#John Linder

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

When Kevin McCarthy was just a handful of votes from becoming House Speaker, he promised a lot of wacky stuff to right-wing holdouts, from investigatory rabbit holes to rules changes to votes on legislation so bad or unpopular it would normally never see the light of day. In that last category, McCarthy promised Georgia congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter that he would hold a floor vote on a version of the “Fair Tax” proposal that has been kicking around the conservative fever swamps since the early aughts, when Atlanta talk-show host Neal Boortz popularized the concept and talked some politicians into promoting it. Carter loyally backed McCarthy, and all of the Speaker-vote holdouts joined in his call for a floor vote on his bill, reflecting its popularity in the House Freedom Caucus.

The basic idea is to replace today’s federal taxes — income taxes, estate taxes, Social Security payroll taxes, corporate taxes, even gift taxes — with a single federal sales tax. It would obviously have to be set at very high rates, at least 30%, by most estimates, to offset the revenue lost from ending the other taxes. Carter’s proposal would include “prebates,” i.e. federal payments to low-income households, to reduce the impact of a high tax on living essentials. But there’s no way to make this sort of tax system anything other than a large boon to people with income and wealth far beyond what they need to live on, which if saved or invested would remain tax free. That’s why the Fair Tax has a perpetual fan base among consumers of right-wing talk and grassroots conservative activists. Because of Boortz’s role in promoting the scheme, it has become something of a Pet Rock for Georgia Republicans in the House, where Carter has picked up the torch originally carried by veteran conservative lawmaker John Linder.

Proponents of the Fair Tax boast that it would lead to the abolition of most of the federal tax code and of the Internal Revenue Service, making April 15 just another day (albeit another day of very high taxes on sales). But there’s another wrinkle that makes the Fair Tax not just wildly regressive but extremely risky in the unlikely event it were ever enacted, as The Bulwark’s Jim Swift explains:

“To ensure that the legislation actually replaces rather than adds to existing taxes, [Carter’s] bill includes a provision that the new tax would expire in seven years if the Sixteenth Amendment, which allows for federal income taxes, is not repealed. (Keen-eyed readers will notice that this creates the bizarre possibility of federal tax revenue going down to zero after seven years, if income taxes are not collected but the Sixteenth Amendment remains on the books.)”

Anyone familiar with how hard it is to enact constitutional amendments will be alarmed at this provision. Then again, for all its popularity among regular folks who think of themselves as virtuous tightwads, the Fair Tax has never been taken very seriously in Washington, even among conservatives. Yes, 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee campaigned on it, and it has always hung around the margins of public policy like a recurring nightmare. But the more moderate Republicans hate it as a seductive but unworkable scheme that would brand the GOP as the party of high sales taxes rather than the party that wants to keep all taxes as low as possible.

Democrats, of course, are eager to hear a lot more about Republican support for the Fair Tax, as Joseph Zeballos-Roig of Semafor observes:

“Outside the deepest trenches of conservatism, a 30% sales tax is mostly seen as an obvious political loser. Democrats, for their part, can hardly seem to believe their luck that their opponents might attach themselves to it.

‘Great idea,’ Biden deadpanned during a speech Monday. ‘It would raise taxes on the middle class by taxing thousands of everyday items from groceries to gas, while cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.’”

You’d normally figure the Fair Tax chestnut would get buried in the Ways and Means Committee with a lot of other tax-policy proposals that won’t see the light of day in the Senate. But McCarthy promised Carter and his friends a floor vote. The question is how long he can delay the fulfillment of that promise and whether putting it on the back burner risks a grassroots rebellion from the kind of people who consider progressive taxation deeply immoral. It’s one of many calculations McCarthy will have to make to get through the next two years without losing his gavel to a motion to vacate the chair and without creating too much campaign fodder for Democrats.

[ashesfordayz]

Trans Johnny Silverhand for Trans day of Visibility!! ❤️

[awhalesrider]

Val's little trick in the morning

[sydneighsays]

More quick Jee doodles 🎉

[djfatchip]

Johnny ∞ Silverhand

[screechinggardenllama]

I would love to just go back and play Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time again. That game changed how my brain functions and could feel it in real-time from when I first booted it up

[sorryiliketoscreenshot]

[amefuyuu]

Can we talk about the lore info about Johnny’s childhood that Mike gave us in a recent interview?? That he was sold by his father when he was FOUR for a pack of cigarettes??? That after that he lived with a group of nomads who took him in and according to Mike was “An episode of interesting violence”! also that Johnny is confirmed cyber psycho because of The Hand??? There is SOOO much here and I can’t wait to see the full picture whenever Mike ends up releasing it.

(For anyone interested, the interview in question is a portion in The Sphere Hunter’s review on Phantom Liberty)

[ghostoffuturespast]

Les Préludes - No. 1 Smalltown Boy

Before being slotted into the head of a certain merc. Before the Relic and Mikoshi. Arasaka Tower and Samurai. Before deserting with a trademark arm and going to war… There was just a smalltown boy from College Station, Texas.

Look, I know what Mike said.

But in the ineffable words of Gracie Maeve Linder: "There sure as shit ain't no God in this house.”

Read here on AO3.

Thank you to @luvwich for beta reading! 💙 I appreciate you helping me make this a lean, mean, fighting machine.

April 2004 It was an indisputable fact – that from a very young age – Robert John Linder had fucking hated his name. Robert. Rob. Bob. Bobby. Linder. Moron. Dumbass. Motherless son of a bitch. He’d been called just about every variation of the name "Robert" you could think of underneath the goddamn Texas sun. Problem was, over the course of almost sixteen years, and, being the troublemaker he was, he’d just gotten into the habit of always answering when someone said his name. And habits, especially the bad ones, well, sometimes they’re just plain hard to break. Like now for instance. Behind the football equipment shed of A&M Consolidated High School, where Robert was trying to enjoy the auditory company of The Plasmatics with the pack of smokes he’d stolen from his dead beat excuse of an old man.

