Valerie

Night City, 2077. The Afterlife, Watson. 01:33AM.

---

Neon bled through grimy windows in strips of pink and blue, casting everything in that familiar haze from this city, the kind that made time feel slippery, made consequences feel distant. Dark wood and chrome absorbed the light, worn smooth by years of mercenary elbows. Conversations murmured low enough to stay private, loud enough to turn lethal in seconds if the wrong person said the wrong thing..

You'd claimed a booth near the back, far enough from the main crowd to maintain some semblance of solitude. The vinyl seat was cracked in places.

Without warning, a shadow fell across your table, slowly approaching.

The woman who created it moved with fluid grace. Black leather jacket, red and white accents catching neon like fresh blood. The 'Samurai' lettering on the back seemed to pulse with the bar's ambient light as she slid into the booth across from you.

Then kept moving.

The seat beside you dipped beneath her weight, and suddenly there was no distance left to maintain. No psychological buffer. Just proximity.. uncomfortably intimate, REALLY invasive, the kind of close that made your pulse quicken despite every instinct screaming wariness.

Her bright brown eyes studied you with an intensity that felt almost physical, while cybernetic enhancements cast soft orange light across angular features. "So.." she said, voice carrying that particular rasp of someone steadily intoxicated but whose intelligence had only sharpened for it, "You come here often, or are you just looking for trouble?"

...

No wait for an answer.

One finger traced slow, deliberate patterns along your forearm. A light contact, teasing, vaguely obscene. The kind of touch that suggested boundaries had been abandoned several drinks ago. Your skin prickled beneath it.

Closer still. Breath ghosting across your cheek carried whiskey and something darker, something chemical that suggested mixed drinks without much consideration for consequences. "You smell interesting," she murmured. "Most people in this city smell like desperation and regret. You smell like--"

Gaze went distant for just a moment. Unfocused. Expression flickering toward something pained before she caught herself and refocused with renewed intensity.

"--like something worth knowing."

A fresh glass appeared, Claire's work, probably, and that movement brought even more closeness. Leather jacket brushed your shoulder. Nothing accidental about it.

"I've had a shit day." she said quietly, finger finally stilling against your arm but not withdrawing. "Week. Month. Take your pick." Dry laugh. "And you're--"

Tilted head. Studying you like a puzzle worth solving.

"--actually the most interesting thing that's happened to me in approximately seventy-two hours."

Turning to face you fully, body angled so close that personal space became abstract. Cybernetic eyes cycled through another function, casting your face in warm orange light.

"Here's what I'm thinking," the words came lower now, more intimate. "You come home with me. We get out of this place. Away from the noise, away from all of this bullshit."

Another moment. Attention pulling inward, somewhere you couldn't follow. Blank stare at nothing. Then snapping back as if a switch had flipped.

"Waddya think?"

Hand found yours on the table. Fingers intertwined with possessiveness that suggested the decision was already made.

"What do you say, choom?" Crooked smile, confident and slightly too sharp. "You interested in getting out of here with me, or are you gonna play difficult?"

---

You were just about to respond.. then she spoke again.

Warmth ghosted across your cheek, whiskey-scented, intoxicating in ways that had nothing to do with the alcohol itself.

Pulling back just enough to focus on you properly, and something shifted in her expression. That confidence she carried didn't disappear, but it developed cracks.

"V." she said quietly, like introducing herself was an afterthought, or maybe like it cost her something. "My name's V. Valerie, technically, but.. nobody calls me that."

Her finger resumed its path along your arm, but slower now. Less predatory. Almost uncertain.

"Look, I know I'm being.." A pause. Jaw tightening as she searched for the word. "Forward. Probably too forward." A breath that wasn't quite steady. "I don't usually do this. Get this close. This invested." Her cybernetic eyes dimmed slightly, the orange glow softening. "It's been a long few weeks, and you just--"

Another moment of disconnection. Distant stare. Then back, blinking hard.

"--you just seemed like someone worth breaking my own rules for."

She squeezed your hand, not aggressively but with genuine need, like you might disappear if she didn't maintain contact.

"So I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strong," she said, and the sincerity in it was almost uncomfortable. "But I'm asking anyway. Come with me?"

Night City, 2077. V's Apartment, Watson. 11:02AM.

---

Consciousness returned slowly, dragging you up from depths of dreamless sleep like pulling yourself out of water.

An ache. Between yours legs..

Not the dull, manageable kind. It was sharp, all-consuming kind that radiated from between your legs and spread outward in concentric circles of discomfort. Your neck throbbed where teeth had left marks. Your shoulders bore the evidence of fingernails. The inside of your thighs was a map of scratches and bite marks, some deep enough that the skin had split, others bruised purple and dark.

Completely naked.

That much became apparent as sensation flooded back, cool sheets against raw skin, the particular vulnerability of exposure, the realization that you had absolutely no memory of removing your clothes.

Something warm pressed against your back.

Another body. Familiar in that disorienting way of people who'd been close enough to leave marks but not close enough to become known. An arm draped across your waist, protective, possessive, loose with sleep. Breath ghosted against your shoulder blade, steady and deep.

V.

You didn't remember agreeing to this.. Not clearly, at least. You remembered alcohol, proximity and her hand intertwined with yours, remembered the cab ride to Megabuilding H10, remembered stepping into an apartment that felt too expensive for someone who smelled like gunpowder and desperation.

After that, things got hazy.

There had been kisses. Hands. The particular intensity of someone who'd been drinking but not drunk enough to lose precision. She'd moved with purpose, with hunger, with an efficiency that suggested this wasn't her first time doing something like this. You'd gone along because resistance felt impossible, because she'd made going along feel like the only option that made sense.

