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Unburden

pairing: Kerry Eurodyne x Male!V , Johnny Silverhand x Female!V word count: 5864 summary: V and Valley have a discussion and Valley and Johnny drink coffee sorta notes: Hello it’s me again. Back at it with another chapter. I love everyone who even glances at this fic tbh and I love you all. Also self reblog of chapter 1 too before this so :p

Play with Fire — 01 | . . |

AOO Link!

With some coaxing, Valley and V were ushered inside. The wind had picked up and it was getting far colder than V was prepared for. V’s face hurt but not as much as the ache in his heart at what he did to Valley. Valley walked and sat on the couch near the front door, her arms crossed tightly and motioning for V to sit. Kerry brought over a washcloth and cleaned his face off as he sat on the coffee table across from Valley. “Valley, by the way.” Valley muttered up at Kerry. Kerry raised an eyebrow back at her, glancing over at V. Johnny’s chuckle was the only thing that was heard. “Kerry.” Kerry replied back, looking V’s face over once more before walking away to grab an ice bag. “All right.” Valley stated, looking at V. “Spill.” Valley muttered lowly. V let out a small sigh, leaning his elbows on his knees.

“The big heist...the one that was supposed to make me rich and legendary, remember?” V asked, looking back at Valley who nodded. “Went to shit.” V started. “Got this ‘Relic’ that was so expensive, but things got fucked when Saburo Arasaka was killed by Yorinobu Arasaka and me and -” V stopped himself, the feeling nearly overwhelming him as he remembered even just the smallest thing about Jackie. Kerry walked back over with an ice pack and sat beside V. V sighed at the cool package against his face. Kerry made V hold the ice pack, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, staying for a moment longer, looking at V to tell him what to do. V shook his head and nodded. Kerry only nodded back, standing up and kissing his head and going upstairs. An unspoken understanding...Kerry had a long flight to get back a day early to surprise V. “Listen, the heist went to shit and Jackie died, okay?” V snapped, feeling the anger boil in his blood. Valley’s face quickly changed from the stoic look to a much softer one. V hated it. Didn’t want to feel sympathy. Spent nearly 8 months not letting it get to him...not letting himself really...V shook his head. “V.” Valley stated softly, making the knot in Valley’s chest tighten. V quickly grabbed hold of the bottle of Centzon and opened it, taking a long drink. When he opened his eyes, Valley had her own eyes shut. She hated it when he drank...but V needed it. Needed it anytime he talked about Jackie… “Shoved a biochip in my head that was considered the Relic, then was betrayed by my fixer and shot in the head.” V continued his explanation, taking another long drink from the bottle before Johnny grabbed the thing from him. “Hey!” V snapped, as Johnny walked around him and sat on the opposite end of the couch Valley sat at. “Woke up in a landfill.” Johnny began, closing the lid on the bottle. “With me in his head.” Johnny continued, placing the bottle down beside him. “Had to have some serious stuff done to get ‘im back to functioning...well, sort of functioning.” Johnny said, leaning back and spreading his legs out. “See, that Relic in his head saved his sorry ass from becoming worm food.” Johnny continued, obviously living off the attention he was getting. V rolled his eyes. “It saved me and then started killin’ me.” V grumbled back, pulling Valley’s attention back to him. “Biochip in my head had a personality construct on it. Which was Johnny Silverhand’s.” V stated, gesturing back at Johnny. Valley looked between the two, obviously confused. “So...you’re telling me that...that he’s like, legit, Johnny Silverhand.” Valley asked, pointing over at Johnny as he sat on the couch end opposite of her own. “Out of all the questions…” V muttered lowly, pulling the ice pack from his face before hissing from the cool air that hit it afterwards and putting it back on. “Technically, I’m a clone with my own construct put into it.” Johnny said helpfully from the sidelines. V sent a glare back at him while Valley chuckled. “See, the reason the biochip in V’s head was killin’ him was because when he got shot, he died, so the biochip thought V was just a corpse. So when V woke up, the biochip started killin’ all the good parts of him, brain neurons, functioning organs later on and so on.” Johnny shrugged casually. “Relic was gonna override his personality with mine...Started to slowly become one another until my construct had