Chapter Text
When Rogue sends V off to go meet some random, potentially hostile contact of hers to figure a way to get to Hellman, she’s not expecting much. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Rogue’s choices, but she knows how people can get when they’re feeling particularly jilted. While V hadn’t had a hand in whatever went down between them, her being attached to her is likely enough to put her on a shit list. Still, she’s low on options, so she opts into hoping a decent attitude might disarm her enough to make her amenable at least.
And yeah, Panam starts their meeting looking like she’s ready to be given literally any reason to tell her to fuck off. A mixture of some kowtowing to what she finds out she needs first and a bit of V’s natural charm is enough to get her to at least shake on a deal – she gets Panam’s things, V gets her corpo asshole. Admittedly, that means she's going to need to assume the nomad can put together a plan, but with no other avenues and time running out, she hopes the things she’s heard about her type are right.
Johnny seems antsy at the idea, but for once isn’t saying much about it. She takes it as a good sign – or maybe they just both know they’re fucked if this doesn’t work out.
In the end, it all turns out – well, pretty good, actually. It feels like it’s been ages since she’s been around anyone but the constant presence in her mind and the occasional calls from fixers. Panam is easy to relax around when she starts to lower her guard, quick-witted and resourceful. When she gets the full story, V even finds herself sympathizing with her itch to get revenge on the asshole who screwed her over, even though cars aren’t exactly her thing. It’s a sympathy that gains Panam further help later on when she reveals getting the truck hadn’t been the only thing she needed from her. Besides, she reasons, If it settles all of this in her head, there’s a good chance she’ll work better and faster. There’s time to spare to do everything.
(Also, if she’s being honest, storming anything with her sounds like it could be exciting.)
The way Panam lights up when she simply asks for more information to be prepared for what’s to come is when she realizes she is going to be a problem. V isn’t blind to her being nice to look at, but there’s a very particular kind of fire in her that’s getting hard to ignore. The moment she recognizes the emotion making itself known, she suddenly finds the expansive desert around them incredibly interesting as she falls silent the rest of the drive over.
Turns out, the base is exactly the kind of distraction she needs. Almost forgot the feeling of having back-up that is actual back-up and not someone who sometimes seems to only exist to run his mouth. In a way, how easily she falls into a partnership with her both surprises her and doesn’t. Jackie and she had been similar in that way – something just clicks and works. They leave Nash and his gang in a heap of broken bodies, only a few left alive enough to be clutching their heads in agony. A job well done, all and all.
It’s late when she accompanies Panam on her drop-off. Acts like her muscle, just in case. It doesn’t seem like she needs it, but when she’s done, she still turns and shoots her a small, grateful look. As they go up the stairs after offering V a round of drinks, V grimaces as she’s hit by the familiar spike of pain that sends her into a small coughing fit that Panam doesn't see only because she's gone ahead. Though she pulls herself together rather quickly, she feels a lingering headache remains just to be annoying. Still, she plays it cool – or as cool as she’s able to, at least. It feels painfully obvious she’s rusty at this, so even when she sees a sudden opening to be forward when Panam suggests they rent rooms, there’s a long beat of hesitation before she decides, well, fuck it.
“Maybe only one room?”
Panam doesn’t react positively or negatively to the question. When she speaks, V understands why. “Mhm. Noah has two twin beds in every room. We’ll save some money.”
Any bit of confidence she has deflates away in an instant. There’s a passing idea to press and explain but she can’t bring herself to completely get rejected. Taking a long swig of her drink, she smiles weakly at her and just agrees. Lets her go on ahead to the room, promising she’d be there after she finishes up. V waits until she’s completely gone to let her head thump onto her arm she has resting on the bar.
Feels like an idiot too, because she’s well aware she had an audience to her crash and burn. A part of her hopes Johnny will leave it but she knows better. Isn’t surprised in the least when she suddenly sees him glitch into existence on the barstool Panam had just been sitting on.
“Can’t say I blame you.”
She sighs loudly and dramatically, even though it makes the bartender cast a glance her way. “What?”
