JC tucked his legs underneath him as he curled up on Lance’s couch in the study. He opened up his worn notebook to a clean page and uncapped his pen. This was something he would do every night to get all of his thoughts down because it usually made him feel a little better to write down what he was thinking and feeling. Tonight was no exception. After poising his pen for a minute to collect his thoughts, he began to scribble furiously.

 September 15, 2004 

Chris took me out clubbing tonight. It was all right I guess. He didn’t push me to talk about what happened earlier, which was nice. It seems like he’s trying not to get on my case as much. Just now out in the hallway he didn’t say anything when I said that I was going to stay up for a while. It’s a nice change, but I can’t help but wonder how long it’ll last. 

Based on what Chris said to me in the hallway, it seems that I’m not the only one who’s worried about Lance. But I’m not worried in the same way Chris is. He thinks that Lance needs to see a doctor, but he couldn’t be more wrong. There’s nothing the doctors can do for him. Somehow the demons got to Lance and messed up his head. 

I should’ve done something. I should’ve kept a better eye on him. Maybe if I had none of this would’ve happened. But it has and I have no idea how to fix it. I wonder what would happen if I tried talking to Lance now that he’s gotten so much sicker. Will the cold feeling be 10 times worse? Or will something else happen? I’m not sure I want to know. Who knows what would happen if I were to attempt that. 

Justin had another headache tonight. He seems to be getting headaches a lot. We talked about it and he seemed to think that his headaches were connected to his nightmares, but since he’s not having nightmares anymore…I don’t know what to make of that. I suggested that he go see a doctor if he’s that concerned about it because it would almost be better if there’s something medically wrong with him. At least it would be better than the alternative and certainly a lot easier to fix than the demons being after him. But then again I’m not even sure the demons are after him anymore. I used to think so, but lately nothing has happened to him so maybe they gave up on him and moved onto Lance. 

JC lifted his pen off the paper in thought when he heard a loud crash come from upstairs. Immediately he tossed his notebook and pen to the side and quietly rushed up the stairs, taking two at a time. His first thought was that the demons had come and was trying to hurt Chris or Lance. He reached the second floor in a matter of seconds and almost collided with Chris, who had just come out of his bedroom.

Chris looked over at JC. “You heard that?”

“Yeah,” JC said, leading the way into Lance’s bedroom. That was the only logical place the noise could’ve come from because Lance was the only one except Chris who was sleeping upstairs and Justin fell asleep on the couch.

JC walked into the bedroom, his eyes immediately drawn to the bed where he had hoped Lance would be. But he wasn’t and quickly JC searched the room with frantic eyes for any sign of Lance. When it was obvious that he wasn’t in there, JC crossed the room to enter the bathroom. What JC saw as he crossed the threshold to the bathroom made him stop dead in his tracks causing Chris to walk into him.

“Why…” Chris began, but stopped when he stepped around JC and saw what had shocked him.

Lance was lying on the floor unconscious with little white pills and shards of glass scattered around him. Chris quickly realized that the glass had come from the mirror that hung above the sink. His initial reaction was that Lance had become dizzy while trying to get some aspirin and passed out, breaking the mirror as he fell. But as he looked down at Lance he noticed that there weren’t as many pills littering the floor as there should be.

“Didn’t we just buy him a new bottle of aspirin the other day?” Chris asked JC. He realized that if Lance had fallen while trying to get some medicine then there would be a lot more pills surrounding him. But since there wasn’t Chris’ heart filled with dread as he came to the conclusion that Lance must’ve tried to commit suicide.

“What?” JC asked, not having heard what Chris had said. Chris knew that his voice had probably just jarred JC out of the shock that he was in, but also knew that he couldn’t wait for JC to snap out of it completely because Lance needed help.

Chris knelt down next to Lance and pulled him into a sitting position before dragging him over to the toilet. He lifted the lid and tried to lean Lance up against the side of it, but Lance’s body wasn’t strong enough to stay in an upright position. Just when he was about to try something else, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw JC come sit behind Lance and wrap his arms around him allowing his body to sag against his.

Chris gently opened Lance’s mouth and stuck finger far enough down his throat to induce vomiting. Lance’s body shuddered as his gag reflexes kicked in and JC leaned him closer to the toilet as his body lurched. As his stomach contents were emptied, Lance’s eyes blearily opened. Chris sighed in relief as he looked into the toilet to find a good amount of pills. It seemed like they had gotten to him in time before the pills had time to dissolve.

