JC sat forward in the uncomfortable hospital chair with his forearms resting on his thighs, watching Justin as if he were afraid Justin would disappear right before his very eyes. And part of it was because the image of his best friend lying against Joey bleeding to death with blood all down his front and being so still riding to the hospital was burned into his brain. It’d scared the hell out of him to see Justin like that. The ambulance ride had been tense with the flurry of activity.

One of the paramedics pulled the doors closed and the ambulance immediately sped off with its loud siren wailing. The paramedics set about preparing an IV to inject into a semi-conscious Justin who was propped upright on the stretcher. They inserted the small thin tube into his right wrist since the left was surrounded by thick plaster. JC flinched and had to look away, but Justin hardly moved. JC wondered whether it was because he was so out of it or if his lack of movement was in some way a favor to Chris, hoping less movement would equal less pain. He figured it was a mixture of both. 

“JC…” Justin gurgled, blood dribbling down his chin. 

JC stared, horrified. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew that wasn’t a good sign. While he’d seen the blood in the basement, he didn’t really comprehend how serious it really was until now. Fear constricted his chest because he didn’t want Justin to die, especially knowing it was because of him. 

“Sir!” the voice of the paramedic tore him away from his thoughts. “Are you OK?” 

JC cleared his throat. “Yeah.” 

“We need you to help keep your friend from talking and stay calm. Do you think you can do that?” 

JC nodded and turned his attention back to Justin. “JC,” Justin groaned, reaching out the hand that didn’t have the IV in it. 

“Shh, J.” JC took a hold of Justin’s left hand, ignoring the roughness of the cast against his own skin. “Don’t talk. We’re almost to the hospital. Everything’s going to be fine.” 

JC glanced over at the paramedics and they nodded their approval. He let out a small sigh of relief, glad that he was managing to say the right things and stay calm even though he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Justin shouldn’t have been kidnapped and tortured. If he could’ve, JC would’ve traded places with Justin in a heartbeat. 

“BP’s 100/50 and falling,” the one paramedic said into a walkie-talkie. JC assumed to give the doctors at the hospital time to prepare for Justin. “Has an IV drip and…” he let go of the talk button and looked at JC. “Is he allergic to anything?” 

“No, not that I know of,” JC said, shaking his head. 

The paramedic nodded and went back to speaking into the walkie-talkie. “Now administering morphine intravenously.” 

At that the other paramedic grabbed another needle from the cart that was pushed off to the side to inject the pain medication into the IV. Almost immediately the drugs began to take affect as Justin’s eyelids fluttered before drooping closed sleepily. The paramedic met JC’s worried look with a reassuring one. 

“The medication made him sleepy. Your friend will be fine.” 

JC didn’t say anything, but wondered how many times this guy had told family or loved ones that and really meant it. Before he could let his thoughts get away from him any further, the vehicle came to a stop and the doors opened. The paramedics jumped out, and they carefully pulled the stretcher Justin was on out. JC wasted no time getting out; being in the ambulance was starting to freak him out and he sincerely hoped that he would never have to be in one again. Quickly he caught up to the paramedics and followed them into the ER until a hand was pressed against his chest to stop him from entering the operating room. 

“I’m sorry, sir. You’re not allowed back there,” a petite, brunette nurse said. “I’ll show you to the waiting room.” 

Once Justin disappeared behind white double doors with doctors and was no longer in sight, JC silently allowed her to lead him to the waiting room. He couldn’t help but keep looking back over his shoulder at the room that Justin had been wheeled into. The nurse gently deposited him in an empty seat in the blissfully empty room before she went back to making her rounds, but JC paid her no mind. Staring in the direction he’d just come and ignoring the footsteps of the guys as they came into the room, he prayed that Justin would be all right. 

Thankfully his prayers were answered because JC didn’t think he could live with himself if Justin hadn’t been all right. They had waited for an hour and a half before the doctor came out a little after one thirty in the morning with news on Justin. He’d said that there hadn’t been complications stitching up the gashes across Justin’s stomach, and that he was resting comfortably. That had been about fifteen minutes ago. The room had been pretty silent because no one wanted to chance waking Justin up even though the doctor said he would be out of it from the surgery and pain medication.

JC glanced up at Chris, who was sitting on the opposite side of Justin’s bed with his legs stretched out in front of him. He looked better now that Justin was on pain killers. It was odd how Chris’s pain could only be alleviated if Justin took something, but at least there was something they could do instead of Chris having to live with the pain. Subconsciously JC winced as he thought back to just a few hours ago before Katrina showed up and they found Justin, Chris had been in what looked like excruciating pain. Now knowing how bad Justin had been injured, it was understandable, and JC thought they were pretty damn lucky that Justin didn’t end up dead.

