Chapter Text
Johnny’s never been one for catching the sun rise, but he finds himself watching the sky turn red behind the trees, dogged by a sense of spiraling unease which is starting to feel a little too familiar. The sunrise is beautiful, red and orange spilling into the blue, but it’s empty. Empty until he feels a familiar shoulder knock into his own.
“When I saw you out here, I thought it couldn’t be you,” V tells him. There’s a bit of flush to her cheeks, and she’s barefoot in the grass, wearing clothes that look like she’s tossed them on in a hurry. She’s smiling at him a little too candidly, but he’s distracted by the lines around her eyes and the unmistakeable glint of gray hairs at her temple– glowing a little brighter in the light than the brown surrounding them. “What are you doing here?”
“Did you think I was a ghost?” Johnny grumbles.
V’s smile twists, then disappears. “I think you’re not a sleepwalker and you’re definitely not an early riser. What are you doing?”
“Can’t a man get some fresh air without the third degree?” he grumbles. “That house is fucking creepy.”
“How about breakfast?” V asks, slinging her arm over his shoulder. There’s a little glint in the corner of her eye, like she’s working on something. “There’ll be beer.”
“Pulling out all the stops, huh?” He leans into her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She’s been eating well, but the realization comes with that same oily unease, lapping at him like the waves of the shoreline behind him.
“What do you want, a red carpet?” she asks, raising one eyebrow. The expression is so quintessentially Takemura that he almost laughs, and her face lights up from ear to ear.
—
It’s been two years since he’s seen V. Two years since she gave him a fat lip and flew off to Japan with her piece of shit guard dog, putting an ocean between them that he couldn’t cross without fighting Arasaka. Now she wants to pretends it never happened.
Takemura is quiet during breakfast, watching Johnny with a faintly pissy expression as V chatters about her terrarium and quashes all of Johnny’s attempts to pick a fight. After a while he withdraws back into the homey kitchen. The two of them drink imported beer and eat food out of a dozen little bowls and for a little while V seems happy.
He’s spent the last eighteen hours on the road, so by the time they’ve polished off their share Johnny wants to take a good shit, and lay down, but V cajoles him to some porch that looks out over the grounds and the ocean, far enough away from the nearest house that it’s just a blotch of white further down the coast. She’s adapting surprisingly well to the life of a privileged lap dog– exactly the kind of existence he'd always thought would drive her out of her mind in boredom.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks while he lights up, one hip propped against the railing.
The only response he gets is silence, and he looks up to see V’s bleak expression, her lips twisted in that way that means she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek. Even after two decades outside her skin his own nerves twang in sympathy at the sight.
He pushes away from the railing and places the cigarette in her mouth before lighting up another. They smoke in silence. V is unnaturally still, jaw tight even when she takes a drag, sucking in smoke between clenched teeth.
“Sorry,” she says finally, voice hoarse. “Think that got away from me.”
“Well don’t get so goddamn emotional,” he deadpans, and her face cracks into a smile, her laugh turning into a coughing fit that takes her a while to get under control.
“Fuck you,” she says, when she's caught her breath. She grabs his shoulder, balling the fabric of his shirt in her hand and yanking him closer. He moves instinctively in sync with her, heads bowed, foreheads pressed together, like kids exchanging secrets. The place they’re trying to go isn’t imaginary, but it’s still impossible. “When did we get old?”
“Hey, at least you’ve still got all your hair,” Johnny says, flicking ash onto the wooden boards below them. It glows softly, a little smudge of gray on brown, before V grinds it out with the sole of her shoe, smearing it into streaks of black and white. “Your old man is starting to look pretty thin.”
“He’s distinguished,” V says, tone softening predictably at the mention of Takemura. “And beautiful.”
“Should get your Kiroshis updated,” Johnny suggests. “And please, don’t ever mention to me again how flexible he is.”
V laughs as though startled. “You’re the one bringing him up.”
He lets her bully him into laying down on a rickety swing with his head in her lap. It doesn’t really help the miserable ache in his back, but it feels good to fall into old habits, and when she’s done running her fingers through his hair she rests her hand on his chest. It’s her chrome hand– her left hand, Arasaka red with a fractal design etched into her ring finger.
“I didn’t think you’d recognize me,” he says, thinking of the last two years he’s spent restless and miserable. He wants to pretend none of it happened, but he’s never been able to lie to himself as well as V.
“Of course I recognized you,” V snaps sharply. After a moment she cups his jaw, apologizing with the soft stroke of her thumb. “You still move like you.”
“Too bad I can never get the face right,” he jokes, and she smiles faintly and pinches his cheek before he bats her hand away. “So are you going to tell me what’s eating you or not?”
Her expression immediately clouds. “Do we have to?”
“Nah.” He stacks his boots from heel to toe on the arm rest, rummaging for another smoke.
V fidgets with the fabric of his shirt and then smooths it down. “Will you stay?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Her answering smile is shy. They stay on the swing in quiet, until the midday heat begins to grow oppressive. Inside, she shows him a few tanks full of plants and insects, but her explanations of the occupants are haphazard and distracted. She listens to him play for a few lazy hours while she sorts through decks of cards and fiddles on her tablet. It's just killing time, but he can't bring himself to break the spell.
—
Takemura ambushes him during a midnight run to the kitchen, stepping out from the shadows so quickly that Johnny throws a punch purely on instinct. He ends up with his cheek pressed into the counter and an aging ninja twisting his arm behind him just hard enough to tweak his bad shoulder.
“We must speak,” Takemura says, blandly.
Johnny tests out his grip, but his struggle is futile. “Look, if you’re trying to strong arm me into leaving you can fuck off. V’s obviously in some shit and I’m not going to just leave her here without fixing it.”
