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8-rae-rae-8 · 21 hours ago

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Men like them don't get happy endings (1/1)

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Summary:

SilverV Week/Weekend - Prompt: Regrets

V is gone. Johnny took the body, and V's eyes stare back at him every day. He watches himself ruin V more and more. How destructive can he be?

3.8k words - Mind the tags above - Mature

It's cold.

That's the first thing he notices, every swimming thought frozen in the face of the ice cold burn against his skin. Where he lays in the tub of near-frozen water, his hands struggle to pull at the walls behind his back. Every slowed movement comes with a shot of pain throughout his frame, reverberating in his body like a gunshot in the desolate badlands, sound bouncing off whatever had once been there. If there wasn't anyone there to see the gun go off, did it really happen?

Trembling hands grasp at the sleek tiling surrounding the well, fractals of ice forming along the rising hair on his arms. The hands that move him with such clumsy force are not his own, not a hunk of metal that clicked with each movement, hands without the familiar tattoos that covered the damaged skin. It's merely simplistic cyberware that decorates his skin, military grade, yet without the damning corporate logo slapped across it.

His mind runs a mile a minute, threatening to sink itself back into the ice cold water he just pulled himself out of. The chills settle deep into his spine as he pulls himself off the painful ground. A deep ache in his bones never stopped him from running, though the way his heart thrums against his sternum makes him stumble right back down to the wet floor. Pain claims his every breath, every twitch of his fingers.

There was no one to listen to the string of curses that fell from his mouth, in a voice so unlike his own. Alone, and ice cold. If he stays still enough, it will feel like he's back there, inside Mikoshi over again, before everything. Except, this time, he got a goodbye, a hug. The warmth translated through pixels, but, now, he's back to the biting chill of existence. It was cold there, but it's freezing here. There's nowhere to retreat to, no arms to fall into.

If he crawled out of there alone, did he truly make it out?

If there's no witness to his scream, did he ever really say anything?

Is it his own failure he pleads to hide?

What was left of V melted into him, mixed with the broken parts of the rockerboy's psyche. Everything once damaged now had a solid glue of gold surrounding the parts Johnny never would have touched on his own. If one thing wasn't missing, maybe he would've felt whole again, maybe that golden material would have filled the heart-shaped hole in the center of his chest.

Relief should have washed over him the second he opened his eyes, but even days after, held up in a rotting apartment, the feeling never came. Johnny Silverhand could never be so lucky.

Getting away with his life is one thing, a blessing, even.

Losing what he set out to save is another.

The chill never left his skin. Freezing fingertips trace against the sheets beneath him, leaving indents into the fabric. It's anything but soft here, mold nestles into the corners of every room, cold seeps in past the window frames, the shower pelts his skin like hail... Distantly, it reminds him of the same places he'd find himself and Kerry in, fifty-odd years ago—back when they argued over a mattress, only to crash in the same bed every night after each soul sucking gig they performed—the thought only makes him wince at the unread messages he knows sit in his inbox.

He can lay in this bed all he wants, he'll still be pulled back to the very same place. It doesn't matter what drugs are in his system, or how much liquor he downs, he ends up there again. The scene paints itself in front of him, day or night, asleep or wired on whatever he could get his hands on.

Him and V, chest to chest, eyes piercing with a mix of feelings Johnny couldn't put together himself. It burned in his chest, sending flares of pain through him. That's what it was, right? Pain, a certain agony clawing deep in his chest. V made the choice, with a pained tone. The words he says are always lost in the pulses of his own heartbeat in his ears. One of the last things he heard, and Johnny couldn't even read the pixels of his lips to tell exactly what was said.

It's right there, as if he dwells long enough in the replaying scene long enough, it'll finally come to him. The words are right there.

The more he stares out at nothing, the more the memory begins to melt away. He may find himself there day after day, but that doesn't mean it doesn't change each time. Something different every single time, agonizingly so. One time it's a third person view of the entire ordeal, the next the blues and reds of Mikoshi are the wrong shades, and another, it's entirely from V's perspective, just lacking the internal dialogue he would shamelessly beg to hear once more.

What's worse is that he's aware something is different, but not what, until the memory fades and he can't reach back out to grab it. His shaking hands wouldn't do a good job at grasping anything but his pack of cigarettes anyway.

The sheets scratched at his hands long enough, rubbing the tender flesh raw in a way he hadn't felt in years. A sensation he would have welcomed, if he saw his own hands resting on the bed, not the man's he willingly let die for him.

