There's a world of difference between what we want and what we need. Most come to filth-caked dives like this in search of the former; a quick lay, a quick beer, a quick justification for their shit-stained devotion to decadence, and then back out into the rat race. Satiate the appetite, then forget it ever happened till it's time to do it over again.
You and me are as guilty as the next. But there's no shame in pausing a moment to take somethin' you need, even if you don't know it in that moment. We all make bad choices and when those choices go up in flames we have to live and keep on living. When you're thrown ass-first into hell, sometimes you just gotta find a fuckin' devil to hold on to and remind you of it.
You can do worse than Meredith Stout in that regard. Have fun, V.
She has no idea what makes her do it. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe it's the long hours she's spent alone, locked away in her apartment in the aftermath of armageddon. Maybe it's the final, hopeless link to a world before the tower, before the heist. Hell, maybe it's just the asshole in her head gnawing away at her defenses.
Militech played out as I hoped. Thank you, and remember - we don't know each other.
V stares down at the electronic shimmer in her palm. Her response still buzzes on the phone screen. She can hardly recall typing the words, though it's only been a minute or so. A strange, numb, electrostatic feeling starts in her fingers and settles in the base of her stomach.
Shame, the text reads. Was starting to like you.
What is she doing? There's nothing to gain from playing games like this with the Militech bitch. On any other day, she'd give Stout the fucking bird and go about her business without wasting a second thought. The streets are her home and she doesn't give a damn about some embittered corporate whore living it up in a flimsy ivory tower. Doesn't matter how helpful the corp angle had been dealing with Maelstrom. Maybe if things had gone sour, she wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
V should hate Stout. She should resent her for so carelessly tossing the Flathead to a street merc and giving a fucked-up Fixer the power to take away everything V cared about. She should-
No-Tell Motel. The phone buzzes with a final reply. 1st Floor. Come alone.
She has no idea what makes her do it. She's not sure she'll ever know. She's not sure she'll ever care. It doesn't matter how much anxiety shrivels her guts or how much she reminds herself this is a bad decision. It doesn't matter because when it comes down to it, her feet carry her out into the hallway all the same. They take her to the back elevator, out into the parking garage, and into her car.
No-Tell Motel, keeps playing in her head. 1st Floor. Come alone.
She isn't sure any of this is real. She doesn't care so long as she can feel something beyond this fucking void in the pit of her stomach. She pulls her wheels from the parking garage and into the shine-splashed motorways of the City. Within moments, she wants nothing more than to throw her head out the window and vomit into oncoming traffic. But she doesn't.
Her face is blank, eyes unclouded but not really seeing anything until she finds herself once more parked in the back-street parking lot of the No-Tell Motel. She can taste the ghosts in the air, falling with the steady patter of acidic rain. Jackie died here not so long ago. V died here too, only shortly after. Yet here she stands, back from the grave and still not entirely sure what is going on in her brain. But maybe that's the point. Maybe she's earned the right to not think for a good long while.
Up the walkway, through the back door, and she's inside. The atrium still stinks of cigarettes and dirty dreams. The stench brings her back to earth, at least a little, and she strides to the back where something - she can't be sure exactly what - waits for her. She pounds a fist against the only door that reads occupied. Only one knock for only one door.
There's no response from within. But the door does sheath open. V lets out a low breath and steps inside.
The room is as gaudy and kitschy as everything else in this fucking city; all leopard prints and neon lights in nauseating blends of pink and blue. The bed, piled high with overstuffed pillows, almost shines in the muted illumination. And sitting in the midst of it like an ancient queen in a steamy, filthy throne room is Meredith Stout, smoke in hand. She's ditched her prim and proper corpo pencil skirt in favor of...
Holy shit. That's a lot of latex.
Stout smirks and lets V's gaze wander. "Bet you didn't expect to see me here."
"Expected a lot of things waiting when I walked through this door. Somehow this wasn't one of 'em."
"Having second thoughts?" Stout's tone is little more than a sneer, yet her eyes never lose their hunger. She unfolds herself and stands. Latex-sheathed hands plant themselves on latex-sheathed hips. "The last thing I need is someone who's going to pussy out on me halfway through."
