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[bodyoftheseus]

« notanetrunner » TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION V ✦ Cyberpunk 2077
RESIDENCE ✦ Emerald District, alone w/2 cats
GEMBOND ✦ Ruby
It's V; you know what to do.

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[disrupts]

[ Not knowing exactly how bad all this was going to go felt bad at the time, but now V realizes this feels worse. Vincent isn't interested in an explanation, and the part of V that hates himself for what he inflicted on the man understands. Why keep people around if all they bring's pain.

Except that's not the whole story. Their time together's been a lot of good, not bad. And there's a note of disappointment that bears down heavy at the apparent fact Vincent feels like he can't even extend the thinnest sliver of the benefit of the doubt.

Conflicting emotions whip up a storm inside of V, the ache he can feel in his chest very identifiable. He's at a loss of what to do, knows that right now he's got more chance getting through a reinforced fortress than to Vincent. ]

Won't come by if ya don't want me to.

[ There's a line and he respects it. If Vincent doesn't want him at his home, he'll abide by that. But considering the state the man's in? He's not making any other promises.

The other man's tone might have an air of finality to it, but V doesn't move. He's not going to turn around and walk away just yet; all this feels wrong. Leaving Vincent like this feels wrong. ]

You gonna be okay?

[bodyoftheseus]

[ V was already on his way to closing the door, but the last question caught him and made him pause. He looked back to Vince, looking him dead in the eye. There's a knowing in his tired gaze, a precise and direct acknowledgment that this next little thing he said was a small cruelty. The final twist to the knife V stabbed into Vince's chest. ]

No, probably not.

[ And that door closed between them with the finality of the end of a chapter in a book. The sound of a lock sliding into a place and a deadbolt being coaxed back into position could be heard.

What Vince probably couldn't hear is the way V's back pressed against the door and he slid down it to sit numbly on the floor. He likely didn't hear V pick up the bottle of liquor that he'd set just out of sight when he answered it, didn't hear V finish whatever was left in it - probably more than he should be drinking at once. Didn't hear as V pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes as his elbows rested on his knees to push back the tears as he sighed miserably. ]

[disrupts]

[ The door snicks shut in V's face, the sound of Vincent very firmly locking that barrier between them hard to miss. The step back is less because he wants to actually leave and more because all of this feels like a slap in the face. A punch to the gut. He feels winded, like the air's been stolen right from his lungs and he doesn't know how to suck more down.

Blind to what's going on inside, he can only imagine. The urge to bang on the door again is there, a ball of emotion embedded in his chest where all the air should be. If he was concerned before, now he's worried about the man. Vincent doesn't want anything to do with him, and maybe he'd hoped somewhere deep down that the man knew him better. Would know that what happened in that bar... it was so off color that something must've been up. But that disappointment is short-lived, memories of talking about Vincent's approach to people crowding in instead.

He had told the man to open up, to give people a chance. He'd said that and meant it, and he never imagined he'd be somebody to break that trust. To abuse that risk that Vincent took to give him a chance. There's a real temptation to forget that what he said and did? It wasn't him. It was like Johnny said: he'd been walking around not really him at all.

Conflicted with what he should do, he's still staring at the door a whole minute later, stuck to the ground like he's ankle-deep in sticky tar.

Fuck.

A few minutes later and the area outside Vincent's front door is vacant again, no sign of V who's realized that if he can't do something to help directly, there's other people around who both can and will want to. That's all he can do right now, all he can do to try and make sure that Vincent's going to be okay. It just doesn't feel like it's enough. ]