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captainderyn · 2 months

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For the 'hit 'em where it hurts' starters: 'I hate the way that I don’t hate you.'

Oooh thank you for sending this in! This is begging for me to write Judy/V in endgame/right after the final mission.

*Usual disclaimer that I don't really know what my ending is going to be for V yet, so this is just stuffing all the bits and pieces together that I like into one ending. No Phantom Liberty spoilers because I haven't played it yet, but spoilers for the final mission of the main game :)

V/Judy: "I hate the way I don't hate you."

Judy was drowning beneath the neon lights of Night City.

Once upon a time she'd worn the suffocating anonymity of the city like a cloak, sank into the comfort of not being known, and thrown herself into the violent game the city played with its residents.

Now those same skyscrapers that had once promised opportunity were a neon gilded cage and the faceless anonymity she'd graved threatened to suffocate her.

But more than ever V gobbled up the lights and commotion up like a fire inhaled oxygen.

Raging, gulping every morsel of fuel into an inferno. Something that would burn bright for only a short time. Her fuse was lit and she was burning, burning, burning.

Something had happened that day that V called Judy from the rooftop of Vik's clinic. That call haunted Judy, snuck into her dreams and rang in her ears. She'd been distracted, searching for something around her apartment, and it hadn't been until the ragged edge to V's voice fully sank in that she'd tuned in.

So yeah, maybe she'd told V to be careful, maybe she'd told V that she'd be home waiting. But what if she'd said something different? Something that would've kept V from doing whatever it was she was planning, something that would've kept V from coming back a shell of who she'd used to be.

There was an emptiness in V’s eyes now. No matter how often she smiled at Judy, it never lit up the rest of her face. Her laughter was hollow, when it came at all.

She was just going through the motions. Raging through the city wearing the only persona she knew: merc.

With Johnny being gone, Judy would have thought that V would have lit up again. That without the engram eating away at her, she'd come back into the voraciously lively woman that Judy had met before the heist.

But the Johnny Problem hadn't seemed to be a problem at all. V mourned Johnny like she lost her closest friend, like she'd lost part of herself.

It came to a head in V's apartment, the one she'd unceremoniously moved all her stuff into after coming back from Arasaka Tower. V sat in a plush chair in the corner of the room, lacing up her boots. Or had been, but now they lay half laced, as she said the same words over and over again that drove Judy insane:

"I can't leave Night City, Judy, this city is part of who I am."

She hated that phrase, the excuse that V always fell back on. This city had eaten her up and spat her out so many times. There was nothing good in this city left to stay for but V just wouldn't get it.

"I hate this." Judy finally snapped, "I hate that I can't bring myself to hate you when you do this every single time." Judy ducked her head, the chromatic curtain of her hair sweeping over her eyes. She hoped it would mask the way her lips twisted, the way her eyes burned white-hot with tears.

She whistled out a hissing breath from behind her teeth, trying to pour concrete into her words to bolster them, "I want to hate you so much. You are a goddamn ticking time bomb and you made me love you. I could be halfway across the country by now, living outside of this stupid fucking city, but you've tethered me here and I'm going to be here until all that's left of you is an alcove and I'm going to have to pick up the pieces."

The words rushed out, so many armed with a viscous stinger. A deep part of her wanted the words to hurt, wanted them to land like glass shards in V's heart the way that the thought of losing her wedged its way into Judy.

V sank into the chair, eyes wide. Her jaw set. "I never asked you to love me. I've never asked you to stay."

"We talked about leaving!" Judy gestured out towards the skyline before locking her arms around herself, hugging herself in a vice of her own making, "After all this was over, we talked about leaving and yet we're still here."

It wasn't fair, not really, to pull this from the water beneath the bridge. Out of nowhere. But she'd woken up to V in the bathroom again this morning, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth with a towel, looking like hell and with it brought the ticking clock crashing back down onto her.

V stared at her in silence, eyes darting across her face.

Judy sucked in a shuddering breath.

"I think I made a mistake."

If V wouldn't pull the ripcord, then she'd do it herself. Pull her walls back up inch by agonizing inch.

"Jude, what do you mean? Where is this coming from?"

V tilted her head, the rust-worn dog tags around her neck clinking together. Judy stared at those, used those as a bolster as she grit her teeth and pushed forward. Each word fell measured, like stepping on ice lightly to make sure it wouldn't break before putting your full weight on it.

"I'm just...I'm starting to realize that I've never felt right here."

The silence V held for Judy to speak, the quiet patience that Judy had once adored when she was rocked to the core from Evelyn's death and just needed to let words lose grated on her. She'd flung daggers at V with her words, why wouldn't she fling them back? Why wouldn't she make this easier?

"I thought I liked being one among the many. Anonymous. It felt safe for me. But none of that was real. But now I look at this city and I feel..." She rung her hands together, running her thumbs along the ink wrapping across her skin, "It doesn't feel safe anymore, V, I feel alone."