“Panam. I get it. Girl like that’s something different,” he continues, completely ignoring her reaction to him talking about it. “Gotta say, not a bad attempt at getting in her pants. Too bad she shot you down.”
Fucking hell. “Go away, Johnny.”
“What? I’m serious,” he insists, holding his hands up briefly in a cease-fire sort of gesture. He drops them after, his tone taking on an uninterested inflection as he remarks, “Didn’t know that was your thing, but.”
She cannot believe she is entertaining the idea of having this conversation. He’s not being overtly mean, though, and she has to admit, she kind of needs a little bit of time to mope before putting herself together. It’d be a little less depressing if she isn’t alone doing it. “…Don’t care what people are, personally. Point of view she doesn’t share, apparently – or she’s not interested in me.”
“You ask me, she did you a favor,” he shrugs, drumming his fingers idly against the bar. “Way I see it, you either can’t do anything about it or she’s got shitty taste. Don’t need to get strung along now either way.”
She turns her head enough so she can properly stare at him while also not looking like she’s doing anything of the sort, an eyebrow quirking up. “Was that – that sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
“Just trying to get you to stop bombarding me with your feelings by pointing out the obvious,” he grumbles, seemingly not noticing that the compliment is still there, no matter what insult he's trying to wrap around it. “You’re not just driving yourself crazy anymore, you know. Fuck, this is exactly why I avoided this kind of problem.”
It’s a defensive response that is accompanied by a very noticeable flare of an emotion she can’t unpack fast enough before it’s gone. Decides to not even try, because fuck, she’s still not feeling her best and it sounds like she’s going to have a long night. Lifting herself from her arm, she reaches out to grab her beer bottle so she can drain it and stand.
“With how often you drive me crazy with all of your shit, I’d say we’re even. Deal with it,” she shoots back in passing, though there’s no real bite to the words. Nodding toward the barkeep, she starts to head out toward the shared room and isn’t surprised when Johnny doesn’t follow. She’s unsure if he’s using her leaving as a way to sidestep whatever conversation could’ve continued or what, but she’s fine whatever the motive.
(She apparently dreams the little when she falls asleep a little while later. About what, she doesn’t know, but she takes her yelling being loud enough to wake Panam up to be a bad sign.)
Panam is quick, as it turns out. She churns out a multi-step plan faster than V ever expected out of her, presenting it to her with this gleam in her eyes that makes her feel like she’s excited to come along. Thank fucking goodness for that, because she certainly can’t see herself figuring out how to make this a one-woman job. With things in place, they take no time getting on the road to get things started.
V doesn’t realize her chip is going to be a problem until Panam suddenly springs a diagnostic check on her a little while later. Before she can say or do anything, she sees the warning of it happening and knows exactly what’s about to occur. Sure enough, the nomad’s eyebrows knit in confusion and mild worry at her monitor and she just knows it’s picking up errors because of the engram.
...The engram who finds the entire situation amusing. The first time Johnny shows up since she’s been awake and it’s to smirk away as she tries desperately to find a way to explain why she isn’t appropriately concerned about the news that she has something jacked into her that is obviously tainted. In the end, while shooting him a look, she replies, “It’s not a virus. It’s just a little malware. You get used to it eventually.”
She relishes the sour look Johnny shoots her as he replies with a sharp, “Screw you.”
He remains anyway, lounging and observing lazily as V goes through the motions of calibrations. There’s a buzz of energy between all three of them once they start heading toward their target and she sees Johnny glancing between the two of them out of the corner of her eye, his interest piqued.
“Sabotage a corpo power station, jump a corpo transport, kidnap a corpo suit…” he trails off and she can see he’s practically itching to give his opinion.
“This a plug for the word corpo or do you have a point?” she asks, though her gaze remains on the window in front of her. She won’t have Panam seeing her acting weird on top of that check she just noticed was off, doesn't want to have to sidestep questions anymore.
