Author: Dark-Angels-Tears
Title: Darkfire
Rating: T for Violence, Language, Graphic content... All that good stuff.
Genre: Angst/Action/Adventure. In that order.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it isn't ours. If you don't, total legal-glomp.
Summary: AU. To go back in time and change the past, in order to save the future. This is the mission of one Johnny Storm. However, his family doesn't understand this new, ruthless, darker Johnny. None have them have ever seen this side before... except Sue.
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Jackie: Aheh-heh! ;;
Sarah: T.T -glares-
Jackie: Am I going to be shot? I don't want to die...
Sarah: Too bad. -shoots j00- For all your complaining about me, you disappearz for a week and more importantly, DOES NOT POZT!
Jackie: -nurses gunshot wound- Oh, and before I get shot by someone ELSE: neither of us supports alcohol or drinking in general... but it's a bar scene - what can you do?
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Chapter Eight
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I am a little bit of loneliness, a little bit of disregard -
Handful of complaints, but I can't help the fact that everyone can see these scars.
I am what I want you to want – what I want you to feel.
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
So I let go, watching you turn your back like you always do -
Face away and pretend that I'm not,
But I'll be here 'cause you're all that I got.
-Linkin Park, Faint
By the time Johnny got back that night, it was very late and his legs were aching. He barely had time to reheat himself a container of mysterious pasta and stretch again before sweet unconsciousness claimed him.
That night, he had the best non-drug-induced sleep he had had since arriving in the past. Perhaps talking to Pastor Walsh about making distinctions had helped- or perhaps it was getting the chance to release some of his pent-up emotions in…various ways…but Johnny was - dare he say it - close to being in a good mood as he lay down to sleep. That night, he slept like a baby for five straight hours.
Erm... a very restless baby, perhaps?
In any case.
Johnny was immediately awakened by the sound of heavy footsteps and a door opening. The man shot to his feet and was on full alert before he even realized that it was Ben finally coming back in.
However, as opposed to the normal straight barging-in approach Ben took when coming home, for some reason his footsteps were not as heavy, his actions slightly muffled. It took Johnny a minute, but eventually he figured it out. Ben was being stealthy.
And for whatever reason Ben was doing so, it did not sound good for Johnny.
Quietly Johnny slipped back into his bed, lying as still as possible and feigning sleep. As predicted, a few moments later his door creaked open and the great orange man 'tip-toed' in. He drew closer and closer, until finally his shadow passed over the blond's face.
At that moment, Johnny's eyes snapped open and he cried, "Watch yourself!"
"AHHH!" Ben yelped, jerking backwards. He had been carrying a bucket of something over his head, and with the moment nearly all of it sloshed over the edge and splashed down upon him. Ben was, very suddenly, drenched in ice water. "You- you little rat! You weren't sleeping at all!" He cried, outraged that his prank had not succeeded.
"You didn't think I was going to just let that happen, did you?" Johnny shot back with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.
Ben frowned, tossing the almost empty bucket off into a corner. "Well, no, but... aww, geez. Dangit, Johnny… Now I gotta go change." He pulled off an incredibly loud Hawaiian-style shirt, grumbling something under his breath about psychics and fire and psychic fire.
Johnny shook his head bemusedly as Ben walked away; watching the retreating orange back with a familiar fondness. "No welcome back present for you!" He called, then looked away.
And quickly did a monstrous double take.
Dead in the center of Ben's back, almost invisible to anyone not looking for it, was a relatively small patch of charcoal gray rock.
His heart stopped.
And then it seemed like everything slowed down and sped up at the same time. What was going on? Why was Ben already exhibiting symptoms? Wasn't that supposed to happen much, much later? Why had Doom activated it now? Had he learned more than Johnny'd suspected?
Had Sue and Reed also been infected?
Had he already failed?
Shaking his head to snap himself out of it, Johnny managed to get a hold on himself. Everything was going to be fine. He had the antidote finished now, so all he had to do was administer it to Ben and he'd be alright.
