disrupts | NOCTIUM IC INBOX

[There’s something about Johnny’s rebel spirit that can’t be squashed, can’t be put out like a low-burning flame. Even if his insides have been mottled with a contagion of spores, prying through his skin in a patchy cluster of flowers, even as he’s drawn towards the water towards something beckoning him there, he does it with a frown. As though his sensibilities are utterly offended by the idea of being beckoned anywhere, like a part of him always wants to dig his heels in the sand when he’s being told what to do. Johnny Silverhand doesn’t like being told what to do, allergic to authority as he is.

But even his stubborn willpower, begrudging as it may be, can’t override the infection, the call of something waiting for him in that deep unseen. He moves like a man who’s barely acceded, but moves all the same — frowning as he steps into the water, brows at a slant as it rises up, up, eventually to his waist, eventually threatening to submerge himself completely if he continues this route; the lake’s easy descent, after all, will soon become a steep drop into nothing but cold murkiness, the perfect trap for the most unsuspecting.]

The hell is it-? [He mutters, to no one. To nothing. Or to something, drawing him out.] The hell do you want?

[A question lost in the swelling sigh of the water lapping all around him, as though tasting whether or not he’d be something worth gobbling up. Johnny doesn’t notice the splashing sounds from behind him — that, or he pays it no mind.]

[ With adventure on the horizon, V'd taken to exploring the islands with the same level of excitement as he approached any new place. After being stuck in Night City for as long as he was, going back to roots that are steeped in nomad history feels beyond energizing. At this point he's dragged anybody who'll let him tug them into the first available adventure he can find.

Except people had started to go missing, and by the time that information has filtered through, a low simmering of 'got a bad feeling 'bout this' had cut in deep.

It's like a fresh memory superimposed over an old one; the way the storm had swallowed up any level of calm he possessed and replaced it with panic.

Lacking any idea about if this is luck or something else, he'd caught sight of Johnny on his way back from fishing out a few other folks from the water. And there was something inside of him so sure that the undeniable urge everybody else had fallen prey to wouldn't affect Johnny. Not Johnny fuckin' Silverhand.

Ice colder than even he's got defenses against shoots through his veins at the creeping realization he's wrong; the confirmation that Johnny's not wading in to hook somebody else out. Johnny's walking right into the water because he's- ]

Johnny!

[ The man already seems way too deep to turn around, and V's journey through the water after him isn't quiet and it's not stealth. Whatever the fuck's in the water, to V it feels like trying to wade through wet cement. For all his efforts to advance into the water Johnny seems like he's just pulling further away up ahead of him. ]

Don't listen to it-- whatever's tellin' ya to keep walkin'-- it's lying, Johnny. Fuckin' fight it.

[He hears his name called from somewhere behind him. Johnny hears the disruption of water sloshing, too, like a presence encroaching with one slow, messy effort at a time. But none of it registers past the haze until the last bit—the part about fighting—and even that much barely stalls his own forward step as the waterline rises, rises...]

Need to see what it is, V.

[One thing that the spores haven’t changed in him: Johnny’s as stubborn as a mule. The trait’s just been twisted around and turned against him in this instance, a lingering need to see what’s calling him, what could possibly be there, waiting beneath the deep and the dark.

He doesn’t even glance behind him to look at V, trudging forward until the water’s swaying around his upper chest. The red flowers sprouting down the length of his arm, like his skin was a garden’s bed, have long been submerged beneath the waterline.]

Not right now. [Can’t talk right now. Can’t humor him right now. He utters it again, repeating-] Not right now, okay?

[ The time for talking is done; tension shifts into purpose, pushed along by Johnny's response. What he hears is the response of a man who doesn't have the liberty to choose for himself. And though that might open a can of worms usually - might even resurface later - V's focus doubles down, hyperfixates on the task before him.

He's got to get to Johnny before he goes under.