“Guys!” Chris and JC could hear Justin call from Lance’s bedroom, but neither bothered to get up because they knew that Justin would find them in a minute. Chris listened as Justin’s footsteps grew closer.

“What’s going on…?” Justin trailed off and paled as he caught sight of Lance. Chris knew what a shock it was, but he hoped that Justin would be able to help out.

“J, can you get me a wet washcloth?” Chris asked. As he waited for Justin to get the cold cloth, he glanced over at Lance who was slumped over the toilet with JC rubbing his back soothingly. After a minute he looked over at Justin to see if he had the washcloth only to find that he was still standing in the same spot.

Chris sighed as he stood up and walked over to Justin. He gently squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all right. We’ve got this.”

Justin nodded numbly and left the bathroom. Chris grabbed a clean washcloth from the linen closet and ran it under cold water before he kneeled in front of Lance. He used the cloth to wipe the saliva and bile off Lance’s face. Once he was clean, Chris threw the dirty washcloth into the sink to deal with later.

“Are you ready to get him into bed?” Chris asked JC.

JC nodded. “Yeah.”

JC tried to pull Lance into a standing position with him, but was having trouble since he was pretty much dead weight. Chris grabbed a hold of Lance’s feet and helped to lift him off the bathroom floor, making it easier for JC to pull himself to his feet while holding Lance’s upper half. Together the two of them carried him back into his bedroom and carefully placed him in his bed.

Chris sighed and ran a hand over his face. He looked over at JC who sat on the edge of Lance’s bed staring down at their friend. “I’m going to call Joey. Will you be OK with him?”

“Yeah,” JC said. Chris nodded and walked out of the room. He dreaded calling Joey, but knew it had to be done. Briefly he stopped in his room to grab his cell phone before he walked downstairs into the living room.

He pressed speed dial two and listened to the ringing on the other end for the second time that day since earlier that day he had called Derek. The phone answered with a click after the fourth ring. Chris sat on the couch, unsure of how this conversation was going to go.

“Hey, Chris,” Joey said and yawned into the phone.

“Hey,” Chris replied as he pulled the blanket that Justin had slept with out from underneath him. With his free hand he tossed the blanket lopsidedly to the other end of the couch.

There was a slight pause before Joey asked, “What’s up?”

Chris sighed heavily. “You need to get over here.”

“Why? What happened?” Joey asked his alarm and worry coming through the phone line loud and clear. “Is it JC? Justin?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.” Chris could hear Joey start to protest and added, “You don’t want to hear about this over the phone. Trust me.”

“OK. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Joey said.

“Drive safe, man,” Chris told him.

“I will,” Joey promised. “See you soon.”

“Bye,” Chris said and hung up the phone. He switched the phone in his hand for the remote that had been left on the coffee table by Justin and began to flip through the channels looking for something to watch to get his mind off what had happened.

The only thing he found that was semi-interesting was a rerun of Jerry Springer. It was one of the numerous episodes where a woman had two male lovers and needed a paternity test to determine who the father of her baby was. As Chris watched the woman argue with her ex-boyfriend, he couldn’t help but have his thoughts drift back to what had happened upstairs.

He didn’t understand why Lance would try to kill himself. With the exception of him being sick, he seemed fine. They had sat down as a group a few weeks ago and talked about what had happened in the woods, and as far as he could tell Lance seemed fine. Of course he had thought that about JC and Justin too. And Joey.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” Chris muttered to himself.

All of the guys had a problem dealing with what had happened except him. Was he that cold hearted that what they went through, what he went through, didn’t affect him? He didn’t think so, but if that was the case why didn’t he have a problem?

He was afraid that there could be a mental breakdown in his future. Back in his college days he remembered learning about how some people dealt with traumatic situations by repressing it and not dealing with it like they should. If this was the case then maybe one day unexpectedly he would wake up and feel the need to drink, starve himself, or commit suicide. But then again, there was nothing wrong with not being overly emotional, especially with everything that was happening now. Maybe it was just as well that he didn’t have a problem because someone was going to have to look after Lance and take charge.

