'He has access to your senses, perceptions, even some memories.'
Johnny hoped he felt every moment of this.
There was blood on Johnny's knuckles. The silver side. Hit harder, split skin. Ugly and bloody and clogging the metal joints connecting fingers to hands. He grimaced in disgust.
"Fuckin' useless," he reached down, pulled V up by the collar of his jacket. Reveled in the way his body seemed to sag and the skin about his left eye caved in. His head lolled back, cracking against the wall when Johnny forced him against it. Blood sticking to the fuzz of his buzz cut and stubble.
Johnny adjusted his grip, holding V by the throat with his flesh hand, tight but not crushing. Then held Vs jaw with his other, smearing blood on his cheeks and forcing eye contact.
Taking a moment, Johnny watched Vs face. Swollen eyes and missing teeth. Blood had dribbled from a wound past his hairline, into his injured eye. He clamped it closed on instinct. The pain he caused made Johnny feel something. Like someone. Real again. Here again. He'd tear his throat out with his teeth before he went back.
V breathed hard through his nose. His mouth too squished and flooded with blood to function.
Maybe they could have liked each other. In some strange world less ugly or cutthroat than this. Maybe they could have talked, gotten to know each other in a way less forced, discussed the weather over a fucking ciggy.
An alright kid. Wrong place, wrong time.
"I fuckin' hate you."
Johnny pulled him forward by the throat and then pushed, slamming him back into the wall with all the force of his hate. V inhaled and Johnny could hear his lungs rattle with the force. Raggedy and raw.
After a barely-there hesitation, Johnny would have assumed he'd killed him were it not for Vs spluttering breaths, the kid twitched his head to the side. Looked at Johnny with big glossy eyes. Like he knew something he didn't.
He coughed, blood splattering on Johnny's lips. Then pulled cracked lips back, took a deep breath-
And smiled an ugly, bloody grin.
Johnny saw red.
Johnny pulled back, in one swift movement, and slammed his mental fist into Vs face. He felt it crush under his fist, crumbling like the powder in his nostrils. Johnny didn't care beyond the rage, didn't consider the repercussions. He turned away, ready to walk and leave the kid. Fuck V. Some merc, Night City was full of them. No less clueless than the other fools. Another brick in the fucking wall.
But then Vs head hit the floor with a crack, his body violently jerked in the middle of the dirty alleyway floor and-
Johnny felt uncomfortable.
End