Okay. That was a plan.
Faking a jovial tone, Johnny strolled up behind Ben and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "So, how was Tijuana?"
"Not sure. We didn't do much sightseeing." Ben replied. How could you- when one tourist is blind and another the object of both adoration and fear?
He blinked. Not quite a helpful reply, but he could make do. "Ah, cool! You can tell me all about it over a drink. Let's go." Johnny gave Ben a pat on the shoulder. When Ben's gaze turned to follow the hand, the time traveler used the distraction as cover for pocketing the tiny vial of antidote, which he had placed above the doorframe for just such an occasion as this.
In short order they were out the door and gone, one of the team members with his head in the proverbial clouds about anything out of the ordinary, and the other with a grim mission to undergo shortly.
Pun only slightly intended.
--
The bar they eventually entered was one of Johnny's few old hangouts that he could actually stand- one of those small family-owned joints that operated in relative obscurity and in which one could pass out drunk usually without the fear of the owners having plastered it all over the news the next morning.
Bless them, Johnny thought fondly as he approached the bar. The bartender, a tall, lanky man with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail who went by Damien, flashed him a wide grin as he approached. "Johnny, my man! Haven't seen you around in a while!" He exclaimed, slowly wiping out the bottom of a glass.
Johnny nodded his head to the side apologetically. "Sorry, Damien. Been lying low recently. Trying to stay out of the public eye for a little while, you know?" He rested his arms on the counter and resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. Ben was watching- or if he wasn't, he should be.
Damien shrugged, finishing his work on the glass. "I say you're crazy- then again, it's not my life, so how should I know?" He set it down and tossed the cloth over his shoulder, then planted both palms firmly on the bar. "So, what can I get you?"
The hero made the impression of trying to decide, even though he'd firmly stuck to the same drink for years. "A beer for me, and hows-about a Thing special?" In the corner of his mind he hoped that that drink had been invented by now.
He was in luck; in short order Damien was passing him a bottle and an almost bucket-sized mug made of steel and filled with the strongest stuff in the house- strong enough for even Ben to feel it. And hopefully, strong enough to mask the effects of the antidote.
The bartender winked; something mysterious in his murky green eyes. "On the house. Give my regards to Ben."
Slightly surprised, Johnny nodded in appreciation. "Much obliged, Damien."
Heading back to their currently empty booth, he sat down and unobtrusively took the vial from his coat pocket and removed the stopper, then poured the entire contents into Ben's drink and swirled it around slightly to mix it through and through.
He had only just finished when Ben returned from the washroom, looking a little ragged. "Sorry 'bout that. Dunno what came over me alla sudden."
Johnny knew.
"I took the liberty of ordering for you. Maybe a stiff drink will sober you up." Wait, what kind of logic was that? He twitched mentally and hoped Ben would blame it on 'Johnny being Johnny,' and not on his mostly unprepared-ness. Honestly, he hadn't expected this to happen for years now. What on earth could have happened to start it this early?
And he was off again.
A minute or so later Johnny was brought back to earth by a great orange hand waving in his face. "Earth to Matchstick... come in, Matchstick..."
With a rush of déjà vu, he shook his head suddenly. "Mmm. Sorry, Ben. Kinda spaced out there for a sec."
Ben rolled his eyes, brought the great mug to his lips, and took a long drink. "See, that's what I'm talkin' about. You've been actin' all messed up since after the Surfer left, and it freaks the rest of us right out the window. Actin' like a kicked puppy or somethin'." He took another drink, then grimaced slightly. "What is this, anyways?"
To give himself more time to answer, Johnny chose to answer the last question first. "It's called the 'Thing Special.' You know you've made it when they make a drink after you…" He managed, but as Ben was clearly not amused and wanted an answer, not a wisecrack; the man went on solemnly.
