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Obsession
by Jade Marmalade
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The dream started as it always did.  He was wandering in the desert that had 
once been his hopes and dreams.  Fierce heat beat down on him.  He was 
addled, lost, confused . . . . . and afraid.  Then, off in the distance he 
saw a figure drawing closer, coming toward him over the dunes.  A green 
speck growing larger.  Much larger.  The creature roared and his terror 
spiked.  It was monstrous, with huge inhuman muscles and a look of pure rage 
on it's bestial face.  It reached one gigantic hand toward him and he 
cringed away.  Then, all of the sudden the dream changed.  Instead of waking 
drenched in fear-sweat, he heard a voice.

"Stop."

He turned toward the voice in confusion.  That voice . . . . . he knew that 
voice!  He tried to make out the face of the newcomer who had stopped the 
beast.  But he could see the other's face.  The man was silhouette against 
the sun.  The stranger's shadow cooled his skin and he felt . . . . . safe.

"Go."  The stranger pointed to the horizon and with one last roar, the green 
creature ran off.  He watched it go until he felt the arms of the faceless 
man go around him.  He buried his face in the stranger's shoulder, hiding 
his tears.  Oddly, the other man smelled of charred wood and the dust of 
long, lonely roads.

"Shh, it's okay now.  I won't let it hurt you.  I won't hurt you."

He pulled away and peered up into the face of his savior but it was still 
indistinct.  In frustration, he reached up and touched the other man's face. 
  He felt the muscles there pull into a smile and suddenly the man leaned 
forward and he found himself receiving the most passionate kiss he'd ever 
felt.

That was when he finally awoke; gasping, sweating, tears running down his 
face, his lips tingling from the phantom kiss . . . . . and his cock half 
hard.

Jack McGee sobbed as it all finally became clear to him.  His obsession with 
the Hulk had become an obsession for the man that became the Hulk.

"John..." he groaned as he palmed his dick and his erection grew.  He felt 
consumed, unable to stop.  To do *this* while thinking of *him* . . . . .  
But Jack couldn't help himself.  Everything -- his whole life, all his 
thoughts and actions -- everything revolved around John.  His phantom lover 
had dark, curly brown hair that was soft and luxurious to the touch.  Jack 
closed his eyes and could almost *feel* the mysterious John Doe's body 
against his own.  Average height and weight with a wiry, lanky build and 
slightly younger than Jack himself.  His voice was mellow and Jack imagined 
it whispering words of lust and trust to him.  But he still couldn't picture 
the other's face.

Jack fisted his cock and came, pumping upward, striving for contact that 
wasn't there.  He lay in his lonely bed, tangled in sweaty sheets, the 
wetness of his come drying on his stomach, and all he could think was how 
pitiful he had become.

Jack McGee was a reporter for the National Register, a news rag whose news 
wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.  The Register concerned itself 
with UFO sightings, three-headed wolf babies, images of the Virgin Mary in 
potato chips . . . . . and the incredible Hulk.  Jack *knew*, beyond a 
shadow of a doubt, that the Hulk existed.  But few people who hadn't seen 
the creature believed it was real, even with photographs and sworn witness 
statements for verification, and Jack was a laughingstock in serious 
journalistic circles.  Once, long ago, Jack had dreams and ambitions to be a 
great investigative journalist, to win a Pulitzer, to be remembered as a 
serious reporter who broke important news.  Somewhere along the way, though, 
Jack had been left on the wayside.  He never got that one big story that 
would launch his career, never earned the respect of his peers.  He'd ended 
up working at the Register.  The Hulk was his last hope, his *only* hope, to 
make a name for himself.  The Hulk was all he had.

Or rather, all he *didn't* have.  He'd come so close, so many times!  In the 
beginning, he hadn't known that the Hulk was a Mr. Hyde, a creature some 
normal man turned into.  Jack had wondered how such a large and 
attention-attracting creature got from city to city without being spotted.  
Then an injured drifter with amnesia and no identification had been found at 
the scene of a Hulk sighting.  Jack had rushed to this John Doe's side.  
He'd convinced the man to come with him.  But their plane had crashed and 
Jack's leg was broken and they found themselves in the middle of a raging 
forest fire.  John had saved him, dragging him through the flames to safety. 
  And Jack had seen him change into the incredible Hulk to do it.  It had 
been a revelation.  Jack had been astounded by one brief, shinning instant 
of understanding in that deadly inferno.  The real irony of the whole thing, 
though, was that Jack had never seen his savior's face.  John Doe had been 
injured in the car crash at the last Hulk sighting and his face had been 
wrapped in gauze.  Jack had laughed until he cried over that.