[XOXO]

[aeoncss]

cuties!

beautiful vanessa belongs to @folkofvelaris ♡︎

[nightcityflair]

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

How successful would Johnny Silverhand…

[ashesfordayz]

We got a City to burn 💣🔥

[awhalesrider]

One Last Song

Preem new fluffy hair mod by nutboy (Upcoming!) Fabulous chuckwalla workwear by pinkydude

[djfatchip]

Kerry ∞ Eurodyne ft Johnny Silverhand

[thranduilsperkybutt]

requirements.txt=unsatisfied

Pic source: 1

Pairings: Johnny Silverhand/V!Reader; Exceedingly minor Goro Takemura/V!Reader alluded to Warnings: Endgame spoilers; Arasaka!ending; I take liberties with the ending (everyone lives AU); yearning; fighting; nsfw banter (no actual explicit behaviors); angst with a happy ending; mentions of canon-typical drug use and violence Word Count: 9,936 words Reader Gender: Female Author: Meg Summary: Johnny always wants a lot of things--- a smoke, a good fuck, for you to turn the radio to 107.3 instead of that new age crap you like. In a perfect world, he'd like to have his own body back, too, but this isn't a perfect world. This is Night City, and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forgive you for going and doing this. Turns out that being in love requires being unsatisfied. A/N: Look. I finally finished playing the game as corpo!V and I will not live with these endings, alright? I'm gonna make my own.

“Think they make shitty motels like this just for screw-ups like us?”

You make a point to continue staring at the ceiling of the ‘shitty motel’ room, deep breathing the mildew and age-old cigarettes. He isn’t wrong, but you don’t want to hear it right now. He always has a way with words. Wiping your hands down your face, you do your best to ignore him, but Johnny wasn’t the most dismissible parasite you’ve ever had.

“’Parasite’s’ talkin’ to you, fuck-up,” he flicks his cigarette butt at you in retaliation for the thoughts in your head and it glitches through your thigh with a fuzzy tickle in your neurons. “Do ya’ really think Arasaka is gonna’ just let you waltz away after grabbin’ that stuck-up bitch princess of theirs? You’re fucked.”

“Was fucked before that, Johnny--- royally, if you’ll remember,” you groan, and turn away from him. He appears on the other side of the bed, leaning over it to glare at you. “Got you to show for it, after all.”

“Why are you so chill about this? Takemura fucked you both by deciding to take a life-sized souvenir from your trip to Cherry Town---"

“Cherry Blossom Market---” he barely acknowledges your interruption; you doubt he cares about the situation past hearing himself talk either way.

“--- and you’re just gonna’ do what? Sit here like a ditched date, waitin’ by the phone for that ‘Saka scum to call?”

“Johnny,” you push yourself up into a sitting position, headache threatening a presence at the back of your skull. The edges of his shoulders have that glitchy quality you’ve come to know follows his movements at times when he crosses his arms, but his glare is clear as ever.

“What? Don’t like me callin’ him that?” he rolls his eyes as he certainly feels your annoyance spike, “Jeez, didn’t think you could ride ‘Saka’s dick any harder, but if you literally want to---”

“What crawled up your holographic ass and died tonight?” you bark back, and the glint behind his eyes tells you that this is what he wanted all along. A fight, interaction, anything other than you just melting into the stained mattress of this motel room while the fan drones overhead in excruciating monotony. Johnny’s at his worst when he’s bored or cornered, you’ve found.

“I don’t know, V, maybe the fact that while I’m livin’ in your head, I’ve gotta’ listen to all your disgusting little thoughts about that Grade-A asshole? I’ve never had a dry spell that’d make me wanna’ sleep with a corpo drone, but maybe old habits die hard for you, huh?” You try to ignore his jab at your corporate background, but you know he just can’t help himself, “At this rate, alert a joytoy pronto, because I think I’ll throw up if I gotta’ watch you eyefuck your ronin anym---"

“You’re so fucking annoying sometimes, Johnny, you know that?” you rub your temples, trying to bite back the heat in your cheeks. No telling if it was from embarrassment at his inevitable acknowledgement of your major-league crush on Goro, or an oncoming stroke. At this point you are wishing for the stroke.

“You say that, but you’re not havin’ to watch how pathetic you look waitin’ on Takemura to call. Shit, even that cop you turned down would be better than this guy.”

Rising to your knees, you point a finger directly against his chest, feeling the fuzzy presence of your fried synapses mistaking him for something real at your fingertips, “Know what? Maybe I will fuck Goro the next time I see him, just to screw with you. Maybe I’ll finally get some peace and quiet when you slink back to God-knows-where to hide in my head while I lay back and take it from the big, bad, ‘Saka scum.’”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he growls down at you, the fire in his eyes flickering from your own to your lips and back again. “If you wanted me gone, you’d’ve taken those omega blockers by now.”

“Don’t tempt me. I’d take a half-dose of pseudoendotrizine just so I could kick your ass, if it wouldn’t mean kicking mine, too.”

“Now, there’s a thought,” he reaches out, pushing you back by a phantom grip on your shoulder. Your body flings itself onto the mattress without a thought, “But I don’t need a pill to kick your ass, remember?”

“Asshole,” you grumble defeatedly, but his anger seems to dissipate, if only a little.

“Bitch,” he chuckles, and it’s a short sound of disbelief. “Don’t pout like a damn kid.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of mean, Silverhand?” you look down to where he still stood beside--- no, knelt onto, now--- the bed. His lips are quirked into a slight smile, one brow raised like he doesn’t quite understand just why all your annoyance has seemed to sink away into the dingy carpet and rotting walls of this place. Maybe it’s the exhaustion settling into your bones?

Or perhaps it’s the uneasy feeling in your gut when he looks at you. Despite the mountain of resentment your soul screams that you have every right to have at him for stealing your life away from you with every waking second, you can’t seem to bring yourself to hate him.

He clicks his teeth thoughtfully, dipping his weight onto the knee he has on the bed, but it doesn’t creak under his weight or acknowledge his presence, “It may have come up, once or twice.”

He isn’t really here, the soft static framing his hard edges reminds you.

“Why, then?” Why does he keep falling into the same pattern? Why does he treat you like this? Why does he look at you like that afterwards?

You don’t ask any of those questions, but you don’t have to. He’s in your head, after all--- but you think he’d be able to figure them out even if he didn’t have a front-row seat to your every thought. You still aren’t sure how much of your consciousness he is privy to, but you know it’s enough for him to know more about you than any other person ever has.

At this point, he might know your mind better than you do.

You wish you could read his half as well.

“Maybe I just don’t like watchin’ you run head-first into what’s bound to be another shit-show’s all, choom,” he deflects, but his eyes don’t turn from your gaze. There’s something guarded in them, sure, but they soften all the same.

You sit on his bullshit explanation for a few seconds, tasting the thought on your tongue, “Is that what we are, Johnny? Chooms?” It’s an unsatisfactory descriptor, but you don’t know if there’s a word in the English language that can accurately describe what you are to each other.

“I don’t know, V. Are we?”

Before you can even think of an answer, the sound of your holo ringing breaks through your ears and Goro’s image appears in your optics.

Johnny huffs and just like that, any softness in his gaze disintegrates with a roll of his eyes, “Go on--- know you’re giddy as a schoolgirl to answer that.”

