#johnny silverhand fanfic

[gococogo]

Share Your Toys | SilverV

Synopsis: V buys something new and odd and Johnny doesn't want to participate. All until he needs to show V just how to use.

Word Count: 2.1K

Genre: Smut

Pairing: Johnny Silverhand/Male!V

Warnings: nsfw/anal/dildo/sex toy/masturbation/degrading/slut shaming

Notes: I know I've only done one cyberpunk fic in the past. But I have this one and one more planned to post haha. I'm here for the male!v x johnny enjoyers

Does he feel a little ashamed buying one? No… Maybe. Just a lil. They had peaked his interest when he had spotted one, but he had much more pressing matters on hand.

So, here he is, with a six-inch dildo in hand.

It’s odd looking. It’s thicker at the tip than it is at the base. Being an ombre from a pink on the bottom to a pastel blue to the tip, it’s almost alien looking. With ridges on the underside that poke out a fair bit, V already knows this is going to be an odd sensation. Something funky to use to get his mind off of current things.

“There’s no way in fuck we’re sticking that thing up your ass,” Johnny snaps from the couch.

V sighs a gruntle noise. He tries to ignore Johnny but the rockstar taps his foot on the ground. He looks up to Johnny finally with a raised brow. He sits on the edge of his bed in only an old t shirt -one that use to be an outdoor shirt but slowly turned into a pj shirt with all the holes and grease stains in it. He sets the dildo on the bed next to him with another sigh.

“We?” V asks.

“Yes, we,” Johnny bites back. “I can feel everything you feel to an extent. And tonight, or any other, I don’t think I’m in the mood to have that thing shoved up my ass,” he says as he points to the dildo with a silver finger.

“You’ve never taken a dick before?” V mocks as he scoots up on his bed.

He makes himself comfortable and brings a bottle of lube with him in hand. Johnny leans back on the couch with his legs crosses over one another. He pushes his aviators up back to cover his eyes. The red glass reflects V on the bed, laid back with his shirt pooled over his crotch and thighs.

“I said I don’t want that,” Johnny grits out.

V rolls his eyes. “Just, leave me alone and I’ll forget you’re ever here. Go to whatever corner of my brain you normally go to when you don’t like something. It’s still my body, so I can do what I want and put whatever the hell I want in it.”

Johnny stares at V for a moment longer and for a split second, the merc feels very exposed. The rocker has seen everything before. Has done stuff to him before. But right now, the look he’s receiving is something different. Then, without a word, Johnny disappears in a glitch of blue and red static.

Good. Now he can continue in peace and use sex for a moment to forget about how shit life is.

-

Getting the first inch in is a struggle. Even with a lot of prep and a lot of lube, the tip is a tad thick. The stretch is a little overwhelming as V opens his legs out a bit further. He works himself little by little, letting the ridges of the fake cock rub up inside of him.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

V stops all so that he can glare at the disturbance standing over him at the side of his bed. He’s gotten so use to Johnny popping up randomly that when he does, it doesn’t phase him at all now.

The rocker’s arms are crossed over his chest and he still wears those red aviators. He can see himself in them again. Legs apart, dick half hard between with a large cock spreading him open. And all Johnny does is frown.

V moves the dick, pushing it a little further into himself and watches Johnny’s face. And when the rocker’s face scrunches up into a scowl, soon followed by a shaky, quiet exhale that is a clear indication he’s trying to hide his reaction, V can only smirk.

As cockily as he can say with a cock up his ass, the merc grins, “How should I be doing it then?”

Johnny’s scowl only deepens. Yet, he disappears from where he’s standing and reappears in a wave of glitches and static in front of V. Bent over and looking over him without his aviators. Dark, brown eyes stare him that hold something dangerous.

Without a word, Johnny takes control of V’s spare arm and grabs a pillow behind him. He shoves it under V’s back that has the merc rolling his eyes. The pillow trick? Really?

“I can’t believe you’ve got me doing this,” Johnny grumbles under his breath.

“You’re the one that hopped in yourself, I could have done this on my own,” V interjects.

Johnny covers V’s hand that holds onto the base of the fake cock. “And have a shit time because you’re taking too long? I’d rather not sit back and have to experience that.”

“But you’d rather experience a misshaped dildo up my ass?”

Johnny only frowns at that, his brows furrowing together. Hard enough that it brings creases to his forehead and brings out his crow’s feet.

With a hard push, one that V wouldn’t have deemed himself ready, the cock is pushed halfway in. V throws his head back against the bed. The ridges of the dildo rub up against the part inside of him that makes everything tingle. The painful stretch of the cock has him trying to catch his breath. But it’s a pain that is welcome. Has him buzzing.

The thickness of the first half has him already feeling full. The ridges on the underside of the dildo rub up against all the good parts inside of him that adds to the dizziness in his head. He breathes heavily, soft whines hitching his throat as Johnny moves the cock inside of him before he can get use to the feeling. Slowly pulling out before pushing in where it was before. And God it feels so good. It has him gripping the sheets with his other hand, the other being held down by Johnny.

The rockstar lifts one of V’s legs up and props it over his shoulder so that he can settle in closer. V looks to Johnny through slitted eyes and the look on the rocker’s face only turns him on more.

Johnny’s mouth is parted, and he breathes in sync with V. Each time he pushes the cock inside of V, each time a little deeper, each time hitting his prostate, Johnny shivers and pants. The blue of the cock all but disappears into V’s ass, leaving only the pink half to take down. God he’s quickly enjoying this as much as V is. Who knew the rockstar could have a little fun.

Being trapped on a biochip must do that to someone though. But by whatever God there is, is it hot to see Johnny become a little desperate. He’s so focused on the fake cock that his own hips move in sync faintly.

Johnny growls, -something that V never expected to hear- and pushes the rest of the cock inside of V. It slips in easily, the base being narrower than the first half. And everything feels like it short circuits inside of V, as if his cyberware doesn’t know what’s happening. His back arches as he groans deep within his throat. The cock is so wide and girthy it stretches him greatly. It makes him feel full and has him twitching. Each movement has the ridges grinding up inside of him and each time that happens, a small hiccup of moans are forced from his mouth. He can’t help himself. This feeling is wild and he’s glad that he bought this.

Johnny on the other hand. He’s bent over V trying to catch his own breath. He doesn’t need to breath but it bloody feels like he can’t intake air. Every time V moves and shifts, a wave of pleasure pulses through Johnny that has him shivering and twitching. He can feel himself grow hard in his leather pants. He’s not meant to be into this but by god does it feel great.

He catches his breath before pulling cock out of V to the tip, the sweet sound of moans and groans coming with it. With a forceful push, he shoves the entire six inches back into the merc, the blue disappearing along with the pink. And there it is again, the wave of pleasure and tingles from V that has Johnny shivering and groaning deep in his chest.

He begins slowly pumping the fake cock inside of V, revelling in the raw feelings and sensations that come from the merc’s end. He can feel V’s pain and those friendly pats to his shoulders from strangers. All of those are faint, like passing by a soft blowing vent. But this, this has Johnny’s head spinning and his code glitching.

V other hand comes back down to stroke his hardening dick. He grinds his teeth together at how overstimulating such a simple touch is. God he’s not going to last much longer if Johnny keeps this up. Especially with the pace quickening with every pass of his prostate.

Johnny begins panting loudly as he quickens the pace. Each time it fills V up in the right places and stretches him a little painfully. But that sting is something that feels so good. He matches his stroke on his dick with Johnny, letting him take the full reigns even though he knew he was fucked when the rocker popped back up again to make his comments.

V gets lost in everything, letting his mind go to this moment right now. Forgetting about everything that’s fucked him over in life. Johnny pushes the cock fully in and lets it sit there for a moment. All so he can swat V’s hand off his dick and replace it with his own. The feeling of Johnny’s metal hand on his dick is cold and brings a harsh gasp out of his mouth.

V meets dark brown eyes that stare at him. There’s something different there that the merc can’t quite place. Maybe because he’s having trouble reciting the alphabet or he’s completely forgotten what day it is. His mind is a jumble. But he knows that that dark look within those eyes is something akin to…

“You’re such a slut, you know that?” Johnny quips in between his own panting.

And there it is. Johnny’s comments. Why should V be surprised?

“Yeah and-“ The comeback V was going to make is lost as Johnny moves the dildo inside of him.

He grinds it into him shallowly, letting it rub up against everything inside and makes his entire gut and head to buzz. And in time with the movement, he strokes V’s dick, his thumb flicking and rubbing over the tip each time strokes up.

V grabs onto the blanket again, still letting Johnny guide his other hand on the fake cock. Everything is going crazy. He can’t help but grunt and whine like a two eddie whore.

“Yeah,” Johnny groans out. “You sound like one too.”

V can feel himself coming closer and closer. If Johnny keeps this same pace, he can get there quickly.

“My little slut, how does that sound?” The words are spoken deeply, gravelly.

And it all goes straight to V’s dick. He cums as if a freight train just hit him. His Kiroshi’s become spotty for a second, the black spots disappearing slowly after a while as his eyes recalibrate. He can’t catch his breath for a moment and when he opens his eyes, Johnny is gone.

For a split second, V feels a bit of panic, but as soon as it comes, Johnny appears back again in a storm of glitches and static. He’s hunched over V with a wide expression upon his normally grouchy features. He pants and shakes. He gulps, trying to collect himself. But whatever V felt, Johnny did as well ten fold it seems.

V slips the alien like dildo out of him with a pop and a groan, and throws it aside on his bed. He’s too worn out to worry about anything other than the rockstar leaning over him.

He reaches up and pats Johnny’s face. The simple touch has brown eyes latching onto V.

“Was it worth it?” V asks.

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

Johnny sits up straight, still kneeling in between V’s legs. He runs a hand down his face and lets his gaze run down the merc’s body. His eyes linger on V’s still leaking cock and the cum splattered over his stomach and tattoos. He’d be wrong if didn’t admit this was all a little hot. It’s all in how V pants and shakes from the orgasm still, his chest and stomach rising rapidly with each breath.

Johnny swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing on his throat. “A little then, yeah,” He grumbles.

-

Please do not copy or repost my work. <3

[thranduilsperkybutt]

requirements.txt=unsatisfied

Pic source: 1

Pairings: Johnny Silverhand/V!Reader; Exceedingly minor Goro Takemura/V!Reader alluded to Warnings: Endgame spoilers; Arasaka!ending; I take liberties with the ending (everyone lives AU); yearning; fighting; nsfw banter (no actual explicit behaviors); angst with a happy ending; mentions of canon-typical drug use and violence Word Count: 9,936 words Reader Gender: Female Author: Meg Summary: Johnny always wants a lot of things--- a smoke, a good fuck, for you to turn the radio to 107.3 instead of that new age crap you like. In a perfect world, he'd like to have his own body back, too, but this isn't a perfect world. This is Night City, and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forgive you for going and doing this. Turns out that being in love requires being unsatisfied. A/N: Look. I finally finished playing the game as corpo!V and I will not live with these endings, alright? I'm gonna make my own.

“Think they make shitty motels like this just for screw-ups like us?”

You make a point to continue staring at the ceiling of the ‘shitty motel’ room, deep breathing the mildew and age-old cigarettes. He isn’t wrong, but you don’t want to hear it right now. He always has a way with words. Wiping your hands down your face, you do your best to ignore him, but Johnny wasn’t the most dismissible parasite you’ve ever had.

“’Parasite’s’ talkin’ to you, fuck-up,” he flicks his cigarette butt at you in retaliation for the thoughts in your head and it glitches through your thigh with a fuzzy tickle in your neurons. “Do ya’ really think Arasaka is gonna’ just let you waltz away after grabbin’ that stuck-up bitch princess of theirs? You’re fucked.”

“Was fucked before that, Johnny--- royally, if you’ll remember,” you groan, and turn away from him. He appears on the other side of the bed, leaning over it to glare at you. “Got you to show for it, after all.”

“Why are you so chill about this? Takemura fucked you both by deciding to take a life-sized souvenir from your trip to Cherry Town---"

“Cherry Blossom Market---” he barely acknowledges your interruption; you doubt he cares about the situation past hearing himself talk either way.

“--- and you’re just gonna’ do what? Sit here like a ditched date, waitin’ by the phone for that ‘Saka scum to call?”

“Johnny,” you push yourself up into a sitting position, headache threatening a presence at the back of your skull. The edges of his shoulders have that glitchy quality you’ve come to know follows his movements at times when he crosses his arms, but his glare is clear as ever.

