( Sometime after this XD Lmk if you'd like me to change anything! )
[ Feels like a long time since V'd had this particular dream. It's lucid enough that he understands he's dreaming, familiarity in the sights and sounds; comforting in a way that Night City isn't. He's not thinking about where he's asleep, out there, hopefully his apartment but feels like he hardly spends any time there at all anyway. Always another job to do; the perks of ever-growing street cred.
This dream he knows well. It's somewhere he's been before, few years back. Dark green stretches out as far as his optics can see, even under starlight, all the way up to the base of mountains that rise proudly out of the ground. The wind's gentle, no storm in sight, and somewhere nearby there's a stream meandering its docile way through emerald fields. It's nothing like the Badlands; no dust in sight but no buildings, either. Light pollution is non-existent, the inky black sky peppered with stars that would be visible without any kind of mods.
Spent almost a month here, back before Selita had passed and the family ended up boned by bad leadership. An agonizing, drawn-out demise with only Snake Nation at the end with open arms. V had chosen a different path. He'd chosen Night City.
Deep down he knows he sugar-coats this place in his dreams, but he's past caring. He's always stretched out in long blades of soft grass when he realizes where he is, hands tucked behind his head and eyes picking out as many of the constellations as he recognizes. Stargazing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? Yeah, he'll take that respite. ]
[Johnny’s perception of reality is hooked into V’s — there’s no really getting around that. With no body of his own, all of his senses are the other man's senses instead, the organic hardware in which he experiences the world around him. Whether he likes it or not, that’s where his limitations begin and end, and when you’re just a consciousness hijacking another person’s brain, the veiled haze between reality and dream isn’t always clear.
Case in point: becoming cognizant of a vista that looks far and beyond the reach of Night City, a sort of elysium landscape that’s like going from one end of the spectrum to the other. The stars are pinpricks overhead; the roll of the earth is green; the babbling of a brook snakes lazily away in the distance, couched in the contours of the land.
It’s beautiful, of course. He’d have to be blind to not let that revelation settle, but he’s not going to let it settle for very long, either — it’s beautiful, but it’s also sudden and surreal, and Johnny’s the kind of guy who’ll sooner be suspicious of it than appreciative of the sights. In fact, it’s only V’s lucidity that has him coming to the slow realization that this must be a dream, and nothing even close to something he’d conjure up. Not enough noise, not enough lurid, violent lights or a throbbing on-stage bass that might shatter bone.
Moments later, and he’s just an interruption in V’s placid reverie, his form stepping into view and leaning straight into his stargazing with a pinched brow and tugging frown, standing above him like some ill-mannered shade. His hair, pulled down and swaying by dream-gravity, frames his face.]
Earth to V. If you’re going to drag me out here, least you can do is explain what the hell I’m looking at.
[ V's first thought isn't that there's probably something to the fact that Johnny's dug down far enough into his brain now to stalk into his dreams. It might occur to him when he's conscious again, but for now his first thought is that Johnny's hair is midnight black, a lot like the sky. The journey from nestled like a swaddled kid in long grass to leaning up on his elbows, interrupted, is slower than it might've been out there in the waking world. And then- ]
Johnny?
[ Cameo by way of rockerboy isn't the usual speed of this particular dream, and V's expression is a myriad of conflicting, confused emotions. Peace; just a few seconds away from what his life's become would've been enough, but the appearance of the most complicated part of his reality in a dream is a halting, sharp reminder. A digitized ghost, resurrected, come to haunt the corners of his mind he keeps his treasured possessions stowed. Thing is, Johnny's also part of him and, 'til now, V hadn't felt out the shape of the reminder. A roughly hewn understanding that a puzzle piece has slotted itself into the irregular gap it was missing from. ]
Jesus-
[ He doesn't know for sure if his casual blasphemy is a description of Johnny, reaction to Johnny, or because his prefrontal cortex is finally processing through his understanding of how deep the co-dependency has leeched. ]
I'd ask what you're doin' here... what a guy like you's doin' in a place like this...
[ Except there's no need at all. Johnny's here because he's inhabiting the neural network of V's brain too, like a houseguest that just can't help himself from making himself too at home, uninvited. ]
You wanna--
[ He lifts a hand just enough to extend a finger, swipes at the air to motion Johnny out of the way. Johnny might be a star that burns too bright, would be right at home in the blanket of glittering jewels in the sky, but V's got no desire to look at the man upside down like this. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he understands that this vista might be wiped away too before long, and he wants to look his fill. The hand drops to the springy grass beside him, palm patting the space he's actually inviting Johnny to fill, and then he's relaxing back into the grass again. ]
[Doesn’t need to be said, what a guy like him is doing in a place like this. In fact, Johnny figures it might as well have been inevitable, and giving it some thought, he’s surprised he hadn’t considered it sooner: his presence and its slow subsumption of V’s, slipping into every conscious and subconscious crack. Until now, dreams had been foreign and untouched territory. Until now, he hadn’t eked past that wall, or saw what was hidden behind it.
Until now.
He’s not much different in a dream than he is in reality, it seems. Still can summon a cigarette out of the blue in one chrome hand. But he’s lacking the visual stutter, the luminosity of an imaginary friend that has a tendency to wink in and out of existence — in this dream, it’s almost as though he’s truly flesh and blood, stable through and through, from the way the grass bends beneath his shoes, to the high-framerate-smooth gesture of bringing the nicotine stick to his lips.
He inhales, and the fuse burns bright against the void of night above, a secondhand star. He tilts his head up, pointedly not sitting in the grass next to V, instead only glancing at starlight while smoke wisps from exhaled words.]
Standin’s just fine for now.
[He blocking your view, V? Well, Johnny’s been known to be difficult.]
Didn’t answer the question.
[Or rather, the request for some manner of explanation.]
[ A standoff. Least that's how it seems to V; Johnny asking where they are, V asking to actually see it instead of the billowing, blue hues of smoke. Nothing's ever easy with Johnny, and there's a distinct lack of surprise at that, even if there's the beginnings of a frown drawing his eyebrows together. ]
How'd I know it's you and not a dream version of you, anyway?
[ The thought comes unbidden, spilling from his lips as he shifts in the grass, clamps down on the urge to wave away the smoke. This is his dream, doesn't that give him some kind of admin power here or something? Regardless, he thinks he's got a point. How does he even know if this is actually Johnny, or if this is his own projection of Johnny in a dream? He's caught on to the fact that there's no stuttering, flickeringly ethereal quality to the man, and that's weird. He looks almost like if V reached out, he'd be able to touch him. ]
Tell ya what; you sit, I'll spill. 'til then? Mouth's shut.
[ Of all the things V's picking up from Johnny, being difficult when he wants to be isn't one of them. He can be stubborn when he thinks he should and right now? He wants to be that guy. There's no edge to it though, just a front-footed challenge to the man to sit down, shut the fuck up and enjoy the view for a millisec. Eyebrows raise with the silent question: are you gonna do as I ask, or are you gonna be an asshole about this? ]
[Johnny’s good at being an asshole. It comes to him as easily as breathing, and he humors a reply that springs to him lightning-quick: a dream-Johnny would sit down and comply all nice-like, happy to oblige. The real-Johnny would thinly grin down at V, and tell him that he does whatever the hell he wants, including blocking out the stars, as smoke coils from both his mouth and cigarette balanced between his fingers.
