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He dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies some more. He dies until he doesn’t. He dies until he’s thrust back home. Two years older without the face to match. He comes home but refuses to come home. Johnny Storm died over and over and over again and he was put back together each time but every time he lost a little piece of himself and now he’s not sure how much of Johnny is left.
It feels crueler teasing them with the corpse pretending to be alive than saying he just doesn’t want to see them right now. They take it well, all things concerned when he tells them over the phone because he won’t be able to get the words out in person. Ben asks if he’s fucking serious, Reed murmurs okay, and Sue doesn’t say anything. She stays silent, completely and totally silent. It’s a little stupid, but he wants to hear Sue's voice. Sue got him through more than he’d like to admit. In the worst of it, he thought of her.
How she was doing, what she was doing, if she was happy or sad if she was having a good day or a bad day. He’d imagine her whispering in his ear, telling him he could do it, he'd just have to get through today and it would be better tomorrow. Ben and Reed were family in the same way she was now but Sue held his hand the first time he ever remembered getting shots. Mom was dead and Dad was halfway there, he was four. The world was small and safe. The needles were scary so Sue held his hand, told him not to look, and went first so he could see they were no big deal. She was only thirteen then, but her face had already started blurring with moms. He can’t ask her to say something, not right now.
So instead he hangs up the phone and drinks until he falls asleep in his bed, trying not to hate himself more than he already does.
In truth, he wants nothing more than to go home, sit on the couch, and watch everyone interact. Watch them talk and fight and act like the people he’s missed to the point of tears. But he can’t, it’s not fair to them.
The media loves the Human Torches Come Back. They run his story for weeks, paparazzi follow him everywhere asking about what happened and why isn’t he with the other three. He never gives an answer. Just shows his smile and tells stupid jokes until they stop talking to him.
He used to like this, the attention but now it makes him want to vomit. He wants to scream, not words just scream. Scream until his vocal cords snap and he coughs up blood and bleeds until he dies. Dies again but maybe this time it’ll keep him dead. The way he’s supposed to be.
He’s not suicidal, he’s not throwing himself off buildings or dreaming of slitting his wrists but it’s a fact. He should be dead and he’s not. His last moments should've stayed his sacrifice, not whatever this is. Being alive is awful. What is he supposed to do? Everything feels different. He doesn’t walk the same and the thought of that made him want to cry.
He’s wearing a mask of a dead kid's face and can’t even play the part right. The kid was loved and loved back, but now?
He parties a lot. A lot, a lot. A lot more than he should be at seventeen or nineteen or however fucking old he is. He’s not legal to drink but almost every night he’s at a party or a club drinking things that taste like battery acid.
Dad drank, he remembers it vaguely. The rage and the smell. The ramblings of his dead wife and lousy kids. He drank and got mean. Sue tried to protect him from the worst of it but he was nine, not dumb. He saw the bottles and heard the screams.
Johnny gets quiet when he drinks. Dead quiet. He’ll dance and move but his lips stay sealed. People will try to talk to him but they’ll get no response. He doesn’t have to play anyone when he drinks. Old Johnny Storm would not be caught dead in a bar, with girls and on a bike maybe. But never ever a bar. New Johnny Storm drinks and loves it.
Part of him is waiting for the phone call. He and the others have had no contact since the phone call when he told them he’d be getting an apartment in New York and not going back to the Baxter Building. But this might push it. This may be what makes them ask what the fuck is going on with him. But the call never comes and he tries not to be relieved.
Thanksgiving passes. He wasn’t invited and he’s not sure if it’s because it’s implied he should come or not. Thanksgiving at home is for any superhero who needs a place to go. Some years it’s only them, some it’s twenty-five guests. No call but he doesn’t call either. It’s the first Thanksgiving he hasn’t spent with Sue. Instead of thinking about that he drinks and throws his phone across the room when the annual photo is posted with his usual chair empty even though Sue is sitting on two stacked paint cans because they ran out of seats. He drinks more when he figures out it is the paint he was going to use to repaint his room.
