JC watched the car pull out of the driveway and waited until it was out of sight before going back into the house. He sighed as he closed the door and leaned against it. His eyes trailed up the stairs where he knew Lance was sleeping. A minute passed before he pushed himself off the door and walked upstairs figuring that now would be a good time to check on Lance.

JC slowly opened the door so as not to disturb Lance if he was still asleep. He walked into the room to see him lying on his side. Just as JC was about to back out so he wouldn’t wake him, Lance rolled over onto his back and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“Hey,” he said, pulling himself into a sitting position.

“Hey. How are you feeling?” JC asked as he stepped closer to Lance’s bed.

“Like crap,” Lance admitted.

“Do you need anything?” JC asked.

“No.” Lance shook his head. A second or two passed before he said, “So I take it you’re not mad anymore.”

JC shrugged. He thought back to last night when they had talked about Justin and he had yelled at Lance. It still bothered him that Lance thought he needed therapy, but he knew that he was just concerned and he wasn’t going to hold that against him.

“I didn’t mean to push so hard. I just think that it’d do you good to talk to someone.” He added before JC could rationalize that he’d spoken to Justin, “Someone outside the group. Someone who doesn’t know our situation.”

“And tell them what? That I think I may have PTSD from being attacked by demons? I think they’d have other concerns.”

Lance shook his head in dismissal, as if he didn’t know how to respond to JC’s valid point. “Look, I know you don’t sleep at night anymore. I’m worried about you.”

“I…I just can’t sleep until I check on you guys,” JC confessed after a minute. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to be a little honest with Lance. It wasn’t like he was telling him everything. After Joey’s reaction, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that again.

“But why?”

JC hesitated. “I just want to make sure that you all are OK. But even then...”

“But even then what?” Lance pressed.

JC took a deep breath before saying, “I can’t sleep in the dark. Even turning a light on doesn’t help. And I don’t end up falling asleep until the sun rises.” JC blushed slightly as he finished. It was embarrassing to admit that he was afraid of the dark.

“This is what I’m talking about,” Lance said. “You might not be having your nightmares anymore, but you’re still not sleeping like you should be. You need to talk to someone. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“That’s not going to happen,” JC promised.

Lance sighed. “I know I can’t make you go if you don’t want to. But this can’t keep happening. You need sleep, JC.”

“I’ll try, OK? I can take care of myself,” JC replied.

A few seconds passed in silence as JC paused before he said, “There's something else. Why I reacted the way I did last night with the whole therapy thing.”

Lance nodded in understanding and JC hesitated briefly before he continued, “Could you stop talking to me that way until you’re better?”

“What? Why?” Lance looked at him curiously.

“I get…kind of cold when we talk like that. I think it has to do with you being sick,” JC explained. He didn’t believe that the cold feeling he got was because Lance was sick, but he wasn’t going to tell Lance that. The last thing JC wanted to do was worry him, especially when he didn’t know what was behind the cold feeling.

“I make you cold?” Lance asked in confusion.

“Yeah. It feels like someone took a bucket of ice water and dumped it on top of me,” JC said.

“I didn’t know I was doing that to you,” Lance said.

“I figured you didn’t,” JC replied.

Silence filled the room as JC tried to come up with a way to tell Lance about Justin. The guys would be back soon and he knew that he should fill him in before they got back. JC took a deep breath. “Something happened while you were sleeping.”

“What?” Lance asked.

“Justin…he uh…passed out,” JC said.

“He what?” Lance threw his covers back as he made to get out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“It happened so fast. It didn’t occur to me until afterwards,” JC explained. He walked over to Lance and pushed him to sit back down in bed.

“So how is he?” Lance asked.

JC shrugged. “Chris and Joey took him to get checked out by Doctor Marks.”

“I hope he’s all right,” Lance said.

“Me too,” JC said half-heartedly. In truth, JC did hope that Doctor Marks found something medically wrong with Justin. It’d mean that he was wrong in thinking that the demons were behind what was going on. “Well, I think I’m going to let you rest.”

“I’m done resting. I’m going to take a shower,” Lance said.

“Oh, well, I’ll go so you can get one,” JC replied.