Some part of his brain acknowledges the flowers - 'course they're red - but mostly he's just intent on pouring more of his energy into using that sapphire-gembonded water manipulation to try pushing the water away from himself so he can move faster. So he can grab ahold of Johnny up ahead and pull him back to a place where his life's not in danger. ]

[V’s magic works like a charm, and the water parts away from him as if driven by an invisible force, lowering its own density to make the merc’s hurried pace less bogged down by heavy steps and sluggish, sloshing movements. And it would have worked even better if he had been a half a second faster. If he had seen Johnny a little earlier, had made it to him with just enough time to spare before the deep took him under.

Johnny feels V’s fingertips brush the back of his neck, or his shoulder, just feather-light and never gaining purchase. Because the rockerboy has taken one step too far, and the solid silt beneath his drenched boots becomes nothing at all — just more empty space filled with water, a steep drop that has the waterline lapping him up as he dips under completely.

Buoyancy would make this less of a disaster. Johnny’s body would naturally want to float to the top anyway, even if he didn’t try to kick his way back up. But there’s something wrapping around his ankles now, coiling covetously up his legs. It grips tightly, quickly, and pulls him deeper, down, down, to where the light begins to fade.

Bubbles drift up from his mouth. Fight it, V had said, but isn’t this what he wanted? To see what lay at the bottom, what kept calling him, and why— Why?]

[ Bound to a water elemental doesn't lessen the primal fear at watching Johnny disappear into the murky water, swallowed up like some kind of appetizer. V's all too aware of the abilities he's been afforded when it comes to water that other gembonded haven't. Sucking in an involuntary breath of aghast horror, his optics widen, entire body stilling for a microsecond before he does the only thing left available to him; he dips beneath the surface too.

It's like another world - dark and unfriendly - and it doesn't matter whether it's his experience prior to this world or his sapphire gembond that keys in the level of threat here. The fact remains that this is a body of water blighted by danger, by hazard.

A flash of white catches his gaze, maybe the trailing of Johnny's hand, fingernails blurry and descending further away. Down's the only way to go, and it's where V strikes out towards, swimming like he was born in the water. He's got the speed to catch up at least, to take a chance at that glimmer of light amongst the darkness being Johnny.

Fingers stretch out, close around a wrist and for a second V doesn't feel the resistance. Doesn't feel the very downward trajectory Johnny's going. He doesn't realize until he's being pulled the same way, physical connection to Johnny a cacophony of confusion but underpinned all the same by a certainty. ]

[Dark, bodeful, cold. Even against the skin of a Ruby gembonded, the chill is bracing, coalescing around him as Johnny's tugged downward. The fractal lights from the sunlight above gutter and die, leaving only the impressions of movement in dusky shadow threatening to turn into pure, pitch black. The water rushes, and he lets out half a breath, nothing more than air bubbles dancing up from his mouth.

There's something chilling about this kind of oblivion. Even under a thrall-like spell, Johnny remembers, in a temporarily flash of lucidity, what he had told V that day back in Night City; the day that he chose to go diving in the toxic, terrifying waste that masqueraded as water couching the bay, that there was no way he was interested in doing the same. This coal-black void is its own kind of existential crisis, an exercise in bone-deep loneliness if one thought about it overlong, and Johnny can feel it creeping in through his nerves, that unsettling feeling of something inexplicably all-consuming.

Then there's a jolt, a feeling that jostles him a little freer from these singular thoughts in a moment that cannot afford singular thoughts: a firm grasp around his wrist, a sensation of someone else there--V?--holding onto him. With the strange vine-like grip still wrapped around his legs, this guarantees that they'll both be dragged under, and that's exactly what happens. Both men are well beneath the surface, now, and air is exchanging for water in his lungs. Instinctual alarm is banished by the spores in his veins, and instead, Johnny thinks to ask V, What do you think you're doing?

Old habits that don't translate well into their new reality. Johnny can't talk to V anymore just by thinking it, which is a shame when a man can't vocalize mid-drowning. The world disorients a little more with each passing second.]

