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Johnny has always been a tactile person. That doesn't mean that he likes sex, by the way (although he'd like it to be known that he likes sex plenty). Tactile here means that he pats people on the back, and he hugs people he likes, and beats the crap out of people he doesn't. He likes his leather jacket, and the smooth, warm skin of whatever girl he's convinced to get naked with him, and the new, non-spandex-y suits the Four now wear, and even the big fluffy blankets that he and Sue got when they got shipped off to college (but if you ask him about that last, he'll deny it. Just so you know). Johnny likes touching people. A lot.
Right now, Johnny wants to touch everyone. Everyone. He wants to yank Sue's hair, like he was eight years old and she his bratty sister, all braces and knobbly knees. He wants to call up his old girlfriend, Amy, and kiss her on the small of her back, just like he had used to do when seventeen and her freckled skin was the most beautiful thing in the world. He wants to call Julia, and Clare, and Natasha, and all the other girls whose names he doesn't remember any more, and kiss their backs and legs and the smooth skin behind their knees and their dimples and nineties hair, trapped forever in forgotten photos. He wants to turn up at his parents' house, yell 'suprise!' and be hugged half to death by his mom, and have his dad pound him on the back manfully. He wants to tackle Reed out of that starch and chalk - like a damned university professor, fer chrissakes! - and shove him into the swimming pool. He might even, maybe, possibly want to hug Ben, all lumpy dry rock, like falling face-first into the desert.
"You all right?" Sue asks, concerned. Her hand stops an inch from his skin; virtual comfort that gives no comfort at all.
Like a goddamn leper, Johnny thinks, furious. "I'm fine," he snarls, and slugs another blow into the punchbag.
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