprised you haven’t toppled over the edge and killed yourself by now.” Johnny said, his hand resting on his belt. I could give him that. I’ve gotten my outside time for tonight.
I stood, my calves pricking from my limbs falling asleep overtime. “Johnny?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the concrete beneath my feet, opening my mouth to say something I slightly hesitated on. The sound of night city rumbled in my ears, distant explosions interrupted me, keeping me distracted but it didn't seem to bother Johnny all that much, who had already begun to walk, but I could tell he was listening. “Do.. you ever think about the days where I'm too tired?” He asked, my voice low. “The nights where we actually say things. Sometimes.”
Johnny was silent for a moment, seemingly trying to find himself in his own thoughts, i mirrored him, my glances towards him were shortlived, even though he couldn’t see me, i felt like my soul could get sucked out any moment.
He turned to look at me. Or something, I don't know. It was too dark to see what he was looking at. “V, I used to think my life ended fifty years ago at Arasaka tower. I’ve fucked up the lives of countless people, im the only thing standing between you and the grim reaper. You know this? I know you know this.” I nodded. He added on.
“Yeah kid, I do think about it.” It was the most serious ive ever heard him in a while, I almost wanted to laugh, to poke at him like he does to me. He was quiet for a second.
We were close to my car now. Johnny swallowed thickly, enough for me to notice. “Those good ol 'nights where we don’t do shit like this.” He joked, and I laughed a little. Slipping into the drivers side
The smell of the air freshener was almost nauseatingly strong on my anxious stomach. I gripped the wheel. “I’d like to see the world, as much as I can before I die.” I commented. I hated thinking about it, a world without Johnny in it really. I didn't care all that much for myself. The car light slipped over the polished interior, I locked eyes with the graying logo on the dashboard and an old bullet hole that pierced near the radio. Johnny yipped back quickly. “You’re not going to die.” which was unusual from his jokes about my eventual death. It was hard to believe him. Normally it was. But I caught something in his tone.
Tears proceeded to prick my eyes. I gulped a breath and started the engine. Johnny didnt say anything. I turned up the dial to the radio, hoping that maybe it would take away from the foggy atmosphere of the car. Nothing I hated more than the unknown, and there was so much unknown.
· · ─ ·ʚɞ· ─ · ·
The trip back to my apartment was simple, an every night event that Johnny and I took. Tonight’s was unusually long. I took a moment to stop and smoke over the railing next to my apartment. Smoke lingered in my lungs, Johnny stood beside me. It was like he knew what i was feeling, he could pinpoint it even if I didnt know myself. Above all, Johnny was a man of his own word. He lives in inches and ounces, horrors and degrees. His own emotional crowds everyday were non existent, he was cold. Im sure that if he wasn't with me, we wouldn't have those soft moments. I know somewhere he was craving it himself. It was his turn to examine the city, he watched the ads on the buildings closely, chasing the lights with his eyes as they blinked, it was quick and bright, almost like a code for us to decipher.
Some people die in Night City, we know that— young and old — skilled and unskilled — because that is their purpose. To live and to die, to become another plastered statistic or email for night city to earn the characteristics it has, others are sacrificed, seen unfit for the city, assassinated by the hundreds — to feed the sporting instincts in people. Johnny is only one of those people to have stilled that instinct in himself.
“When I was alive.. and dating” He now likes to talk about his youth, he ponders about it often, mainly to get a rise out of me. “Im sure you would’ve been a choice.” He slips out. And I turn, was this about my questions from earlier? Out comes a cigarette of his own, and he leans harder on the rocky-textured railing.
I kept my eyes on the city skyline, to answer his insatiable curiosity, “Im not sure you would’ve liked me. I didn’t even know you liked guys.” I wish i knew what he was getting at, what he sees.
Johnny once again finds the air to speak. “You’re bold, V.” I looked down at the faint red end of my cigarette. “It keeps me awake, like I used to be.” He starts off into my (our?) apartment, flicking his cigarette behind him, which is put out with the heel of my own shoe, similarly to mine. I caught up to him, my stride on the sole of my feet, something burned in my heart.
Love isn’t everything to me now, but without love, Johnny had noted to me a while ago that he “Wouldn’t know which was his ass and which was his head.”