“God, JC…”

JC looked to his left at the opposite wall where Lance was sitting and saw him shaking his head. He had an idea of what Lance was going to say, and he was surprised that it hadn’t been brought up earlier, especially while they were waiting for news on Justin. But then maybe that was why. Everyone was too concerned about Justin that they figured it could wait until later. Patiently he waited for Lance to say what was on his mind.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Lance paused briefly before continuing, “What did you think you were doing telling the demons to take you?”

“I thought I was putting an end to all this,” JC said, sweeping his hand out in front of him.

“Don’t be such a smartass,” Chris replied.

JC looked over at him and back at Lance. “I’m not. I was being serious.”

“JC, the only thing you would’ve ended was your life,” Lance said.

“Exactly!” JC exclaimed. He’d been fully aware of what he was doing when he goaded the demons into coming after him. Getting Justin back had been his main priority, and he figured that it would’ve been the easiest way.  After all, he’d originally planned on summoning the demon before Justin had been kidnapped. While he was glad that Katrina got rid of the demons, a part of him wished she hadn’t so bad things would stop happening.

Joey glared at him from where he sat next to Lance. “That’s not something to want.”

“I don’t want to die,” JC said.

“That’s not what you just said,” Chris replied.

“I don’t,” JC repeated. “But how can I live knowing this is my fault?”

“This isn’t your fault,” Lance said, firmly.

JC stood up quickly, sending the chair back a foot. “It is my fault! The demons are after me, not you. Me! So excuse me for being realistic instead of living in some fantasy.”

Chris crossed his arms. “So you’re just giving up? You’re just going to let the demons take you and that’s that?”

“Yes!” JC exploded, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “You guys don’t seem to get that I’m doing this for you, so back off.”

“Oh, well,” Chris let out a humorless laugh, “If you’re doing it for us, then I guess there’s nothing we can do.”

“You’re not going to die, JC. We won’t let you,” Lance said.

JC glared defiantly. “You guys can’t tell me what to do. It’s my life.”

“We can when you’re about to do something stupid,” Joey countered. He jerked a thumb in Lance’s direction. “Lance is scouring the Internet to find a way out of this.”

“And what do you expect to find? ‘101 Ways to Get Rid of Demons’?” JC fixed each of them with a hard look. “There’s no way out of this, and you, Lance of all people, should know that because you’ve been looking for days and haven’t found anything.”

“I will find something, so you better stop being stupid and accept that we’re not giving you up without a fight,” Lance said.

JC shook his head. “I’m so tired of you guys constantly being pissed at me. You have no right.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course we do!” Chris exclaimed.

“How would you feel if you were in my position?” JC paused briefly. “I know that any one of you would give up your life to save the rest of us, and that’s what I’m doing.”

JC sighed heavily as he let his body drop back into his seat. He glanced down at Justin and said softly, “None of this should’ve ever happened.”

The room fell silent. JC was sure that the guys must be thinking along the same lines as him. It was only a couple hours ago that they’d been sitting in the waiting room not knowing if Justin was going to live or not. He would give anything to make sure nothing like this happened again. Just then there was a knock on the door before it opened and the doctor that they’d met with earlier entered the room.

“How are we doing in here?” the doctor asked as he walked over to the end of Justin’s bed and looked at the chart.

“Fine,” Lance said. The doctor pulled out a needle. “What are you doing?”

“I’m administering the last transfusion.”

“So he’s going to be all right?” Joey asked.

The doctor nodded. “As long as infection doesn’t set in.”

“Infection?” Chris repeated.

“It’s a possibility when a patient undergoes blood transfusions, but he’s young and healthy so there shouldn’t be a problem. For now we’re going to keep an eye on him and if all’s well then he should be released by the afternoon tomorrow with instructions on how to care for his stitches to keep them from tearing,” the doctor explained.

Lance nodded. “Thanks, doc.”

The doctor smiled. “I’ll be back to check on him tomorrow.”

JC couldn’t help but feel relieved as the doctor left. Knowing that Justin was going to be fine took a great weight off his shoulders. While he blamed himself for what’d happened, he never would’ve been able to forgive himself if Justin had died because of him. Silently JC vowed to make sure Justin recovered completely.

Chris sighed in his sleep and rolled over. He jerked awake when his body hit the floor with a loud thump. Blearily he looked around and up at his bed as he rubbed his head. “Son of a…”

Groaning, Chris pushed himself to his feet. He grabbed some clothes and headed for the bathroom to take a shower. The hot water filled the bathroom with steam as it soothed the tense muscles in his neck from sitting in the hospital chair for hours. Justin had been released around one in the afternoon and once they got home everyone had gone straight to bed since no one had gotten a lot of sleep at the hospital. Even Justin had been tired, but the doctor said that was to be expected with the pain medicine that he was on. The doctor had told Justin that his stomach would probably be tender for a while, and that he had to be careful not to stretch his arms over his head or bend over too much because his stomach would still be sore.