taken over fully.” Johnny continued far too casually for V’s liking. V glared back at him once more. Johnny rolled his eyes. “Hey, you’re obviously alive and well, so the story has a good ending.” Johnny snarked back when he caught sight of V’s face. V rolled his eyes, turning back towards Valley. “Johnny and I…” V began and stopped, thinking for a moment. “It was like our minds were touching.” V began to try and explain what had happened with Johnny. “He could see my memories and I could see his. He was like this little ear worm in my head; only thing was that I was the only one who could hear the fucker. Only I could see him. And the more time that went on, the more in control he seemed.” V explained uneasily, still feeling an urge for a cigarette, even now. “Took some pills to keep him from fully takin’ over, gave him the reins sometimes. He knew me and I knew him.” V shrugged, not even wanting to look over at Johnny. “Take a bullet for him.” V said, now glancing back at the man in question. It was soft and almost invisible, but V could see Johnny’s smile. Valley remained silent, simply watching the exchange. “Had to go through a bunch of fuckin’ hoops to get to anyone who could even remotely help me. Ended up getting in contact with Hanako Arasaka for some help.” V muttered. Valley let out a scoff, folding her arms and leaning back into the couch. V raised an eyebrow at her. “Got out of Arasaka’s lair only to be lured back in?” Valley asked with venom in her words. V rolled his eyes back at her. “What’d you have to do, V, sell your soul?” Valley snapped back, sitting up a bit to make sure he knew she was pissed. Always was good at making him feel guilty. “Almost.” V joked but quickly shut his mouth with the glare that Valley sent back. “All I had to do was not kill Yorinobu Arasaka when I got into Arasaka Towers to get into their mainframe which held a totally different construct that wasn’t even really a construct, that helped split Johnny and I up since the biochip was slowly taking over my body and I was slowly becoming him.” V explained thoroughly, yet quickly. It was nearly 5 am. He wanted to get some rest… “So, got that figured out, and Johnny gave me my body back-” “Not without you trying to beat my cyberdata ass to a pulp.” Johnny muttered from the side. V sent a stern glare back at him, indicating for him to shut up. Johnny rolled his eyes, putting up his hands defensively. “I was put back into my body, but I just couldn’t accept that this stupid fuckin’ rockerboy that had been in my head for nearly 2 months was gone.” V explained, glancing back at Johnny. “So, I spent the next 5 months finding out a way to save the both of us, since I was still dying at the time before we even got to the idea of cloning.” V continued explaining himself. Valley sat deadly quiet as she listened. “Came to me when I got in a street fight in Kabuki, tryin’ to just forget that I was still dyin’... Fought these two twins that had split their personalities into two bodies. Didn’t really have a twin, but the idea of clones came to mind...So I thought, why couldn’t I just create a clone? So I did...with a lot of people’s help.” V explained, feeling a little giddy at all that had happened. He saved himself, but most importantly, he saved Johnny Silverhand. “Created clones of me and Silverhand, switched out our engrams into the clones, bimbamboom, we’re both alive and, well, in bodies that won’t rot away. One’s that we both have our own control over.” V said with a small smile that quickly faded as he looked over at Valley. Valley was looking down at her hands. Her jaw tight, her mouth clenched shut, one of her legs was bouncing anxiously. “Why didn’t you call?” Valley asked, the question knocking the wind out of V’s high that he had from just thinking about his brilliant plan. Valley didn’t look up. V felt the knot in his chest move to his throat. “I didn’t want to worry you.” V muttered, rubbing the back of his neck hesitantly. Valley quickly looked up at him and glared. “Bullshit.” Valley snapped freezing V in his spot. “If you didn’t want to worry me, you’d have picked up your stupid fuckin’ holo...given me a fuckin’ lie.” Valley continued, suddenly standing up from her anger. “Hey Val, it’s been hella busy here, how’s it goin’, how’s life? I’m doin’ okay, just busy.” Valley snapped aloud, mimicking his own voice as she started pacing in front of the couch she had once been sat on. V looked down for a moment. “Val I-” “He was a fucking mess.” Johnny said aloud, stopping Valley from pacing and made both V and Valley look his way. “After Jackie died, all V did for a month was gig after gig after gig.” Johnny