And the rockerboy takes another long drag from his smoke as he considers it, tries to judge just how much bite that quip should have in return. But then something gives—maybe it's because of the swath of peaceable land stretched out before him, or maybe because it’s V and there’s no heat in the request—and he finds a middle ground, instead. Flicks his cigarette into the grass feet away, and moves to sit next to the other man.
‘Course, once he’s settled with his knees hiked up and his elbows resting atop them, he’s gotta make a sandpapery remark about it.]
Fine. You want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, too? Christ.
[There's the other half of that casual blasphemy.]
[ A broad grin tugs at his lips, something decidedly sunny in the dead of night. Doesn't feel like victory, more like a step closer to common ground, and he's grateful for it. Johnny's held up his end of the bargain - and that's what this was - and V's still got enough honor in his veins to not go back on his word now. The abandoned cigarette glows orange in its nest of green, like a tiny landing beacon to birds that V knows aren't coming.
Shifting again, he sits himself up, one leg stretched out in front of him, battered high-top on his other foot sliding under the wide angle of his knee. Both hands reach back into the grass behind him, fingers sliding through strands like its hair until he's leaning back and looking out at the view again. The 'wasn't so hard, was it?' stays firmly held down, the only sign he's thinking anything along those lines visible in the shift of his lips into a lopsided smirk. ]
Maine. Maine's where this is. No idea if it still looks like this, but close enough to how I remember. Spent a while here, few years back. Guessin' you never been?
[Maine. Well departed from Night City, to be sure, in both distance and time. The way things look right now, surrounded by so much unsullied earth, Johnny figures they might as well be on another planet, much less sitting pretty in a dream. His eyes move from the star-studded sky back down to the green, mountainous terrain pushing up against the horizon, wondering at the reasoning behind it — the place reeks of nostalgia, which means it’s escapism prettied up by V’s brain. It’d make sense; a nomad’s travels bring them far and wide, and in this case, farther and wider than even that of an influential anti-establishment rockerboy and his band. Physically, at least.]
Don’t think I ever made it up to Maine, no. My stomping grounds were a little more southwestern USA, before I ended up in Night City.
[With a military stint jammed in-between. The shitty sea change that shook it all to pieces, but that needn’t be said.]
So this means I’m intruding on a little personal zen time. I'd say I'm sorry, but it looks like a real snoozefest.
[Johnny failed in Sensitivity 101, but there's a part of him pointedly ignoring the fact that he's intruded on something better kept a distance from. Like he's the wrong kind of brushstroke in this picturesque land, tainting memory and wistfulness, unbelonging. Akin to the butt of his cigarette burning in untouched grass.]
[ Well-traveled is a string V's very firmly got to his bow, but not in the well-cultured, anointed in affluence kind of way. Life on the road had been all he'd known, up 'til Night City, and he's spent longer amongst the corpo-infected metal and concrete now than he has in any other single place. The suffocation of the skyline, choked with highrises and altars built to commercialism, was a necessary evil to suffer to make a name for himself. Now he's not so sure.
Still he finds himself trying to escape the hustle and bustle every opportunity he can get; a pilgrimage to something more simple, to release the pressure that builds feeling hemmed in and claustrophobic. Somewhere high up, removed from it all, where he's closer to the freedom the sky promises with wide, open arms.
Any insensitivity is taken in his stride, smile dipping just a little into something more relaxed. It's familiar now, this back and forth, and Johnny's sharp-edged running commentary is a strange kind of pillar in his days and nights, now. ]
You ever ride with nomads before?
[ He's never asked outright, but he's guessing not. Technically, Johnny rides with a nomad every day, but that's not what V means and they both know that. Freedom means everything to V; there's a reason he's a solo, not a gangoon. A reason he gravitates towards bikes over cars, like he wants to surrender himself to the elements over and over. Whipping wind, driving rain. Heat of the sun in the sky and the bitter chill biting into his bones.
Freedom means everything to Johnny too, and maybe before all of this is over, either way, V will understand it as fully as he wants to. Gaze dragged from the picture-perfect vista, his head twists just enough to catch the other man's profile in his periphery. Still no flickering, not that he's noticed, and his curiosity is building at a steady enough pace. ]
[V's assumption is a correct one, and Johnny faintly shakes his head.]
Barring present company? Nope.
[Though certainly not out of some disregard for the lifestyle; Johnny's a championer of freedom as much as the next man who can see how the world tries to siphon it away, a slow-drip leeching of the soul, leaving the mind hollow enough to accept it as the norm. No, it's not a difference of ideals that kept him out a nomad's path until he was literally wedged into one's chipslot, but one of circumstance and time. As much as Johnny sometimes tries to forget that he's decades departed from when he died and digitized into a ghost, questions like these serve to remind him that isn't the case -- even in the thrall of V's scenic dreaming.]
Nomads weren't around that much on the fringes of Night City in my day. Still trying to get their footing in the years following the war, left high and dry by the government to fend for themselves. [Not that Johnny really has to do any exposition for V, of all people.] Can't say I have anything against their ideals, though. That want to be free, to not be tied down by corpo regime -- could just use a little more fighting spirit, is all.
[Says the terrorist.
He glances sidelong at V, eyes not hidden from beneath his shades this time.]
Guess the city hasn't stamped that sense of freedom out of you just yet, if you're still dreaming up something like this. Miss it?
[ At least, V thinks he does. What happened with the Bakkers though, yeah, maybe he'll concede some ground there. Felt like selling out, like the clan leadership had torn up the code they lived by and submitted to something it perceived greater than itself. Nothing wrong with being the underdog, and if people underestimate him that's not a bad thing either, at times. Something worthwhile in the struggle of surviving in harsh conditions. He's been doing that since day one.
The words are accompanied by the flash of an edge, something hotter than his usual laidback tone. What does Johnny think he's doing if not fighting for his survival, for his freedom? Joining the back of the line for the Misunderstood isn't V's MO, mostly because he's used to it. Used to being looked at like he's worth less than the shit on the bottom of somebody's shoe. Used to the word 'nomad' being said in a certain way, weighed down by preconceptions that aren't always that far off the truth. It doesn't bother him; he'll take his freedom over fitting into a mold any day of the week. Every day of the week.
Thing is, he's not pissed at Johnny. Hard to stay pissed for long when he remembers that this situation's being inflicted on both of them, doesn't matter that he has the most to lose and Johnny the most to gain. Empathy, compassion; they're no strangers to him. The nerve Johnny had unknowingly ground his heel into dulls to the memory of an ache rather than something sharp. ]
Yeah, I miss it. 'course. Bein' in the city... not what I imagined. Can't go two steps without fallin' over somebody else. Feels like a cage.
[ Especially now that he can't leave. Can't point the nose of Scorpion's bike in any direction and delta out. Hates having to weigh his sense of physical freedom against his drive to survive. And Johnny... in a cage, too. But a cage he's slowly breaking his way out of. V's not prone to extended periods of brooding, though, and he slowly works his way back out of that dark pit. ]
Imagine sleeping under the stars and waking up to this view at dawn. New day. New opportunity.
[ He gestures with a hand towards the colossal mountains jutting up out of the ground ahead of them. There's something he's getting at here - something about perspective - but he's slow on the uptake to verbalize it. His addition, though, comes quietly as his eyes track back to the view. ]
[He's found a nerve and plucked at it. That only proves to nudge Johnny's curiosity a little higher, instead of letting any manner of regret sink in; he never regrets speaking his mind, after all, and especially when the point wasn't quite a personal one.]