"Honestly, Ben, I'm not acting any differently." Lie. He was doing his very best to act chipper. He just wasn't very good at it. "I've always been this way, but Sue's the only one who's known about it until recently." Half-truth. There were many random periods in Johnny's life where he was content, even happy. This didn't happen to be one of them. "I guess I just got tired of putting up a front for you guys." Filthy, filthy lie! If he weren't putting up a front, they'd have institutionalized him by now!
Johnny took a sip of his beer and resisted the urge to imitate Ben's grimace. The only alcohol he'd had in semi-recent years was much stronger stuff then this, and with his natural ability to 'burn through' the alcohol in his bloodstream, the overall effect of drinking cheap booze like this was basically nothing. He was drinking flavoured water.
Bleh.
Ben sighed. He looked to his teammate with a strange expression in his watery blue eyes. He looked... well, old. This was a bit of a shocker for Johnny. In the future, Ben had never lived past his mid-forties. He didn't have any hair to gray, and his strength had certainly not decreased until the poison fully extended its reign, and by then it was a moot point. Aging had never really been a concern of any member of the Fantastic Four- they all just unconsciously assumed that one day they'd be killed in a battle against someone like Galactus, Deathstroke, or Casanova Frankenstein.
But this look in Ben's eyes... it was the closest they had ever came to true old age... and it made Johnny even more uncomfortable then he already was.
"I'm sorry ya feel that way, kid." Ben rumbled, taking a slow drink. Setting the mug down with a dull 'clunk,' he stared at him penetratingly. "Susie's worried sick about you, ya know. She thinks that if she don't keep a close eye on ya, yer gonna go off again and... well, you know…" He faltered at the end, unable to verbalize the thought.
That struck a nerve with Johnny. They were accusing him of trying to quit this early in the game. "That I'm going to do what again, Ben?" He said in the same harsh tone he had used on Sue weeks earlier. "Try to kill myself?" He shook his head disgustedly as Ben tried not to wince. "Look, it's not going to happen. And you can take that straight back to Sister Dear when you make your report." Technically, not a lie. He wasn't going to try… he was going to succeed. And again, it would happen much, much later; when all of this was finally over with. But for now, the game must play on.
The aged look intensified in Ben's eyes, and he spoke softly. That was the thing about the Thing. When he shouted or yelled, it a little intimidating, yes, but because it happened most of the time you could eventually tune it out. However…when his voice grew quietly, it was absolutely certain that he was serious, and you needed to listen carefully. "I'm not reportin' to Sue or anyone else, Johnny. Should've made it clearer- I'm worried about ya, an' I wanted ta know."
Johnny shrank almost visibly. Stupid. He shouldn't have allowed his emotions to get the better of him- even on that topic. "Sorry, Ben." He murmured. "I just… got kind of defensive there."
"S'okay, kiddo. It happens." They both took a sip from their respective drinks, and the uncomfortable moment seemed to have passed.
Both men walked out of the bar later with, if not a sense of peace, a renewed feeling of camaraderie.
The sun eventually fled New York. Shadows crept in slowly and eventually the moon rose to reign over her midnight kingdom. Oblivious to this all, the citizens continued wandering the streets, going about their nocturnal business.
And life went on.
--
In a gloomy corner, a large man sat confidently with his arms folded over his chest. His face was shrouded in darkness, all for the wide smirk on his pale skin. "Well, well, Mr. Storm… you've just made my day."
Murky green eyes flashed towards the man uncertainly. "And you're gonna pay me, right?"
"Yes, yes, of course. Your country thanks you, Mr. Leigh, for sharing this with them." In his left hand the man held a small, rectangular object. At first it appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary… but upon closer inspection, it was a clear plastic box.
Containing a single black cassette.
He chuckled under his breath. "If you'll excuse me, I have some work to do…"
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Sarah: Umm... the end!
Jackie: Sorry this chapt was short. And so late. I died last week and the resurrection spell takes lots of time to cast.
Sarah: Nerd.