Journalistic Instinct

"So who else knows about this?"

Dawn stroked Joey's chest tenderly as they lay in together in her bed. For once they hadn't gone there to fuck, at least not immediately, but because she felt her partner needed to cool off after how dangerously worked up he had got himself earlier. She also needed to take some time out herself to process what she had just learned about Joey, so they had gone straight to her place from what had been an extremely intense and eventful interview.

Dawn had persuaded Joey to let Alec delete the inflammatory posts he had been **** to write. She figured neither of them wanted any blood on their hands, and Joey's point had been made extremely effectively. The fact Dawn's former nemesis now had to live with the knowledge he probably owed his life to her was a quite delicious bonus. However, there was now an awful lot more to unpack beyond that particular encounter..

"Kayleigh obviously knows everything since she was there when it happened. Liv doesn't know the whole story, but she's aware of what I can do, and now I've been through it all with you. That's it" Joey had decided, for a multitude of reasons, to leave Charlie's name out of this whole conversation "I'm sorry you saw me using my powers in such a destructive way. I've honestly never done anything like that with them before"

"It's okay, that guy really brings it out in people" Dawn reassured Joey, with a kiss on the shoulder for emphasis "Also, you did it because you were protecting me, so I can hardly get mad at you for that. Although, for future reference, I'm a big girl and I can look after myself"

"Yeah, I know" Joey nodded, still a little shamefaced at just how out of control Dawn had seen him become "So are you going to write about this? It's a huge story"

"In case you haven't worked it out by now, we've reached a point where you're more important to me than any story could be. Seeing how worked up you got on my behalf, I'm beginning to think you might be on the same page with that"

It was starting to feel like the 'no strings attached' element of this arrangement had become very fuzzy. Looking back, Joey was surprised just how much that threat to Dawn had affected him emotionally.

"Also, I can't tell you how appreciative I am that you trusted me with this" she continued "You could have just made me forget it ever happened, right?"

"Yeah, but I would never do that to someone I care about"

"Aww, Joey" Dawn gave his balls an affectionate tickle "Just know that your secret is safe with me. I love what we have with each other, whatever you might call it, so there's no way I would ever jeopardise that. We should definitely do a little private investigation of our own though, some subtle digging into where that stuff you got covered in came from"

"I think it was supposed to be Russia"

"Why? That makes no sense, Joey! Surely the Russians would be manufacturing any prototype mind controlling formulas they were working on in Moscow, not Bumfuck, Connecticut" she quickly caught herself "Sorry, no offence intended, speaking as someone who hails proudly from Bumfuck, Iowa"

"None was taken"

"Instinctively, everything about this feels off"

"How do you mean?"

Dawn rolled onto her side so she was facing Joey, then rested her head on his chest, gazing up at him as she recounted his version of events.

"So your small town local paper got an anonymous tip off that this gunk existed, and whoever it was that called knew exactly where it was and what it did. They claimed it was the Russians who made it, right?"

"Yeah"

"Then you get to the warehouse they directed you to, the door has been left open, nobody is guarding this stuff, or monitoring it or anything, it's just there"

"Yeah, we walked in and it was over at the other end of the room"

"Right, then the second you move towards it, the thing explodes onto you, but while you were at a safe enough distance not to get hurt, just covered in gunk"

"That's pretty much exactly how it happened, yeah"

"It feels like a set up"

"What?"

"Like somebody wanted you, or at least someone like you, covered in that goo. A reporter they could then have at their disposal, who had the power to make anyone believe anything"

"Um..."

"Although I'd have expected a men in black type visit afterwards, people claiming to have figured out your secret and offering to protect you in exchange for your help - writing articles for them, or whatever. But you're saying that never happened right? At least not yet"

"Yeah"

No way was Joey throwing Charlie under the bus, even if what Dawn was saying had an alarming ring of truth about it. At the very least, he needed more information on what her role in all of this was first. He was increasingly getting the impression she was at odds with her bosses over how they wanted her to use him. Those trips under the stairs were definitely Charlie going off the grid without permission. Almost nothing seemed to worry her under normal circumstances, but she got noticeably edgy if they stayed there long enough to risk it being picked up as an anomaly by the AI.

"That's the bit I don't understand. Still, it's only a theory, and evidently not a perfect one" Dawn looked thoughtful for a moment "Okay, please don't take this the wrong way, but I have to ask. How long after this happened did you get the job offer from Post?"

"A few days"

Dawn paused for a while and nodded to herself as she calculated all of this.

"We need to take a road trip to your home town. You can show me where you're from, we can spend the night in a motel together, and we can do some investigating. If I'm right, and that stuff was used on you deliberately, they would have to know they could make more of it - you were probably just the test run. This could become a major problem for everyone if it goes unchecked"

"Sure, I'm game for that"

"Perfect, I'm looking forward to this already!" now bubbling over with excitement, Dawn decided that had been enough cooling down time and climbed on top of Joey "We're going to be an unstoppable team now you've got this super power. I'm starting to feel like Lois Lane"

She leaned down and kissed Joey passionately, before another thought occurred, and made her bounce back up with a sudden burst of energy.

"Hey, is there any sexy stuff you can do with your mind manipulation powers?"

"Yeah, I can make people see fantasy as reality and use that for hyper realistic role playing, stuff like that"

"Oh God!" Dawn practically squealed as she rubbed Joey's dick with vigour to get him ready for her urgently "This is going to be the best road trip ever!"