He’s got this edge of smug satisfaction in his voice that makes her realize she’s just prompted him exactly the way he wanted her to. “Know what? You’re starting to remind me of me…fifty years back.”
Something about the observation makes her freeze and she only vaguely hears him making jokes about his cock. Up until then, she hadn’t really studied her emotions going into this, why she felt excited to be part of something like this. It’s more than a means to an end to her and she knows it, it’s a message. Whose message is it? Was it hers? Was this him bleeding through? She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to tell because, by all rights, this may be just a situation of their emotions perfectly aligning.
Arasaka ruined her life. Surely that’s enough reason to feel the way she does, right? She didn’t come up with this plan, it’s one that’s simply the best of the bunch. That it involves this kind of destruction is an added cherry on top anyone would enjoy. It’s a completely sound reason for her to be okay with this, and with that realization, she feels herself relax just a little bit.
When she focuses on what Johnny's saying again, it's just in time for her to hear he lets slip a quiet, thoughtful observation, “Hm. Maybe we can get along.”
It’s funny, she never thought she’d see the day he’d offer any kind of olive branch. It wasn’t so long ago she woke up to him trying to kill her and now, even in the face of what they both know is going to be a hell of a fireworks show, he seems more mellow than she’d expect him to be. Makes her start wondering something herself.
“Could be something to that, I suppose,” she allows, looking over just enough to be able to see him. “What happened to us, it must’ve had some effect.”
It’s not the point Johnny is trying to make, though, so he counters with, “You’re more like me than you think. You’ll see.”
He's probably uncomfortably right in some respects. If you’d asked her when they first met if she ever thought she’d have anything in common with the terrorist in her head, she would’ve balked at the very idea. She’s gotten to know him more, gotten to notice how often they seem to work well together when it matters.
“But it goes both ways,” she presses on, looking now out toward the horizon again. “Maybe you’re becoming more like me.”
V hears the scoff she knows is coming. “Nah, no way.”
She thinks about pushing it but lets it go, at least for now. Still has a knowing smirk she makes sure he sees, just to make it clear she's not being quiet because he won the argument.
After the conversation dies between them, her attention goes right back on the task at hand. The difference between working with T-Bug and working with Panam is night and day – restrained, smart planning versus the chaos they’re embarking on. When they finally get through the initial guards, Panam floors it and slams into the gates that are the last barrier between them and where they need to be. The sound of metal bending and breaking all around them is deafening but she doesn’t slow down until she’s nearly completely inside the room. Adrenaline surges through V as she throws the door open, her focus solely on the computer terminals she needs to get to for the sparks to start flying. What she isn’t ready for is the discharge that overheating the terminals seem to emit as she goes to each one, sending a burst of energy right back at her. The pain after the first terminal nearly makes her retch, her senses spinning in a way she’s never dealt with before. She grits her teeth and pushes through to her next target, only to have the pain flare up even worse than before.
She thinks she hears Panam ask her what’s happening, probably hearing the cry of agony V can’t bite back. The thing is – the thing is – she knows she can’t stop. Knows that this is fucking it, they need to finish this, or she’s fucking dead either way. There’s no preparation for the last wave, so she simply steels herself and tries not to blackout. It takes an incredible amount to will herself to breathe as she stumbles to one knee in the aftermath, but it’s not enough to put her down for the count. Her head clears enough after giving herself a few moments that she can stumble back to the truck, Panam none-the-wiser about how bad she is when she sinks into the passenger seat.
Everything hurts and it's a struggle to keep the facade of everything being fine up. She only barely feels like she can breathe a little more when she sees Johnny return where he’d been earlier. To V’s surprise, he’s looking haggard and winded, his teeth grit in a grimace.
“V, get the fuck out of before something happens to the chip,” he snaps roughly and she turns to glare at him.
