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"You cannot keep doing that."
V glared in the mirror as if she could see through the sheer black of her eyes and find Johnny there. Her gaze caught the slight graze on her forehead from being literally thrown out of another bar, huffing out a sigh and returning to cleaning her bloodied knuckles.
"What?" Johnny materialised in her periphery, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. "Shoulda seen the way he was lookin' at us, V. Asshole was this close to tryin' something."
"Real fuckin' chivalrous," she scoffed, shooting him a scathing glare — one she hoped he could feel, even if his own gaze was firmly on the ground, sulking like the fucking manchild he was. "Don't need a white knight, Johnny. Can handle myself."
"Sure," Johnny said, the edge of something defensive touching his voice, "'cept you woulda waited until he actually made a move instead of gettin' ahead."
"That what you call assaulting people using my fucking body? Getting ahead?" V stopped to actually look at him, frustration tight in her chest. "Or maybe you just wanna flex your ego a little, huh? Show off what a big tough line of fuckin' code you are?"
"Fuck," Johnny threw up his arms in defeat, glitching to appear a little further away, pacing in the way that told her she absolutely had him clocked, "'Scuse me for lookin' out for us I guess. Fuck you too."
He dematerialised before she could snap back, sinking back into the RELIC and leaving her to seethe in silence. Asshole. V finished cleaning and wrapping her knuckles, flexing both hands with a grimace at how stiff and sore they were. At the very least he could beat people up with something that wasn't her bare hands. She was a boxer, sure, but would be nice to have use of her hands some of the time.
The memories of the evening came back in blurry fragments. Johnny didn't have her body for long — only an hour or so, seemed like. She'd been dancing, drinking, maybe a hit or two of Lace, then next she knew she was stumbling home with her knuckles shredded and her head pounding.
It had been happening more and more, of late. Tiny flashes of lost memory punctuated by bruised knuckles and the lingering taste of blind rage on her tongue. If she didn't know any better she'd register as cyberpsycho and let MaxTac take her the fuck out. Fortunately Johnny was always quick to own up to it; sometimes a little too quick, like he was preening about it.
V huffed out a frustrated breath as she took the distance to her stash in quick, sharp strides, rummaging through junk until she found an old MaxDoc. Who the fuck did he think he was? She knew Johnny had some fucked-up sense of justice driving him to do gonk shit 24/7 but this was a whole 'nother level of bullshit.
At first she'd thought maybe he was just reacting as if he were in his own body; getting pissed that someone might decide to touch him up, but the idea didn't sit right. Johnny was a reactive, violent asshole but not like that. Not without actual, tangible cause, and definitely not because 'he looked at me funny'.
So why? V took a sharp puff of MaxDoc as she thought, her eyelids fluttering with a deep sigh as the painkilling effect rolled through her body and took the edge off of some of the aches and pains that seemed to always sit in her bones regardless of the cause.
Maybe he was just too attached. Wouldn't be the first time she'd let a guy hit once or twice and ended up having to explain why that didn't make her a full-time output for him to puff his chest over. Either way she'd love if he wouldn't burst a fuckin' blood vessel every time someone showed interest. Johnny was damn lucky she was just a merc, these days. If he'd been around for her joytoy days— oh.
V froze midway through cracking open a beer, the sound of its cap clattering to the floor a deafening punctuation to the realisation that made her blood run cold. It couldn't be that, right? She thought back to how long ago this had started, tried to find an earlier example, but-.. nothing.
"Shit, Johnny…" she breathed aloud, guilt softening her anger at the edges.
"The fuck was that?"
Johnny paced, furious tension tangible in the glitch of his form. V curled in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest for a moment; steeled herself before shooting out of bed to throw her clothes on and fix her hair in a vain attempt to distract herself.
“Doesn’t matter what the fuck it was, Johnny,” she said sharply, eyeing him with a glare that was as pleading as it was warning. Shaking her head, she swallowed back the nausea; blinked away the lingering memory still ghosting in her brain, "Just a bad dream."
"Bullshit. Felt 'em all over you, V. The blood—" Johnny cut himself off, glitching to appear on the sofa, sucking down a ghostly cigarette like it might begin to help. V sighed, reaching to light one of her own and watching him visibly relax a little as she took a puff.
"You done?" V snapped, "Don't interrogate you about your memories."
"Nah, just save 'em to use like a fuckin cattle prod when you wanna piss me off."
Touché.
"Doesn't matter," she insisted, her fingers tapping restlessly against her arm as she gave up on her hair and leaned back against the counter, avoiding his gaze. "Was a long time ago."
"No shit," he huffed.
Then, in a voice that was almost soft for him, he added. "How old?"
V bit her lip, reluctant. She didn't want to talk about this. She never wanted to revisit that version of herself. Still, a wave of guilt joined the nausea as she realised just how much he must've seen. The memories she had that were Johnny’s… she knew they weren’t her own but it felt like they were. Like she was seeing into another life she’d lived; something between a memory and a dream. If Johnny had felt even a fraction of that, she almost wanted to apologise.
"…Nineteen."
"Fuck, V…" Johnny ran a hand over his face, his sunglasses flickering away. Were his eyes watering, or did he always look so wet under those things? Either way it felt wrong to see. Like she was intruding. "Should find them. Break their fuckin' dicks off."
"Don't need to," she assured blankly, a wry smirk touching her lips. "Vik-.. he called the Mox, same night. Few girls from the gang came by, saw the damage… hunted them down. Apparently Vik beat ten shades of hell out of them all before the Mox even got a chance.”
"Good."
V slumped to sit down, chugging her beer in one and staring at the ceiling for a while, the silence in the room suddenly making the air feel thick.
"…Got no idea how to handle it, do you?" she said after a while, the bite gone from her words. It took a second, but sure enough she felt Johnny shift forward in her mind; static beside her as he appeared in his spot at the other end of the couch. His sunglasses were on, his head tilted slightly away from her, but she could see the hard set of his jaw — felt his reluctance.
"Dunno how you can keep risking it, after-.." he shook his head, leaning back with a huff in a mirror of her own slumped-back position. "Makes my fuckin' skin crawl."
"Know what to look for," she told him, "I'm not a little 'ganic kid anymore, Johnny. I can handle it. Truly."
"When you're doped up and dancin'? Barely fuckin' seeing straight, let alone thinking."
V couldn't argue with that, massaging a cramp out of her hand with a shameful jolt. It wasn't like she wanted to get into situations again. Just needed the fun. Take her mind off everything. Didn't she deserve it?
"You deserve—" Johnny cut himself off quickly, a muscle in his jaw working as he fought off whatever nice thing he was about to say. "Whatever. Not gonna apologise for lookin' out for your gonk ass."
"Don't want you to, Johnny," she sighed. "Guess I'm not used to havin' anyone look out for me without owin' something first. Jackie had my back, but…"
It wasn't the same. She couldn't bring herself to say that part out loud.
"Just-.. let me handle it, next time. Please. Promise you can go as batshit as you want if anythin' actually happens."
"…Only if I get to say I told ya so."
"Sure," she laughed, scratching absently at her chest to try and ease the sudden ache there. "Dick."
"Cunt."