Work Text:
When V was fired from Arasaka, his hormone regulators had been cut off. His entire bio-regulation system had been on the fritz since then. Life had been torn out from under him that day, but that was really kicking a man while he was down. Fire him, ruin his corpo career, and trash his whole life, sure, but did they have to fuck with his health too?
V’s life had turned into one on the very knife edge of survival. He did jobs for eddies, yes, but more than half of that cash had to go towards keeping his expensive Estro-Blocker system working. As it turns out, when you're implanted with Arasaka tech and they have a vendetta against you, they like to stop updating your software as punishment.
V’s transition was ultimately the reason he'd agreed to do the Arasaka job with Jackie. At the current rate they were working he could barely afford his chrome upkeep, let alone rent and food. If he could break into the big leagues he could afford replacements. No more chrome with daemons buried so deep in the soft that no netrunner he knew could get them out. He could thrive instead of survive, or maybe at minimum return to some semblance of stability.
Fate wasn't that kind, and the streets of Night City were cruel.
He had been shot in the face. That was shitty enough, but brain damage only made his bio-regulation systems function worse. Jackie was dead. That guilt alone had made V wonder if waking up alive in the garbage dump was even worth it.
If his chrome felt like working, it worked in short bursts. When he had been under Arasaka’s umbrella his body felt fully his. Now he had to brace himself against the storm of glitches that drove him insane. There was one new glitch he couldn't stand, one that came with that cursed chip.
Confronting the reality of his brain's new roommate was a separate Herculean task. V was never alone. He had been brought back from the dead, but a devil had piggybacked on his return from Hell. Johnny Silverhand: rockerboy, terrorist, and V’s newest burden. What he now faced was so disturbing and bizarre that he could never settle back into the land of the living.
Sharing his body with Silverhand was part of that grotesque reality. It wasn't just having the rocker showing up at inopportune times to chirp snarky commentary at him; if it was, V could learn to live with the annoying hallucinations. No, living with Johnny meant living with his memories, his emotions, his dreams. V had nightmares of a decades old war he had never seen, mixed with the terror of his own failures.
Silverhand had died with a nicotine addiction. As Johnny's mind overwrote V’s neurons, his body screamed for tobacco that V had never desired before.
His body was trapped in a torture of termagant neurotransmitters, a horror house of hormones that V wished he could escape from. Would the face he saw next in the mirror be his own, or Johnny's? Dying had been so easy. Living through the breakdown was hell. V wandered in a half-dissociated state– breathing, killing, dreaming, how much of it was real?
Summer in the city was an oppressive, humid affair. Heat congealed in between the buildings. Every neon soaked alleyway was damp with tidal fog and human sweat. The air conditioning in V’s apartment was tepid at its best, and there wasn't any relief to be found when the sun went down. There were only so many cold showers a guy could take in a day without going broke on the water bill.
V was spread eagle over his bed sheets, stripped down to his boxers as he tried to sleep. His dreams were a mess of his own anxieties and Johnny's. Sometimes he was himself, sometimes he was Silverhand, sometimes it was like they were merged into one being. Each second that passed, the engram chip eroded at his brain, making him more and more into Johnny. A cancer of ego; it fed at the man V was to make room for a digital parasitoid.
V could tell there was something awry with his bio-systems again, because as the night went on his dreams shifted to be more and more about sex. It should have kept his body's cycle in hibernation. Instead, it was squeezing his endocrine system to dump more and more testosterone into his blood to compensate, turning him into a horny monster.
Gone were the flashes of his own jobs past and the shit that Johnny had been getting up to in the 20s. Now, all V could see were ghostly bodies pressed together. He was trying to bring himself to climax in his dreams. Johnny was fucking old flames behind his eyes. It was as if the heat of the night had triggered some feral need in V, leaving him crazed.
He hadn't gotten off since the Arasaka job. Not since Johnny had taken up room in his skull. V might not be shy, but the sense of having someone right next to you constantly made it hard to get in the mood. Tonight seemed to be different. Some combination of his bio-regulators playing a game with his hormones and the chip eating away at his brain was causing this shift.
