I don't get your tatted-up techie friend. Seems to have a decent enough head on her shoulders but she's all over the place. One sec she's all swaggery confidence, the next she's locking herself away in her dungeon for days on end.
The girl walks the walk, no doubt, and there's a reason her BDs are the best in the biz. Never really to my taste, mind - always preferred the real thing to jerkin' it in a fucking booth. But there's more there than dedication to the profession.
Doesn't take a detective to get to the bottom of this one: your girl's hidin' from the world. Unfortunately for her, the world ain't much for hide-and-seek. Guess it's just luck that you found her before somethin' worse did.
Tap. Tap.
Judy flops over in bed with an indignant scowl. In the fuzzy pre-waking world where reality is negotiable at best, she can almost convince herself the noise is a figment of her imagination. But then here it comes again.
Tap. Tap.
Her phone buzzes: *Get them boy shorts outta bed before I start hurling bigger rocks.*
Only one person in the world gonk enough to take that tone with her at damn near midnight. She grumbles and tugs herself into a sitting position, snagging her phone along the way and texting back, *V?*
Tap.
*Get uuuup. Come to the window.*
Judy scowls deeper but does just that, clambering out of bed and padding across the floor to her window. The fish tank bubbles contentedly in its nook against the wall, bathing the apartment with sea-tone blues and greens. The whole damn world is asleep at this hour. So why isn't V?
The window slides up and she pokes her head into a chilly midnight gloom to an unexpected but not unfamiliar sight: a polished chrome Quadra parked out front with headlights blaring white in the night. A very pleased-looking redhead perches on the hood, a handful of gravel chips in one hand.
"Good morning!" V calls from below. Unlike her usual getup of leather-on-leather, she's kitted out now in a kitschy glitter-black dress with a low-cut neckline. Her bare feet kick like a child's on a swing set. A pair of scuffed second-hand heels rest on the hood next to her.
"V, what the hell are you doing?" Judy shivers. A bra and shorts are hardly decent threads for this nighttime NC air. "Are you seriously throwing rocks at my window?"
The merc tosses one of the pebbles between her hands. "Wanted to talk to you."
"And you couldn't have just called?" Judy leans on the windowsill.
V fixes her with a skeptical stare she can see even from this distance. "Last time you didn't pick up."
"Because the time before that you were drunk and ranting about guitars. Something about Slavoj McAllister bad-mouthing old Gibson models?"
V processes for a moment. "I'm not apologizing."
"What's the excuse this time?"
"Check the detes for yourself." Bluelight bursts from the lot below and Judy downloads the incoming data packet. Her own implants launch a vid-window and her vision is assaulted with flame, cheering crowds, and billowing clouds of green-black mist. On a raised stage, a squad in typical rockerboy attire - all black leather and chrome spikes - shred it up to the delight of a ravenous throng. All eyes, Judy's included, are drawn to a gigantic brick of a rock-jockey in a long trenchcoat and a glassy half-mask. Grungy text fills the screen as the big man punches up a prosthetic fist in time to a spray of sparks and flame.
Carcosa Hotels Present... FRANKENSTEIN, the 2077 North American Tour.
She cuts the feed and rubs at her tired eyes. "You drove all the way out here and chucked rocks at my window for a fucking ad, V?"
"Of course not." The other woman fishes in her pockets and produces two slips of plastic. "I got us tickets!"
The techie stares down at her friend for a few moments. Then she shakes her head and turns away. "I'm goin' back to bed."
"No, wait-!"
Judy slams the window down and returns to her room to flop back onto the sheets. She barely makes it before the rocks start again. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Her phone buzzes. *You know I can do this all night.*
"Rggh." Judy stomps back to the window. When she throws it open again, V's still there with that shit-eating grin on her face.
"C'mon, Jude," she calls. "You've been cooped up in there for almost three weeks now." She doesn't add the second part, the part she's too nice to say. Ever since you found Ev in the bathtub.
"I wanna go do something!" V leans back and props herself up on one hand. The other brandishes the tickets like a lit torch. "And I want you to tag along."
"V, I can't even understand half the shit you listen to. It's all just screaming."
"And everything you listen to is in Spanish, so we're even."
"That's not..." Judy cuts herself short and pinches at her nose, fighting to tamp down the exasperation before V can enjoy it too much. She glares down at the haughty edgerunner. "You're not going to let me sleep, are you?"
"You know I'm not."
"Maldición." She shoves away from the windowsill. "You win. Let me get some damn clothes on and I'll be down in a sec."
"Fuck yeah, that's the spirit! Grudging acceptance beats actual enthusiasm any day."
The show is everything V hoped for. And everything Judy dreaded.
