A/N Sorry if there are any formatting mistakes, i had some fun with my computer. well, enjoy.
Brennan pulled his 1969 GTO in next to Jesse's 1965 red Mustang. One thing Brennan could never deny about Jesse was his taste in cars. He took a deep breath as he looked up at the factory where they had been earlier.
After his talk with Shalimar, he had gone in search of Jesse. He couldn't find him anywhere in Sanctuary, and with help from Emma, Brennan traced Jesse's comm. back to the factory. 'Well, here it goes,' he thought, as he took a deep breath. He entered the building.
There was no sign of anyone in the factory's main room. 'The GSA cleaned up after themselves,' Brennan said to himself as he scanned the area. And in fact there was no sign that there had ever been a fight here, such as it was. No signs of new mutants, no sign of secret agents bent on imprisoning every new mutant out there, and it was just as well.
Brennan stopped his scan, his eyes resting on the entrance to the lab. After seeing the video earlier he wanted to be as far away from a lab as possible, but every instinct he had told him that Jesse was in there. So that was where he went.
"Jesse?" He said as he walked in. The lights were off, and for a second Brennan thought that he had been wrong, but then he saw the figure sitting in the corner. Jesse was sitting in a semi-fetal position, his chin resting on his knees half hidden by the anesthetic tank. He looked slightly out of it, like a caged animal ready to lash out.
Brennan froze in the doorway. He didn't want to startle Jess. It was clear to him that Jess wasn't all there at the moment, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt him while he was trying to apologize. "Jess?" he said as if he was talking to a sacred child.
Jess shifted slightly and raised his head. "I was kept here, well not here, but a place like this," Jesse began. Brennan caught a glimpse of a bruise forming on Jesse's jaw line and cursed himself slightly.
"Jesse, I'm…."
"You're right. I'm a coward. I keep letting it get to me. Keep letting them control me and you go hurt because of it."
"No Jess, Jess that's not true. Jess, what I said, Jess, I was angry. I'm sorry," Brennan moved father into the room, shutting the door behind him. He started to move to Jess, but saw him flinch, and so he moved to the wall opposite Jess and took a seat.
"You're sorry? You're the one who got hurt."
"Jess, you tried to explain, back at Sanctuary, and I didn't listen. All I saw was your mistake. I didn't think about the why," Brennan paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted. "Jess, I was doing a search for Adam…."
"Did you blow up my computer?"
Brennan chuckled, "No. I found the wrong file. Don't worry, you won't have to clean out the hard drive or do a virus sweep. It wasn't that kind of file," Brennan said before Jesse could speak. "I didn't make the search pattern small enough, and you came up as one of the results…"
"Adam's files, when the search is unspecified they always come up first…"
"Yeah, this one was a video feed, a recording…"
"Dr. Harrison and Laura Brooks, 1997 or was it 1998?"
Brennan was surprised at Jesse's question, and more so by the frankness Jesse asked. "1997…"
Jesse stood up, and began to pace. "That was the first year they had me. My mother thought they would help me, she told me that she was taking me to a specialized hospital to help with my "problem." I was fifteen." Brennan listened to Jesse, a knot growing in his stomach. "They ran about two hundred tests on me before Shal and Adam found me. Harrison was amazed that I could both mass and phase, and so young too. He wanted to know just how far my abilities extended," Jess said in disgust.
Brennan was still trying to cope with the fact that Jesse had suffered two hundred of those experiments. "How…how did you….?"
"How'd I live? How'd I cope? At first it I kept telling myself that my mother would figure it out, that these people weren't helping me. She never came. So I stopped believing in that and held onto the thought that at least I wasn't been locked in closets or having glasses being thrown at me or having people I don't even know hate me. Then they locked me in a pod, for three months," Jesse paused. I've barely been able to tell all this to Shal, and Adam's out of the question. So why Brennan? We've been competing since he got here, why am I telling him?' Jesse glanced at Brennan, who was watching him closely, waiting to hear what he was saying.
Jesse swallowed and went on. "When they pulled me out they gave me to Harrison. Harrison had this detached way of dealing with me. He never looked me in the eyes, he never called me Jesse or Jess. He'd often refer to me as a case number. But Laura, Laura was different. She was his whore; his nurse and lab tech, but a whore. She found pleasure in torturing me. I swear she would mess the tests up on purpose, just to prolong them. I wasn't Mr. Kilmartin to her or subject 58967 or what ever the fuck the number was. I was the Freak," Jesse kicked the tank that was in front of him and fell back against the wall, allowing his body to slide down it until he was in a crouched position.
Brennan had to look away from Jess. His own emotions were starting to become too powerful and he was afraid of losing it. "How did you get away?" he asked after a few minutes.
"Harrison had run all the tests he could. He decided that there was only one left, a complete Nero scan. Which meant they were going to cut my head open and look at my brain. He sent me back to Genomex. They had kept me at some facility, a space issue or something. But Genomex had the better equipment. They locked me in the pod, and I was thinking that I was dead, that this was it. And when the pod opened and I woke up there was the most beautiful blond feral in the world. "
"Shal," Brennan said with a smile. Jesse just nodded. There was another silence for what seemed like eternity. Each man trying to wrestle with his thoughts. Finally Brennan spoke up.
"I know what it's like to be beaten down Jess, to feel helpless," he said softly, looking Jesse in the eyes. "My father died in the line of duty; I was so young, I barely remember him. I do remember that I was never afraid of him, that he always was a good man," Brennan smiled at some fleeting memory from his early childhood, then his face turned hard and he continued on. "My mom remarried. The basterd, he was an alcoholic. I never knew what would piss him off, hell I didn't even have to try. He'd go off, drunk, sober, high, didn't matter. He'd get mad. Sometimes my mom got in his way, but most of the time it was me. At twelve years old, most kids are defending their comic books from their brother. I was defending my mother from her husband."
Again, the two fell into silence, until Jesse started to yawn. Then Brennan yawned, then Jesse again. "Hey, you smell that," Brennan asked. There was a sickly sweet smell filling the room that he hadn't noticed before. He also hadn't noticed how tired he was.
"No, but I hear something…" Jesse said, getting up slowly. He felt like his body had been running for miles and he was ready to collapse and sleep for about a hundred years. He looked at Brennan and noticed that Brennan was looking like he felt the same.
"Yeah, I hear it to. A hiss…" For some reason Brennan couldn't think clearly, his head was cloudy, and he couldn't walk. He felt himself falling forward….
"Brennan!" Jesse shouted as he watched Brennan fall into the tank. Before Jesse knew what happened, the tank had toppled over, rupturing, and Brennan was heading for the floor. With as much speed as Jesse could get, he grabbed a hold of Brennan and dragged him to the door. Jesse tired to open it, but the door wouldn't budge. A terrifying realization hit Jesse's half awake mind. The tank had held Vecuronium Bromide, a powerful anesthetic. Jesse looked at Brennan, who was already suffering the effects. If they stayed in the room any longer, they'd be paralyzed, maybe permanently.
Jesse franticly tried the door again, but it still wouldn't open. Out of options, he did the only thing he could think of. He phased the wall and pushed Brennan through. And that was the end of his strength.
Jesse slumped to the floor, his body failing him. With the last bit of strength he had, he rubbed his comm. ring activating an emergency signal he had implanted in it. 'Please Shal, help us.'
Jesse's going to go throuhg hell by the time i'm done.