Know you're fighting, sure. Mostly 'cause you don't got a choice in the matter, do you?
[Survive in Night City before it swallows a man up. Find a way to deal with the digitized ghost in his head (yours truly) before he loses his very sense of self. Make a name for himself, in a place that wheels and deals in reputation nearly as much as it does eddies. Sure, V's got fighting spirit, and he's got it in spades; but Johnny means a sort of fighting spirit that goes beyond circumstances, the activist soul that he violently wields in every way possible. The need to incite change because change is necessary, not because fate dealt you a shitty hand and you're doing your best not to fold. Motivation wrought by more than just trying to survive.
There's a difference, he thinks, of choosing to live away from the monster (the wandering nomad's life) and settling down in its maw, ready to pull its teeth out one by one and by the root (the life and times of Johnny Silverhand).
He could argue the point -- a part of him is tempted to make the correction here and now -- but he only heaves an exhale, then leans back with a hand pressed into the grass. Let V have his moment.]
[ The gaping hole where there should be choice is nothing but a cavernous void, jagged edges the only thing left from where it's been ripped out. A used-to-be, maybe, once upon a time. Rug-pulled dizziness hit him that day in Vik's chair, an ugly truth exposed, and it feels a lot like he's been playing catch-up ever since. Treading water; that's the best way he can describe it. Treading water while watching a monster wave curl higher and higher over him, ready to take him under.
'Clinic in Sweden,' filters into his thoughts and the reaction that plays out over his features is acutely visceral, even in this dreamscape. Hellman's words given the kind of treatment they deserve. That's not a choice, not an option. Molars squeezed tightly together and muscles rippling at his jaw, he shakes his head, eventually. Worst part is he can imagine things worse than that, could see the cold, scientific interest the man had taken. Falling into hands that would spend the rest of time prodding and poking at his brain, at Johnny?
No, there's no choice. No choice but to take this head on. ]
[It comes on the heels of a scoff, because having a choice feels like a pipe-dream kind of notion, even before he was prowling around in someone’s synapses.]
If I was free—really free, not just free from your head, but free from how fucked this world is—then the answer’s gonna surprise you. I’d slink off somewhere quiet, read a book. Play old tunes in some dark corner of the world where no one would bother me, anywhere away from the city. In that perfect, elysium world where I wouldn’t have to stand on stage, blinded by bright lights, and scream into a mic with the hopes that somebody’s listening to what I have to say.
[Ah, damn. Why’d he toss his cig? The addiction scratches at him again, never even truly banished in V’s head — or maybe because they’re still in V’s head, it’s not going anywhere.
Johnny twists his fingers into the earth, feels grass bend beneath his fingers.]
Nice and all, but it won’t happen. Freedom’s an ideal to aspire to, something worth struggling for, but as long as there’s a high tower for some exec to sit in, mankind’s either going to be fighting the good fight forever… or eventually roll over and submit.
[So Johnny answered V’s question and then some, but the other man should be used to questions trailing off into tangents. To his credit, he course-corrects on his own terms.]
So, like I said: too bad it’s only a dream. Speakin’ of, is this all there’s to it? You just look at the stars and wake up? Doesn’t twist itself up into a stress dream — missing your pants, your teeth falling out, ground swallowing you up, et cetera?
[ Wrapping his arms around his knees, V tilts his head just enough that he's looking at Johnny from the corner of his eye. In this dream - or a flickering, digitized, visual private showing out in the real world - Johnny commands the space he occupies, and it's more than just the fact he's literally overwriting V's personality. Some people are just like that. Johnny's one of them. He wonders what it's like being able to walk into a room and turn every head in it.
Part of him's surprised at the answer, a little. Another part? That part of him thinks it must be exhausting to be Johnny. Everything's a corpo-infected wrong to right; to Johnny's vision of right. Once the man's set his sights on something, feels like there's nothing that can get in his way. V can't help but wonder if Johnny's tired of all of it, just won't back down from it. Can't.
V's not all that well-versed in understanding his own ideals. Thought that making a name for himself in Night City was an ideal worth chasing. Or, more like, worth hunting down with a fully loaded iron and just about good enough at what he does to balance out the recklessness. Freedom, yeah, that's one of them. But his version of freedom and Johnny's feels different, and Night City... now he knows it's not for him, not a place he'd still be if it wasn't for their shared situation. People living in the city like that, all on top of each other? It's not right.
As Johnny brings the point back home, V's eyebrows draw down, eyes as green as the grass squinted and hued with an assessing shade. ]
Can't a dream just be nice? 'sides, ground has swallowed me up out there in the real world. Don't need a dream for that to happen. Got my teeth knocked out when I was seven fightin' over toasted marshmallows. And there was this one time-
[ His lips tug into an amused, nostalgic sort of smile. Briefly wistful before edging towards rambunctious in nature. ]
Got chased damn near halfway across the desert without my pants.
[Maybe V’s come closer to hitting the nail on the head than Johnny would ever care to admit; maybe there’s a part of him that is tired, but refuses to back down because that’s just not how he was put together, made of sterner stuff than steel. Maybe Johnny himself would argue that the best rebellious spirits are the tired ones, the jaded ones, because they’ve seen the world for what it is — enough to drain the life out of most men and women, but never enough to take the fight out of a revolutionary.
And if there’s one thing that he will never let go of, it’s his ideals. They’re strict and sturdy, as unmoving as the mountains stretched out before them in a dream, never loose or tenuous. Even if it kills him, he’ll hold onto them — hell, they already have.
A part of him wonders if V understands it, even sharing a head. Another facet hopes that if he imparts even one thing to the man, before whatever else happens in the future set in front of them, it’s the stubborn will to fight like Johnny fights, to push forward like only a rebel rockerboy can.
For now, though, all he does is let out something that sounds close to a laugh, strained at the edges like it had trouble leaving his throat.]
Not exactly what I was expecting to hear. [Idly, he plucks grass out from the ground, caught tight between his knuckles. Johnny’s always leaving some kind of chaos in his wake.] And what’s the story behind that one?
Edited (tmw you see a typo literally hours later ) 2021-01-01 10:11 (UTC)
[ Something V's noticed about his brainmate is that he's never still. Even when Johnny stops, he never really stops. Fidgeting like he's imbued with excess energy; a vibrating, pulsing personality with too much inside of him to just be.
Wherever Johnny eventually sits - and V's starting to think the man's allergic to chairs - he's lighting up a cigarette, or looking around like he can actually interact with the world around him, or crossing his arms and looking like he might uncross them again at any moment just to stay on the move, to stay dynamic and more than just 2D data. So, the hand tearing up the grass is just another one of those moments that Johnny's being Johnny about things, even in V's dream, and the corners of V's lips turn upward in response. ]
Had a thing goin' with a neighboring clan leader's daughter.
[ In other words, sex got him into that particular situation. In his defence he was younger than he is now, filled to the brim with a wild kind of reckless abandon and uncontrollable hormones. ]
Didn't stick around for the beatin' they wanted to give me when we got caught in her tent mid-fuck. Stole a bike and rode my buck naked ass outta there. Know what hot leather feels like against your balls? Don't recommend it.
