Joey set another empty soda can on the dirty plate he was carrying that was already littered with empty cans and pizza stained napkins. He glanced down at the coffee table again to make sure that all of the garbage had been cleared off and saw that Lance was grabbing the leftover pizza. Walking into the kitchen to throw away the trash, he stopped in surprise. There sitting at the table with his head resting on top of his arms on the table was JC. Together Joey and Lance glanced at each other concerned before they set the dirty dishes and garbage on the counter.

Lance stepped next to JC and reached out a hand, shaking his shoulder. JC stirred, pulling out of Lance's grip before looking up at him, blinking as his eyes adjusted. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing down here?” Lance asked.

“I wanted some water,” JC said, gesturing to the glass that was still on the table.

“Looks like you got it, so you should go back upstairs,” Lance replied.

JC shook his head. “I’m not tired.”

“You fell asleep at the kitchen table,” Lance said.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get some sleep?” Joey suggested.

“C’mon, let’s go.” Lance wrapped a hand around JC’s bicep and started to pull him out of his chair. “Time for bed.”

“Wait a minute,” Joey said, putting a hand on Lance’s shoulder to stop him from dragging JC out of his chair and upstairs. He looked down at JC. “Why don’t you want to sleep?”

Joey knew that Lance forcing JC to go back to bed wasn’t going to help because no one liked to be told what to do, especially JC. The best way to get JC to talk without him lashing out was to be calm. They had to show that they were on JC’s side and stop trying to make him feel like a scolded child.

“Well, OK, it’s not that I don’t want to. I do,” JC said. “I just can’t.”

“Are you having nightmares again?” Lance asked.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” JC said.

“Then what?” Joey asked, pulling out a chair and taking a seat so he was facing JC.

“I just can’t sleep. I lie there, but I can’t get my brain to stop.” JC sighed. “I know I need sleep, but it’s just not coming.”

“Have you taken anything?”

Joey looked at Lance, confused for a moment as to why he was asking. It was obvious that JC hadn’t taken anything because if he had, they wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. JC would be fast asleep, so Joey wasn’t surprised when JC shook his head.

Though, Joey wondered why JC hadn’t taken a sleeping pill. He’d mentioned before that he’d bought them for just this reason, way back when Justin was having trouble sleeping.

“What about your sleeping pills? You could take one of those,” Joey suggested.

“No,” JC said vehemently. “I don’t want to.”

Lance frowned. “Why not?”

“Because.” JC caught Lance’s look of mingled frustration and disbelief and shot back his own angered expression. “Because maybe I don’t want to be drugged! Those pills would put me out for hours, and if something happened…I’d sleep right through it.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Joey said gently, trying to reassure him.

“Nothing’s going to happen?” JC repeated with an incredulous look on his face. “So what, the demons are just gonna decide, ‘Forget murder and torture, let’s go play cards’?

“As long as I’m alive, this stuff is going to keep happening, which is why—”

“We’re not here to talk about the demons. This has nothing to do with them. We’re talking about you and why you’re not sleeping,” Lance interrupted and looked at JC condescendingly.

“Quit acting like I’m doing this purposely! I’m exhausted! I want to sleep.”

Lance crossed his arms. “Obviously not bad enough if you won’t take a damn sleeping pill!”

“Dude, shut up!” Joey snapped at Lance. He softened his features and looked at JC. “What can we do to help?”

Joey felt sympathetic to JC. With everything that’s happened recently they wouldn’t have put it past JC to purposely avoid sleeping because he’d done it before. But Joey knew this time was different because JC really did look beat with his hair sticking up in odd places and bloodshot eyes that were accentuated by the dark circles below them.

There was a pause before JC brought his eyes up from the table to look him in the eyes. “Can I sleep on the couch?”

Joey shrugged and nodded. He hadn’t known what JC was going to say, but he hadn’t expected that. However, he didn’t have a problem with JC sleeping on the couch if it meant he’d get some much needed sleep. “If you think it’ll help.”

“Go get some rest,” Lance said. JC nodded and rose from the seat before walking into the living room. Joey watched as a look mixed of surprise and frustration crossed over Chris’s face when he saw JC. Chris said something that Joey couldn’t hear, and JC said something in return. Immediately Chris’s expression softened and he stood to drape the blanket from the back of the couch over JC who was now lying down. Hopefully JC would get some sleep or else they’d have to come up with another solution.

Joey tore his eyes away from the living room and met Lance’s eyes. “Take it easy with him, huh?”

“I was easy with him,” Lance said.

Joey shook his head. “No, you weren’t.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have to be. There’s too much to deal with right now without having to worry about all of JC’s crap. I thought all his problems with sleeping were fixed,” Lance said.

“Did you even listen to him? He said he’s not doing this purposely,” Joey replied.

