Chris walked into the kitchen to make himself some lunch. He entered to find Lance making soup. He opened the fridge as he began to look for something good to eat.

“Still not feeling well?”

Lance turned to face Chris as he shook his head. “No. I don’t understand why I’m not. Normally I’m better by now.”

“Maybe you have a sucky immune system,” Chris joked as he abandoned the fridge to look in the cupboards.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Lance rolled his eyes. “I’m serious. This cold feels different. Like I can’t seem to think clearly.”

“Maybe it’s the flu,” Chris suggested.

“In the middle of summer?” Lance asked with a raised eyebrow.

Chris shrugged. “You’re the freak who got a cold in the middle of summer.”

“Is that what you’re going to have for lunch?” Lance ignored Chris’ comment as he gestured to the can of Spaghettios that Chris had found in the back of the cupboard.

“Yeah. Why?” Chris emptied the can into a bowl and placed it into the microwave and set the timer for two minutes.

“Because it’s probably expired,” Lance said.

“It’s not.”

Lance poured his soup into a bowl and brought it over to the kitchen table. “How do you know? Did you check?”

“No. They smelled all right so I think I’m good,” Chris said. Lance looked repulsed at the idea. A minute later the Spaghettios were done and Chris joined Lance at the table.

They ate in silence and Lance used that time to think. He’d gone upstairs a half hour ago to look for a contract he was working on and discovered that JC was still sleeping. He wondered what time JC fell asleep last night since it was almost one o’clock and he still wasn’t up yet.

Lance glanced over at Chris briefly. Lance considered bringing up JC and his sleeping habits lately, but doubted Chris had noticed. Not because Chris didn’t care, Lance knew he did, but because he’d been better than any of the guys at reading JC ever since they’d been connected telepathically. After another minute of debating whether or not he should bring it up or not he decided that it couldn’t hurt to see if Chris was worried.

“JC’s still sleeping, huh?”

“Yeah, seems like it,” Chris said before he shoved another spoonful into his mouth.

“Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?” Lance asked.

“JC sleeping?” Chris pretended to look shocked. “Call the cavalry.”

“I’m serious, Chris.” Lance blew on his soup as he waited for Chris to say something.

Chris sighed as he got up from the table to grab a Pepsi out of the fridge. “He does seem a little tired, but I doubt it’s anything serious.”

“Why not?” Lance asked.

“Because it’s not like he’s been distant like he was earlier,” Chris said. Lance thought back to about a month ago when JC had been the worst. He had spent any free time he had in his room except when they got together as a group. But even then he always had his notebook with him and would hardly talk to anyone.

Lance knew that his behavior was mostly caused by the nightmares he had. He recognized that dreaming about your friends dying is a hard thing to live with and that he must still be affected by it even if he wasn’t having the nightmares anymore. Lance just hoped that JC would open up sooner than before if he was having a real hard time with it.

“What if he’s pretending like everything’s fine, but he stays up at night thinking about it?”

“You think he’s hiding things from us again?” Chris asked as he returned to the table and resumed eating his Spaghettios.

“I don’t know.” Lance paused, remembering what Justin had mentioned yesterday about the two of them being up at four in the morning. “I think he’s been talking to Justin.”

He let his mind wander as he thought back to how jealous Justin had been when he found out that he and JC had become closer. It had been understandable though. He and JC had spent a lot of time together trying to figure out how their newfound ability worked. There was one time in particular where Justin had asked JC if he wanted to shoot some basketball with him and Lance had stepped in saying that he and JC had something they needed to take care of. Justin had walked away saying that he would see if Joey or Chris was interested instead, but it was easy to see that he was bummed. It seemed like that was resolved now though, and Lance was glad. Although he had to admit that it felt weird to not have JC talk to him anymore.

Chris’ voice pulled Lance out of his thoughts. “Well, if he’s talking to someone then he’s fine.”

“I guess.” Lance sighed. “I just wish I could know what was going through his head.”

“You can, can’t you?” Chris asked as he picked up his now empty bowl and deposited it in the dishwasher.

Lance shook his head. “No way, not after last time.”

“Last time?” Chris looked curious. “What happened last time?”

“I wanted to know what his nightmares were about so I read his mind without his permission. When he found out what I had done, he flipped. There’s no way I’m doing that again,” Lance said.

“So what do you want to do then?” Chris asked.

Lance was about to reply but shut his mouth tightly as JC walked into the kitchen effectively cutting off their conversation. Lance and Chris exchanged nervous glances. JC briefly looked over at Chris and Lance before raising an eyebrow as he reached for a chocolate donut.

“Ha! See! What did I tell you?” Chris pointed at the donut that JC began to eat. “I knew you’d steal some of my donuts.”