[Given all the insanity and inanity that he’s seen and lived, somehow this tale of escaping the shotgun-blast wrath of daddy clan leader isn’t all that surprising. Hell, he’s seen weirder and more harrowing situations that V’s slipped past (though maybe less exposing ones) just through the secondhand experience of strange gigs and side jobs tossed his way.
Even so, damn if it isn’t funny. The mental image isn’t something he’d have conjured up on his own, that’s for sure, but now it’s next to impossible to not think about V tearing across the desert on his bike, kicking up dust with his ass hanging out. It makes Johnny’s grin stretch a little wider.]
Shit. Guess you’ve always been something of a troublemaker — but a heartbreaker, too?
[Not that Johnny can really talk. He lived the rock ‘n’ roll life as any man would, and even if he didn’t, trouble’s always been the name of the game for him. ‘Least, seems to be that way by judging him now.]
[ Drifting with purpose is what V's been doing his whole life, and while Night City makes him feel more like a Static than ever before, he's still got nomad fire in his veins. Even from a young age, he'd understood making connections with people outside of the family was likely to be short-lived and fleeting. If he was a heartbreaker it's not something he meant to be, but the way Johnny says it makes it sound preem in a way that only ageing rockerboys can.
His amusement escapes in a quick breath through his nose - a breath he knows isn't really a breath at all, here in his dream. Back to feeling nostalgic for a simpler time; he feels that ache of longing for the open road as if he were awake instead of dreaming. ]
She understood. So did I. Moved on not long after. Don't think it was 'cause of me, was just time.
[ Itchy feet, keen to put rubber to the road to see what else was out there. Not that the family hadn't had to move on because of V's antics before, but that time was different. ]
Always worse when it wasn't a nomad I was leavin' behind. Whole buncha people out there lookin' for the nomad experience. 'Least they thought they wanted it. Wasn't the same as in their BDs.
[ They live in a society where all manner of kinks and niche interests are catered to. He'd hunt down a nomad-inspired BD just for a laugh, but time hasn't been kind and there's more pressing things to do.
'Catching feelings' has always been a phrase he's disliked, as if they're a disease when V knows they're not. He can name his, doesn't shy away from them. What's the point? But as those people discovered, catching feelings for nomads is sure to lead to heartbreak all the same, 'cause in the morning that nomad is nothing but a memory. A lingering indentation in a mattress and the scent of wind-swept hair and sun-warmed skin hanging in the air where there used to be a person.
Longest he's ever stuck around in one place is Night City, and he already knows with painful clarity he's not just doing it now to save his own hide. He gives a shit about what happens to Johnny, too. ]
[Johnny can’t relate to the nomad lifestyle beyond that thirst and appreciation to live a free life, but there’s a part that understands where he’s coming from — to exist in a way that the masses view as romanticized to hell and back, a life that comes store-bought in pre-packaged BDs to further fuel the misconception.
Johnny lived high on the rockerboy life, and though it boosted his ego and narcissism to the highest levels imaginable, he had never done it just for the glory. There was work in it, sweat, blood, and tears for the whole band, careening under the fame while still trying to stand on two feet and put the message out. It had always been about the message, the music just an angry disenfranchised conduit for it.
And then there was the war, where a younger version of himself—feels like someone else altogether different—signed up for the military happy-as-you please like the biggest gonk the world had ever seen. Then he had been searching for glory, for that rush, for a blazing purpose to set him on the rest of his life’s path. Didn’t quite turn out how he envisioned it, but maybe that had been for the best in the end.]
Always some sparkly-eyed outsider who thinks the grass is greener on the other side. Thinks a lifestyle that isn’t their own is something glorious, drummed up by the advertising, or the propaganda, to make them believe it.
One way or another, they always learn it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. That they can’t handle it, and go straight back to their default lives, looking for something else. Something shinier and newer.
[Life in Night City is always a chase — for the next hit, for something better, for something advertised, or for survival. Things have only gotten worse since his time.]
[ V's first experience of a BD had been Yorinobou Arasaka's penthouse. Probably not the standard entryway into that world, either of BDs or the private residence. Seems like so long ago now, the heist, but in reality it's been a handful of weeks. Time's one of the things he's acutely aware of slipping through his fingers like sand. Doesn't matter how hard he tries to squeeze his fingers closed around it; it melts away all the same.
Nodding belatedly in agreement at Johnny's assessment, he exhales in a steady stream, like in here those breathing exercises will work like they do out there. He'd been ignorantly dismissive of it right up until he'd met a monk, and that had been weird enough on its own. Couldn't tell if he was being conned like a gonk or not, but he'd sat with the man all the same. ]
It's a mistake.
[ One that V knows he made himself. Living legend in Night City? He wants to laugh, desperate and hollow, like a man burnt by his own decisions. Nothing wrong with trying out something new, but his own choice had been to chase glory in a place he didn't know was going to chew him up and spit him out in pieces. Nothing more he wants now than to get back out on the road. ]
Better than what most people manage — pretend I’m giving you a pat on the back for it.
[Which he might could very well do in this dream-state, yet Johnny was never a touchy-feely sort of rockerboy, gestures of camaraderie rare, like they’ve been stamped out of him in his youth. But he does give V a look adorned with a quirking brow, leaning back properly on both hands this time.]
Hopefully you’ll live long enough to pass your newfound wisdom down to all the other gonks who think glory and splendor and all that other scop comes without giving half your life expectancy for it.
[That the grass ain’t so green on either side of the fence — it’s all just yellowing, thick with weeds and bramble.]
But probably not. Knowin’ you... you make it out of this alive, you’re just going to keep going, keep making a name for yourself. A dream realized, the worst kind of fate. But the kind worthy of envy and respect all the same. I’d bet my life on it if I wasn’t already dead.
[ Can't deny that part of him's elated at the idea of both a pat on the back from Johnny and a reaching belief that he's got it in him to go that far. Always comes with the heavy caveat of 'if you survive', but that doesn't darken the doorway of this particular treasure uncovered.
He'd motion to pat himself on the back but already knows the kind of look it'd get from Johnny, so he just sits still and nods his head, slowly. Like he's trying to keep the crown Johnny put there in place. ]
Think I already know Night City's not for me.
[ That glory, no matter how big the pull, probably isn't worth continuing down a path he wants to veer off of. Whether or not Johnny's called it right remains to be seen. Survival comes first, just like always. ]
We survive this? Gettin' on my bike 'n riding as close to the distant horizon as I can.
[Johnny isn’t so sure — for all their talk of wanting to tear themselves away from the city, there’s something about it that sticks to the soul, something that drills past the bone marks its permanence there. Maybe it’s because Night City never changes, always stands unmoving in its pool of ugly things, while the rest of the world tries to move on, but can’t quite free its shoes from its muck.
It’s that unchanging that guarantees Johnny would always have been screaming into a mic for the rest of days, or fighting violently against the corpo machine, if his life hadn’t been cut short and digitized into a prison of Arasaka tech. And now that V’s caught in the net of Night City just like he was, and he wonders how much he’ll continue to pull against its influence when all is said and done.
However it plays out.]
So no blaze of glory, right?
[He shrugs.]
Guess I’m not surprised if your dreams end up looking like this. Peaceful, idyllic... [A smirk.] Little too vanilla for my tastes, though.