explained and V felt his skin crawl. “Didn’t take care of himself, ignored everyone’s calls, besides fixers givin’ him jobs. Only reason he knew about Jackie’s funeral was because his mom messaged V and told him that the funeral was on a certain day and then on that day, V finally picked up the holo.” Johnny explained, sitting up a bit, looking over at V. V could tell he felt a little bad about telling Valley all of this for V’s sake, but not as much as V would have liked him to feel. “Went to his funeral and started gettin’ his shit together. Started focusin’ on getting the chip out of his head and started figuring out how to do that.” Johnny shrugged, leaning back once more. Valley didn’t seem as pleased with the explanation...and why would she be. “How did…” Valley began, looking down for a moment before looking back over at Johnny. “Your minds touched and you both saw memories of the other…” Valley muttered aloud. “How...why didn’t you know who I was?” Valley asked, sounding pathetically sad. V felt the sharp intake of breath enter his nostrils. Johnny looked at Valley for a moment before glancing over at V. “There’s certain memories we both didn’t let the other see.” Johnny shrugged. “I didn’t show him certain memories of my past and he kept most of his childhood locked up pretty tightly.” Johnny explained truthfully. V looked back over at Valley hesitantly. Valley looked at Johnny before sitting back down on the couch. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember a pretty face like yours.” Johnny stated seriously, making V snap his head back towards him and glare as Johnny smirked and winked back at Valley. Luckily, V didn’t turn his head back to Valley before seeing Johnny get hit in the face with a pillow. V chuckled softly, looking back at Valley. Valley had the usual pink across her cheeks now, the one that always spread across her cheeks and nose from any kind of comment like Johnny’s, bringing out the dark colors of her freckles only seemed to grow in numbers from years in the sun. “I mean, you said that you both liked Samurai growing up, I just assumed that, you know, with the assumption I’ve been with V I could get with his sist-” Now V threw a pillow at Johnny. Light laughter filled the air as Johnny caught the other pillow. “Val, you’re welcome to the couch, Johnny, you’re welcome to fuck off.” V said, shaking his head, feeling the knots throughout him subside, even just for a moment. V stood up and walked towards the stairs. “I got a compromise.” Johnny said and V could already feel the comment coming as he stopped on the first step, looking back at Johnny. “Valley girl and I both get the couch and fuck off on-” Johnny said aloud before Valley quickly got up and grabbed a pillow, shoving the thing over his face. V shook his head as he watched V slowly suffocate Johnny with a pillow as he continued to laugh under it. V shook his head as he walked up the stairs. A thud made him look down at the scene. Johnny had grabbed the pillow and was now trying to suffocate Valley on the floor. “You got this Val?” V asked as he leaned against the railings. A moment of mumbling passed before Johnny let out a sharp hiss of pain, reaching for his junk and falling backwards. Valley rolled backwards and stood up, jumping just a little as she did. “Yup!” Valley called back up, giving him a thumbs up. As V turned, he could see that Johnny had gotten back up and went to tackle Valley, but V didn’t hear another thud when Kerry walked out of the bathroom and leaned over the railing. “It is now getting close to 5 am.” Kerry snapped, pulling everyone’s attention up to him as he leaned against the railing. “Listen, I’m an aging rockstar who needs his beauty rest, so please, would everyone, shut. The. Fuck. Up!” Kerry snapped. V only got a glimpse of Johnny flipping Kerry off and V doing the same, with Johnny holding onto the collar of Valley’s trenchcoat before Kerry grabbed onto V’s shirt collar. “And you-” Kerry snapped, pulling V into the bathroom. “I don’t think I said I was done with you.” Kerry purred as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

