For disclaimers, please see Chapter 1.
Warning: there's some het sex in here… yeah, I know… squick!
Also - my thanks to Feral's Revenge, dragon, invisible, Anamalia-Fear, koalared and coffeeboy for their feedback and email. See how this works? I'm obviously a review slut, 'cause here I am posting again only a few days later.
"Brennan," Shalimar said, standing in the doorway to his room. Brennan ignored her and continued shoving clothes into his bag. "Brennan, you can talk to me or I can kick your ass. It's your choice."
"Just leave me alone, Shal, I'm not in the mood," Brennan replied, not looking up from his bag.
"I'm not letting you leave, Bren. You are part of this family. Nothing changes that."
"Don't go all Mother Protector on me, Shal. I'm not Jesse. And I'm only leaving for a little while, just to think things through." He zipped up his duffel bag and turned to face her.
"That's how it starts, Bren. You leave just for a little while, and then you don't come back." Shal wiped a tear from her eye. "Don't leave us, Brennan, please."
Brennan hoisted the duffel bag by its strap and settled it onto his shoulder. He took a few steps toward the door, towards Shal, and lifted his hand to caress her face, as he had done so many times before. But inches from her face, he stopped, pulling his hand back and looking at it briefly, before putting it back down at his side. "I'm sorry, Shal. I just… I just can't be here right now." He stepped around her and left.
Brennan pulled the tarp off his baby, his '64 BMW R69S. It had taken him months to restore this classic bike to its former glory, and now she was perfect. He ran his hand along the seat and said "Guess it's just you and me, babe."
Grabbing a couple of bungee cords, he secured his duffel bag and a lightweight sleeping bag on the rear of the large seat and then slid his leg across, settling in. His foot moved to the kickstart and she fired up immediately, the engine running smooth and whisper quiet.
From his coat pocket, he pulled out a small copper box. He tugged to open the lid and then slid his MutantX ring off his finger and dropped it into the box. He wiggled the lid back down and then put the box back in his pocket.
He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the current surging beneath his skin. It had only been hours since his last… release… and he could feel the ants beginning their march already.
He revved the engine and then pulled out of the garage, out of MutantX.
"You okay?"
Jesse rubbed his face and then turned his red and swollen eyes to Emma. "What if he doesn't come back?"
Emma slid down onto the bed, curling up against him. She wrapped an arm around his chest and rested her head on his shoulder. "He will. He will."
"What if he gets hurt? I won't be there if he has another power surge."
Shalimar walked into Jesse's room, a few tears streaking down her face. Jesse and Emma looked at the doorway where she stood. "He's gone. He just took off on his bike." She practically leapt to the bed and snuggled down on Jesse's other side.
Jesse took a deep breath. "I just don't understand."
No one said anything for a while. "He'll come back. I know he will."
"I hope you're right, Em."
"In the meantime, we still have a lot to figure out. And we'll just think happy thoughts."
"Happy thoughts, huh? Somehow I doubt that will help," Jesse frowned. "What do you think, Shal?"
Shal rolled her eyes.
"Well, it'll help me…being empathic and all… so think happy thoughts," Emma commanded with a smile.
Jesse thought for a moment and then smiled big.
Emma quickly raised her head up and looked at him. "Don't go there. I'm warning you."
"What?" Jesse laughed, looking back and forth at the two women pressed up against him. "I've had dreams that start out a lot like this."
Shalimar sat up and looked at Emma. "Whatcha think?"
Emma's brow furrowed for a moment. "Okay, I'm in."
"Um… wait a min" Jesse started to say, a little worried, but was cut off by his own screaming as they tickled him mercilessly.
Brennan sped along the highway, headed for the mountains. His thoughts kept drifting towards the events of the past few hours, no matter how desperately he tried to keep his mind on the road. The heat and friction of the large bike between his legs served to be a constant reminder of what it had been like to lay with Jesse, their bodies writhing against each other.
He violently shoved the thought out of his head, just as he had done the last dozen times it had crept up on him. "Not gay," he chanted like a mantra.
After hours of riding, he pulled over at a diner to grab some food. He sat down in a booth and a waitress sauntered up to his table. She had blond hair and blue eyes, big tits and legs that went for miles… in other words, just his type.