V wasn't the only one feeling it. The static buzz of Johnny demanding his attention pulled him out of his restless sleep.
“Fuck, would you just fucking jack off already?”
V didn't want to give him the satisfaction of opening his eyes. “Leave me alone, I'm sleeping.”
He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow. If he could sleep it all off he would be fine in the morning. That's what he told himself to get through the worst nights.
Time passed strangely in that space between waking and sleeping. It could have been minutes or hours before Johnny was pulling him back to reality again. This time the ghost in his brain wasn't taking no for an answer.
Hands were on V’s waist. They weren't his own, and if he focused on the touch there was an electric buzz in those fingertips. Johnny. He had no control over his body, and if V tried to move it felt like his limbs were full of sand. A deep pressure kept his eyes shut. V groaned as he tried to pull himself into wakefulness, but Johnny kept him buried in the void.
“Wait,” slurred V.
“Just let me take care of us.” Johnny's mouth was close to V’s ear, an electric storm masquerading as flesh.
The elastic band of his boxers snapped awkwardly against his legs as Johnny shoved them down. With Johnny manifesting so clearly, every physical sensation was toned down, like V was watching himself through a sheet of plastic. He had some awareness, but not enough. Haze clouded his very being, and V drifted in the dream of it all.
Some part of him knew that the cock prodding at his folds was only a manifestation of his brain's destruction. The tapeworm riding along in his skull couldn't actually fuck him. The parts of V that weren't suppressed, though, only registered the stretch of another man in his cunt.
How long had it been since V had had sex? Definitely before Johnny has tunneled into his head, but after he'd gotten this apartment. Some one night stand that had tumbled into his bed, perhaps. Mousey hair, red optics, maybe that was the last guy?
Johnny didn't take very kindly to being ignored during sex, especially when he experienced every one of his partner's thoughts. A sickly, artificial euphoria filled V’s veins as the dead rocker demanded V’s attention back.
“Fuckin’ rude to think about other men when I'm right here,” he said, thumb circling over V’s swollen clit. If V focused he could swear that he could feel the calluses on Johnny's hand.
V didn't have the capacity for full speech– not when half asleep and definitely not when Johnny was taking over their shared body. He merely groaned, hips clumsily bucking up into the phantom touch it felt.
Johnny felt big inside of him, and his walls fluttered around the perceived intrusion. V’s body knew what to do, even when it was being lied to. He was wet, and his body burned with a shared arousal. Feedback buzzed between Johnny and V, each feeling what the other felt in the dreamy reverie. V was himself, legs wide as he was fucked, and he yet was also Johnny, cock heavy with decades of denial.
Hallucination or not, Johnny knew how to fuck. V didn't want to fight this; he wanted to drift in the blur of sex. He was stuffed full, he was fucking a wet cunt, he just was. Handing the keys to Johnny was a recipe for disaster, but like this he could surrender the wheel. Johnny's mind wrapped around V’s like a straightjacket– constricting, yet safe in how V was wholly contained.
“Johnny,” rasped V.
“Shh, you're fine.”
V was fine but he was getting worked up. He was trying to groan past his uncooperative mouth. Johnny only fucked him harder.
“You’ve just gotta lay there, V, c'mon. Don't fight me. Let me make us feel good.”
V needed to cum badly, that was his problem. If Johnny wanted to make them feel good, then he could do his part and finish V off. His body pulsed with a desire so strong it hurt. A thumb curled up against his clit. V didn't know if it was his hand, or Johnny's. Maybe the distinction didn't matter. He was getting that much needed pressure and attention.
“Need,” rasped V.
“Jesus fuck, you got cunt like a doll, ah fuck!”
V shook with the shock of the both of them climaxing simultaneously. There was only one body for the two of them, but with the chip in his brain, and the busted chrome pumping extra hormones into his blood, V didn't stand a chance to withstand the intensity. His vision whited out and a high buzzing filled his ears.
A cold sweat covered his body. V wasn't sure if he was alive or dead, if what had happened was a dream or reality. Was this just another manifestation of his mind fractioning apart?
“Go to sleep, V.”
A lighter clicked. Cigarette smoke filled V’s lungs, and he slipped into the black.