A party he’s at has coke. At most parties, people have the decency to hide in the bathroom and do it but not here. Here they are doing it clearly on the table. He doesn’t think too much of it, too focused on nursing his Jack and coke. The fact he didn’t touch it doesn’t matter when the video gets leaked.
Grainy and dark but he’s there standing behind the black leather couch, ignoring the woman trying to talk to him while they snort it. Trashy tabloids accuse him of being a druggy and that is the reason he’s away from the fantastic four. More sophisticated magazines claim while it’s only a habit he occasionally indulges in however the other three are worried about him.
Nothing is the truth but he still reads each magazine and snorts. Two days later in the middle of sleeping off a hangover, he gets a call on the burner phone he bought because buying a phone felt like something a normal, responsible person would do. He didn’t give anyone the number so when he picks up the call he’s half expecting spam, half expecting a villain but he gets neither.
He gets Reed. “Do not get caught near coke again Jonathan Storm.”
Before Johnny gets the chance to process anything the phone call is over. Johnathan, that was when he was in true trouble. It went Johnny, John, John Lowell Spencer, and lastly Johnathan. He forgot Johnathan was his in-trouble name until that very moment. He never calls back but he leaves every party the second coke comes out after that.
Unless he drinks he wakes up screaming and sometimes burning. Every time he swears he can feel the worms crawling back on top of him.
Before everything a nightmare always meant Sue. She’d come in, see what was wrong, and comfort him. If she could get him back to sleep in his bed she would but sometimes she would give up and bring him to her bed.
Even after she and Reed started sharing a bed full-time. Johnny would’ve been fifteen, maybe sixteen the first time. He had his suspicions but nothing was confirmed and he wasn’t going to ask his sister about her sex life. One night he woke up burning, burning the way he did in the accident but no flame off would turn this off. Thankfully he didn’t actually burn but he did scream. Sue didn’t bother in his room. He got up, shaking and crying. She brought him right to her bed, waking Reed up to make him move over and put his right in between the two of them. Staying up until he got back to sleep. Reed didn’t care, he had already started playing dad at that point though no one talked about it.
He misses it, the safety he felt between them while Sue stroked his hair and whispered to go back to sleep. Now a nightmare means getting drunk to go back to sleep, or not sleeping at all. Getting drunk is more fun, but he’s started to have to drink more and it’s ever so slightly worrying him.
How long until four shots turn into a bottle? How long can he play chicken with being like his father.
Eating is weird. He’s not good at it anymore. Hunger pains don’t come like they used to. Sometimes in the dead of night if he’s still awake he’ll get hungry enough to eat, actually eat, a sandwich with chips on the side and an apple too, but if not. Days will pass with him snaking on the same single-serve bags of chips. It’s showing, he knows it is.
He can feel it in the clothes he wears, and the way he walks. It takes a few weeks but a tabloid uses it as proof of his drug problem. Fully equipped with a photo of him from the coke video. He gets caught buying that magazine, and when the paparazzi ask what he’s doing with it. He bites his tongue, hard, to avoid snapping. He bites until blood seeps out, painting his mouth metallic.
This is what you people fucking care about he wants to screech at the top of his lungs. I died and you wanna see if my weight loss is fucking drugs. It could be worse, he could still be the animal that just wanted to scream.
Christmas passes what feels like years after Thanksgiving. Another time with no invitation but the more he thinks about it the more he’s not sure if it would be worse to be invited.
Johnny always used to love Christmas, which meant Sue would be home more because of break. The first week of break she’d spend catching up on the sleep she avoided during the semester, but after that, she was all his for the rest of the break. Looking back, he’s not sure how she did it. She was seventeen when dad died, kind of the same age Johnny is and he can’t imagine trying to raise a nine-year-old right now. Especially raising the nine-year-old he was.