"Hi handsome," she purred. "What can I get for you?" As she said it, she played with the long pendant that hung around her neck, drawing even more attention to her cleavage.
Brennan gave her a half-smile, half-smirk – 100 effective against the fairer sex. "Oh, I think I'll leave it up to you, beautiful."
The waitress put the tip of her pen in her mouth, pretending to think for a moment, and then slowly pulled it out. "I can think of a few things you might like."
Brennan looked around the diner, empty at this time of night. "You here all alone?" he asked, taking off his jacket to reveal the tight t-shirt underneath.
"Cook's on break. Won't be back for 20 more minutes," Sandy, according to her name tag, answered. "While he's gone, I'll just have to find a way to satisfy your… appetite."
Minutes later, he had her bent over the table, in full view of any passing traffic. He kept hoping for a car to drive by, to witness that yes, he, Brennan Mulwray, was a 100 red-blooded, heterosexual male.
"Oh god," she moaned. "Feels so fucking good! Yes! Yes!" Brennan slammed into her harder, faster. "Oh god… what are you doing with your cock? That feels so fucking good. Yes!" she screamed.
Brennan ignored her words and just kept sliding himself in and out of her.
"Oh fuck… oh fuck… gonna cum again…" Her breath caught in her throat and she shook again, maybe for the third or fourth time.
This is just what I needed, Brennan thought. No one who can fuck a chick this good can be gay.
"Oh Jesus…" she panted. "You're a fucking god. Your cock is better than a vibrator… and it makes me tingle and twitch. Oh god! Yes! More!" She head thrashed back and forth and she shuddered again.
Vibrator? Brennan wondered for a moment, and then realized that a slight current of electricity had centered in his dick, discharging slowly into Sandy. He upped the current just a little, and Sandy cried out, wordless babble streaming from her mouth. Brennan had always liked the vocal ones.
Now Jesse, he was a fucking screamer when I had my dick up him, Brennan thought, and that pushed him over the edge. Sandy shuddered around him as he came, with a cry that could have shattered crystal.
Where the fuck did that come from?, he asked himself. Brennan felt dirty, and he needed to leave, now. The thought of Jesse was what had made him cum.
But I never fucked him, and I'm not fucking gay! he shouted in his head.
He pulled out of her slowly, taking care not to break the lambskin condom, the kind he favored. He tied it off quickly and shoved his cock back in his jeans, desperate to get out of there. He looked behind the counter and saw a trash can so he dumped the condom, which only left him the waitress to deal with.
Sandy hadn't even risen from the table yet, instead she had collapsed onto it, still breathing heavy. Brennan walked up to her and she smiled. "That… that was amazing."
Bile rose in Brennan's throat.
Slowly, she lifted herself off the table, and pulled her panties up, finishing with smoothing out her uniform. "I don't think I've ever had that many orgasms," she added, with a very contented smile.
The bile rose higher, and Brennan wanted nothing more than to run from the diner.
Sandy couldn't read the expression on Brennan's face. "Did you want something to eat? And then maybe we could go again?"
Brennan swallowed thickly. "No… but uh… it was a … pleasure meeting you. I've uh… got to get back on the road."
"Suit yourself," Sandy replied. "I should probably wipe down this table," she said, grabbing a rag.
Brennan bolted for the door and managed to go a mile on his motorcycle before he had to pull over and puke.
Meanwhile, Sandy held the diner payphone in her hand and told her best friend Kate about the hottest man she'd ever seen that had just fucked her silly and then left, never even giving his name.
"So that's how you and Brennan met?" Emma asked.
"Yup, in a gay bar while I was on a mission."
Shalimar snorted. "Sounds like more of a date than a mission."
Jesse smiled. "You said pretty much the same thing after you found out. That was, of course, after I convinced you not to tear Brennan to pieces."
"Me? Tear Brennan to pieces?" she asked with a smile.
"Try to remember, Shal," Emma encouraged.
"First you thought he was an intruder. Adam had just asked me if I had told you yet when I heard Brennan yell. When I got there, you had him pinned to the floor, one hand squeezing his neck and the other hand squeezing his balls."
