Archive of Our Own ^beta

Little China's finest ripperdoc still works out of a basement on Urmland Street. The place looks different nowadays: equipment fresh and rustless, autoclave-clean; Zetatech logo screeching from the back wall. But it's the same doctor pacing between those walls, with the same dark shades hiding weary eyes. Same low-down grumble in his old throat, too.

"Now, where in God's name did I put that gauze…"

Things done changed, but Vik Vektor's still here. The ripper mutters a litany of half-remembered protocols beneath his breath. It's such a slow afternoon. Brain's lagging. Humidity's got the whole town on the ropes; even the Militech mechs outside are sweating and out-of-sorts.

Grimacing, he adjusts the collar on his corp-issued shirt. Makes him look like a fuckin' priest. He wipes his brow with an inked forearm, eyes flicking to the fifth of O'Dickins tucked in the corner of his desk, then back to the Zetatech sign glaring down at him: a daily, unwinnable battle.

His reach for the bottle takes a sharp turn; he nudges the volume up on the radio, instead. Vik hums along to some vintage punk rock, all major chords and hollering. See how long it takes before those shit-heeled suits upstairs make him turn it back down.

A couple warbled verses later, a cool breeze appears in the shape of a person. A supple voice says, "Doctor Vektor?"

Vik glances up at the door, skims the customer from head to toe. The rigid mannerisms say Arasaka; the funky haircut says not anymore. Soft, sullen mouth beneath a charred-cedar gaze that's searching, demanding, restless. This'll be a tough one, he thinks.

The doctor grunts. "Got an appointment?"

"No. But you don't look busy." Dark eyes flick over the empty clinic. "Can you take a walk-in?"

Vik's stern look softens. "Yeah, sure, can take a walk-in. Get in here, kid, good to see you."

"Preem. Thanks, doc." 

He smiles as Veda Cheung swishes through the bright theater of his office. Their gait is a protocol he memorized years ago. "What's broken this time?" 

"At the moment, nothing. Just need a routine physical with documentation. Shouldn't take too much of your time."

"Quiet. I'm free for the afternoon. Up on the chair, you know the drill."

"Sure do."

V swings up into the chair. The cold claws of Vik's gauntlet graze the bottom of their chin, beckoning those eyes upward. He doesn't need to tell them to hold still as he shines a light in one pupil, then the other. How many times have they done this; how many iterations of the ritual? A hundred, maybe; maybe more. 

Next, some more advanced equipment: a wreath of metal descends onto V's skull. There's a low locust hum as it scans, peering into the battlefield that is their brain. As the scan completes, Vik's mouth works like he's chewing on a tough, gristly question. He tries swallowing it a few times before it burbles out, muttered: "Who needs the documentation?"

"FIA does. Shipping out to the new job next week."

"Shit, you took the offer, then." Vik pauses, penlight clamped between his teeth. "Shit."

"Indeed. Care to deliver your sermon? About" — they glance around the re-branded clinic; at the logo on the wall and fresh coat of corporate paint — "about selling out?"

With pursed lips and hidden eyes, Vik shakes his head no, and V's stare lingers in search of something not on offer.

"Brain looks fine," Vik says. "I mean, no worse than your last visit. You feeling any different?"

"Same piece of shit as always."

"Great. Ribs are still fractured," Vik continues, glancing at a scan image, "but we knew that. Healing's alright... hm." He jots a note, and V cranes their head to look.

"Doc."

"What's up."

"I need a clean bill of health." Their brows rise minutely, but Vik doesn't notice.

"Yeah, I mean, everything looks good aside from—"

"Completely clean." V grasps at his writing arm until he looks up.

Vik blinks. "You want me to lie?"

They shrug. They neither shake nor nod their head. Warily, Vik wrests his arm from their grip.

"Look..." Forearms resting on his thighs, he steeples his fingers between his knees in thought. "I want you to be cleared for the job. And I think you will be. But I gotta be on the up-and-up with these, V. Could be my license on the line."

"Right. Yeah. Of course."

"I gotta disclose the nerve damage."

"Understood."

"What's this?" His fingers brush the side of their neck, tracing a violet bloom of bruising.

"Got jumped again."

Vik presses his lips together, wonders how the FIA's gonna handle this gutter-cat they're bringing home.

