v (neverfadeaway) wrote in wtnvgame, @ 2021-02-11 11:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !action/thread/log, -player: ashe, -player: kira, ₴inactive: johnny silverhand, ₴inactive: v |
Johnny was a piece of her. She'd fucking hated him to start, but he'd become her best friend. A part of her. And not just because of the stupid chip. Because he was the most important person in her life.
Stop, Johnny's voice sounded in her head. Don't go getting all mushy on me.
"Fuck you, Silverhand," she muttered with a chuckle, swiping at her eyes.
Love you too, V, he responded, only partly sarcastic. Come on. Let's do this.
Right. She was going to put Johnny back in his own body. It was the right thing. For both of them. So why did it feel like she was losing him?
Taking a deep breath, she sat down and waited for Johnny - the physical one - to hurry his ass up and show up.
And now there was this random stranger claiming that she knew Rogue, Kerry, invoking Alt's name, and saying shit about… It didn't make any sense. He was dead. Except he wasn't? He felt very much alive, all of the results of the raid notwithstanding, but he wasn't going to argue with this… V. What the hell kind of a name even was that? Frankly, he was only tolerating this because of the implications of what she'd said.
Something from Alt, learning what happened… That was one of the things he'd been dying to find out since he'd failed to protect her, failed to keep her safe. So even if he didn't understand any of this, he'd tracked down the address that she'd given him and gone to see exactly what he was missing in all of this.
Approaching the area, Johnny narrowed his eyes slightly at the woman waiting for him. She really did look painfully like Rogue, so much so that from a distance it was hard to acknowledge that this was a different person entirely.
"So. What the hell is even going on here?" Johnny asked, a vague scowl on his features as he closed the distance between them. "Who the hell even are you?"
The idea of seeing him every day and him not knowing her though - that hurt. Still, she had to suck it up, put on her big girl pants, and deal with whatever came of this.
"Already fucking told you," she said. "I'm V. I'm a friend of Rogue's." She sighed. "In 2077. You've been gone awhile, samurai."
"Are you…" Johnny trailed off, frowning to himself before taking a step back. "Look, kid. I don't know what you're expecting out of me. But if this is some belated father/daughter reunion because Rogue forgot to update her implant, this isn't on me."
And maybe that was cruel. But it was… less than thoughtful. And maybe Rogue would have absolutely decked him for the words that had just come out of his mouth whether they were true or not. But he didn't know what else to think in this situation. Why else would someone from fifty years removed from where he was around want anything to do with him?
"Look," she said. "You got killed by Arasaka...but not entirely. You know about Soulkiller, right? Alt's program? They used that on you. They'd used it on her too. But she got disconnected before she could get back to her body. So she's in the mainframe. She's fine. She likes it there. Not that much could be done if she didn't, but that's not the point."
She sighed. "Point is," she said, "you were in a chip. And I have that chip. If you want it. Memories you wouldn't have right now. Because they...came after." This was the hard part. "If you want them, they're yours. If not...well...do what you want with them."
Alt had been the one who'd understood all of this stuff, who'd gotten the way that it worked, the way that it was going to work, and could actually visualize a future where they wouldn't be beholden to fleshy meat sacks. So it really didn't surprise him that she liked it better as a computer, liked it better where manipulating the data didn't require a rig or gear or any sort of less than precise human movements. But that didn't explain at all how he'd survived it.
He had way too many vices to end up just code.
"What's the catch?"
You sure about this? she asked in the privacy of her own head.
Can't stay in your head forever, kid, Johnny responded. It was always gonna end sooner or later.
Fine. She could do this.
"No catch," she said, reaching up and removing the chip. She felt unsteady for a moment as the comforting weight of Johnny in the back of her head faded and she was left with just her own thoughts. "They're your memories. You get to decide what happens with them." She held out the chip. "You just have to decide pretty fast. The relic doesn't do well outside of a contained environment."
It honestly didn't look like much. No different than any other biochip that he might have gotten his hands on. Perhaps a little more advanced and a little more fragile, but altogether, it could have been just another braindance sim that he'd bought at a shady back alley stall.
"Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound," Johnny said, reaching back to lift his hair, slotting the chip without much hesitation. If it was going to kill him, it was going to kill him. And if it did anything else, well, at least it would be a story to tell.
Of course, what he'd been expecting was not the surge that overtook him, the flash and rush that weakened his knees and overtook his entire cortex until the only sensation that he could register was the world going black around him.
Just his fucking luck.
Still, it was different than just putting an engram in someone's head. This was integrating memories into a person. It was bound to be rougher. She'd known that. Johnny had known that. This Johnny had probably suspected. Still, she couldn't help but feel a surge of panic as his legs went out from under him and he collapsed to the ground.
"¡Joder!" she swore, rushing over to him, already scanning as she went. His vitals were all over the place, but he seemed to be stabilizing. Still, she worried because anything could go wrong. Fuck, she hoped she hadn't just killed them both. "Come on you motherfucker," she said, slapping him across the face. "Wake the fuck up, Samurai."
Come on, cabrón. Get your ass up. You're scaring the kid.
And why should he care about that? Oh. Wait. There it was. Perhaps only a moment later than that thought passed his mind, the information the offered to fill in the blanks, to tell him exactly why he should and did give a damn whether or not the fact that he was laying flat on the ground freaked her out beyond measure. It was a rush, a muddle of information and memories, of a perspective that felt off and yet right at the same time invading his mind.
And while he was going to have to sift through the bulk of it later to parse the individual events and details, the most important one bubbled to the surface as his prosthetic shot up to catch the hand that had collided with his face.
"Jesus, V. Can't a man take a nap to get reintegrated into his own body in peace?"
V had all but convinced herself she had killed him. Even though her implants told her he was alive, she couldn't believe it. She had a complicated relationship with the chip - almost moreso than she did with Johnny. Jackie had died because of it. She's nearly died because of it. And watching Johnny collapse like that had served as a stark reminder of that pain and fear. She couldn't lose him. No matter what he'd said, she couldn't lose him.
And then he was awake and giving her shit and she gave a wet laugh, shaking her head. "Estás pero si bien pendejo." She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly before she was consciously aware of the action. It was the first time they'd really touched, aside from her slapping him.
"Fuck, Johnny," she said, still holding on tightly. "It's really you."
"Who else would it be?" Johnny asked, a hint of amusement in his voice even as he hugged V back. He knew, of course. He knew that it could have very easily just been his angry asshole self, the one who didn't have any clue what was going on, who hadn't come to terms with anything that had happened to him, and who hadn't gotten any sort of closure at all and was still carrying all of that around. It could have easily been someone very different from the man that he was now.
But frankly, he was more than a little relieved that this had worked. Especially when a few months ago, this had never been a possibility.
"Shit, my head feels weirdly empty now."
"Yeah," she said. "Think how mine feels."
She missed it. Even with him right in front of her, she missed the feeling of connection. Of having someone who would never leave her. Not that she'd trade this. A real, living Johnny. One who could have a life. One who wasn't trapped. She loved him. Of course she loved him. And she wanted him to be free.
"Come on," she said, getting to her feet and grabbing hold of his forearm to pull him up off the ground. "Let's go get a drink. Then maybe you can get a shitty tattoo of your own."
"Probably deserve that, don't I?" He asked, a cheeky grin on his features. He'd definitely subjected her to that less than willingly, even if he'd only been half-conscious of it himself at the time in that way that you were when you were smashed where everything seems like a great idea and you only ever remember doing it the next day once the liquor's worn off. "Think I've got some room on the bicep that I can fill in. Fair's only fair."