Shalimar grinned. "Sounds like the right way to control a man."
Jesse ignored her. "When I got there, I told you that I had brought him there and to let him go, which you didn't want to do, but you finally gave in. Then you wanted to know why he was there, and how we met… and when you found out, you attacked him again… and his balls."
A glimmer of the memory surfaced in Shalimar's mind, and she smiled. "And I told him that if he hurt you, I'd tear 'em off… slowly, one at a time."
"Pretty much. Except I remember you adding something about how cats like to have balls to bat around… and claw… and shred."
Shalimar's grin grew larger. "Ah, it's nice to get a happy memory back… and now I can back up the claws threat," she said, extending and flexing her new favorite toys.
Emma shook her head at Shalimar and then turned back to Jesse. "What else do you remember?"
"Well, it's all pretty jumbled. I've got a lot of random pictures in my head, most of which don't make sense. I only gone through a few of Adam's files, but those were pretty shocking."
"Like what?" Shal asked, retracting her claws and looking at him intently. "Spill."
"Well, I'm not a molecular for one." Jesse picked up the pad where he had stored the new files. "I happened to find a file where he referenced me by name as well as 'Subject J.' When I saw that, I ran searches for Subjects J, S, E and B. A whole bunch of new files turned up."
"Subject S?" Shalimar asked. "That sounds really clinical and impersonal."
"It actually makes a lot of sense, Shal – it's a very simplistic code, but pretty effective. If Adam hadn't made that slip in one of his files, I never would have caught it – it would have taken us forever to find these. Even if you tried search by our initials, these records wouldn't turn up, and even if you just searched for "S", just about every file in the computer would turn up."
"Hiding in plain sight then?" Emma asked.
"Exactly," Jessed nodded.
"So back to you not being a molecular. What are you then? And any ideas what Adam wanted that kept a secret?"
"Nope, no reasons for the secretive stuff yet. Adam didn't give me a category, but apparently I work at the sub-molecular level."
Shal squinted her eyes, thinking. "Electrons? Protons? That sort of thing?"
"Smaller," Jesse said.
"Jess – aren't those the smallest building blocks? I remember that from my high school science class," Emma piped in.
"Officially, yes, but there's a theory that there's an even smaller particle that everything is made up of. It's called a quark. Adam thinks that I control quarks – pretty much creating and destroying matter itself."
Emma flashed back to their earlier conversation about the laws of physics. "Hold on. I thought there was some law that said matter couldn't be created or destroyed."
Jesse smiled cockily. "I guess whoever wrote that law never met me."
"So, you're a quark-ular?" Shal asked, trying out the strange sounding word. Then her eyes brightened. "You're a quarker!"
Jesse's jaw dropped. "A quarker? That's awful. I am not a quarker."
"Jesse's a quarker! Jesse's a quarker!" Shal sang.
"Shal, stop it! Shut up!" Jesse looked at Emma for help.
"I'm staying out of this," Emma laughed.
"Jess is a quarker! Jess is a quarker!" Shal continued. "Umpgghh!" A gag suddenly appeared in Shal's mouth.
"Don't mess with me," Jesse chuckled, adding "And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!"
Shal extended her claws and sliced through the gag. "Oh please. Kyle MacLachlan is much hotter than you."
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
Emma stood up. "I have no idea what you are talking about, and I'm leaving before this becomes the 'Is not to infinity" argument.' Let me know when you're not 8 years old anymore."
Jesse and Shal looked at each other, and then tackled Emma together. "No!" Emma wailed as they began tickling her.
"Oh yes, Emma-kins. You've been acting far too mature lately," Shal declared, and continued the tickle assault.
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"I'm not talking to you," Emma sniffed, while brushing her hair in her room.
"Oh, come on, Em. It felt good to laugh like that, right?"
"That's not the point, Shal. You tickled me until I peed myself."
Shal tried to hold in the laugh, but couldn't.
"Sorry, I'm sorry. It's not funny." Shal burst out laughing again. "It's really not funny," she added still laughing.
Emma tried to hide the smile curving her mouth but couldn't, so she gave in and joined Shal in laughter.
Feedback? Please:-)
01/04/2005