“What? Don’t like me callin’ him that?” he rolls his eyes as he certainly feels your annoyance spike, “Jeez, didn’t think you could ride ‘Saka’s dick any harder, but if you literally want to---”

“What crawled up your holographic ass and died tonight?” you bark back, and the glint behind his eyes tells you that this is what he wanted all along. A fight, interaction, anything other than you just melting into the stained mattress of this motel room while the fan drones overhead in excruciating monotony. Johnny’s at his worst when he’s bored or cornered, you’ve found.

“I don’t know, V, maybe the fact that while I’m livin’ in your head, I’ve gotta’ listen to all your disgusting little thoughts about that Grade-A asshole? I’ve never had a dry spell that’d make me wanna’ sleep with a corpo drone, but maybe old habits die hard for you, huh?” You try to ignore his jab at your corporate background, but you know he just can’t help himself, “At this rate, alert a joytoy pronto, because I think I’ll throw up if I gotta’ watch you eyefuck your ronin anym---"

“You’re so fucking annoying sometimes, Johnny, you know that?” you rub your temples, trying to bite back the heat in your cheeks. No telling if it was from embarrassment at his inevitable acknowledgement of your major-league crush on Goro, or an oncoming stroke. At this point you are wishing for the stroke.

“You say that, but you’re not havin’ to watch how pathetic you look waitin’ on Takemura to call. Shit, even that cop you turned down would be better than this guy.”

Rising to your knees, you point a finger directly against his chest, feeling the fuzzy presence of your fried synapses mistaking him for something real at your fingertips, “Know what? Maybe I will fuck Goro the next time I see him, just to screw with you. Maybe I’ll finally get some peace and quiet when you slink back to God-knows-where to hide in my head while I lay back and take it from the big, bad, ‘Saka scum.’”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he growls down at you, the fire in his eyes flickering from your own to your lips and back again. “If you wanted me gone, you’d’ve taken those omega blockers by now.”

“Don’t tempt me. I’d take a half-dose of pseudoendotrizine just so I could kick your ass, if it wouldn’t mean kicking mine, too.”

“Now, there’s a thought,” he reaches out, pushing you back by a phantom grip on your shoulder. Your body flings itself onto the mattress without a thought, “But I don’t need a pill to kick your ass, remember?”

“Asshole,” you grumble defeatedly, but his anger seems to dissipate, if only a little.

“Bitch,” he chuckles, and it’s a short sound of disbelief. “Don’t pout like a damn kid.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of mean, Silverhand?” you look down to where he still stood beside--- no, knelt onto, now--- the bed. His lips are quirked into a slight smile, one brow raised like he doesn’t quite understand just why all your annoyance has seemed to sink away into the dingy carpet and rotting walls of this place. Maybe it’s the exhaustion settling into your bones?

Or perhaps it’s the uneasy feeling in your gut when he looks at you. Despite the mountain of resentment your soul screams that you have every right to have at him for stealing your life away from you with every waking second, you can’t seem to bring yourself to hate him.

He clicks his teeth thoughtfully, dipping his weight onto the knee he has on the bed, but it doesn’t creak under his weight or acknowledge his presence, “It may have come up, once or twice.”

He isn’t really here, the soft static framing his hard edges reminds you.

“Why, then?” Why does he keep falling into the same pattern? Why does he treat you like this? Why does he look at you like that afterwards?

You don’t ask any of those questions, but you don’t have to. He’s in your head, after all--- but you think he’d be able to figure them out even if he didn’t have a front-row seat to your every thought. You still aren’t sure how much of your consciousness he is privy to, but you know it’s enough for him to know more about you than any other person ever has.

At this point, he might know your mind better than you do.

You wish you could read his half as well.

“Maybe I just don’t like watchin’ you run head-first into what’s bound to be another shit-show’s all, choom,” he deflects, but his eyes don’t turn from your gaze. There’s something guarded in them, sure, but they soften all the same.

You sit on his bullshit explanation for a few seconds, tasting the thought on your tongue, “Is that what we are, Johnny? Chooms?” It’s an unsatisfactory descriptor, but you don’t know if there’s a word in the English language that can accurately describe what you are to each other.

“I don’t know, V. Are we?”

Before you can even think of an answer, the sound of your holo ringing breaks through your ears and Goro’s image appears in your optics.

Johnny huffs and just like that, any softness in his gaze disintegrates with a roll of his eyes, “Go on--- know you’re giddy as a schoolgirl to answer that.”

“Fuck you, Johnny,” you grumble, before picking up the line and watching him straighten up off the bed before disappearing from your gaze in a static glitch. “Goro---”

“V, meet me, quickly as you can. I’m sending the coordinates.”

---

Your fingers run over the markings of Johnny’s initials you’d just carved against the metal. It’s jagged, raw, and as good a headstone as he was ever going to get, given you’d probably never find where his body had been truly laid to rest. In a city like Night City, after so many years? He’s lucky enough that Arasaka had dumped his body at all, instead of incinerating it like most folks these days.

“There, how’s that for a marker?”

Johnny leans back from where he’d been moping and gestures to your makeshift headstone, “Say this was my real grave, what would you write? ‘Here lies Johnny Silverhand…’”

The words roll around your head in tandem with the pit of dread in your stomach. It didn’t feel right talking to him like he was dead, even though the rational part of your mind knew it was true. The real Johnny Silverhand died more than fifty years ago, and you were left talking to a ghost--- a copy that seemed close enough to the real deal, but you never would be able to know if he was a good one. More recently, though, he’s started to seem just as real as the ground you walk on and, while you know that’s something to be deeply worried about, you can’t help but have come to enjoy his company.

When he’s not being an asshole, that is.

For better or worse, he was, “The guy who saved my life.” You’d been through so much--- everything--- together. It hadn’t been intentional on his part; he’s only a piece of broken prototype tech going haywire in your head, but it was still true. He’s saved you in more ways than one, lately.

The words sink into him, dragging his shoulders down like the same ache you feel in your soul. His eyes meet yours beneath his sunglasses, holding you in a regret so deep that you think it will swallow you both with the knowledge that he’ll be the death of you.

Johnny reaches up, metal fingertips clicking on his shades in a way that’s so honest in your ears that it’s difficult to remember it’s just another one of your disconnected mind’s lies anymore, “You don’t know how much I want that to be true.” He pulls the barrier from his face to dangle between his knees as his free hand wipes at the perpetual dirt on his skin, “Listen, I realize I’ve fucked up a lot of things. Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust--- blind, selfish bastard that I was--- but I’ve managed one thing, for now. Not to fuck this up. What we have.”

Johnny’s always wanted a lot of things--- a smoke, a good fuck, for you to turn the radio to 107.3 instead of that new age crap you like. He's rather demanding, day in, day out.

You've been privy to his every request as it flits through your shared head for long enough that he’s come to annoy you nearly as much as he's grown on you. He’s like moss overtaking a stone, so slow that you don’t realize it until he’s covered all of you. He’s changing you into something neither of you can quite recognize anymore, and as the days pass, you worry you’ll never be able to wash him away and return to the person you were before him.

Worse, you don’t know if you will want to.

“What do we have, Johnny?” you sigh, looking up at the light-polluted sky. You weren’t far enough out of town to see stars, just the dim void and flickering city lights reflected on the clouds above. Maybe if you were at camp with the Aldecados, you’d spot a star among the dusky sky. Maybe life would seem simpler, easier, “I don’t know what you want from me.” All you know for sure is that you were growing so tired of the fight. There’s this hurt in your chest; you can’t tell if it’s yours or his. Maybe it’s something you share. Maybe this is what he means.

Or something close to it, “Most of who I thought were my friends, well, it turns out they couldn’t hardly stand to be in the same room with me. But you?”  You hear him pause, but you don’t dare to look at him. There’s a stammer in your chest, and you’re terrified at what it means, “You’re forced to be right fuckin’ here, twenty-four-seven, and you don’t seem to hate my living guts.”

This silence is something you can only achieve on the outskirts of the city, but you know it would be worse if you were further away. It’s almost excruciating, being alone with your thoughts--- being alone with his.

“There a point in there?” your heart aches for him, and you know he can feel it. It’s more than pity, more than friendship, but you try your hardest not to think of what it could possibly mean--- let alone, say it.

He knows, though. Of course he does. He has to.

“Just that… I think you’re my first real choom, even though you’re a real bitch sometimes.”

Your head lulls forward, and it takes all your strength to muster a glare at the pained smile dancing at his lips. There’s more to it than that, you both know it, but you’re grateful that he’s feeling somewhat merciful tonight--- it was something you didn’t know he had in him.

Maybe it’s only something he has in him when it comes to you.

“Chooms, huh?” tilting your head, you pretend to mull it over like it’s a proposition of eddies from a fixer. Playing it off with a shrug, you concede, “I could get used to being Johnny Silverhand’s choom, I guess, even though he was a total dick at first.”

“As if you didn’t deserve it,” Johnny smirks.

“Uh, remind me again, who’s been whining about missing his smokes since day one?” it’s a half-hearted blow, and his widening grin shows it. “Better yet, beggin’ me to get my rocks off?”

“My own personal hell is being stuck inside a non-smoker, and it doesn’t help that you’re practically a nun,” you toss a rock at him for that, and it goes straight through his chest like he isn’t even there. He isn’t, but he grins at you anyways, “Still… who’d’ve thought we’d make it this far?”

You sit there for a beat, feeling your own smile turn at your lips, before sighing, “You know, if you really want a marker, we could get you one at the columbarium.”

“For what, an empty box?” shaking his head, he puts his shades back on to perch atop his nose.

“Please, I have more of your stuff than even your most devoted fanboys. I don’t need it all. We could, I don’t know, ‘retire’ something of yours there. You know, as a symbol,” his gaze weighs heavy on you, and you can’t for the life of you understand what’s going through his mind. It frustrates you nearly as much as his stare seems to, and you shift your gaze back to the sky in your attempt to escape his holographic scrutiny.

“Let me guess, you’ll bring me flowers every day?” it surprises you that his tone isn’t mocking, but rather curious. “Would you visit his grave?” he seems to ask.

Trying to lighten the mood, you tease, “You know me, too busy trying not to die for all that.” You look back to him with a wink, “Plus, preem flowers are expensive these days, choom. ‘Fraid you’ll have to settle for the synth ones. Besides, you seem like a cheap date to me.”

“Bitch.”

“Just say, ‘Thank you.’”

It’s as close as either of you will come to what you really want to say.

---

From the roof of Misty’s building, it’s almost as if the troubles of the city no longer exist. You think you understand why Jackie found his choice up here. It seems as good a place as any to choose between life and death.

You would have to come to yours, too, soon. Maybe you already have, and you just don’t want to admit it.

The thought dwells in your head, and it feels like the only choice that makes sense.

“You’re not considering that. Please, tell me you’re not seriously considering going to those bastards again for help,” Johnny’s voice tears you from your dreadful stare over the neon Night City advertisements staring back at you. Promising everything from NiCola to the market version of the prototype Relic crammed in your head. “You’re trying to make sense of something that makes zero damn sense!”

You think he might wind up hating you forever, for this.

“Takemura said---” you begin, but he cuts you off as he stands from his spot on the ledge overlooking the city and takes up pacing.

“Fuck that guy!” Johnny rounds on you, fiery as ever--- but there’s something more terrible in his eyes; a grief that only comes from knowing he won’t be able to change your mind. “You’re just takin’ the easy way out! Those ‘Saka bastards won’t stay true to their word, you know. All they do is lie, and they’ll keep lying to you so long as it gets them what they want from you. You can’t really believe they’ll help you or me!”

The truth is, you’re too tired and you don’t know what’s worse: the taste of blood on your tongue, or the look of disappointment in his eyes.

You should be at least used to the blood by now.

“I’m dying, Johnny. Hanako is the only person who can maybe help us. Name someone else. Anyone! They made this tech---”

“They’re only gonna’ hurt you. We can do this a different way,” he stops pacing to stand so close that you can swear his boots touch yours. It’s as if you could feel the heat radiating off him, but that may just be the fever settling deathly into your skin, “Hell, give me the keys and I’ll get us to Mikoshi. I’ll burn this whole fuckin’ city to the ground to get you there and I’ll throw the pieces of you back together myself! I’ll gladly die trying---”

“But I don’t want you to die, either,” you fight back the tears at the thought of it, and he huffs down at you in utter exasperation, “can’t you get that?”

“Think they’ll do any better by me at Arasaka?” his chuckle is humorless, coming strained from the back of his throat. “You don’t believe that.”

“I can cut us a deal…” you look down, away from him, blinking out beyond where he stands towards the city lights. You don’t want to fight with him right now. You don’t think you can.