V raises her chin. "I'm still here, aren't I?"
The corpo creeps closer, the sway in her hips more predatory than seductive. Her eyes are pale, icy, and calculating - sizing up not a lover but a piece of tempting meat. She is beautiful, but it is a beauty tempered by years of hate and pain and struggle. Her presence is that of a living scar made magnificent in the motel glow. Nothing about this woman is soft, but softness is the last thing V wants right now.
Meredith's lips are harsh, commanding, dominating. She smells of crisp antiseptic perfume and tastes like cigarette smoke, sterilized purity soured by the bitter tang of vice. She is predictably aggressive and V drowns in it.
There is no flirtation or affection here. If there was, V would have shoved her aside and vanished into the night, she was sure. But that's part of the reason she's doing this at all; everyone and everything has an opinion these days, a judgment of her and her many monumental failings. Doesn't matter if they're kindly or condemning, those eyes are always there. But Meredith has no idea what happened at Konpeki. What's more, she wouldn't give a shit if she did.
So when Meredith's fingers fist in her hair and her tongue slides along V's lips, the merc dives into it all with a very uncharacteristic moan. She tells herself she needs this, needs a few hours of someone else's authority. It's exactly what Meredith promised and it's exactly what she gives. Her kiss aims to conquer and subjugate. V can't get enough of it.
V's back slams into the wall, rattling the dresser next to the bed, and foreign lips pin her as thoroughly as the hands at her waist. The merc coils, pressing into the corpo as tight as she can manage. Thin lips run along her jaw and down her neck. Perfect white teeth dig into flesh and draw a hiss from somewhere deep in her throat. An unbearable tension twists in her chest, in her belly. She's suffocating, has been for a long while, hobbled by a world that's suddenly as alien as her nightmares, and more than anything else she just needs to move.
She wraps a leg up around Stout's waist. Thin, manicured fingers hoist at her own leather-clad thigh, pressing her closer, grabbing, grinding, guiding. Where she is trapped, Meredith moves for her, her face and fangs both buried into the crook of her neck. The rolling back-and-forth pressure is so excruciatingly promising that V can barely stand it.
"Fuck," she moans to the ceiling.
Meredith tears V's shirt up and over her head, her gaze soaking in the pale and lightly freckled flesh put on display in the humming, hue-shifting glow. Those chill lips press to her collar, against her throat, across her chest, soothing the thrum-beats of a racing heart. V takes a chance and grabs at the back of Meredith's head, drawing her closer, sliding her fingers through silky blond hair that smells of smoke and sin.
Her hands are snatched away and slapped against the wall. In the pit of her stomach, a molten silver warmth swirls and blends into a dull anguish. Meredith glares at her, sky-blu optics carrying a warning that V immediately recognizes and promptly ignores. Her hips rock, seeking friction, seeking something, anything. Meredith answers with her own slow grind and the merc invites as much as she can get. Not to feed the fire building inside her, but to douse it - nothing could feel sweeter than snuffing out this awful fucking tangle of neediness she can hardly recognize as her own brain. She's eager to give everything to this resentful woman because she knows that Meredith will take it all from her without hesitation. It's what a corpo does, after all.
Stout lowers herself, tugging at the flimsy fabrics keeping her from V's chest. Her lips strike again, targeting a peaked nipple. This time when V's fingers thread into her hair, there is no opposition. Meredith's lips keep at work, moving from one breast to the other. Every pass of those lips, every nip of those teeth, every puff of warm, hungry breath on her skin serves to further suffocate her brain. She couldn't think straight if she tried.
She half-expects Stout to snarl at her, call her a whore and a slut and a fucking worthless solo who only has the good sense to know her place - under a corpo's dominance in both body and spirit. But she's doesn't say a word, doesn't make a sound beyond quick, excited sighs that warm V's trembling flesh. She's strangely grateful; no words are needed or wanted here, and it seems Stout is more than content with these conditions.