The physical continues. A low drone of equipment; murmured instructions. Breathe in. Hold.. Vik jots figures, checks reflexes, takes stock of the nerve damage where the chrome's been carved out. Exhale.

When the cool metal of his stethoscope settles over their sternum it strikes doctor and patient both, separately, in silence, that this is the last time he'll listen to V's heart. With that drumbeat still in his ears, Vik scrawls a few final notes.

"Everything's in working order," he says, and of course it is; this kid could bounce back from anything.

V rolls their sleeve back down, fingers flexing absently. "That all?"

"That's all." Vik rips the biometric readout from the old printer, signs it with a quick flick of the wrist. "Think you just might be fit for desk duty, Agent Cheung."

"Ha. We'll see, I guess." V tucks the paper into their jacket, stretches, and lingers on the examination chair for an extra beat.

"Well," says Vik, "glad you came by." Avoiding their eyes, he studies the still-chirping biomons with an abundance of interest. "Didn't really like how our last visit ended."

"I didn't, either." The heel of V's boot bounces off the side of the chair. "You could make it up to me, though."

"What's that?"

Their face glows with a winning grin. "How about you let me borrow your car?"

Vik blinks. "You're joking."

V shrugs. "Sold mine. Need to haul some stuff to storage."

Vik rolls his eyes, but he's already grabbing his keys, yanking the Zeta apron off, and shouldering into a beat-to-hell bomber jacket. 

"Business is dead today, anyway. C'mon before I change my mind."

The only thing remotely surprising about the doctor's car is the air freshener dangling from its rearview. "Tropical Tango." Everything else about the old Thorton wagon's just as one would expect: staid, dependable, fair bit grungy inside. V sinks against the door and mumbles an address.

On the radio, cumbia. The slim bridge back to Westbrook shudders beneath the four o'clock rush. Though the car's got its own vision, Vik's eyes never leave the road. This means V can freely observe his forearms and fingers and brick-and-mortar shoulders, so they do.

In the pale, sticky daylight the doctor looks older, tireder, handsomer. Surgery-steady hands grip the wheel at ten and two. V's never seen that left hand of his without a mangle of metal covering it. Unadorned, it's the mitt of a fighter, not a healer: scuffed and corded, ridged knuckles poised for a scrap.

"So…" Vik nudges the volume down and clears his throat. "You're shipping outta here, what, tomorrow? Next day?"

"About fifty-two hours, if I can stay alive that long."

"I like your odds for that just fine. Shit, city won't be the same without you, though." Wasn't the same, he thinks, while you were gone.

V's eyes narrow at the skyline. "It's never the same."

Beneath them, bridge turns to pockmarked road. On the speakers, cumbia turns to God, becomes gospel, and nudges a confession, after a minute, from Vik.

"I'm leaving, too," he says. Hadn't planned on mentioning it, but there it is. "Zetatech's moving me up to Frisco next month."

V nods and watches the city scroll by, fresh and shiny as a picked scab.

"They hate that, you know."

"Who hates what?"

"People up in SF. They hate 'Frisco.'"

"Yeah? Well, they'll hate what Zeta makes me charge for basic medical care even more." Vik leans into the wheel. "This your cross-street?"

In the doorway of a dim flat, Vik crosses his arms, sizing up the space. A few personal effects remain: frail ashes piled in an incense holder, some rag-tag bonsai, a novelty ashtray from Milfguard. Barely an echo of a home. If he squints at what's still here, like Misty used to do with tea leaves, he might understand something of V. But Misty never taught him how, and all he sees are ashes.

"You need a hand?" he offers.

"Sure. Might as well put that old-man strength to use while you're here."

V waves him over to a storage bin filled with paperbacks. They peer together at the cracked and flaking spines. Some of them Vik's heard of — Neuromancer, The Three-Body Problem, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Middlemarch — many more, he hasn't. Some are dog-eared and some pristine.

"Think it's worth the trouble," Vik muses, "storing these old books?"

"Maybe not." V shrugs. "But it'd be nice to have something waiting for me back here."

In the little alcove of the Japantown flat, doctor and patient succumb to the second of several drawn-out moments they must endure before parting ways permanently. Something in each of them twists: a wrenching awareness.