“With what leverage? Deals are only good so long as you have the upper hand, V,” he kneels into your eyeline, reaching out to grasp your chin in two silver fingers and turning you to face him fully. It’s gotten to the point that his hands on your skin feel akin to something real, dulled synapses firing with every spark of his hands on your skin. It’s how you know you’re close to the end. “Who is gonna’ be in your corner after they get everything they want?”

“Goro’s a man of his word.”

“You’re so fuckin’ naïve. Just as dumb as you were when you took that bullet to the brain from Dex, and I had to save your ass then, too,” Johnny growls your name like he hates you for it, but who knew how much you would come to welcome the end? Because when he frustratedly drags you forward by a harsh grip at the back of your head to eclipse his lips over yours, you can feel it. Him. In the burnt neurons of your addled mind, he is there against you--- kissing you with death on the edges of his lips, in all the heavy grief and anger that your choice has brought forth in him. It’s a terrible knowledge that pours from you into him of how much you’ve come to love him, and how desperately you know he’ll hate you for this, because maybe he’s right; maybe you really are naïve for wanting to believe in some way out of this.

He gasps against your lips like it wrecks him to the core; voice hoarse with the emotion as he curses, “Damn, you’re one stubborn bitch.”

“Inherited only your best traits, Johnny,” it’s just as dry on your tongue, and you lift your hand that has been clutching the omega blockers to your lips. You want to say it--- tell him in words how much you care for him. Instead, you murmur against his lips, “Please, don’t be mad,” and swallow the pills.

“I got a feeling you’re gonna’ regret this, choom, and I won’t be there to help you,” he leans away, and you feel the drugs start to kick in when his voice becomes more distant. “Don’t do this. Miracles like the one you’re hopin’ for don’t happen for screw-ups like us, you know.”

“Trust me.”

“I wish I didn’t trust you at all,” he sounds just as tired as you do when he says your name one last time before you blink and he’s gone. The bitter aftertaste of the pills tastes like betrayal on your tongue, and you already know Johnny will haunt you for the rest of your days.

You’re quickly reminded of why you’ve always hated taking the omega blockers.

It takes everything you have left not to sob at the feeling, like you’ve lost a limb--- gone numb and tingling painfully with the ghost of where he was. It’s as if everything is muted, including the deepest parts of yourself. You’re in a bad way, and you know you don’t have much longer now.

So, you find yourself committing to the desperate choice you’ve made, but you don’t call Hanako.

Instead, you call the only corpo you trust besides yourself, and hope it isn’t stupid to do so.

Takemura.

---

He is dressed in all white when he comes to find you at Misty’s Esoterica, looking like a harbinger of death in every sense of the word, “You… look like shit.”

“Don’t look half bad yourself, Goro,” you chuckle, but it turns into a wracking cough that leaves you with a more urgent taste of blood at your lips.

“Are you in any shape to negotiate?” he wonders, but it’s not threatening--- more of a genuine concern displayed with the arch of his brow. Johnny may disagree with you, but you still dare to think him a good man.

“Not in much shape to do anything, anymore, but I know exactly what I’m useful for. My eddies are on Hanako knowing this, too,” you lean on the arm he offers when you stumble on your way to the car. “After all, she sent you. Smart woman.”

“I would have come even had she not,” Goro confesses, pausing with his metal-laced fingertips on the back door. When you shoot him a questioning look, he offers you only a simple, “We have done much work to not see this through to the end, yes?”

“Who’d’ve thought we’d make it this far?”

Goro nods in agreement, before you’re sliding into the car behind Anders Hellman and hoping the Swede knows half of what he thinks he does about your condition, “Agreed.”

---

There’s something to be said for dying. It’s not always as bad as people make it out to be.

Some people would consider you dead. You always find yourself wondering what Johnny would think, these days.

You absentmindedly turn the Rubik’s cube in your hand with no real aim at solving it, letting your mind drift in the overly sterile room Arasaka’s finest clinicians have sequestered you to.

“Barbaric,” Goro called it once, but that didn’t stop them from putting you right back here again. The news plays softly on the screen you’ve been allowed to have after they determined it wouldn’t exacerbate your oversensitivity, but not even the privilege of phoning what few friends you have left can eat away at the boredom that’s settled into your bones in this space station. What was there to say, anyway?

Hi, it’s your favorite lab rat again! How’s it going in the real world? I’m going insane up here!

You can’t help but dwell on the thought that maybe Johnny was right about it all. Maybe it isn’t worth living if life is going to be like this.

Arasaka made no guarantees past what you had signed for on the dotted line the day Hanako had again sent Goro solely to break the news that your body was dying even after Johnny’s Relic had been extracted from your mind. It would seem the soft spot you’d held for Goro was well known by the Arasaka heiress. The woman is nothing if not strategic.

Hell, you’d gotten yourself a worse deal that day than you’d gotten for Johnny at the start of this. After all, you’d had nothing left to bargain with by then.

You were technically a construct, now. A lab experiment dreamed up by Arasaka’s best bioengineers and a team of physicians lead by Anders Hellman. Your current body was a multi-billion eurodollar joint Arasaka-Biotechnica venture that had only been put at the top of Hanako’s list when implanting her father’s construct into Yorinobu had gone awry. You’re convinced she would have been content to let you rot on a biochip in Mikoshi for the rest of your existence otherwise. After all, your contract never said when they had to provide you with a body, only that they were obligated to when the technology existed to allow it.

Turns out, rewriting someone else’s psyche does more damage to the physical body than anyone in Arasaka thought it would. You don’t know why it was such a surprise to them all when Yorinobu’s body couldn’t handle it, considering what it did to you. Maybe they just didn’t care, with how desperate they’d been to get any semblance of leadership back.

All you know is that Johnny Silverhand probably rolled over laughing in his grave, wherever it is, when Saburo Arasaka died a second, painful death.

They were using you as a top-secret prototype for Saburo 2.0, as you’ve come to call what will inevitably be the body they attempt to stick him in next. Sure, Arasaka as a company is facing charges in the New United States on Yorinobu’s death--- something about human testing that everyone knows will never stick--- but that will be swept under the rug much like any bad press Arasaka has gotten over this past year, with either cash or bullets dispensed.

“Shit,” you curse as you grow frustrated with the cube, tossing it onto the thin hospital mattress they kept on your bed. Rubbing your eyes as you try to refocus, it still feels strange to not feel the metal embedded in your skin. Worse still, you had to get used to what a fully ‘ganic body felt like again.

“You even human anymore, with all that chrome?” you can almost hear Johnny’s words to you when you got a new set of mantis blades from Vik’s clinic right before heading out for the oncoming fight at Clouds with the Tiger Claws. It was so long ago, now, but it doesn’t feel like it. That’s what Mikoshi does to a person, you figure. It’s hard to fully comprehend that so much time has passed.

Sometimes, you think you do hear him in more than just a memory. Like he’s still there, in your head. The doctors say it will pass with time, but they’ve been wrong before. Safe to say, Johnny literally changed your brain chemistry.

At least some part of you hopes they’re wrong, because you don’t know how you’ll make it in this world without him if Arasaka doesn’t stay true to their word.

It’s like you’ve lost a part of yourself, and you regret it more every day that you’re forced to live in this white box of a test tube that they’ve put you in. You should have died with him at Mikoshi. Gone out in a fiery blaze of glory and torn it all down with you, if only it would’ve made you feel a little better right before the end.

His last words to you had been as you went under the knife, right before they carefully excised him from your brain like a tumor.

“If this plan doesn’t work, Johnny--- If you wind up being right about Arasaka---” you had called to him through the code, as it weaved and curled around his form. It created and destroyed him all at the same time, but Johnny’s frown was still clear as day to you.

“I’m right about Arasaka,” he sounded nearly as exhausted as you had been on that roof the last time you’d talked. Defeated was something you’d never expected to see on him, “See? You haven’t changed at all. Still think you can outsmart the whole world, when you’re really just out of your depth.”

You didn’t want to think of this as a betrayal, but that’s what it was starting to feel like as you marinate in his sadness, “Look… I just want us to part as friends, for now. Just in case I don’t get to see you again after this, I wanted to tell you goodbye as proper friends.”

“Not sure that’s possible, anymore,” cut you to your core.

You wanted to reach for him, through the flickering code, but you didn’t dare. Heartbreak tastes a lot like blood on your tongue, even here.

“That’s what we are, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know, V. I just… don’t know.”

It was all you could remember of the interaction, though you’re certain there had to be more than that. Sometimes, when you dream instead of sleep, bits and pieces of it come back to you. That’s what you think it is, at least.

It’s far too real to be any normal nightmare.

It sounded too familiar when he said things like, “I just wish you’d stayed loyal to yourself,” or, “Those ‘Saka docs are cutting out a piece of us. Something we’ll never get back. It’ll leave a hole,” in those horrible dreams where memory emerges from the subconscious.

Perhaps this is just what you deserve. Your penance. The price you’ve got to pay for your choices, and the deal you made with the devil.

After all, nothing in Night City is ever free.

Multiple lifetimes of suffering, of being forced to go on without him? It’s almost poetic, in a Shakespearean tragedy sort of way. If this body fails, Arasaka will just test your construct in a new one until they get it right.

You’re company property and the Biotechnica cloning program is only in its infancy. Anders Hellman had told you as much himself when you’d asked.

“You’re one of the first successful cases, so far,” was, specifically, what he’d told you. It wasn’t much; Arasaka clearly wanted you in the dark.

You’d already proved too much trouble when left to your own devices, historically.

Have they brought you back before? How many bodies did you live and die in before this one? They could’ve wiped your memory of it, or maybe cut your engram into a million different pieces until something fit. You would never know the truth of what’s been done to you, most likely.

The door to your room slides open with a whirring noise, breaking you from your thoughts when the same scientist who you’ve come to understand is one of your daily handlers walks in, “It’s time for your daily tests.”

You try to not let the sarcasm drip from your tongue, but you’ve been failing at a lot of things these days.

“Always a pleasure to see you, too, Suki.”

You are dead, and this is just purgatory.

---

They eventually shipped you back to earth, “in accordance with the great progress you’ve displayed over these past few months,” as Anders had told it.

Earth was exhausting. Even though the Arasaka lab they had put you in had all the comforts of home, save for the overly-clinical aesthetics, it still took weeks for your body to become accustomed to its own weight. It was only then that you realized the space station’s simulated gravity was slightly less than that on earth, to allow for less pressure on your new joints and bones as your mind settled in. It’s perhaps why you had been able to relearn walking in the first place, because on earth you were much clumsier than you remember ever having been before.

There were bruises on your legs from the amount of times you’d tripped down or stumbled into something. You’re surprised they hadn’t yet put you in a padded room, but you must’ve been making progress, because eventually they sent a familiar face to see you again.

“おはようございます,” without translators installed into your body’s cyberware, the words that fall from Goro’s lips as he offers a slight bow take a moment for you to mentally decipher.

You don’t rightly care, because you’ve not seen a familiar face other than Anders since waking up in this body. Let alone, anything close to a friend.

He stiffens and freezes when you step forward to drag him into your arms, holding him in a tight embrace that almost has you melting against him with how much of a relief it felt to feel another person. It’s too forward, and you’d never have done it under normal circumstances---

But you’re so relieved to see him.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” you murmur as you release him, catching the slight tinge of a flush at his cheeks. He straightens his shirt, donned in black from head to toe. His hair isn’t pulled back, for once; it’s a little longer than when you had seen him last, “You look great, Goro.”

He seems to relax slightly at the familiar words, as if he hadn’t been quite sure what to expect of you at first. You watch as he takes you in, optics dilating as his settings switch with the distance you put between you again. It makes you slightly self-conscious under his scrutiny.

You know you look different. Sure, the core basics of yourself are the same, but you’re slimmer than you were before in this cloned body. Your cyberware is gone, as are the scars from a lifetime of mercenary work. Any tattoos you had were no longer etched into your skin, including Johnny’s. Then, there’s that new Arasaka logo brandished behind your ear that matched his own. The only good thing about your new appearance was that your hair had finally grown long enough to cover the logo when you left it down.

“You look like shit,” he cracks a smile after a second, “but it is good to see you, too.”

“What are you doing here?” you wonder as he walks further into your designated quarters, hands clasped behind his back, “Don’t tell me you get to tell a girl she’s dying twice.” He observes the room not unlike he did when he’d visited you on the space station, though seems less displeased with your living situation this time.

He doesn’t say, “barbaric,” at least.

