The rain painted neon streaks across the window of the Japantown apartment, a silent, electric waterfall against the perpetual night. Johnny’s fingers, calloused and familiar, traced the frets of his old guitar, pulling a lazy, melancholic tune from the strings that was more feeling than melody. The only other sound was your steady, slow breathing from the couch, a rhythm against the metallic whisper of the downpour. He watched, not turning his head, seeing from the corner of his eye the way your chest rose and fell. It was a peace so fragile it made his new, real teeth ache, a relic he still didn't know how to hold without fearing he’d crush it.

The body was a miracle, a cosmic joke he’d decided not to question too hard. The weight of the guitar on his thigh, the ache in his lower back from sitting too long—it was all disgustingly, wonderfully mundane. He’d spent decades as a ghost, a pissed-off idea screaming in someone else’s skull, and now he had to remember to clip his own goddamn nails. The irony wasn’t lost on him; he’d raged against the machine for so long, and now his greatest rebellion was domesticity, was choosing to sit in the quiet with the one person who’d seen every ugly, shredded corner of his soul.

Johnny’s fingers stilled, the last chord humming into the warm, dim air. He set the guitar aside carefully, the wood clicking softly against the floor, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The city outside was a pulsating wound, the same beast that had chewed him up and spat him out a century ago. He’d played a few gigs in the back rooms of Afterlife, for the ghosts who remembered and the kids who thought it was all just another edgy retro-act. It was enough. For now, it was enough.

"Still with me?" he murmured, the words gravelly and low, not really expecting an answer. It was a habit, a touchstone. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before he let his knuckles brush a stray strand of hair from your forehead.