Having to do stupid things like decorating a Christmas tree and making cookies to leave for Santa. Christmas in the Baxter Building was a more quiet affair. Normally just them and Alicia exchanging gifts. He and Ben always getting each other the stupidest thing they could think of. Reed gives something useful and goes on a winded discussion on how it could be used. Sue always gave him exactly what he wanted, even when he didn’t tell her what he wanted.
First Christmas they’ve ever spent apart. He does three shots of peppermint vodka in her honor.
The invitation for her birthday comes. He tries not to care if they have his address. January twenty-six at five. The card is so Sue. The way everything is clearly labeled so no one would have any questions. Looking at it he wants to make fun of her over it. Like usual he has nothing going on in his life to stop him from going. Christmas and Thanksgiving were both skipped, so it feels worse strolling up to her birthday where they can all act like everything is the exact same it’s always been.
He doesn’t throw out the invitation though. He can’t make himself, he hangs it on the fridge but refuses to look at it.
I’ll call he decides in the middle of the night, watching the celling. Trying to sleep without drinking. I’m not going but I’ll call her that day.
Once again he’s peacefully sleeping when his phone wakes him up. It’s too early for him to think anything through so he picks up.
“Hello.” He mutters half dead. This time he’s fully sober but he never sleeps well anymore. Whoever’s on the other end is silent for a few moments. It’s just the two of them breathing into the phone.
“Okay, if no one talks soon I’m gonna hang up.”
“Hi, Squirt,” Ben says and the shock of it makes him drop his phone on the bed. He hasn’t talked to Ben at all since the phone call.
“Sorry, I dropped my phone. What's up?” He asks, but does he ever ask Ben what’s up? Is that something he’d ever actually do? Or can Ben already tell he’s faking everything? How the fuck did he talk to these people before?
“Your sister's birthday is tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I meant to let you guys know I don’t think I can make it.” Ben takes an intake of breath and even this Johnny knows what that means.
“Are you fucking kidding?” His words come out fast, half jumbled together.
“You missed Thanksgiving, you missed Christmas and now you're gonna miss your sister's fucking birthday.” Johnny wants to cry at how normal this feels. He doesn’t feel different getting screamed at by Ben. But how the fuck is he gonna do it at the birthday? He’ll be different and gross and everyone will see it. The distance is for the better to keep everyone happy.
“I have a fucking life, I’m busy sorry.”
“Busy doing coke?” Ben drawls anger out of him in a way very few can. He leaps up, like Ben is in the room and he can take a swing at him and starts pacing.
“Fuck you, we both know I didn’t do shit.”
“No, we don’t because I don’t know shit about you right now Johnny you came back but it feels like you're still gone.” These words steal his rage. They leave him empty in a husk with nothing but cold. I do still feel gone, he doesn’t say.
“Johnny.”
“I’ll talk to you later.” This night can still be saved with three shots of something strong.
“Please come. She and Reed don’t know I’m calling, they wanna give you space but.” Johnny is hanging onto each word, waiting trying to see what he’s gonna say to dig himself out.
“When people ask about you and everything going on she goes the only thing that topped raising you was you coming back.” Any air left in his lungs has disintegrated. He can’t force them to work, no matter how hard he tries.
“Just come, please.”
It starts bad. He leaves at four thirty so he can say hi and slip out before it gets too crowded. Unfortunately for him, hero business gets in the way and he ends up sneaking in the back way at five ten searching for a change of clothes because he is soaked. The back way includes a detour to the lab because it was designed as a way for Reed to leave faster in case of an emergency. He’s dripping wet, trying to keep all the water contained to himself when Reed bursts through the door.
“Hey.” Johnny mumbles, trying not to feel like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Reed doesn’t say anything. “Sorry, I’m late. I got caught up in hero stuff and ended up in a lake. I was just going to sneak through, get changed, and.”