It’s your words that earn his chastising side-eye, this time, “You should not joke. I do not want to do that again.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” the prodding does nothing to urge an explanation from him as he moves towards the desk on the other side of the room. The metal on his fingertips glints with sunlight as he moves the papers lying there--- some of the most recent status reports you’ve been given on your performance in Arasaka’s testing. A lot of it was redacted, but you were given just enough to know you weren’t dying currently.

That, they seemed to be taking as a win.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as his optics dart back and forth on the papers, reading them quickly. Surely, he’s had a briefing before he’d been sent to see you. Maybe he just doesn’t trust it was a full picture, or he wants to know what parts of it you know.

Settling into the couch, you reach for the tin of mints you’ve been hoarding recently. Popping one into your mouth, you turn it around as the fresh flavor bursts through your skin, scent sparking in your nostrils.

“Playing doctor now, Goro?” that gets him to look up from the papers to shoot you an unamused look that said just answer the question. You sigh, nail tapping the tin as you take a moment to get his answer, “Well, I’m tired and sore all the time from the physical therapy, and hypersensitive to almost fuck all. Oh, and they still won’t let me get any chrome installed--- even the minor stuff like optics.” You sigh, and the minty feeling tingles on your tongue, “Do you know how much deliberating it took for the white-coats to finally decide I was ready for an operating system update?”

“And the nightmares?” Goro turns away from the desk to instead lean on it, crossing his arms as he looks towards you. So, he had a more thorough briefing on your status than you expected.

You avert your eyes. It was bad enough having to talk to the mandated shrink about them. You really didn’t want to get into what plagued your mind with Goro.

“They’re nothing. It’s the physical symptoms that Arasaka cares about. That’s what’ll get Saburo a new body or not, right?”

He doesn’t let you off the hook that easily, “Arasaka has underestimated the impact of the mind on the body once already, at great cost. I do not think your mental state is considered ‘minor’ to your doctors and scientists, V.” After a moment’s pause, he confirms what you are thinking, “It is not considered something to be ignored by Arasaka’s board, either.”

“Is that what you’re here for?” you can’t help the irritation that seeps into your tone, “To give a first-hand report back to Hanako Arasaka and the board on my progress? Came to see the test subject for yourself instead of just reading the memo?”

“V…” his brow furrows, frown settling onto his lips as you turn your body away from him on the couch.

“Well, you’ve seen me! I trust you’ve gotten all the spicy details you need for your report on my mental status.”

“くそ,” he swears under his breath, as if exasperated with your antics. There is a stillness that comes with the silence between you after that, and you don’t dare turn to him. Instead, you focus on the tin in your hands and the mint in your mouth. Anything other than the pit in your stomach at the remembrance of the nightmares that plague you more nights than most.

There’s a shuffling of clothing and the sound of footsteps approaching as Goro comes to stand beside you, “You are… hypersensitive to words as well, it seems. Look at me, V.” You refuse to do it, and he sighs. In your peripheral, you can see him move to sit beside you on the couch, “Hanako-sama does expect me to relay your progress upon my return, but that is not the sole purpose for my visit.”

“Why’re you here, then?” it may be childish to still refuse to look at him, but you can’t bring yourself to. You feel as if nothing will be as it was before--- like even though you’ve fought terribly to return to normal, there would never be a moment when you felt like yourself again.

“You are being released.”

Your head snaps up to look at him when he says that, utter shock undoubtedly on your face. His own expression remains level, rock steady as he always seemed to be. You can see the truth of his words in his eyes; he has no reason to lie to you. You doubt Hanako would put him in a position to knowingly do so anyway.

“Released?” you breathe the word. You can’t quite believe the truth in his eyes.

“Hellman’s team has decided you have progressed as much as can be expected in a clinical setting. They think you are ready to return to a more ‘normal’ routine. I am here to tell Hanako-sama if I believe they are correct, based on what I know of you… who you were, already,” Goro holds up a hand, quelling the excitement he undoubtedly sees blossoming in your eyes. “This does not mean a return to what your routine was before. You cannot return to mercenary work.”

“So… I’m to live as a civilian, then?” you shift your whole body to face him, legs folded beneath you.

“In a sense… you will still be under Arasaka’s supervision, expected to meet every scheduled appointment and test. If you miss even one, you will be collected and returned here. There are other requirements, but I will leave those to be explained by your care team,” Goro watches as the news sinks in. He looks away, admitting, “I am maybe not the best to answer any questions you have about this.”

“Will I be staying in Tokyo?” is all you can think to ask, mind racing at the prospect of even a little freedom from this quarantine.

“At first, but I believe the goal is to reintroduce you to Night City should you continue to progress---” his words are choked off when you quickly grasp hold of his shoulders, pulling him into another hug. Just like before, he freezes, though this time he recovers enough to loosely hug you back.

“Thank you, Goro, for everything.”

---

The Corpo Plaza apartment didn’t feel like home, but it was closest to Arasaka tower and the Biotechnica building--- both of which you have to visit frequently. Well, at least it was less frequently than when you’d first been sent back to Night City, but it still wasn’t worth the constant drive from a different district.

Your fingers trace along the metal outlining your face as you glance at yourself in the mirror, having just finished a shower. The cyberware embedded in your cheeks is similar to what you had originally, though slightly different. You like it all the same, even if it had to be approved by Arasaka first. Every day you felt more like yourself, but you doubt you’ll ever be 100% you again. Too much has changed for this sense of newness to ever leave.

Even when you had reconnected with Victor, he looked at you like something uncanny. A dead woman walking. Misty could barely manage to look at you at all. Panam and the Aldecaldos had migrated; you were still waiting for her to return your call to figure out what they were up to these days. Judy was long gone, but getting out of Night City was maybe the best thing she could’ve done after everything.

Only Johnny’s old contacts seemed to remind you of who you were, and perhaps that’s because they’d never truly gotten to know you too well. Then, there was the feeling of loss that still gripped your soul. The ghost of Johnny Silverhand haunting your every thought and plaguing your dreams at night. You doubt you’ll ever be free of him. You hope he never fully fades from your psyche.

As much as it hurts, you still love him.

In hindsight, that’s probably the real reason why it would never work out between you and Goro. You’re still holding a torch for a dead man, and you’ll never be truly satisfied with anyone else.

In the end, Johnny has truly ruined you. Maybe it’s his last laugh: your complete inability to move on.

Your deal with Arasaka at the beginning had been for them to save him. To put him away into Mikoshi for the rainy day that the technology existed for a body suited for him to be a reality. The contract required them to release him into Night City after he had been deemed healthy, but you knew as well as anyone that contracts like these had loopholes even with the best lawyers pouring over them. Arasaka could truly do whatever they wanted with him once he was out of your head, other than destroying his engram.

When you had asked them the status on them holding up that end of your bargain, you had been met with cryptic answers. Hanako refused to meet with you, and you were in no shape without your combat cyberware to hunt her down yourself.

You’re terrified, honestly, at the idea of never seeing him again, nearly as much as you fear facing him.

Sighing, you step away from the mirror to move towards your bedroom while you towel-dry your hair as best you can. Tomorrow you were to report to Arasaka for your end-of-the-year testing and physical. Hellman would probably personally chastise you for the pizza you’ve ordered tonight. It was far from the approved meal plan, but it wasn’t as easy to find food that fit the diet and still tasted good outside of Japan. Finally, you understood Takemura’s issue with Night City’s synthfood.

Still, if one slice of pizza was going to kill you, you figure it’s a good enough way to go. Anything beats being an Arasaka pencil-pusher for the rest of your days.

“Night City Legend, Felled by PieZ,” the headlines would read, and it wouldn’t even mention the billions you’d cost Arasaka if you died.

Water drips down your jaw and you wipe it away with the towel before tossing it into the hamper. Scooping up an oversized sweatshirt that screamed support for the debut album of SAMURAI, it soaks up the few water droplets you’ve missed when drying and effectively covers the dog tags against your chest. Looking down at the hamper, you wish that Arasaka would sign off on you having a pet finally. Nibbles was doing fine at Victor’s, but you missed that furless cat.

The sound of your holo ringing is accompanied by Goro’s face flashing in your caller ID, and you pick up after a few moments, “Yo?”

“こんばんは,” Goro appears with his hair pulled up into a bun, and you could’ve been fooled that it was the old days if not for the few extra gray hairs he seemed to have now. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“What? You worried I’ll disappoint?” you roll your eyes at his pointed look. “You know I’m doing great now, practically would be back to my old self if they’d ever let me get my combat cyberwear.”

“And you know that Arasaka has invested too much in you for you to involve yourself in a Night City street fight. Do not think they will approve all your requests tomorrow, V, regardless of your progress,” he speaks reasonably, and maybe that’s what grinds your gears the most. You know good and well that Arasaka has everything riding on you. If you successfully keep from pushing daisies they’ll move forward with Saburo’s resurrection. Hell, maybe they already were. For their one and only living test subject, you’ve been doing relatively well, if not a little hypersensitive at times still.

“Not every fight in Night City is one you pick. What if I need to defend myself, huh?”

“Do you feel in danger? Has something happened?” Goro’s voice has an edge to it, concern, and you shake your head.

“I’m just making a point. Most folks who die in this city are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My combat chrome would give me an edge again. Call it an investment in keeping me alive,” you snort, and Goro’s lips quirk upwards at your dry humor.

“You can plead that to the panel tomorrow after you pass all their tests. I think you should… what is the phrase? Not get your hopes up?”

“Did you call me just to bum me out, Goro?” you sigh, moving through your kitchen to rummage through your fridge and find a NiCola.

“Only to discuss reality.”

“I think you’re just scared I’ll kick your ass with all my chrome one of these days for how sassy you are,” the sarcasm drips from your tongue, and this time Takemura does sound thoroughly amused.

“I would like to watch your attempt at that, but I think you will need to remove the pizza from your diet first, V,” then, he hangs up. Never one for drawn-out goodbyes. You think you prefer it that way.

“I could’ve kicked your ass while on an only-pizza diet, once,” you grumble to the apartment around you, taking a swig of the NiCola. The ring of the doorbell breaks you from the thoughts of just how you can get back at Goro for that comment, “Speaking of pizza…”

Barefoot, you stroll towards the door, hoping the delivery guy followed your instructions to leave your food at the door. You don’t want to deal with awkward small talk with another human right now. Not bothering to check the cams to see if your instructions have been followed, you let the door slide open with a swipe of your hand against the key screen.

The door is barely halfway open when a hand catches your throat and forces you back into the apartment, a body forcing you up against the entryway wall as you choke out a startled noise under a firm grip. Terror claws at your skin as you grab at the arm attached to the hand before you manage to get a good look at him when he stills against you, breathing hard. It takes a moment for wide eyes to take in enough of his features to recognize the dark eyes staring back at you.

“J---”

“You couldn’t help yourself from being corpo scum again, could you? Selfish, that’s what this whole thing was--- what you are,” his voice--- oh, fuck, his voice, it rings in your ears in a way it never has before. Deep, familiar, and real. Strained with anger and choked with a breathless fury, but something else breaks against the fire swirling in his eyes--- some relief that settles nearly as devastatingly in your bones as his skin lays heavy and warm against yours.

You can’t believe it. You must be hallucinating. You’ve finally cracked and lost it. Something was malfunctioning in your head, certainly, because there’s no way he’s here.

Your fingertips shake as they reach out, away from the firm grip he still has on your throat, to ghost against the slope of his jaw. The scruff of a beard still remained there, but was shorter than how he had lived in your head. The scars on his face were gone, along with the tattoos on what skin of his you can see beneath the leather jacket he wears. His left hand was at your throat, and it was made of flesh and bone, not metal.

He swats at your hand when you finally touch him, a hurt in his voice that was so real that you couldn’t trick yourself into believing he was just a hallucination, “Did you ever think about what I wanted, huh, when you chose this?”

But you still can’t get past the sight of him, finally managing, “Is… it really you?”

“Fuck yes, it’s me. What’s wrong with you?”

“Johnny,” you gasp his name, nails digging into his pristine forearm, tears nearly blinding you as they well in your eyes at the overwhelming emotion that surges from your chest. You can’t hold it together, trembling against him, and only then does his grip soften at your throat.

His voice sounds devastatingly mournful as he growls in the quiet of your apartment, “You sold us both to fuckin’ Arasaka, V. Look what they did to you. You’re their property. Doesn’t it make you sick? Some things are worse than death, and I doubt ‘Saka will ever leave us to it, now.”

You hear what he’s saying. It sounds just like him, and your heart breaks at the sound. At the warmth of him, and the way his dark hair ghosts around his cheeks slightly shorter than you remember it being before. He’s really here, and he hates you.

His voice cracks, “Why are you crying?”