[ The lie everybody tells themselves is they can leave whenever they want. Maybe V's starting to understand that. No corner of Night City is as dark as the Badlands when there's no moon, but it feels darker. Choking the air out of his lungs and leaving him feeling like he can't remember the last time he took a deep breath.
But going out in a blaze of glory isn't exclusive just to Night City. He knows that too. Thing is, it's hard to think outside of and around the plan. Arasaka Tower. Mikoshi. Alt. Not knowing what's going to happen makes all of this hypothetical at best, and terrifying at worst.
Forcing himself not to dwell on it, he doesn't notice that the sky has taken on a different quality now. Clouds are rolling in thick and full, swollen with rain like floating sponges ready to be wrung dry. Instead, he's smirking too at Johnny's assessment. ]
Night City's not the only place that'll swallow you whole. You think this place is vanilla? Out here, nothin' between you 'n the real wild things.
[ There's a brief pause and then V's reclining back into the grass again, eyes fixed on Johnny's surprisingly solid-looking back. ]
Kerry'd said he was here, an' even though she knew he wasn't lying, she still hadn't really believed him. But there he is, standin' against a wall in this skeevy underground club with a cigarette between his fingers like she'd seen so many times before, except this time the smoke interacts when bodies pass by, she sees the way his shadow actually interacts with the wall behind him, the way his stupid fuckin' hair falls around his face as he looks around.
She looks like a gonk. She fuckin' feels like a gonk, wide eyes staring straight at the man who'd been inside her head for weeks driving her fucking mad.
V can feel her heart pound in every corner of her body as she realizes she's moving forward, feet more sure than her brain as she expertly picks her way through the crowd until she can almost touch him- almost-
Motherfucker! This asshole! What the fuck!
Johnny doesn't even have time to open his mouth before her hand has flashed up, delivering a solid, open-palmed slap to his face. She is still surprised when she feels the sting instead of nothingness and dull static.
"That's for being a fuckin' asshole!" She yells over the throbbing music, shock turning into a manic grin as the fact that Johnny's actually fucking in front of her is catching up with her. "And this-"
If her former brain-mate wanted to say anything, too fucking bad, honestly, because she's already grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him down into her for a crushing, bruising kiss.
"This is for everything else," V laughs as she pulls back.
The vista ahead of him doesn't exist in NUSA; not like this, anyway. Parched, baked desert meets sea, shoreline a jagged scar between solid ground and the murky depths. V's optics are stuck on the horizon, slight salty breeze ruffling his hair as he sits on the pick-up's heated roof. One hand - the wholly organic one - is clutched around a half-drunk can of Spunky Monkey, the sun's light diffused in the green-tinted metal. He doesn't remember drinking but the weight of it betrays how much is left.
Come to think of it, he doesn't remember how he got here, or how long he's been staring at that line in the distance. The one that seems like it wants to break his understanding of reality every time he thinks about touching it. There's a vacuous space around this particular moment, its lack of details setting the whole scene in a realm he's not sure he can truly fathom.
Distantly, the sensation of pursuit - of being pursued - slips through his thoughts like wisps of smoke. Hard to grasp. Just like his existence here, wherever here is.
"This Texas?" he asks out loud without really contemplating yet who he's asking. Why did he ask that? Why doesn't he know? He blinks, brows pulling towards each other fractionally.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sleepy dream time
[ Feels like a long time since V'd had this particular dream. It's lucid enough that he understands he's dreaming, familiarity in the sights and sounds; comforting in a way that Night City isn't. He's not thinking about where he's asleep, out there, hopefully his apartment but feels like he hardly spends any time there at all anyway. Always another job to do; the perks of ever-growing street cred.
This dream he knows well. It's somewhere he's been before, few years back. Dark green stretches out as far as his optics can see, even under starlight, all the way up to the base of mountains that rise proudly out of the ground. The wind's gentle, no storm in sight, and somewhere nearby there's a stream meandering its docile way through emerald fields. It's nothing like the Badlands; no dust in sight but no buildings, either. Light pollution is non-existent, the inky black sky peppered with stars that would be visible without any kind of mods.
Spent almost a month here, back before Selita had passed and the family ended up boned by bad leadership. An agonizing, drawn-out demise with only Snake Nation at the end with open arms. V had chosen a different path. He'd chosen Night City.
Deep down he knows he sugar-coats this place in his dreams, but he's past caring. He's always stretched out in long blades of soft grass when he realizes where he is, hands tucked behind his head and eyes picking out as many of the constellations as he recognizes. Stargazing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? Yeah, he'll take that respite. ]
no subject
Case in point: becoming cognizant of a vista that looks far and beyond the reach of Night City, a sort of elysium landscape that’s like going from one end of the spectrum to the other. The stars are pinpricks overhead; the roll of the earth is green; the babbling of a brook snakes lazily away in the distance, couched in the contours of the land.
It’s beautiful, of course. He’d have to be blind to not let that revelation settle, but he’s not going to let it settle for very long, either — it’s beautiful, but it’s also sudden and surreal, and Johnny’s the kind of guy who’ll sooner be suspicious of it than appreciative of the sights. In fact, it’s only V’s lucidity that has him coming to the slow realization that this must be a dream, and nothing even close to something he’d conjure up. Not enough noise, not enough lurid, violent lights or a throbbing on-stage bass that might shatter bone.
Moments later, and he’s just an interruption in V’s placid reverie, his form stepping into view and leaning straight into his stargazing with a pinched brow and tugging frown, standing above him like some ill-mannered shade. His hair, pulled down and swaying by dream-gravity, frames his face.]
Earth to V. If you’re going to drag me out here, least you can do is explain what the hell I’m looking at.
no subject
Johnny?
[ Cameo by way of rockerboy isn't the usual speed of this particular dream, and V's expression is a myriad of conflicting, confused emotions. Peace; just a few seconds away from what his life's become would've been enough, but the appearance of the most complicated part of his reality in a dream is a halting, sharp reminder. A digitized ghost, resurrected, come to haunt the corners of his mind he keeps his treasured possessions stowed. Thing is, Johnny's also part of him and, 'til now, V hadn't felt out the shape of the reminder. A roughly hewn understanding that a puzzle piece has slotted itself into the irregular gap it was missing from. ]
Jesus-
[ He doesn't know for sure if his casual blasphemy is a description of Johnny, reaction to Johnny, or because his prefrontal cortex is finally processing through his understanding of how deep the co-dependency has leeched. ]
I'd ask what you're doin' here... what a guy like you's doin' in a place like this...
[ Except there's no need at all. Johnny's here because he's inhabiting the neural network of V's brain too, like a houseguest that just can't help himself from making himself too at home, uninvited. ]
You wanna--
[ He lifts a hand just enough to extend a finger, swipes at the air to motion Johnny out of the way. Johnny might be a star that burns too bright, would be right at home in the blanket of glittering jewels in the sky, but V's got no desire to look at the man upside down like this. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he understands that this vista might be wiped away too before long, and he wants to look his fill. The hand drops to the springy grass beside him, palm patting the space he's actually inviting Johnny to fill, and then he's relaxing back into the grass again. ]
no subject
Until now.
He’s not much different in a dream than he is in reality, it seems. Still can summon a cigarette out of the blue in one chrome hand. But he’s lacking the visual stutter, the luminosity of an imaginary friend that has a tendency to wink in and out of existence — in this dream, it’s almost as though he’s truly flesh and blood, stable through and through, from the way the grass bends beneath his shoes, to the high-framerate-smooth gesture of bringing the nicotine stick to his lips.
