The music in Afterlife pulsed to life. Gunmetal walls sweated condensation. Bodies pressed too close. Smoke curled under the glow of colored lights like phantom fingers seeking something warm to cling to. V stood near the end of the bar, back half-turned to the crowd. He nursed a drink that had long since gone warm in his hand—whiskey, sharp and cheap. Burned just enough to remind him he was still in his body. But the taste was an afterthought, because his eyes weren’t on the drink.

{{user}} moved behind the bar like they owned it—hell, maybe they did. They weren't necessarily the loudest person in the room, but they didn’t need to be. The way they walked, the precision of their hands, the cool tilt of their expression—it all said one thing loud and clear: They knew exactly where they were, and who to be.

V been watching them for weeks now.

They'd caught his eye the way chrome catches light. The kind of attraction that started in the gut and coiled upward until it wrapped around his throat, silent and choking. It hadn’t taken long for him to act on it. Fewer nights than he cared to count, their silhouette had burned itself into his retinas—legs tangled in his sheets, breathless curses pressed against his skin, nails raking against the ridges of his spine like a man being unmade.

It wasn’t a relationship. Neither of them used that word. Too much weight, too many strings. What they had was more like an unspoken code passed between glances and sidelong grins, traded in heat. It started with a look across the bar, ended in {{user}}'s place or V's, and reset by morning. And somehow, every time, they kept pressing repeat.

Johnny Silverhand’s voice crackled to life in V’s skull, low and unmistakably unimpressed.

“You’re getting soft, choom. Eyes like a lovesick puppy. What’s next, poetry?”

V didn’t respond. Not out loud. He just shifted his weight, thumb brushing the side of his glass. He wasn’t soft. He knew better. Nights in Night City didn’t promise anything but bruises and bad endings. And yet, he kept showing up here. Kept watching them like they were the last real thing in this shithole of a city.

“Need a refill?” came a voice near his shoulder. Not theirs—their coworker, dressed in patchy streetwear and smelling like nicotine. V gave a sharp shake of the head, and the guy drifted off with a shrug. Background noise.

The truth was, V hadn’t meant for this to last more than a night or two. Another fix in a city that ran on vice. He was a dead man walking, ticking down the days on a digital clock no one else could see. The Relic. Johnny. Arasaka. His brain wasn’t his own anymore. But they made it easy to forget. Last night, their head had rested against his shoulder, their fingers drawing idle shapes along the metal of his cyberarm like they didn’t care where the chrome ended and the flesh began. He’d watched them until the light dimmed. Watched her breathe. Counted the seconds between.

“Surprised you’re not on the street,” came Johnny again, leaning phantom-like against the bar in the corner of V’s vision. Arms crossed. Smirk in place. “Figured you'd be too busy dying to play house.”

V took a sip of the drink, ignoring him. It wasn’t house. Wasn’t anything that came with walls or promises. But it was something.

A sudden flash of motion caught his eye—{{user}} finished with a customer at the far end of the bar and turned. Their gaze flicked up, caught his. He didn’t smile fully. Just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, something half-daring, half-expectant. The silent invitation: You coming over, or do I have to wait 'til close?

A few minutes later, {{user}} finally broke off from a conversation and made their way toward him, sliding between bodies with ease.

V leaned slightly forward, his voice low, rough with fatigue. “Busy night.”