Stripped of their chrome, V appears less human: creaturely and not quite of the world. It doesn't strike Vik as a paradox. He lacks the language to describe what V is, now — after Silverhand, after the surgery — but it doesn't matter. Never was much of a words guy.

All those years of routine physicals and late-night emergencies kept them hidden away in that Urmland basement, confined to charts and figures and huffers and pills. Now, sunlight, warm and woolen, spools through the broad windows, revealing, and it's like there's no city anymore. Walls could be a half-mile thick. Vik knows without forming words for it that there's a sadness worn close to their skin like soft perfume, and that whimsy and trouble are alive in their marrow, and that they're leaving soon; that this means one less continuity in his life, one more rattling emptiness.

Civilization recedes; a nameless truth hangs in their lungs. V shifts, almost imperceptibly, closer to Vik, like ivy seeking the sun, with the threat of a kiss on their lips. Behind the dark lenses, Vik flinches.

"I, uh," he begins, and V's expression communicates there is no need to finish the thought.

Embers fade from their eyes. Outside, a siren whines. Bullets ricochet. The city clears its throat, reminding these gonks it still exists.

Vik runs a hand through his hair. "Let's get this stuff packed, yeah?"

The storage unit's all the way out on the edge of Arroyo. Maybe V should've thought about how long that drive would feel.

The radio fills the space again as they trundle out to the city's fringe. Vik doesn't lower the volume this time. Doesn't push for conversation, and V doesn't offer any. The quiet lays on them like a polyester blanket, and it's still real hot outside.

As Vik, wincing, hoists that box of paperbacks from the trunk, he pretends his back isn't shrieking about it. In the back of his mind, he chides himself: this is the kinda schoolboy crush that's harmless until it ain't. Keeps you young 'til one day it ages you all at once. To hell with this, he thinks. And it's against Zeta's protocols, besides — "don't fuck patients, like, ever" is an easy one to remember, and it might even be correct.

By the time they've unloaded the half-dozen boxes the sun is sinking low, staining the horizon with vivid but unimportant colors.

V dusts off their hands. "Owe you one, doc. As usual."

"Nah, think you're paid in full." Vik stretches his shoulder, rolls his neck, feels a hundred years old and doesn't feel like having dinner alone. "You could buy me a meal, though."

They end up at a bar lodged in the gullet of Arroyo. The sun is replaced by erratic beerlight. It's a grimy little spot with cracked vinyl booths and strong drinks and some half-decent sandwiches. Vik and Veda order Reubens and brown liquor. They don't talk about the apartment, the FIA, or Zetatech. They stick, at first, to safer subjects — weather and provincial gossip.

"So," V muses, "this place survived the corpo buyout spree. Wonder how much they're paying in protection eddies."

"Gotta be enough to buy a few new chairs." Vik squints across the table. "Got its charms, though. You still run this town, huh, Veda?"

"Please." V's voice cuts with a sharp edge that's not entirely playful. "City doesn't know me anymore."

The doctor wipes kraut from his chin and lifts another whiskey. Behind the bar, music dissolves from city pop to homesick blues. The bartender pours another drink, and another, for the only two patrons who want better than the cheap stuff.

Vik leans back. He looks exhausted, but the liquor gives him color, brings light to his face. Makes him bold enough to talk about something real.

"This, uh, new job," he says, not meeting V's eyes. "You sure?"

V shrugs. "Can't do merc work like this." They gesture at themselves. "It's a paycheck. It's safe. I could live to a ripe old forty."

"You'll go further'n that," Vik says, but then he takes a misstep. "Damn," he says, shaking his head from side to side, "wish I was cut out for that life the way you are."

A pause. V sets their glass down with care. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Vik exhales. "Nothing. Forget it."

"No, actually, why don't you go ahead and say it."

"Just mean I'm not built for corps. For politics. Can't do what you do."

"What do I do, Vik?"

"Survive. Adapt. Play the game best you can with the rules they put in front of you."

"And you don't do all that?" V's head tilts.  "You are the only ripper left alive in Watson. Didn't happen on accident, did it, champ?"

With regret sweating out of him, Vik runs a hand over his face. "Didn't mean it like that," he says, and shuts up. He wouldn't mind getting something right today.

V contemplates him until all the thorns fall out of their voice. "God, I do wish I could be like you."