Chris turned his attention back to the TV where Jerry Springer had just announced who the father of the child was and watched as the two men began to fight with each other, trying to throw punches. The bouncers split them up and held them apart. He continued to watch the last fifteen minutes of the show. Once it ended he turned off the TV and walked into the kitchen to get a drink when he heard shouting coming from the foyer and the front door shut.

“Chris!” Joey called. Chris walked towards the front door only to run into Joey in the hallway. Joey was wide-eyed and looked upset. “What happened?”

“Come sit down and I’ll tell you,” Chris said, leading the way to the kitchen. He pulled out a chair to sit in and waited until Joey did the same. Taking a deep breath, he looked into Joey’s eyes. “It’s Lance. He…uh…tried to kill himself.”

Joey’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He spluttered, “What? How? Why?”

“I don’t know the why, but we found him in the bathroom unconscious with pills around him,” Chris said. “It took a minute to figure out what he did.”

“So you’re saying he overdosed?” Joey asked.

“Tried to, yeah. We had to make him throw the pills up,” Chris said.

“We?”

“Me and JC.” Chris continued, “We got him back into bed.”

“How is he?” Joey asked.

“I think he’s going to be fine.” Chris paused before adding, “JC’s sitting with him now.”

Joey nodded and Chris knew that he was trying to wrap his head around everything that he had told him. A minute later Joey broke the silence. “So what do we do? Should we take him to the hospital?”

“No.” Chris shook his head. “I think he’s OK now. We got to him in time before the majority of the pills dissolved. And he was kind of conscious when we made him puke them up.”

“What was he thinking?” Joey asked looking pissed off.

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know, Joe. He obviously wasn’t as OK with what had happened as we thought if he was depressed enough to want to take his own life.”

“Does he have any idea how selfish that was?” Joey continued as if he hadn’t heard Chris. “He would’ve left us behind to cope with his death. And you know JC would be a mess. We’ve already had to deal with so much. This would’ve put us over the edge.”

“But he doesn’t know about everything that’s happened recently,” Chris protested. “Besides, he’s going to be all right. We don’t have to wonder about what would’ve happened if he’d succeeded.”

“He would’ve if you and JC hadn’t helped him. I can only imagine how JC reacted when he saw him,” Joey said.

“He didn’t react as bad as you’re thinking,” Chris said. “In fact Justin was worse than JC.”

Joey raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“I asked him to get me a wash cloth and he just stood there. Not moving, not blinking, nothing. So I told him we got it and he left. He was really out of it,” Chris explained.

“And how did JC react?”

“He was shocked for a minute, but then jumped in to help me take care of Lance,” Chris told him.

“Really? He didn’t freak out?”

“No, he was fine. I think today was his breaking point. We went out earlier and he had a good time.” Chris paused. “Too bad it couldn’t last.”

“I don’t understand how he could’ve done this,” Joey said.

“Well, he’s been really out of it lately. Maybe he wasn’t aware of how many pills he took.”

“What are you saying? That he could’ve done this accidentally?” Joey asked.

“I think it’s possible. I mean, it had to have taken a lot to get himself out of bed and into the bathroom considering how weak he’s been,” Chris said. “But of course we won’t know what his state of mind was until we talk to him.”

Joey gave Chris an inquisitive look. “Why aren’t you mad?”

“Because it’s not his fault. If anything it’s our fault for not keeping a better eye on him and not realizing sooner that he had a problem. We keep saying that we’re going to look out for each other, but then stuff like this happens,” Chris replied.

“There has to be a reason this stuff keeps happening to us,” Joey said.

“I don’t think there is. Sometimes these things just happen,” Chris said.

“Well, I’m sick of it!” Joey slammed his fist onto the kitchen table. “What did we ever do to deserve any of this?”

“Nothing,” Chris said. He was a little surprised at Joey’s anger, but he couldn’t blame him. It was frustrating having to deal with another problem, especially when they thought they were finally on the path back to normalcy.

“Exactly. It’s been one thing after another ever since we stayed at that cabin,” Joey replied.

“I know, Joe, but there’s nothing we can do about it.” Chris paused before he added, “Maybe this will be the last thing.”

“Maybe,” Joey agreed. He rose from the table. “I’m going to go see Lance now.”

Chris nodded. “I’ll check on Justin.”