Crowds of people, all screaming and clamoring and shoving at each other. Huge fireballs roaring up into the rafters like detonating bombs. Music so loud it shakes the world like a homegrown hurricane. The air swelters like a desert in the midday sun, and the noxious mix of smoke, sweat, and BO is enough to turn even Judy's iron stomach.
It would be one thing if the show was in some arena - hell, even some shitty back alley basketball court. But this concert is underground in more ways than one, the entire venue crammed into a subterranean parking garage beneath the Carcosa Hotel, and the acoustics are fucking amazing. She'd heard the thrumbeats of the music from half a block away, for fuck's sake, and now proximity to the center of the storm is enough to rattle the teeth in her skull.
The Mox wants nothing more than to clap her hands over her ears, but there are two significant problems with that line of thinking. First, she doubts it'll help, and second, it'll 100% piss off everyone around her. This brand of madness might not be her scene, but she knows the rules same as everybody: you don't insult the local band unless you want to take a thunderclap to the head. And yet even when the sheer wall of sound threatens to knock her on her ass, there's something that keeps her grounded.
V's energy has always been infectious. The way her eyes light up with mischief whenever a bad idea flits through her head. The way she gets that sly smirk whenever she's about to do something she knows is gonna piss somebody off. The way she so persistently dragged Judy into this hellhole because if anyone was going to share in the chaos of the night, it was gonna be a lonely Mox who had thus far refused to leave her shadowy apartment for fear of facing the world.
So she stays. Even now she leans her back against the bar and watches V have her fun. This, at least, she can manage. The tequila is cold and if she squints hard enough the bar lights seem to shimmer like the spread at Lizzies, offering a sliver of the familiar in a place that is anything but. It's not much, but it's enough to keep her head on her shoulders when the heavy metal seems about to crack the concrete over her head. As expected, she can barely understand a word this "Frankenstein" character is trying to sing. She catches something about "filth in the gutter" and "blaze away into the grey." But beyond that it's all nothing but angry-sounding gibberish.
At the techie's request, they've stuck to the outskirts of the mob where the insanity is at its thinnest. It's a small and mostly meaningless concession, all things considered, and it hasn't stopped V from going apeshit on the metaphorical dance floor. The woman twists and writhes in the grip of the music, caught in silhouetted snapshots by flashing strobes that pulse to the beat of the drums. One particular flare catches V with her hands stretched to the sky, head flung back as fire blooms behind her. Her party dress clings tight in all the right places, shimmering in the off-and-on dark like oil on water. The sight is enough to send Judy's heart skipping until she manages to reign it in. Easy, girl. That ain't what tonight is about.
Sometimes - a lot of times - Judy gets so caught up in her own problems that she forgets that V has her own share of stormy skies. It's a rare thing to see, so often locked down behind a mask of smirks and smiles or buried even deeper beneath an ironclad mercenary's edge. But in rare quiet moments, Judy can't help but catch the way V's eyes drain of everything but a very hollow kind of darkness.
Not here, though. The sadness and insincere smiles both seem to evaporate in the sweat-muggy air like the steam visibly rising off the undulating crowd. Here Judy gets the feeling she's seeing V - the real V - for the first time. It's a sight to behold a woman so free, so untethered from the chains of this fucking city.
A flashbulb epiphany hits her: a realization that this place, this enormous and suffocating chaos, is no different than her own outings to suit up for a dive. Even among the press of countless writhing bodies, V can let the mask drop and just be herself. She's alone in this place, as surely as Judy when she's a hundred feet below sea level with nothing but the dark to hold her close.
Underwater, where thoughts can breathe easy...
So when V spins to her with a grin that seems to light up the world, Judy can't help but grin back. And when V gestures to come join the murder, Judy sets her tequila aside and steps into the throng.
She's never been a true-blue dancer, though the strip club choreography of some of her BDs has garnered some praise. This isn't anything like that, though. There's no plan to the way V moves, no thought, only pure and unfettered instinct. She shakes her hips, tosses her hair, throws her arms out wide without giving two shits to the gonks surrounding her. Judy tries her best to follow along but, surprise surprise, an out-of-her-depth basement-dwelling geek-gonk like her can't hope to keep up.
"Your dancing is as stiff as a corpse!" V shouts over the roar of the music.
"Fuck you!" Judy shouts back. "I get credit for trying!"
V grabs her wrist with a laugh. Pulls her in close. Pulls her in very close. Through the smog of heat and sweat-stink, the techie gets a hit of a gentler warmth and a citrusy scent - mango, maybe? The sudden overload sends a tense ripple through her, though V seems to interpret it as more awkward dancing. Or maybe not, because she takes Judy's captive hand and places it on her hip with a very knowing smile.
