Thanks for reviewing, mocasoul and canby1992! A new chapter for all of you readers to enjoy. Earlier disclaimers still apply!

Chemical Instability. Chapter 2
by Lanie Kay-Aleese

"Professor Z?"

The voice stopped him midstep. For a moment, Noel Zachary was distinctly aware of his foot that was raised above the ground and now dangling without purpose. He set it and down and he turned around, hesitant. He recognized the voice (how could he not?), and even if it was a familiar and friendly one, Z was still nervous to see the face that matched the voice echoing across the hallway that they'd found themselves in.

It was past midnight. The emergency lighting struck strange luminescent shadows on the boy, standing just several yards away. Dim as it was, he could see Lucas' rimless, rectangular glasses and the way they gleamed, hiding his expression. Professor Zachary swallowed. Of course. Of course it would be you who would catch me as I was escaping.

"Lucas. What are you doing out? It's past curfew," he asked, pocketing his fidgeting hands.

"I've been looking for you," the boy said, plainly.

"Did something happen?" Noel answered immediately, and took a step forward before his better judgement took a hold of him.

"Yes, I think that something strange is happening again," Lucas replied, then rustled his sandy brown hair. "I wanted to test a hypothesis of mine."

"Is that so?" Professor Zachary actually did shuffle backwards at this, and Lucas quirked a soft smile at the action.

"Yeah. I figured this - weird problem of yours hasn't gone away yet, then. Don't be paranoid about me attacking you, that's my job to be paranoid, remember?"

The professor stiffened. "Lucas. I hope you're going to tell me that you're unaffected."

For a moment, Z was tense. The adrenaline began to stream from the pit of his stomach and his throat and he definitely felt it beneath his arms. Then, suddenly, Lucas actually chuckled.

"Nah. The pheromones don't affect me. I'm the same as always."

Thank god. It only affects girls, then...

"While I'm sorely tempted to reprimand you for being out past your bedtime," Professor Z smiled, re-assuringly, for both his student and himself. "... I must ask for your assistance in creating some sort of solution to, at the very least, dilute this aphrodesiac."

"You don't think it's just that you have an inbalance of pheromones?" Lucas wondered.

"I couldn't say. We'll need to do some tests as soon as possible," said the taller mentor, and suddenly, a dark thought flashed through his head. He wasn't allowed alone in a room with a student at night. What if the aphrodesiac suddenly began working on Lucas? For example, if boys simply had higher resistance to the pheromones? If anything happened... Well, he was the teacher; he would be held responsible for his actions.

"Do you think we ought to wake up Marshall or Vaughn?"

"No!" Lucas responded quickly. "The - the aphrodesiac, the pheromone, this attractive scent or whatever it is, I don't think they could physically handle it. Their bodies are very overworked right now."

Professor Z crinkled his forehead. It made sense with his theory... "But-"

"Really. You don't want to know what they've been getting up to," Lucas laughed weakly. His teacher watched him, closeby but distantly as they walked down the hallway. They began their walk down the school hallway, with Neol chewing on the thoughts that stuck together thickly. He felt like his were the drying tree sap that runs along the trunk of a deciduous pine tree. They were to be touched lightly - patiently - but better yet, left untouched, so they could glue into place.

They has just turned the corner to enter his classroom when somehow Noel was struck with the absurdity of the situation.

"I just don't expect it to be a pheromones issue... It's some subjective irrationality that is forcing me to wonder how it could be pheromones - that's connected to - everything else going on. The whole 'queen bee' situation already took place and the same sort of problem doesn't usually repeat itself. You were one of her many converts, weren't you?"

Lucas flashed a sheepish grin. "Yeah, I did, and not long after that I had that weird DNA switch-up."

Something in his voice made Noel pause. "Lucas?"

"Sometimes, I actually envy myself for that. Being able to, for a little while, be happy with lots of friends and people fawning over me. But I couldn't be that way now if I wanted to."

"That's not true," Professor Z cut in, "It was your DNA but... it was still you underneath all of that."

"Sheesh, Z. I was kind of kidding," said Lucas, flushed.

Noel was all too happy to have something else to talk about besides his own problem. They had arrived at the door to his room and Noel put his hand on the knob, and before turning it, he turned to Lucas.

"You were going to hurt yourself if you hadn't gone back to the way you were before. You were so fearless that it left you imbalanced."

"And now you're so imbalanced that you're afraid. So you don't have any place to lecture me, you know."

"Excuse me?" Noel was sure he'd misheard. Even though he was casual with his students, it just - it just didn't happen often that any of them would be so disrespectful to him. Not Lucas. Even if he knew more than he ought to about himself.

Lucas just shoved through the open door and walked to Noel's desk, which he sat on top of.

"You're leaving Blake Holsey after we graduate. Why now?"

With a sigh, Noel closed the door shut behind him and sat down in his chair. He looked up at Lucas and was momentarily thrown off by the fact that they were at different heights.

"Well, it just felt like time to move on with this part of my life."

"You 'felt like it'? Feelings aren't much of something to base decisions off of."

"There are other reasons," Z returned.

"Such as what?"

It took a while for him to answer with Lucas staring at him so piercingly from behind his glasses, as if he knew that there wasn't a good reason for it before Z had opened his mouth.

"I want a job that doesn't keep me up at night."

"You want something normal? How could you be content with normalcy ever again?"

"After this whole thing is resolved, the school will be 'normal', Lucas. It would be unsettling."

"What would be unsettling, Z? The normalcy, or the fact that you wouldn't be 'needed' anymore?"

"Lucas-"

"That's it, right?" Lucas was triumphant. "I know what you're talking about. I know what I'm talking about, Z. And the only thing I really know about you is that there's something you want so badly that you're afraid of it, and you're running away. This whole thing that's happening is your fault! You want so much to be wanted, and the way people are acting -- it'll only stop when you're not afraid!"

Hearing Lucas talk like this made Noel more afraid than anything else that had happened for months. And perhaps the only thing that had made Noel more afraid in his entire life was when he'd woken up from a dream and he sat up in his bed, completely alone.

TBC.