It catches Vik on the back foot; all he can do is raise his brows and shift the shades from his face, letting ale ads flicker in his tired eyes. He leans forward, attentive, with a question on pause.

"I mean it," says V. "Wish you could teach me how to give a damn about people. How to be someone who cares. Just — like, stitch it into me, shoot me up with it. Shit..." Their gaze lowers. "Wish I could look people in the eye without wondering what I could get out of 'em.

The veneer of their voice crackles. Hits Vik like the flu. He sighs. 

"Look at me," he says, and waits. "What do you think you could get out of me?"

"Think I already got it."

V shrugs, fixes their eyes on something behind the bartender's head, and Vik observes them as though from the other side of museum glass. Even half in shambles, they're majestic. Beneath the heartache, between the scars where steel used to be, they still shine. The last of a whiskey-pour drizzles through them.

The two of them ache in silence for a minute. From the depths of a pocket, Vik's phone bleats and buzzes.

"Shit."

"What now?"

"Fuckin'... ugh, some Zetatech VIP requesting a house-call." He glances at V with side-street calculations churning behind his glasses. "They're in the Plaza. Could ask 'em to wait a few so I can swing through Westbrook, drop y—"

V says "I'm coming with" like it's a long-decided matter, and Vik lacks the wherewithal to say no. They settle up and settle back into the Thorton, drifting back into the tar-black night. No music.

Vik, tipsy, lets the car drive itself. The city hardens around them, its streets growing wider, quieter, and cleaner as they approach City Center. Varicolored neon gives way to stark white light; grit gets polished up. It's a comfortable, familiar segue for a couple of sellouts.

V knows this hotel, maybe. Every city in the world's got its own version of Corpo Plaza, and all the hotel lobbies in all the Corpo Plazas in the world look more or less the same.

"You're my assistant," Vik mutters, as the elevator spirits them to the fifty-first floor with a ding-ding-whoosh.

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Cut that out." He's smiling, though. Always wanted an assistant.

Ding-ding.

A yawning foyer of fresh-cut flowers and mirrors greets them. Music booms throughout the space: an explosion of cymbals and woodwinds over a relentless drumbeat. From further into the suite, someone's belting out the wordless melody: "Dahhh, nah-nuh-nah-nuh...."

The pair exchange a glance and pick their way forward, Vik's eyes narrowed, V's fingers poised for a quick draw from their holster. In the sitting room, they discover the singer. A man in his thirties or early forties swans about in a hotel bathrobe, its untied belt flapping behind him like the tail of a wounded animal.

"Na-na-nuh-nah-nuh...."

Vik blinks. V blinks. The man doesn't take any notice of his new guests.

Behind him, twenty-foot windows frame a panoramic view of the city, like fifteen giant postcards taped together: an effervescent chaos of lights and billboards and AVs swimming between skyscrapers. The suite lights are dimmed, candles are melting on side-tables and parquet floor, and a very expensive sound system blasts the London Symphony Orchestra's 1998 recording of Maurice Ravel's Bolero.

"Bah na nah nah nah-nah nah...."

With a lifetime of professional decisions thrown into question, Vik clears his throat.

"Oh!" The singer stumbles into a nonchalant wave and smile. "Vektor. Glad you could make it. You take the scenic route, or what?"

He crosses his arms over a pale, waxy chest. Beneath the robe he wears tattered designer jeans and no shirt. His face is sallow, eyes bright and starved beneath a lick of pomaded hair. The guy's a mess in the way only corpos can be a mess: full-tilt, unruly with the knowledge that someone, somewhere will clean up after 'em.

"Took the normal route," Vik snaps.

"Got here as fast we could, Mr., ah..." From Vik's bag, V produces a tablet and stylus and begins tapping away. "Mr. Fontainebleau." They smile, bending just a few degrees at the waist, wearing the demeanor of the humble doctor's assistant.

"Who's this?" The patient crosses his arms, looking V up and down. "You never had an assistant before."

"New policy. I don't ride solo to house-calls anymore." Vik shrugs and points a thumb at V. "Giving this one a spin tonight."

"So what seems to be the problem, Mr. Fontainebleau?" V chirps. Vik's never seen their acting chops in full swing like this. Keeping a straight face takes a depth of willpower, half of which has already been wiped out by the day's earlier events.

"Cut it out with the Mr. Fontainebleau," frowns the patient. "God, you small-town doctors are the worst. My name is Justin."

