My Impractical Hurricane – 8

It tastes like purple in here.

Reed rubbed his eyes slightly and took a drink of what he estimated to be his thirteenth cup of coffee, after which he cursed Johnny for a number that he had completely lost count on. After a long night of worried tests on his patient, Reed was able to deduce that while Johnny's fever and flu were severe, they were not in any way interfering, made worse by, or at all related to his pyromaniac abilities. All he needed was rest, fluid, and to stop marching out of the house at eleven o'clock at night like the moron he was. As Reed looked at his watch—six in the morning, wonderful—he took his coffee and flipped off the light to his lab before going back down the hall.

He was exhausted and, at the moment, not in the best of moods. After searching for and finally managing to drag Johnny back home, he'd gotten sick in the back of the cab after all just as they pulled up home. That created a whole new disaster. Reed had suddenly been caught in the middle of making sure Johnny was alright, trying to get the cab driver not to royally flip out, and stuttering out some kind of explanation to Sue and Ben, who had come down in a hurry once they saw the car pull up. Johnny was more than a handful. Reed grumbled to himself as he thought over all of the incidents that had brought them stress from the youngest and most radical of them. They were always chasing him down one way or another. Recent catastrophes included speeding, bar fights, mild unintentional arson, public drunkenness, and various other complaints unrelated to the law. He was putting an awful strain on Sue, and now, the rest of the team as well.

Was he going to have to deal with Johnny's antics for the rest of his life? Logic would follow that he would have to mellow out when he got a little older, but thus far, he showed no signs of slowing down. It was all almost too much. Reed shook his head as he opened the door and went back into Johnny's room. It seemed, at many times, that Johnny was simply too dangerous to have here. Why did they continue to worry over him? Why did they keep letting him get away with all of this? Why did they put up with him at all? Was it possible to have him neutered?

…However…

One look at him lying on the bed, breathing irregularly and sweating from fever, and Reed's frustration was gone. He knew the answer to all of those questions. As independent and headstrong as Johnny was, he was the one they were the most protective over. He slowly drew up a chair and sat down next to the bed, drinking his coffee and studying the young man lying before him. Whatever way he went about it, Johnny was brave, and usually far more compassionate than he seemed. Sometimes his most courageous actions could be easily mistaken for rash ignorance. He had his vices, but in the end, and when it really counted, he was selfless. And no matter how hard Reed might have wanted to deny it, whatever trouble the runt landed ass backwards into, he was worth it.

Johnny twitched on his bed and began panting, fingers clutching and relaxing against the sheets. Reed slowly pulled the covers away from him and watched, relieved that the fever looked to have been broken. Atta boy, Johnny… He would have taken his temperature to confirm, but it wouldn't have told him anything. Johnny was always the heat of an oven, and putting a thermometer to his body would only result in a broken thermometer. Damn these new, complicated systems of theirs. He just wished things were easy for once. He thought he'd earned at least that much.

"Ohh…" Johnny clenched his eyes shut harder and buried his face into his pillow, his next few noises muffled into it.

Reed eyed him for a moment before edging a little closer to the garbage can in the case that Johnny was planning a repeat of last night's cab ordeal. Reed would never wear those shoes again. "Johnny?"

"…" Johnny turned weakly onto his back and covered his face with his hands, pulling them back suddenly to stare at the sweat in surprise.

"You feeling alright?" Reed asked. Possibly a stupid question.

"…I feel like…Frosty the snowman in the middle of the Sahara…" Johnny muttered, one hand finding his stomach. "…with a piranha in my guts…"

Reed smirked, leaning forward. "I'm not surprised. You haven't eaten in over two days now. Which really leads to the question of where, exactly, all that vomit came from."

"Uh…sorry about that…" Johnny muttered, letting his head fall to the side to look at Reed.

"It's okay." Reed dismissed. "I—er, we were worried about you, you know."

"…I thought I was fine." He replied, but his eyes were looking down now. "So I…went out for a drink."

"Well please don't do it again. I spent hours looking for you, I nearly…" Reed stopped himself and sighed, scratching his neck uncomfortably.

"I didn't ask you guys to come after me."

"But you knew that we would." Reed scolded. "I won't bother lecturing you, Johnny. That's never done any good before."

"Thank you." Johnny replied with a grunt.

"I'm just asking you to be a friend." Reed continued.

Johnny glanced back up, confused.

"Because I don't care if you'd ended up halfway across the world, I would've hunted you down. I would've kept looking. So don't do that to me."

Johnny swallowed and slid a hand under his pillow aimlessly. "…Fine, okay? I won't go anywhere…Is that what you wanna hear?"

"I don't know why you have to treat everything like an attack. …We…well we all love you." Reed reasoned.

Johnny glared up at him resentfully.

"You know that, don't you?"

Johnny scoffed. "Don't guilt trip me, alright? I'm tired of being treated like some damn time bomb just because I don't sit at home every Saturday night playing board games like a loser, so you can all get off me about—"

Reed bent down and stealthily kissed the top of Johnny's head, successfully shocking him into silence… They sat there like that for a long moment until Reed finally spoke up. "…I'm just going to go, before I set you off again."

Johnny didn't say anything at first, blinking repeatedly and staring into Reed's shoulder, which happened to be directly in his line of sight. "…Reed…"

Reed paused. "Yes?"

"…That makes three, you know?" Johnny drew his eyes up to meet Reed's, curious and worried.

Reed looked down nervously, nodding to himself. "…Four's the lucky number…right?" He hesitated and just slightly caught Johnny's lips with his own. For that small, quiet moment, it almost seemed…okay. Reed pulled away and bit his lip, looking down at this colossal mess he'd made and sighing. "…Get better, okay?" he quickly got up and turned away. In doing so, he didn't even notice that Johnny half reached up a hand to stop him.