It all really does come back to that. Even one cigarette, one sip of booze… God forbid the sound of a gun firing ran through his head. The sound pierced him just like the bullets that once attempted to shred through him. This time, he'd welcome them with the hope he'd never wake to see his own reflection in the mirror anymore. The man staring back at him was not himself, those delicate eyes didn't belong to him.

Cigarette smoke doesn't soothe him the way it used to. It coats everything he owns, every piece of cloth marked with the stench, not the scent of V anymore. Long ago, it would've been a blessing to smell something other than that ratty apartment and the scent of city smog. Now that he sits with the cigarette resting on his lip, the screams of something missing in his brain ramps up. Each draw of the cigarette makes him gag. Is it on the feelings, or the smoke that he suddenly can't bear to sit in?

Withdrawal burns deep into his bones, more than it ever has before. Himself puking over the toilet with Kerry at his side is nothing like this. The premade meals in the poorly maintained vending machines did nothing to ease the waves of nausea, no pills soothed the ache, it all came back up still. Though, Silverhand can deal hunger clawing at his empty stomach, the deep set sense of wrong, the fatigue that never lets up, the longing… He can't shake that.

How could he ever begin to try?

It's a circle he walks, following his own footsteps each day. Blood trails behind his exhausted frame where the carpet rubbed his feet raw, but he never stopped. It doesn't go away, the pattern indents in him, like the tags he's cursed to carry. It's not his name that deserves to be preserved in the metal, it's V's. Daily, no matter the few outs he attempts to give himself, his hands will come back to those tags and scorch him like flames when those memories replay.

Failure look sat him directly in the face. Jarring, cruel. Johnny Silverhand deserves nothing less, and nothing more. The lives he's taken have never pulled him so deep before, below the surface of rushing waves and screaming agony. The water pulls him under for the sounds of his own pleas to make his ears bleed. They come hand in hand, like he and V should have.

Johnny and V, V and Johnny.

It has a nice ring to it. The words sit on his tongue, leaving it's own brand in his once rambling mouth. The one thing fueled his hatred quickly turned into him gathering the one thing he needed to keep closer than anything. How did bombing a corporation turn into having something so dear to him? How did he lose it so fast? His hands slipped, again, the beading sweat made him lose it all. Saying it wasn't his fault would be a lie. In what world wouldn't it be his fault?

Ash dies on his lips as an uncaring hand pinches the cherry of the cigarette. It doesn't bring relief of any kind, and so the pack goes to the floor. With the same anger he's carried thus far, his hands swipe the items from his side table off to send them tumbling with the cigarettes. Everything clatters to the floor with harsh thuds, or ceramic clinks of gathered ashtrays. Bracelets, lighters, and emptied baggies all scatter across the floor. All Johnny does is kick it out of his path as he walks on unsteady feet to the small balcony door.

There's no reason to clean his mess. No voice to scold him for that behavior, and certainly not one to chuckle at him when he complains. The hours alone go by slow. How long had it been since he crawled out of there? How many days has he let himself rot away? How many would it take to numb everything enough to get a move on? The drugs can only do so much to help before he'd dead to the world, and a failure in the eyes that stare back at him in the reflection of the balcony's tinted plexiglass door. Even he's a mess, V's face is a mess—What has Johnny done to him?

The life that was once bright in V's eyes is now dead, replaced by the angry, sullen look Johnny often appeared with. Those eyes stare right back at him where he pauses in the doorway. His hand traces where his face reflects in the glass, as if he could feel any familiar warmth from tracing V's scarred skin. What as he done to V?

An exasperated sigh leaves him, a shaking hand reaches up and thumbs over the deep bags underneath the reflections eyes. That man isn't Johnny, he won't ever be. That's V's face staring at him, if he leaves his eyes to unfocus, he can pretend he's cupping the other man's face. He can pretend he didn't kill the only thing he truly wanted—fuck, needed—in his life.

It only makes sense that he's still ruining V. The drugs, the alcohol, the sleepless nights… All of it without so much as a supportive hand to lift away the glass, or pull him from the plaguing nightmares that seem to scar him even in his waking hours. If V was just still here, they could rot together.

An honorable death doesn't mean suffering won't follow. V made the choice, and Johnny agreed. Why the hell did he let V walk off like that? He's supposed to fight, that's what they do! That's what Johnny does. He yells, he bloodies his fists, he screams. Why didn't he put an ounce of that into keeping V close? He's a coward, a fucking selfish coward.