He inhales, and the fuse burns bright against the void of night above, a secondhand star. He tilts his head up, pointedly not sitting in the grass next to V, instead only glancing at starlight while smoke wisps from exhaled words.]
Standin’s just fine for now.
[He blocking your view, V? Well, Johnny’s been known to be difficult.]
Didn’t answer the question.
[Or rather, the request for some manner of explanation.]
no subject
How'd I know it's you and not a dream version of you, anyway?
[ The thought comes unbidden, spilling from his lips as he shifts in the grass, clamps down on the urge to wave away the smoke. This is his dream, doesn't that give him some kind of admin power here or something? Regardless, he thinks he's got a point. How does he even know if this is actually Johnny, or if this is his own projection of Johnny in a dream? He's caught on to the fact that there's no stuttering, flickeringly ethereal quality to the man, and that's weird. He looks almost like if V reached out, he'd be able to touch him. ]
Tell ya what; you sit, I'll spill. 'til then? Mouth's shut.
[ Of all the things V's picking up from Johnny, being difficult when he wants to be isn't one of them. He can be stubborn when he thinks he should and right now? He wants to be that guy. There's no edge to it though, just a front-footed challenge to the man to sit down, shut the fuck up and enjoy the view for a millisec. Eyebrows raise with the silent question: are you gonna do as I ask, or are you gonna be an asshole about this? ]
no subject
And the rockerboy takes another long drag from his smoke as he considers it, tries to judge just how much bite that quip should have in return. But then something gives—maybe it's because of the swath of peaceable land stretched out before him, or maybe because it’s V and there’s no heat in the request—and he finds a middle ground, instead. Flicks his cigarette into the grass feet away, and moves to sit next to the other man.
‘Course, once he’s settled with his knees hiked up and his elbows resting atop them, he’s gotta make a sandpapery remark about it.]
Fine. You want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, too? Christ.
[There's the other half of that casual blasphemy.]
no subject
Shifting again, he sits himself up, one leg stretched out in front of him, battered high-top on his other foot sliding under the wide angle of his knee. Both hands reach back into the grass behind him, fingers sliding through strands like its hair until he's leaning back and looking out at the view again. The 'wasn't so hard, was it?' stays firmly held down, the only sign he's thinking anything along those lines visible in the shift of his lips into a lopsided smirk. ]
Maine. Maine's where this is. No idea if it still looks like this, but close enough to how I remember. Spent a while here, few years back. Guessin' you never been?
no subject
Don’t think I ever made it up to Maine, no. My stomping grounds were a little more southwestern USA, before I ended up in Night City.
[With a military stint jammed in-between. The shitty sea change that shook it all to pieces, but that needn’t be said.]
So this means I’m intruding on a little personal zen time. I'd say I'm sorry, but it looks like a real snoozefest.
[Johnny failed in Sensitivity 101, but there's a part of him pointedly ignoring the fact that he's intruded on something better kept a distance from. Like he's the wrong kind of brushstroke in this picturesque land, tainting memory and wistfulness, unbelonging. Akin to the butt of his cigarette burning in untouched grass.]
no subject
Still he finds himself trying to escape the hustle and bustle every opportunity he can get; a pilgrimage to something more simple, to release the pressure that builds feeling hemmed in and claustrophobic. Somewhere high up, removed from it all, where he's closer to the freedom the sky promises with wide, open arms.
Any insensitivity is taken in his stride, smile dipping just a little into something more relaxed. It's familiar now, this back and forth, and Johnny's sharp-edged running commentary is a strange kind of pillar in his days and nights, now. ]
You ever ride with nomads before?
[ He's never asked outright, but he's guessing not. Technically, Johnny rides with a nomad every day, but that's not what V means and they both know that. Freedom means everything to V; there's a reason he's a solo, not a gangoon. A reason he gravitates towards bikes over cars, like he wants to surrender himself to the elements over and over. Whipping wind, driving rain. Heat of the sun in the sky and the bitter chill biting into his bones.
Freedom means everything to Johnny too, and maybe before all of this is over, either way, V will understand it as fully as he wants to. Gaze dragged from the picture-perfect vista, his head twists just enough to catch the other man's profile in his periphery. Still no flickering, not that he's noticed, and his curiosity is building at a steady enough pace. ]
no subject
Barring present company? Nope.
[Though certainly not out of some disregard for the lifestyle; Johnny's a championer of freedom as much as the next man who can see how the world tries to siphon it away, a slow-drip leeching of the soul, leaving the mind hollow enough to accept it as the norm. No, it's not a difference of ideals that kept him out a nomad's path until he was literally wedged into one's chipslot, but one of circumstance and time. As much as Johnny sometimes tries to forget that he's decades departed from when he died and digitized into a ghost, questions like these serve to remind him that isn't the case -- even in the thrall of V's scenic dreaming.]
Nomads weren't around that much on the fringes of Night City in my day. Still trying to get their footing in the years following the war, left high and dry by the government to fend for themselves. [Not that Johnny really has to do any exposition for V, of all people.] Can't say I have anything against their ideals, though. That want to be free, to not be tied down by corpo regime -- could just use a little more fighting spirit, is all.
[Says the terrorist.
He glances sidelong at V, eyes not hidden from beneath his shades this time.]
Guess the city hasn't stamped that sense of freedom out of you just yet, if you're still dreaming up something like this. Miss it?
no subject
[ At least, V thinks he does. What happened with the Bakkers though, yeah, maybe he'll concede some ground there. Felt like selling out, like the clan leadership had torn up the code they lived by and submitted to something it perceived greater than itself. Nothing wrong with being the underdog, and if people underestimate him that's not a bad thing either, at times. Something worthwhile in the struggle of surviving in harsh conditions. He's been doing that since day one.
The words are accompanied by the flash of an edge, something hotter than his usual laidback tone. What does Johnny think he's doing if not fighting for his survival, for his freedom? Joining the back of the line for the Misunderstood isn't V's MO, mostly because he's used to it. Used to being looked at like he's worth less than the shit on the bottom of somebody's shoe. Used to the word 'nomad' being said in a certain way, weighed down by preconceptions that aren't always that far off the truth. It doesn't bother him; he'll take his freedom over fitting into a mold any day of the week. Every day of the week.
Thing is, he's not pissed at Johnny. Hard to stay pissed for long when he remembers that this situation's being inflicted on both of them, doesn't matter that he has the most to lose and Johnny the most to gain. Empathy, compassion; they're no strangers to him. The nerve Johnny had unknowingly ground his heel into dulls to the memory of an ache rather than something sharp. ]
Yeah, I miss it. 'course. Bein' in the city... not what I imagined. Can't go two steps without fallin' over somebody else. Feels like a cage.
[ Especially now that he can't leave. Can't point the nose of Scorpion's bike in any direction and delta out. Hates having to weigh his sense of physical freedom against his drive to survive. And Johnny... in a cage, too. But a cage he's slowly breaking his way out of. V's not prone to extended periods of brooding, though, and he slowly works his way back out of that dark pit. ]
Imagine sleeping under the stars and waking up to this view at dawn. New day. New opportunity.