"Follow me," the solo says. That smile burns through the flare of pyrotech. The flickering light catches in her hair and in her eyes and set them alight like wildfire. Judy gulps. And nods.
They move in sync with the heartbeat of the show; slow at first, then faster and faster. Judy is still far from a master, but that doesn't matter much when V is doing more than enough to balance things out. The solo leads by example, snapping her hips and curling her hands across her tight curves, first up and then down. She grins through it all, a grin that only widens when Judy finally starts to get her feet under her and begins to reciprocate the intensity of the world around her.
It's like sluggish lightning in her veins, but she's finally starting to feel it. Exactly what, she's not sure. But she's feeling it.
She tugs V to her in a sudden moment of uncharacteristic confidence, spins her, and is rewarded with a delighted laugh that she feels more than hears. After all, she can't hear much of anything between the screaming guitars and the behemoth behind the mike bellowing something about, "when all the towers fall, we all fall together." Makes no difference. She spins V again. She's got little else to offer the dance floor beside this stupid move, so totally out of character at a club where headbanging is the best most can manage. But V seems to enjoy it, so why the hell not?
V retreats out of reach at the end of one twirl and shimmies with an undulating flex that starts at her shoulders and seems to shiver down her spine all the way to her toes. Her hands clasp behind her head, putting the rest of her body into show-off mode. The lights burst into strobes as if on cue, accentuating every shrug of her shoulders, every roll of her hips. Watching the solo at work, Judy absently wonders how the hell the redhead can move like that. Maybe she's got some kind of gyroscopic pelvic implant? But no - this is all natural and all V.
"Keep staring like that," V calls over the music, "and a girl might start to get ideas!"
Judy jumps. "What?"
The merc only cackles and whips out the move again. Then her hand flashes out, catches a wrist, and Judy finds herself once again in the solo's arms. This time it's V who spins her partner, not once or twice, but three times. The world dissolves into a whirlwind of light and sound for a brief and breathless moment, then she's back where she started with her senses full of nothing but V. Her legs wobble a bit and V tucks her close with a chuckle of, "Easy there, choom."
She can feel warm breath against her neck as she sways, catching both balance and breath before they plunge again into the mayhem. Her hands fall to V's shoulders to steady herself and she pulls in a slow, deep inhale.
"Having fun yet?"
Judy casts about for something to say, something casual and noncommittal to smooth out the tremble zig-zagging down her spine. In the end, all she can muster is a weak stammer. "Y-You're really warm."
V's lips curve against her neck. Then the other woman pulls back so Judy can take in that oh-so-familiar smile in full. "I'll take that as a yes."
The buzz of tequila still lingers in her veins. The drumbeats and raging guitars sync with her own pounding heart. The dazzling light rigs and the flare-burst of pyro all around feeds into a kaleidoscope spray of sensation. The electricity of the moment shoots straight to her head, leaving her primed and ready for a bad decision.
Ready, aim, fire.
She ducks forward and plants her lips against V's. Now it's the redhead's turn to go stiff. She pulls back with a shocked gasp of, "Judy, what-" but Judy grabs the solo's cheeks and kisses her again, harder this time. V all but melts, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her flush. The techie guides them back, out of the crowd. She's taking the lead now, and the new dance is both so much easier and so much more nerve-wracking than the last.
This is a bad idea. Every second of this is a fucking bad idea.
Doesn't matter. Not to Judy and not to the edgerunner in her arms. V's back thumps against the bar, rattling glassware and earning them a round of disgruntled curses from the other patrons. All of it falls on deaf ears. Judy slides her fingers into V's hair and slants her head, passing her tongue along V's lips. V tenses beneath her and opens up with a muffled moan that Judy once again feels rather than hears. That same thought keeps ringing through her head, desperate and stubborn. Bad idea, bad idea. But another part of her, a deeper part that runs entirely on autopilot, claws for more, more, more. When blunt fingernails slide up to her shoulders and clutch her close, that voice all but screams with satisfaction.
When they part for breath, V again stammers out, "Judy, what-"
"Shut up." Judy interrupts her with another short kiss. "Don't say anything." Kiss. "No more words. 'Kay?"
V gives a mute nod and her lips are busied with more pressing concerns than talking.
What a strange inverse world they've fallen into. Judy drowns in this crazy place, but every press of those soft painted lips is a breach to the surface where she can finally breathe again. V, on the other hand, seems able to handle only a few seconds of Judy's fire, then pulls away for a few little gasps before diving in again. They're from two different worlds, sure, but at this moment they're straining with everything they've got to meet in the middle. The result is... breathtaking.