JC left Lance’s room and walked downstairs into the kitchen. He immediately began to pace as he continued to think about Justin. He wasn’t comfortable with talking to Lance about Justin, not when he didn’t know what exactly was going on with him. A medical problem would be easier to deal with than the demons, and JC had no idea how they would go about handling that situation. The implication of that thought made him feel weak causing him to plop down into a chair that had been pulled away from the table.

He didn’t want to be caught off guard if Justin turned out to be fine, but he didn’t know how to prepare for that possibility. From what had happened last time it was easy to see that the demons would have the upper hand, and that thought didn’t sit well with JC. There wasn’t a lot he could do to stop anything from happening and that fact killed him. He could only hope that it didn’t come to that.

Chris pulled into the driveway and parked the car. He, Joey, and Justin got out of the car and walked up the driveway towards the front door.

“I can’t believe that lady almost ran me over,” Chris said as he shook his head.

“It was your fault for walking behind her car while she was backing out,” Justin replied, carrying the food in his hand.

“Probably gave that poor woman a heart attack,” Joey said.

“I gave her a heart attack? I was the one who dropped my food,” Chris said.

“But she paid for it, didn’t she?” Justin asked already knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” Chris admitted as he unlocked the door. She had given him the money to go back in and replace the food he had dropped. The three of them walked into the house and made their way to the kitchen, running into Lance as he came down the stairs.

“How is he?” Lance asked Joey.

“I’m standing right here,” Justin muttered.

“Well,” Lance prompted.

“I’m fine,” Justin said.

“Good.” Lance smiled and the four of them walked into the kitchen where they saw JC sitting at the table. He looked up as they walked in.

“I’m fine,” Justin said again before JC could even ask. JC nodded slowly, but didn’t move from his seat.

“C’mon, let’s take the food into the living room,” Joey suggested.

Justin carried the Burger King bags as the three of them headed into the living room. Chris started to follow, but stopped when he noticed that JC was still sitting at the table.

“Aren’t you coming to get some food?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry,” JC mumbled, looking down at his hands.

“Oh no.” Chris shook his head. “You aren’t doing this again.”

“Doing what?” JC asked.

“Starving yourself!” Chris exclaimed. He realized that his voice had risen and glanced behind him into the living room where the other three were. It didn’t seem like they had heard him, but Chris lowered his voice anyway.

“Skipping one meal is hardly starving myself,” JC replied.

“No, but you slept through breakfast. You haven’t eaten anything today,” Chris pointed out.

“You’re doing it again!” JC exclaimed. “You’re focusing on me when Justin’s more important!”

“What are you talking about?” Chris asked.

“Just because the doctor says that he’s fine, doesn’t make everything better. Aren’t you the least bit concerned that Justin passed out for no reason?” JC said.

Chris shook his head. “No. He said that Justin was fine and that he collapsed from stress or exhaustion. We need to get him to relax, which would be a lot easier if you weren’t moping about with your ‘woe is me’ attitude.”

“And his nightmares?” JC asked.

“We’re going to help him through them, but there’s not a lot we can do. But you’ve experienced them yourself making you the best person to help him. You need to be strong for Justin. Help him deal with these nightmares,” Chris said.

A tense moment passed before JC scoffed and shook his head muttering, “Stress and exhaustion.”

“What?” Chris asked.

“It took me a month to collapse from exhaustion, and Justin passes out after two weeks? I find that hard to believe,” JC explained.

Chris shrugged. “That’s what the doctor said. I mean, what else could it be?”

Chris watched as JC looked away. He could almost see him close in on himself and hear the wheels turning in his head as he was thinking. It was obvious that JC didn’t believe exhaustion had been the cause of Justin’s episode in the driveway.

“What? What are you thinking?” Chris asked.

JC slowly brought his eyes back up to Chris and shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Bull,” Chris said. “It’s obvious something’s bothering you. What is it?”

“You won’t believe me,” JC said softly, lowering his eyes again.

Chris pulled out a chair and sat down in it across from JC. “Try me.”

JC hesitated before he sighed. “OK…I uh think Justin having my nightmares and him collapsing today are more connected than we think.”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked.

“I uh…” JC cleared his throat. “I think the…demons are involved.”

Chris raised his eyebrows in surprise. He wanted to tell JC that was insane. That there was no way the demons could be involved because all of that had been dealt with a while ago and that he must be imagining things. Chris thought back to how harsh he had been earlier and knew that he would have to choose his words carefully because JC would freak out if he rejected what he said entirely.

