Straight Up Typhoon – 1
EDIT: Ha ha! I'm such an idiot! XD I scribbled the title down months ago and never really thought about it, but fuckitall, it's supposed to be typhoon. I can't believe I never caught that. I've even been saying typhoon in my head. Behold, the mother of all typos. WEEE. But it should all be fixed now. Durh. Thanks for pointing out my extreme stupidity.
Yes. That's right. Two months after the original ended, I bring you the sequel to My Impractical Hurricane. I'm sure everyone's forgotten about it by now…But in the case that anyone still cares, yes, I've written a sequel.
Alright now, well I've got a lot to do, so the next chapter of this story may take a week or so to put up. So I hope it's a decent introduction.
Much love!
It would not be fair, per say, to call this an average day among the household of the Fantastic Four, because, let's face it, things hadn't been normal here since day one. And as far as normal went among a gang of genetically mutated super heroes, things in the current could be considered especially abnormal at that. From whence our favorite band of awkward scientists pals last tread, things were in a rather hazardous way. Had the world four definite corners, we could have been sure that our characters hid from one another isolated in each. Never had a home been such an emotional war zone!
And what was the cause of all this mayhem? This atrocity? This impractical hurricane of events? Well if we stop a moment and delve into the darkened, cobweb covered recesses of our minds (or the archives of our fanfiction), we fall back upon a strange little incident that took place several weeks ago between two particular members of the team. Now before this, we could be under a great many impressions about normality. For instance, we usually like to assume that straight men do not kiss other straight men. And likewise, a similar impression to be pinned under was of the like that gay men did not sleep around with women or intend to marry them. It seemed that both of these generalities had been betrayed in this specific situation. And it had all started with one, simple, surely innocent kiss.
Of course, it had ended with a few more that were far from simple and the very opposite of anything innocent, but we like to think of these things as at least starting off on the right foot, don't we?
But enough delay—for what we really yearn to know is where, how, when, and why, our poor Reed Richards and Johnny Storm are faring in the midst of things. And just what Ben Grimm and a very rightly pissed Sue Storm are up to in the aftermath…
"Do you always eat off of other people's plates?" Reed fixed his teammate with a good-natured glower, resting his elbows over the counter next to his violated breakfast.
"Frh?" Johnny offered him one of those pure and simple 'what?' looks as he gnawed at a corner of Reed's toast.
"Never mind." Reed chuckled and shook his head, taking up his paper again.
"Hey why do you read that thing, anyway?" Johnny huffed as he flicked Reed's newspaper, mouth full.
Reed blinked as the latest mundane gasoline-crisis article before his eyes was rudely shifted out of focus. "I have a vested interest in the world." He muttered.
"Any pictures of me?" Johnny snorted and continued eating a bowl of cereal that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere from where he leaned against the counter.
"Not today." Reed lied. Actually, there were five, but he wasn't about to invite another interruption. He knew Johnny wasn't that interested all the same—he was only nosing for some attention. How he loved to be the center of attention. Apparently he wasn't even above being jealous of a daily newspaper.
"Seriously? …I should do some more publicity stunts." Johnny nodded to himself.
"For what?" Reed looked up with a laugh.
Johnny gave him a look. "Uh, publicity?"
"I don't know, Johnny. If you're out there too much, the public might get tired of you." Reed pointed out. He himself could live perfectly fine if he never had his picture taken again.
"Tired of me? Who's tired of me?" Johnny scoffed in offense.
"I think Ben might be a little tired of you." Reed turned the page and smirked, as he could practically feel the irritation radiating off of Johnny.
"Like he counts." Johnny scowled, jumping up to sit on the counter.
"If it's any consolation, I'm sure there're others too." Reed shrugged and continued reading.
"Aw…you're not tired of me, are you?" Johnny joked, putting on a sad face.
"I don't know; you are bothering me while I'm reading."
"Am I?" Johnny casually swiped a finger along Reed's paper, upon which a flame caught. "Gee, sorry."
Reed jumped a little and instantly dropped it onto his plate, patting the fire out quickly. "Johnny!" he growled.
"Oops." Johnny murmured carelessly as he chewed, watching with disinterest.
"Setting things on fire isn't a joke." Reed fixed his eyebrows and glared. Out of all the abilities in the world, why did Johnny have to get the one that was the most dangerous? What kind of God condones such irony?
"It is when it puts that look on your face." Johnny grinned devilishly, leaning forward to easily squash the remaining flames with a hand.
"Ha ha." Reed drawled sarcastically, looking down at his burnt paper in dismay.
Johnny just kept grinning at him, and Reed couldn't keep the annoyance in his features long enough. Instead, he retaliated with a cocky smile of his own, and suddenly Johnny's grin faded into a nervous gulp.
"Heya guys." Ben said as he plodded into the kitchen, eyes down on his own section of the paper.
Johnny yelped and promptly fell off the counter.
"Uh, morning Ben." Reed recovered quickly, looking down at Johnny once in alarm before quickly returning to his paper—which was now burnt and covered in the food it had been dropped into.
Ben raised his eyes to stare in confusion at Johnny heaving himself off the tile with a groan.
"Morning! Yeah! Good morning, great morning, sun shining, birds…squawking…" Johnny slurred, rubbing his head and making it a point to distance himself from Reed.
Ben blinked and looked around. "Uh…wh-did I interrupt somethin'…?" He might have gone pale had he not been forged from rock.
