Sun and Shadow

Red Means Danger

The next few weeks pass relatively easy for Jude. After dealing with his brothers and sisters giving him nearly unending grief about the whole shower thing, which luckily they did not share with moms after Jude threatened them with similar disclosures, he finally got them to knock it off when Brandon and Jesus threatened to "teach Connor a lesson" causing Jude to laugh at them rather pointedly. They were annoyed till they remembered that even attempting that would probably put the both of them in traction. The both muttered about the unfairness of Jude dating a Super at that point.

Training with Sentinel and Spinster was going well, and at their last bout, both Jude and Connor had managed to actually land a few hits on their instructors. Jude was still spending Tuesday's bruised and battered, but they also discovered that he healed pretty quickly, about three times faster than normal, so he bounced back fairly well.

"Jude!" Connor said walking over to the brunette as Jude exited the transport station. Jude smiled at his boyfriend who looked like he was bouncing with excitement.

"Morning!" Jude said happily grabbing Connor's hand as Connor planted a quick kiss on his cheek. "What's go you all worked up?" he asked with a chuckle.

"I have a new class starting this morning. Professor Sampson is taking a break for about six weeks, so we will have some new classes and I just found out that I will be taking aerial combat!" Connor said excitedly.

Jude smiled at his boyfriend's enthusiasm and walked along to his locker where he saw a note waiting for him. Opening it he saw that he had a new class as well as Connor called "Psychic Warfare and Defense". "Huh?" Jude frowned at the class and showed it to Connor.

"Hey!" Connor frowned. "I want to do that too!" he complained.

Jude just smiled and they headed out to their first class together.

Connor walked out of his first aerial combat class with Professor Maddens. Connor was a little disappointed that they would spend the first two weeks in the classroom learning strategies, techniques, and studying past aerial battles before they got to actually start flying lessons. There were nine people in his class and he was definitely in the top three in terms of speed. Peter was in this class and Connor was really happy about it and Peter loved that he was rated as faster than Connor. Peter had already hit Mach 5 speeds in his testing and he had teased Connor about being a slowpoke.

"Seriously Connor" Peter continued. "I don't want to leave you behind, but you know every second counts" he says with a smirk.

Connor just smiles and grunts. He looks over and sees Jude sitting at a table with an attractive red headed girl that Connor doesn't recognize. "Who's that?" Peter asks seeing Connor looking over at the two talking and laughing. Connor just shrugs not recognizing the girl.

Connor is running late so he has to get to his next class so he doesn't worry about it at that moment and he waves goodbye to Peter who walks to his own class. He sits with Alex and they chat until Jude walks in and sits down next to Connor. "Hey" Jude says with a smile.

"Hey babe" Connor smiles at him and turns to ask him about the girl when their instructor calls the class together to start. By the time it's over Connor has forgotten about it.

Over the next two days he sees the red head again but never with Jude but he notices that she seems to avoid him. He is sitting at lunch when he caught her staring at him with an angry look and when he catches her eye, she quickly looks away and leaves. Connor didn't like the idea that someone didn't like him, especially when he didn't know why, and at that point Jude walks over to the table with Jacob.

"Hey" Jude smiles and moves to give Connor a kiss on the cheek but notices that Connor isn't really paying attention causing Jude to frown. "What's wrong?" Jude asks.