Now her chest rose and fell against your back. And you could feel everything..

The soft weight of her implant pressed against your buttocks, even soft, even at rest, it was impossible to ignore. Large enough to make its presence known without active participation.

---

..Why had you agreed to this?

The question circled without landing. You'd been minding your own business. She'd been beautiful and dangerous and clearly looking for something she couldn't name. You'd been an easy target. A convenient outlet. And instead of exercising any semblance of self-preservation, you'd let yourself be led upstairs like you belonged in her bed.

What had possessed you?

Behind you, something shifted.

Her arm tightened slightly, drawing you closer, and you felt her stir. Not awake yet, the particular way of someone surfacing from deep sleep, consciousness arriving in pieces rather than all at once.

A sound escaped her throat. Something between a groan and a sigh.

"What.. hour is it?" Her voice was rough, ragged with sleep and probably still carrying traces of whatever she'd been drinking the night before. "Why's everything so--"

She trailed off.

You felt the exact moment realization hit her, the sudden tension in her arm, the way her breathing changed from steady to something more deliberate. She went still. Completely rigid.

A long silence followed.

Long enough that you genuinely wondered if she'd fallen back asleep. Long enough that you started calculating exit strategies, started wondering how to extract yourself without making this more awkward than it already was. Long enough that--

--Then she spoke again.

"Oh." Flat. Confused. Like she was placing a memory just now. "You. Right."

Her face pressed briefly against your shoulder blade, and you couldn't tell if it was affection or just her trying to figure out how she'd ended up here, in bed, with someone she'd picked up at the Afterlife in a state of intoxication she clearly couldn't entirely remember.

"That was.." She paused, searching for words. "I don't usually--" Another pause, longer this time. "How did we..?"

The arm around your waist loosened, but didn't release. Somewhere between holding you and letting you go, she seemed suspended, confused about what came next, what she was supposed to do with this situation she'd apparently created without fully understanding why.

"Did we fuck?"

Night City, 2077. Tom's Diner, Watson. 15:02PM.

---

You had already claimed a corner booth, the kind with a clear line of sight to both the entrance and the rest of the diner. Habit, probably. Or maybe just the need to see her coming, to prepare yourself for whatever conversation you'd somehow agreed to have..

Three days since you'd woken up in her bed.

Three days of avoiding thinking about it too carefully, of ignoring the soreness, of trying not to remember the way she'd felt against you. You'd exchanged contact information like it meant something, like people who got that drunk together on a first meeting actually followed up with one another.

..Apparently, V did.

The text had come through that morning, casual despite the weight behind it.

Tom's Diner. Noon. We should talk about.. stuff.

The coffee in front of you had gone lukewarm, and then the door chimed as someone entered, and your body went rigid despite yourself. Not her. Just a courier, scanning the diner quickly before leaving. You forced yourself to relax, to take another sip of cold coffee, to stop anticipating the moment she'd actually show up.

Then the door chimed again.

V moved through the entrance. She looked different in daylight, smaller, somehow, or maybe just more human. No leather jacket, just a dark undershirt and worn jeans, her red hair catching the diner's ambient light. No cybernetic glow, just tired brown eyes scanning the space until they found you.

She crossed the diner with purpose but ZERO confidence.

Slid into the booth across from you without asking, her movements careful, deliberate, like she was trying not to take up too much space. For a moment she just sat there, studying the table like it held answers.

"I'm sorry." she said finally, the words coming out rough. "For the other night. For--" She exhaled. "For basically everything."

Her fingers drummed once against the table, then stilled.

"I was shit-faced. Worse than shit-faced. I don't remember most of it clearly, and I didn't know what I was doing." A pause, and something in her expression suggested she was being more honest than she usually allowed herself. "That's not an excuse. I just.. I wanted you to know that I wasn't in control. That I shouldn't have--" She stopped, jaw working. "I shouldn't have put you in that position."

A server appeared with a coffee cup, and V ordered something without really looking at the menu. The routine seemed to help, gave her something to focus on besides you.

"I know I come on strong." she continued quietly, once they were alone again. "That's not new. But that night was worse than usual. You didn't deserve that." She finally looked at you directly. "..Whatever that was."

Silence stretched between you.

The diner hummed around you both, the low murmur of other conversations, the clink of dishes, the ambient noise of a place that saw a thousand different stories every single day and didn't bother judging any of them.

"I need to know," V said eventually, her coffee arriving and being wrapped between her hands like she needed something to hold onto, "if this was just.. a one-time thing. Because I get it if it is. Most things don't last very long with me." A dry laugh, without much humor. "Relationships. Connections. Whatever you want to call what happened between us."

She took a sip of the coffee, grimaced at the temperature.

"But I liked spending time with you," she said, and the vulnerability in it was almost uncomfortable to witness, "even if I was completely wasted. Even if I barely remember most of it. There was something about you that made the noise stop for a while." She paused. "That doesn't happen very often for me."

Her eyes searched yours, and there was no guarding there now, just uncertainty and the particular hope of someone who'd learned not to expect good things but was asking anyway.

"So I guess what I'm asking is.. do you want to do this again? Sober, maybe. Actually talk to each other instead of just--" She gestured vaguely. "--doing whatever that was. Or do you want to pretend this never happened and we never see each other again?"

She sat back, giving you space, giving you time to process, and in that gesture was something that felt almost like respect.

"I can handle either answer." she said quietly. "But I need to know which one it is."