Valley sat in a lawn chair looking out at the city. Her trenchcoat was wrapped tightly around her as her knees went up to her chest, trying to keep the warmth in. It was getting colder and V could see her breath as she sat in silence. The city never really ‘slept’, but at 6:30 in the morning, there was a lull about the neon city. Valley didn’t sleep. She rarely did whenever she had to come to Night City and despite V’s nice and safe and fancy penthouse, it didn’t help. Her mind was buzzing far too much. Her skin crawled, or maybe it was a shiver, Valley didn’t know the difference at this point. She never really felt at home in her own skin after all the shit that went down. Could only blow up and torch so many shitty places before feelin’ like the shitpile never ended. “Does it get any colder?” Valley flinched as a voice broke the semi-quiet atmosphere. Valley turned and looked at who was talking. Johnny Silverhand. Not just some impersonator, no, the real one. It was still a little baffling. The only good thing about V not mentioning / keeping Valley locked away in his memories from Silverhand was that he would 100% use most of her childhood teenage rebellion to tease her. Could honestly use most of her childhood to tease her. “Been dead for a good 50 years.” Johnny muttered aloud, now wearing what looked like an old Samurai jacket. Valley didn’t say a word regarding that. Didn’t need him knowing how obsessed she had become at one point with the band. “Still have that little piece of ice in Antarctica?” Johnny asked, plopping himself down in the lawn chair besides her. Valley raised an eyebrow at him, noticing the steaming mug in his hand. “Not the real thing.” Valley said, shaking her head, putting her feet down as he spread himself out. Seemed to be a trademark of his... “Have some artificial ice blocks up there they watch. Put new ones in recently, may be why it’s gettin’ so fuckin’ cold.” Valley shrugged, making sure her trenchcoat stayed tightly around her to keep the cold out. “This how you used to get girls back in the day, Silverhand? Talkin’ about the weather?” Valley teased back at him. “No,” Johnny said with a shake of his head. “But is it workin’?” Johnny asked playfully back, making Valley snort and shake her head. “Nope. Have to do a little better than askin’ about the weather.” Valley sassed back. “Plus, negative points for walking out here with only one cup of coffee and not two.” Valley pouted playfully back, keeping the fluttering in her stomach from spreading across her face at the look he gave back. Valley had seen some old footage of Samurai on stage and off stage and interviews and far too many other clips that she scoured the net for, but none had actually prepared her for seeing the real Johnny Silverhand in person and none would prepare her for how he looked at her like he could devour her in a minute. “V doesn’t drink coffee, and I’m not about to waste coffee with Kerry around. He’ll lose his fuckin’ head.” Johnny snarked back, taking an obnoxious sip of coffee after staring at Valley for a moment longer than she knew was appropriate. “Ahh, the expensive shit.” Johnny exclaimed aloud, making Valley glare back at him with a huff. “You know, princess, there is more on the pot inside.” Johnny said, kicking his feet up against the railing that was close to the lawn chairs. “Stay out of the armoury though.” Johnny warned playfully. Valley let out a groan as she stood up and stretched. She had been sitting in the shitty little lawn chair since V went to bed...or at least said he was. Valley got a little tired of hearing soft moans and went outside. Johnny had decided to take the couch anyway and despite sort of wanting to take him up on the offer to share the couch, she went outside instead. “Jesus, how much fuckin’ jizz do they have?” Valley grumbled, leaning back against the rail and popping her back. Valley shut her eyes at the sensation. Johnny snorted. “You want the honest answer? ‘Cause I can tell you how much both-” Johnny got out as Valley’s eyes snapped back open. “No!” Valley snapped, already walking towards the house. Johnny’s laugh was a lot louder than she would have liked. She knew he wasn’t kidding and she wasn’t about to hear the statistics of her brother and his lover’s cum to jizz ratio. Valley shivered at the thought as she got back into the house. Another little shiver ran up her spine from the warmth as she walked into the kitchen, making sure to avoid the armoury door like the plague and keeping her ears closed, deciding to hum quietly to keep her mind occupied. Valley went over and began opening cabinets before finding a mug she could use. Valley poured the near black liquid into the mug, smelling the roasted bean juice aroma and nearly laughing at her own stupid description of it. Valley took a sip and nodded, before turning to walk back outside. It was expensive. Well, Valley was used to cheap shit from vending machines, so this tasted like pure caffeine which was obviously a lot more expensive than anything Valley was used to. She’d be jumping off the walls in an hour. Maybe with it being expensive, that would keep her from needing to shit her guts out as well. Valley walked to