A weak, selfish coward.

A useless bastard who can't even break the glass when his fist collides with the panel. How the hell could he just let V walk away? It's almost like Alt, all over again, except there's no chance of happily ever after. There was a goodbye, he watched himself leave through that godforsaken well. No cry for help, and never enough push back. Everything was gone, just as soon as he got it. How could he let someone else leave again? How was it his fault, all over again?

He's a parasite, in V's brain or not. A leech, a pain in the ass no matter who he's with. He's never been ashamed of that, guilt never crawled into his gut like it does now. It never burned like this. Is he selfish, or simply pathetic? Something useless that can't function without a person to steal from, taking every bit of life from them until he's used all he can. From day one, V was a means to an end. Merely something to take from, to harm and berate. Then it all changed, their gaze grew soft in each other's presence. V's mind became a safe haven, a quiet place to retreat to and be held with such delicate warmth.

Now, it's all gone, everything is just as ice cold as when he crawled out of Mikoshi. It's still as cold as the day he lost his partner, that relationship never needed to be established. Not with the comforting words, or deep conversations they pulled each other into at the worst times. Teasing and bickering like they'd been doing this forever… Why did he let that go?

'Love' isn't something he uses lightly, or recklessly. Not when the meaning hits a place in his chest he could never truly articulate. Feelings are delicate things, ones he tosses them around like they're nothing, leaves his battered hands to scoop up what's left of them. Covered in mud, stained and dirty… Those conditions are familiar, minus the lack of his own bloodshed. Rather, it's V's blood. V's hurt. His own failure remains the only constant, his lack of care… He didn't say the word, he never said 'love', but, god, his heart thrummed in his chest whenever V met his eyes. Everything else was on the table for painful jabs, but not his aching heart.

Why didn't he say it? Why are questions all he has left?

Shaking hands pelt the door until a dent is left in the cheap metal. Whatever shouts he hears over his own angry fists fuels the burn in his arms. V's cyberware glistens where the street lights hits his arms, reinforced fists and rage doing a number on the door's panels over and over. It burns. Every hit burns like fire through his bones. Is he angry at himself, or at V? He keeps catching his eyes in the reflection of the plexiglass, V's eyes stare at him.

Why?

It's only him inside this head, only himself to hear his own pleading. He is alone. All alone. Begging is weak, but it's all he can do as his knees hit where the apartment carpet ends and the balcony's tile starts. Johnny Silverhand is weak. He didn't fight hard enough, not this time, and certainly not well enough. He lost it, he lost V, and now he's losing himself—if he ever had a firm concept of himself between running from place to place, cyberpsychosis and drugs.

The ground hurts his weary bones, but he doesn't let V's synthskin bruise despite the beating he's already dealt, he lets the ache simmer in his hands without more ruthless pounding into the door. He lets every joint in his hands feel even the smallest of aches. The way Johnny deserves, after his failure, after everything. He's a goddamn parasite, leeching off everything his friends—his partner—had. What has he done by walking away like that? Why did he let himself step a single foot into that well? Everything was right there, his everything was right there.

He's been in this position before, hands clawing at chipping paint of a motel door while the rest of his body curled in on itself. Withdrawals, he had said in those weak moments. What is this more than withdrawal from a drug he needed more than life itself? V is a drug with a euphoric high and a deadly crash—at least he was—the remnants can't leave Johnny's system. Fragments of code, memories he leeched from his host that replay as if they're his own… It keeps that buzz while Johnny's dull eyes stare at everything crashing around him. Within him.

No tears leave drip down his cheeks, but they steadily pool in V's sharp eyes. He knows the way they look in those gorgeous brown eyes, a honey color compared to his own. No amount of staring into his own reflection could make up for the fact that it's him in the mirrored image. His hands can't reach out and touch warm skin, brush away the tears before they even come, when everything feels like ice to his shaking hands. There's no more warmth to fall into, just a frozen lake to pull him under and under after the ice cracked beneath his feet.

Once, now long ago, Johnny would've said he didn't make mistakes. Small or large. Deadly or not. Everything was part of a plan, casualties were always accounted for. Mourn later, keep pushing till his goal was met. There isn't a goal here. Hell, making it to the next day isn't a goal. He wouldn't ever make it one, there's no sun at the end of this horizon, not a cord he could write to pour his soul out in the only meaningful way he'd ever been able to. There's nothing here for him, nothing anywhere, but his mind screams to run while his body can't lift itself from it's crumbling position.

