V has his own vulnerable moment at Johnny's grave.
V speaks his own mind after he and Johnny speak about the rockerboy's death and what it meant. (A conversation only canonical in my mind between my two favourite disasters).
"On Judy's balcony, that night, you 'member when you begged me fer at least one smoke?" V muttered to the air between them.
Johnny didn't dare interject. He had never heard such a sorrowful tone fall from V's lips before. It scared him — not that he'd ever admit it aloud.
"I hoped you would," Johnny furrowed his brows as he glitched back to sitting beside V on the scrap metal sheet.
"I wanted an excuse to smoke again. Needed it. You just happened to be the one to shove me over the final edge."
Johnny didn't know what to say, his chrome fingers twitching in confused agitation. He felt bad that he did this to V. What? Why? He's never felt bad for someone else in his whole damn life! He—
"Seein' Evelyn, trapped like that in her thoughts, her own damn mind, it brought me back to just a fraction of what I felt when Jackie... I hadn't touched these things in almost a year after he picked me up off my feet." V chuckled to himself at the memory of sitting on those steps, fixing his second broken nose of the day.
"He said that 'those things will kill you, hermano, ain't gonna make it to the big leagues if ya die before we get there'. And I believed him. I got rid of 'em, the few I had left, and quit, cold turkey."
Johnny shuddered at the memory, form glitching with the action.
"Now I ain't gonna make it big, so what's the point? Gonna die fuck knows when and I ain't got much to live for anymore, so I told myself if you begged me again I'd say 'fuck it' to the wind."
V took the all too familiar cigarette case from inside his — Johnny's — jacket. It was, of course, Evelyn's, Judy having let him keep it, even after what had happened. He ran a synthetic thumb over the embossed rabbit on the front.
Johnny moved, suddenly, blinking now to be crouched down in front of V. His own head hung low, hair blocking his face from V's view. The rockerboy was struggling to think of what to say. How to say it. Never mind the fact that he hasn't said something remotely sympathetic to anyone in decades.
"I—" He shook his head and tried again, "V, I didn't— ugh, look I'm sorry," nope, that felt wrong to even say, "ya don't have to deal with my shit, too. Shouldn't be in the first place. Shouldn't have me messin' with yer thoughts, yer feelin's, or whatever."
V's thumb stilled. He blinked a few times as his mind finally processed what his unwilling copilot was saying. "No, Johnny, this isn't—" V put the case back in its pocket, attention fully focused on the other. "I'm just spewin' shit. 's got nothin' to do with me not wantin' ta help ya. 'Course I do, Johnny. What else is there for me to do, right?" That made Johnny grimace. "Look, you get a second chance here, yeah? Take it. Make those amends, say you fucked up to their faces, even if yers is mine."
"V," he had removed his aviators, them no longer acting as a shield between his true thoughts and V, "I'm fine, really. Ya don't gotta waste what little ya have left on me of all people." I don't deserve it.
At that V just stood up, the old metal scrap creaked as his weight was no longer holding it down, "C'mon, where to first?"
So he was just ignoring him then huh. Tsh, this kid. "Ker doesn't live too far from here I don't think. Somewhere around North Oaks. Sure he'd love a visit from little ol' me."
V shook his head at his antics. Good, this was his normal V. Not whatever that V was a few moments ago. Johnny would do anything to keep that V far away from his V.
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