Kiwi woke up feeling amazing. Well, she was sore as hell, granted, but it was a good ache. Nothing burned off job stress like a good fuck, and much as she wasn’t particularly picky about partners she was glad that Noh knew his was around a woman. Which was weird in hindsight, but she chalked it up to some kind of inbuilt memory, kind of like how he was able to pull random bullshit about random topics out his ass on occasion. Either way, it was some good fucking programming, literally, and she had no issue taking advantage of that. That said, for someone who pounded her into the mattress last night, he was annoyingly chipper. She was dog tired, mostly because he was still good to go after they shoveled down the greasy mess that he’d picked up from the cantina and she wanted to really test out the limits of his endurance.

Turns out, he didn’t get tired. Or if he did he was exceptionally good at hiding it, which was both a boon and a curse. So while he gladly railed her into the fucking matress so hard she passed out, he didn’t seem particularly effected the next morning, the gonk. Not that she was complaining, at least not then. Passing out all run-through had left her feeling gunky in the morning, and her thighs had been a bit… cakey? Was that a word? Kiwi didn’t know, but it sounded right. So she’d sent him off to go pay for another shower credit, and a few extra hours to bask in the bed before needing to worry about dealing with the shitty real world.

They’d probably be pissed about the sheets, but whatever. Fuck ‘em. But as for Noh… it had all been theoretical when they’d been in the desert. She had been back and forth about keeping him, for lack of a better term, and now the time to either commit or slink out before he got back came to the fore. He was undeniably useful, being what certain people in her life might refer to as a murderblender, which was distinctly different from a cyberpsycho, if only for the fact that they could tell friend from target and didn’t seem prone to bursting out into random ultra-violence because their XXL Burrito got caught in the catch. Well, most of them, anyway.

He was taking his cues from her for the most part, she had noticed. If she was tense, he was ready, if she was relaxed, he was his usual annoying chipper self. If she was horny, he was good to go, and he hadn’t complained once when she bullied him into driving or finding something to eat, or whatever minor thing they needed at the time. It was almost cute, and given that he seemed to hang on to her when he didn’t know something from that instinctive database of his, she had suspicions that he was just really good at hiding how insecure he was about things.

Which, thank god, because she was not prepared to deal with that shit if it came up. Kiwi had a shit life, which, welcome to the club, but it left her distinctly unable to deal with certain things. At best she would tell him that life sucks and to deal with it, or failing that, use one of the many, many idioms she’d picked up that basically said the same thing. So when he proceeded to gleefully hammer right though that odd concern of hers by just being him, she had been willing to let it be. If she caught him having a breakdown or something in the shower later she would endeavor not to laugh, but that was about as good as that got.

But that still rolled back to the original issue of what to do with him. It was clear he was capable, which meant he would be useful, and she wasn’t aware that by being the so-called light shining in his darkness he’d be incredibly grateful. Hell, that might even mean something since he had yet to be infected by Night City’s propensity for hammering in the “Number One” mindset that made it impossible to trust anyone. She could work with that. There was a crappy movie she’d seen some months back, remake of a remake of a book or some damn thing, that was about monkeys taking over the Earth, which, good luck, given that they were almost extinct, but that was beside the point. There was a scene that she took home, where one monkey said to the other one ‘apes strong together’ and you know what? That was the trick to making it work. Get the guy to see her as part of the pack and he’d die to defend her.

Tribalism was well and truly alive in 2074. Plus she could introduce him to things, color his opinion to be something like hers, mold him to be what she needed. Groom him, in other words, but not in a creepy way. Not like that… no, nope, not going into those thoughts. She was scheming right now. Regardless, there were a lot of positives to the plan, enough to almost set off the one really big negative. Well, two, really.

The first was the obvious one of whoever made him probably wanted him back. If he had half the internal ‘ware she thought he had, he was a walking cash vault. The kind that would bring some big heat down if someone had a reason to look too hard at her. A quick trip to the biosculp clinic and a bribe could get rid of the visual markers, and he clearly didn’t have any kind of tracerware on him or they would have been hit already, but that didn’t fix the problem.