Joey and Chris walked upstairs, but went in opposite directions when they reached the top of the stairs with Joey making a left to enter Lance’s bedroom. Chris turned right and walked down the hall to Justin’s room, figuring that’s where he was. He knocked lightly on the closed door and heard light rustling before the door opened.

“Hey,” Chris greeted, taking in Justin’s rumbled clothes and red eyes.

“Hi.” Justin paused before he asked, “How’s Lance?”

“He’s doing all right. Joey just went in to see him,” Chris said. “I’m about to go in too. Come on.”

Justin shook his head. “No.”

“Why?” Chris asked.

“I…I can’t see him like that,” Justin said quietly. “I just can’t.”

“OK.” Chris nodded. He didn’t want to push Justin because he knew that would help since he was so upset. It would be best if he gave Justin some time to himself, but he planned on telling JC about this because he would probably be the best person to talk to Justin. Chris squeezed Justin’s shoulder. “You can see him when you’re ready.”

“I’m sorry,” Justin said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Chris hugged him. As he pulled away he noticed Justin’s questioning look and said, “It looked like you needed one.”

“Thanks,” Justin whispered as he let of Chris.

Chris clapped him on the shoulder. “Get some rest, dude.”

“OK,” Justin agreed. “Night.”

“Night,” Chris said before he stepped out of the doorway and the door closed gently behind him. He walked down the hall towards Lance’s room to hear JC and Joey talking.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, C,” Joey said.

“What’s not a good idea?” Chris asked as he walked into Lance’s room to find JC still sitting on the edge of Lance’s bed with Joey sitting next to him. He sat himself down on the opposite edge of the bed.

JC glanced at Joey briefly before he looked over at Chris. “I want to go in Lance’s head.”

“Why?” Chris asked.

“Because I want to find out what’s wrong with him,” JC said.

“We already know what’s wrong with him. He’s depressed,” Chris replied.

“No, he’s not,” JC objected.

“Then why did he try to kill himself?” Chris challenged.

“Something made him do it,” JC said.

“Something made him do it?” Chris repeated. A few seconds passed before a light of realization crossed his face. “You’re talking about the demons, aren’t you? You think they had something to do with this?”

“Well…yeah,” JC admitted.

“What are you expecting to find if you go in there?” Chris asked.

JC shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that it wouldn’t hurt to look.”

“You can do that while he’s sleeping?” Joey asked.

“Yeah, I think so. It’s not like our connection disappears when we sleep, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to,” JC said.

Joey looked curious. “How are you going to get into his head?”

“I’m not really sure, but I think I need to focus on Lance and picture myself in his head.” JC paused before adding, “But I have no idea what’s going to happen after that. I’ve never done this before.”

Chris crossed his arms. “How do you know it’s even going to work?”

“Lance did it to me to find out what my nightmares were about,” JC said.

Chris nodded. He remembered Lance telling him about that a couple days ago. But Joey looked surprised. “He did?”

“Yeah, so I don’t think I should have a problem getting in,” JC replied.

“OK. Let’s say we let you do this. What if, and that’s a big if, there is actually something…evil in his head. What if something happens to you?” Chris asked.

“That was my point,” Joey spoke up.

“If something does happen, I think I can handle it,” JC said with a look of determination. It was obvious that he had thought this through while he had been left alone with Lance. That wasn’t good because JC was so stubborn that once he got an idea in his head, he had to go through with it.

“But what if you can’t?” Chris pressed.

JC sighed. “You guys are concerned. I get it, but you have to let me do this. I’ve had a feeling that something’s off with Lance ever since he got sick.”

“That could mean nothing,” Joey said.

“Or it could mean everything,” JC countered. “Let me at least try to see if I can find anything. I’m connected to Lance in a way that you guys aren’t. You have to trust me on this.”

Joey and Chris exchanged glances before Chris spoke, “Fine, but we’re going to be in here while you’re in there in case anything happens.”

“OK,” JC agreed.

“How soon do you want to do this?” Joey asked.

“Right now,” JC said.

Joey frowned. “Shouldn’t we wait until morning? Give everyone time to get some sleep?”

“We need to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible,” JC replied.

“Fine,” Chris agreed. He could only hope that this goes as well as JC thought it would because he didn’t want to have something else to deal with on top of everything else. Honestly he didn’t believe what JC had said about the demons being behind Lance’s suicide attempt, but he did believe something could go wrong. Chris just hoped nothing would.