“I-I missed you,” you confess between the sobs, trying to swallow up the emotion. Damning yourself for not holding it together better than this at the sight of him, but it was such a shock, and only one thing could run through your mind as dreadful regret sank into your soul, “a-and now you’re going to hate me forever.”

He looks at you like he’s stunned by the words coming from your mouth, or maybe he’s shocked it’s all you’re capable of saying when you’ve betrayed him as thoroughly as he perceives.

“Shit, V,” he murmurs, reaching up to drag his thumb against your cheek and wiping away the messy tears that trailed there. He looks down at you like he’s almost annoyed at you for crying, but there’s a strange look in his eyes that you can’t fully place. “I wish it was something as easy as hating you, but I just can’t seem to catch a fuckin’ break.”

The confusion at his words nearly stuns your tears into small hiccups as you breathe, “What?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hate you,” it sounds like dread on his tongue, like fear and grief for the situation you’ve both found yourselves in. It sounds like a confession, from his lips, “I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you for what you’ve done to me, either. I haven’t felt right without you since I woke up in this damn useless body. Feels like I should still be in yours.”

A breathless huff escapes you, almost akin to a laugh, as you realize what he’s trying to say, “You missed me, too, huh, rockerboy?”

“You’re the only thing about this damned city I missed,” he crowds you in, pressing you fully into the wall with his own body. “Not drugs, not alcohol, not music--- I came back here for you. Bein’ clean and having to put up with those ‘Saka corpo-drones has been the worst time of my life, by the way, but I did it because they said you were alive.” He looks at you, a hint of incredulousness in his eye, when he asks, “What the hell kind of a deal did you make with them?”

You’re terrified to tell him, but you can’t lie to him. Not after everything.

“I’m the reason Saburo Arasaka will live.”

Johnny curses, fury twisting his face, but the defeat is worse, “I should hate you. Fuck, why can’t I hate you?”

“I’m sorry---”

“Don’t lie to me,” he cuts you off, biting, “you’re not sorry. You don’t care if Saburo Arasaka lives or dies so long as we get to live.”

“Fine, you’re right,” anger flares in your own gut, exhausted annoyance lacing your tone, “but is that such a crime? I want to be okay again, Johnny! I want you to be okay, too!”

“And you’ll sell our souls for it?!”

“God, you’re such a dramatic asshole!” you nearly scream, slamming your eyes shut in your distress, “Go ahead and blame me for falling in love with a dead man, too, then! I should’ve known it would kill us both, but I couldn’t stop myself from loving you, Johnny! I wouldn’t have been able to go on knowing I’d left you to die, okay? That’s why I did this! Call me a selfish bitch if you want to; maybe you’re right---”

“Yeah? Well, I guess maybe I’m to blame for falling in love with a selfish bitch,” he growls, so close that his nose touches yours, and your eyes snap open just as he leans in to crash his lips against yours. It’s not wholly unlike the last kiss you shared with him, when he was just sparks on your neurons, and yet it’s entirely different.

There’s a taste to him now, but it’s not the cigarettes you had expected, but more akin to nicotine gum. Has he stopped smoking? He smells like leather and some sort of amber-scented cologne that has you weak in the knees.

But the way he kisses you is what nearly scrambles all coherent thought. He’s so warm and firm against you, the reality of his touch, tongue, and lips against yours desecrates the memory of the slight stimulation your neurons had simulated when he’d been in your head. Johnny seems to be in no better a state at the feeling of you against him, gasping into your mouth when your hands find his hair to drag him closer, and all the while all you can think is how happy you are that he is alive here and now.

It barely feels like it should be real.

He parts from you, catching his breath and staring at you with a look that sends heat rippling down your spine, flushing your skin in its wake.

You blink at him, head lulled back, and whisper through the feeling of having him back, like some piece of your soul coming home, “Fuck, I missed you, Johnny, so much.”

“You’re probably the only one, choom.”

“That’s not true. There’s Rogue, and Kerry---”

“They got their closure when I was hitchhiking in your skull. How can I just waltz back into their lives now?”

You tilt your head at him, “It can’t be that the Johnny Silverhand who was never afraid to die, is actually scared to live?”

He scoffs, leaning away from you with a roll of his eyes, “Is that the kinda’ psychobabble your ‘Saka shrink has been feeding you?”

“Could be,” you shrug, and a glint of the light at the metal around your neck catches his eye, “don’t mean it isn’t true.”

“What’s this?” he invades your space again, dragging a fingertip to loop at the chain at your neck, leading beneath your sweatshirt, and tugging it until the necklace drags into view. Dogtags clink in his hand and his eyes snap back up to yours in shock, “These--- you still have ‘em?”

Your cheeks heat with the find, and you don’t know why it’s so embarrassing even after you’ve told him that you’re in love with him. Of course you would’ve kept his dog tags. It only makes sense, but you want to defend it. The words crawl up your throat, and it takes all you have to swallow them down.

Instead, you reach up to begin to remove them, “You should probably have them back, now.”

Johnny’s hand catches yours, stilling it, “I… don’t know if I’m ready to step back into ‘em right now. ‘Sides, maybe I like the look of ‘em on you.”

You search his gaze, but he seems sure enough about the decision, “Alright. I’ll keep them, for now.”

“Good… It suits you,” a ring of the apartment door breaks you from whatever scrutiny weighed heavy in Johnny’s eyes. “The fuck is that?”

“My pizza this time, I hope,” you huff, pushing him back just enough to escape from between him and the wall. “I don’t know if I can take two of you showing up at my door tonight.”

Johnny trails after you, watching you open the door and pluck the pizza box from the ground where the delivery guy had left it as instructed, “Good news, there’s only one Johnny Silverhand.”

Turning towards him, you smirk, “Luckily.”

“Screw you.”

“You wish.”

[thewitchunderyourbed]

When the Sun goes down

Sorry, I'm bad at summaries, guess you have to read the whole thing

Chapter 1

Pairing: JoyToy!Johnny x V

Warning: language, sexual themes, brief mention of violence and abuse.

V strolled down Jig-Jig Street, as her friend Goro once said "what kind of name is that?"

Well, what did he expect from a hub full of sex shops and prostitutes?

Taking the turn for Wakako's Pachinko Parlor the neon light reflected on her dark sunglasses, and the sounds of moans and implant commercials filled her ears, annoying her even more.

She was beyond pissed.

She scoffed at the sound of slot machines and almost ripped the damn curtains draped over the door to Wakako's office.

"V, my dear. I heard the gig was a success" the old woman greeted her, always composed.

V, as an answer tossed a bloodied shard on the fixer's desk, the little piece of tech rattled on the wooden surface, leaving a trail of brain pieces and hair.

"Why didn't you tell me my "contact" was a cyberpsycho? Had to make his head into pudding and then retrieve that fucking shard" she hissed.

"But you succeed, didn't you? Eddies are already on your account" Wakako said, with a gesture of her hand her pupils lit up, a sign that she was transferring the money.

"Thank you" V muttered "I'm going home if you need me you know how to find me," she said heading for the exit.

"Wait, V." the woman called, making the merc turn around.

"You're getting noticed a lot, and in a good way. Your exploits are known all over Japan Town and your skills are already legendary. The prostitutes in this neighborhood dream only of you." she smirked.

"Oh, lucky me" the girl replied, unamused.

"What I'm trying to say, my child, is that life is short for not having some fun" the fixer said adjusting her round glasses on her nose.

V snorted "Is what you said to your five husbands?" and with that, she left the Parlor.

It's not that V disliked hookers, she's friends with more than one, but paying for sex it's something she doesn't wish to do.

She would be a hypocrite if she said she had not thought about it on more than one occasion when her stressed brain craved something that wasn't just pain and medications.

A cute JoyToy would make her forget about her pitiful life made of death and money for an hour or two but then she would return to her path of loneliness, with less money and her systems to check up by Vik.

The truth was that she did not care about sex that much anyway.

The oddly shaped strap-ons on display in the shop's windows were almost hilarious to her, for not talking about the Mr. Stud commercials, she knew a guy who had a very HARD time with one of those.

Wakako was right, though.

The hookers were launching themselves at her as she passed, hoping to be noticed and make some money or to simply spend time with her, to have something to gossip around.

"I know what the famous merc is into under the sheets" she could already hear them.

Almost out of the hub, returning to her loved bike her attention was caught by shouts, two people were arguing.

"Oh, for fucks sake" she huffed, tempted to just leave them be and return home for collapsing on her bed.

"What did you just call me, you useless whore?" a Japanese man screamed in his mother tongue.

"A wretched piece of shit, keep your fucking hands to yourself if you can't pay," another man with dark aviators said.

The first grabbed the latter by his net shirt, making his glasses fall onto the dirty ground.

"Hey!" V yelled towards the two, approaching with quick steps.

"Is he troubling you?" the merc asked the male JoyToy.

"And what the hell do you want? Take his place, maybe?" the molester, eyed her from head to toe.

"If you don't immediately leave within three seconds, I swear I'll rip off that poor excuse of genitals you have between your legs, and make you forcefully swallow them, do you copy?" she asked, throwing the man against the nearest wall and unsheathing her mantis blades.

The poor fucker almost peed his pants as he ran away, tripping on his own feet by looking behind himself, afraid of being followed by V.

"Could have made it by myself" the JoyToy scoffed.

"You're welcome" arching one eyebrow at him, she lowered down to pick up his glasses handing them to their owner.

"Thank you" he finally said, extending a shiny cybernetic arm "I'm Johnny"

It takes some time for V to realize she was meant to introduce herself too, lost in her thought of a soft and warm bed as the cold rain started to fall on Night City.

"I'm V... Sorry to ask you but..." she gestured where a golden feather-like cyberware adorned his neck "-you're not a JoyToy".

Johnny fished out a cigarette from the back pocket of his leather pants and V took out a lighter from one of hers.

Stepping closer to him and using her free hand to prevent the small flame to be blown out by the rising wind, she lit the cigarette held between his lips.

He let out a nervous exhale of smoke before speaking "I was a doll, at Clouds. That fucking place is a soulsucker, I've been beaten one too many times, waking up in a bloodbath without even remembering by whom or why. I quit that place forever"

She could still see a trace of fear in his dark eyes even if the secure expression on his beautiful features tried to mask it.

"You're not having much luck even here" she pointed out.

"At least I'm not a sex zombie anymore, why the hell do you care anyway?" he inquired suspiciously.

"I'm in a good work relationship with Okada, this district fixer. Her problems and the ones of her clients often became mine to resolve. I like to keep myself well informed" V said, raising the hood of her jacket on her head.

"See you around, Johnny" she smiled weakly before stepping under the pounding rain.

"Wait! Don't you... I mean, as a thank you?" he raised his voice to be heard.

"As a thank you, you can stay safe" she ignited the engine of her Arch to life before speeding away.

"See you around, V" he sighed, shivering in the cold night.

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Feel free to comment and give constructive critiques. English is not my mother tongue so if you have found some errors, please let me know.

Ideas and suggestions are welcomed too 💕

[commander-rahrah]

Cyberpunk: Twin Flames - Ch 5

A SilverV fic

Linked psyches. That was Alt's solution for them. Two bodies -- their own bodies. But souls and minds still intertwined -- feeling each other's pain and emotions. Never too far away, never far behind.

There could never be one without the other.

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I just posted my fifth chapter of my Johnny Silverhand/Fem!V fic over on my AO3. If you are interested in reading, I have put a snippet below. You can also read the rest of my fic over on AO3!

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“You nervous?”

V flashed Johnny a look. He knew exactly how she felt — not like she was trying to hide it anyways. Her fingers were twitching on the steering wheel as she followed behind Teddy’s dirty van the next morning. The suspension on her truck groaning with the desert hills. She squinted from the sun beating down through her windshield, keeping her eyes on the dirt road. “Just trying to figure out what I’m going to say to Panam.

“She’s a smart girl. She’ll figure it out pretty fast once she sees me.”

Her mouth twitched. “I guess.”

“At least she already knew about me, right?” The Rockerboy shrugged.

“Yeah…” V was grateful when the cat was out of the bag with Panam. It was pretty hard to hide it after she’d almost got zeroed by the relic in front of her. But it was a weight off her shoulder regardless, having to not hide it — to be able to speak about Johnny to someone who didn’t know him from before like Rogue and Kerry. “You never told me how Misty and Vik reacted to you.”

His dark brows furrowed as he thought back, “I mean — they just accepted it.”

“Really?”

“You were flatlining in my arms V,” He said gruffly, his mood souring as he recalled that night just a month ago.

She grimaced, “Right.”