"Ah. Got it. Some free career advice, Justin?" V smiles brighter. Blinding. "Stick to Mr. Fontainebleau."

Justin Fontainebleau swings a wet, hollow glare from V to Vik. "The hell do you think—"

"Alright. Alright." Vik squares up and steps forward. "Just tell us why we're here tonight, Justin."

"You know why."

An infinitely thin schism rips through Vik's composure. V's too caught up in their act to notice it. "Would you mind confirming," they say, "just for my record-keeping purposes."

"Heh. Sure, honey." He flops like a bag of cement into an armchair and glowers at them. "For your record-keeping purposes: I, Justin Fontainebleau, have requested an urgent administration of Halcynex from Dr. Vektor." He runs an unsteady hand over his scalp, grimacing. "Sooner the better."

"Excuse us a moment," says V, dragging Vik by an arm toward the nearest door. On the other side is a bathroom, more glass and marble, nearly as large as the apartment V's moving out of. The mirrors make the space feel infinite and claustrophobic at once.

"Fucking Halcynex." Vik huffs a volcanic sigh, rips his shades off, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Of course it's Halcynex." He shuffles a flask from his shirt pocket, takes a swig.

V glares at the hallway of mirrored Viks, then at the man himself. "You allowed to drink on the job, now?"

"No. But I'm not on this job anymore. Fuck this guy, I'm not doing it."

"Seriously? Just gonna leave him?"

"Didn't feel like makin' a house call. Wasn't exactly doing cartwheels at the prospect of patching someone up, or setting their firmware right, or diagnosing a ballistic coprocessor on the fritz. But I hoped — goddamn stupid of me, but I hoped this might be something other than a glorified dope deal."

"You've got the stuff on hand, right?" V drops a hand on Vik's shoulder. "Just give it to him. Take the check. He'll start dialing up Tyger Claws if you don't. Or worse."

Vik's jaw hardens. "Halcynex makes you feel like God for about four hours, then leaves you in a ditch. This gonk's heading into withdrawal already." He stares at the flask in his hand. "Can't teach you how to help people, V. Haven't done that shit in years."

V tilts their head, considers him. "Think you should give it to him anyway, Vik."

He scoffs. "You just said you wished you could give a damn about people like I do, and now you're telling me to pump a guy full of designer drugs."

"Maybe I'm saying giving a damn doesn't mean being a martyr," V counters. "Sometimes caring means getting paid so you can help the next person, too."

Vik holds their gaze for a long moment. Some tension falls from his shoulders. "Alright," he says, "one dose. Then we're gone."

They return to the sitting room. Justin's robe is sweat-damp at the collar now, fingers trembling as he taps away at a television remote. He looks up, something like hope in his barbed-wire eyes.

Vik sets his case down. "One dose of Halcynex. That's it. Then we leave."

"Yes, yes, fine." Justin perches on the edge of the sofa, rolling up his sleeve, exposing an arm mapped with implant ports, high-roller chrome, and more track marks than the NCART green line.

V watches as Vik readies the injection in a series of precise, clinical movements. There's gentleness there, too — the way he swabs the ruined skin, finds a vein that won't roll over. For all the grumbling, he's still gonna do this right. Still a healer, in his bones.

"Deep breath," Vik says, and Justin complies. The needle slides in. Planted cross-legged on the plush carpet, V observes the ritual with a strange detachment, like watching an old nature documentary about an exotic species.

As soon as the dose hits his bloodstream, Justin's demeanor shifts. His face smooths out, his shoulders loosen, his breathing deepens. Bliss floods in, washing away the edges. He becomes almost human.

"Ahh, damn. Shit. Thanks, doctor. Thank you."

Vik packs up his case, already turning to go, and V springs to their feet as well. "Yeah," says Vik, "We're done here."

"Wait." Justin leans forward to grasp him by the elbow. "Leave me an extra vial of that. Pay you cash for it."

"No can do, friend." Vik shakes his head, adamant. "Regulations. Can't let you self-administer this one."

"Well, I'll need you to stay here, then," says Justin, with self-sure finality, "until the morning. You can dose me up again right at nine." He settles back into the chair, arms planted on the rests, hunched and haughty like a boy tyrant.

Vik wrestles his elbow away, chortling. "You fucking serious?"