her seat, slowing down as the sun was beginning to peek through the buildings. Something so eerily calm about seeing the sun blocked out by buildings compared to being woken up by how bright it was while on the road. It depended on where she was, but she remembered the Midwest with its open and deserted planes being extra bright. Usually stayed around there. That’s where it was most calm. Valley took a breath in as she continued walking. “Future reference, Silverhand.” Valley muttered, walking and shoving Johnny’s feet from the railing and walking to sit on the chair she had claimed earlier. Johnny sent a sharp look her way. “No matter what kind, just a plain black coffee for me.” Valley stated snobbishly as she sat down in her chair as eloquently as one could in a trenchcoat and tight jeans. “Good to know.” Johnny muttered aloud as Valley took a sip of the coffee once more, trying not to burn her tongue. “That mean we’ll be spendin’ more early mornings or late nights together?” Valley nearly choked. Johnny only chuckled lowly. “Hey, that’s not a yes or no. Didn’t you say that you and V liked Samurai? I’m just sayin’, princess, V has Kerry and you can easily have m-” Valley forced the coffee down as she tried not to choke on the hot coffee before reaching over and shoving him as hard as she could. To her delight, the lawn chair tipped over and down went Johnny Silverhand...and his coffee. Valley didn’t even try to hide the cackling that left her throat as she watched the expensive coffee spill onto the terrace. “Bein’ dead really has slowed down your reflexes, huh, Silverhand?” Valley snarked, watching as he glared back at her. Valley felt herself moving automatically as she stood up, already feeling some type of retaliation coming. “Need I remind you of Kerry’s expensive coffee?” Valley sassed as she began walking backwards as Johnny practically hopped up, staring back at her. “Would have if mine weren’t all over the fuckin’ ground.” Johnny muttered aloud, already walking towards her. Fuck it felt more like stalking. Valley kept one hand out in front of her as she continued walking backwards, taking another long drink of the coffee, hoping it would give her a jolt of energy. Valley turned and quickly walked around through the front door of the house. “I’m just tryin’ to teach you a valuable lesson, Johnny dear.” Valley snarked as she felt her heart flutter seeing how quickly he had caught up to her. “Mhm, and what’s that?” Johnny asked in a near growl. Valley bit her tongue as she stopped in her tracks, letting Johnny walk fully up to her as they stood just inside the house, the front door shutting behind Johnny. Valley kept the gulp from being visible as she looked at him. He was a lot taller than she was. Her optics said he was about 186 centimeters tall, while she knew she was 161 on a good day. Even with her combat boots, that only gave her an extra 5cm to her height, so it wasn’t that helpful. The way he looked at her was once again a factor of why she bit her tongue. Valley took in a deep breath. She wasn’t about to let any of that distract her from being an absolute shithead. Valley grabbed his jacket lightly and pulled him down, making sure to keep from being drawn in by how dark his eyes looked at the action...or in general. “Never let your guard down.” Valley nearly whispered before sweeping his feet from under him and stepping around him as he fell. “Oh, you are such a fuckin’ cunt.” Johnny snapped loudly as Valley turned, walking backwards towards the kitchen. “‘Course I am!” Valley chirped happily as he slowly got up, rubbing his back. “I have one so may as well be one!” Valley snarked, sticking out her tongue and winking at him. Valley could hear his chuckle and felt herself smile as she turned back around and walked into the kitchen area, drinking the rest of her coffee before putting the mug into the sink. “Val, do you ever sleep?” Valley turned, looking up the stairs and saw V slowly coming down them with an awful bedhead...and a large black eye. Luckily, his nose wasn’t broken...or at least too broke to fix that Valley could see. Valley felt a little bad...but only a little. Valley shook her head. “Nope! Not in this shithole of a city.” Valley chirped back up at him with a smile. V let out a sharp groan. “You look like shit.” Valley smiled cheerfully as Johnny walked into the kitchen, empty mug in hand, sending a sharp glare towards Valley. V rolled his eyes. At the comment, at Johnny, at all of it. “Yeah, well, someone decided that I needed the shit kicked out of me.” V muttered, walking over and grabbing a mug before filling it with coffee. “Hey, there’s a dishwasher for a