JC shook his head as he ignored Chris. “What are you guys doing?”

“Nothing much,” Lance said.

“We should do something,” Chris said. “Like basketball.”

“That’s a good idea,” JC said as he finished off his donut. “We haven’t done that in a while.”

“Cool. Are you going to join us or do you have work to do?” Chris turned to Lance who was just now rinsing out his empty bowl and putting it into the dishwasher.

“No. I think I’m going to try to get rid of this thing by relaxing. I can’t focus anyway,” Lance said.

“Are you OK?” JC asked. Lance recognized the concern in JC’s eyes. He knew that his ability to read JC’s feelings was reciprocal. He was quick to ease JC’s worry.

“I’m fine,” Lance said.

“Well, yell if you need something,” JC said to Lance before turning to Chris. “I’ll get Justin and we’ll meet you outside.” He left the kitchen and walked into the living room where he found Justin watching TV.

“Hey,” JC said and Justin looked up from the screen where Kool was advertising the latest flavor of Kool-Aid. “What’s up?”

“Watching TV,” Justin said as he motioned to the TV with the remote that was in his hand. “Sleep well?”

Justin nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good.” JC didn’t really believe that, especially with the way he looked, but he knew that now wasn’t the time to get into it. He paused before asking, “Do you want to play basketball with me and Chris?”

“Sure.” Justin shrugged as he turned off the TV and rose from the couch. “JC?”

“Yeah?” JC asked. He turned around and noticed that Justin wasn’t following him outside.

“About last night…can you…not mention it to the others?” Justin asked quietly.

“Sure, J. If that’s what you want,” JC said. Justin nodded.

“Thanks,” Justin said.

“No problem.” JC threw an arm over Justin’s shoulders as the two of them walked outside where they saw Chris already shooting baskets.

“How do we want to do this?” JC asked as they joined Chris on the court.

“Me and you against Justin since he thinks he’s better than us,” Chris said.

“Whatever. Pass the ball, old man,” Justin said. Chris passed the ball and the game was underway.

The three of them ran back and forth with Chris and JC on defense most of the time. About fifteen minutes later Chris made his first basket of the game. JC looked over at Justin and noticed that he seemed winded, which was odd considering they hadn’t been playing very long.

“Are you all right, Just?” JC asked.

Chris looked over at Justin and noticed that he was breathing heavier than he did when they played basketball. “Who’s the old man now?”

“You are,” Justin said as he grabbed the ball from Chris, ran down the court, and successfully shot a lay-up.

JC frowned again. That was what Justin would usually do when Chris would tease him while they were playing, but it didn’t look like he was having much fun. Justin didn’t tease Chris back and seemed to just be going through the motions. He was beginning to think that maybe he hadn’t gotten as much sleep as JC thought he did. That thought was confirmed when Justin walked over to where JC and Chris were still standing and he noticed that his eyes looked half closed.

“What are you guys doing?” Justin placed the ball on his hip, noticing the two of them just standing there. “Are we still playing?”

“No,” JC said as he shook his head. He knew that he should end the game before Justin got too tired. “I’m thirsty. I’m going to go in to get a drink.”

“Party pooper,” Chris said but followed JC in the house with Justin bringing up the rear.

Later that night JC sat in front of the computer in Lance’s study. He sighed as he continued searching for the meaning behind the nightmares that he and Justin shared. He had decided earlier that the first step in figuring out why Justin was having his nightmares was to find out what they meant.

He had started an hour ago and so far he was getting nowhere. He had begun at Google and typed in “interpreting dreams.” It took him to a website that had a dream dictionary where he could look up the meanings of the different things from his nightmares. The first thing he had looked up was “death” and “die,” which wasn’t useful at all. It said that to dream of friends dying meant that a part of his personality was diminishing.

He had also looked up woods and hadn’t had a lot of luck there either. He managed to find one sentence that was kind of what he was looking for. It had said that the woods symbolized the unknown and unconscious, but that was too vague for JC. He kept searching and currently he was looking up “friends.”

“Friends in your dream foretells of happy tidings from them and the arrival of good news,” JC read softly aloud and then scoffed. “Yeah right.”

He moved onto looking up immobility. He found that to dream that he was immobile signified feelings of being trapped or that he is rigid in his attitudes and decisions. JC sighed in frustration.

“Hey.”

JC jumped in his chair and turned to see Chris in the doorway. “Hey.”

“I’m going to go to bed now,” Chris said as he motioned towards the stairs.

“OK. Goodnight,” JC said as he gave Chris a weird look.

Chris started down the hall before he turned around and walked further into the room. He had originally poked his head into Lance’s study because he had seen the light on, but now he realized that maybe Lance had a point about JC not sleeping enough. “Are you going to bed anytime soon? It’s after two.”