"Of course not." Reed responded calmly.
"No!" Johnny squeaked.
"…Right…" Ben shifted uncomfortably and took his usual seat at the counter, resigning his eyes to some long article purposefully.
"So Ben," Reed started. "How are things? Didn't you go out last night?"
Ben looked up for a moment and sighed gravelly. "Yeah. It was alright. 'Cept there's this rat that can't seem to keep his hands off Alicia. You don't know what I woulda given to crack the little pervert's skull between my fingers, but I figured we don't need that kinda publicity. So I had to send him walkin'. Hey, what kinda sick jerk feels up a blind girl anyway, huh?" Ben went off into a series of aggressive mutters as he ground his teeth.
Reed personally winced at the thought of how many lawsuits they had avoided. Between Ben and Johnny's different breeds of carelessness, they were lucky they weren't out on the streets by this point. "Well, hopefully you were enough to scare him off." Reed said empathetically.
"I don't know. You think it's a coincidence I saw this twerp three times? Huh. The funny thing is, back when I was normal, I coulda done more about it. Now Alicia says I got some kinda unfair advantage. I say, you look at the guy and tell me I didn't have that in the first place. Can't weigh more than a hundred pounds, the little…"
"Alright, take it easy, Ben." Reed patted him on the shoulder and pushed him a cup of coffee.
"Well if it were me, I'd'a knocked him flat. No one makes a move on one of Johnny's girls, you can count on that." Johnny thumped his chest proudly and struck a studly pose.
"Surprise surprise, the stag has antlers." Ben shook his head, then paused. "What girls, anyway?" he gave a bemused sort of squint and glanced at Reed. "I thought you weren't into girls anymore."
Reed coughed a little on his next swallow and froze, eyes traveling cautiously towards Johnny. Uh oh…
Johnny was staring back at Ben in both shock and anger. Naturally, the anger took over. He dropped the bowl he was eating out of hard onto the counter and quickly stormed out of the kitchen.
"Hey, kid—wait a sec! I-I wasn't tryin' a'be…ah, forget it…" Ben grimaced and put hand to his head in exasperation. "I knew it'd been too long since someone ran from the room…I don't get it, what'd I say?"
Reed sighed and looked after the path Johnny had taken. "He's sort of…sensitive…about the issue…" was all he could think to say, feeling himself going terribly red. It started out to be such a nice morning, too.
"Maybe you wanna explain the situation to me? Look Reed, I've been pretty decent about this whole thing so far, but if things don't start makin' sense, my head's gonna pop." Ben tossed a hand up and landed it on the counter a little too hard, causing a rattle. "I'm walkin' on eggshells, and you can imagine how well that goes over with these feet."
Reed ran a hand through his hair and snorted. "I don't know what to tell you. I guess…it's like this: he likes girls, I like girls…he likes me…I like him…" he swallowed and quickly shoved some food into his mouth.
"Oh, uh," Ben held up a hand. "Bisexual, that's the term. Right?"
Reed almost choked yet again. "Er, n…No, not…not really…"
Ben seemed to be supremely irritated at that. "Oh. Fine. Then what the Hell is it? Who's the woman, you or him?"
Reed narrowed his eyes in an aggravated fashion. "Neither of us, it's…Well now do you see how complicated it is?"
"Sure." Ben huffed and carefully picked up his cup with massive fingers. "Whatever you say."
"Johnny doesn't like other guys, so he doesn't like the idea of being called gay." Reed shrugged a shoulder a little. It seemed simple, in a completely insane way.
"What, and you do?" Ben prodded.
"…I'm not. At least, I don't think. I don't know, maybe none of us are completely straight." Reed offered lastly.
"Hey, speak for yourself." Ben quipped instantly. "I'll admit, okay, for girls or somethin', Johnny might be a good lookin' kid, alright? But Mr. America himself couldn't turn my head."
"Okay, Ben. Just not you." Reed smirked and shook his head. "So…have you…Um, I mean lately, have you…"
"Talked to Sue?" Ben finished knowingly.
Reed lowered his head.
Ben gave him the best understanding nod he could. "Yeah. She seems…uh, okay, I guess."
"She's still mad?" Reed felt sure that he didn't really need to ask that.
"Wouldn't you be?"
"…Yeah, I…guess so." Reed sighed deeply, abandoning the breakfast that Johnny had eaten most of anyway. "I just wish she would at least agree to talk to me."
"She will eventually. Sue's got a hot temper like her brother, but she'll cool off. It's only been a couple a'weeks."
"Has it only been that long?" Reed rubbed his face and thought back. It felt more like months to him.
"Yeah, it's been kinda rough." Ben agreed. "Hey, I'll tell you what. Why don't I take you out tonight? You know, have a couple a'drinks, hang out, talk about old times. Take your mind offa things."
"I don't know, Ben, I've got…" Reed sighed through his nose and started to shake his head.
"Come on, Reed, you haven't been outta this house in weeks." Ben elbowed him.
"That's not true, I went out on Wednesday. Remember?" Reed defended, suddenly finding it very important to prove Ben wrong.
"To the store." Ben reminded flatly. "To buy toilet paper."
Reed rested his head down on the counter. "Okay, fine, if you think it'll make things better, sure. Tonight, you and me."
"Great. It's a date." Ben muttered. They both suddenly stilled in an uncomfortable moment as they slowly met one another's eyes. In the next moment, they were laughing hysterically.