Edited 2021-04-19 15:20 (UTC)

[ Belatedly V realizes that the flash in the water was a ring on Johnny's finger, winking at him until even the light above is squeezed out. There can be no reflection without light, and maybe that's why this far into dark depths it becomes impossible to do anything but focus inward.

Johnny might be looking at him with words he can't just think at him, but V can barely see the man's expression anyway. And neither of them have time for it; the hand he's got wrapped around a wrist anchored only temporarily. His other hand reaches out and finds purchase at clothes billowing with water, and slowly he's enacting some kind of reverse climbing by traversing Johnny's back to try reaching his ankles. Fighting what he can't see isn't ideal, but he gets a good enough feel of what's going on.

And he'd have tried ripping off those serpentine vines were it not for the reminder that Johnny can't breathe.

There's nothing graceful about the return journey, hands grabbing only as delicately as the pressure of water makes them. He's rough only in his speed, a fervent mission back up to use one hand to pin Johnny's hair dancing free in the water away from his face, his other gripping firmly at his jaw. One leg twists around Johnny's to keep them connected, to ensure the man's not dragged away without him. The beauty of having abilities that are transferable, he thinks, is that never have they been more fucking beautiful than this moment. The difference between a flame extinguished and a flame sheltered from a storm.

Slotting his mouth against Johnny's would feel more strange, more monumental, if it wasn't for the fact that the moment he does, he shares his ability to breathe underwater. Drowning won't be the end of Johnny, V's sure of that as he is of anything. ]

[It's all sensation, now. Sight's been blotted out by the darkness, and the only thing offering him a sense of orientation--what's up versus what's down--is the tightness gripped around his legs, dragging him in one very clear direction. V keeps anchored onto him, fingers fisted into his clothes, crawling down, all force and clenching grips. Johnny is disaffected as V scrambles to secure himself against his frame, his awareness slowly unspooling away too continually to care. Too distant to register, until there will be nothing there at all, which is likely the point of those troublesome vines below.

Until V's hand grips at his jaw, turning his head at just the right angle to slot their mouths together.

His touch until now had been like little firelights against a canvas of black, just pinpricks that implied something was happening. Small, inconsequential bursts of incomplete syncing via touch. But maybe it's something about the finality of the the kiss, the lingering importance of it, or the vibrant transfer of V's abilities, that gives it the impression of a blaze, eschewing haziness for the sake of stark, somewhat harried, alertness. It bleeds back into him as though he had never left, and Johnny's eyes open wider to see nothing but black. Oxygen floods back even through the water in his lungs, and it grants him the energy and motivation to reach out and grasp for whatever he can hold onto -- a metal hand clenches V's shoulder, the organic one his jawline, thumb pressing against the curve of the bone there to get a sense of just what's happening.

The gem on his chest glows red, ekes crimson past his shirt, giving a single, precious source of light. Only when he can barely make out the planes of V's face does Johnny pull away, his own features etched with a deep frown, the reality of the situation belatedly clearing his head -- his bond with V dousing him with alarm, determination, and most importantly, clarity.]

Fuck!

[-he manages, but the word is lost in the drone of the water, and Johnny kicks at the vines that have all but dragged them under. They're only feet away from the bottom.]

[ Never more relieved to see that familiar frown, the word Johnny gives shape to bubbles dully. V doesn't need it explaining; he got it without needing to hear it. Celebrating prematurely is out of the question, though even as he's squeezing Johnny's arm - 'welcome the fuck back' - he's using that grip to pull himself back down towards the source of what's tethering both of them.

With Johnny's looming demise staved off, V's chromed up arm does what it does best. Cyber-enhanced fingers enclose around one vine first, pulls hard enough to rip the vine in two, fibers sent lazily in all directions in the water around them. The second vine gets the same treatment, and whether or not there's still plant-based shackles looped around Johnny's ankles, they're no longer attached to anything else.