There would be ways, and if she was going to commit, she was also setting herself up for some overtime to be extra thorough in erasing their signatures if it came down to it. It wasn’t anything new, per say, but gone would be the days of simple wipes and surface scrubs. That didn’t bother her all that much, really, and she was damn good at what she did when she wasn’t plugged up. It was just a question of if she wanted to do it. Which she did, so that solved that issue.

The other issue was something a bit more concerning. Faraday. She was less than happy with the prick for setting her up on this jaunt, but that was the job. The crew, her included, were never supposed to interact with the guy after they crashed the convoy. That was supposed to be someone else’s problem, or something. It wasn’t like he shared the details with her. His words on the matter would have been for her to do her job and not worry about the rest, and she doubted things going sideways would change that.

She was absolutely going to turn it in, though. Faraday wanted to play things close to the chest and if things went to shit because of it that was a him problem. She would also make sure to collect the pay for the three dead idiots, given that any fixer with half a brain would always ‘forget’ to mention the lost shares unless ‘reminded’. It was a polite bit of bullshit mostly meant to fuck over the young and stupid, but that payday would cover a lot of her upcoming expenses. She would just need to keep Noh out of it, maybe leave him at him, or bring him along as her Hustle and tell him to keep his mouth shut.

She didn’t think Faraday would Loose End her, but she didn’t trust him not to. That would just be stupid. No, she would meet at their regular spot, which was public enough, and get her payout. He could bitch, he might even try to enny her, but she would get hers in the end. After that she would lose his number for a little while, just long enough to make a point to not send her on a gig like this again if he wanted to keep his ringer on-side. Because seriously, fuck the desert, fuck Raffen Shiv, and fuck his cheapshit pool of second-hand runners. Honestly, this was why half of night city avoided him and why he was stuck as the ‘Pacifica Fixer’, a title she knew irked him to no end.

That said, he might have had some plans for Noh. Or the person who hired him did. If she was gonna let them interact she would be hitting that clinic first to change him up. She had more than enough savings for that. Also maybe update his wardrobe, thinking about the whole black slacks, black coat, black boots Nomad Savage thing he had going on. It looked good on him, but it also stood out. Maybe a nice mix of fashion armor and a jacket like hers. Get a mirror thing going on, so people knew who he belonged to. ‘Yeah…’ she thought as she imagined it, she liked that idea a lot.

Shit. She had already decided, despite the issues. She just really liked the idea, and he was just so murderously fuckable. She had a type, and that type liked violence and sex as much as she did, even if she was the kind to enjoy the latter more than the former. Noh was also weirdly innocent, and she discovered she had a new fetish, so that was fun.

Sauntering out of bed, she made her way to the shower. She would get cleaned up, get all the juices off of her, all that, and throw on the cheap one-use clothes she noticed sitting on the table before she slipped into the bathroom. She would have smiled if she were able, because for once, it seemed things were finally turning up Kiwi.

000

Noh was beginning to wonder if he’d pissed off someone in a previous life. Probably, he decided, as he dodged the wound up haymaker that likely would have ripped his jaw off if the gorilla arms were any indicator, not that it discouraged the jackass who had decided it was his turn today. Now, one might wonder how he managed to get himself into this situation? How had his day gone so wrong, so fast? It was a question for the ages, he thought sourly.

Watching the fist pass with an almost bored look on his face, he regretted leaving his sword in the hotel room with Kiwi. He had mistakenly thought to himself that it was just a little walk to the front desk, maybe a trip to the cantina for something. Apparently they had something called Rolled Soats, with sugar and these little fruit-flavored cubes you could mix in. It sounded tasty, and he was lamenting that he probably wouldn’t get the chance to try them.

Which was a shame, the morning had started out super well for him. Waking up next to Kiwi was interesting to him, because it felt… he wasn’t sure how to quite describe it. He liked it, though, so he filed that away as a good feeling overall. He learned a lot last night, aside from the fact that Kiwi tasted like a splash of citrus down there. Midnight Ladies were the best, he had decided, before burying his face between her legs, but that was neither here nor there. When he woke up he’d been feeling pretty fantastic, and hadn’t had much to complain about even though Kiwi decided to beat him with a pillow for waking her up.

