okay but what if in the moments where v's head was quiet and johnny just had to say something, he started teaching her music instead. not intentionally at first - he'd mutter incomplete lyrics while they waited around for v's mark to show up, or strum an unfinished melody while v oiled her guns on the couch next to him. v's definitely annoyed at first so she ignores him and keeps moving as though she doesn't hear him - but his words and tunes are quite literally stuck in her head and so one day she starts finishing them for him. soon they're writing full songs - v doesn't realize it because they're usually silly songs that help them pass time, songs about shithead badges and disgusting food in pouches. but soon she finds herself building choruses and bridges from words out of her lived experiences and johnny is there to find the tune, or change a word that'll make the verse flow better.
"you know you just wrote a whole damn song, right?" "i was just ranting." "no, you started with a verse about growing up in heywood, tied it back around to jackie, then you repeated the first line at the end. that's structure - listen," his fingers start strumming a melody that she'd been humming, but his chords completed it - the tune wrapping itself around her words perfectly. "you hear it now?" he asked with a grin, because of course she heard it.
"you absolute bastard."