It's been so long since she could muster the energy, the courage, to open up to a moment like this. Evelyn's shadow still hangs low over her even here, and life before... that... was hardly a bed of roses. But now that even a smidge of that weight has vanished from her shoulders it's like a dam is ready to burst inside her - she can feel it in the trembling tips of her fingers.
Throwing herself at V like this is stupid, a product of stress and slow-burn grief and something deeper and darker that she's not ready to face yet. But true to form, V doesn't give a damn about any of that. The stupid gonk yet again meets her where she's at, willing and able to be whatever Judy needs her to be. Why? Why would she do that for a nobody Mox like her? Where does she get the gall to be so fucking good in the middle of a city so fucking foul? Why...
Questions for later. All questions for later.
She slows the roll, peppering V's jaw with light, slow kisses and nuzzling into her neck. Her palms slide up and down the soft material of V's slinky dress as breath rattles out of her lungs in a slow and shaky sigh. With the fire in her belly fading a bit, she manages to hold V in her arms and whisper, "V, I don't..."
"No words, 'member?" V shushes her. "We can... talk about it later."
Judy nods and folds into V's shoulder, feeling the merc's strong arms close around her. For a moment it's as though all the sights and sounds and sorrows of the world bleed away into the embrace, leaving her so delightfully clean inside that she never wants to leave this little bubble she's discovered.
But like all things, it's not meant to last. Not in this place, where the sound shakes the earth beneath their feet and the screaming chants of, "Vik-tor! Vik-tor!" smother any softer thoughts. The show is wrapping up. The huge trenchcoat-clad singer thrusts a last into the air alongside a gout of flames and a last ringing power chord. The band files offstage and the atmosphere finally begins to die down.
Oh well. It was always destined to be a short moment, only a brief breach above the surface before diving back to the depths she finds so cruelly familiar. She pulls back, holding V at arm's length, and her eyes linger on her shoes, unable to move anywhere else.
"Right... um, I don't really know-" She sniffs. "Sorry, V. Dunno what got into me."
"Judy, you don't gotta-"
She drops V's hands and moves to step away. "I-I need some air."
"Judy-"
She doesn't make it far before she smacks into a brick wall. A few stumbling steps back and a look up reveals the culprit to actually be a man - if that can even apply to the massive slab of meat in front of her. A craggy, surgery-spliced visage and hulking combat implants tell her everything she needs to know. Animal, and a big motherfucker too. The bold tattoo splayed across his bare chest declares: BUFFALO.
V seems to materialize at her side, an arm slung across her torso to pull her back to safety. Not that her club dress and worn heels have a chance against the brute. She doesn't even have iron on her, and Judy doubts her fancy Mantis Blades will hold up long against this monster of a man.
The hulk doesn't attack, though the gleam in his eyes suggests he'd like nothing more than to put his cinderblock fists to good use. Rather than throw a punch, he instead jerks a thick thumb over his shoulder and grunts, "This way."
"Um..." V cocks her head, arm still outstretched to shield Judy from harm. "No?"
"Wasn't askin'." Buffalo takes a single thudding step closer. "You come with me or I take you. Either or."
Judy hears the telltale scrape of retracting arm plates, prepping for the speedy arrival of a Mantis Blade. She grabs V's shoulder before the situation can escalate from tense to murder. "Wait, V," she says. "Let's not do somethin' stupid. Not here and not yet."
V glances at her, instinct warring with protective concern behind her eyes. She debates for a long moment, then slowly stands down. She straightens up, glaring at the unexpected intruder as her arm plates slide back home.
"Where the hell are we going?"
The Animal turns away to lead them through the departing crowd.
"Frankenstein wants to see you."
"Dangerous attraction, femme fatale in action, the most beautiful mistake of my life."
-Beast in Black, One Night in Tokyo
Author's Note: This scene wasn't really supposed to be a thing. Originally the only part of this was going to be the upcoming Part 2, but the more I stretched out the lead-up to the meeting with Frankenstein, the more I liked where the scene was taking me.
One of the reasons I like Judy's character is her confidence. More specifically I like that her confidence is 100% a lie. Sure she can swagger her way through Night City with the best of em, but at heart she's a self-loathing pessimist pushed to the edge by a world that refuses to let up on her.
And then she meets V. And she's so scared every step of the way because she's afraid V's going to drop her like everyone else in her life. She's ready for that, but what she isn't ready for - at least in my eyes - is how much of her wants to take a gamble on V. A gamble that, no matter the ultimate ending, only winds up burning her yet again.
With all that in mind, I wanted to give V and Judy a moment that was all their own, in a place where they could both let down their guard and just be together before the whole world goes to hell. This scene is almost wholly an unguided character study, with each making their own decisions without much input from me. The more the scene unfolded, the more necessary it became.