He never gets to finish his sentence because Reed's arms are wrapped around him, tight. The way he did when Johnny was ten and something dangerous was happening in the lab he didn’t want him to be near.
“It’s okay.” He whispers over the top of Johnny's head. “I’m just happy you made it.”
If Sue's face has blended with Mom's, Reed's face has completely overtaken Dad's. He was there while Johnny was growing up and while he may have been cold about it he was there. Johnny would never tell him this of course. He wants to tell him he’s getting him wet but he can’t. Reed has to pull away.
“Sue and Ben are running late but they're going to be so happy to see you. Sorry to burst through like that, I got a notification that someone was in the lab and assumed it was Tony trying to look at things.”
Johnny can’t help it, he laughs at the frenemies thing they still have going on. Reed finally pulls away but he takes just a second to scan Johnny's face.
“Your room’s untouched, you can get changed.”
They leave the lab together but branch off in the hallway. Reed goes to the left to the party and Johnny goes to the right to the dead boy's room. It’s a little fucked up. He’s gonna wear old clothes and remind everyone of the kid he used to be even more. He could leave, but the idea strikes him hard. Climb out the window and never come back.
He makes his plan while getting to the room because he can’t last another second in the wet outfit. He’ll climb out the window, pack up all his stuff, and leave the state. They’ll be mad but it won’t matter because he’ll be gone. The plan disintegrates from his head the second he walks into the door. His room is completely unchanged, it’s like walking into a museum. Clothes are still on the floor, his bed is unmade, and a rotting apple core sits on his desk.
He was gone for seven months but in his room, it looks like he left yesterday. It makes him wanna leave more because clearly, they're waiting for him to walk directly back into a life he just can’t go back to. What's he going to do when he does something the old Johnny would never do and they all look at each other? While he wonders what he did wrong. Sue going to see his wrongness the second he walks through the door and it’ll ruin her birthday. But leaving will also ruin her birthday and one way he can say he tried. Maybe when they see he’s changed they’ll leave him so he won’t have to do it himself.
He wears clothes from a few years ago because they fit better than his more recent outfits and moves downstairs. Because luck is never on his side Sue has already made it. She’s in the center of the crowd talking to people, so he slides into the corner where Reed is hiding too.
“Go talk to her.” Reed immediately urges. “She wants to talk to you more than she wants to talk to anyone else.”
He doesn’t have the chance to choose because Sue looks up at Reed and sees him standing. He grins at her. Sue, his fearless big sister, the one who raised him and ran from social services the second they threatened to take him, looks him in the eye and bursts into big, messy tears. He’s seen Sue cry hundreds of times but this is different. He may not be able to be Johnny Storm anymore but he can be Sue's little brother. He was Sue's little brother before he was anyone. She was the reason he got through everything. Just thinking of her made him stronger.
Everyone’s looking at him now but he doesn’t care because his sisters crying. He ducks through the crowd, pushing people around to get to her. It’s been years since he’s fit under her chin but the second he gets to her she grabs him so tight it’s hard to breathe and yanks him down. His head fits perfectly on her shoulder, his face hidden in her neck.
“It’s okay.” He tries to soothe but she starts crying more at his words. “Don’t cry.” Hearing her cry makes him want to cry but he can’t cry right now. “I missed you.” He says because it’s true and he can’t keep it in anymore.
She lets out a sob that might be a laugh or a laugh that might be a sob. She starts running her hand up and down his back the way she’s done anytime he was sick or just not feeling good. This pushes him over the edge. Tears leak from his eyes, directly onto her neck.
There’s so much he should do. Ask her how she’s been, apologize for everything he’s done or not done since he’s been back, and just actually talk to her. But neither of them can form words right now so they’ll get to that part. What matters right now is there both here, alive, and they're gonna stay that way for the foreseeable future. Johnny hasn’t felt actually safe in a long time, but right now, in his big sister's arms, he knows he’s in the safest place in the universe.