“Fuck you, Johnny,” you grumble, before picking up the line and watching him straighten up off the bed before disappearing from your gaze in a static glitch. “Goro---”

“V, meet me, quickly as you can. I’m sending the coordinates.”

---

Your fingers run over the markings of Johnny’s initials you’d just carved against the metal. It’s jagged, raw, and as good a headstone as he was ever going to get, given you’d probably never find where his body had been truly laid to rest. In a city like Night City, after so many years? He’s lucky enough that Arasaka had dumped his body at all, instead of incinerating it like most folks these days.

“There, how’s that for a marker?”

Johnny leans back from where he’d been moping and gestures to your makeshift headstone, “Say this was my real grave, what would you write? ‘Here lies Johnny Silverhand…’”

The words roll around your head in tandem with the pit of dread in your stomach. It didn’t feel right talking to him like he was dead, even though the rational part of your mind knew it was true. The real Johnny Silverhand died more than fifty years ago, and you were left talking to a ghost--- a copy that seemed close enough to the real deal, but you never would be able to know if he was a good one. More recently, though, he’s started to seem just as real as the ground you walk on and, while you know that’s something to be deeply worried about, you can’t help but have come to enjoy his company.

When he’s not being an asshole, that is.

For better or worse, he was, “The guy who saved my life.” You’d been through so much--- everything--- together. It hadn’t been intentional on his part; he’s only a piece of broken prototype tech going haywire in your head, but it was still true. He’s saved you in more ways than one, lately.

The words sink into him, dragging his shoulders down like the same ache you feel in your soul. His eyes meet yours beneath his sunglasses, holding you in a regret so deep that you think it will swallow you both with the knowledge that he’ll be the death of you.

Johnny reaches up, metal fingertips clicking on his shades in a way that’s so honest in your ears that it’s difficult to remember it’s just another one of your disconnected mind’s lies anymore, “You don’t know how much I want that to be true.” He pulls the barrier from his face to dangle between his knees as his free hand wipes at the perpetual dirt on his skin, “Listen, I realize I’ve fucked up a lot of things. Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust--- blind, selfish bastard that I was--- but I’ve managed one thing, for now. Not to fuck this up. What we have.”

Johnny’s always wanted a lot of things--- a smoke, a good fuck, for you to turn the radio to 107.3 instead of that new age crap you like. He's rather demanding, day in, day out.

You've been privy to his every request as it flits through your shared head for long enough that he’s come to annoy you nearly as much as he's grown on you. He’s like moss overtaking a stone, so slow that you don’t realize it until he’s covered all of you. He’s changing you into something neither of you can quite recognize anymore, and as the days pass, you worry you’ll never be able to wash him away and return to the person you were before him.

Worse, you don’t know if you will want to.

“What do we have, Johnny?” you sigh, looking up at the light-polluted sky. You weren’t far enough out of town to see stars, just the dim void and flickering city lights reflected on the clouds above. Maybe if you were at camp with the Aldecados, you’d spot a star among the dusky sky. Maybe life would seem simpler, easier, “I don’t know what you want from me.” All you know for sure is that you were growing so tired of the fight. There’s this hurt in your chest; you can’t tell if it’s yours or his. Maybe it’s something you share. Maybe this is what he means.

Or something close to it, “Most of who I thought were my friends, well, it turns out they couldn’t hardly stand to be in the same room with me. But you?”  You hear him pause, but you don’t dare to look at him. There’s a stammer in your chest, and you’re terrified at what it means, “You’re forced to be right fuckin’ here, twenty-four-seven, and you don’t seem to hate my living guts.”

This silence is something you can only achieve on the outskirts of the city, but you know it would be worse if you were further away. It’s almost excruciating, being alone with your thoughts--- being alone with his.

“There a point in there?” your heart aches for him, and you know he can feel it. It’s more than pity, more than friendship, but you try your hardest not to think of what it could possibly mean--- let alone, say it.

He knows, though. Of course he does. He has to.

“Just that… I think you’re my first real choom, even though you’re a real bitch sometimes.”

Your head lulls forward, and it takes all your strength to muster a glare at the pained smile dancing at his lips. There’s more to it than that, you both know it, but you’re grateful that he’s feeling somewhat merciful tonight--- it was something you didn’t know he had in him.

Maybe it’s only something he has in him when it comes to you.

“Chooms, huh?” tilting your head, you pretend to mull it over like it’s a proposition of eddies from a fixer. Playing it off with a shrug, you concede, “I could get used to being Johnny Silverhand’s choom, I guess, even though he was a total dick at first.”

“As if you didn’t deserve it,” Johnny smirks.

“Uh, remind me again, who’s been whining about missing his smokes since day one?” it’s a half-hearted blow, and his widening grin shows it. “Better yet, beggin’ me to get my rocks off?”

“My own personal hell is being stuck inside a non-smoker, and it doesn’t help that you’re practically a nun,” you toss a rock at him for that, and it goes straight through his chest like he isn’t even there. He isn’t, but he grins at you anyways, “Still… who’d’ve thought we’d make it this far?”

You sit there for a beat, feeling your own smile turn at your lips, before sighing, “You know, if you really want a marker, we could get you one at the columbarium.”

“For what, an empty box?” shaking his head, he puts his shades back on to perch atop his nose.

“Please, I have more of your stuff than even your most devoted fanboys. I don’t need it all. We could, I don’t know, ‘retire’ something of yours there. You know, as a symbol,” his gaze weighs heavy on you, and you can’t for the life of you understand what’s going through his mind. It frustrates you nearly as much as his stare seems to, and you shift your gaze back to the sky in your attempt to escape his holographic scrutiny.

“Let me guess, you’ll bring me flowers every day?” it surprises you that his tone isn’t mocking, but rather curious. “Would you visit his grave?” he seems to ask.

Trying to lighten the mood, you tease, “You know me, too busy trying not to die for all that.” You look back to him with a wink, “Plus, preem flowers are expensive these days, choom. ‘Fraid you’ll have to settle for the synth ones. Besides, you seem like a cheap date to me.”

“Bitch.”

“Just say, ‘Thank you.’”

It’s as close as either of you will come to what you really want to say.

---

From the roof of Misty’s building, it’s almost as if the troubles of the city no longer exist. You think you understand why Jackie found his choice up here. It seems as good a place as any to choose between life and death.

You would have to come to yours, too, soon. Maybe you already have, and you just don’t want to admit it.

The thought dwells in your head, and it feels like the only choice that makes sense.