V's brows crash together. "Mr. Fontainebleau, I'm afraid that just won't be—"

"Dr. Vektor, and — whoever you are" — he straightens — "I am asking, in my capacity as a Zetatech Sapphire Club member and preferred patient, that you extend this house-call another few hours in order to provide my urgent medical treatment."

V snorts. "You want us to camp out here in your sitting room, or what?" They take a step forward, arms crossed, more bouncer than assistant, now. "Get real, Justin."

"This place has ample accommodation," he sniffs, gesturing vaguely down a hallway. "Guest rooms are that way."

"No can do, buddy, sorry," Vik says. "Call up corporate and lodge a complaint if you want. We're outta here."

With that, Vik finishes packing up, and V continues staring down the corpo with a steely don't-test-your-luck-choom glare.

Right as Vik's going for his jacket, Justin says, in a far smaller voice than before: "Please."

Vik sighs, and V's mouth opens in anticipation of telling this guy to fuck off.

"Just. Please." Without warning, the man crumbles to his knees. "Please. Please...." He begins crawling across the Turkish rug, reaching for Vik's ankles. The doctor takes a frowning step back and exchanges a glance with V as the billionaire wretch wails at his feet.

"Look, just.. stay the night. There's a second bedroom down the hall. Might be a third one, too. Take all the bedrooms you want, just d-don't leave me in here alone without my meds. Please." The final shreds of dignity having left his body, the patient slumps, whimpering. "I've got a fucking meeting tomorrow. I'm begging you."

"Jesus," V mutters.

Vik puts his literal and metaphorical foot down. "There's just no way—"

"No way we're leaving you here like this, Justin," V says. They drop to a crouch, laying a small, cool hand on the man's sweating back. "We'll stay. Get up. You'll be fine."

"Oh, Jesus, thank you." He stands. Vik shoots a mute what-the-fuck look in V's direction; it is ignored. "My room's right over there," babbles the patient. "The rest of the suite is yours. Anything you need. Charge whatever you need to the room. I — thanks for not leaving me. Thank you. Thank—"

"Listen," V cuts in, briskly, "we'll need a per diem. Cash." They say a number that makes Vik's eyebrows launch to the ceiling. "Paid directly to the doctor, here, before we leave," adds V.

"No problem. Of course. I'll call my bank now." Justin, soothed by the Halcynex and the promise of another dose, stumbles off to his bedroom, already humming Bolero again.

"See you in the morning, Mr. Fontainebleau." With a wave, V swishes down the hallway, barreling toward the guest rooms, and Vik's got no choice but to follow, med case clutched white-knuckle tight in his fist.

The guest room continues the theme of obscene luxury established in the rest of the suite. There's a fireplace done up in cherrywood and brass, thick rugs, a bed the size of a barge and a whole kitchenette with state-of-the-art appliances. Vik stands in the doorway for a moment before entering, as if the room might reject him like a failed implant.

"Fuck you think you're doing?" he finally growls, slamming his case down on a side table. "We're not staying here."

V's already sprawled across the vast bed, arms outstretched, half-smiling eyes tracing the ceiling. "Why-ever not?"

"'Cause I'm not a goddamn babysitter for strung-out execs, that's why not."

"You said earlier you wished you could do what I do." V shoots a pointed look. "Well, now you're doing it. Weighing what's in front of you against what's possible. Making calls. Cashing in."

"This how you operate?" He settles a shoulder against the wall, scowling. "Taking advantage of the desperate?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes not. Justin's no angel, Doc." V's eyes fall to the bedspread. "Said you wished you could be like me. Guess that was a lie."

Vik exhales, lets his shoulders drop. The fight leaks out of him like air from a punctured tire. "So now what, we just... hang out here all night?"

"Now we order room service," V says, reaching for the room's datapad. "Everything on the menu. Maybe twice. Justin's paying, after all."

For the first time all day, Vik laughs. Can't help but laugh at the unfettered gall. "Fuck it," he says, flopping into a chair and prying his shoes off.

They order an absurd amount of food: real steaks, fake lobster, miniature chocolate soufflés, vintage wine. While they wait, V surfs the premium channels and Vik tours the mini-bar. When the service cart arrives, wheeled in by a frostily judging attendant, they arrange the feast on the bed like children at a sleepover. As he absorbs the rakish glee on V's face, Vik can almost believe this house call was worth it.