It'd be a bad idea to hang around, to rely on the swimming ability of a man newly recovered from whatever the fuck had a hold over him. Hand clamping into the back of Johnny's top, V's gembonded affinity with water serves them a second time. They move not so much under their own steam, but instead pushed by the water V can actually control around them like an invisible wave, a white water rapid bundling them unapologetically back towards the shoreline. ]

[Johnny’s own chrome arm could’ve torn off the vines keeping him leashed to the bottom—hell, even his organic one, since they can afford more time without the threat of drowning—but compared to V’s cyber-enhanced grip, he’s old hardware. The merc gets it done and gets it done fast, the vines tearing soundlessly in the deep, lit only by the soft, crimson glow of his gem, and then he’s free. Free, without even a moment of relief to feel about it, because soon they’re both just figures sluicing past the darkness, Johnny latched onto V as his magic propels them through the water.

And, eventually, out of it.

There’s nothing particularly flattering about Johnny’s state at the shoreline, barely managing a stumble to his feet, walking just far enough to fall back onto his knees, pressed hard into the sand. He isn't starved for oxygen thanks to a Sapphire’s magic, but his body instinctively rejects the notion of water filling up every space in his lungs — knows that it’s wrong, and it needs out.

What follows is a hard, probably painful stint of coughing, ejecting the excess of water and sucking in messy gasps of air. It isn’t the worst he’s ever felt, but it sure as hell isn’t fun. But at least now he’s got enough clearance in his throat to manage a vaguely shaky, if not still incensed, complaint about it:]

Son… of… a bitch. Ugh…

[ In comparison, V emerges from the water like a swan - if he really knew what one of them looked like - water rolling right off him all long, assertive strides until he's at Johnny's side. The man's certainly painting a picture, but rather than say anything at all while Johnny's body deals with the excess water onboard, his optics flick back out towards the lake. It's eerily still; even the ripples their escape caused have evened out to something disingenuously placid.

Sooner they're away from here the better, and it's experience only that has his gaze sweeping out wider, as if he's expecting to see somebody else to walk into the lake to a watery grave. But there's nobody else around that he can see, and Johnny's colorful expletives are good to hear. ]

Gonna get ya some've those floating swimming aids next time.

[ The joke comes from a place of relief, of not wanting to ask the gonk question 'you okay?' because he can imagine how not okay somebody'd be after all that. Stubborn as Johnny can be though, he's determined to get him somewhere that's not the very fucking shoreline that tried to eat him up. ]

Let's delta. Nothin' good here.

[ Which is when he offers a fully flesh hand, just enough in what he figures is Johnny's line of sight to be seen. Whether the man takes him up on the offer or not is another matter, but the point is he's here and he's not leaving until he's sure there's not going to be a repeat. ]

[Real funny, V. Johnny even tries to say as much, sputtering out-]

Think you're real f... real fuh-

[Real funny? Real fuckin' funny? Take your pick. Either way, another round of coughing interrupts whatever bite he wanted to add to his statement, and Johnny just waves him away with a dismissive hand until he catches his breath again, hoping that it gets the point across.]

Fuck you. [There. Said so weakly you can squint and maybe it's closer to a thanks than anything else.] "Let's delta", he says, like I didn't nearly just fucking drown.

[Johnny frowns down at the flowers lining his organic arm, and uses his other to grip the wet blossoms by the fistful and pull. The grimace betrays some kind of pain at the action, but he'll take ripping out unwanted flowers at the bed of his skin, versus sprouting something he sure as hell didn't ask for -- much like finding himself wandering into that cold, dark water, an offense to the very notion of free will.]

Can't give me like five minutes here?

[ Despite the gentle jibe, V's not completely unsympathetic to the state Johnny's in. It gives him just enough pause to not immediately disagree with that plan. Five minutes doesn't seem like long but he has no idea how safe they are here.

He doubts they're safe at all.