“Yeah, in a little bit,” JC replied.

“You should be sleeping,” Chris said after a few seconds of scrutinizing JC. His eyes were red and he was hunched over the computer, as if he was too tired to hold himself up. Chris could hear Lance in his head saying that something was going on.

“I’m fine,” JC replied as he tried to stifle a yawn.

Chris gave him a knowing look. “You haven’t got a lot of sleep the past couple of days.”

“I’ve gotten enough,” JC said.

“A little more couldn’t hurt. C’mon, let’s go to bed,” Chris suggested.

“I want to finish up here first,” JC said.

“What are you doing anyway?” Chris asked as he moved closer to the computer to look over JC’s shoulder. JC minimized the page he was looking at and Chris raised an eyebrow in surprise. JC never tried to hide something in an obvious way like that.

 “Just looking up a few things,” JC answered.

“Why don’t you save it for morning? The mysteries of the universe will still be there,” Chris said.

“I can’t. This is important.”

Chris crossed his arms as he looked at JC. “What’s more important than your health?”

“Justin!” JC snapped.

“No.” Chris shook his head as he pointed at himself. “I’m Chris.”

JC continued as if he hadn’t heard Chris. “You’ve been so busy watching me to make sure I don’t relapse that you haven’t been paying any attention to Justin.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chris asked.

JC realized that he’d said way too much after having promised Justin that he wouldn’t say anything. He’d have to direct the conversation away from Justin. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. I don’t understand why you think I’d do that to myself again. Do you think I’m that stupid?”

He was beyond frustrated with how the guys had been treating him lately. They were always watching him, which had been understandable right after he collapsed. He probably would’ve done the same thing, but his collapse was a couple of weeks ago and he was fine now. However, that didn’t stop him from catching the concerned looks he got every time he yawned or the disapproving looks when he skipped a meal. And that morning he had his suspicions that Lance and Chris had been talking about him in the kitchen.

“No, of course not,” Chris said.

“Then what do I have to do to make you believe I’m fine?” JC asked. He continued on not giving Chris a chance to answer. “Because I am. I’m dealing with it and there’s nothing you can really do to help. I don’t need you.”

Chris took a step back in surprise. He hadn’t expected JC to say that, and he was pissed and a little hurt. He was trying to be a good friend by being there for JC and looking out for him only to have JC say that he didn’t need him. He liked to think that he could help any of the guys with any of their problems and it hurt when they didn’t want him to. Chris knew that he couldn’t push JC to talk to him, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t bring this up again later. “Fine. Good night.”

JC watched as Chris left the room and heard the steps creak as he made his way upstairs. Once he was gone JC went back to analyzing the dream. He opened the page again and looked up “demons.”

“To see demons represents ignorance, negativity, distress or your shadow self. It also forewarns of overindulgence and letting lust give way to your better judgment. As a result, your physical and mental health may suffer,” JC read softly to himself.

He groaned as he rubbed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. “Did you really expect it to say that ‘your friends are in danger and demons are after you’?” JC asked himself.

JC sat with his eyes closed for a minute as he thought about his nightmare. Suddenly he sat up and went back to Google. He typed in “symbol, star with a circle around it.” He figured that if Justin was really having his nightmares then he had to have seen the same symbol he had.

JC looked over the links for a minute before clicking on one that sounded like it would show him pictures. He knew that he would be able to pick it out if he saw it. The page loaded and he spotted it right away. He discovered that the star was called a pentagram and served as a symbol of Satan and evil spirits.

JC felt the knot in his stomach return. They’d encountered evil in the past, and JC feared that the recurrence of his dream in Justin’s subconscious might signify another brush with evil in the future. He didn’t believe that these were just dreams anymore--something supernatural was occurring, and it was affecting Justin. The urge to check on Justin mounted quickly. JC shut down the computer.

Once the computer was shut down, JC got up from the leather chair and turned off the lamp. He quietly walked up the stairs and made his rounds. He stood outside of Justin’s door for a second before he opened it and stepped in.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust, but when they did he noticed that Justin was thrashing about in his sleep. He made the few small steps it took to get to his bed before he shook his shoulder. Justin jumped awake, breathing heavily with tears rolling down his face.

“Hey, it’s all right,” JC said quietly as he sat down on Justin’s bed and pulled him into a hug. “It’s OK.”

JC could feel guilt starting to eat its way through him again. He kept telling himself that it wasn’t his fault, but it didn’t seem to register. He looked down at Justin who clutched him tightly as his body wracked with sobs. JC made a promise to himself at that moment that he would do anything and everything he could to stop whatever this was from hurting his little brother.