Chasing Fate (Sentinel & Guide)

Chapter 23

[It's been a while, here are some updates, written on my phone, please forgive errors]
Jack was guilty.
GUILTY.

He felt like a teenager who’d just discovered he liked girls. Specifically one girl… one girl whose scent covered the entire bathroom like a fog.

He may have miscalculated the effect his guide’s scent really had on him.

He didn’t realize his mistake until he rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door, locking himself in with the heavy scent of his guide. Of course her home had smelled of her, as had her bed, but it hadn’t been concentrated like this, with molecules drifting on the fog. Even in her bathroom, she had very little dirty laundry to speak of, what she did have was already covered in snow and watered down. He’d managed to shower the night before with very little issue.

This was a whole other league of distracting. There was the now familiar scent of the oils she put on her hair, her soap and lotion, and like a beacon, her towel. She’d tried to put it somewhere unobtrusive, folded neatly under the sink, but it may as well have been glowing to sentinel senses.  Jack’s blood vessels were working over time shooting blood from his blushing face to the embarrassing friend below the belt. Definitely felt like a teenager. It took all of his self control not to bring the towel with him into the shower.

As he turned the shower on to ice cold he prayed that she could only feel general snippets of emotion and wouldn’t realize what he was up to as he alleviated some of his stress. The cold did very little to calm him down, if anything it cleared the remaining shower fog and made the scent of that damned towel even sharper.  Biting his lip he was determined to scrub up, not do anything ungentlemanly, and hop out.

Needless to say it was one of the best and longest showers in his life.

He emerged half an hour later with his hair in a towel and his jeans on as he finished drying up. After the third round he’d determined that he needed to get out before he rubbed himself raw. Fate was doing a much better job of pretending she knew nothing as she scrolled idly on her phone. She didn’t even look up.

The shirt he’d forgotten was laid out on the bed, still warm from the iron. Jack furrowed his brow in confusion, it was a cotton v-neck and didn’t need that level of care. He wasn’t complaining though, the slight scent of her hand lotion was on the shoulders where she’d been holding it to iron. He smiled a little at the nice feeling.

He’d just thrown on his shirt when the phone rang to announce their pick up was outside, prompt and ready at 4:30 AM, as promised. They would land in LA around 8AM  local time and try to beat the morning traffic out to the Hammond estate. Hopefully everything would be on time. Rush hour was hell on sentinel senses.

This was their first commercial flight as well. He thumbed the little travel kit he kept in his toiletry bag. Would he need it? He’d also selected a sentinel friendly seating arrangement again this time. It was a five hour flight, he couldn’t be too cautious.

The mere idea of it was already making him tense. Since their itinerary was private, they didn’t want to risk discovery by having a huge security detail at the airport. At 4AM on a Sunday the airport wasn’t terribly crowded but Jack found himself pulling Fate closer under his arm, his eyes scanning intensely for threats. An airport employee came to greet them from the car and lead them to the shortest line.

The real issue came up at the TSA screener. Of course sentinels worked as screeners, it was an effective outlet for sentinels with only one or two sensitivities, usually smell or hearing. Jack didn’t want to lose touch with Fate for even one second in an area so open and stinking of other sentinels, most of them unbonded. They went through the specialized line but still Jack’s subvocal growling had the poor guide in charge of their station on pins and needles.

He went through the scanner first, his ears perked to listen for any suspicious ticks in the machinery. Everyone held their breath. You could always tell a new bonded sentinel by how touchy they were about their guide. This one was on another level. If he had hackles, they’d be standing straight up. He radiated aggression and looked like he could back it up with ease. The nulls worried they’d need to call security. After he stepped out and didn’t set off any pings requiring a body inspection, everyone let out a sigh of relief.

But, unfortunately for everyone in the vicinity, Fate’s situation was not the same. Jack was trying to radiate calm as he grabbed their bags from the conveyor when he heard the little ping from the scanner.

“Ma’am we need to do a check, is it alright?”

Fate had already nodded and the female agent had reached out to check her hair when she suddenly found nearly 7 feet of angry sentinel blocking her path. She almost cowered in fear at the sound of an alpha sentinel’s no-longer inaudible growling. His eyes however weren’t fixated on her, but on the poor sentinel three scanners away, who was unbonded and had his eyes fixed on Fate. Jack looked ready to leap the dividers and rip his eyes out. He made a move as if to do so when Fate cautiously put her hand on his bicep. She was trembling minutely despite her face appearing calm.

“Perhaps a private room?” she offered quietly. The collective fear that had been dampened by Jacks presence spiked when his rage spiked, and the combination was still very nauseating. After just a day on even keel her body was reacting poorly to the spikes that had been her normal.

Jack could smell the fear sweat beading on his guide’s forehead and feel the chill of her hand as her heart rate increased. He could asl ofeel what his rage and the fear in the surroundings was doing to her. Forcing himself to calm, he nodded, “Yes, a private room.”

The null agent nodded quickly, ushering them to a tiny room off to the side while another null security agent trotted to take their bags from the conveyor. The few remaining lines instantly snapped back to work as though nothing had happened. None of the passengers commented if the sentinel dropped a few of their bags with his shaking hands.
In the private room Jack calmed down considerably. It smelled terrible and strong, the residue of thousands of people’s fear sweat and attempts at disinfecting every surface gave it that strange gym afterscent. Jack wrinkled his nose but didn’t detect any fresh scents. They were the first in there today. The agent seemed to have regained her bearings when Jack’s overwhelming growl had reduced to something subvocal again.

“Since this is only a head check we can do it right here,” she offered, stepping away from the big black partition screen. The way this sentinel was standing guard over the guide meant he was unlikely to agree to relinquish his grip on her hand. She was silently thankful that her leggings and bra hadn’t set off the machine.

The guide was much nicer to deal with. It was calming just to be around her. She let out a deep breath as her word tracks came naturally to mind. She changed her gloves, checked and patted her soft hair, swabbed her shoulders and poked about on the little machine. As usual her hair oils gave a minor positive but honestly that was just how stupid the machine was. It really hated big hair.

As she gave them the all clear and sent them on their way she gave out a huge sigh. Hopefully they wouldn’t even think about getting on another plane until they had finished solidifying their bond. That guy looked like he could bench press a boar! If he went on rampage they’d need more than just the security on hand to take him down.

After that ordeal, they still had a bit of time before boarding. Jack was still in mother-hen mode as he constantly checked over Fate. He didn’t quite know why he needed to , only that her tiny moment of discomfort had set him off in the worst way. Her vitals had relatively calmed, though as the sun began to peek through the large airport windows, it was around the time that her body began to wake up along with her mind.