“Thanks for the tip,” she deadpans, not in the mood. “Y’know, I was just about to set up a picnic, maybe lay out, work on my base tan –“
“I mean it,” he cuts her off and she’s suddenly noticing his form flickering far more than she’s used to seeing. “Watch out, the next one migh –“
It’s like watching a malfunctioning holo as he fades in and out, though he’s visible enough for her to see him curl into himself, as if in pain. Though she doesn’t feel whatever he’s reacting to, she’s practically flooded with a deluge of fear, dread, and panic she’s sure isn’t just coming from her seeing him finally disappear completely.
“Johnny?” she calls out, feeling her heart leap into her throat. Almost forgets to not yell it out loud when he doesn’t respond to her first attempt to get him to come back. “Johnny?!”
It’s the longest couple of seconds of her life before he rematerializes swearing, gripping the back of Panam’s seat so hard that she’s sure he’d be making dents in it if he could. Pulling off his shades and flopping back into the seat, he looks momentarily stunned and more than a little freaked out.
“Okay, I’m fine,” Johnny says breathlessly, sounding more unsteady than she thinks she has ever heard him in all the time they’ve known each other. “It’s – it’s okay, I’m fine – yeah -“
If she hadn’t already been sure the panic she'd been feeling had been coming from him, she certainly is now as she watches him trying to convince himself he’s alright more than he’s trying to convince V. She wants to reach out to him instinctively as it dawns on her how scared he’d just been, to do – fuck, she didn’t know, something, but his vulnerable look suddenly hardens as he looks directly at her.
“Just – delta the fuck out,” he demands, lashing out as if she’d meant for any of this to happen. She’s about to respond when Panam speaks up and he’s gone long before she can continue the conversation they'd been having. Then things somehow manage to go from bad to worse and Johnny's status has to take a backburner for the moment.
The thing about working with people is there’s always the possibility they’ll die. Their taking down Hellman’s ride starts an unexpected chain reaction that leaves bodies in its wake that should have never been in harm’s way. V feels sick as she stands among the dead Aldecaldos, barely able to look Panam in the face. She isn’t openly blaming her for this mess and she’s glad at least for that because she’s certainly blaming herself right now. Hard not to feel cursed, even if that’s probably an overreaction.
At least she isn’t feeling any lingering effects of what happened earlier, no sign of relic fuckery getting in the way of what she needs to do. One look at Panam is enough to make V sure she's too furious to think straight, nevermind make sound decisions. If the two of them are ever going to make it through this, she's going to have to be the level-headed one of the two of them. It's a far ride to where they holed up, but not far enough for them not to be able to give chase. With a perfect perch to snipe from, Panam doesn't put up a fuss at the idea of her staying behind to snipe from afar while V heads in.
The guards with Hellman don’t know what shit they’ve stepped in. It doesn’t take long before the lot of them begin to suffer some pretty grievous injuries from bullets shot from afar. V’s never worked with someone who had significant sniper skills, but it ends up complimenting her own well in ways she doesn't expect. Panam seems to know exactly how to shake them out of their hiding spots, giving V easy groups to hack into. At the end of it all is Hellman, who regards her with a terrified look when she steps inside, aiming and shooting the one in the room with him in the head before they even have a chance to whip around. It’s only then that Johnny gets involved again, his usual veneer of calm hostility firmly back in place when she spots him.
It’s strange to find comfort in that, but it’s been a weird goddamn day.
He starts to suggest she knock him out, but she’s practically halfway to doing it before he even starts to talk, cracking the butt of her pistol into the side of his head. Hellman crumples instantly, giving V the chance to slow down long enough to update Takemura and find, upon bringing him outside, that the cavalry has arrived. The tension between Panam and her family is thick even viewing it from the outside looking in, and though V tries to help her smooth things over, she’s well aware this isn’t her business. Aware she's probably only going to make shit worse, which is the last thing she wants to happen.