Within a matter of minutes the water was shut off and he was dressed. Chris stepped out into the hall and walked down to Justin’s room to check on him. He slowly opened the door so he wouldn’t wake him up if he was sleeping. Once the door was open he saw that JC had moved the desk chair over to Justin’s bedside and looked like he was dozing. It was kind of surprising to see that he was still there because while Chris knew that JC would probably sit with Justin for a little bit, he didn’t expect to find him still in the room six hours later.

“JC.” Chris reached out a hand and shook JC’s shoulder. Almost immediately JC’s eyes opened and he looked up at Chris.

JC blinked and yawned. “Time?”

“A little after eight,” Chris said, glancing down at his watch that he’d thrown on after his shower.

“What are you doing in here?” JC asked, rising from the chair to stretch. Chris winced as he heard his bones pop and wondered how on earth JC’d been able to stay seated for so long, especially after the long wait in the hospital.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Chris looked closer at JC and noticed the dark circles that had formed under his eyes. His clothes were rumpled and his hair was a mess. “Have you gotten any sleep, man?”

JC hesitated before he said, “A little.”

“C’mon,” Chris grabbed onto JC’s arm to stop him from sitting back down in the chair, “You should get some sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” JC objected even as he rubbed his eyes that were tinged with red.

Chris gave him a disbelieving look. “Bullshit. You look exhausted.”

“But Justin—”

“Will be fine,” Chris finished. “Seriously, man, you need to sleep, and you’re going to even if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you to bed.”

“All right,” JC relented and allowed Chris to put the chair back in front of the desk.

Chris watched JC leave the room, but didn’t follow right away because he still wanted to check on Justin. He turned his attention from the doorway to Justin lying in bed, sleeping peacefully. That was a good sign, and made him feel a lot better. It didn’t matter that he could feel Justin’s pain as long as Justin healed properly. That was something that he’d really thought about after the fight he and the guys had with JC. It was so nice to be back at Lance’s and not have the possibility of Justin dying hanging over them.

Quietly Chris walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. He walked down the hall and saw that JC’s door was now closed, which he took as a sign that JC was finally going to get some much needed sleep. As Chris walked down the stairs, he wasn’t too surprised to hear the TV going in the living room because as exhausted as all of them had been when they got back earlier he knew that they wouldn’t be able to sleep long since their bodies were used to being up during the day. Chris shook his head, thinking about how now their sleeping schedules would be all thrown off for a day or two.

The smell of pizza hit his nose as he entered the living room where Lance and Joey were sitting on the couch with a couple of boxes stacked on the coffee table in front of them. His stomach growled because he hadn’t eaten anything since that crappy lunch at the hospital because the doctor had insisted that Justin eat before he left. He’d gotten a lunch from the cafeteria so Justin wouldn’t have to eat alone, but never again. Next time he’d leave eating crappy ass tasting hospital food to his friend.

“Hey,” Joey greeted, looking up from the program they were watching. Chris didn’t recognize it at first, but then a large picture of The Beatles popped up on the screen. He concluded they must be watching some Behind the Music thing.

“Geez, Chris,” Lance said, watching as Chris piled four pieces onto his plate. “Save some for the rest of us.”

“But I’m hungry,” Chris whined before he took a bite and sighed in content. It’d been a while since he’d eaten pizza. He swallowed a piece before he asked, “Did you know that JC hadn’t gone to bed?”

Joey nodded, setting his empty plate down on the table. “I tried to make him, but he wouldn’t.”

“He refused to leave Justin’s side,” Lance added.

“Well, I got him to go to sleep,” Chris said, smirking. “You just have to be forceful.”

“Did you check to see if he was?” Lance asked.

Chris shook his head. “No, but he really looked wiped so I’m sure he’s dead to the world.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the three of them. Chris mentally winced as he realized his choice of words weren’t really appropriate considering what JC’d said at the hospital about letting the demons take him. Luckily Lance broke the awful silence by saying, “We need to do something about him.”

“Yeah, but what?” Joey asked, taking a sip of his soda.

“We could try therapy again,” Lance suggested.

Chris’s eyes widened. “Are you nuts?”

“There’s no way we’re doing that again,” Joey said.

Lance frowned. “Why not?”

“We told you what happened last time. There’s no way it would go differently,” Joey told him.

“You don’t know that.”

Chris fixed Lance with a knowing look. “Yeah, we do. He totally spazzed, so no, it won’t work.”

