NOCTIUM IC INBOX

[disrupts]

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TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION
V ✦ CYBERPUNK 2077

RESIDENCE ✦ Chez Eurodyne, Silverhand, Strife & V

GEMBOND ✦ Sapphire
"This is V. 'pparently 'm busy right now so leave a message."


INFO ✧ PERMISSIONS ✧ KINKLIST

Comments

[engrams]

[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.

[disrupts]

[ 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. ]

[engrams]

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.]

[disrupts]

[ 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. ]