Hey all! So so sorry for leaving for so long. I just finished writing my first book and am working with an editor to polish it up and then publish it! I hope it'll be a New York best seller, more info to come. So that's why I've been so busy, writing a book isn't easy. I still want this to be a long fanfiction and soon you will see the apocalypse type event I was referring to in the first chapter. Enjoy! I don't blame you if you have to go back and read the last chapter again since it has been so long.

-Supermikeyninjalady

Chapter 2, A sleepover in an old garage

Johnny and Ash stood stock still in the front lawn of the small trailer sized house Ash was living at, with wide eyes of shock. As soon as Lance had caught Ash's eyes an obnoxious grin filled his small face.

He was standing in front of the door with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet planted firmly on the floor. Johnny grimaced and instinctively took a step-in front of Ash as Lance made his way closer to the two of them. He felt Ash gasp slightly behind him, only giving him more initiative to be on guard.

"Ash…" Lance started, but was cut off by Johnny's arms holding him back.

"What do you want Lance?" Johnny asked, almost growling. If he had a second to think, he'd wonder what's come over him, he'd wonder why he was so angry. He wasn't one to get angry very often.

"Get out of the way chump." Lance laughed arrogantly, "I'm here to talk to Ash." He tried to push on Johnny's arms to get him to move but he wouldn't budge.

"She doesn't want to talk to you." He replied smoothly, but as hard as he tried he couldn't get the anger to leave his voice completely.

He just laughed again and continued to try to get past Johnny, like he was nothing more than a big jungle gym obstacle.

Before Johnny could react further, Ash shoved him not so nicely to the side, with more strength than what seems normal for someone in such a small body. Johnny backed off slightly with his own gasp of surprise, staring at Ash with confusion as she glared at not only Lance but him as well.

"He's right. I do not want to talk to you." She glared. She held her two tiny little fists together so tightly Johnny could imagine the veins in her knuckles protruding.

"I just want to talk to you Ash…" Lance said. In a matter of seconds his tone and look had changed from one of arrogance to that of soft concern and guilt.

"I don't care." She replied promptly, seemingly taking the other porcupine by surprise. "Move out of the way Lance. I want to go inside my house."

Lance chuckled, clearly not amused at Ash's reaction, and he ran back to stand in front of the door, blocking it once more.

"Yeah I don't think so." He taunted, sounding like an elementary school bully.

Groaning, Johnny scoffed and stepped forward, placing either hand on each side of Lance's shoulders ready to bodily lift him up off the ground and remove him from his position. This was all way too obnoxious and he was tired of it. Besides, it was getting cold out. Even with his fur he was starting to feel the prickle of chill against his skin.

"Johnny…" Ash said, stopping Johnny right before he was about to lift the smaller animal up. It wasn't his name that stopped him, but the tone of voice Ash used. She sounded like she was warning him not to do anything or else she'd be upset.

Lance struggled against Johnny's grip, grunting and glaring at the taller but younger animal.

"Johnny… let him go!" She said. Yeah she was warning him alright.

He looked over to her and the two of them shared a look. Ash looked pissed, a look Johnny had seen before from her to others, and hoped he'd never be on the other side of. A pathetic whimper escaped Lance's lips and that's what brought Johnny's attention back to him.

Only then did he realize how tightly he was holding Lance, and how scared he looked. Overtaken by guilt Johnny choked on the air and took a step backwards, releasing the porcupine from his grasp. He had no idea what'd come over him.

"I-I'm sorry." He whispered, embarrassed, promptly turning around and walking away with long strides swiping at his eyes to keep from crying. It was embarrassing really how emotional he could be, he didn't want anyone to see him cry. He didn't want to cry at all.

He walked so quickly he didn't hear the sound of small feet scurrying after him or the cries from Ash for him to wait.

Instead he focused on the ground and let the cold wind keep his eyes dry.

SingSingSingSingSingSingSingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsing

Mike revved the engine of his and Violet's car in panic at the approaching bears behind them. The intersection light was yellow, and he knew that if he didn't get across now then they were doomed. Stuck at a red light with angry bastards after you who are ten times bigger than you are did not spell getting away at all.

Violet gripped tightly to his sleeve from her position in the passengers seat, hanging on tightly as they swerved violently around the car ahead of them going much quicker than the speed limit.