My apartment is clean, groomed from the tiles near the sink to the backends of the bookshelf. I kept it this way to keep my mind from racing too much, but unfortunately it hadn’t taken its effect tonight.
he’d never known endurance like mine, he’d told me one night. I slipped off my shoes
He stood in front of my bed, then crouched to sit on it, i grabbed something from my kitchen counter, half aware of what it was but i needed something in my hands. - After he’d settled in my sheets, i stood awkwardly around him, looking down at his comfortable form quietly. I was a bit puzzled on why he’d chosen to relax there in my sheets after the kind of night id had.
I watched him, watching me. Sometimes he even seemed aware of being watched. He looked me up and down, seemed to be reading me, as if I was that grass growing in that parking garage.
”You look like total shit, if you’re wondering what I'm thinking. Lay down before you pass out and I have to watch your face hit the concrete.” He smiled, he knew what he was doing and I hated it. Another unknown for me to face. He was absolutely onto me.
He turned me over in his mind and read me thoroughly, I tried not to think about his thoughts as I climbed next to him, facing the opposite way, eyes straight to the wall. I paid no mind to my clothes still on, my face not washed and my day unfinished. I could feel Johnny staring through my back, analyzing the hinges of my being, trying to find out about me myself.
His hand reached my hair …
I pulsed, like thirty different colors all ran through me. I didn’t calm down until twenty seconds in, I drank him in quickly, trying to analyze his touch however I could.
the nape of my neck …
Was it just another one of those nights where we were too tired to ever bring it up again? I turned, facing him closely.
Those thirty colors did flips in my mind, ate at my insides, chipped away at my lungs where I couldn’t find a proper breath to say much more than a simple “Thank you.” But he didn't need me to talk as he ran over the curvature of my body and felt the masculiness of my figure. He soiled me with his hands.
I could feel strands of his hair barely brushing the upper apples of my cheek, there was barely any room squished between him and I on the bed, so close I could smell the age on his alcohol spoiled breath. I could actually see his eyes, his bland watery orbs, carnivorous mouth, fringed dark hair. I was curious.
He seeked my curiosity, his hands moved to rest on my upper arms, the distance between us seemed to shorten rapidly, I clutched him as if we were moving too fast and he was going to disappear right from me. I breathed him in and I finally tasted him. All it took was for him to bridge that gap for my original question to be answered, maybe this was love.
The kiss was anything but short and sweet, my hand perched itself in his hair, I leant up on my elbow and guided him with me. I almost pulled away, I'm sure he could taste the dirtiness of my mouth from tonight’s small meal, maybe he could taste the starvation on me — he only pulled me closer.
It was more intimate than I could describe, his lips moved down and down, down to my chin, kissing the roughness of my stubborn stubble, moving down to the lines in my neck, I felt brief moments of teeth before he continued to the curves of my shoulder. My breath had picked up without my notice, and everything felt like it was sweating.
He licked his lips, pulling away, keeping his words to himself he started to remove my jacket. ‘I want us both to sleep well’ I wanted to say, I could feel the coldness of the air where he once was, breathing hot air onto and sliding his lips. He pulled earlier object out of my hand
I wish I could thank him, tell him how I had been searching for this, but there was a lack of words in my brain, and I was so, so warm.
I clutched him as he continued to undress me and get me as comfortable as possible, I could only answer by covering my eyes with the palms of my hands, pressing them forwards into my skull, craving the pressure to pull any of that anxiety away. “Shh..— shh, yeah. Good boy, V. Good boy.” Johnny said, softer than I have ever heard it. I almost pushed my hands forward twice as hard before he grabbed them and pulled them away. I wondered where he had learnt to say words like this.
I want us both to sleep well, i want us both to sleep well, i want us both to sleep well.
There was a kiss right above my stomach, my eyes weren’t open to catch it, but he was as gentle as possible, my brain was a lump of fuzz under his hands.
Within a few minutes, it was like he seemed to cradle me, my head found purchase right between his neck and shoulder, my body on top of his (Mostly) and my arms around his side as much as they’d snake around. He didn’t mind the restraint, or the intimacy. He’d found a rhythm in patting my back, rocking me back and forth, not saying anything but speaking in occasional loud sighs of content. I spoke back with tight grips on his skin.
Any idea of death was out of my mind at this point, with him it was like I couldn’t die, maybe I wouldn't. It wasn't for me to say.
His grip tightened for a moment. “I love you, kid.” He whispered, his rocking slowing momentarily, I squeezed him almost to say “Don’t stop.”
I wanted to tell him how much i loved him too, but there weren’t exactly words that i could say right now, it was all a tangled mess, but I know he knew it.
yes, i was thankful for Johnny Silverhand, possibly more than he was for me
I want us both to sleep well.