Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. I just like it.
Summary: Set after the end of the series. Johnny is injured when one of his killing sprees goes awry, and is found by a certain Edgar Vargas, who happens to still be alive (don't worry, I didn't really change canon much at all). Stereotypical Odd Couple-esque hi-jinks follow... but not quite. There is much drama, much silliness, and much M/M. Rated M for violence, sexual content, language, and all of those other great things.
I.
People rarely got the best of Johnny, but when they did, it was a real downer.
Johnny stared up from the filthy alley floor, gingerly testing his limbs for mobility and feeling vastly discouraged by his present weakness. Everything had gone to shit when he'd decided to jump that group of teenagers whom he'd spotted skulking out of the mall, purposely smeared mascara creating bruiselike halos around the carefully crafted boredom emitting from their eyes.
Don't get me wrong, though—Johnny didn't like anyone, regardless of their genre of choice. His disdain was immediate and inflexible yet somehow poetic, lengthy diatribes running circles around his already addled head, targeting any and every flaw that could be found in the nearby populace and working him into a cold rage which simmered, humming beneath his skin until his hands shook with the effort to keep them still for long enough to think up a rudimentary plan of attack.
After his initial evaluation of the crowd, Johnny had selected this brooding passel, reasoning that he ought to give them a bit of firsthand experience to go along with their interest in the macabre.
Granted, this newfound knowledge would remain in their heads only momentarily before Johnny cut or drilled or burned it out of them, but he thought it might make for an interesting evening nonetheless.
The youths—there were six or seven of them—had shuffled from the front entrance like a small school of tuna, maneuvering in unison toward a rather squalid-looking vehicle, the tailpipe slouching, the muffler dragging across the macadam like a child's toy. Johnny followed stealthily, creeping behind and beneath the endless rows of cars. But something had gone wrong. He hadn't replaced the batteries in his taser in months, and so when he finally ambushed the group in the parking lot, he found himself to be wielding a dead weapon.
This was by no means the first time such a misfortune had blemished Johnny's career; usually he would adjust this mistake by either searching his person for a substitute weapon (Johnny himself was at a loss as to where all of the knives and hooks came from sometimes, and was convinced that at least some of them were created spontaneously, brought into existence by his sheer desire to possess them) or else capitalizing on his spiderlike physique, scuttling up drainpipes or folding his body into impossibly small spaces in order to temporarily escape, occasionally returning to finish the job with the proper equipment at hand.
Most of the time, however, Johnny would become distracted and either move on to a new target or else embark on a search for something sugary to consume–his attention span was not exactly pristine.
Suffice it to say that they were stronger than they looked.
Somehow they had maintained their slow progression toward the car even after they had realized they were being followed, and had used that time to formulate a response to their would-be attacker. Even if the police seemed to be oblivious of Johnny's incessant criminal activity, many individuals were taking it very seriously—Johnny had become the foe in every fight scenario that played idly through people's heads, and though most were likely not intelligent or capable enough to best him, this group was brimming with dumb luck and dumb muscle.
A few commanded brute strength, while others were wiry and quick, surprising Johnny by turning abruptly to face him just as he was preparing to make his futile attack. His taser clicked to life and then faded almost instantaneously, and before he could even contemplate the decision between fight and flight, the horde had overwhelmed him, pinning his limbs and systematically painting his pale greyish-yellow skin with more bruises than Johnny's house had restraining devices.
Eventually, Johnny found that he could no longer summon the mental energy to keep up his tally of the times he was addressed as a "fuckin' poser," and although he thrashed and snarled, with one last combat boot to the face he felt his mind divorce his body as it spun out of consciousness.
When Johnny finally came to, he realized that he was no longer in the mall parking lot, but in some greasy back-alley on a side of town he wasn't completely familiar with (he didn't particularly enjoy going out of his way to find victims—there were people everywhere, after all, and they had alldone something wrong). The teenagers must have hauled him into the trunk and driven to a more remote location before resuming their attack, spiked bracelets pulled tight around knuckles, spit and curses and wild sounds like cats fighting. Eventually they grew bored and left him there, broken-boned and studded with wounds that spilled their angry red into the cracks and potholes of the alley.
After opening a swollen eye, Johnny deduced that it was at least nine o'clock—hours after the initial incident had taken place.
With a panicked start, it occurred to him that the wall hadn't been appeased in days. The sheath of fresh blood which normally covered it was doubtless flaking away like rust now, slowly weakening the already tenuous tether which held the monsters at bay.
Fuck.
Johnny realized that he couldn't go home, couldn't stay anywhere remotely close to where… whatever was going to happen happened.
Actually, Johnny reminded himself, he physically couldn't go home. After a few pained crawling motions toward the other end of the street, he had come to an unexpected halt, his neck straining backward—Johnny had been tied to a dumpster like an abandoned animal, one of the attackers' dog collar chokers locked around his neck making any further progression down the road impossible. Even if Johnny could work up the energy to untie the rope, he doubted he had a finger on either hand that remained unbroken. The brief yet unexpected tug of the collar coupled with the disastrous attempt at movement quickly sent him falling yet again into a black expanse that he nearly mistook for death.