She didn't even have to ask what was wrong, the large bears were easily seen in the nighttime lights of the city. If anything, they looked all the more menacing with the lights glaring on their sharp white teeth.

A loud horn blasted from the car they swerved past, followed by a string of curses as the bears followed suit.

"Shit." Mike grimaced, turning sharply to the left down a less busy street, realizing that it wasn't going to be easy to get rid of their pursuers.

Ain't this just my luck…. He thought to himself as he took his speed up to 80 miles per hour.

He was having such a great day, actually, a great month. Everything was going wonderfully. But he'd been stupid for thinking that the bears had simply forgotten him just because things were silent for a little while.

The blaring of sirens in the distance had Violet cursing as well. The police.

"Baby you have to get us away from this, now." She yelled, straining her voice to be heard over all the commotion. Less than 2 feet behind them the car of bears swerved to follow them onto a neighborhood road.

He didn't respond, instead yanked at the wheel again, this time to the right. He craned his head around as he drove, trying to find a way out of this but seeing nothing.

He kept going, swerving left and right, slamming on his breaks to avoid crashing, and taking as many swift turns as he could. But after ten minutes of this his frustration was higher than ever. This had to stop.

Seeing a window of opportunity in a small back alley that was the neighborhood coming back to the city, he yanked the steering wheel once more to the right, blowing through a large pile of cardboard boxes and running straight into a brick wall….

Singingingingingingingingingignignignigngingingignignigngingingignignignigngingingingingigning

"Wait… Johnny, please just wait." Ash panted. She had to run to keep up with Johnny's long strides, and found herself panting from the exertion.

Finally she caught up to his side, tugging on his arm to bring him to a stop. She heard him sigh as she kept a firm grip on his soft arms.

"Johnny. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have freaked out on you back there." She said with guilt, he just shook his head as he replied. Refusing to look at her.

"No it's ok, you were right. I became a complete nutter back there. I don't know what came over me."

Ash sighed again. Hearing him say this only made her feel more guilty. She hadn't meant to turn against him earlier, she just wasn't used to people sticking up for her the way Johnny had. It made her feel weak and incapable.

"No Johnny. You didn't do anything wrong. I shouldn't have gotten upset at you… I just… I'm not used to being so vulnerable… you had every right to be upset at Lance…"

This caught Johnny's attention and he looked over to her with concern in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" He asked softly. The two of them began walking again, this time in the direction of Johnny's garage. The air was thinning and both kids were starting to physically shiver. Ash took a step closer to Johnny without realizing it.

"Well… this is sort of embarrassing, but it makes me feel weak to not be able to stand up for myself. When I was with Lance I'd always stick up for myself if other people judged us, because Lance never did… and when I was growing up my parents were definitely the tough love kind, they wanted me to be strong for myself. So when you stood up for me like that… I guess it just scared me a little."

She finished, looking down with shame filled eyes. Johnny didn't really know what to say to this so he simply started by wrapping one arm around Ash, pulling her closer to his side.

The two of them walked quietly for awhile until Johnny thought of something to say.

"You know, you're not weak. You're the strongest person I know. I stood up for you not because I thought you couldn't handle it, but because I didn't want you to have to deal with that jerk alone."

Ash giggled and leant slightly into the gorilla, happy for the night keeping the blush on her cheeks a secret.

"And it doesn't make you weak to have emotions Johnny." She said, catching him by surprise for the second time that night. Warily he caught eyes with Ash again, trying to understand what she meant.

"It's ok for you to be angry sometimes…. It was actually kind of sweet."

This time Johnny blushed, averting his eyes as they approached his garage.

"Oh. Uh, we're at your house." Ash said, her muscles freezing up a little. Neither of them had even realized they were walking there, they'd been too busy talking.

"Oh. Yeah we are." He replied, looking at the unorthodox garage door that was the entrance to his humble abode.

The two of them stood there awkwardly for a second, again not knowing what to say.

Johnny took a deep breath and decided to let his voice say whatever his brain wanted to, and was blushing instantly after he spoke, realizing what he'd just said.

"You can just spend the night here if you want… err, since Lance will probably still be at your front door if you go back."

His cheeks burned with the fever of embarrassment. Thankful for the darkness and for his deep black fur. If it weren't for those things he would probably look like a cherry tomato.