He would have to remember to be more circumspect if it happened in the future. Kiwi was not a morning person, which was why he’d made the strategic decision to get up, throw some clothing on, and procure food. Coffee was a must, and Kiwi wanted another shower, which was well within their budget. He would probably want one too, just… not at the same time. That could be distracting, and he did wanna wash the sex off of him, and despite getting a rinse, he also felt kind of oily. The shower last night wasn’t really great for washing and he had other concerns at the time.

So he threw on his pants and boots and grabbed his tank top, leaving the jacket. It was already hot outside and it was late spring, which meant that SoCal had become nothing short of an oven during the day. He had debated taking his sword with him, the Pozhar being both conspicuous and also slightly awkward to carry. He’d need to look into a holster or something for that, but not now. Maybe if they had some spare cash after everything else he would get a strap or something, but that was a later thought.

He waved goodbye to Kiwi, who flopped her hand in his general direction, more of a dismissal than anything, but that was fine. Kiwi was like a cat in a lot of ways, or at least so his memories on the topic indicated. He had a behaviorsoft implant somewhere that seemed to have gone online sometime in the last couple of days, which was feeding him all kinds of interesting tidbits, almost at random, to his hindbrain. Which was why he knew the bunch of gangers surrounding the busted-up Wendigo in the back of the lot were going to be an issue the second he saw them as he made his way to the desk.

He had hoped that he could avoid dealing with them, and the person at the front desk didn’t seem to give enough of a fuck to comment on it, just saying that they came by every so often. Which was either bad luck on their part, or more realistically, they’d been pinged at some point and now the Shiv had come to call. He wasn’t particularly worried about it, though. The Raffen hadn‘t been much of an issue before and none of the gonks in the lot looked borged-out like Choo Choo Chuckles had been. He had considered popping in to grab a weapon at the hotel room, but that meant going back and he was feeling lazy, so eh.

It would probably be fine.

It was not.

It was supposed to be simple. Pop into the cantina, get some coffee, the Soats, some synth-egg and krill-bacon, maybe splurge a little and get real toast with real butter, take it back to the room, feed Kiwi, shower, hop on a bus and be done with this shit. Instead, Baby Shit, Mini-Hawk, and the Diddler all strolled in and decided that today they were choosing violence. Now, to be clear, he didn’t actually know what they were called, but Baby had a very punchable face and this weird haircut that was all little black balls up and down his head. Made him think of scat, so the Shit part of the moniker stood. His friend was rocking one of those half-shaved, floppy mohawks and looked like he had a bone to pick with functionally everything. Which, if his guess was right, had something to do with the guy being like five-one, maybe five-two. Lotta anger in him. The third one just looked like the runner up in a date-rape competition, between the goggle-glasses, the bald head, and the handlebar moustach, he was a white van away from getting banned from the nearest school zone. All three, of course, zeroed in on him immediately.

“Hey, dick-twizzler!” The little one shouted, and… that was a new one. “That your ride out in the lot?” Now, to be clear, looking around, Noh noticed that he was the only one in the cantina at this hour, and, noticing this, realized that lying was perhaps not going to work. Still, he had to try.

“Nnnnnooooo?” He responded slowly, as if tasting the word. “No, that is not my car. I don’t own a car.” He said unconvincingly, which was funny, given that he was technically telling the truth. He did consider the car abandoned as of last night.

“That sounds like bullshit, doesn’t that sound like bullshit Johna?” Mini-Hawk said to the Diddler, and the Diddler seemed torn between nodding and shaking his head, apparently not sure which was the right answer. “I think you’re lying to me, motherfucker!”

“I can promise you I’m not lying to you.” He lied to Mini, “I’m here due to a random… unconnected… circumstance…?” Noh realized that this might not be his forte, as the three started to spread out around him. Sighing, he set his food bag behind the bar, which he now noticed had been vacated. Well, shit.

“I don’t know what half that bullshit means, but I think you owe me some questions, gonk-” Mini started, only for Noh to interrupt him.

“Answers.”

“What?” Mini asked, stumbling a bit. “Fuck you talking about?”

“I owe you some answers. Owing you questions implies I’m the one who needs to ask you things.” Noh said casually as he noticed Baby Shit and Diddler squaring up in his supposed blindspot. “I assume that’s not the case?”