“You’re not considering that. Please, tell me you’re not seriously considering going to those bastards again for help,” Johnny’s voice tears you from your dreadful stare over the neon Night City advertisements staring back at you. Promising everything from NiCola to the market version of the prototype Relic crammed in your head. “You’re trying to make sense of something that makes zero damn sense!”

You think he might wind up hating you forever, for this.

“Takemura said---” you begin, but he cuts you off as he stands from his spot on the ledge overlooking the city and takes up pacing.

“Fuck that guy!” Johnny rounds on you, fiery as ever--- but there’s something more terrible in his eyes; a grief that only comes from knowing he won’t be able to change your mind. “You’re just takin’ the easy way out! Those ‘Saka bastards won’t stay true to their word, you know. All they do is lie, and they’ll keep lying to you so long as it gets them what they want from you. You can’t really believe they’ll help you or me!”

The truth is, you’re too tired and you don’t know what’s worse: the taste of blood on your tongue, or the look of disappointment in his eyes.

You should be at least used to the blood by now.

“I’m dying, Johnny. Hanako is the only person who can maybe help us. Name someone else. Anyone! They made this tech---”

“They’re only gonna’ hurt you. We can do this a different way,” he stops pacing to stand so close that you can swear his boots touch yours. It’s as if you could feel the heat radiating off him, but that may just be the fever settling deathly into your skin, “Hell, give me the keys and I’ll get us to Mikoshi. I’ll burn this whole fuckin’ city to the ground to get you there and I’ll throw the pieces of you back together myself! I’ll gladly die trying---”

“But I don’t want you to die, either,” you fight back the tears at the thought of it, and he huffs down at you in utter exasperation, “can’t you get that?”

“Think they’ll do any better by me at Arasaka?” his chuckle is humorless, coming strained from the back of his throat. “You don’t believe that.”

“I can cut us a deal…” you look down, away from him, blinking out beyond where he stands towards the city lights. You don’t want to fight with him right now. You don’t think you can.

“With what leverage? Deals are only good so long as you have the upper hand, V,” he kneels into your eyeline, reaching out to grasp your chin in two silver fingers and turning you to face him fully. It’s gotten to the point that his hands on your skin feel akin to something real, dulled synapses firing with every spark of his hands on your skin. It’s how you know you’re close to the end. “Who is gonna’ be in your corner after they get everything they want?”

“Goro’s a man of his word.”

“You’re so fuckin’ naïve. Just as dumb as you were when you took that bullet to the brain from Dex, and I had to save your ass then, too,” Johnny growls your name like he hates you for it, but who knew how much you would come to welcome the end? Because when he frustratedly drags you forward by a harsh grip at the back of your head to eclipse his lips over yours, you can feel it. Him. In the burnt neurons of your addled mind, he is there against you--- kissing you with death on the edges of his lips, in all the heavy grief and anger that your choice has brought forth in him. It’s a terrible knowledge that pours from you into him of how much you’ve come to love him, and how desperately you know he’ll hate you for this, because maybe he’s right; maybe you really are naïve for wanting to believe in some way out of this.

He gasps against your lips like it wrecks him to the core; voice hoarse with the emotion as he curses, “Damn, you’re one stubborn bitch.”

“Inherited only your best traits, Johnny,” it’s just as dry on your tongue, and you lift your hand that has been clutching the omega blockers to your lips. You want to say it--- tell him in words how much you care for him. Instead, you murmur against his lips, “Please, don’t be mad,” and swallow the pills.

“I got a feeling you’re gonna’ regret this, choom, and I won’t be there to help you,” he leans away, and you feel the drugs start to kick in when his voice becomes more distant. “Don’t do this. Miracles like the one you’re hopin’ for don’t happen for screw-ups like us, you know.”

“Trust me.”

“I wish I didn’t trust you at all,” he sounds just as tired as you do when he says your name one last time before you blink and he’s gone. The bitter aftertaste of the pills tastes like betrayal on your tongue, and you already know Johnny will haunt you for the rest of your days.

You’re quickly reminded of why you’ve always hated taking the omega blockers.

It takes everything you have left not to sob at the feeling, like you’ve lost a limb--- gone numb and tingling painfully with the ghost of where he was. It’s as if everything is muted, including the deepest parts of yourself. You’re in a bad way, and you know you don’t have much longer now.

So, you find yourself committing to the desperate choice you’ve made, but you don’t call Hanako.

Instead, you call the only corpo you trust besides yourself, and hope it isn’t stupid to do so.

Takemura.

---

He is dressed in all white when he comes to find you at Misty’s Esoterica, looking like a harbinger of death in every sense of the word, “You… look like shit.”

“Don’t look half bad yourself, Goro,” you chuckle, but it turns into a wracking cough that leaves you with a more urgent taste of blood at your lips.

“Are you in any shape to negotiate?” he wonders, but it’s not threatening--- more of a genuine concern displayed with the arch of his brow. Johnny may disagree with you, but you still dare to think him a good man.

“Not in much shape to do anything, anymore, but I know exactly what I’m useful for. My eddies are on Hanako knowing this, too,” you lean on the arm he offers when you stumble on your way to the car. “After all, she sent you. Smart woman.”

“I would have come even had she not,” Goro confesses, pausing with his metal-laced fingertips on the back door. When you shoot him a questioning look, he offers you only a simple, “We have done much work to not see this through to the end, yes?”

“Who’d’ve thought we’d make it this far?”

Goro nods in agreement, before you’re sliding into the car behind Anders Hellman and hoping the Swede knows half of what he thinks he does about your condition, “Agreed.”

---

There’s something to be said for dying. It’s not always as bad as people make it out to be.

Some people would consider you dead. You always find yourself wondering what Johnny would think, these days.

You absentmindedly turn the Rubik’s cube in your hand with no real aim at solving it, letting your mind drift in the overly sterile room Arasaka’s finest clinicians have sequestered you to.

“Barbaric,” Goro called it once, but that didn’t stop them from putting you right back here again. The news plays softly on the screen you’ve been allowed to have after they determined it wouldn’t exacerbate your oversensitivity, but not even the privilege of phoning what few friends you have left can eat away at the boredom that’s settled into your bones in this space station. What was there to say, anyway?

Hi, it’s your favorite lab rat again! How’s it going in the real world? I’m going insane up here!

You can’t help but dwell on the thought that maybe Johnny was right about it all. Maybe it isn’t worth living if life is going to be like this.

Arasaka made no guarantees past what you had signed for on the dotted line the day Hanako had again sent Goro solely to break the news that your body was dying even after Johnny’s Relic had been extracted from your mind. It would seem the soft spot you’d held for Goro was well known by the Arasaka heiress. The woman is nothing if not strategic.