“All right.” Lance sighed. “But we still have to do something.”

“Do something about what?”

The three of them turned to see Justin coming into the living room. “How are you feeling, J?” Joey asked.

“Don’t you start too,” Justin said, shaking his head. “I’m already getting enough of it from JC.”

“He’s just worried about you,” Lance replied.

Justin sighed and nodded. “I know.” Justin slowly sat down in the armchair and his eyes met Chris’s. “Are you OK? Need me to take any pain killers?”

“No, I’m good, J.”

“All right, but let me know if you do. It’s no big deal,” Justin said.

Chris smiled. He really wasn’t surprised by what Justin said because he knew that Justin would be taking it to heart that he wasn’t feeling any pain. Hopefully Chris wouldn’t need it because that could mean that Justin wasn’t getting better. “Thanks.”

A few minutes passed in silence before Justin cleared his throat and said, “I’ve been thinking…” Lance reached over to grab the remote and turned off the TV. Justin frowned. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Lance shrugged. “It’s not like we were watching it anyway.”

“Well, I’ve uh…been thinking about what happened to me…and my visions,” Justin said.

“What about them?” Joey asked.

“I think…” Justin sighed. “I think they’re from JC’s eyes.”

Chris frowned. “Why do you think that?”

“I was thinking back and I realized that I’ve been seeing all of my visions through JC’s perspective,” Justin said.

“All of them?” Lance repeated.

Justin nodded and looked over at him. “When I had the vision of you…you know…I saw you in the bathroom after I ran into Chris in the hall. But I wasn’t there when it happened.

“Then the one where Joey was attacked…” Justin looked at each of them. “You remember how vague I was?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t say what was going to happen,” Joey said.

“That’s because I didn’t know. All I’d seen was myself beating on the basement door and hearing you guys yelling, but we were all down there when it happened…except JC,” Justin explained. “And now…I saw myself get kidnapped and the only person that was with me when it happened was JC.”

Chris frowned. “But why would you see it from his point of view?”

“I don’t know,” Justin said, shaking his head.

“Maybe the demons know,” Lance suggested.

“They don’t.” Justin paused as they all looked at him. “While they…uh…they wanted to know how I got these visions.”

“So they don’t know anything about them?” Joey asked.

“All they really seemed to know is that I have them, but they kept asking me how I got them or who gave them to me,” Justin said.

Chris leaned forward a little in his seat. “Did they say anything else?”

“Well…” Justin hesitated briefly. “They said…they were surprised that I had visions because I wasn’t special. But they mentioned JC and said it was understandable why he had abilities because…because of where he came from.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Chris asked.

Justin shrugged. “I don’t know. They didn’t really talk about it more. Just that it wasn’t surprising that JC hadn’t told us because we reject things we don’t understand.”

“Well, there must be a reason they said what they did,” Lance said.

“I was going to ask JC about it,” Justin replied, nodding. “And tell him about my visions, but I didn’t want to make him feel worse.”

“You can’t tell him,” Chris said quickly.

Justin frowned. “Why not?”

“Because he’s made it perfectly clear that he’s not going to help us figure this out,” Chris explained.

“I think he should know, Chris” Lance objected.

Chris rolled his eyes. “And what good would it do? There’s no reason for him to know. Not right now anyway. At the very least we should give ourselves some time to come up with a solution before we go asking him all these things.”

“But if he already knows then it would help speed our research along,” Lance said.

“If he knew, wouldn’t he have told us by now?” Joey asked.

“Yeah, but that was before he told us that he’s accepting his fate. He could be keeping information from us just so we can’t stop him,” Chris said.

Justin shook his head. “No way. JC wouldn’t do that.” There was a brief pause before he continued, “He’s going to have a coronary if he finds out that we kept this from him and went behind his back.”

“So we don’t tell him,” Chris said simply.

“But what good is that going to do honestly?” Joey asked and continued before Chris could interrupt. “We’ve tried a bunch of different things with him. Therapy, giving him space, forcing him to talk and none of it has worked. How are we supposed to handle this?”

There was a moment of silence. Chris thought about it and realized Joey made a valid point. They had tried a number of different techniques and yet, they still had the same problems repeat themselves with JC stressing himself out and making himself sick. It was hard to say for sure what they should do, but Chris still believed that what Justin had just shared with them needed to remain a secret for right now. If JC found out before they were ready for him to, then they’d just have to deal with it then.

“I stick with what I said. It’s our best course of action right now. We don’t want to upset him in case he goes off the handle and makes a rash decision,” Chris said.

Lance sighed and looked at Joey and Justin who both nodded. “All right, fine. We won’t tell him. For now. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”