“Of course he’s doing this purposely!” Lance countered. “He hasn’t slept in over 56 hours. When you’re exhausted your body crashes eventually no matter what’s on your mind.”

“Doesn’t that show how much all this stuff bothers him?” Joey countered. “Maybe we shouldn’t get on his case about it.”

“Why are you defending him?”

Joey looked at Lance in disbelief. “He’s my friend. That’s what friends do.”

“I am his friend,” Lance said.

“Then start acting like it,” Joey replied. “We’ve tried everything with no results, so if we’re going to talk to him then we’re going to have to be sympathetic to what he’s going through. It can’t be easy knowing that your friends are being hurt and the only explanation is that it’s because of you.”

Lance nodded. “You’re right. I’ve been going crazy trying to find a way out of this that I almost forgot I was doing it for him.”

“We’ll get it. We just can’t take it out on him,” Joey said.

Lance nodded again and Joey really hoped that what he said was going to happen. He wanted nothing more than to believe that they would find a solution and come out of it without any further incidents, but they didn’t have a very good track record as far as that was concerned. It certainly didn’t help that they had no idea how much time they had until the demons came for JC or even when they would strike again. For now all Joey could do was help research and pray that nothing gets any worse.

Justin yawned as he walked down the stairs the next day. He was still a little drowsy. Most likely a side effect from the pain killer that he’d taken before bed last night. The four of them had stayed up until three in the morning quietly watching TV so as not to wake JC who was sleeping on the couch. They’d stayed up late in hopes that they’d get tired and could get their bodies back on a regular sleeping schedule. Justin wasn’t sure if he’d really been tired or if it’d been the medicine, but he had a feeling it was the latter since he’d done so much sleeping the day before.

And now his cast was making his left arm itch like crazy. He desperately wanted to scratch it, but he didn’t have anything on him. Realizing that he still had another month of this thing on his arm, he let out a long groan. It was such a pain to take care of it, and it was even worse now that he had stitches in his stomach. On some level it was kind of funny how battered he was, but he immediately sobered when he remembered that Chris had been the one to feel all of the pain.

As Justin walked past the living room and into the kitchen, he glanced to his right to check on JC and found that he was still sleeping. It wasn’t really surprising because he’d seen how beat JC had looked when he came in to lie down last night and figured he was catching up on his sleep. Justin reached into the cupboard and pulled down a glass before filling it with water to quench his thirst. His mouth was really dry and he attributed it to yet another side effect of the medicine. He looked out into the backyard as he drank and saw that the others were standing outside by the grill. With a satisfied sigh, he left his empty glass on the counter before joining the other guys outside.

“Hey,” Justin greeted.

Joey looked up. “Hey, J. How you doing?”

“Fine,” Justin said, shrugging. “What’s up?”

“Making dinner. Hotdogs and hamburgers,” Chris replied, gesturing to the grill.

“Is it that late?” Justin asked, looking down at his cast impulsively even though he wasn’t wearing a watch.

Lance glanced down at his watch. “Almost four.”

“Was JC still sleeping?” Joey asked.

Justin nodded. “Yeah.”

“What are we going to do about him?” Chris asked, flipping a burger over.

“Why are you asking us? You’re the one with a plan,” Lance said.

“I never said I had a plan,” Chris objected.

“No, but you won’t let us tell JC anything,” Lance replied. “So we assumed that you had an idea.”

Chris sighed. “All right. Well, the demons said something about where he came from, right?” He waited until the others nodded and added, “Then maybe we should start there.”

“We already know that, and I highly doubt Karen and Roy were involved with demons,” Lance said.

“Yeah, that’s not very likely,” Joey agreed.

“No, that’s not it.” When the guys looked at Chris blankly he added, “Don’t you remember? JC was adopted when he was five. We have no idea who his birth parents are.”

“So we look them up?” Justin asked.

“Basically, yeah,” Chris said.

Joey frowned. “Well, we’d have to ask JC since we don’t even know their names, which would kind of defeat the purpose of keeping this from him. And you know he’d be pissed at us for even asking, let alone why.”

“We don’t necessarily have to tell him,” Chris said.

“So you do have a plan,” Justin replied, seeing the coy look on his friend’s face.

“We could ask Karen,” Chris suggested.

“And tell her what?” Lance asked. “We can’t just tell her what we’re looking for. It’ll make her suspicious.”

“So we come up with a convincing lie.”

Justin looked at Chris in surprise. It wasn’t that Chris had suggested lying because out of the five of them he was the best liar, but to suggest doing it to a mom? They’d all grown close to each other’s moms since they’d spent so much time together over the years, and all the moms knew them well so that they’d know if one of them tried lying to her. He decided to voice that aloud.

“Like what? She’s not going to believe just anything,” Justin said.

“I don’t know.” Chris shrugged. “We’ll say he lost his driver’s license or something.”