Hell, you’d gotten yourself a worse deal that day than you’d gotten for Johnny at the start of this. After all, you’d had nothing left to bargain with by then.

You were technically a construct, now. A lab experiment dreamed up by Arasaka’s best bioengineers and a team of physicians lead by Anders Hellman. Your current body was a multi-billion eurodollar joint Arasaka-Biotechnica venture that had only been put at the top of Hanako’s list when implanting her father’s construct into Yorinobu had gone awry. You’re convinced she would have been content to let you rot on a biochip in Mikoshi for the rest of your existence otherwise. After all, your contract never said when they had to provide you with a body, only that they were obligated to when the technology existed to allow it.

Turns out, rewriting someone else’s psyche does more damage to the physical body than anyone in Arasaka thought it would. You don’t know why it was such a surprise to them all when Yorinobu’s body couldn’t handle it, considering what it did to you. Maybe they just didn’t care, with how desperate they’d been to get any semblance of leadership back.

All you know is that Johnny Silverhand probably rolled over laughing in his grave, wherever it is, when Saburo Arasaka died a second, painful death.

They were using you as a top-secret prototype for Saburo 2.0, as you’ve come to call what will inevitably be the body they attempt to stick him in next. Sure, Arasaka as a company is facing charges in the New United States on Yorinobu’s death--- something about human testing that everyone knows will never stick--- but that will be swept under the rug much like any bad press Arasaka has gotten over this past year, with either cash or bullets dispensed.

“Shit,” you curse as you grow frustrated with the cube, tossing it onto the thin hospital mattress they kept on your bed. Rubbing your eyes as you try to refocus, it still feels strange to not feel the metal embedded in your skin. Worse still, you had to get used to what a fully ‘ganic body felt like again.

“You even human anymore, with all that chrome?” you can almost hear Johnny’s words to you when you got a new set of mantis blades from Vik’s clinic right before heading out for the oncoming fight at Clouds with the Tiger Claws. It was so long ago, now, but it doesn’t feel like it. That’s what Mikoshi does to a person, you figure. It’s hard to fully comprehend that so much time has passed.

Sometimes, you think you do hear him in more than just a memory. Like he’s still there, in your head. The doctors say it will pass with time, but they’ve been wrong before. Safe to say, Johnny literally changed your brain chemistry.

At least some part of you hopes they’re wrong, because you don’t know how you’ll make it in this world without him if Arasaka doesn’t stay true to their word.

It’s like you’ve lost a part of yourself, and you regret it more every day that you’re forced to live in this white box of a test tube that they’ve put you in. You should have died with him at Mikoshi. Gone out in a fiery blaze of glory and torn it all down with you, if only it would’ve made you feel a little better right before the end.

His last words to you had been as you went under the knife, right before they carefully excised him from your brain like a tumor.

“If this plan doesn’t work, Johnny--- If you wind up being right about Arasaka---” you had called to him through the code, as it weaved and curled around his form. It created and destroyed him all at the same time, but Johnny’s frown was still clear as day to you.

“I’m right about Arasaka,” he sounded nearly as exhausted as you had been on that roof the last time you’d talked. Defeated was something you’d never expected to see on him, “See? You haven’t changed at all. Still think you can outsmart the whole world, when you’re really just out of your depth.”

You didn’t want to think of this as a betrayal, but that’s what it was starting to feel like as you marinate in his sadness, “Look… I just want us to part as friends, for now. Just in case I don’t get to see you again after this, I wanted to tell you goodbye as proper friends.”

“Not sure that’s possible, anymore,” cut you to your core.

You wanted to reach for him, through the flickering code, but you didn’t dare. Heartbreak tastes a lot like blood on your tongue, even here.

“That’s what we are, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know, V. I just… don’t know.”

It was all you could remember of the interaction, though you’re certain there had to be more than that. Sometimes, when you dream instead of sleep, bits and pieces of it come back to you. That’s what you think it is, at least.

It’s far too real to be any normal nightmare.

It sounded too familiar when he said things like, “I just wish you’d stayed loyal to yourself,” or, “Those ‘Saka docs are cutting out a piece of us. Something we’ll never get back. It’ll leave a hole,” in those horrible dreams where memory emerges from the subconscious.

Perhaps this is just what you deserve. Your penance. The price you’ve got to pay for your choices, and the deal you made with the devil.

After all, nothing in Night City is ever free.

Multiple lifetimes of suffering, of being forced to go on without him? It’s almost poetic, in a Shakespearean tragedy sort of way. If this body fails, Arasaka will just test your construct in a new one until they get it right.

You’re company property and the Biotechnica cloning program is only in its infancy. Anders Hellman had told you as much himself when you’d asked.

“You’re one of the first successful cases, so far,” was, specifically, what he’d told you. It wasn’t much; Arasaka clearly wanted you in the dark.

You’d already proved too much trouble when left to your own devices, historically.

Have they brought you back before? How many bodies did you live and die in before this one? They could’ve wiped your memory of it, or maybe cut your engram into a million different pieces until something fit. You would never know the truth of what’s been done to you, most likely.

The door to your room slides open with a whirring noise, breaking you from your thoughts when the same scientist who you’ve come to understand is one of your daily handlers walks in, “It’s time for your daily tests.”

You try to not let the sarcasm drip from your tongue, but you’ve been failing at a lot of things these days.

“Always a pleasure to see you, too, Suki.”

You are dead, and this is just purgatory.

---

They eventually shipped you back to earth, “in accordance with the great progress you’ve displayed over these past few months,” as Anders had told it.

Earth was exhausting. Even though the Arasaka lab they had put you in had all the comforts of home, save for the overly-clinical aesthetics, it still took weeks for your body to become accustomed to its own weight. It was only then that you realized the space station’s simulated gravity was slightly less than that on earth, to allow for less pressure on your new joints and bones as your mind settled in. It’s perhaps why you had been able to relearn walking in the first place, because on earth you were much clumsier than you remember ever having been before.

There were bruises on your legs from the amount of times you’d tripped down or stumbled into something. You’re surprised they hadn’t yet put you in a padded room, but you must’ve been making progress, because eventually they sent a familiar face to see you again.

“おはようございます,” without translators installed into your body’s cyberware, the words that fall from Goro’s lips as he offers a slight bow take a moment for you to mentally decipher.

You don’t rightly care, because you’ve not seen a familiar face other than Anders since waking up in this body. Let alone, anything close to a friend.

He stiffens and freezes when you step forward to drag him into your arms, holding him in a tight embrace that almost has you melting against him with how much of a relief it felt to feel another person. It’s too forward, and you’d never have done it under normal circumstances---

But you’re so relieved to see him.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” you murmur as you release him, catching the slight tinge of a flush at his cheeks. He straightens his shirt, donned in black from head to toe. His hair isn’t pulled back, for once; it’s a little longer than when you had seen him last, “You look great, Goro.”