V pushed herself more upright, as if to get up, to come over to Judy. Judy turned half a step away, staring hard out the window and watching V's reflection as she sank back down into the chair.

Leaning her elbows on her knees, V reached out a hand to Judy, "You have me."

And there it was, the crack in V's voice that Judy had been fighting to get. The first chip that would make the rest of this so much easier. She ignored V's outstretched hand, crossing her arms over her chest instead.

"Yeah, I guess. For a little while longer." Her stomach flipped as she spoke into existence the inevitability. The day when she'd wake up and V wouldn't. When she'd have to put her name on a cold concrete niche.

She'd always kept time for herself in phases. Each one ending when she pulled the plug, meeting every disappointment and home-that-wasn't-really-a-home by pulling away from it before it could leave her. This phase ending waking up next to a cold body...

"Listen, V," She spoke the woman she'd loved, no, had loved, if she had any control of her emotions, the only way she knew she'd understand: like a business woman. Maybe if she could pull the long-dormant corpo out of V then she could ignore the wet glisten in V's eyes. "You pulled me back into this city far longer than I should've stayed. I need to find something better, something more...stable."

She didn't pull the corpo out of V. She pulled tears, running thick and hot down V's cheeks in silent streams. It should have twisted a knife in Judy, she should have begged to take the words back. All it did was wash cold relief through her. The more irreparable she left these pieces the less it would hut when she inevitably stopped hearing from V, or worse, received the call that she was too scared to hear.

"I don't want you to disappear, Jude, not now. I need you, I love you. Please." V sucked in a ragged breath, choking down what sounded painfully like a sob. "I've lost everyone else, please don't make me lose you too."

But there was no reconsideration, no miracle 'I'll come with you. Let's get out of this city'. Judy didn't even know if she'd have wanted it even if V had offered. In fact, some coiled part of her eased at the thought of leaving it all behind.

Leaving the brilliantly vibrant women in front of her behind and getting out of the radius before she went nuclear, just like every other good thing in Night City did.

"You have your place in this city, let me find mine outside of it." Judy looked to the ground so she didn't have to look at V's face as she delivered what she hoped would be the fatal blow, "It's been a nice phase, V, you've meant so much to me. But it's just a phase that's destined to end, just like everything else."

V muffled a sob in her hand, drawing her knees to her chest and folding in on herself. She kept her fist there, pressed against the lips that Judy used to kiss with such giddy reverence, and stared hard out the window until her tears were silent tracks down her cheeks.

"Okay." V finally said in the soft rustling of Judy grabbing her things, tossing them haphazardly in a bag, "I...I'm sorry, Jude."

Judy didn't know what to do with that, didn't know where that fit in with the broken pieces of their relationship she'd just strewn across the floor. So she slung her back over her shoulder and let the door hiss behind her in a quiet click of finality.

#captainderyn writes #prompt fill #hit em where it hurts prompts #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 fanfic #judy alvarez #judy/v #female V #cyberpunk v #cp2077 #oc: V #otp: Borrowed Time Beneath City Lights #I think that's my final choice for their ship name lol #look at me giving myself feels over them ahaha this hurt to write #sorry not sorry this is another cyberpunk piece :)

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captainderyn · 2 months

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Gets out of my carbon pocket

Psst psst glitter anon here hihi >:]

> thoughts about Johnny silverhand

Ams hcs of judy/v !! go crazy GO STUPID

Glitter Anon!!! Hi :D

Oooh okay so my thoughts about Johnny. So, first thing is first, he took awhile to grow on me. I actually really didn't like him at first because I thought he was an abrasive asshole lol. Cuz, ya know, he is. And I didn't go into Cyberpunk knowing ANY of the lore from the TTRPG (I still don't really know any of the lore from the ttrpg).

When I first played V she was incredibly hostile towards Johnny throughout the entire game, the only reason she changed that tune is because I wanted to get the secret ending that wasn't-so-secret-to-me because my husband had played the game. So I chose V's dialogue accordingly. And it was during Johnny's quest line that he really grew on me and I love him even though he's a massive jerk. I think the concept of he and V becoming more and more meshed to the point that they don't know what parts were him and what parts were her is fascinating and I have a soft spot for their unlikely friendship and banter :)

This second playthrough, now that I've solidified my take on V more, has been not quite as aggressively hostile as it had been. She still really does not get along with JOhnny at first, but they grow on each other a lot more a lot quicker. And I think, deep down (and as the game shows), Johnny does come around to care for V and whatever complicated mess of feelings that opens up.

I discussed it somewhere in a post I cannot find, but I haven't really settled on one of the canon endings as 'canon' for my V yet because nothing truly fits exactly how she interacts with Night City. HOWEVER, pulling from some Phantom Liberty stuff here for Johnny and V thoughts and headcanons, I'll toss those and the Judy/V headcanons beneath a cut!

Spoilers for PL starting NOW

I found the post I rambled in so I am just going to copy and paste that for everyone's convenience (not PL, but the secret ending):

I cannot shake the horror of V waking up after Mikoshi and her head is just…dead silent for the first time in a long while. It’s deafening. It’s terrifying. It feels wrong.