[ He gestures with a hand towards the colossal mountains jutting up out of the ground ahead of them. There's something he's getting at here - something about perspective - but he's slow on the uptake to verbalize it. His addition, though, comes quietly as his eyes track back to the view. ]
Freedom.
no subject
Know you're fighting, sure. Mostly 'cause you don't got a choice in the matter, do you?
[Survive in Night City before it swallows a man up. Find a way to deal with the digitized ghost in his head (yours truly) before he loses his very sense of self. Make a name for himself, in a place that wheels and deals in reputation nearly as much as it does eddies. Sure, V's got fighting spirit, and he's got it in spades; but Johnny means a sort of fighting spirit that goes beyond circumstances, the activist soul that he violently wields in every way possible. The need to incite change because change is necessary, not because fate dealt you a shitty hand and you're doing your best not to fold. Motivation wrought by more than just trying to survive.
There's a difference, he thinks, of choosing to live away from the monster (the wandering nomad's life) and settling down in its maw, ready to pull its teeth out one by one and by the root (the life and times of Johnny Silverhand).
He could argue the point -- a part of him is tempted to make the correction here and now -- but he only heaves an exhale, then leans back with a hand pressed into the grass. Let V have his moment.]
But yeah. Freedom. Too bad it’s only a dream.
no subject
'Clinic in Sweden,' filters into his thoughts and the reaction that plays out over his features is acutely visceral, even in this dreamscape. Hellman's words given the kind of treatment they deserve. That's not a choice, not an option. Molars squeezed tightly together and muscles rippling at his jaw, he shakes his head, eventually. Worst part is he can imagine things worse than that, could see the cold, scientific interest the man had taken. Falling into hands that would spend the rest of time prodding and poking at his brain, at Johnny?
No, there's no choice. No choice but to take this head on. ]
Where'd you go? ...if you had a choice.
[ 'If you had the freedom to' goes unsaid. ]
no subject
[It comes on the heels of a scoff, because having a choice feels like a pipe-dream kind of notion, even before he was prowling around in someone’s synapses.]
If I was free—really free, not just free from your head, but free from how fucked this world is—then the answer’s gonna surprise you. I’d slink off somewhere quiet, read a book. Play old tunes in some dark corner of the world where no one would bother me, anywhere away from the city. In that perfect, elysium world where I wouldn’t have to stand on stage, blinded by bright lights, and scream into a mic with the hopes that somebody’s listening to what I have to say.
[Ah, damn. Why’d he toss his cig? The addiction scratches at him again, never even truly banished in V’s head — or maybe because they’re still in V’s head, it’s not going anywhere.
Johnny twists his fingers into the earth, feels grass bend beneath his fingers.]
Nice and all, but it won’t happen. Freedom’s an ideal to aspire to, something worth struggling for, but as long as there’s a high tower for some exec to sit in, mankind’s either going to be fighting the good fight forever… or eventually roll over and submit.
[So Johnny answered V’s question and then some, but the other man should be used to questions trailing off into tangents. To his credit, he course-corrects on his own terms.]
So, like I said: too bad it’s only a dream. Speakin’ of, is this all there’s to it? You just look at the stars and wake up? Doesn’t twist itself up into a stress dream — missing your pants, your teeth falling out, ground swallowing you up, et cetera?
no subject
Part of him's surprised at the answer, a little. Another part? That part of him thinks it must be exhausting to be Johnny. Everything's a corpo-infected wrong to right; to Johnny's vision of right. Once the man's set his sights on something, feels like there's nothing that can get in his way. V can't help but wonder if Johnny's tired of all of it, just won't back down from it. Can't.
V's not all that well-versed in understanding his own ideals. Thought that making a name for himself in Night City was an ideal worth chasing. Or, more like, worth hunting down with a fully loaded iron and just about good enough at what he does to balance out the recklessness. Freedom, yeah, that's one of them. But his version of freedom and Johnny's feels different, and Night City... now he knows it's not for him, not a place he'd still be if it wasn't for their shared situation. People living in the city like that, all on top of each other? It's not right.
As Johnny brings the point back home, V's eyebrows draw down, eyes as green as the grass squinted and hued with an assessing shade. ]
Can't a dream just be nice? 'sides, ground has swallowed me up out there in the real world. Don't need a dream for that to happen. Got my teeth knocked out when I was seven fightin' over toasted marshmallows. And there was this one time-
[ His lips tug into an amused, nostalgic sort of smile. Briefly wistful before edging towards rambunctious in nature. ]
Got chased damn near halfway across the desert without my pants.
no subject
And if there’s one thing that he will never let go of, it’s his ideals. They’re strict and sturdy, as unmoving as the mountains stretched out before them in a dream, never loose or tenuous. Even if it kills him, he’ll hold onto them — hell, they already have.
A part of him wonders if V understands it, even sharing a head. Another facet hopes that if he imparts even one thing to the man, before whatever else happens in the future set in front of them, it’s the stubborn will to fight like Johnny fights, to push forward like only a rebel rockerboy can.
For now, though, all he does is let out something that sounds close to a laugh, strained at the edges like it had trouble leaving his throat.]
Not exactly what I was expecting to hear. [Idly, he plucks grass out from the ground, caught tight between his knuckles. Johnny’s always leaving some kind of chaos in his wake.] And what’s the story behind that one?
no subject
Wherever Johnny eventually sits - and V's starting to think the man's allergic to chairs - he's lighting up a cigarette, or looking around like he can actually interact with the world around him, or crossing his arms and looking like he might uncross them again at any moment just to stay on the move, to stay dynamic and more than just 2D data. So, the hand tearing up the grass is just another one of those moments that Johnny's being Johnny about things, even in V's dream, and the corners of V's lips turn upward in response. ]
Had a thing goin' with a neighboring clan leader's daughter.
[ In other words, sex got him into that particular situation. In his defence he was younger than he is now, filled to the brim with a wild kind of reckless abandon and uncontrollable hormones. ]
Didn't stick around for the beatin' they wanted to give me when we got caught in her tent mid-fuck. Stole a bike and rode my buck naked ass outta there. Know what hot leather feels like against your balls? Don't recommend it.
no subject
Even so, damn if it isn’t funny. The mental image isn’t something he’d have conjured up on his own, that’s for sure, but now it’s next to impossible to not think about V tearing across the desert on his bike, kicking up dust with his ass hanging out. It makes Johnny’s grin stretch a little wider.]
Shit. Guess you’ve always been something of a troublemaker — but a heartbreaker, too?
[Not that Johnny can really talk. He lived the rock ‘n’ roll life as any man would, and even if he didn’t, trouble’s always been the name of the game for him. ‘Least, seems to be that way by judging him now.]
Still, probably what I would’ve done, too.
no subject
His amusement escapes in a quick breath through his nose - a breath he knows isn't really a breath at all, here in his dream. Back to feeling nostalgic for a simpler time; he feels that ache of longing for the open road as if he were awake instead of dreaming. ]
She understood. So did I. Moved on not long after. Don't think it was 'cause of me, was just time.
[ Itchy feet, keen to put rubber to the road to see what else was out there. Not that the family hadn't had to move on because of V's antics before, but that time was different. ]
Always worse when it wasn't a nomad I was leavin' behind. Whole buncha people out there lookin' for the nomad experience. 'Least they thought they wanted it. Wasn't the same as in their BDs.
[ They live in a society where all manner of kinks and niche interests are catered to. He'd hunt down a nomad-inspired BD just for a laugh, but time hasn't been kind and there's more pressing things to do.
