Straight Up Typhoon – 14

Hi all! Back again. Sorry about the wait on this one. Editing is taking longer than I thought. I hope the length of this one is a bit more satisfying, however. But oh my gosh:D Look, look, my cute little ol' flamer's back!

"i am sorry for making fun of your story your probably just a kid so your probably sad when i made fun of it and i should not be making fun of a little kids story cause i am older then you hope i did not scar you for lyfe bye"

Lyfe! I just love her! Aw, she's older than me? How sad! And funny, since I don't think I'veever mentioned my age—but I feel awful when people like her are permanently stunted at a thirteen-year-old level. But hey, Einstein couldn't remember his own address, so you never know. XD Don't worry though, 'hullo', your comments haven't offended me. Thank you so much for commenting, even though you hate it! Waita battle against that fat, lazy America!

Thanks so much for all the kind words from all. I'm thrilled that people like this story, even if it is just a bunch of silliness. So anyway, we have one more chapter to go after this one (fifteen, good number, hurrah!) and I hope that you all keep reading! And that wveryone enjoys this story for the rest of their lyfe. XP

Johnny was seeing odd colors against the clean white walls as he paced back and forth between the ends of the waiting room, the result of his rampant anxiety and some strange after effects of staring into the bright lights of flames too intently. He felt as though it was all he could do just to remind his heart to beat. Every thump pounded in his ears.

"Johnny," his sister's voice finally made it through his thick mental barrier, but he didn't bother to look at her. "Johnny, sit down. Please."

Johnny didn't say anything, letting out only a short breath through his teeth and rubbing his forehead.

"Come on, kid." Ben encouraged. "Sit down. You're makin' us edgy."

Johnny nibbled his lower lip and froze, blinking repeatedly as he idled on one foot. After a brief contemplation, he dropped heavily into a chair, clutching his head.

"It's gonna be fine." Sue assured, though her voice was shaking.

Johnny didn't reply.

"It is, kid, it will be." Ben tried. He sounded just as uncertain, however.

There was a very long period of silence between the three of them…They had been in danger before, sure. They had each made it out of some pretty tricky situations. But they had never been forced to sit around and wonder whether or not one of them would live or die in the next room. It was torture. Part of Johnny wanted to say to hell with this and leave, because it was easier to deal with these things from far away and when you had a few drinks in you, while the other part wanted to just plain cry. He met it at a middle and did nothing. He sat, and tapped his foot, and fidgeted and drummed his fingers and practiced about a thousand other gestures that channeled out his impatience. In the meantime, all he could do was think. Sit, worry, and think about Reed. About a handful of moments and feelings that Johnny had been so quick to avoid, and now couldn't help but feel like he wanted all of them back. No, don't do that. Don't think about that. Just keep your cool. That's all you've gotta do…Yeah. Okay. Calm. Cool. That's better…

"Oh God damnit, I shouldn't've left!" Johnny growled, digging his fingers into his scalp. The others looked up, startled from the break of silence. "If I would've been there, he wouldn't've gone in, I-I—"

"Don't start." Sue cut him off gruffly. "Don't start with the 'what ifs', okay? Please?"

"Why not? It's my fault. I left him. I let this happen to him." Johnny continued almost fearfully, eyes wide and stuck to the white tile floor.

"None of us could've known what was going to happen." Sue reasoned with a desperate edge as she placed a hand on her brother's arm. "It's not your fault."

"Well that's easy to say when everything's fine," Johnny continued, gritting his teeth and shaking his head as he tried to reason between anger and despair. "but now isn't one of those times! He could die!"

"He ain't gonna die." Ben barked in retaliation, fidgeting in his chair. "He…He's tougher than that. Stop worryin'."

"Stop worrying?" Johnny lifted his head to glare at Ben. "Oh, yeah, whatever. Sure. I'll stop. Jesus, I wouldn't want my 'worrying' to interfere with your goddamn awkward silence!"

"Johnny!" Sue held up a hand, trying to calm the situation. "Ben, Johnny, stop…"

"Excuse me, sir?" came a voice, interrupting them. They looked up to see a young, dark skinned officer before them with an inquisitively quirked brow, thumbs hooked in his belt as he surveyed them. "I don't mean to barge in here…I'm Officer Logan, I was told you folks had some direct association with the fire. It would help us out if I could ask a few questions."

"Uh…"

The officer was already pulling out a pad and a pen, gesturing it to Ben and Johnny. "You're Ben Grimm, right? And uh, Johnny Storm?"

Johnny muttered and sank into his seat.

"Look," Ben interjected. "Now's a real bad time."

"I understand, sir, sorry to be a bother." Logan nodded, looking around. "But all I really need to know is whether or not the name Roger Darwin means anything to you folks."