He seems to relax slightly at the familiar words, as if he hadn’t been quite sure what to expect of you at first. You watch as he takes you in, optics dilating as his settings switch with the distance you put between you again. It makes you slightly self-conscious under his scrutiny.

You know you look different. Sure, the core basics of yourself are the same, but you’re slimmer than you were before in this cloned body. Your cyberware is gone, as are the scars from a lifetime of mercenary work. Any tattoos you had were no longer etched into your skin, including Johnny’s. Then, there’s that new Arasaka logo brandished behind your ear that matched his own. The only good thing about your new appearance was that your hair had finally grown long enough to cover the logo when you left it down.

“You look like shit,” he cracks a smile after a second, “but it is good to see you, too.”

“What are you doing here?” you wonder as he walks further into your designated quarters, hands clasped behind his back, “Don’t tell me you get to tell a girl she’s dying twice.” He observes the room not unlike he did when he’d visited you on the space station, though seems less displeased with your living situation this time.

He doesn’t say, “barbaric,” at least.

It’s your words that earn his chastising side-eye, this time, “You should not joke. I do not want to do that again.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” the prodding does nothing to urge an explanation from him as he moves towards the desk on the other side of the room. The metal on his fingertips glints with sunlight as he moves the papers lying there--- some of the most recent status reports you’ve been given on your performance in Arasaka’s testing. A lot of it was redacted, but you were given just enough to know you weren’t dying currently.

That, they seemed to be taking as a win.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as his optics dart back and forth on the papers, reading them quickly. Surely, he’s had a briefing before he’d been sent to see you. Maybe he just doesn’t trust it was a full picture, or he wants to know what parts of it you know.

Settling into the couch, you reach for the tin of mints you’ve been hoarding recently. Popping one into your mouth, you turn it around as the fresh flavor bursts through your skin, scent sparking in your nostrils.

“Playing doctor now, Goro?” that gets him to look up from the papers to shoot you an unamused look that said just answer the question. You sigh, nail tapping the tin as you take a moment to get his answer, “Well, I’m tired and sore all the time from the physical therapy, and hypersensitive to almost fuck all. Oh, and they still won’t let me get any chrome installed--- even the minor stuff like optics.” You sigh, and the minty feeling tingles on your tongue, “Do you know how much deliberating it took for the white-coats to finally decide I was ready for an operating system update?”

“And the nightmares?” Goro turns away from the desk to instead lean on it, crossing his arms as he looks towards you. So, he had a more thorough briefing on your status than you expected.

You avert your eyes. It was bad enough having to talk to the mandated shrink about them. You really didn’t want to get into what plagued your mind with Goro.

“They’re nothing. It’s the physical symptoms that Arasaka cares about. That’s what’ll get Saburo a new body or not, right?”

He doesn’t let you off the hook that easily, “Arasaka has underestimated the impact of the mind on the body once already, at great cost. I do not think your mental state is considered ‘minor’ to your doctors and scientists, V.” After a moment’s pause, he confirms what you are thinking, “It is not considered something to be ignored by Arasaka’s board, either.”

“Is that what you’re here for?” you can’t help the irritation that seeps into your tone, “To give a first-hand report back to Hanako Arasaka and the board on my progress? Came to see the test subject for yourself instead of just reading the memo?”

“V…” his brow furrows, frown settling onto his lips as you turn your body away from him on the couch.

“Well, you’ve seen me! I trust you’ve gotten all the spicy details you need for your report on my mental status.”

“くそ,” he swears under his breath, as if exasperated with your antics. There is a stillness that comes with the silence between you after that, and you don’t dare turn to him. Instead, you focus on the tin in your hands and the mint in your mouth. Anything other than the pit in your stomach at the remembrance of the nightmares that plague you more nights than most.

There’s a shuffling of clothing and the sound of footsteps approaching as Goro comes to stand beside you, “You are… hypersensitive to words as well, it seems. Look at me, V.” You refuse to do it, and he sighs. In your peripheral, you can see him move to sit beside you on the couch, “Hanako-sama does expect me to relay your progress upon my return, but that is not the sole purpose for my visit.”

“Why’re you here, then?” it may be childish to still refuse to look at him, but you can’t bring yourself to. You feel as if nothing will be as it was before--- like even though you’ve fought terribly to return to normal, there would never be a moment when you felt like yourself again.

“You are being released.”

Your head snaps up to look at him when he says that, utter shock undoubtedly on your face. His own expression remains level, rock steady as he always seemed to be. You can see the truth of his words in his eyes; he has no reason to lie to you. You doubt Hanako would put him in a position to knowingly do so anyway.

“Released?” you breathe the word. You can’t quite believe the truth in his eyes.

“Hellman’s team has decided you have progressed as much as can be expected in a clinical setting. They think you are ready to return to a more ‘normal’ routine. I am here to tell Hanako-sama if I believe they are correct, based on what I know of you… who you were, already,” Goro holds up a hand, quelling the excitement he undoubtedly sees blossoming in your eyes. “This does not mean a return to what your routine was before. You cannot return to mercenary work.”

“So… I’m to live as a civilian, then?” you shift your whole body to face him, legs folded beneath you.

“In a sense… you will still be under Arasaka’s supervision, expected to meet every scheduled appointment and test. If you miss even one, you will be collected and returned here. There are other requirements, but I will leave those to be explained by your care team,” Goro watches as the news sinks in. He looks away, admitting, “I am maybe not the best to answer any questions you have about this.”

“Will I be staying in Tokyo?” is all you can think to ask, mind racing at the prospect of even a little freedom from this quarantine.

“At first, but I believe the goal is to reintroduce you to Night City should you continue to progress---” his words are choked off when you quickly grasp hold of his shoulders, pulling him into another hug. Just like before, he freezes, though this time he recovers enough to loosely hug you back.

“Thank you, Goro, for everything.”

---

The Corpo Plaza apartment didn’t feel like home, but it was closest to Arasaka tower and the Biotechnica building--- both of which you have to visit frequently. Well, at least it was less frequently than when you’d first been sent back to Night City, but it still wasn’t worth the constant drive from a different district.

Your fingers trace along the metal outlining your face as you glance at yourself in the mirror, having just finished a shower. The cyberware embedded in your cheeks is similar to what you had originally, though slightly different. You like it all the same, even if it had to be approved by Arasaka first. Every day you felt more like yourself, but you doubt you’ll ever be 100% you again. Too much has changed for this sense of newness to ever leave.

