rockerb0y: “ cheer up. it might be all downhill from here. ” (for any v you like)
"no shit," vivienne spits out the words with her head between her knees, trying not to puke. everything swims, vision going blurry while the signal keeps telling her the relic's malfunctioning. blood keeps rushing between her ears, the swooshing sound weirdly similar to the one trapped inside of a shell, rhyming with a time when the ocean wasn't a wasteland of trash. she wonders what it was like: toes buried in the sand, water on the horizon, bigger than any man-made skyscrapper.
almost asks the dipshit inside her head, because that's the kind of habit she has picked up-- because she expects him to be here, and to reply. because they're... not friends, not colleagues, but a third, worse thing. something a bit more cannibalistic, maybe, because a look in his direction makes her wish she could put her hands around his neck & squeeze.
"aren't you tired of," she stops because now she's coughing, and fuck if that isn't representative of the bullshit that her life has become: body crumbling while she tires herself with admonishing a figment of her imagination. "...of being this fucking annoying?" at the very least, being mad at johnny makes her feel better-- she'll blame him 'til she can't breathe anymore, even if it's done half-heartedly. animosity makes her blood pump. makes her want to hold on a bit tighter; to him, to life. it's better than to look in the mirror and find jackie's face looking disappointed somewhere above her shoulder.
"if i die like this..." the "if" registers: silence ends the sentence, like it hadn't really reached her mind yet, that she could die like this: worried of puking her insides out, itching for a cigarette, johnny's body blocking out of the light.
TO WITHSTAND the onset of the relic was an onerous feat in itself but the reminder of its oncoming terminus only aggravated their mutual plight. unlike the biochip's psychological burden, the physiological trauma was chiefly shouldered by his host and depicted the construct in stolid indifference. resentment of the malfunction's inequity needn't have been seen when it could be heard in high-fidelity; antipathy was more warmly welcomed than apathy, every time.
the mercenary's fragmental remark hung limply in the space between them, rebuked by a wrinkled nose and sharp stare blunted only by his aviators' tinted lenses. until supposition hardened into certainty, no receptivity was afforded to such a flaccid fate. a second chance to wreak vengeance upon arasaka was too lucrative of windfall to squander, regardless of his counterpart's present state of decay.
a dearth of pity fortified the construct's tactless tone and elevated height, silhouette delineated by the room's scant illumination and compelling the other's gaze upward without compromise. the bout of discombobulation shouldn't have entailed dramatics as a side effect but a smoke break outside had already been prescribed nonetheless. whether the urge was synced or leached from either of them was too muddled to discern and the rockerboy wasn't specially inclined to distinguish it further.