“Oh, you’re a funny man.” Mini said, sneering, “With your funny little haha BULLSHIT JOKES!” Noh blinked as the compact ganger all but spit in his face, his voice going high pitched and cracking. “You think you’re FUCKING FUNNY?”

“Honestly? I’m just wondering why the day is going this way for me. Last night was pretty good, you know? Now I’m stuck here dealing with your pocket-sized ass, a guy who looks like a cow took a shit on his head and,” He turned to the Diddler, “Choom, are you trying to look like you’re on a sex offender registry somewhere? Because you do.”

The Diddler stared at him a moment, before raising a hand somewhat self-consciously to his head. “It’s a condition, okay?”

“Right…” Noh drawled, turning back to the littlest gang banger, who had over the curse of about two seconds gone from sneering superiority to looking like he was going to give himself a heart attack. He was fairly certain people weren’t supposed to go that purple.

“I’m going to cut your dick off and feed it to you!” Mini screeched, and Baby Shit, having finally processed the insult, came in with a haymaker to the back of his head. And there he was, now that everyone was caught up. Watching the swing pass by in almost slow motion as the tiny one pulled a machete from god knew where and Diddler started reaching for his iron. For three… individuals of somewhat lower intelligence but higher propensity for violence, it was an almost impressive display of coordination. For Noh, it was kind of silly to watch as he started plotting things out.

Baby hadn’t been expecting his swing to miss, had overcommitted, and was out of position when Noh brought his hand up. Gorilla arms were a wonder of modern technology, a device that could multiply the force of a blow by a factor of seven, designed not to throw off the balance of the user despite the added weight, and all while keeping from ripping themselves out of the shoulder sockets they’re installed in from the sheer momentum. It was a masterwork of gyroscopes and fluid-dynamic impact buffers, all purpose built to make someone capable of punching through concrete walls if they wanted to.

It was almost a shame that they suffered from the same issue their biological counterparts did. That being the humeroradial joint, or more commonly known as the elbow. As Noh’s hand wrapped around Baby’s wrist and his other came up in a hammerblow to the side of said elbow, he could appreciate the simplicity of it. See, the elbow, be it bone, or chrome, needed to sit in a socket and was designed to bend in one specific direction. Sideways was not that direction, and Baby let out an agonized scream as his arm was dislocated at the elbow. He screamed more when Noh threw him into his compact friend, and very likely wound up stabbed somewhere painful. That machete of Mini’s was about testicle-height.

Diddler had managed to clear what looked like a revolver from his belt, only for Noh to wrap a hand around the barrel, all but ripping it out of his hand as he came around and landed a lightning jab to his throat. The bald man fell to his knees gagging and choking as Noh spun to face Mini again, who had pulled himself from the still body of his friend. Seemed Baby Shit landed badly after all, but hey, sucks to suck. Noh raised the gun up and pointed it at Mini.

“W-wai-” The plea was cut off by a gunshot, and Noh felt the kick, not too much, not too little, as the gun bucked in his hand and the top half of Mini’s head vanished. Turning, he looked down at Diddler as he gasped, holding his other hand up in surrender, before flatlining him too. He looked at the handgun appreciatively.

“This is a nice gun.” He hummed to himself, as he examined the Overture. Outside of the Cantina he could hear shouts, and it took barely a moment for the door to all but explode off its hinges. Noh was firing before the dust cleared, four shots in rapid succession, each one flowing into the next as the two Raffen who had thought to charge in hit the ground, followed by four more who didn’t appreciate suddenly having to climb over their dead friends, and ended up stumbling in, right into Noh’s charge.

Things got admittedly a little chaotic at that point. The gun he’d acquired had proven to be also a rather capable bludgeon, and while four on one were never ideal odds, Noh made up for it in the only way he could.

Grabbing the first one, he buried a knee into his face, two hard strikes sending him to his knees as his friend came in behind him with a wild swing, a knife in his hand. Noh redirected that into the skull of the kneeling one, before cracking the handle of the revolver over the nose of Mr. Stabby. It sent him stumbling into one of the others, who had been trying to get a clear shot with his shotgun, only to end up panic-firing into the Shiv that had been tossed at him. It gave Noh the moment he needed to vault into the one who hadn’t yet had a chance to do anything but stumble over his now-dead buddy, letting Noh crack him in the face and sending him into a table. Shotgun tried to recover, racking the long gun, but Noh threw the Overture at him, slowing him down for just a single, crucial second.