'Catching feelings' has always been a phrase he's disliked, as if they're a disease when V knows they're not. He can name his, doesn't shy away from them. What's the point? But as those people discovered, catching feelings for nomads is sure to lead to heartbreak all the same, 'cause in the morning that nomad is nothing but a memory. A lingering indentation in a mattress and the scent of wind-swept hair and sun-warmed skin hanging in the air where there used to be a person.
Longest he's ever stuck around in one place is Night City, and he already knows with painful clarity he's not just doing it now to save his own hide. He gives a shit about what happens to Johnny, too. ]
no subject
[Johnny can’t relate to the nomad lifestyle beyond that thirst and appreciation to live a free life, but there’s a part that understands where he’s coming from — to exist in a way that the masses view as romanticized to hell and back, a life that comes store-bought in pre-packaged BDs to further fuel the misconception.
Johnny lived high on the rockerboy life, and though it boosted his ego and narcissism to the highest levels imaginable, he had never done it just for the glory. There was work in it, sweat, blood, and tears for the whole band, careening under the fame while still trying to stand on two feet and put the message out. It had always been about the message, the music just an angry disenfranchised conduit for it.
And then there was the war, where a younger version of himself—feels like someone else altogether different—signed up for the military happy-as-you please like the biggest gonk the world had ever seen. Then he had been searching for glory, for that rush, for a blazing purpose to set him on the rest of his life’s path. Didn’t quite turn out how he envisioned it, but maybe that had been for the best in the end.]
Always some sparkly-eyed outsider who thinks the grass is greener on the other side. Thinks a lifestyle that isn’t their own is something glorious, drummed up by the advertising, or the propaganda, to make them believe it.
One way or another, they always learn it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. That they can’t handle it, and go straight back to their default lives, looking for something else. Something shinier and newer.
[Life in Night City is always a chase — for the next hit, for something better, for something advertised, or for survival. Things have only gotten worse since his time.]
no subject
Nodding belatedly in agreement at Johnny's assessment, he exhales in a steady stream, like in here those breathing exercises will work like they do out there. He'd been ignorantly dismissive of it right up until he'd met a monk, and that had been weird enough on its own. Couldn't tell if he was being conned like a gonk or not, but he'd sat with the man all the same. ]
It's a mistake.
[ One that V knows he made himself. Living legend in Night City? He wants to laugh, desperate and hollow, like a man burnt by his own decisions. Nothing wrong with trying out something new, but his own choice had been to chase glory in a place he didn't know was going to chew him up and spit him out in pieces. Nothing more he wants now than to get back out on the road. ]
Learned from mine, though.
no subject
[Which he might could very well do in this dream-state, yet Johnny was never a touchy-feely sort of rockerboy, gestures of camaraderie rare, like they’ve been stamped out of him in his youth. But he does give V a look adorned with a quirking brow, leaning back properly on both hands this time.]
Hopefully you’ll live long enough to pass your newfound wisdom down to all the other gonks who think glory and splendor and all that other scop comes without giving half your life expectancy for it.
[That the grass ain’t so green on either side of the fence — it’s all just yellowing, thick with weeds and bramble.]
But probably not. Knowin’ you... you make it out of this alive, you’re just going to keep going, keep making a name for yourself. A dream realized, the worst kind of fate. But the kind worthy of envy and respect all the same. I’d bet my life on it if I wasn’t already dead.
no subject
He'd motion to pat himself on the back but already knows the kind of look it'd get from Johnny, so he just sits still and nods his head, slowly. Like he's trying to keep the crown Johnny put there in place. ]
Think I already know Night City's not for me.
[ That glory, no matter how big the pull, probably isn't worth continuing down a path he wants to veer off of. Whether or not Johnny's called it right remains to be seen. Survival comes first, just like always. ]
We survive this? Gettin' on my bike 'n riding as close to the distant horizon as I can.
no subject
It’s that unchanging that guarantees Johnny would always have been screaming into a mic for the rest of days, or fighting violently against the corpo machine, if his life hadn’t been cut short and digitized into a prison of Arasaka tech. And now that V’s caught in the net of Night City just like he was, and he wonders how much he’ll continue to pull against its influence when all is said and done.
However it plays out.]
So no blaze of glory, right?
[He shrugs.]
Guess I’m not surprised if your dreams end up looking like this. Peaceful, idyllic... [A smirk.] Little too vanilla for my tastes, though.
no subject
[ The lie everybody tells themselves is they can leave whenever they want. Maybe V's starting to understand that. No corner of Night City is as dark as the Badlands when there's no moon, but it feels darker. Choking the air out of his lungs and leaving him feeling like he can't remember the last time he took a deep breath.
But going out in a blaze of glory isn't exclusive just to Night City. He knows that too. Thing is, it's hard to think outside of and around the plan. Arasaka Tower. Mikoshi. Alt. Not knowing what's going to happen makes all of this hypothetical at best, and terrifying at worst.
Forcing himself not to dwell on it, he doesn't notice that the sky has taken on a different quality now. Clouds are rolling in thick and full, swollen with rain like floating sponges ready to be wrung dry. Instead, he's smirking too at Johnny's assessment. ]
Night City's not the only place that'll swallow you whole. You think this place is vanilla? Out here, nothin' between you 'n the real wild things.
[ There's a brief pause and then V's reclining back into the grass again, eyes fixed on Johnny's surprisingly solid-looking back. ]
Ever heard of the Sun Dance?
BOTHER BOTHER BOTHER!
Holy fuckin' Shit.
Kerry'd said he was here, an' even though she knew he wasn't lying, she still hadn't really believed him. But there he is, standin' against a wall in this skeevy underground club with a cigarette between his fingers like she'd seen so many times before, except this time the smoke interacts when bodies pass by, she sees the way his shadow actually interacts with the wall behind him, the way his stupid fuckin' hair falls around his face as he looks around.
She looks like a gonk. She fuckin' feels like a gonk, wide eyes staring straight at the man who'd been inside her head for weeks driving her fucking mad.
V can feel her heart pound in every corner of her body as she realizes she's moving forward, feet more sure than her brain as she expertly picks her way through the crowd until she can almost touch him- almost-
Motherfucker! This asshole! What the fuck!
Johnny doesn't even have time to open his mouth before her hand has flashed up, delivering a solid, open-palmed slap to his face. She is still surprised when she feels the sting instead of nothingness and dull static.
"That's for being a fuckin' asshole!" She yells over the throbbing music, shock turning into a manic grin as the fact that Johnny's actually fucking in front of her is catching up with her. "And this-"
If her former brain-mate wanted to say anything, too fucking bad, honestly, because she's already grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him down into her for a crushing, bruising kiss.
"This is for everything else," V laughs as she pulls back.
:3
Come to think of it, he doesn't remember how he got here, or how long he's been staring at that line in the distance. The one that seems like it wants to break his understanding of reality every time he thinks about touching it. There's a vacuous space around this particular moment, its lack of details setting the whole scene in a realm he's not sure he can truly fathom.
Distantly, the sensation of pursuit - of being pursued - slips through his thoughts like wisps of smoke. Hard to grasp. Just like his existence here, wherever here is.
"This Texas?" he asks out loud without really contemplating yet who he's asking. Why did he ask that? Why doesn't he know? He blinks, brows pulling towards each other fractionally.