There was another long pause before Ben narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth. "…Wait a sec…Roger?" he went still, looking over at Sue.

Sue stared back at him blankly before she perked, as though remembering something. "You mean the guy from the other night?"

Too stressed to care about something he obviously wasn't in on, Johnny remained silent.

"What's he got to do with this?" Ben demanded next.

Logan rested his hands back near his hips, taking due note of their reaction. "So I take it that's a yes. We found the source of the fire. Looks like a case of arson."

"Arson?" Ben's fist slowly clenched.

"Yep. And all signs are pointing to this Darwin character. Doorman saw him arguing with a girl and an employee from the restaurant next door says she saw him nosing around out back about five minutes after he left the building. Security camera's confirmed it. We've been questioning residents of the building, but no one seems to know who he is, let alone give us a motive. We're still looking for the woman he was apparently after. If you could shed any kind of light on that…"

Ben was deadly silent.

"…Yeah, he…he's been stalking this friend of ours. Alicia Masters." Sue began, eying Ben cautiously. "Always showing up wherever she goes, coming by her apartment, even bothering us…She lives—er, lived in the building that burned down. It must've been her he was there for."

"So you're tellin' me…" Ben uttered in a low but violent tone. "…that this jackass runt…was the start a'all this?"

"Looks that way." Logan nodded.

"Oh." Ben nodded back.

Then promptly erupted.

"I'munna kill 'im!" he roared, standing up. His chair flung up from the motion and knocked two others against the wall a good ten feet away. "Where is he, you got him in custody, bring him here!"

"Whoah, take it easy there, sir!" the officer fell back a step, holding up a hand.

Johnny instantly jumped up as well, jaw clenched. "Yeah, bring him on down here, I'll teach him a thing or two about playing with fire!"

"No way, I got a score to settle with him, I'm gonna be the one breakin' his scrawny neck!" Ben turned to Johnny, thrusting a thumb at himself.

"Not if I find him first! I'm not standing back, not after what he did!" Johnny countered.

"Hey, I'm the one whose girlfriend he's been harassin', and now he goes and does this—you can forget it, kid, he's mine!"

"Yeah well he could've killed my—…well…Reed!"

"Yeah, your Reed, my best friend!" Ben snorted. "He tried to kill my girlfriend and my best friend, that puts me at the front of the line for rippin' his guts out!"

"Would you two knock it off?" Sue shouted as she stood up now as well. "For God's sake, listen to yourselves! You're fighting over who gets to kill someone, now would you both please sit down and stop making a scene?"

"Pardon me," a voice caused them all—raging brother, frustrated sister, irate boyfriend, and confused officer—to turn. Standing at the entrance to the hall was a tall doctor, studying them all in a calm surprise through thin-framed spectacles. "If you'll all settle down just a moment…" he glanced down at his clipboard. "…I have some news about your friend's condition—"

"Oh God," Johnny shuddered pitifully. "What happened? How bad is he? Please, don't tell me he's dead, please, I can't take stuff like that, I'll—"

"Whoah, whoah," the doctor blinked repeatedly, holding up a hand. "Wait just a minute now, there's no need to panic…" he let out a quick sigh and glanced down at his chart again for good measure. "…I don't know why you're under such an impression. The worst of Mr. Richard's injuries is a moderate fracture of the left humerus. Other than a few minor burns, cuts, and bruises, and just a bit of smoke inhalation, he's perfectly fine."

…Perfectly fine. The words seemed to echo over the room. Perfectly fine. Not in a coma, not hovering over the edge of death, not brain damaged. But…perfectly fine. "…So what you're saying is he's…" Johnny swallowed heavily. "Fine?"

"That…would be the gist of it, yes." The doctor nodded.

"Thank God…" Sue held a hand to her face. Ben let out a relieved mutter and rested a hand against the wall.

"Would you like to see him?" the doctor continued to Johnny.

Johnny cleared his throat mannishly to rid it of its awkward tone. He looked from Sue to Ben meekly.

"Uh…you go on ahead, kid." Ben looked at Sue and she nodded hesitantly. "We've still got…questions to answer. Go see how he's doin'."

"Oh…y-yeah…sure…" Johnny took a flustered moment to stare back at them before turning and marching down the hallway.

Reed groaned and rubbed his head, looking down at a strangely numb left arm where it rested in a sling. He was relatively sure it would serve him agony eventually, but that really was the last of what mattered given his current state of mind. He was sore all over. His right shoulder was a burnt, his head was pounding, and there was a cut on his inner thigh that itched like a mother, but apart from all of that and as far as he could tell, he was the luckiest man on earth at the moment. Even if he didn't remember why, exactly, or even how he got here. The last thing he could recall was grabbing that young girl, and then…well, like the paramedic had told him when he first woke up, there were no casualties in the fire. Embarassingly enough, Reed had been the closest thing to it. So he felt it safe to assume that she was alright, even if he didn't know quite how. It was becoming increasingly hard to care, however. Morphine, even in small doses, was a Hell of a thing.