It was all Noh needed to close. His hand came up, wrapping around the man’s Adam apple and digging in. The flesh parted easily, his fingers drew blood in the squishy, almost gelatinous meat of his throat, before giving it a sharp tug. Flesh parted as the nodule was ripped out, the Shive staring at him in shock as the gun fell from his hands and he reached up, choking on his own blood.

The last Shiv, either stupid or suicidal, Noh wasn’t sure, came back in with a wild swing, which Noh redirected almost gently, sending him face first into a table. Grabbing him by the back of his head, Noh slammed down, the angle just right, sending his mouth into the edge of the wooden block, and his face exploded as his teeth were ripped out en-masse, either embedded or sent rolling across the floor. Needless to say, he slumped down, out of the fight.

It had taken all of ten seconds. Noh sighed as he looked down at himself, covered in blood again, and sighed. Fortunately the Overture had survived the rough treatment, though he’d probably need to have it looked at. Nothing liked being thrown into some jackass’s face at mach fuck-you, but it had landed clear of the blood now pooling around Mr. Shotgun.

Speaking of…

“If you keep pointing that at me, I’m going to take it personally.” Noh lolled his head over his shoulder, to stare at the bar tender who had vacated the cantina when the Shiv had sauntered in. “Because this really hasn’t been a great start to the day, you know?”

The man had come back and had done so armed, which, understandable, but he didn’t appreciate having someone pointing a rifle at him. The portly man hadn’t stopped staring at him as he tucked the revolver into his belt, or pointing the gun. Noh sighed, and started walking over.

“H-hey, stay over there! I’m warning you!” The rotund barkeeper said, waving the gun. “I mean it!”

“Or?” Noh asked as he sauntered over to the bar, seemingly unconcerned. “Because I paid for my food. I’m going to get it. Then I’m going to go to my room and wash off all this extra blood I keep collecting.” He said as he fished the bag out from behind the counter. The Barkeep kept the gun pointed at him all the same, but had started amping down when it was clear he wasn’t going to snap and charge him or something.

“W-whos going to pay for this!?” The man finally said as Noh made his way out, before glancing back.

“Bill them?” He said with a shrug, before leaving.

Needless to say Kiwi was less than pleased when he came back to the room covered in blood, and even less so when the hotel manager very gingerly told them to get the fuck out about an hour later.

000

“What. The fuck. Happened. Noh?” Kiwi ground out as the two sat by the rapid transit station, waiting for the automated cab to come out and pick them up. Across the way five members of the Sunset’s staff all watched them warily, carrying various implements of violence, and making sure that they either left in their beat-to-shit car, or otherwise vanished into the ether. While the hotel was very much a hotspot of violence, generally they liked to pretend it wasn’t the kind that wound up with a stack of bodies being tossed out back for the local wildlife to turn into fertilizer. At least not at ten in the morning. That was more of an evening thing here.

“I swear, you’re gonna laugh when I tell you.” He said, and she stared at him dubiously as he launched into the story of his morning. On the outside Kiwi was staring at him with the best deadpan stare she was capable of, and with eighty percent of her face a mask, her deadpan was pretty good. Internally she wondered if the man in front of her was actually just that unlucky, before deciding that no matter the answer, she would need to do something about his tendency to shoot first and then laugh about it. Granted, in this case she really didn’t know if he could have talked his way out of things if he tried.

They were Raffen, and she suspected that they had someone spot the Wendigo in the lot and called the local Wraiths to find out who or what the fuck happened there. Raffen were just as hostile to other clans as they were everyone else, if only to hold onto their hunting grounds. Driving a Fleshripper Wendigo into town would have raised all kinds of red flags and she, in her exhausted, somewhat elated state, hadn’t really thought that far ahead. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

God knew Noh wouldn’t think of it, and a bunch of Shiv coming to try and kill him would be more amusing to him than not. He did seem rather pleased with his new handgun to go with the shotgun, but this had the makings of becoming a bad habit, and she didn’t want to see how he’d measure up to some of the professional gangs in NC, especially Maelstrom, which was something like ninety percent borgs per capita. Unlike the Raffen, a lot of them had corpo support, or were just that massive and pervasive.