He got out of bed and fumbled toward the bathroom in the dark.  He flipped 
the switch and harsh light flooded over him, making Jack flinch away.  He 
turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it and got in.  The burning 
water sluiced over his body and soothed his knotted muscles.

Heat.  It was always heat and fire with the Hulk.  Even that last time in 
the steel factory had all been heat.  Jack wondered about that.  Had he 
dropped the gun loaded with curare-tipped darts because he really didn't 
*want* to catch the Hulk?  But he did!  More than anything else in the 
world, he wanted to catch the Hulk.  He wanted John Doe.  Maybe it was 
because of Patty.  Had her presence there made him fumble and allow the 
escape of his obsession?  Did he perhaps not want to share the capture, not 
share John?

Patty had briefly taken over from her father as publisher of the National 
Register.  She hadn't believed in the Hulk until he'd proved it to her in 
that steel factory.  Jack had the sinking feeling that Patty had been his 
last hope for a sane life.  She had almost convinced him to give up his 
quest.  There had been a mutual attraction between the two of them, but his 
fixation had gotten in the way again.  After their "date" to investigate a 
Hulk sighting in Toledo, it had quietly fallen apart between them before a 
relationship had even really started.

Jack saw the Hulk everywhere.  In his minds eye, every act of violence 
reminded him of the creature.  The Hulk was fury given form, rage 
personified, pure destruction.  It scared Jack terribly but the creature 
also fascinated him.  And the man behind the Hulk -- the Dr. Jekyll to it's 
Mr. Hyde -- was his obsession.  Patty hadn't stood a chance against that.

The water had turned cold and Jack shut the shower off.  As he toweled 
himself off, Jack wished he could just wipe away his need to find John Doe 
as easily.  He wished he had never gone to interview Dr. David Banner and 
Dr. Elaina Marks and first found out about the existence of the creature.  
He wished he'd never interviewed an amnesiac hitch-hiker with a burnt face 
who had turned out to *be* the Hulk.  He wished he'd never even heard of the 
giant green monster!

Jack let out a bark of deprecating laughter.  "Now that's not really true, 
is it Jack?" he said aloud to his own reflection in the cracked bathroom 
mirror.

He wished he'd gotten the chance to speak to Dr. Banner and Dr. Marks a lot 
*more* before their untimely deaths at the hand of the creature.  He wished 
he'd seen the face of that amnesiac vagrant.  He wished he could capture 
jade behemoth!

"Brrrrrrrrrring!"  His phone rang and startled Jack out of his contemplation 
of the shattered image he beheld in his mirror.  It was barely dawn and 
nobody cared about him enough to call him except his job, and even they 
wouldn't unless it was important, so he hurried to answer it.

"Yes?" he answered roughly and then cleared his throat.  His voice was raw 
with emotion.

"Mr. McGee?  Um, th-there's been a new Hulk sighting in, um--" he heard the 
rustle of papers as the intern on the other end shuffled some papers "in 
Plano.  Er, that's in Texas."

Jack sighed.  The Register didn't attract the brightest bunch of reporters, 
but this kid was ridiculous.  "Have you booked me a flight?"

"Uh, no."

"Then get on it!  I'll be over in a half hour to pick up the information and 
then I'm leaving for the airport and you better have a ticket waiting for me 
there!"

"Y-yes, sir!"

Jack hung up and started to get ready.  The despair that had threatened to 
overwhelm him earlier was dissipating with the anticipation of the coming 
hunt.  He *would* find John Doe this time!  He *would* capture the Hulk!  
Nothing else mattered, such was the magnitude of his obsession.

Jack smiled on his way out the door as he thought of a mystery man with soft 
hair, smooth skin, and a terrible secret.