V spins, pressed face-first against the wall now. Meredith is right behind her, tongue against her ear, hands on her hips. She guides V, shifting the solo's pelvis back and into her own, making silent promises of things yet to come. The merc gasps, cheek held tight against rough zebra-print synthbrick that vibrates with muffled bass beats next door. Stout unclasps V's bra and the merc tosses it aside with desperate ferocity. Meredith slides down her neck and across her shoulder, tasting her skin, claiming it with stinging bites that leave welts in their wake. She passes down the line of V's spine, all kisses and teeth and feigned tenderness covering up something deadly sharp.
V dares to grab at Meredith's hand, to pull it around and press it to the soft flesh beneath her navel. Stout seems willing to grant her this small mercy; the hand dips down along toned abdominals, beneath her waistline, and slots into the place where it is so desperately needed. Every twitch, every swirl, every stroke of those fingers drives V shuddering onto the tips of her toes. Her head cranes back against the hard line of Meredith's shoulder and they move together, step by step. There is no give-and-take in the touch, only a drive to dominate. Pleasure is just another means of control, but it is still a pleasure.
The dance swallows them, each in their own way. V's silhouette undulates in the half-glow of scarlet neon as Meredith plays her like a cheap pawnshop guitar. The merc is deafened to everything but the thumping background rhythm and the moans crawling up her own treacherous throat. It could be a few minutes or a few hours, but before V can build herself up to that most delightful of highs, the hand against her core vanishes. Meredith shoves her again.
V crashes sideways onto the messy bed, head spinning. Meredith is right behind her, sharp features etched with a hungry grin. She grabs at V's legs and rips the boots from her feet.
"Off," she commands. "All of it."
Within the next minute, Stout's head is buried between V's thighs. The merc's tattooed back arches and she cries out loud enough to overcome the blaring music - "Hole in the Sun" if her sex-addled brain can still correctly identify tunes. But then Meredith quickens the movements of her tongue and V melts away once more.
Stout builds her up and up and up. Her fingers ascend and trace the heaving ridge of her abs, along the lines of her tattoos, over the swell of a breast. V squeezes her eyes tight, trying to hold off the building heat in her gut while cementing the feelings slicing through her nerves like lightning. It's been far too long since she felt this good, and she wants this memory to last.
Her sexual encounters are often impersonal, casual, and all-too-brief affairs. Lust is an appetite, the same as food or drink, and V rarely has the patience to do more than satisfy the urge and move on with her life. She's a busy woman after all, and the solo's brutal lifestyle rarely allows her the necessary downtime to make meaningful connections even if she wanted to. It's a rare person indeed that can hold her in one place long enough to actually enjoy it.
But Meredith is different. There is a transactional nature to the way she moves, the way she pleasures her partner, and the apathy in her eyes is familiar enough to soothe V's misgivings and allow her to just let go. Like V, Meredith is indulging an appetite. Unlike V, she clearly thinks there's no reason it has to be a quick and efficient affair. With her, it's a goddamn feast.
And then V bows up off the bed. Red-painted fingers curl into Meredith's hair and her body clenches with electrifying ecstasy. She can feel Stout's contented smirk against the inside of her thighs. She freezes for a forever-moment, doubled up and trying to scream through a throat that rebels as aggressively as her body. The electricity of orgasm surges through her and burns away everything she had sought to discard - the grief, the guilt, the pain and terror of mortality. It's all washed away in a cleansing tidal wave and she's left so blissfully empty inside.
Then the moment is over and V collapses back onto the bed, still shivering. Her breath comes in sporadic bursts. Her fingers won't stop shaking as she covers her forehead.
"Jesus Christ," she groans. A thin sheen of sweat beads her brow. She takes a moment to regain both breath and composure. That was...
"Don't tell me the big, bad merc is already worn out," Meredith teases as she raises herself up and wipes her lips with that same proud smile.
V scoffs despite herself. "Fuck you."
"I believe I just did." Stout slides off the bed and pads over to the nightstand. V assumes she's going for more smokes. But the corpo rummages in a drawer for a bit before pulling the night's true entertainment into the light. Meredith turns and flaunts a cock and harness with a dangerous glitter in her eyes.