Problems for later though. The cab was coming up in the distance and Noh was winding down his… creative interpretation of his flatlining of a bit over half a dozen Wraiths. His only regret was that he didn’t get to keep the other guns, but Kiwi told him it was for the best, because that kept them from demanding payment for the busted doors. It wouldn’t have helped much, but it was a headache Kiwi managed to avoid.

“Cab’s here, Ki.” He said, pulling her from her thoughts as she looked up, noticing the Rapid Transit minicab pulling up to the station. Noh stood, and offered her his hand. He lifted her up like she weighed nothing, which was nice, and she let him. She had realized early on that he seemed to like playing white knight for her like that, even if she suspected that it was half his programming doing the lifting. Eh, there were worse things to Pavlov into a person, but she would need to have that looked at. It wouldn’t do for it to become a problem. He had enough of those already.

Kiwi sighed as she settled in, Noh slipping in behind her. It wasn’t the most comfortable fit, but the ride wasn’t terrible. A bit long, given that these cabs weren’t built for speed, maybe, but she was both washed and fed, so it was a vast improvement over the trip through the wasteland. Noh didn’t seem to care, of course. Or if he did, he was hiding it from her better than she could read him. Given that he was kinda shit at that, she figured it was the former.

It was maybe an hour before he spoke up. Kiwi had been expecting the constant chatter from before, but it seemed that he had something on his mind. She’d let him stew on it, staring out the window and letting her own thoughts spiral slowly. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, not really, but there was a feeling that things were coming to a head. He wasn’t just some guy, and she wasn’t just some girl. It wasn’t a feelings thing, either, and neither wanted to pretend that it was. Kiwi was wondering how to bring up him staying with her. And Noh?

“Seems you’re almost home.” He cut in, through the silence, grabbing her attention. She glanced over as he stared forward, his sword held against his chest, like it was a comfort blanket. He had an unreadable look on his face. “Been a wild trip, though, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Kiwi sighed, leaning back. “Really has been. What about it, Noh?” She asked, casually, as he glanced away.

“Dunno, just feels like an ending, yanno?” He said with a snort. “Not really sure what I’m gonna do from here. Seemed easier when we were in the desert still to think about it, but now that it’s here, well, it kinda sucks.”

“I guess it would, huh?” She asked, quietly. “I guess it’s worse for you. Not having somewhere to roost. NC’s not nice to the homeless.”

“Nah, it probably isn’t, huh? I admit you haven’t painted the best picture of the place, between the constant gang wars, poverty, trash everywhere, and all the rest. Sounds like a real shithole, no offense.” he snorted, and Kiwi laughed at that.

“Fuck, you think that would offend me Noh? NC’s a shithole, and nobody wants to be there. It’s a city of dreams, so they say. Place where you can win or lose a fortune, go from the highest high to the lowest low. Can’t trust anyone from there. Not really.” She said, shaking her head. Noh glanced at her from the corner of his eye and then back.

“That include you, Ki?” He asked casually, and she rapped him on the shoulder.

“Especially me. Don’t ever trust anyone in Night City.” She said, losing her teasing edge just a bit. Noh hummed, glancing forward, silent for another few minutes before speaking again.

“You aren’t too bad, Ki. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He leaned back, relaxing. “You’re the person I’ve known the longest, after all. I like to think I have a good judge of character.”

“Noh, you’ve known me for like… four days? Give or take?” She sighed dramatically. “You don’t know shit about shit, you gonk. For all you know I’m gonna sell your ass to a ripper when we get back.”

“Mmm.” Noh hummed, before shaking his head. “Nah. You like me too much.” The line was delivered with a level of supreme confidence that Kiwi almost believed him.

“Bullshit I do, you gonk. You’re good at stabbing things and that’s about it.” She hummed, giving him a sly look.

“Oh, I know that. Stabbed you plenty last night. You didn’t seem to mind.” He shrugged carelessly. “I could give you an encore tonight, if you want.”