"When's the last time you stayed somewhere like this?" V asks, sawing into a perfect medium-rare filet.

Vik snorts. "Never."

"Seriously?"

"What, you think street rippers get comped at the Ritz?" He swirls the unethically expensive wine in his glass, sloshes some back like it's Bumelant. "Nah. Nicest place I ever stayed was a motel in Pacifica. Had hot water and didn't catch on fire in the middle of the night."

V whistles. "To the manner born, huh?"

The night shifts and melts around them. The food dwindles some; the wine, moreso. There's an old boxing match on one of the throwback channels, and Vik gets animated explaining the technical screw-ups in the fighter's stance, the missed opportunities, the poetry in the other fighter's feints. V watches him more than the screen, amused by his enthusiasm. They catalogue, quietly, the way his hands move when he's describing a knockout. The spark in his eyes is contagious.

As the final bell rings on the match, Vik settles back against the headboard, content and buzzed. V switches to a late-night talk show, the volume down low, just background noise. The quality of silence between them has changed yet again; has reached its ultimate form.

V murmurs, after a while, "This is odd."

"What, the fact that we're hostages in a corpo's suite?"

"Nah, this." They gesture back and forth. "Us, being people for once."

Vik considers. "Yeah. Weird."

"It's good, though."

"Yeah." His voice has thinned and lightened. "It's good."

Outside, Night City grinds on without them, a meltdown of light and opportunity and desperation they'll both be leaving behind soon.

"Forty-five hours, give or take," V says, without needing more context.

Vik nods, gazing into the crackling fire. "End of an era."

As he turns to catch V's eye, he sees it. The kiss is telegraphed from a mile away, like an incoming left hook. He's got time to feint, to jab back with an excuse: old enough to be your father or I don't do this with patients or I'm kinda seeing someone right now — whatever he needs to say to dodge the inevitable afterburn.

But two days from now, they'll be a continent apart. He will never feel the steady rhythm of their pulse beneath his fingers again, never shine a light in those brown eyes, never patch them up only to watch them trot back out the door into the meatgrinder once again.

So when V's hand slides up to his jaw, he doesn't pull away. When they lean in, eyes asking a question, he answers by meeting them halfway. Their lips meet, tentative at first and then, like the music, with mounting certainty. V tastes like expensive wine and melancholy and tattered hope. Vik's hand finds the back of their neck, fingers threading through their hair, until the thing held between them breaks open. The kiss deepens, turns hungry, years of simmering need boiling up to the surface all at once.

The doctor's glasses slide from his face and clatter to the floor and his mouth crushes V's; the stubble on his chin's fighting the eleventh hour, stiff and prickly, but V welcomes the burn. Let him scrape them away completely. Down the hall, Justin has cued up Bolero once more and that faint, insistent melody spirals out of control; who knows how long it's been playing, but now it's getting to the good part again.

V's hands fly to his shirt, working at the buttons with a rough impatience that makes him chuckle against their mouth. "Easy," Vik murmurs, but his own fingers aren't much steadier as they find the hem of V's top.

They undress each other in overlapping stages, each new revelation of skin met with quiet reverence. Easy to ignore, for now, the countdown ticking in both their heads. Vik positions himself above them, between their parted legs, beneath the frantic heat-seeking of palms that roam his ribs, his hips, the turbulence of old scars, pulling him closer and tighter against their own unaugmented, soft-shelled self. V watches his eyes darken and deepen and flare back to desperate, fevered life with every sensation.

The doctor's spent years training his hands. Training them for power, at first, then for restraint, and always for precision. Now those well-trained hands follow the contours of V's body with a surgeon's focus and a fighter's hunger. They find the old and new damage, find places that make V's breath lose its balance. He charts territories previously inaccessible to him with methodical focus.

He's seen beneath their clothes — beneath the very skin, even — but that hasn't reduced the mystique of V's body. Not a bit. Not a chance.

Vik's fingers travel everywhere they've been already and more, mapping muscle, scar, places where he'd installed things that are gone, now. He palms their waist, then lower, fingers curling possessively against slow-grinding hipbones. "Easy," he hisses again, and they comply with a low whine.