His head hands low with ragged breaths, arms weak the more they slide down the door's frame. He won't move from here, not as V's hair falls in his face, or as steps of other residents pelt the floor in the halls. A poor kind of submission, hopeless with broken pleas ready on his tongue to ask for this to end. Several rounds of bullets could splatter his brain matter over the ground, and the last thing he'd think is thank god. A blade could slash his neck and he'd gladly bleed out on the floor. Because that's what Johnny does, right? He bleeds, messy and full of gore.

Unhealthy dependence is something Johnny knows well. From himself, more than anything. He used people until there was nothing left to take, without an ounce of shame. He depended on that, on their resources and sympathy to get him through whatever he needed to push past. There wasn't ever a moment he had to be alone. There was Kerry, Alt, Rogue, Denny, Henry… If he pushed a drug, or a bottle of booze, to any of them, they'd take it. If he pushed himself in their space, they would take him apart and put him back together. With V, it wasn't much different. Except this time, he kept taking and taking even when he didn't want to. He killed without raising a single hand.

Saying it's the relic's fault doesn't soften the constant blows to his constricting chest. It could be reiterated in several ways and the words would never plant themselves in his thick skull. Only his failure lines that space, it grows more vast and far darker every minute he lets himself fall further onto the ground. V, his V, died because of him. Every moment they grew softer towards each other, they took from the other. Johnny watched as V took every ounce of Johnny's anger to the heart, and felt himself grow more vulnerable and delicate with each word V spoke back to him.

They melted into each other. There wasn't a line to distinguish where V ended and Johnny started, they erased that line when they pushed meeting Hanako back by days at a time, just to get a few more moments to themselves. Just V and Johnny.

The way it was supposed to be.

He should've pushed it back, all of this, just to get another minute.

Regret sits heaviest above all the things in his head. The feeling settles itself right in his heart, like a thousand knives to the most sensitive part of his being—he got that ache from V, no doubt—every time he took a breath.

Frigid hands fall into his lap, his head leans just enough into the battered door to hold himself up. The tears in V's eyes only start to fall once he takes a full, shuddering breath. It all weighs on him, from what got him to this point, to what he would've done different.

Nothing could've saved himself or V from the pain. The rippers' tech wasn't good enough, their connections almost got them killed the first time they crossed over the blackwall, he almost killed V himself at the start. Maybe it would've been a wise choice, kill them both without ever having gotten close… Or maybe they should've taken the easy way out, like Vik suggested. Bullets and a gun on that old rooftop. Why did they agree to have to fight?

Doubting himself is uncharacteristic, unfamiliar and, god, it's terrifying. Replaying every bit he can remember is only bound to wind him up until he can't pull in a breath at all. It's getting there, too, with each strangled exhale and pained inhale… It's weak. Crying isn't like him, it's been years. Yet, here, out of all places, is where he decided to break.

It comes as second nature now, to lift his head and see if there's anything to grab just to feel some sort of warmth. Everything is drench in cigarette smoke, V's clothes don't smell like him… Not that he can pull himself up anymore than picking his head up to glance inside.

For a brief, agonizing second, his eyes scan throughout the entire place. Hoping, beyond any knowledge he has, that V will be standing inside, maybe laying on his bed and they could get some kind of happy ending. Their version of 'happy' is just as sick as the rest of the city's, they'd both rot in bed and this could've been a night terror.

It doesn't work like that.

Tears stain his reddening cheeks as his eyes zero in on the gray bed sheets poorly tossed around. V should be here. It should be him laying in that bed, while Johnny sits next to him for every 'relic attack'. This should've been the natural progression of every effect the relic gave V. It should've been the two of them. It should've been him and V on that bed, back in V's place, he should be cradling V's head and wiping away the tears that pour down his own cheeks.

Not pleasant, never for them. Every move would hurt, every soul sucking gig would force Johnny into control to bring V back in one piece. But they would've been together. Johnny would've been there with him until the end, not disappear and leave V in that horrendous place.

Men like them don't get happy endings. They don't get final words and gentle touch. It's all cruel until the very end.

The glint of his Malorian sits in the front of his mind as the light hits where it sits in it's holster by the chair. That's the coward's way out, but he's always been a coward, hasn't he?

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