“Fucking bold of you to assume you’re going anywhere near my ass again, Noh.” Kiwi said with a laugh at the audacity. “I ought to dump you out of this cab and make you walk to town for that.”

“Oh, you want me, don’t deny.” He shot her a grin, and she shook her head, grumbling about dipshit gonks and their gonk ideas. Noh laughed at her, the bastard, but she felt more amused than offended. Even if she decided that punching him in the shoulder was fair recompense.

“Oh, shut your gonk ass up, Noh.” She finally sighed, before adding on. “If, and it’s a big if right now, but if I let you stay, you’d be working for it. No free lunches in Night City and I don’t have the time to baby you even if I did feel charitable. Which I don’t, to be clear.”

“Psh, I figured that. I might not remember anything before Tuesday, but I’m not stupid, Ki. I wasn’t born yesterday.” Noh chuckled, pulling a rolled eye from Kiwi. “But I’ll probably need you backing me up, huh? I doubt it’ll just be a bunch of go to place A, kill everyone there, go to place B, repeat. I know what I’m good at.”

“You’d be surprised, but no, it’s not all that. There’s more to it, but that’s all shit we can deal with later.” She said, wishing she could access the net, maybe show him something on the way in to see what he’s dealing with, but that wasn’t an option right now. So she went with the next best thing.

Storytime.

To say that she sanitized the shit out of things was an understatement, but that was more for her professional reputation. Runners who opened their fat faces about too many specific things tended to wind up very alone very quickly. It didn’t stop her from painting a decent enough picture for him, though. He was closest to what they called a Solo in the business, much like she was a Netrunner. There were other terms for him to memorize. Other jobs, other roles, things like that. It was a lot if someone didn’t know what in the hell they were getting into, but that was fine with her.

She was glad he eased into the topic of living with her himself, though. It was always better when someone thought the idea was their own. He was certainly receptive enough to her rules, what few there were, along with the handful of simple demands she had, like not telling anyone where she lived, or to call her by her handle in mixed company, small things, basics really, but important all the same.

For Noh, he was just glad he was able to ease into the idea of living with Kiwi. A lot of his concerns were centered around just that. He didn’t like his odds in the big city, not alone, and nobody wanted to deal with trying to find someplace to sleep in what was described to him as a very shiny garbage dump. Plus there was a strange unease that he felt, being separated from Kiwi. He didn’t like the idea, but he didn’t quite… know why. It had been nagging on him since they left the hotel room. Just something about that sat unwell in his gut.

He’d been plowing through everything that had been coming at him like a bull in a china shop. It was how he coped with the mountains of shit he hadn’t even begun to process. He’d been pushing it all off for days, because focusing on Kiwi and what she wanted made dealing with, or rather, not dealing with his own things that much easier.

He didn’t really want to explore that yawning pit in his head anyway. Making smalltalk, trading barbs, flirting or whatever else came to mind with Kiwi was easier. Focusing on her was easier. Made a lot of things easier for both of them, and easy was good. Better than good, it was necessary. He suspected that he wasn't built for handling complicated things, and that would be fine.

Still, it pulled at him, all the little things that he used Kiwi as a barrier to hide from. The men in the desert, the sword, the strange position he found himself in, all of it felt… wrong, not only in how it happened, but even contemplating it, and that was something that he would have to figure out. Always later, though, because that stuff just gave him a headache now.

Kiwi had said that she would have her ripper look at him, and for that he was grateful. He knew he shouldn’t be getting these weird headaches, even if he didn’t mention them to her at the time, or ever planned to. She didn’t need to worry about it. Just getting it sorted out and then figuring out all the shit inside him that did and didn’t work and how to fix it would do wonders to getting him sorted out. And then he could be whatever she needed him to be.

That was for the best.

000

Kiwi stretched and gave a groan as she, at long last, finally stepped through her door and into her nice, if small, apartment. Despite getting a full night sleep she was dog tired, and there was something just… nice about being back in the relative safety of her apartment. Slipping in she was already half naked as the cheap, scratchy clothes hit the floor and she found her way over to the bedroom.