"You've got a lot of damn nerve and no damn brains!" Johnny snapped violently as he burst into the room, and Reed almost fell out of bed. Not quite the warm greeting he'd been hoping for.

"I-It's good to see you too, Johnny." He sputtered, shifting and staring at him in shock. Johnny was enraged about something.

"For as smart as you think you are, you sure seem to think with your ass sometimes! You should've known better than to run into a burning building!" he continued to steam, gesturing wildly. "What, you wanted to die a hero or something? Well I've got news, you almost did! I could've passed right by you! I could've never even known about the fire and never gone down there, I could be out there right now scooping up your goddamn ashes, but do you care? No, Mr. Big Damn Hero, you don't care!"

Reed's eyes were wide, his body slouched down as he absorbed the rant with slight guilt. "I'm…sorry." he offered submissively.

Johnny twitched, seeming intent on a fight. "I…well…you bet your ass you are!"

"…I…I didn't do it to upset you." Reed said softly. No one ever told him that risking your life to save an innocent civilian would lead your boyfriend to throttle you. Wait—boyfriend? …Okay then...

Johnny snorted and rolled his eyes, throwing up his arms as he paced a small circle. He turned to face Reed with irritation. "Don't ever do something like that again! I mean Christ, do you know how freaked out I was? Do you have any idea what it's like when the people you love risk their lives pulling stupid stunts like that?"

Reed was about to protest to the egregious hypocrisy of that statement when coming from Johnny, but the words caught in his throat… "…Love?" he repeated. "…You love me?"

Johnny instantly stopped pacing, eyes unblinking and brow furrowed. "…Huh?"

"You said, 'the people you love'."

"What? No I didn't!" Johnny sneered, turning red.

"Yes you did, you said—"

"I-I said when the people…or, the people that you care about—when the people you…" he waved his hands and shook his head. "Forget what I said!" he crossed his arms over his chest indignantly.

"Okay, fine. Look, anyway…they said that you pulled me out of there." Reed pointed out, touching his bruised ribs. "I guess that means I owe you one."

Johnny was looking at the floor, scuffing at it with the heel of his shoe. "What, I was supposed to leave you there? Yeah, that would've looked good."

"Oh." He gingerly rested his broken arm near his side. He was still in that mindset? Johnny and his damn image. "So…you just did it because you were supposed to. I see."

"…" Johnny didn't say anything for a while, staring at the floor with his arms crossed tightly. Slowly, they fell away, and he trudged over to the bed, grabbing a chair and plopping down into it with a heavy sigh. "…That's not what I meant."

"…That girl needed someone's help. And you weren't there. …Have you heard anything about her? Is she alright?" Reed swallowed, trying to catch Johnny's downed gaze.

"Yeah. Girl's fine. Couple a'burns, nothing serious." He replied quietly.

"Good." Reed sighed in relief and paused for a while before offering Johnny a weakened smile to try and keep the mood in its calmed state.

Groaning in response, Johnny dropped his forehead down onto Reed's stomach and closed his eyes. "…I thought you were dead." He grunted.

Reed hesitantly raised a hand to stroke the back of his head. "…For a minute back there, so did I."

"I'm…I'm sorry about the stupid fight, Reed, it was…stupid." He continued with a scowl. "I-I don't wanna…you know…break up, or whatever."

"I know." Reed nodded, but in reality, he hadn't known, and he was glad that Johnny had said it.

Johnny relaxed slightly, grumbling into Reed's clothing.

"How are Sue and Ben?"

"What? …Oh. Yeah, they're fine. I guess." Johnny drew back up, leaning his arms over the edge of the bed. "Look, are you okay? I mean like, really okay?"

"Don't I look okay?"

"No," Johnny eyed his broken arm and what must've been some marks on his face that Reed himself wasn't aware of. "You look all…beat up."

"Well I'm okay." He protested. Lifting his head a little, he reached up and gently touched the side of Johnny's chin, examining the short row of stitches embedded there with a suspiciously arched brow. "What about you?"

"Yeah, I tripped going in after your ass." He snorted with mock resentment.

Reed smiled again in a good natured, morphine enhanced sort of way. "Thanks for coming after me, Johnny."

With a stubborn mutter, Johnny carefully hooked an arm around Reed's neck and pulled the older man's face into his shoulder. "…You're just…lucky it was fire. 'Cause I'm not that good of a swimmer, so if it woulda been a tidal wave or something, I'd've had to let you drown."

"Duly noted." Reed chuckled.