Even when you had reconnected with Victor, he looked at you like something uncanny. A dead woman walking. Misty could barely manage to look at you at all. Panam and the Aldecaldos had migrated; you were still waiting for her to return your call to figure out what they were up to these days. Judy was long gone, but getting out of Night City was maybe the best thing she could’ve done after everything.

Only Johnny’s old contacts seemed to remind you of who you were, and perhaps that’s because they’d never truly gotten to know you too well. Then, there was the feeling of loss that still gripped your soul. The ghost of Johnny Silverhand haunting your every thought and plaguing your dreams at night. You doubt you’ll ever be free of him. You hope he never fully fades from your psyche.

As much as it hurts, you still love him.

In hindsight, that’s probably the real reason why it would never work out between you and Goro. You’re still holding a torch for a dead man, and you’ll never be truly satisfied with anyone else.

In the end, Johnny has truly ruined you. Maybe it’s his last laugh: your complete inability to move on.

Your deal with Arasaka at the beginning had been for them to save him. To put him away into Mikoshi for the rainy day that the technology existed for a body suited for him to be a reality. The contract required them to release him into Night City after he had been deemed healthy, but you knew as well as anyone that contracts like these had loopholes even with the best lawyers pouring over them. Arasaka could truly do whatever they wanted with him once he was out of your head, other than destroying his engram.

When you had asked them the status on them holding up that end of your bargain, you had been met with cryptic answers. Hanako refused to meet with you, and you were in no shape without your combat cyberware to hunt her down yourself.

You’re terrified, honestly, at the idea of never seeing him again, nearly as much as you fear facing him.

Sighing, you step away from the mirror to move towards your bedroom while you towel-dry your hair as best you can. Tomorrow you were to report to Arasaka for your end-of-the-year testing and physical. Hellman would probably personally chastise you for the pizza you���ve ordered tonight. It was far from the approved meal plan, but it wasn’t as easy to find food that fit the diet and still tasted good outside of Japan. Finally, you understood Takemura’s issue with Night City’s synthfood.

Still, if one slice of pizza was going to kill you, you figure it’s a good enough way to go. Anything beats being an Arasaka pencil-pusher for the rest of your days.

“Night City Legend, Felled by PieZ,” the headlines would read, and it wouldn’t even mention the billions you’d cost Arasaka if you died.

Water drips down your jaw and you wipe it away with the towel before tossing it into the hamper. Scooping up an oversized sweatshirt that screamed support for the debut album of SAMURAI, it soaks up the few water droplets you’ve missed when drying and effectively covers the dog tags against your chest. Looking down at the hamper, you wish that Arasaka would sign off on you having a pet finally. Nibbles was doing fine at Victor’s, but you missed that furless cat.

The sound of your holo ringing is accompanied by Goro’s face flashing in your caller ID, and you pick up after a few moments, “Yo?”

“こんばんは,” Goro appears with his hair pulled up into a bun, and you could’ve been fooled that it was the old days if not for the few extra gray hairs he seemed to have now. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“What? You worried I’ll disappoint?” you roll your eyes at his pointed look. “You know I’m doing great now, practically would be back to my old self if they’d ever let me get my combat cyberwear.”

“And you know that Arasaka has invested too much in you for you to involve yourself in a Night City street fight. Do not think they will approve all your requests tomorrow, V, regardless of your progress,” he speaks reasonably, and maybe that’s what grinds your gears the most. You know good and well that Arasaka has everything riding on you. If you successfully keep from pushing daisies they’ll move forward with Saburo’s resurrection. Hell, maybe they already were. For their one and only living test subject, you’ve been doing relatively well, if not a little hypersensitive at times still.

“Not every fight in Night City is one you pick. What if I need to defend myself, huh?”

“Do you feel in danger? Has something happened?” Goro’s voice has an edge to it, concern, and you shake your head.

“I’m just making a point. Most folks who die in this city are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My combat chrome would give me an edge again. Call it an investment in keeping me alive,” you snort, and Goro’s lips quirk upwards at your dry humor.

“You can plead that to the panel tomorrow after you pass all their tests. I think you should… what is the phrase? Not get your hopes up?”

“Did you call me just to bum me out, Goro?” you sigh, moving through your kitchen to rummage through your fridge and find a NiCola.

“Only to discuss reality.”

“I think you’re just scared I’ll kick your ass with all my chrome one of these days for how sassy you are,” the sarcasm drips from your tongue, and this time Takemura does sound thoroughly amused.

“I would like to watch your attempt at that, but I think you will need to remove the pizza from your diet first, V,” then, he hangs up. Never one for drawn-out goodbyes. You think you prefer it that way.

“I could’ve kicked your ass while on an only-pizza diet, once,” you grumble to the apartment around you, taking a swig of the NiCola. The ring of the doorbell breaks you from the thoughts of just how you can get back at Goro for that comment, “Speaking of pizza…”

Barefoot, you stroll towards the door, hoping the delivery guy followed your instructions to leave your food at the door. You don’t want to deal with awkward small talk with another human right now. Not bothering to check the cams to see if your instructions have been followed, you let the door slide open with a swipe of your hand against the key screen.

The door is barely halfway open when a hand catches your throat and forces you back into the apartment, a body forcing you up against the entryway wall as you choke out a startled noise under a firm grip. Terror claws at your skin as you grab at the arm attached to the hand before you manage to get a good look at him when he stills against you, breathing hard. It takes a moment for wide eyes to take in enough of his features to recognize the dark eyes staring back at you.

“J---”

“You couldn’t help yourself from being corpo scum again, could you? Selfish, that’s what this whole thing was--- what you are,” his voice--- oh, fuck, his voice, it rings in your ears in a way it never has before. Deep, familiar, and real. Strained with anger and choked with a breathless fury, but something else breaks against the fire swirling in his eyes--- some relief that settles nearly as devastatingly in your bones as his skin lays heavy and warm against yours.

You can’t believe it. You must be hallucinating. You’ve finally cracked and lost it. Something was malfunctioning in your head, certainly, because there’s no way he’s here.

Your fingertips shake as they reach out, away from the firm grip he still has on your throat, to ghost against the slope of his jaw. The scruff of a beard still remained there, but was shorter than how he had lived in your head. The scars on his face were gone, along with the tattoos on what skin of his you can see beneath the leather jacket he wears. His left hand was at your throat, and it was made of flesh and bone, not metal.

He swats at your hand when you finally touch him, a hurt in his voice that was so real that you couldn’t trick yourself into believing he was just a hallucination, “Did you ever think about what I wanted, huh, when you chose this?”