“I mean — Vik definitely fuckin’ hates me." He sucked his teeth, "Not sure if it’s ‘cause he has such a hard on for you or because he’s old enough to actually remember what a bastard I was—“

She cut him off, taking her eyes off of the road to flash him a look, “Vik doesn’t have a hard on for me.”

He arched his brow, scoffing at her. “The innocent act is getting old V,”

“It’s not a fuckin’ act," Her nostrils flared, "You thinking every single person who I talk to wants to get in my pants — that’s getting old.”

He scoffed again, staring out the the window and avoiding V’s eyes, “Sure,”

“Vik is family — he’s saved my ass more then anyone else I know.”

He rolled his dark eyes as he looked back over at her, “And why do you think he does that V? Out of the goodness of his heart?”

“At first, yeah. But now—“

Johnny finally looked back at her, shaking his head. “Nobody’s that good, princess. Everyone’s got a reason for doing something.”

Her back molars clicked together, her mouth forming a hard line. “Way to see the silver lining in everything, Silverhand.”

She felt a flash of heat, anger course through her — his anger. “Just drop it, V.”

“Can’t just order me to stop talkin’ about it—“

“I don’t want to anymore.”

“Well I do!" V raised her voice, tired of him controlling the conversation. "What’s your deal with him? Vik’s my family Johnny, I owe him a fuckin’ lot. And now the most important person in my life, is fuckin’ huffing and puffing because apparently the only possible way anyone could want anything to do with me is to get into my goddamn pants.”

“Fine." He spat, "You wanna know why am I’m mad?”

“Yes.”

He twisted in the passenger seat, moving his body so it was completely facing her. Both his metal and 'ganic hand flinging in the air as he spoke animatedly. “I’m fucking mad because how well he knows you. I hate him and Misty and Panam, all of your stupid fucking friends. Because they know you.”

Her blue eyes were darting between him and the dirt road ahead, “What are you talking about, Johnny? No one knows me better than you.”

“Yeah because of the fuckin’ chip, V.” His voice turned quiet, soft. Uncertainty waving off of him.

Her eyebrows met in the middle, a hard line forming between them. “That’s not true.”

“The chip’s what gave me access to your head.”

“Johnny… I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone." She blindly reached across, grabbing onto his leg for a moment. "Not even Jack. Tell that green monkey on your back to fuck off, kay?”

He stayed silent, processing, before nodding at her.

Her face turned serious, a flicker of anger shimmering in her eyes before it disappeared again. “And even if someone does want to get in my fucking pants, doesn’t mean I’m gonna let them.”

Johnny’s face softened, “Right.” He looked out through the side window for a moment before turning back to her, “Most important person in your life hey?”

“Oh shut up,” She smirked, before turning her eyes back to the road — searching for Teddy's van again.

“Jackie knew you pretty well. And fast.” He said simply, eyes studying her.

Her bottom lip quivered at the mention of his name, “You spend every waking moment with someone bound to happen. Chip or not.”

They both knew it was a sensitive thing to bring up. Something that they never touched on, hadn't ever really got near. She'd never gotten anytime to really think on it. To grieve Jackie, to miss him. It was a hole that they'd both watched get bigger and bigger in her for some time. So big now, neither of them really knew how to approach it.

“Sorry I’ll never get to meet him.”

Instant tears welled in her eyes, but she kept them glued to the windshield, “Me too.” She croaked, her voice breaking and a couple tears snuck out, rolling down her checks.

“Hey—“ His dark eyes were crinkled with guilt, as he felt a crack of pain in his chest — just an echo of what was happening in her. He reached out and pressed soothing fingers on her wrist. “Picked the wrong topics today. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay.” She whispered back.

He intertwined his fingers through hers, before pulling them towards him. He placed a soft kiss on her knuckles.

V wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him touch so softly.

You can finish the rest of this chapter, or read my whole fic on AO3!

[meetmeinthematinee]

Retold in Another's Voice

Johnny x Nonbinary V

Warnings: Child abuse, neglect, parental death, bad coping mechanisms, usual Silverhand bullshit.

Authors note:

No idea what the fuck possessed me to write this lil sad, fucked up backstory for ol' Johnny but here we are. If you prefer you can read it on A03 instead of here.

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V stared blankly at Johnny. His outbursts of anger no longer had the desired effect.  A metal edge hacking away at stone, becoming duller with each strike. V didn’t even bother to point out that if the approach changed slightly, the blade tilted, angled just so, and slowly drawn across that the reverse could happen. 

Their silence unnerved Johnny and only made him strike harder and faster with his words. Desperately attempting to get a reaction–any reaction out of V–limbs flailing, teeth bared and spit flying. 

They casually sipped their Nicola and watched him impassively. 

In the end Johnny kicked the wall with his heavy booted foot and then slumped petulantly against the still completely untouched wall. The heavy tremor in his right hand didn’t escape V’s steady gaze. 

It took everything in their power to not be consumed by the swirling, abject rage flooding their shared mind. A rage that suddenly intensified and then shifted–fear–a yawning black chasm of fear so deep it was physically painful. V took a moment to steady their breathing, to remind themself they were safe–as safe as one could be while having their brain actively consumed and their life eaten away into months or weeks instead of years–but safe inside their tiny unit. 

“It’s ok to be afraid” V said evenly after a few minutes of silence.

“What the fu–” Johnny spat, clearly on the path for another rant.

V saved him the artificial breath, “I feel what you feel and you’re fucking afraid Johnny. That’s how this shit works, alright?”

“I don’t need to–” Johnny huffed as he was once again cut short.

“No–you do need to hear this. Your misery, your anger, your fucking outbursts. Your absolute commitment to self-destruction. It’s all fear. Always has been since you were a little, neglected and mistreated boy and you fucking always will be afraid Johnny. It doesn’t have to be that way–but it will as long as you keep up this goddamned farce.”

Johnny visibly recoiled from V’s words, “Oh, please do–”

“You know EXACTLY how I know and you know what? It’s fucking boring isn’t it? Never feeling anything but fear and shame. You can’t even feel anything else anymore, huh?”

“Stop.”

“Only being able to react and lash out because you don’t even know how you feel anymore. Any pleasure melting away and being consumed by that fucking void moments after it happens.”

“V!”

“Seeking love and connection and never quite finding it because the moment it appears it’s so goddamned dangerous and terrifying that it’s too painful to even try? 

Because no one loved little Robbie–maybe in the beginning they did, but not in the sustained way a child needs–and you didn’t deserve that and that was never your fault.”

“Lil Robbie Linder. Too much. Too loud. Too all over the place. Curious about everything in a way that seemed to make everyone angry when all he wanted was to understand. Lil know-it-all Robbie. A sponge. A bother. A pest.”

“V, please.” Johnny curled his arms around his knees. 

“Then Momma died and all Daddy could see was how much you looked just like her. Those warm, curious brown eyes and freckles across the bridge of your nose. His loss staring him in the face every day and he was too heartbroken to keep looking anywhere but at the bottom of the bottle. Then one day he looked at you and couldn’t see her anymore. Just a younger version of himself like some fucked up time traveling, talking mirror and that’s when he started swinging.”

“Varinka!” He seethed, but they continued unbothered by the use of their name and for some reason despite his extreme discomfort, he didn’t disappear.

“Had a big heart and a quick wit that seemed to attract all sorts of girls your way but it always ended after they’d bring you home. Showing on the doorstep with some half wilted flowers and a black eye, split lip and bruised up knuckles. Parents never seemed to notice how you’d flinch with any sudden movement or strong word–they just assumed you were out fighting and getting into trouble. Why they never put together that maybe the local drunk, known for brawling his way outta bars was also beating the shit out of his own kid at home. Maybe they did put it together. But, regardless, these were things their girls didn’t need to be mixed up in and that would be that. So you were just the wrong combination of curious and motivated so that when when those fucking recruiter scum showed up at school with their promises of adventure and opportunity you jumped at the chance. Thought you were slick, lying about your age and your grade but the truth is they knew–they just didn’t fucking care that you were a barely sixteen year old child.”

V paused, thoughtfully, and took a gulp of their drink. Needing that hit of syrupy sweetness to get through this next part of the conversation–if it could be called that.

“Was great, for a while. Had friends, travelled, learned so much even as you chafed against the stupid and seemingly pointless rules. Had some big realizations about yourself–that weirdness? Yeah, you were just queer. Which was dangerous in a place like where you were. So you put a pin in that until the night your friend Matthew Nau–”

“Don’t you dare. You DON’T”

Johnny was staring hatefully at V, and if they thought his rage was choking them before–now it was an inferno. 

“You don’t get to talk about him, V. You wanna talk about me? Fine. I don’t care–but not him, V. Not. Him.” He said.

V smoothed their hands along the ridges of their tactical pants and nodded once, sharply, in agreement. 

They cleared their throat, “Then your arm was gone, your heart broken–” they eyed Johnny warily as they continued, “your illusions of opportunity and adventure long since gone.”

“Then it was chronic physical pain on top of the emotional pain. Finally taking off when you watched the new batch of even younger kids roll in and you didn’t have the stomach to watch em die. To watch what happened to you, to…him…repeat over and over.”

V felt all the rage and the fight leave Johnny. It was eerily quiet in their shared brain.

“I see you Johnny, you’re a book I know front to back. You joke about your friends hating you but you also know you ensured that yourself. Fucked over and trampled on anyone that ever showed even the smalled glimmer of loving you, platonic or otherwise. Whether it was because that was too unsafe to accept or because you felt you didn’t deserve that kinda thing so you just drove them away. The constant pain didn’t help matters. Caused you to seek relief by any means at your disposal but it was always temporary and your fuse got shorter and shorter.” 

“Maybe, when I’m gone and you’re inhabiting me that’ll be something of a relief for you.”

“I can’t, please V.” 

 “No–you can and you will. I’m fucking DYING. My last fucking days on this earth and here I am walking on eggshells and having to comfort you after you throw a gigantic tantrum and hurl abuse at me because we wound up caring a little too much about each other and it scares the fucking shit outta you but you won’t admit it, let alone discuss it!” 

“V.” He was down to a whisper now. 

“Own. Your. Shit. Johnny. You’re all you have–and you still have me. If only for a little while longer. If you hate yourself– if you’re afraid? Either talk through it while I’m still here or deal with it in some way that isn’t exploding with rage. Don’t make it my goddamn problem every time. I have enough things I’m dealing with and have dealt with.”

Johnny was all but curled up on the floor. His back pressed tightly against the wall, resting his forehead against his knees with his arms curled around his head. 

“I know it’s hard for you. I also know this is the first time in your life that you have none of your coping strategies–that you aren’t even in your own goddamned body–and this is by far the most royally fucked up situation you’ve ever landed yourself in and that’s saying A LOT since you’ve fucking died before.” 

V leaned forward on the couch, setting down their nicola on the coffee table and steadying their shaking hands on their knees. 

“I’m fading here, alright? I know you feel it. And I’m fucking terrified too.” They sighed heavily, pressing their palms into their eyes, hoping some counterpressure will ease the dull and ever-present pain behind them. 

Johnny didn’t even react as V slowly but confidently crossed the room and sat down next to him.

“Can I touch you?” V asked quietly and after a moment Johnny nodded once. 

V laid a hand on Johnny’s back, just between his shoulder blades, the warm static feeling tingling under their palm. 

“You’re right.” He whispered. “About all of it. I don’t wanna lose you V, ” his voice was choked and hoarse with emotion “I’ll do better for you and for myself” V slid their hand across his back until their arm was wrapped around his shoulder. Johnny leaned his there but not there weight into their side and slowly peered up at them from underneath his arms. He looked so much younger like that. For a moment V just held his gaze and then squeezed him tighter and leaned their head on his shoulder. 

“You’ve already started.” V said.

“Hmm?” Johnny asked.

“Never heard you tell anyone they were right before.” V pointed out.

“If it’s to the only person that can see and hear me, does it still count?” He countered, but not in his usual combative tone. This was almost sheepish and a little rueful.

“Still counts.” V said. “Maybe even moreso.”

[yns-world]

Idol Worship

Pairings: Cyberpunk 2077 Men x Fem!Idol!Reader

Context: You’re a hyper feminine idol with a cutesy, girlie concept. As a Night City celebrity, these are some headcanons of your life with the men. 

A/N: Y/S/N = Your Stage Name

Jackie Welles: You and Jackie had been dating for a year before your rise to fame, and have been going strong ever since. He supported your music dreams from the start, and you’ll always see him as your first fan, as well as your biggest fan (both literally and figuratively). When you started booking bigger venues and had appearances on TV shows, Jackie became worried that you’d leave him for some Hollywood slick, since that’s what everyone always did when they become famous, but you reassured him that’d you’d never leave him since he was the only one for you. 