A part of her is really feeling like she likely won’t see Panam again after all the problems she’s somewhat caused, and V finds herself emotionally pulling away already to blunt the disappointment later. It’ll be something she’ll surely ruminate on later but for the moment, she’s got an asshole to wake up and force some answers out of. They go their separate ways and V brings the still unconscious body of her captive to a place she can have a private talk to him. Once she's inside, she doesn't take more than a few minutes before she has him set up and is slapping him awake. Still out of it, Hellman gets a few questions out before she's joined by her brain's other half. Johnny says nothing when he comes into view, just sits down and observes. His presence is the first time she feels herself falter. Even if they aren’t completely synced up sometimes, she can tell he’s expecting the worst just by looking at him– not just from Hellman, she suspects, but from V herself. No matter how many times she can reassure him Hellman – and by extension Arasaka – are the last people she wants to make deals with, she knows he won’t believe it until he sees it.
So she lets him see it. For all the looming and scowling he’s doing, his presence helps center her, keeps her on her toes in the right way. Hellman openly regards her as an idiot, which raises her hackles pretty quickly, and that only gets worse after he does his test. Instead of giving her a straight answer about her condition, he starts dancing around it by asking how she and Johnny work. Johnny had pointedly mentioned the inevitability of her being looked at like a guinea pig by him and she’s starting to feel like the guy's not even trying to hide it any longer.
“I can see him and talk to him,” she insists in the face of the prodding about how she’s dealing with him existing alongside her own consciousness. Hellman levels a pitying look that she immediately wants to punch.
“You’re not talking, but yes, I understand what you mean,” he corrects as if he fucking knows a thing about what’s happening with her – with them. He’d said it himself that there are only so many things he can know for sure about what’s happening to her. “Have you noticed the construct’s influence on your decision making?”
She feels a little shame as her mind instantly returns to their talk in the car when he’d been gleeful at the turn of explosive events her night with Panam had become. She’s not going to deny that sometimes she thinks his emotions make hers stronger, but there’s a world of difference between that and her being made to do something. She can even see Johnny pacing and grumbling again, looking pissed at the very insinuation. She sits forward and gives the corpo asshole a hard look.
“When it comes to my decisions,” she begins, making sure to emphasize her words so there’s no doubt in her conviction. “Johnny really is just a voice in my head. Maybe he has a different opinion, but he can’t make me do anything.”
“Agreed, one hundred percent. You are one fucking stubborn host,” he pipes up, and fuck him, she’s trying to be serious and the outburst forces her to pause long enough to suppress a smirk. Her eyes do dart up briefly to him to give him a knowing look, at least, before her attention returns to Hellman trying to bullshit his way into making her believe things work the way he thinks they do.
“What do you mean?” she prompts when he mentions there being a scale the two of them are on, at this point trying to simply gain information. She can see it's ruffling Johnny’s feathers she’s even entertaining him, but she’s trying to be smart about this and fish for more concrete information.
Hellman needs very little prodding to start giving his opinion.
“You will start doing things that were once unthinkable, at least to your old self,” he explains and for the second time, the night before comes to mind. She had no hand in planning all of that though, she reminds herself, none at all. “And you know exactly who he was. A fanatic. A terrorist. A suicide bomber.”
“Well fuck me,” Johnny speaks up sharply, and she feels his anger ripple through her now, too. “Who’s trying to mess with your head now?”
For all of Hellman’s insistence, she's sure she can easily sense where his emotions end and her immediate inclination to defend him starts. She’s officially sick of this guy too, can spot him actively trying to get her doubting to try to twist her to trust him. Even if she believed that was all Johnny was, she’s certainly not going to switch allegiances to someone like him.
“At least Johnny never whored himself out like you,” she spits out, leveling a glare toward him. He stares back, unimpressed.
“Are you defending him? Or is that Johnny speaking now?” he poses, pressing harder to get her to question herself. Only serves to piss her off more. “Oh, let me guess – he already tried to take over your body? You know, for a little while?”
If he had been getting in her head at all, it’s dispelled in that moment. Johnny was all of the above in what he said, she isn’t going to deny that. There’s a heap of other negative traits she could add to the list herself after what feels like endless exposure to his whole thing. The one thing he isn’t is the kind of person she has to fear would hijack her without her permission. Her response is swift, confident, and simple: “No.”
