M! Mature issues! Slash AND teacher-student. "Gasp". Okay, so this story is set prior to the Conclusions arc, but fits in with canon... Not!!! It's more of a "what if" than anything else. But yeah, this is my first and probably only story for this series? It'll be three chapters long, and I've already written them, so that's good. I don't know why, but the moment I saw Professor Z's face, I knew I had to write a story for him. But he's quite a piece of eye-candy so maybe that was it.

Chemical Instability
by Lanie Kay-Aleese

Noel knew the way they looked at him sometimes.

It wasn't just adoration. It wasn't just the recognition of a scholar that he perceived in some of those doe-eyed faces. It was a darker-eyed look, with a sharper gleam in it. He'd decided at one point, with some relief, that they were so busy trying to understand science that they couldn't understand their own chemistry. They couldn't understand their own hormones changing and soaring into higher and higher modes.

Well, strange things just happened sometimes.

One of the weird things that happened? One of the strange things at the "Black Hole" High? One day, those students weren't sure of their feelings and hid behind textbooks; the next day, they knew their feelings and were acting on them. And they were acting on him.

He should've known something was wrong when the janitor had given him a look of amusement or warning of some sort as he'd walked out of the teacher's quarters that morning.

But there hadn't been any of the other warnings that he'd come to expect. He hadn't given any lesson that would eerily foreshadow this incident. The incident itself didn't seem to be as abnormal as he'd come to expect: the school hadn't cought a cold, no one appeared to have traveled through time or have the inclination to do so.

This time, the changes were of a far more deceptive nature - only becoming apparent as he became within view... And he couldn't find a single shred of science to attribute it to. All he had were the symptoms.

Symptom One: How could he pinpoint it, exactly...?

It had taken him three times as long as usual to get to his office from his quarters. What was usually a brisk four minute walk had become a quarter-hour trek through a swarm of his students, latching onto him and clinging and clamoring for his attention. He was fairly certain, by the time he arrived at the classroom, that the students lined up at his door weren't soliciting help with the earlier day's homework. Instead, they were soliciting themselves on every spare inch of his flesh that they could grope towards.

He'd known that some of them may have unintentionally flirted with him in the past, but full-scale seductions from every girl he saw? It made him queasy and sick inside. The scale of their actions just proved that they were out of control.

He'd had to slam the door in their faces in a rare but violent fit of energy -- it wasn't something that he had enjoyed doing, definitely not -- but he did it nonetheless. When it was finished, when he had his back planted against the door and was locking the students out (he never thought he'd see the day), Professor Noel Zachary was panting heavily. He looked around his science lab - empty, still, stagnant. But the air was not smothering, and that was good. So he slid down to the tile floor, rested his hands in his head, and waited with only the company of his thoughts running amuck in his head.

Initial Hypothesis: An aphrodesiac, influencing those who would otherwise not express their attraction to express it at the largest extreme.

Noel hoped that this first hypothesis would correct. Any alternative would mean that everyone was attracted to him, and therefore no one was safe, and in spite of everything, Noel truly was a positive man by nature. So he hoped and he waited.

Corrine was the first to test his hypothesis. He'd let her in, hesitantly; she was involved with another student after all, and she kept insisting that she needed to warn him about something, something strange that was happening. Noel decided to risk it. There was no doubt that this had to do with the multi-dimensional vortex in the basement. Surely his science team could sort this problem out...

Yet the moment Corrine stepped through the doorway and saw him and said "Professor!", her demeanor underwent a gruesome change. Her face contorted and her body stiffened. Then - she relaxed substantially - and softened her features with a close-lipped smile. Corrine's chin dropped a little and she looked up at him from across the room. And Noel found himself highly disturbed.

He locked her out as well.

Initial hypothesis incorrect.

At that point, he had no other choice but to lock them all out, everyone. Students, and staff, alike; he didn't know who he could trust to retain themselves. He couldn't even trust himself. These people who were trying to seduce him - were his students, and if they didn't stop harassing him he was bound to get violent. Noel thought about this, while sitting with his feet on his desk and playing with a stress ball. A part of him was worried. More than a part, to be honest.

Noel forced himself to draw a new, more accurate hypothesis from the data. The erratic, obsessive behavior he'd witnessed towards himself was not natural. It seemed instead that the most recent change at Blake Holsey was the effect of some strange love-potion, an aphrodesiac, that seemed to be centered at himself.

A teacher.

He had no idea what started the chain of reactions, much less how it could be involved with Pierce, or wormholes, or what have you. But it was evident that a constant in the equation was himself. But he didn't know the dependent variables. Would the aphrodesiac affect all age groups? Would it affect both genders? And, what if this - this love-possessing thing - was transferable? That would be the biggest, most frightening issue, if somehow, the love potion 'rubbed off' of him, and onto one of his students. If the aphrodesiac made him attracted to one of his students? - then he was doomed.

It was obvious that he couldn't risk an encounter of that sort.

But without the help of his students, the ones he sponsored in science club, who was going to help him solve the mystery?

Professor Z squeezed the stress ball.

He was glad that he'd called class off. He'd need a lot of time to work on this problem uninterrupted - since he was going to have to find a 'cure' on his own. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he'd be getting another meal in safety for a while. At least, not until curfew. At least, not until the aphrodesiac ran its course and stopped making people fall in love with him.

He was already in love, and that was enough of a problem in itself.

Proof: Let r equal review and let i equal integer
if r times i is less than or equal to 1, then r times i equals chapter i.

Error - Incorrect Formula. Value of "r" must be defined.
(in layman's terms, write a review for this chapter and you'll get the next one)