At the beginning of your stardom, you had decided to keep your romantic life personal as to keep Jackie away from all of the fame but that proved to be difficult when you had a known stalker on your tail. This stalker followed you everywhere and caused you countless restless nights. The situation had gotten so bad that he broke into your hotel one night, but thankfully you had stayed out that night and weren’t inside when he broke in. After that incident, Jackie didn’t feel safe to have you out on tours by yourself. 

That’s when you both decided that it would be best to publicize your relationship-- one, to keep weirdos at bay, and two, so that Jackie could be with you all of the time unapologetically. 

Thankfully, the fans took to Jackie pretty well-- with the exception of your pervy fans, but you weren’t too concerned with them anymore since Jackie became an unofficial official bodyguard. There wasn’t a single picture of you where Jackie wasn’t also in it, either intentionally or unintentionally. 

Concerts, TV showings, photoshoots, Jackie was always there next to you. You were able to convince your manager to hire Jackie as full-time secretary since he was able to prove himself much more useful than the lumberjacks that couldn’t stop a fly.

Johnny Silverhand: You had already made a name for yourself when you met Johnny, and your first meeting was at an elite club that’s only known to a select few. In the dark night club, Johnny’s body was pressed flush against yours and all you both could do was stare into each other’s eyes and sway to the pounding bass of the music. The chemistry was wild, and Johnny was hooked, but you left before the night was over, leaving him high and dry.

The next time he would see you would be on electric boards in the city, performing your latest song. That’s when he recognized you-- those eyes, those god forsaken eyes that reeled him in.

With a call to his manager and a few pulling of strings, Johnny was able to bring you into his home-studio on the pretenses of having you songwrite a song he’s been working on. Needless to say, that would be one of many “studio sessions”.

Within a month, Johnny found himself asking you to be his girlfriend, and you agreed. Johnny being Johnny, immediately wanted to publicize the relationship. To say the public was shocked was an understatement. A crazy metalhead dating the cutesy pop star? Do we need to alert the feds?

But when the paparazzi photos of the two of you spending quality time together were leaked, everything was finally clicking into place. 

At first, you didn’t want your relationship to overshadow your career so you would regularly decline any commentary or showings that had anything to do with Johnny, but after a few deep, honest sit downs with him, you both agreed that you would be able to make this business-pleasure relationship work.

After a few months of dating, not only were you able to show up to public functions together but you both featured on songs together. Your bird-like voice and his scruffy voice complimented each other remarkably well, not to mention the mixing of such polar genres. The two of you would release some of your most popular music together.

A few examples would be “Strawberry Kisses - Johnny Silverhand feat. Y/S/N”, and “Make Daddy Proud - Y/S/N feat. Johnny Silverhand”.

Johnny’s influence would definitely inspire you to expand in both your concept and your music. You would be his muse, and he would be yours.

Viktor Vektor: As part of the industry, it’s common for idols to get cyberware and plastic surgery done to conform to societal beauty standards-- as the motto goes, “in Night City, looks are everything.”

In the beginning of your career, your manager needed you to get some cyberware done but knew you couldn’t pay for the high prices that legitimate surgeons required, so he introduced you to a man with less-than-honest credentials.

That’s where you met him. Viktor Vektor. A miracle worker based out of a dingy basement and faulty fluorescent lights. 

He treated you like a princess and you were in love right then and there. His gentle touches on your face and most intimate parts made you swoon. 

Your manager had sent Viktor a list of procedures he wanted, but Viktor only consulted with you on what you wanted, no more and no less. 

After the first consultation, you were hooked, and the feeling was mutual. You would check in at least monthly, and would find any reason to give him a call just to hear his voice. 

By the time he had finally asked you out, you both were so used to sneaking around that it was silently agreed upon to not publicize this relationship. Maybe it was taboo, with the age gap and career choice, but it was love. And to you both, that was all that mattered.

And thanks to Viktor’s connections in the industry, you were quick to become the face of high fashion and runways. Always equipped with the latest cyberware, your tech upgrades were trendsetters, with influencers and celebrities alike flocking to imitate your work. But your tech was always one-of-a-kind, that’s what Viktor vowed to do from the moment he met you. Every creation he creates for you is only for you. It’s custom-made for your body and mind, no one else’s.

Your looks had become so famous that there was a genre of cyberware named after you: Roseware, an homage to your pink and aesthetic gadgets.

a/n: i hope you enjoyed! if you did, please consider reblogging since it helps my account! :) DON'T BE A GHOST READER!!!! i would love to hear your thoughts and opinions, and comments are what keep writers going <3 i’m open to requests again (specifically for cyberpunk), please read my the posts on my pinned before requesting :) lmk if y’all have any ideas for more content like this cause this was fun to write :D

[neon-junkie]

Dating Johnny silverhand Headcanons?

Gender-neutral reader!

Alive Johnny

I don't think I need to start these headcanons off by stating that Johnny puts on a 'tough guy' act, but here's a reminder.

He puts on a tough guy act.

I mean, Johnny is the type of guy to start on a man just for gawking at you. "Keep your eyes to yourself!" he'll bark before throwing a punch, which always leads to him getting his ass kicked, and you having to apologise to everyone as you (literally) drag him away.

But after the battle, Johnny will milk his injuries, and takes pleasure in lounging in your lap as you tend to his bruising eye.

"Did you see how hard I hit him, babe? Poor sucker hit the ground so hard!" blahblahblah, all whilst he's cooped up in your lap, one hand resting on his chest, whilst the other swirls his whiskey around in its tumbler.

Johnny's love language is a mix between quality time, and physical touch.

He's a little physically needy, but not always in public. His hand will almost always be around your waist, chest puffed out, scowling at any guy who considers laying an eye on you, but the second that you're behind closed doors, Johnny will want to snuggle up to you.

Play with his hair, coo and soothe him, hold him close in your arms; that man is touch starved.

Everything you give to him will be returned tenfold, only he has to keep the cold-hearted, tough guy image up for others. But don't worry! You're his angel, and he'd never do anything to hurt you.

Engram Johnny

Johnny can't exactly touch you, so words of affirmation and quality time are his love languages.

It's not rare to see you sitting alone in a shabby diner, but in your head, Johnny is with you, and you two are having the time of your lives.

Johnny is essentially your conscience, and he's not shy when it comes to adding his two cents.

In some ways, you're thankful that he's always there. He does his best at keeping you safe, pointing out sketchy guys, reminding you how many bullets you have left, doing anything and everything to keep you moving forward.

However, Johnny will also say the most inappropriate things to you at the worst times possible.

Out on a mission? Here's Johnny listing off all the things that he'd do to you, if he could.

And no amount of ignoring him will work. He's going to continue riling you up, and when you finally bite, he'll vanish.

Johnny likes to try and always be in your line of sight, such as lounging about on your desk chair whilst you clean all your weapons, or lying beside you whenever you get into bed.

He will do anything and everything to be by your side, and remind you of how thankful he is that he ended up in your head.

[nwheregirl]

Keanu’s hands>>>>>> Keanu smoking>>>>>>

[bishicat]

"V placed her chin on the side of the tub, looking over at him. He could’ve leaned forward and kissed her if he wanted."

...so I wanted to illustrate the chapter 2 bathtub scene from silkspecter's fanfic, just like honey (the first fanfic that got me feral for this ship). And since the author left V's appearance pretty ambiguous, I drew my V instead :)

Edit: the author is the wonderful @t-virusvaccine 💖

[dalekinapaintedparadise]

An' I need to know this because...?

[sydneighsays]

I started writing some post phantom liberty ending fanfic just for me... To heal my heart.

Here's some pictures just cuz

Did this immediately after the ending

Some sillies

Out of context from my fic.

I had to migrate to Google docs

[thewitchunderyourbed]

When the sun goes down

Chapter 2

Pairing: JoyToy!Johnny x V

Warning: language, sexual themes, brief mention of violence and abuse.

Jhonny watched the mercenary speed into the traffic inder the pouring and slightly toxic rain of Night City.

Steam from the underground district heating billowed out of the manholes, making even a neighborhood like Jig-Jig Street gloomy, always teeming with bright lights and people of all kinds.

He didn't give a fuck about the rain but he couldn't stand the cold, his leather pants made good work covering his legs but his torn net shirt left his torso almost naked, he wasn't going to complain anyway, too haughty to even admit he was shivering.

The screeching sound of a black van hitting the brakes caught his attention.

"Looks like someone miss me" he thought sarcastically tossing away the cigarette butt and disappearing into a dark alley.

××××××××××××

V opened the door of her apartment and as soon as she stepped inside, she headed for the kitchen, pulling out a cold beer from the fridge.

She sat on her big sofa, switching the TV on and rubbing her temples as a headache began to make her day worse.

"Shit" she muttered.

Wakako was kind of right, she needed to relax in one way or another.

She opened the bottle and tossed the glossy metal cap on the table.

It catches the lights coming from the screen, reminding her of the cybernetic arm of that JoyToy, shining in the pink and blue neon lights.

Her phone rang making her jump on her seat, huffing, she answered the call, she would have declined if it hadn't been from Evelyn.

"Hello V, I hope I won't disturb you" the soft voice of the woman had always had a soothing effect on the mercenary's psyche. In another life, maybe she would have fallen in love with her.

"You know you can't, even if you wanted to. Tell me everything, Ev" She took a swing from the beer bottle.

"Our caretaker, Woodman, is looking for someone for a gig, one of the Dolls knocked him out the other night, tried to open his safe, and ran away. "

"...and? You called because...?"

"Woodman wanted you for the job but I dissuaded him. He doesn't want the Tiger Claws to know about this, he's pissing his pants, the fat pig" it was clear Evelyn hated the man.

"The doll that escaped, is he your friend?" V asked.

"Yes, he's a great asshole but he's not a bad person, V please, you need to find him before they do... They'll kill him" her friend sobbed.

"Hey hey, sure. I'll find him. What's his name?"

"Robert, but he performs as Johnny"

V stood up from the couch like she was electrocuted "SHIT" she shouted, taking the elevator to her garage.

The sun was already set to rise when she arrived on Jig-Jig Street but of the man, there was no trace.

××××××××××

Johnny rubbed the sleep away from his tired eyes and stretched like a cat.

An old and dirty mattress in an abandoned hotel has been his nest for the night.

He was starving, he didn't eat in almost two days and everything he got was an opened Spunky Monkey and two cigarettes.

His nerves were at their limits, he was a fugitive and he was sure that in one way or another someone would have captured him and dragged him back to Clouds or worse.

The reflection looking back at him from a broken mirror made him realize how miserable he looked, with the bags under his eyes, his ruffled hair, and his unkempt stubble.

Johnny managed to steal some casual clothes, a black tank top too tight for him and a grey zipped hoodie that was too big, and he tied a piece of torn fabric around his neck to cover the doll chip.

He needed money fast and he sure knew how to make them, so he entered the nearest seedy bar he could find.

The Maelstrom girl that kept looking at Johnny from the dark corner of the bar was creeping him out, not enough to be scared but he couldn't tell if she wanted to kill him or fuck him, maybe both and he preferred not to think in which order.

Eventually, she stalked closer and closer until the stool near him was vacant and she sat at his side.

"Hey, can I offer you anything?" she asked him, purring.

Johnny didn't know where to look, part of her face was replaced by cheap chrome and blood-red optics.

"Depends if you can afford me," he smiled seductively.

The hand that slowly rose from his knee and up to his thigh, until it played with his belt, gave him the answer he wanted.

It was quick and dirty, but not bad, he'd never liked to do it slowly and he was pretty sure the girl had left some bruises on him, as he had left them on her, the scrapes caused by the short nails of his right hand would stay on her hips for a while, but the black and blue bruises caused by his cybernetic fingers would have lasted longer.

He found himself with money for food and a taxi but not much more.

××××××××××××

"Have you seen this man?" V asked every Joytoy, pedestrian, and shop owner in the street but it looked like Jhonny vanished into thin air.

She inhaled deeply and entered a ripperdoc shop, he hated that viscid piece of shit will every fiber of her being, but Fingers could have known where Jhonny was directed.

She took the stairs up to the clinic if a room full of glitters, cybernetic body parts, and blood could be called like that.

A group of dolls and JoyToys were in the waiting room, some of them looking nervous or pissed and others in pain with tears in their eyes.

V tried to ask them too, sending a photo of Johnny that Evelyn gave her to their optics.

"I know him, he works at Clouds. Jesus, that man is a true and genuine whore, fucks like nobody" a green-haired doll told her.

"Any idea of where he could be now?" the merc asked hopefully.