"My turn," is all she says.
V eyes the strap with narrowed eyes as Meredith slips it over her latex skinsuit. So that's how the night's going to go. She mulls the prospect over for a few silent moments and ultimately settles for a very apropos thought of: fuck it.
Hard to be a prude in a town like this. V herself has been on both the receiving and giving end of such a tool in the past. She's never been squeamish and she's not about to start now. Not when her skin tingles so sweetly, when her heart thumps against her ribs and sends jolts down and out to the tips of her fingers. The night is still young and she's still wet. Might as well let things play out.
So she rests back on her elbows and opens her legs. As good an invitation as any.
Meredith slinks back into bed, fitting her body to V's with intimate precision. She looks down at her loveless lover, eyes blown black with deep-seated lust. There is fire there, and it stokes the same within the merc's own veins. V's hand slides between them to adjust, prepare, line up and-
V's back arches, one hand fisting the sheets and the other grabbing for Stout's shoulder. Her nails scrape into Stout's skin. Satisfaction is written across the corp's face as she sinks inside; she's doing what she does best, and she fucks like she does everything else - taking what she wants while being given every freedom to do so.
There's no resistance from V. She arches her back as she finally, finally has something to fill that void inside her, but doesn't trust herself to do anything more than enjoy the moment. A hand around her throat pins her to the bed and she obeys the unspoken command, spreading herself wider and letting Meredith do as she pleases.
An open palm cracks against her cheek. She cries out in mixed pain and stifled pleasure, her eyes ablaze with aroused fire as she glares up at the corpo.
"If I wanted someone to lay there like a gutted fish," Meredith grunts, "I'd have paid for a fucking joytoy."
It's a clear challenge. V scowls and the hand around her throat tightens, seeking both to command and encourage. She folds her heels across Meredith's back, pulling in with each wicked stroke and grinding her own hips to the rhythm. Her fingers sink into the bedcovers, tugging them loose. When Meredith changes the angle of her hips, both hands fly to her shoulders and scrabble at her back. V throws her head back and cries out with a guttural plea for more. She folds herself into the warmth of Meredith's shoulder, feeling the aching press and pull within her begin to once again soothe the agonies that have so easily overtaken her mind.
V loses track of time. She doesn't care how many times they fuck, or for how long. Meredith takes her on her back, on her front, sometimes on all fours, once with her forehead pressed against the door so every passerby in the hallway outside can hear her pornographic moans. She has a foggy recollection of taking her own turn with the strap, remembers pinning Meredith to the bed with a violent kiss as fingers tangle in her hair and her hips snap back and forth with a mind of their own. But by then her brain is so abuzz with carnal gratification she can pick out little more than snapshot sensations.
And then they're done. There's no verbal agreement, but they both seem to wind down together. V's on her back in bed again, Meredith slumped over her and heaving hot breaths against her ear. V slides her fingers down Meredith's back, over the smooth planes of naked skin - they'd ditched the latex getup somewhere between Doggystyle and Side-Saddle. They take a long moment to savor the sensation of cooling, mingled sweat in the chill motel atmo. Sex leaves a taste even if one doesn't use their mouth, and V relishes every second of it. It'll fade to the black, monotonous drone of everyday life far too soon anyway.
Meredith eventually catches her breath and moves away, slipping out of V and rolling onto her back. She ignores V's pouting moan at the loss and tosses the strapon aside. A cigarette appears between her fingers, seemingly from thin air, and she lights it with a tired, contented sigh. V can't do much more than lay spread-eagled and stare at the ceiling. Her body aches with a luscious thrum.
"Fuck," she sighs. "I needed that."
Meredith nods and rests her back against the wall. She takes a puff from her cigarette. "Figured you might. After that shitshow at Konpeki..."
With effort, V pushes herself up onto her elbows. "You know?"
"V, take a minute to remember who you're talking to." Meredith sounds both insulted and unsurprised. "I'm not some streetcorner whore you ordered from a Megabuilding vending machine. I keep tabs on the city and those in it. You really think I wouldn't notice that Konpeki was infiltrated by a Flathead-model stealth droid? Or that Dexter DeShawn was found dead in a landfill only a few days after Konpeki was locked down?"
