Work Text:
At first, V had thought he was going gray.
Sure, she’d found a few lighter-than-normal hairs in Johnny’s beard, a few silvering strands near his temples, but nothing out of the ordinary for a guy in his mid-thirties. And maybe it was the sun lightening his hair. After all, they’d been spending a lot of time out in the badlands with Panam, taking a much-needed break from the city to get some peace and quiet after everything that had gone down.
Well, peace and quiet when they weren’t taking the Quadra and sneaking off into the desert to fuck each other’s brains out. It had taken less than 24 hours after getting his body back for Johnny to mutter, “Fuck it,” stride over to her, and kiss her like he couldn’t stop himself and didn’t want to.
She’d slept with men who were good in bed before, but Johnny sent those memories packing. The way he touched her was exactly how she wanted to be touched, because he knew like no one else could—finally had the ability to put everything he’d learned while sharing her mind to excellent use.
It was a wonder they got anything done at all, the amount of time they spent in bed. Or on the couch, or in the shower, or really, pretty much any surface in her apartment. But afterwards, she’d had plenty of time to study Johnny, entranced by his proximity in flesh and blood instead of code. The freckles on his ‘ganic shoulder, the smooth plane of his chest, the scars on his torso, the ticklish dips of his hip bones.
So when his hair had started to lighten, particularly around the roots, she noticed.
They were over at Kerry’s, wedged on the couch together—her in the middle, crossed legs thrown over Johnny’s lap as she leaned into Kerry’s shoulder—when she brought it up.
“So you got a vitamin deficiency or is there something else going on with your hair?” she teased, taking a sip of beer. Keeping it light was the best way to bring up something that might be more serious with him, she’d already learned through months of experience.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Johnny asked, brow furrowed over the shades he’d let slip down his nose.
Behind her, Kerry squawked out a surprised laugh. “Holy shit, choom, did you not tell her? Oh my god.” She turned to see him trying to stay composed but already failing, his shoulders heaving with suppressed mirth. “Y-you gotta tell her, man.”
Johnny looked like someone had shit in his cereal.
“Tell me what?” Now she was getting concerned, even though the way Kerry was laughing meant it couldn’t be too serious.
“If you don’t tell her, I’m gonna, I swear to—” Kerry continued, until Johnny reached behind her to shove him, nearly knocking V off the couch.
When she’d steadied herself and managed to separate the two like misbehaving children, she gave Kerry a look. “Go get beer.” It wasn’t a request so much as a promise that if he didn’t make himself scarce for a few minutes so she could get to the bottom of this, he was going to regret it.
Kerry held up his hands in mock surrender as he hauled himself up off the couch. “Fine, I’m goin’.”
V watched him retreat until he had disappeared upstairs to the bar, then finally turned back to Johnny, who still looked grim.
“Whatever it is, I’m not gonna make fun of you or whatever you’re so worried about,” she told him, sitting up and twining her fingers with his ‘ganic ones so she could raise his hand to her mouth and brush a kiss to the back.
She’d also learned, in just a few weeks, how amazingly effective being soft with him was. For such a loud, rude, angry asshole, he folded like a house of cards when she held his face in her hands and kissed him like he mattered. Like he was cherished. Maybe because he knew exactly how much she cared, because they’d literally faced death together and won despite their best efforts to sacrifice themselves to save the other.
This time was no different. She could practically see him starting to cave, so she just waited until he finally looked away and muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?”
He looked like it was absolute torture to repeat himself. “Said, I forgot my hair grows.”
“What the heck does…”
And then she got it. Took a closer look at the lightening at his part and realized what he was saying.
“Wait, you’re blond?”
The gray she’d thought she’d seen wasn’t gray at all. It was his roots growing in.
The realization startled a single laugh out of her before she could stop it, and that was enough to immediately turn the resignation on Johnny’s face stormy.
He yanked his hand away, started to get up from the couch. But before he could stalk off all pissy, V threw a leg over his waist to straddle him, using her weight (considerable, thanks to the chrome) and grip on the back of the couch on either side of his shoulders to keep him from leaving.
“Get the fuck off—”
V rolled her eyes. “Will you just calm the fuck down? I’m not makin’ fun of you, it just surprised me!”