But eventually all he does is stand up, takes a few steps in front of Johnny and keeps watch. There's something that turns his stomach about Johnny ripping out those plants, even if it's gotta be done. ]

Not the only person who's been here. Others too.

[ He glances over his shoulder briefly to check on Johnny's progress before his optics are back on the water. If it feels like he's playing guard dog it's probably because he is. ]

How'd... what made ya go in there? ...coulda drowned.

[ If Johnny's listening, he might be able to pick out the tone even with V faced away and out towards the water. It's preoccupied, like V's brain might be playing him a montage of what things might've been like if he hadn't been here. And then the shake of his head like he's trying to jostle that tragedy away. ]

[V’s got a faraway sound to his voice, and Johnny has no doubt that he’s got his look trained at the water gone eerily still, but the rockerboy is busy with the blossoms embedded in his skin. It takes a few good pulls, coupled with an awful wet, ripping sound—but he manages to tear them out and toss the red, sopping petals into the sand. It leaves a long red line of raw welts across his arm, stinging where they’ve been uprooted, but it’s better than having the damn things growing there.

He shakes out his arm, looking discontent.]

Heard something calling. Like I had to figure out what it was — couldn’t think of anything else. Sure these flowers had somethin’ to do with it.

[He’s still drenched, of course. Johnny doesn’t have a Sapphire’s tendency to make water slick off of him like it was nothing, instead dealing with his hair plastered to the sides of his face and thus pushing strands out of his eyes.]

This damn place... One minute it’s all festivals and flowers, then it’s what? Mind control and people drowning at the bottom of a lake? Can’t trust a single thing, can’t let your guard down for a minute. Serves as a—

[He pushes himself defiantly to his feet, wobbling only just a little. Cynicism mode running at 110%.]

—stark fuckin’ reminder.

[ It is a stark reminder, V can't disagree, though rather than putting that agreement into words, he hums his assent and turns 90 degrees so he's got the lake on one side and Johnny on the other. Now that the man's on his feet maybe they can get moving. Just not before he's holding out his hand, a silent offer.

Those red welts look angry and while that might suit Johnny's understandable disposition right now, V's got the ability to heal them. He's got enough left in the tank to help Johnny out with them, either way. ]

Fucked up it took this long for those disappearances to get looked into.

[ Admittedly, authorities that don't give a fuck about the everyday person isn't anything new. He knows how that song goes. But like Johnny said, it's a stark reminder that not everything's peachy. ]

Fucked but not surprising.

[Not surprising at all. Some things are universal, authorities dragging their feet when it comes to nameless gonks getting dragged into the water to die. Johnny’s own biases are ringing loud in his head, twisting everything into pessimism, but he’s 100 percent certain that if some big-wig with bottomless pockets had taken the plunge, something might’ve been done about it a lot sooner.

Instead, they got gembonded here to deal with the mess. V’s probably not the first to have dove in and rescued some guy with their magic, and isn’t that just peachy? That they get to do the saving again. Feels a little like being used, if you asked him.

Johnny pushes V’s hand away with his knuckles.]

No, don’t need it. Fine with feelin’ the pain this time.

[A reminder, indeed. Let it leave a mark — he thinks it’s fitting.]

[ Dropping his hand back to his side, V's chin tips forward into a nod; he's not going to argue. Call it too much experience with having choices taken away. A fleeting desire to understand that choice without having to guess bubbles up, but in the end he just exhales heavily and jams both hands in his pockets. ]

Gonna feel less bad 'bout edgerunning if this is how this place operates.

[ At least he's got more motivation now to do whatever the fuck he has to in order to keep his people safe. If this place thinks it can fuck with them? He's gonna do something about that. ]

C'mon, sooner we get some place away from open fuckin' water, sooner you can inhale 'n drink yourself level.

'sides, got that fucked up feelin' like I'm empty.

[ Like he's burnt through Manna faster than usual and now he's starting to feel tiredness creep in. ]

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