There’s no Johnny materializing in the corner of her vision with some quick remark. Some ongoing internal monologue. It’s silent. It’s…empty. It feels like part of her has been ripped out of her, like there’s a hole that needs to be filled.

She’s been working towards this for however long. This has been the GOAL it’s what Johnny urged her to do, there in the end.

So why does she feel so empty? Why does she feel panicky and guilty and everything she shouldn’t be feeling?

If this was what she’s been working towards, why does her voice tremble when she calls out “…Johnny?”

And why do her eyes burn when there’s no response? Something in her has been fundamentally broken since the Relic brought her back.

Now multiply all that previous sentiment combined with the PL ending where V goes through the surgery. She broke some kind of trust with Johnny when she did that if I remember correctly, but she did it to preserve the life she'd been trying to make for herself. Only for that to slip through her fingers like smoke. What she gave up to go through with that surgery, leaving things on "bad terms" with Johnny like that, only to wake up to have two years of her life gone. Judy's gone, moved on, like most everyone else V had close to her at the end...leaving her with nothing. No one. Hollowed out and empty with nothing but Night City around her. And I think in those times she probably wishes that she didn't go through with any of this. That she'd let Johnny have her body because she's alone anyway, she might as well have had him up to the very end ;--;

---

Judy/V Headcanons

-First and foremost I guess I should say that my V and Judy were never meant to last forever. I love them together in the time they have, I think they're sweet, but they're flame that fizzles out fast. They were a fire lit in the wake of immense tragedy and I think Judy was searching for someone, even subconsciously, to hold onto in the overwhelming ocean of grief and pain she was going through. It also just comes down to the fact that Judy was always going to leave Night City, V never was. V doesn't want to go out in a blaze of glory or become the queen of the Afterlife; that was Jackie's dream not hers, but NC is her home and she can't imagine herself anywhere else.

-Judy tries really hard to get V to leave NC, gets her perhaps halfway warmed up to the thought of leaving. Then the raid on Arasaka happens and V comes back a shell of herself. Judy thinks that maybe V needs time, but it becomes clear in her mind that V is more a ghost that haunts NC than herself anymore.

-Despite V being tied to NC, she would do anything to grant Judy's wish to get out of the city. Even if it mean that V wouldn't be going with her. She isn't lying when she says she's working towards it--I imagine that either in any ending that has Judy and V apart, Judy still gets a fat sum of eddies into her account from V. Her "get out of town fund".

-They have a great dynamic, they get along like a house on fire. To Judy, V is fiery, has a sense of humor like a whip, is a little dumb like an excitable golden retriever, and makes her feel safe and secure for awhile. She’s so intensely V in a Night City that tries to squash anyone who dares to live that vibrantly.

-V starts to change, as the Relic’s malfunctions get worse. She starts adopting mannerisms, ways of speaking, that aren’t entirely her. They’re Johnny. The cadence of her voice is off sometimes, she starts wearing different clothes–that ratty replica Samurai jacket Rogue found for her. She starts smoking more–the old V never would’ve touched a cigarette with a ten foot pole. And I think those subtle shifts raise alarm bells, raise some walls for Judy. Especially after the incident while diving and seeing exactly what V’s time running out looks like. I think as much as that date starts Judy and V's relationship for real, it also starts ticking down to the end. Because as bright and hot as those passion flames burn, Judy knows what's on the other side.

-Outside of the pits of angst lol, I can see V and Judy, ripping through the streets of NC on V's motorcycle. Judy clinging to V, wind billowing her jacket as V drives way faster than she probably should, to the outskirts of the city where they sit on an outcropping to watch the sun set over the skyline. That's the energy they have. The kind of relationship that sweeps you off your feet, the air out of your lungs.

-I don't really think Judy knows what to do with V lol. She doesn't know what to do with the big muscled merc who sings bad syth-pop at the top of her lungs in Judy's van and throws herself down like a big puppy on Judy's couch with a smile that lights up the entire room. And I think V is the one to get some of the most unfiltered Judy that NC ever sees.

-Looking at things from The Sun ending, despite the shadow that remains as V, I think for a moment Judy considers what it would be like to stay in NC with her. That perhaps NC wouldn't be so bad if she had someone she loved, who wasn't eaten alive by the city, to face it with. But then she realizes that she lost some part of V in Arasaka Tower that she won't get back, and realizes her days with V are still numbered. And that's when those walls come slamming back up, when she makes that choice to cut V off before she can hurt Judy, even unintentionally. In her mind she has to protect herself, there was always that last 5% of trust that she never gave to V.

#captainderyn answers #cyberpunk 2077 #Johnny Silverhand #judy alvarez #judy/v #oc: V #I'm sorry that these Judy/V headcanons arent exactly the most upbeat lol #I've just done a lot more thinking about the tragedy of their story if you can't tell its what has enraptured my mind

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