“What makes you say that?” Chris asked.

“I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen,” JC said.

“Maybe you were just having that feeling because you somehow knew Justin was going to pass out,” Chris suggested.

JC shook his head. “No. That’s not it. It has to do with the demons. I just know it. They’re coming back to finish what they started.”

“There’s nothing to finish, JC,” Chris said.

“Yes, there is,” JC insisted. “We stopped them from killing you guys. They probably want to finish it.”

“Even if they did want to finish what they started they can’t because they were sent back to hell,” Chris replied.

“They’re coming, and there’s nothing you or me or any of us can do about it.” JC paused before he whispered, “I think Justin’s their first target.”

Chris looked at him in surprise. “What?” he shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. He had nothing to do with the demons the first time. Why wouldn’t he come after me or Lance or Joey first?”

JC shook his head. “I don’t know, but why else would he be having my nightmares? That’s not normal. Then with him passing out for no reason…”

“None of that means the demons are after him. He probably had your nightmares because they were so disturbing, and he probably passed out for some logical reason like heat exhaustion or something,” Chris reasoned.

“If that’s true, why haven’t you had my nightmares?” JC asked.

“Because you told Justin first. And probably told him more than you did us,” Chris said with a hint of bitterness. He was a little jealous that JC felt he couldn’t confide in him and went to Justin instead because he thought they were closer than that. But he realized that he probably wasn’t JC’s first choice to talk to because of how skeptical he was of supernatural things.

Silence filled the kitchen for a minute. Finally JC spoke, “I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him…to any of you.”

“Nothing bad will happen,” Chris insisted.

“You don’t know that, Chris!” JC objected.

“And you don’t know that it won’t,” Chris replied. He was really worried about JC. It was easy to see that he must have put a lot of thought into this whole demon thing, and that scared Chris. If he needed anymore proof that JC needed therapy, this was it. Lance had told him about his suggestion that JC go to therapy with Justin, and he had agreed when he remembered seeing JC up late the other night.

“Chris, you don’t understand. I’ve had these feelings before and they’ve never been wrong,” JC said.

“When?” Chris asked.

“When we were at the cabin, and then before you and I switched buses and you guys got lost in the woods,” JC explained. “See? Every time I have had a bad feeling, something bad happened.”

Chris looked at JC curiously. “So you’re psychic now?”

“I don’t think so. I just get these feelings and I’m telling you something bad is going to happen,” JC said.

“You already said that,” Chris pointed out.

“Well, you’re not listening!” JC exclaimed.

“Yes, I am.” Chris sighed. “We’ll watch out for each other, all right?”

“We can’t stop it.” JC paused. “I don’t want to lose you guys.”

“You’re not going to lose us, JC. I promise you.”

“I don’t think I could handle it if something bad happened to any of you.” JC paused to rub at his watery eyes. Chris frowned. It seemed like JC hadn’t even heard what he had said. “It would kill me.”

Chris stood up and pulled JC to his feet as well. He wrapped his arms around JC, and he hugged him back. He whispered, “Nothing’s going to happen. Not ever again.” He paused to squeeze JC tighter. “I won’t let it.”

He pulled back after a minute. “Are you all right now?”

JC nodded. “Yeah. I think I’m going to go lie down.”

“OK.” Chris nodded. He didn’t believe that JC was fine because he got the typical response when someone asked him if he was all right. Chris watched as JC walked into the hallway and listened as he softly padded upstairs before he let out a heavy sigh. That was one hell of a conversation and it made him wonder how long JC had kept that bottled up. It was obvious that it had been eating him up inside by keeping it to himself, so Chris hoped that if nothing else, he helped ease the burden that JC put on himself. Even though he knew that JC’s fears probably weren’t alleviated at all.

One thing was for sure was he needed to talk to Lance about what JC just shared with him. He needed someone else’s opinion on it and knew that Lance would be able to give a little more insight in what was going on in JC’s head. While JC had shared a lot with Chris, he knew that JC still probably kept a good deal to himself.

He wanted to find a way to help JC, but for now he was going to eat some lunch. Chris figured that he had a lot of time to figure out a way to help both JC and Justin. No course of action would be taken until he talked to Lance. Maybe Lance could help him come up with a way to help two of their brothers.