“Would you, though?” Johnny muses jokingly, peering at her from beside Hellman. “Could be fun.”
Even Johnny being an irreverent fucking asshole just proves her point, because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Without a second thought, he frames it as seeking consent. Doesn’t stop her from shooting him a near murderous look because she’s trying to not look insane glancing off to the side at him over and over and seems hell-bent on making that difficult. “Johnny –“
“Kidding,” he amends immediately, cigarette smoke curling around him as he backs off and sits. He looks distastefully at Hellman then, adding, “But watch out – suit’s getting ready to talk your head off.”
Yeah, she’s getting that too. The line of questioning is just going to go right into more assumptions versus the facts she needs. Cutting him off before he can continue to extrapolate, she instead twists things to at least get something useful. He shows his hand pretty swiftly afterward when he owns up to being more interested in the data from their pairing than anything else. Something about listening to him talk about her like it’s only a matter of time before she dies makes her stomach twist, but at the very least he hands over the blueprint she’s looking for.
She has no idea what she’s looking at when she reviews it. Vik – maybe he’d understand, she doesn’t know. It all feels a bust at best by the time she moves to let Takemura take over, a feeling that isn’t helped by the relic immediately beginning to glitch as she stands to leave. At first, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be any worse than what she’s used to, but as she steps outside into the cool desert night and the door closes behind her, everything gets worse.
It feels a little bit like the malfunction she’d gone through where Johnny disappeared. He doesn’t seem too bothered by it this time, even as she cries out and stumbles forward, the world spinning. Him asking what’s wrong sounds muffled, far away, and she barely manages to croak out, “Agh – dunno, not sure –“
The solid surface of the box she slowly sits down on helps a little bit. Cradling her head in her hands and trying valiantly not to cry (it hurts, it hurts so much -), she barely notices Johnny pacing in front of her, agitated, asking her about her plans as if she can fucking think right now. The sound of him slamming something down makes her fast-beating heart go into her throat and she looks up just in time to see him sitting down on a stool so he’s eye level with her, hunching forward.
“It’s going too slow,” he complains in an almost accusing way, sounding frustrated. “Gonna decomish before we learn how to rip the chip out.”
Every time V feels like she’s figured him out, he finds a way to ruin it. She’d been comfortable in assuming she’s a means to an end no matter how she might feel about him and now –
Now it feels like something is changing.
“Wanted me dead, said so yourself,” she counters, feeling almost defensive in the face of it. There’d been safety in the assumption, as though it kept a constant barrier between the two of them for her own emotional sanity.
“Made it pretty clear since that I changed my mind,” he replies, too fucking calm for what he’s saying. He pulls his shades off, presumably so she can see he means every bit of what he adds, empathetically, “Want you to live now.”
Head still pounding, she almost resents his horrible timing with this. Resents, too, that she has a feeling it’s coming out specifically because she’s at such a low point and she needs to hear it. Every bit of this reads that he’s worried about her in a way he isn’t hiding, her ever-dwindling timer continuing to march on right in front of them. Not sure what to say to any of it, she can only think of a single thing to ask. “What the hell do you want from me?”
She’s got a spread of leads she knows he’s not happy with and she’s officially done dancing around the subject of what he’s been thinking - if anything. Johnny seems to study her after the question before lighting up a cigarette. Though she prepares for him to shut down, close off, he starts to slowly explain what he’s been putting together without V even realizing it. At first, V barely holds back an incredulous laugh when he sounds like he’s suggesting she simply go along with another terrorism plot just so he can bury the centuries-old grudge he’s carrying. He ignores her immediate dumbfounded reaction and presses the issue until she realizes he’s weaved helping her into his plan to get even. It’s the last part that makes her the most willing to at least hear him out, ask questions, especially when something (someplace, she comes to find out) called Mikoshi comes into the picture.
All roads lead there, he insists, though V is seeing a major problem with what he’s presented here so far.
“And uh, how you plan to smash Arasaka this time?” she asks, recognizing all of this hinges on the two of them also pulling off an attack on a major corporation. “Got another nuke tucked away?”