But he was still trying to push her away, so she leaned down and kissed his neck, the thin-skinned spot over his pulse where he was particularly sensitive. It made him freeze, until she did it again, then he slowly brought his hands up to her hips as she pulled back to give him a fond grin.
“Not fair,” he muttered, as she stole his shades to plop on her own nose.
“How did I not know you dye your hair?” V asked, using a finger to shove the too-big glasses back up her face.
“Must have left that one tiny section of my memories alone while I was riding shotgun,” he told her, with a wry look. “Started after the army, when I got to NC. An’ when I could grow a beard.”
“Black’s much more punk rock, I get it,” V told him, reaching to either side of his face to card her fingers through the strands there. “And since you were an engram, you could just… look how you wanted.”
“Hmm,” he replied in agreement, letting his eyes fall shut as she scratched his scalp, the stubbled skin of his throat, dug her fingertips into the muscles at the base of his skull, where he carried too much tension. (Misty would have something to say about that, if she could ever convince him to visit.)
Without opening his eyes, he leaned forward for a kiss, and she obliged. She savored how his fingers clenched and unclenched on her hips, how real and solid he felt beneath her as they continued. The slight, wet drag of his tongue on her lower lip until she met it with her own.
“Hey, no fucking on my couch!” Kerry suddenly called out from upstairs, startling them apart.
Feeling the heat in her face, V opened her eyes to see Johnny looking back at her like he’d be interested—more than interested—in doing just that. Which she would absolutely take him up on, later when they were back at her apartment, but right now they had a movie to watch and an identity crisis to resolve.
So she wiggled her hips to grind herself on his half-hard cock a few times, giving him a mischievous look that promised to pick up where they’d left off when they got home, before sliding off Johnny’s lap to stand.
“C’mon,” she told him, holding a hand out to haul him off the couch.
“Where are we going?” he asked, sounding a bit dazed, like his upstairs brain was trying to catch up.
She led him over to the bathroom, standing him in front of the mirror before leaning forward to tap through familiar settings on the glass. “I know you’re weird about chrome and shit, but this way, you don’t have to try to find hair dye, which I don’t even think they make anymore. It’s how I do mine,” she said, gesturing to the teal strands among the black hair at the nape of her neck.
As Kerry joined them, leaning back against the doorframe to watch, V finished configuring everything and tapped the Preview option. “See? Picked the same color, only now it’ll grow in like that, beard and everything.”
While he studied his reflection in the mirror, a thought occurred to her, and she let her eyes slide down to his belt, head tilting in curiosity.
He picked up on what she wasn’t saying, and to her surprise, a faint flush appeared on his cheeks that she’d only ever seen when he was breathless from being well-fucked or running around on a gig. Holy shit, was he blushing?
“Carpet doesn’t match the drapes, if that’s what you’re wonderin’,” Johnny said. “You goddamned menace.”
Behind him, Kerry laughed, but he ignored his choom (likely making a mental note to take his revenge later) and went back to studying himself.
“How the fuck does this work, exactly? Just do it once and it’s good ‘til whenever?”
V shrugged. “Yep, pretty much. Vik explained it to me once, something about molecular cellular modification, but nothing that would affect core bodily functions. Only shit like hair and eye color, for ‘ganic eyes anyway.”
“Fine, but if I end up with an extra arm or some shit, I’m blaming you.”
V stepped aside, then he reached forward to tap the Confirm option. She knew how weird it felt, like dozens of little bubbles touching you, almost like goosebumps you could feel in every pore.
When it was done, he turned to examine his beard, his scalp, where the color was restored to the dark hue she remembered from his engram.
“Lookin’ good, choom,” Kerry said, coming up to throw an arm around his shoulder before heading back to the other room.
V started to follow, but before she could, Johnny grabbed her, pushed her up against the cold tile wall, and kissed her thoroughly. She grinned against his mouth, pulling him closer to kiss him back before they eventually ran out of air and broke apart.
“Feel better?” she asked, looking up at him.
He hummed in reply, brought up his ‘ganic hand to cup her chin and run the pad of his thumb over her lower lip fondly, a crooked smirk on his mouth.
“C’mon. If we’re not fucking on Kerry’s couch, we’re certainly not gonna in his bathroom,” she said, taking his hand to lead him back to the couch.