reason.” V grumbled as Johnny tried to put his mug into the sink. “Both of you, there’s a dishwasher.” V grumbled, grabbing Johnny’s mug from his hand and grabbing Valley’s mug from the sink, waving the mugs at the both of them before putting them in the dishwasher. “Fuckin’ kids.” V muttered, pouring 2 creams and 3 sugar packets into the coffee. Valley nearly gagged at the concoction. “Hey dickhead, I’m older than you are.” Johnny snarked, leaning against the kitchen’s island. Valley could see the small cut on his cheek from where she had punched him. Plus she had elbowed Kerry Eurodyne in the face too. Man, she was just beating the shit out of everyone huh. V rolled his eyes back at Johnny. “Technically, you’re only a week old.” V snarked, sipping his coffee before grimacing and going back for more sugar. “Or a prehistoric creature, if you want to go by your birthday.” Valley said with a shrug, going over and swatting V from taking 5 more sugar packets from the little container of them. V huffed back at her, going for more sugar anyways. “Cybernetics can do so much, but - don’t drink that much sugar, it’s bad for you - but you look a lot better than most people who are nearly - V stop - 90.” Valley said, speaking to both V and Johnny as she practically climbed on top of V to stop his onslaught of sugar into his already too fucking light brown color it had disolved into. In spite, V simply opened the packets and dumped them onto his tongue. Valley let out an annoyed huff, crossing her arms at the action while V simply smiled. “Oh, so you know when my birthday is?” Johnny asked, bringing Valley’s and V’s attention over to him as he smirked back at Valley. Valley’s brows furrowed for a moment before she realized her mistake. So much for keeping it a secret how much she liked Samurai. She wasn’t good at keeping secrets. Wasn’t good at keeping a poker face either. Valley could already feel her cheeks warming up in embarrassment. “Come on now, leave the baby alone.” V sassed, gently pulling Valley into a side hug. “It’s hard meeting an idol and acting normal.” V said in a baby voice, making Valley quickly get out from his apparent loving side and punch him in his gut, making him bend over and grumble. “Y-you’re not-” Valley got out, feeling the heat in her face grow warmer as she sputtered out, looking back up at Johnny who looked far too fuckin’ smug. Valley let out a sharp huff as she smacked V upside the head. “Asswipe.” Valley muttered as V rubbed the back of his head, standing up and sharing the same stupid fuckin’ smug look that Johnny had as well. Maybe the two hadn’t gotten fully separated when they got their own personalities back. The idea made Valley want to fucking die if she had to deal with either of them in doubles. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping with an aging rockstar?” Valley snarked back at V. V looked over at Johnny and already she knew what was coming. “I already-” “Did, yeah fuckin’ yeah.” Valley muttered back, finishing V’s sentence for him. “Really spent far too fuckin’ long in each other’s mindspace, huh?” Valley grumbled, looking between Johnny and V. Two fuckin’ pals. “Wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone else, ‘specially you.” V said back sullenly with a shake of his head, looking down before looking back up at Valley and winking. Valley hit V’s arm as he laughed. “Plus, this dickhead gets hella annoying.” V said, looking back over at Johnny. Johnny rolled his eyes ever so dramatically. “Didn’t think I was annoyin’ enough to leave in Cyberspace though.” Johnny snarked back, folding his arms. V swatted towards him, his attention on the ringing of a holo. V suddenly stood up straight and gave both Valley and Johnny the ‘give me a second’ finger wag before walking over and into his armoury. “Still has the fuckin’ Corpo trainin’ in him.” Johnny muttered disgustingly as he watched V. Valley snorted. “You ever see his Arasaka memories?” Valley asked. “Fuck, I remember callin’ him when he was at work once and nearly showed up in Night City to torch the fuckin’ Arasaka tower to get my brother back.” Valley said with a laugh. “And you say I’m not your idol.” Johnny said with his own laugh making Valley blink back at him and roll her eyes. “Come on princess, torchin’ the fuckin’ place is so 2023.” Johnny said with a slow smirk. Valley let her snort turn into a genuine laugh. The way he said it. How accurate it was. Fuck, Johnny Silverhand should have nicknamed himself Johnny Silvertongue with how stupidly witty the fucker was. Then again, seeing how he interacted with her, Valley knew it wasn’t a good idea to bring up that name change to