Disclaimer: I own dick-all! Don't sue me for all I'm worth cuz I ain't worth anything.
Remembrance
I looked up as the doctor came back into the room, carrying a clipboard. A nurse followed him but I didn't even bother keeping my eyes open long enough to study either of them. I was so hot…too hot, really. The machine they had hooked up to measure my bodily functions beeped as erratically as my labored breathing. Everything hurt, almost as though I'd been lit on fire with no relief. A sudden thought occurred to me and I opened my mouth to speak. A strangled rasping noise came out instead, though it had the desired effect of catching the attention of the other two people in the room. Finally I managed to get out what I had been trying to say.
'…Where…everyone…?' I rasped pathetically. Or at least part of what I had been trying to say. They exchanged a look before turning their gazes back to me. I never heard what they said, probably because I chose that moment of lucidity to pass out.
It took everyone a long time to realize anything was even wrong with him. Johnny was probably the first to notice something was up when the older man stopped taking the bait he lay out for him. His movements became slower, and he would often sleep in late, whereas before he would be the first one into the training room. His sight went first, slowly reverting into that organic stone his body was made of. Slowly, painfully slowly, the rest of him went, too.
Ben became a constant couch companion for anyone looking to watch the television, often grumbling at them if they moved too much for his liking. He didn't like to have people fussing over his condition and ended up telling off Alicia a few times when she became too concerned. He liked being tough and didn't want his condition to give anyone reason to think he was weak. He might not be able to see, but he could certainly hear. However, his solidification made communication eventually a chore, gradually pushing away his girlfriend, Alicia. It was Johnny who found him.
'Reed! Sue!' Johnny screamed from the living room. The duo tore into the room and stopped cold. Johnny's face was white as a sheet and he was pushing against Ben's arm, as though trying to shake the solid man awake.
'He won't wake up! I can't wake him up, man! You gotta wake him up!' Johnny screamed, even though they were only a couple of meters away from him. Sue started to cry softly and let Reed pull her into his arms, even given the fact they had broken up awhile ago.
'No…' Johnny whispered.
'He's gone, Johnny,' Reed whispered back softly.
'No…he can't be gone, he just can't!' Johnny was screaming now, backing up with a look of pure terror on his face. He hit the wall and the howling scream rapidly diminished into a low moan as the reality of the situation over took him.
I woke up, realizing I must have fallen asleep somehow. I don't know how I managed that since I've been burning with fever for about a week now and haven't slept for two minutes solid. I moaned, trying to roll over but finding the task damn near impossible. Slowly, I lay back and let myself fall into an exhausted stupor.
'Reed!' Sue shrieked, causing the two remaining men in the house to immediately race into the room, 'Something's wrong!'
'What is it, Sue?' Reed asked, eyeing the woman carefully. She was paler than she should be, even with the lack of sleep since the incident with Ben, two months before. To add salt to the wound, an arson attack had been carried out on Alicia Masters' building, killing twelve innocents, including the former girlfriend of Ben Grimm herself.
'My hand,' she whispered, 'I went to pick up the juice, but it phased right through it.'
As if to prove her point, she pulled back her sleeve, revealing the blurry outline of a wrist. Reed shook his head, as if to deny it, reaching out for her. His hand went right through the spot her hand should have been.
'Sue,' Johnny said quietly, the warning in his voice evident, 'Don't do this Sue.'
Reed glanced at the pale youth, then back at his ex. He very nearly screamed as Sue phased in and out of view.
'Oh, god!' he whispered, grabbing her shoulder to steady himself. And fell right through. Sue screamed, drawing away from him and backing up against the counter in the middle of the kitchen, immediately phasing through it. She stopped, a powerful rushing rising in her gut that she immediately recognized. She raised her eyes and met Reed's. Scared. Panicked. Helpless. She turned away from him, meeting Johnny's gaze, and holding it, unable to tear away. Helpless. Haunted. Dying.
She finally understood Johnny. Understood his unspoken fear of being left alone. And she saw it, his future and felt his pain. A vision of the future that she could do nothing to protect him from. She opened her mouth to speak to him, tell him she loved him and that everything would be alright. That he would be okay even though he never would. And vanished.
Her clothes crumpled slowly to the ground as her presence left them and Reed screamed. He lunged for the clothes, trying to grab for her and hold her in place so she could never leave him. He pulled the bundle of still warm clothes to him, rocking back and forth as he sobbed.
And Johnny simply stared.
I snapped awake with a scream, bolting upright in bed, and wrapping my feverishly warm arms about my body. I let the tears roll down my cheeks, rocking slowly back and forth on the bed. Gradually I felt the emotions leave me, replaced by a numbing coldness that was certainly not characteristic of me. The exhaustion settled over me once more and I rested myself back on the bed.
Johnny couldn't sleep, and so he did what he normally did when he had a problem. Went to annoy someone. His current victim was a certain Reed Richards, the only other remaining in the recently renamed Fantastic Duo. At least that was what the media were currently portraying them as. Stealthily he crept down the hall and slid the door open to Reed's room.
'Couldn't sleep?' a voice asked from behind him and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
'Reed!' he exclaimed, whipping around to face the other man, 'What the hell do you think you're doing? Trying to give me a heart attack?'
They both fell silent at the unintentional connection behind his words and Johnny scuffed his foot along the ground, biting his lip.
'Sorry,' he offered quietly.
'Not your fault,' Reed replied just as quietly.
'I couldn't sleep,' Johnny offered, stating the obvious to curb the awkward silence.
'Neither could I,' Reed told him, then added timidly, 'Stay with me?'
Johnny nodded, following the other man into the room and let Reed pull him into bed. The older man immediately latched onto him, locking him in a tight and unrelenting embrace. Johnny stiffened a moment, before relaxing and resting his head on Reed's chest. Nearly asleep, he barely registered the fact that Reed placed a light kiss on his forehead.
They gradually fell into a routine together, Johnny often ending up in Reed's bed, or vice versa. It was late one morning that the inevitable occurred.
'Reed?' Johnny asked, rolling over to face the other man. The moment he did, his face became ashen. While Reed's face gave the impression of sleeping peacefully, the circumstances were anything but.
The mutation of his DNA had expanded to include his bone, leaving his body to collapse in on itself, inevitably crushing his internal organs. Johnny knew just by looking at him that he was dead, and slumped against the older man's side in pure shock. Gradually he pulled the limp form to him, sobbing into Reed's shoulder as the last of his family was ripped from him.
I didn't sit up with a start at this particular memory, curling onto my side and sobbing quietly. I remembered it all now, the deaths, wandering the streets and eventually leaving them for the woods, the fever, the people who found me. With a sudden burst it hit me square in the forehead, tearing through my emotional and physical agony. If they died because of their mutations, them maybe I was too. I wasn't quite sure whether to be encouraged or depressed by that thought.
The doctor entered the room and studied me for a moment before sighing and turning to his companion, the nurse. Sherry, I think the ID tag read.
'It won't be long now,' the doctor told her. Even as he said it, I felt a rush of agony rip through my body like liquid fire, preventing even a cry of pain.
'Can he feel it?' she asked quietly with a sweet voice. Kind of reminds me of honey.
'Of course not, my dear,' the doctor replied lightly. They were wrong, I could feel everything.
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