Pairing: JoyToy!Johnny x V
Warning: language, sexual themes, brief mention of violence and abuse.
Jhonny watched the mercenary speed into the traffic inder the pouring and slightly toxic rain of Night City.
Steam from the underground district heating billowed out of the manholes, making even a neighborhood like Jig-Jig Street gloomy, always teeming with bright lights and people of all kinds.
He didn't give a fuck about the rain but he couldn't stand the cold, his leather pants made good work covering his legs but his torn net shirt left his torso almost naked, he wasn't going to complain anyway, too haughty to even admit he was shivering.
The screeching sound of a black van hitting the brakes caught his attention.
"Looks like someone miss me" he thought sarcastically tossing away the cigarette butt and disappearing into a dark alley.
V opened the door of her apartment and as soon as she stepped inside, she headed for the kitchen, pulling out a cold beer from the fridge.
She sat on her big sofa, switching the TV on and rubbing her temples as a headache began to make her day worse.
Wakako was kind of right, she needed to relax in one way or another.
She opened the bottle and tossed the glossy metal cap on the table.
It catches the lights coming from the screen, reminding her of the cybernetic arm of that JoyToy, shining in the pink and blue neon lights.
Her phone rang making her jump on her seat, huffing, she answered the call, she would have declined if it hadn't been from Evelyn.
"Hello V, I hope I won't disturb you" the soft voice of the woman had always had a soothing effect on the mercenary's psyche. In another life, maybe she would have fallen in love with her.
"You know you can't, even if you wanted to. Tell me everything, Ev" She took a swing from the beer bottle.
"Our caretaker, Woodman, is looking for someone for a gig, one of the Dolls knocked him out the other night, tried to open his safe, and ran away. "
"...and? You called because...?"
"Woodman wanted you for the job but I dissuaded him. He doesn't want the Tiger Claws to know about this, he's pissing his pants, the fat pig" it was clear Evelyn hated the man.
"The doll that escaped, is he your friend?" V asked.
"Yes, he's a great asshole but he's not a bad person, V please, you need to find him before they do... They'll kill him" her friend sobbed.
"Hey hey, sure. I'll find him. What's his name?"
"Robert, but he performs as Johnny"
V stood up from the couch like she was electrocuted "SHIT" she shouted, taking the elevator to her garage.
The sun was already set to rise when she arrived on Jig-Jig Street but of the man, there was no trace.
Johnny rubbed the sleep away from his tired eyes and stretched like a cat.
An old and dirty mattress in an abandoned hotel has been his nest for the night.
He was starving, he didn't eat in almost two days and everything he got was an opened Spunky Monkey and two cigarettes.
His nerves were at their limits, he was a fugitive and he was sure that in one way or another someone would have captured him and dragged him back to Clouds or worse.
The reflection looking back at him from a broken mirror made him realize how miserable he looked, with the bags under his eyes, his ruffled hair, and his unkempt stubble.
Johnny managed to steal some casual clothes, a black tank top too tight for him and a grey zipped hoodie that was too big, and he tied a piece of torn fabric around his neck to cover the doll chip.
He needed money fast and he sure knew how to make them, so he entered the nearest seedy bar he could find.
The Maelstrom girl that kept looking at Johnny from the dark corner of the bar was creeping him out, not enough to be scared but he couldn't tell if she wanted to kill him or fuck him, maybe both and he preferred not to think in which order.
Eventually, she stalked closer and closer until the stool near him was vacant and she sat at his side.
"Hey, can I offer you anything?" she asked him, purring.
Johnny didn't know where to look, part of her face was replaced by cheap chrome and blood-red optics.
"Depends if you can afford me," he smiled seductively.
The hand that slowly rose from his knee and up to his thigh, until it played with his belt, gave him the answer he wanted.
It was quick and dirty, but not bad, he'd never liked to do it slowly and he was pretty sure the girl had left some bruises on him, as he had left them on her, the scrapes caused by the short nails of his right hand would stay on her hips for a while, but the black and blue bruises caused by his cybernetic fingers would have lasted longer.
He found himself with money for food and a taxi but not much more.
"Have you seen this man?" V asked every Joytoy, pedestrian, and shop owner in the street but it looked like Jhonny vanished into thin air.
She inhaled deeply and entered a ripperdoc shop, he hated that viscid piece of shit will every fiber of her being, but Fingers could have known where Jhonny was directed.
She took the stairs up to the clinic if a room full of glitters, cybernetic body parts, and blood could be called like that.
A group of dolls and JoyToys were in the waiting room, some of them looking nervous or pissed and others in pain with tears in their eyes.
V tried to ask them too, sending a photo of Johnny that Evelyn gave her to their optics.
"I know him, he works at Clouds. Jesus, that man is a true and genuine whore, fucks like nobody" a green-haired doll told her.
"Any idea of where he could be now?" the merc asked hopefully.
"He said he wanted to be free, he was tired of... well, everything. But I swear I don't know where he went-"
The door of Fingers' clinic opened abruptly, and the skinny rat-looking man stood frozen on the doorstep, the fear in his eyes made V laugh, while he scrambled and tried to run to the stairs.
V cached him back inside and closed the door, locking it and turning around with a deadly and hunting gleam in her eyes.
"I-I swear I'm not installing flawed implants anymore, the chrome I sell is-" but he was interrupted by a slap on his face that almost made him lose his balance.
"You better! If I found you altering even half a screw on a chrome I swear to God I'll kill you... But that's not why I'm here. Did you see this man?" V hissed.
Fingers started to nod frantically "Yeah he came here a couple of times or more... Once for a problem with his synthetic liver and another... Ah yes he asked me to remove his doll chip but he couldn't pay so I sent him away"
"Any idea of where he went?" V asked grabbing him by his filthy net shirt and holding her hand in a fist, ready to punch.
"Jig-Jig Street, but I saw a ticket for a bus ride to Little China in Watson in his back pocket, he had such a nice ass-" the man recalled, still shaking, before V's first collided with his face.
This time he fell into the ground, coughing blood and spitting a tooth, while V stormed out.