She blows a slow cross-current through the veil of smoke. "Word on the street says he was executed by an Arasaka senior operative. Juicy stuff."
"Jesus," V flops back down. "Is there any part of that gig that didn't go sideways?"
"You tell me."
She scoffs. "You care?"
"Call it casual curiosity. I have no interest in Arasaka, V, and even less in the business of a renegade street samurai with delusions of grandeur." Another exhale of slow-dancing grey mist. "Talk or don't. Makes no difference to me."
V shuts her eyes. "I fucked up. Got my best choom killed. Probably got myself killed along with him, 'cept mine seems to be taking longer to catch up."
"The Relic, I presume?"
"Shit, you are well informed."
Stout flashes her a tight and entirely insincere smile.
V takes a moment to distract herself with the tingle still lingering in her stomach, in the tips of her fingers. She clears her throat and murmurs, "I... guess I don't know what to do with myself anymore. Ever since Jackie..."
"Night City chews up people by the thousands every day." Stout shrugs. "Your friend wasn't special."
V glares at the corpo. "He was special to me."
"Then get him a nook at the columbarium and move on with your life." Meredith raises an eyebrow. "If you're really dying, do you want to waste your last days moping around like an abandoned Street Puppy?" She takes a pull on the cigarette. "Don't know about you, but I would think you have more important concerns."
V can almost hear Johnny's voice somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind. "Damn right."
V can't deny the truth in those words, no matter how much of a bad taste it leaves in her mouth. Jack is gone. He isn't coming back. And he wouldn't want her squandering precious time if there was even a glimmer of a chance that she could save herself.
"We all take risks," Stout continues. "Me, mine. And you, yours. It's a devil's deal we make with this fucking city and your friend knew that as well as we do. He came up short. It's not something epic or tragic; it's just the biz."
V sighs and shakes her head. "You're smarter than you look, Stout."
"And you're a better lay than you look," she replies with ease.
"Fuck you."
"Fuck you too."
She clambers out of bed and walks over to a folded stack of slate-gray garments, taking one last drag from the cigarette before tossing it aside. V's threads are still scattered about the room where they landed. Even in the heady afterglow, the merc lets her eyes wander one last time, taking in Meredith's toned ass in particular.
"Sure you don't wanna go one more round?"
Meredith chuckles. "I'd love to. But this city waits for no one, and I refuse to be caught with my pants down. Literally, in this case."
She dresses with quick precision, returning to the flawless image of economic indifference within moments. She's back in her Militech getup after a few silent minutes: all sharp lines and soulless asceticism. She disappears into the room's adjoining bathroom to touch up her makeup. V rests where she fell, content to stare up the ceiling. Meredith passes by the bed with one last smirk, passing those cold fingers down V's limp leg.
"Till next time." She smooths down the lines of her immaculate pencil skirt as she heads for the door. "Corporate gods willing."
It's only later that V gets the next - and last - text message.
Sometimes two people find themselves in the wrong place at the right time.
Good luck, V.
"I'm not sure what this could be. Somethin's broke inside of me. Tucked away and outta sight, the after-hours bring it to life."
- Aesthetic Perfection, Under Your Skin
Author's Note: A couple admissions:
1) I shamelessly wrote this to practice my sex scenes. There is literally no further justification than that. Most of my stories are fairly tame in the sex department, so it was a refreshing change of pace to just go, "Fuck it, I'm writin' smut."
2) Much of this chapter was written to the background music of "Ruiner" by Bignic (hence the chapter name), layered with porn sfx on top. The music is fantastic, synthetic aggression made auditory. The porn speaks for itself.
3) On a more serious note, I figured this scene was kind of like an inverted version of V's momentary heart-to-heart at Clouds. Where V's chosen Doll was more gentle and philosophical in their advice, Meredith is harsh, no-nonsense, and all business.
Sometimes we don't need a hand to hold - we need a slap in the face.