He shut his eyes in embarrassment, "Uhh I mean we have a spare bedroom…"

"Yes." Ash interrupted him before he could continue blabbering, thank god, "Yeah sure. Sounds fun."

"O-ok cool." He laughed awkwardly.

Typing in the electronic keypad on the wall next to the door, the garage opened with the normal loud noise garage doors make.

Walking into the house Johnny flicked on the light and the whole place was lit up in seconds. What the garage consisted of was a large main room with a couch and a tv, a kitchen to the left, and four bedrooms upstairs. There was a punching bag and a few other exercise machines in the corner. And then there was a door to the right leading to the main room where his dad and uncles ran the motor shop, fixing up cars and things.

Overall the place wasn't very decorated, and there were empty pizza boxes and other take out strewn around in various places. If Johnny knew he was going to be having company over he would've cleaned the place up a little.

Don't let her see your pigsty of a room… he thought, as they came into the garage house with the door closing behind them.

"Err, I'm sorry for how it looks. I haven't really had much need to clean up since my dad… uhh since I've been alone in the house." He said, rubbing the back of his neck pitifully.

"Haha don't worry about it. You haven't seen my place. It's probably this bad, or worse." She replied. Johnny internally sighed in relief.

The two of them sat on the couch and Johnny pushed some Chinese boxes off the small coffee table in front of them quickly.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he started, looking at Ash with curiosity, "How do you manage staying at a place by yourself? I mean I understand we get some good money from the theater, but you're 17. We're both still underage to be living alone."

Ash sighed, and for a second Johnny thought he'd asked the wrong thing. He'd just always been so curious as to why Ash was living on her own when she was so young.

"Well when I started dating Lance my parents weren't happy. They disapproved so much that they did everything in their power to keep me away from him. When I left to go live with Lance in his apartment, since he's 19, we had a falling out… so when I officially ended things with Lance, I thought it'd just be easier to find my own place. So that's how I ended up renting that place nearby, all I had to do was tell them I'm 18, which isn't so much of a lie really, I'll be 18 next month."

Johnny nodded, listening to Ash's words. He understood what she was saying, probably better than most people could. Up until recently his relationship with his family had been strained and fake. Sure when he was young his dad and him had been really close, but after his mother died…

"I understand." He said, "Sorry I asked."

"No, it's ok. It's kind of nice to talk to someone about it, I haven't really talked to anyone about it, although Rosita has definitely tried to ask me."

They laughed. Yeah Rosita was a real mother hen, and they all loved her for it.

"Want to watch a movie or something?" Johnny asked after a few second of comfortable silence.

"Yeah! Sure, sounds fun."

Singinginignignignignigngingingingingingingignignignginigngingingingignignignignigning

As soon as the car hit the wall and the air bags deployed Mike scrambled to see if Violet was ok. Being as small as they were the seatbelts kept both Violet and Mike so far away from even reaching the dashboard of the car. He'd just been thrown forward a little bit.

"Violet… Vi..? Are you ok?" He asked, trying to get past the enormous air bags to look for his girlfriend.

"Yeah, yeah I'm ok." She scrambled, reaching through the air bag and grasping onto Mike's hand. "We have to get out of here. The police and the bears are right behind us."

Mike nodded and allowed her to pull him out of the car and into the alley.

She was right, he could hear the sirens approaching much too quickly and the lights of the car cast shadows against the walls of the alley.

"Shit! Where do we go?" Mike cried, looking around anxiously. They were in a dead end, there seemingly was no place to go.

"There!" Violet cried, pointing to a hole in the wall so small only a mouse could fit in it…. Oh!

"Violet you're a genius." He cried, giving her a quick kiss on the lips. She giggled and then pulled him into the small cubby in the wall, never more thankful for being so small than he was right now.

As the police and the bears entered the ally, the two had to bite their lips just to keep from giggling as they heard the bears be arrested by the police.

To be continued….

YAY! Another chapter done! So I like the idea of Johnny being a very awkward guy when it comes to his feelings, and obviously we all know he is a sensitive guy under his big gorilla-ness. I just love the idea of his cute stutter. Also I am not going to rush through the relationship between Ash and Johnny. I want it to be realistic and sweet and dragged out. Big Daddy will be in the next anyways please review and I hope to update again within the week.