Takemura pauses, for a full beat longer than he'd expected. “What did she say?”
“Nothing yet,” Johnny says. Takemura lets him go and he spins around to face the other man, smoothing down the front of his shirt. “But if you’re trying to get me out of the way, it can’t be anything good.”
“She did not call you here,” Takemura says, the muscle at his temple jumping rapidly as he works his jaw. “I did.”
The dizzy, uneasy feeling from earlier sweeps through Johnny from head to toe, icy cold. “What?”
“V is…unwell.” Takemura looks as awful as Johnny feels, like his heart is being ripped into two. “It is why we left Japan, to come here. And it is why I contacted you.”
“Unwell how?” Johnny demands. “Why the hell wouldn’t she tell me?”
V tells him everything. More than she’d ever tell another living soul. Everything. Until she'd picked a fight and put an ocean between them.
“Before we moved to Japan, she was very anxious about her ability to speak Japanese,” Takemura says. He can’t meet Johnny’s eye. While he talks he fidgets with the wedding band around his finger. The band is dyed the same red as V’s hand and in the dim kitchen light it looks bloody. “It was not the first clue that I missed, but it was the biggest. At the time, I thought she was merely nervous about the move, but as months passed she still refused to study and then–” He stops abruptly, shaking his head.
“What the hell does that have to do with her being sick?” Johnny asks. His stomach is a roiling pit of acid, dread pinging through his hands and fingers, thinking of V descending into fits of rage. Cyberpsychosis. Insanity.
“She is stubborn,” Takemura says, a small smile flickering on his face before it’s gone. He musters up some internal reserve and looks Johnny in the eye. “But her memory is failing. I think it has been for several years.”
Johnny wants to respond, but it feels like his chest is being crushed. He leans back on his elbows. In his mind's eye can see is the catch in V’s throat when she asks When did we get old?
“I meant to speak to you this morning,” Takemura says, interrupting a rapidly thickening silence. “But she does not sleep well and saw you through the window. I did not wish to cause further distress by stopping her.”
“The last time we spoke–“ Johnny has to pause, to swallow the knife in his throat. “Fuck. She was driving me off.” She never could keep a secret from him.
Takemura nods, pressing his first two fingers into his forehead as though he has a headache. “On some level, I think she knows what is happening, but please…do not speak of it to her.”
“So what, you’re just going to keep lying to her?” Johnny grips the counter tight enough that he feels his hand starting to go numb. There’s a distinct possibility that if he lets go he will slide to the ground. “You find out something’s wrong with her head and you what, grab the first flight out of Tokyo? Did you even take her to a fucking doctor–“
“Of course I did!” Takemura interrupts, moving half a step forward before stopping himself. He might be getting up in his years, but all that cyberware has kept him spry. Johnny wants to try to hit him anyway, and the feeling seems to be mutual. “Do you think I am a fool? There is nothing Arasaka could do. There is nothing anyone can do. Do not argue with me– I accompanied her to each place, and all say the same thing: the damage done by the relic cannot be reversed." He pauses to let out a deep breath. "It will only grow worse.”
“How long?”
Takemura shakes his head. “I do not know. It is too early to tell, and it is difficult enough to convince her to go to regular visits. She does better when she is in good spirits. That is why I contacted you.”
“Fuck that,” Johnny snaps, “Get her to some better fucking doctors. Fuck, I’ll call Kerry if I have to–“
“I spoke with him already,” Takemura interrupts again, gritting his teeth. “How do you think we came to be in this place?”
It would be just like Kerry to write a check and refuse to stick around. Either that or he’d heard about Johnny and–
Takemura straightened suddenly, wringing his hands once before he put them behind his back. He shot Johnny a brief look of warning and then let the expression clear just as V walked into the kitchen. She paused, evaluating them both with exaggerated curiosity before sliding into place next to Takemura, who immediately put a possessive arm around her waist.
“Why do you both look guilty?” she asks, bending to press a kiss into her husband’s receding hairline. She pumps her eyebrows in Johnny’s direction, and the absurdity of it wrenches out a guttural laugh, despite his best efforts.
“I do not know what you mean,” Takemura says, guilelessly. He looks up at her with a surprisingly soft smile, which she returns before turning away in embarrassment.
“Should chain up your dog,” Johnny says, moving to the fridge. He stares sightlessly at the contents for a beat too long before he recognizes the shape of a beer bottle and plucks it out. “Keeps wandering around under foot asking to get kicked.”
“My dear,” V murmurs to Takemura, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leaning into him. “You are an incorrigible bully. Are you trying to scare him off?
“I think that’s why he wants to move to Japan,” V adds, addressing Johnny with an indulgent laugh. He feels the sick twisting thump of his heart and the rapid sweat of his palms. “One of the reasons,” she relents, affectionately. “But my Japanese is terrible, and I hate moving.”
“It is not terrible,” Takemura says, squeezing her hip. “Perhaps we may visit, and enjoy the good food.”
V hums, as though considering the offer. “And leave Johnny to get lonely here all by himself?”
Johnny opens the beer against the countertop with one swift smooth motion. It keeps his hands from shaking, and when he’s done he grips the bottle and resists the urge to down it as quickly as possible. “If he’s trying to get rid of me he’s going to have to try harder.”
Takemura grunts, but relief flashes over his face, there and then gone. “Do not tempt me.”
“Figure of speech,” Johnny says, with a shrug. He takes a swig on the beer. “You’re stuck with me.”
V smiles, and for a moment he wants to believe this is all some sick joke and she’s in on it. But it's not. And she isn't. “Aren’t I always?”