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>...     HIS  OLD   STOMPING   GROUNDS ,    amidst the blaring bass and the wide eyed onlookers,  he’s relaxed,  slouched over the bartop where you’d find beer bottles, and empty tequila old fashions around him.   

Where was this, again?    Atlantis?   

     Nah,    he’d feel Rogue’s charming gaze from a mile away if he were at Atlantis;    bleary eyed,    he knuckles at his eyes,    blinking up at the bartender,    then finally surveying the shit hole they both were in.   ‘Silverhand!’    A smile curls onto his face,    a nearby fanboy gets all giddy with delusion, and he figures not knowing where he was was probably for the best;    let the new guy manage that out tomorrow when it hits the scream sheets.    He could picture it now,    a COO and a rockerboy walk into a bar dot dot dot  -  a lazy glance to the woman who was never in his company,    always in her own,    not that he was complaining when she looked like that tonight.

      It was fucking annoying though,    the way the fans leered at him from nearby,    hovering,    watching his every move as though he’d whip out an encore right here,    right now.    Johnny raises his glass to his lips,    knocks back a shot,    and sets it down with a bang.    As if on cue,    the one behind the bar is quick to replace his drink.   He shoots them a grateful look.   Didn’t matter in the end where he was, as It was all the same to him and Night City;    you couldn’t find one place that sold booze on the streets that hadn’t already played host to Johnny Silverhand.     He was good for business.

>...    OR MAYBE THE DRINKS WERE JUST THAT GOOD,    given that he was accosted of his own,  red lipstick staining the rim.    Leave it to her to set the mood.    A brow raises,    and he’s aware of her proximity,    the gold gleam of her mods shining just so under the dance lights.    Johnny takes back what’s his,    a knowing smirk,    as he downs the whole thing where her lips had just been.    Lady,    I don’t even know where we are.   

   “    You know I wouldn’t be caught dead with the likes of you   ----    “

     A half smile,    a running joke,    as he knows she shares the same sentiment with him and his band.    Tickets,    and extended invitations to their shows were offered whenever he felt like maybe,    just maybe,    he’d see her in his crowd.    And yet,   “    guess I musta kicked the bucket,    ‘cuz here we are.   “

    Johnny settles the glass back down onto the nearest surface,    reaching out so he has all her attention on him,    his chrome arm rests on her shoulder,    mindful of the sharp metal extending from his elbows, he leans in,     

“    only time I get an angel all t’myself before the devil knows I’m dead.     “

     He presses a kiss to her forehead,    and smiles.

ɢᴏᴏᴏᴏᴏᴏᴅ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ, ɴɪɢʜᴛ ᴄɪᴛʏ !!! ᴛᴏɴɪɢʜᴛ ᴡᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ, 4-6 am on a winter morning

...This is closest he will come to tasting the soft down of virtual snow melting into busted chrome and feverish skin slick with grime of today's melting point. CLOUDY, WITH A FORECAST OF HEAVY SNOW !! It's a slew of anarchic grit and corporate slog backlit with the corporate monoliths built taller than the weather, shining LED RGB and we're the fucking school of fish they feed pixels of tonight's virtual snow. It's pretty, he thinks, if there wasn't the glaring fact of man - made, eddie backed, corporate sanctioned gods waiting on its pound of flesh's amusement; it's 4AM on a winter morning, but there hasn't been snow in Night City in a long time.

" Met you on a night like this, " southern boy soused in charm of a by-gone era, but he was tonight's main fucking act, the jostling of diehard audience screaming back at him with as much as he had given; all of him, always, martyrdom gnashing canines into the metal of the microphone / CAN YOU FEEL IT? Johnny doesn't sweat any more, not when every nerve's been shot and spliced with Arasaka tech stringing him up like a soldier come a reckoning, tin man, heart of iron branded up with ownership of the very company you die for.

Something special blooms up on that stage which has him gasping down polluted NC air, inhaling CHOO2 and whatever sick pack of smokes he has on hand like he needs a hit, that kind of rush he's felt when he's on his knees; rare wooden floor, the soft plush of a rug from some exotic animal only these fucking corporates could ever have their hands on and he's on his knees by her knees, crawling crawling crawling .... Wake up, says the hand, all silver chrome stilling on the gold chrome of her jaw; polarizing attraction made of the same stuff they've lost. His finger in the wound of her.

NEURAL CHIP NOW LOADING:// where'd your voice go, angel? He'd ask one night, the shadow of her husband casting a heavy shadow in the closet of her room, tucked away like the religious dogma.

" Quieter out here with you, " he finally speaks, trailing the silver arm and hand down the length of @sanctamater's shoulder then down her arm to pluck the cigarette from between her fingers so he could breath in the smoke; the only 'ganic thing he had left coated with nicotine, smeared with her lipstick. The LED lights outline the shape of her nicely, and the fluttering virtual snowfall makes her look like a damned siren. He'll smile in spite of the thoughts that spooled into the mic, Johnny Silverhand leaning into the Militech COO with an obscene smile, smoke spilling with each word,

ALT IS AS IMPORTANT AS SHE IS BECAUSE THATS THE ONLY PERSON JOHNNY HAS EVER FELT SAFE ABOUT LOVING