Something in his demeanor shifts, but she isn’t sure why. “This time bomb’s name is Alt Cunningham.”
“I’m s’posed to know who that is?”
“Not yet,” he replies, going right back to being vague like he usually is. “But you will once we find what we need.”
She can certainly recognize the proverbial door slamming in her face for now. Apparently the plan is to make what he wants happen to happen while also being given the least amount of information possible until she needs to know. She’d be angrier if it wasn’t the same way with basically all her viable avenues and at least with Johnny, she feels it’s a little more confident she’s not going to get stabbed in the back. His plan is also the most insane one until she gets a fuller picture, but –
She doesn’t know. He sticks around after their conversation ends, leaning against the railing, lost in thought. It’s one of those nights she’s fully ready to drop things until she sleeps when she stops short, eyes widening in realization. Everything had been so insane she’d completely forgotten something important.
“Hey, by the way,” she speaks up and watches his focus fall on her. Fucking good, she thinks, as she steps up and shoves his shoulder hard, not caring even an iota who sees her miming the action at thin air. “You scared the shit out of me, you asshole.”
“What the fuck, V –“
“Those EMP blasts. I knew it was doing something but when you started freaking out like that –“ she begins, then frowns, letting the rest of her sentence die in her throat. She recognizes she is being ridiculous, getting emotional about this, but it feels a little like everything is spiraling and she can’t keep herself in check right now. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do I need to go to Vik?”
His eyebrow lifts at the question. “You’re the one wobbling around like a fucking drunk. Shouldn’t you be going to him for you?”
“I wasn’t the one looking like I was about to blink out of existence,” she shoots back, not letting him sidestep this conversation. She needs him to be honest right now because while she thinks her head is clearing, she has no idea if what happened to him is something separate she needs to worry about. “I mean it. You’re no use to me if suddenly I can’t talk to you anymore because something’s fucked up.”
What she doesn’t say is what she knows is true: if something happens to the personality she’s been talking to, she’s pretty sure it’d forfeit any chance of him surviving all of this when everything’s done and over with. She doesn’t deserve what is happening to her, she knows that, but frankly it’s hard to feel like he deserves it either lately. The idea she’s starting to care about his wellbeing is probably pathetic and too sentimental by any stretch, but she knows it’s there, even stronger now that he’s made it clear thing he’s been looking at things differently lately, too.
Johnny stares at her in silence, taking a drag of his cigarette. She wonders if he’s sensing the things she’s not saying or is at least reading her ever twisting emotions. If he is, he doesn’t seem interested in bringing it up. “Christ, ’m fine, stop fussing. Y’know, you surprise me. All that shit Hellman said inside and I half expected things to get bad between us again. Not worried?”
That fucker Hellman. He’d have a field day, wouldn’t he, with how she’s thinking right now. Probably claim the engram was making her want to keep it alive. There would probably be a time when they couldn’t help it, but for now, it’s a bunch of bullshit. “Always worried, just not about that just yet. I wouldn’t have stood up for you if I was. Don’t make me regret it.”
Maybe she is a gullible idiot and is being fooled by a simulacrum she needs to be someone instead of something. It’s a risk she’s willing to take, if only because the other one is to simply let herself become an experiment, doomed to let corpo assholes prod at her until the engram finally takes hold or she kills herself. Fuck. That.
She swears she sees his stance relax in the face of her making her own stance clear.
“You won’t. Mikoshi and Alt,” he repeats, as solemn as he can muster. “You help me, I help you.”
The way he is right now, how he talked about it earlier - she almost thinks she might trust him. Almost thinks maybe the worst might not come to pass. Almost thinks between the two of them, they can find the best way out of this entire nightmare of a situation. Almost, almost, almost. She clings to the almosts, knowing without them, she will surely break. Hope is dangerous, she knows that, but so is the despair she feels clawing at her at every turn. Feeling a little more steady now – steadier than she has been for a while - she meets his gaze, serious.
“Well, where do we start?”