He touches the spot where V caught a hollowpoint on their first gig with Jackie Welles. Traces the incision, tidy and flawless, through which he'd installed a ProxiShield in '76 — and thumbs the rude, clumsy rift through which the FIA ripped it out. Hard to believe how much of his work they've undone, but he can't stop to feel regret.

V's head tilts back, fingers tightening in his hair as he begins dragging his mouth over bare skin, tasting what he's only ever been allowed to touch through gloves before. By the time Vik's fingers slide between their legs, V's already a wreck. Curses float beneath their breath, hips shifting into his touch; Vik revels in the sharp inhales they take when he presses just right.

When he can't wait much longer, he slides fabric down their legs, takes a long pause to kiss each knee. He runs his hands up the inside of their thighs, and V shudders, mouth falling from his lips to his neck. The graze of teeth is just enough to make Vik's pulse jump. Together, they pause, take stock, apprehend the danger in each other.

It took forever to arrive at this point, stretched out at last along the same desperate axis. Took them all day and then some — took them four years, actually, to find themselves pinned against each other, holding onto the night with all four hands, so they hold it, hold it, hold it until they absolutely lose it.

"Fuck," V gasps, back arching as Vik's fingers curl inside them, seeking and finding that perfect spot.

"What's that?" His voice is rough velvet, teasing. "Find those words, Veda."

"Keep that up." Their hand grips his wrist, not to stop him but as an anchor. "Don't stop. Please."

He doesn't. Just watches them through the slow unraveling, memorizing every twitch and gasp. He stashes away the way their lashes flutter when they're close, the flush that creeps down their chest, the way they breathe his name like it's been waiting beneath their tongue for years. And as they shatter, body slick and trembling, Vik fights to sear V's face into the untouchable depths of his memory, in the places where the brain stores all things precious. 

Even as he's still etching out that portrait, V is pulling him back in, dragging him into another gaping kiss. He breaks it just long enough to murmur against swollen lips, his voice scuffed and rocky.

"Now," he says, "you're gonna tell me exactly how I should fuck you."

"Think you know already." Fragile things flicker in their eyes. "Like there's no second chance."

Then in a fluid motion V turns, rotating until Viktor finds himself staring at a fine expanse of shoulder blades, their belly now pressed to the mattress, sinewed back beckoning: a federation of scars and missing pieces and freckles that fought to hang on.

Vik sighs. Could be their father. And he's kind of seeing someone. It's against the rules. Won't be a second chance; he won't walk away unscathed. It's all true. But all it means is that he'd best make it count, so he does.

A groan tears from his throat as he enters them. V's fingers clutch at the sheets, breath coming in sharp little gasps that echo in the quiet room. Vik leans down, presses his forehead between their shoulders, takes the vibration of their moan against his lips as he starts to move.

They latch onto a rhythm together, urgent but not rushed. Vik's hand slides around to V's throat, not squeezing, just resting there — feeling the wild flutter of their pulse, the hard swallows against his palm. His other hand grips a hip, steadying, guiding, fingers dimpling, harder. Assured. 

V reaches back, finds the tense muscles of Vik's thigh, nails digging in just enough to sting. "Harder." He complies, adds intensity to the drive of his hips, reminds them he's still something of an athlete. The headboard knocks against the wall, a steady percussion keeping time with ragged breaths, off-beat from the distant symphony.

They fuck one another all the way to a place that exists beyond identity until they are strangers again, to each other, to themselves. Through the haze of last chances, in every drop of sweat, skating the edge of each breath, a truth emerges — a shared understanding that sums up to we'll never be these people again. This city will never be ours again. Tomorrow is a roar of whitewater and we're fallen leaves dragged through the currents. We will survive, but we'll never twirl in the same breeze. This is it.

Vik feels the inexorable wave cresting, and V's right there with him, shuddering beneath him, around him, voice breaking on his name. When he comes it's with a guttural sound torn from somewhere deep and uncharted, his body curved over V's like armor against all that waits beyond this room.

Afterward, drowning in quiet, they fight for breath. Creeping dawn drags its nails over Corpo Plaza. Forty-something hours. V drapes across his chest, tracing the ink over his old heart. Their lips brush his ear, soft as woodsmoke.

"You all good, Doc?"

Little China's finest ripperdoc hesitates, barely, and tells one last lie. "Never better."