Noh followed behind, quiet for a change as he looked around in interest at the apartment that was so very Kiwi, from the kitchenette that had been converted into what looked like a bathroom full of servers to the blonde’s bedroom, all of it screamed of someone who was trying very hard to make being a slob look utilitarian, and while amusing, the scent of old takeout and cigarette smoke was very… pungent. Pungent was a good word for it, anyway, given how it slapped him in the face enough that he gagged a little.

He really envied Kiwi her facemask right then. What little she’d told him about it led him to understand that it was a very selective implant, and scent was one of those things she had turned way down low. He didn’t blame her, though, because the city reeked of wet garbage basting in the heat and unwashed shit clogging up the alleys. It was a musk that was unique to Night City, or so Kiwi had said after she finished laughing at him after he got stinkbombed right to his sinus cavity when he stepped out of the cab.

If there was a hell, he decided, Night City was what it smelled like. But he could adjust. It beat out the smell of blood and all the crap that came with his usual method of enthusiastic disembowelment. It was still unpleasant though. Maybe he could get one of those little pine trees from a shop somewhere. The scented ones. He would glue it to his face and smell pine-scented shit as opposed to the raw sewage flavor.

That was for later, though, as he caught something else mixed in with the smell of rot and cigarettes, and it had him exploring as Kiwi vanished into the bathroom, naked as the day she was born, hauling a whole bag of haircare stuff out of a cubby. His eyes landed on the table, the room with the bathtub in it, and then back. Kiwi had been gone for a week, and in that time she’d never talked about anyone staying with her, but as he dipped a finger into the still cold cereal sitting on the counter, a small frown graced his lips.

“Ki?” He shouted, as his hand dropped to the handle of the Black Unicorn, slipping it free from its sheathe with barely a whisper.

“What is it, Noh?” She shouted back, through the running water. “Kinda in the middle of something!”

“I just wanted to ask when your roommate was coming back!” He shouted back at the door, stalking around the room, panning across the closets. A moment later Kiwi popped her head out of the door.

“I don’t have a roommate, Noh.” She said, her voice hitching slightly as she saw him pin his eyes on a closet. “The hell… are… you…” She trailed off as he stopped dead cold in front of one of the spare coat closets that she never really used for anything. “What is it?”

“Not sure, just…” He took a step, then another, and then rammed the blade through the door without warning, eliciting what could only be described as a pants-wetting meep squeaked out from inside. Noh yanked his blade out and threw the door open, already readying a downward stab when the five foot nothing, borderline emaciated girl with white tech hair that shimmered all the colors of the rainbow when the light hit it threw her hands up. 

“Fuck! I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me!”

Blinking, Noh looked at Kiwi, who had sauntered out of her bathroom naked and dripping, and clearly not willing to deal with this shit at all. Kiwi stared at the girl in turn, and the girl herself, because she looked barely out of her teens, if that, looked between the two of them with wide, teary eyes. Mostly at him, though. He had the sword.

“Who, pray tell, are you?” The older woman asked in a dangerously canted tone, “And more importantly, what the fuck are you doing in MY apartment?”

“It’s me, Kiwi! Don’t you recognize me? I uh… I sent you a pic?” The girl  squeaked out, and for a moment Kiwi’s face screwed up, as if trying to recall who in the hell this actually was, before a look of sheer, confused, what-the-fuckism took over her facial features. It was kinda funny to watch, Noh noted, but didn’t dare comment as Kiwi’s face morphed from agitation, to confusion to sudden, stark realization only to be replaced with a flat, dead stare.

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” She grumbled, before continuing. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re squatting in my apartment, Lucyna Kushinada, or how you found me, or how you got here from fucking Europe to begin with. So start talking, because if it ain’t one hell of a story I’m going to let him turn you into a Czechoslovakian sushi roll!”

“I’m not actually-” Lucyna started, only for Kiwi to cut her off at the head.

“I can assure you I do not care, Lucy. I asked you a question. You shouldn’t even know I live in SoCal, much less fucking where my goddamn apartment is.” She said with an annoyed tenor. “So get your ass back on topic before I have Noh here toss you out the window. So hop to it Lucy!”

“Ah, heh, yes, well, it’s a long story…?” She said, torn between pants-shitting terror and shame, “But it makes sense in context?” She asked, more than stated. Kiwi just leaned down and stared her right in the eye.

“Well, it’s a good thing we have time. Start. Talking.”