"He said he wanted to be free, he was tired of... well, everything. But I swear I don't know where he went-"

The door of Fingers' clinic opened abruptly, and the skinny rat-looking man stood frozen on the doorstep, the fear in his eyes made V laugh, while he scrambled and tried to run to the stairs.

V cached him back inside and closed the door, locking it and turning around with a deadly and hunting gleam in her eyes.

"I-I swear I'm not installing flawed implants anymore, the chrome I sell is-" but he was interrupted by a slap on his face that almost made him lose his balance.

"You better! If I found you altering even half a screw on a chrome I swear to God I'll kill you... But that's not why I'm here. Did you see this man?" V hissed.

Fingers started to nod frantically "Yeah he came here a couple of times or more... Once for a problem with his synthetic liver and another... Ah yes he asked me to remove his doll chip but he couldn't pay so I sent him away"

"Any idea of where he went?" V asked grabbing him by his filthy net shirt and holding her hand in a fist, ready to punch.

"Jig-Jig Street, but I saw a ticket for a bus ride to Little China in Watson in his back pocket, he had such a nice ass-" the man recalled, still shaking, before V's first collided with his face.

This time he fell into the ground, coughing blood and spitting a tooth, while V stormed out.

[commander-rahrah]

Cyberpunk: Twin Flames - Chapter 7

A SilverV fic

Linked psyches. That was Alt's solution for them. Two bodies -- their own bodies. But souls and minds still intertwined -- feeling each other's pain and emotions. Never too far away, never far behind.

There could never be one without the other.

______________________________________________________

I just posted my seventh chapter of my Johnny Silverhand/Fem!V fic over on my AO3. If you are interested in reading, I have put a snippet below. You can read the rest over on AO3!

______________________________________________________

Only once she was covered, did Johnny finally look over and speak up. “What are you doing, V?” “Are you—? Getting fucking dressed dickhead, what does it look like?” He shook his head, his mouth forming a hard line. “Last night. This morning.” She turned around to face him, a single bow raised. “What?” “Playing fucking house with River.” He spat, waving his hands out. “Like you weren’t being hunted by cyberpsychos or zeroing scavs two days ago. Like you ain’t got a Corp assassin on your speed dial right now, waiting for you.” V rolled her blue eyes, “Jesus Johnny, sorry I want to live a little. Didn’t know I had to eat, shit and breathe your goddamn revolution.” He let out an exasperated sigh, “You don’t. But this ain’t you and you know it.” Something flickered in her eyes, her nostrils flaring. “What the fuck do you know about it?” He marched right up to her, matching the challenge in her voice, “The guy is talking to you about fuckin’ suburb trailer parks and kids and family recipes, V. Are you that stupid?” She shook her head at him, running her fingers through her wet hair, “Okay, so he’s a bit domesticated. But you make me sound like I’m some feral merc who could never—". Tainted anger flared through him. "You could never! He’s a cop, V!” “Used to be. Not anymore—" But he interrupted her correction, “He will always be a cop. And you will always be a merc from Heywood. Making coffee and pancakes after you get each other off ain’t gonna change that.” V groaned, her fists bunching up at her sides, “Jesus Christ— why are you telling me this, huh?” “If you’re gonna do that again, take the goddamn pills.” Johnny pointed a metal finger in her face. “What?” “Next time you fuck him or anybody else. Take. The. Fucking. Blockers." He enunciated every single world. Her blue eyes blinked, genuine shock crossing her face, "You told me not to take those."

He had, and more surprisingly she had actually listened. They had sat untouched, only one missing from that very first, chaotic night. Fuck, he wasn't even sure if she had them anymore. Maybe she had chucked them in a dumpster weeks ago. "I don’t care.” He growled, “Rather be suffocated by those fuckin' pills then go through that again.” She scoffed at him, “You seemed to like it just fine last night. Don’t think I didn’t feel you there, watching like a perv.” “Maybe, at first I—" The honest words stumbled out of him before he caught himself. “Then what?” He felt like he was gonna chip a molar, pierce through his lip. “God, I don’t want to do this with you right now.” “What the fu— you’re the one who brought this up!!" V shouted, completely exasperated as he made to turn away from her. "Everything gets to be on your terms, Johnny, doesn’t it? What you want, who you want. Don’t give a flying shit about the other person in the—" He interrupted her, nostrils flared. “In the what?”

Friendship? Relationship? Whatever the fuck they had.

Did she have a better idea of what this was? Why he felt like this?

“In the conversation.”

No. Of course not, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. It would never be that simple, not for assholes like them.  "You're a fucking bitch, V." "And you're a fucking coward." She spat right back.  His black hair swayed as he shook his head at her, "I told you not to do this, told you it would be too complicated." "I'm not putting my life on pause for you, Johnny." "This is what you want your life to be?" His dark eyes studied her light ones, flickering between them. "Some fake, domesticated bullshit until you realize you'll never be what he wants you to be? Be my fuckin' guest."   "Better than anything you want for me. If it was up to you, I'd be fuckin' dead right? So you could just take my body for yourself." V went straight for the kill. She might as well have wrapped her teeth around his throat and shredded the skin.  "Fuck. You." She’d thrown that in his face on purpose — she knew the guilt and regret that festered in him from saying that to her. It took all of Johnny to push it all down. The word vomit. The pain, the fucking pain, that was forming like a sob in his throat. "Take the fuckin' blockers next time V. I mean it."

And he glitched away. 

[neon-pink-witch]

One of my fave concepts in fanfics is "Yeah Johnny's alive he's got his own body? How? What are you a cop? Mind your business."

And it's just left at that

[yns-world]

Johnny Silverhand Boyfriend Headcanons

Pairing: Johnny Silverhand x Reader A/N: i'm not sorry, i simply cannot sit here and lie that johnny would be a good bf LMAOOOO as always, feel free to send in any requests or anything you may have :) reblogging helps my account more than likes! :D

in no world will johnny silverhand win Boyfriend of The Year award, all he knows how to do is project all of his flaws, insecurities, and problems onto you.

the longer you stick around, the deeper the shit gets. a month into it, you’ll be questioning how the fuck a man so fundamentally messed up could end up with a relationship in the first place.

this man will have you doubting your own resolve. he blames you for every wrong thing in his life (which is a lot). sometimes when he’s really digging his own shithole, he’ll start blaming you for all that is wrong with this world (he’s delusional, but damn do those words hurt).

your friends, family, even some of johnny’s fans will try to shake you awake and let you know that you gotta sever this cord if you want to live. by the third month, you’ll want to leave with nothing but the clothes on your back, but this is where things take a turn for the worst.

when you finally put your foot down and decide to break up with this shitshow of a man, johnny will pull out all the stops to prevent you from leaving.

i’m talking gaslighting, manipulation, lovebombing, you name it.

whatever he has to do, he’ll do it. 

he’ll tell you he’s sorry, he’ll cry and beg, he’ll even get on his knees and swear he’ll change. 

but you’re sick and tired, and it doesn’t work. 

so the last resort is break up sex.

johnny will soon learn that break up sex is the one thing he needs to do in order to keep you in his clutches.

it works like a charm, and it works every time. 

by now, your relationship can’t even be called a “relationship”. all you do is argue, hurt each other, threaten to leave, and then fuck. 

you only date him because of the dick tbh. there’s not a single positive thing you can point out about him. 

months have passed by, and this has become your routine. 

in the beginning, you had expected some sort of bare minimum boyfriend, but after months of disappointment, emotional turmoil, and pain, johnny has turned you into exactly what he is: a self-loathing bastard.

[misaverawrites]

In the Heat of Your Electric Touch

((johnny silverhand x reader))

summary: you're the manager of SAMURAI, johnny talks to you about changing his image after some reflection since Alt died, you decide that he can do what’s best for him… and you might be it.

tags: no arasaka tower bombing, johnny is a good person, johnny has a body, rockerboy johnny silverhand, samurai stays together, fluff, alt’s death (mentioned), cursing, fluff, forehead kisses, NO PHANTOM LIBERTY SPOILERS

a/n: uhhhh, your honor, i am a 20 year old silly goose with a love for this man.

You stare out over the crowd from backstage, with wide smiles, music amplified by their singing as the bass vibrates through your teeth. You run a hand through your hair, just for a second, pushing away a rogue strand. You take a look at your phone, then back at the stage, where you find Johnny, looking at you with a wide and almost uncharacteristic grin, only to flash it back at the crowd, brandishing horns on his hand, the loud cheers from the crowd egging him on, bringing a small, but not, unwelcome smile to your face. Johnny loved what he did, no one could deny that, even if it seemed he only did it to further his own agenda at times. You knew better though, you and Johnny had spent too much time together on this tour for you to think too far against him.

“Alright, and we want to dedicate this encore to every single one of you!” You hear Kerry say from the stage, the wild roar from the crowd amplifying itself, you tend to watch the crowd more than anything during these shows, it was therapeutic, these people were the lifeblood of bands similar to SAMURAI , and you intended to keep them happy. As SAMURAI closes out their set, as well as Henry’s tab, some of the people start their slow, exhausted post-concert shuffle back out onto the streets of Night City, bags of SAMURAI merchandise in hand, you begin your clean-up, helping stage-hands move everything back onto the van.

“Hey, take a load off, they’ve got it.” You hear Johnny, and you shake your head. “Shouldn’t you be getting under the skirt of some barely-legal SAMURAI fangirl?” You joke and he rolls his eyes, “Fuck off,” he justifies himself, playfully all the same, until his tone gets a bit more serious in nature, “Besides, thinkin’ that’s not all too much my scene anymore.” You laugh, almost dropping the set piece in your hands. “Alright, I’m gonna hear you out, but it sounds like you just started talkin’ like one of those Maelstrom goons after they’ve had one too many implantations, what do you mean ?”

Johnny scoffs and takes the set piece from you, setting it down as he sits you down on the stage, the lingering fans vie successfully for Kerry’s attention, less so successfully for Johnny’s, his attention is all on you.

“I’m just… Fuckin’ sick of it, since Alt, since fuckin’ Arasaka, I don’t wanna ramble in those streets to a God who ain’t listenin’. Y’know?” You sigh and he puts his hand on top of yours, “I just want somethin’... Someone , even who makes me not want to shove an iron in my fuckin’ mouth.” You look at him, just for a second, as if he’s grown two heads, until you realize, from the way he’s looking at you, for once in his life, he’s serious . Your eyes widen a bit, does he mean you ? “It’s not your scene,” You say simply, it’s almost matter-of-fact in delivery.

“What if I wanted it to be?” He asks, that genuine tone of voice still there, he’s still Johnny, he knows what he wants, and he’s pushing for it. Not too hard, lest he drive you away, which is a change all in itself. “I’m the band’s manager, Johnny.” He rolls his eyes a bit, “You’ve been around Corpos a bit too long, babe,” You can’t help but love the way it sounds coming off his tongue, when it’s aimed towards you and not at another girl, “You know the fans don’t care, hell, they live for this stupid drama.” You can’t deny that. Your miles-long social media inbox, brimming with fans begging for any bit of gossip, said that all on its own. You smile a bit, “I mean, if you’re saying it could be your scene, then who am I to fight that, Johnny?” He grins, it’s a big, goofy grin unlike you’d ever seen before from him, “Shit, if you’re willing to allow it, then I guess I’d better not fuck it up.” You and him pause for a moment, not realizing how close the two of you are to one another, bodies pressed tightly against one another, you feel his eyes flicker to your lips for just a moment, until you, for once decide, fuck it . You pull Johnny in and kiss him, he’s warm, warmer than you’d expected whenever you thought about this, his hands meet your elbows awkwardly, he doesn’t know what to do here, and neither do you, really. His lips are chapped against yours and he tastes of cigarettes and tequila, a dangerously addictive combination that makes you want him more and more. You feel his hand suddenly brush against your hair and support the underside of your mouth, giving him more access to your mouth as he deepens the kiss, and everything else is simply null and void, besides him and you.

Until you hear the familiar sound of Kerry, clearing his throat, “Hey, both of you!” He calls, actually subtle for him, as the two of you pull away awkwardly, as though the two of you are teenagers, trying to act cool after being caught getting hot and heavy in a dark movie theater. “We’ve gotta go, bar wants us out, but you two can keep going on the tour bus, cool?” Your skin flushes and you avoid direct eye contact with Kerry, as Johnny chuckles awkwardly, despite himself, trying to keep any sense of his usually un-poised yet still collected poise. You nod, turning to look back at Johnny, who does the same to you, as you both share a small laugh with one another, you playfully push him without any real force, as he wraps his ‘ganic arm around you, kissing your forehead softly as the two of you get onto the tour bus together.