him. V emerged from his armoury, looking stressed as he came and leaned against the island. “How’s the time off soundin’ now?” Johnny asked, looking at V with a sort of concern. V simply rubbed his temples, just between where his cybernetic implants were. Valley didn’t understand why he would get them once he got a new cloned body...Valley only then noticed the blue flower on his neck. A reminder...that’s why he had them do his cybernetic implants in the clone… “Johnny…” V muttered, shutting his eyes, exasperated by whatever he was exasperated about. “How hard-” “Don’t.” V didn’t even let Johnny finish his sentence before looking back up at him sharply. “Honestly, the hardest fuckin’ thing is to get mercs and solos and netrunners who actually want to do the work.” V muttered, rubbing his head quickly, messing up his hair before attempting to slide it back. Valley raised an eyebrow at him, hoping her non-verbal question was brought up. V looked at Valley and sighed. “Right…” V said, looking a little guilty. “Forgot to mention that I’m a fixer now.” V said, rubbing the back of his neck. Valley’s brows raised at that before she laughed with a smile. “Well fuck, finally.” Valley said with a smile. Valley could see V slowly untense. “I mean, I was kinda worried with ya having this huge idolization of, ya know, dying to become a legend, so like, this is so much better.” Valley said, reaching and touching his hand that lay on the island. “And from what I’ve heard just getting into the city, you seem to be a living legend anyway, so like, you becoming a fixer with a status of living legend? You’re probably hella busy.” Valley said with a smile that quickly spread to V. “I mean, don’t get me fuckin’ wrong, not calling me for 8 fuckin’ months is still hella shitty of you, but hey, at least you’re not dead!” Valley chirped, genuinely happy for V. All his life, V was a sort of lost puppy. When the two were growing up, V wanted to be a cyber-cowboy and run around catching bad guys, obviously. Valley wanted to be a horse. Luckily, as the two grew up, they grew out of those phases. Unfortunately, that meant actually wanting to do and be things in life. V never really knew but Valley did. Valley wanted to become a BD editor. She loved all of the BD’s she got her hands on, which wasn’t a lot since the clan moved around a lot to really find anything worthwhile. She tried a lot of different ways to get the rawest forms of BD’s she could to better understand how they all worked, to understand what could be done with them and what would be the best content. She found a lot of porn related ones, which was what everyone really liked. She thought more calming experiences were something that could actually help people relax, without the whole jacking off aspect. And one day she got the chance to see how a BD was made…Valley shoved the memories back as far as her mind would let her. V had wanted to be important in the Corpo life since the clan was slowly falling apart. Valley wanted to watch the world burn. Now V was a living legend and Valley had burned and torched a good part of the country. “Anything I can do to make it up to you?” V asked genuinely before he snapped his fingers and pointed towards her. “Actually, I have someone I want you ta meet.” V said excitedly. “Doubt she’s awake right now, but who knows…” V said, turning and walking back into the armoury. Valley raised an eyebrow, looking over at Johnny and gesturing towards the door. “Got a pretty good idea who he’s referrin’ to.” Johnny stated, looking amused. Valley stared back at him, watching as V walked out of the armoury with a smile. “You bring that shitty car of yours?” V asked, making Valley glare back at him, folding her arms before nodding hesitantly. “Great!” V said with a bright smile, turning and leaving the kitchen, walking over to the stairs. “Wait-who-what’s happening?” Valley asked, walking around the island and stopping at the bottom of the stairs as V seemed to leap up them. “We’re goin’ to the Badlands.” V said cheerfully as he left her sight. Valley stared up the stairs for a moment longer before looking back at Johnny, trying to get any explanation of things. “Only one person out there that I think V’d want you to meet.” Johnny said with a little chuckle. Valley stared back at him, waiting for an explanation she knew wasn’t going to be that explained. “Nomad with an ass almost as exquisite as yours.” Johnny said with a smirk, making Valley roll her eyes so hard she swore she could see the inside of her skull. “Her name’s Panam...and she’s…” Johnny said with a shake of his head. “She’s a Nomad.” And that was all that was explained to Valley.