But you still can’t get past the sight of him, finally managing, “Is… it really you?”

“Fuck yes, it’s me. What’s wrong with you?”

“Johnny,” you gasp his name, nails digging into his pristine forearm, tears nearly blinding you as they well in your eyes at the overwhelming emotion that surges from your chest. You can’t hold it together, trembling against him, and only then does his grip soften at your throat.

His voice sounds devastatingly mournful as he growls in the quiet of your apartment, “You sold us both to fuckin’ Arasaka, V. Look what they did to you. You’re their property. Doesn’t it make you sick? Some things are worse than death, and I doubt ‘Saka will ever leave us to it, now.”

You hear what he’s saying. It sounds just like him, and your heart breaks at the sound. At the warmth of him, and the way his dark hair ghosts around his cheeks slightly shorter than you remember it being before. He’s really here, and he hates you.

His voice cracks, “Why are you crying?”

“I-I missed you,” you confess between the sobs, trying to swallow up the emotion. Damning yourself for not holding it together better than this at the sight of him, but it was such a shock, and only one thing could run through your mind as dreadful regret sank into your soul, “a-and now you’re going to hate me forever.”

He looks at you like he’s stunned by the words coming from your mouth, or maybe he’s shocked it’s all you’re capable of saying when you’ve betrayed him as thoroughly as he perceives.

“Shit, V,” he murmurs, reaching up to drag his thumb against your cheek and wiping away the messy tears that trailed there. He looks down at you like he’s almost annoyed at you for crying, but there’s a strange look in his eyes that you can’t fully place. “I wish it was something as easy as hating you, but I just can’t seem to catch a fuckin’ break.”

The confusion at his words nearly stuns your tears into small hiccups as you breathe, “What?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hate you,” it sounds like dread on his tongue, like fear and grief for the situation you’ve both found yourselves in. It sounds like a confession, from his lips, “I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you for what you’ve done to me, either. I haven’t felt right without you since I woke up in this damn useless body. Feels like I should still be in yours.”

A breathless huff escapes you, almost akin to a laugh, as you realize what he’s trying to say, “You missed me, too, huh, rockerboy?”

“You’re the only thing about this damned city I missed,” he crowds you in, pressing you fully into the wall with his own body. “Not drugs, not alcohol, not music--- I came back here for you. Bein’ clean and having to put up with those ‘Saka corpo-drones has been the worst time of my life, by the way, but I did it because they said you were alive.” He looks at you, a hint of incredulousness in his eye, when he asks, “What the hell kind of a deal did you make with them?”

You’re terrified to tell him, but you can’t lie to him. Not after everything.

“I’m the reason Saburo Arasaka will live.”

Johnny curses, fury twisting his face, but the defeat is worse, “I should hate you. Fuck, why can’t I hate you?”

“I’m sorry---”

“Don’t lie to me,” he cuts you off, biting, “you’re not sorry. You don’t care if Saburo Arasaka lives or dies so long as we get to live.”

“Fine, you’re right,” anger flares in your own gut, exhausted annoyance lacing your tone, “but is that such a crime? I want to be okay again, Johnny! I want you to be okay, too!”

“And you’ll sell our souls for it?!”

“God, you’re such a dramatic asshole!” you nearly scream, slamming your eyes shut in your distress, “Go ahead and blame me for falling in love with a dead man, too, then! I should’ve known it would kill us both, but I couldn’t stop myself from loving you, Johnny! I wouldn’t have been able to go on knowing I’d left you to die, okay? That’s why I did this! Call me a selfish bitch if you want to; maybe you’re right---”

“Yeah? Well, I guess maybe I’m to blame for falling in love with a selfish bitch,” he growls, so close that his nose touches yours, and your eyes snap open just as he leans in to crash his lips against yours. It’s not wholly unlike the last kiss you shared with him, when he was just sparks on your neurons, and yet it’s entirely different.

There’s a taste to him now, but it’s not the cigarettes you had expected, but more akin to nicotine gum. Has he stopped smoking? He smells like leather and some sort of amber-scented cologne that has you weak in the knees.

But the way he kisses you is what nearly scrambles all coherent thought. He’s so warm and firm against you, the reality of his touch, tongue, and lips against yours desecrates the memory of the slight stimulation your neurons had simulated when he’d been in your head. Johnny seems to be in no better a state at the feeling of you against him, gasping into your mouth when your hands find his hair to drag him closer, and all the while all you can think is how happy you are that he is alive here and now.

It barely feels like it should be real.

He parts from you, catching his breath and staring at you with a look that sends heat rippling down your spine, flushing your skin in its wake.

You blink at him, head lulled back, and whisper through the feeling of having him back, like some piece of your soul coming home, “Fuck, I missed you, Johnny, so much.”

“You’re probably the only one, choom.”

“That’s not true. There’s Rogue, and Kerry---”

“They got their closure when I was hitchhiking in your skull. How can I just waltz back into their lives now?”

You tilt your head at him, “It can’t be that the Johnny Silverhand who was never afraid to die, is actually scared to live?”

He scoffs, leaning away from you with a roll of his eyes, “Is that the kinda’ psychobabble your ‘Saka shrink has been feeding you?”

“Could be,” you shrug, and a glint of the light at the metal around your neck catches his eye, “don’t mean it isn’t true.”

“What’s this?” he invades your space again, dragging a fingertip to loop at the chain at your neck, leading beneath your sweatshirt, and tugging it until the necklace drags into view. Dogtags clink in his hand and his eyes snap back up to yours in shock, “These--- you still have ‘em?”

Your cheeks heat with the find, and you don’t know why it’s so embarrassing even after you’ve told him that you’re in love with him. Of course you would’ve kept his dog tags. It only makes sense, but you want to defend it. The words crawl up your throat, and it takes all you have to swallow them down.

Instead, you reach up to begin to remove them, “You should probably have them back, now.”

Johnny’s hand catches yours, stilling it, “I… don’t know if I’m ready to step back into ‘em right now. ‘Sides, maybe I like the look of ‘em on you.”

You search his gaze, but he seems sure enough about the decision, “Alright. I’ll keep them, for now.”

“Good… It suits you,” a ring of the apartment door breaks you from whatever scrutiny weighed heavy in Johnny’s eyes. “The fuck is that?”

“My pizza this time, I hope,” you huff, pushing him back just enough to escape from between him and the wall. “I don’t know if I can take two of you showing up at my door tonight.”

Johnny trails after you, watching you open the door and pluck the pizza box from the ground where the delivery guy had left it as instructed, “Good news, there’s only one Johnny Silverhand.”

Turning towards him, you smirk, “Luckily.”

“Screw you.”

“You wish.”