Lance crossed his arms. “She won’t believe that. JC’s a good driver.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean got it taken away. I meant as in he lost the actual ID and needs her to send him his birth certificate so he could get a new one.”

“JC never loses his stuff,” Joey said.

“And why wouldn’t he call her?” Lance asked.

Chris shrugged. “Maybe he’s embarrassed.”

“I don’t think so, Chris,” Joey said.

“Why don’t you come up with something then instead of shooting my ideas down?” Chris suggested.

“Maybe we could just out right ask her,” Joey replied.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’d go over real well,” Chris said sarcastically.

“There’s no way that we could ask her without her wanting to know why,” Justin said, echoing what Lance had said earlier.

“Well, I don’t know!” Joey threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “I’m no good at lying to the moms.”

“But it’s not just getting the information. We need to come up with an idea that won’t get her suspicious and make her call JC asking why we wanted to know about his birth parents,” Lance pointed out.

“What if we mixed his birth certificate with other important documents so it’s not obvious what we’re looking for?” Justin suggested.

“What would he need that stuff for?” Joey asked.

“He lost his passport,” Chris said.

Joey raised an eyebrow. “What’s with you and JC losing things?”

“He’s clumsy so maybe it carried onto objects. You know, dropping stuff all the time,” Chris said.

“For the billionth time, JC’s responsible and doesn’t lose stuff like some people,” Lance replied, giving Chris a knowing look.

“That was one time!” Chris cried in defense. “God, you’d think I lost your cat instead of your credit card.”

Joey cleared his throat to get their attention and stir the conversation back on track. “So what if we went with him needing that stuff for his passport?”

“Well, we’re back to what I said before. Why wouldn’t he just call her himself?” Lance asked.

Justin paused and then said, “I can call my mom and say that we all need that stuff for something. And I could ask her to pass it on to the other moms.”

Lance sat there for a moment before a look of realization passed over his face and he immediately jogged back into the house. Justin shared a look of confusion with Joey and Chris who merely shrugged. However, they didn’t have to wait long to find out where Lance had run off to and why because he came walking back out, phone to his ear.

“I’m good, Karen. How are you?” Lance asked.

Justin looked at Joey and Chris. “Why’s he talking to her already?”

“He must have an idea,” Joey said.

“I hope it works,” Chris mumbled.

Lance glared at them, silently telling them to shut up, and went back to the conversation. “Well, the reason I’m calling is that I need to ask you a favor. You see, Jive just hired this new secretary and she accidentally shredded JC’s personal files.”

There was a pause as Karen probably asked some question before Lance said, “She confused his files with the artist that Jive just terminated. Their files were right next to each other.”

At that Justin burst out laughing and Chris and Joey weren’t far behind him. He’d tried to hold it in, but he couldn’t handle it. The mental image he got of some girl standing over a paper shredder and feeding JC’s confidential files as if she taking pleasure out of it into it was too much. It didn’t help that he pictured her laughing evilly even though he was sure she would’ve been mortified at what she’d done. Lance’s glare intensified, as if that were possible.

“No, that’s just the guys. They think the whole thing’s hilarious. Personally I feel bad for the girl…fired on her first day. But anyway, I need you to fax over his birth certificate, medical records, and anything else you can think of. No, don’t send it to Jive. They’re closed already and I’m going in tomorrow morning anyway.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Lance said. “Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell JC about this. We haven’t told him and there’s no reason to get him all worked up over something that’s already been dealt with. Yeah, I will. Thanks, Karen. Bye.”

“God, you guys make it impossible to talk on the phone,” Lance complained after he hung up the phone.

“You managed just fine,” Chris said.

“I can’t believe she bought it,” Justin said in amazement. It wasn’t often that one of them could lie and get away with it. He had been certain that this wasn’t going to be one of those times.

Joey laughed. “Where did you come up with that story anyway?”

Lance shrugged. “It just popped into my head after Justin offered to call Lynn.”

“Well, good going, Lance,” Joey said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Justin couldn’t help but feel they were finally making progress. Before the day was over they’d know who JC’s birth parents are. The only problem would be looking at it and discussing it without JC finding out what they’d done and planned on doing. Regardless Justin felt a little apprehensive about learning about JC’s birth parents because JC never really talked about them or his adoption and maybe there was a reason for that. He was afraid that they’d stumble onto something that they didn’t really want to know like that JC’s mother had mated with a demon. It was doubtful, but how else could JC have gotten his psychic abilities? The demons seemed pretty confident that it had to do with where he came from and that was worrisome. There was the chance that they were wrong and he was hoping they were.

But even if the demons were wrong and his abilities weren’t connected with where he came from, they could still come across something they wouldn’t want to know. Justin had always heard horror stories about what happened to kids whose parents beat them before the state intervened and they were placed into foster care. It made him especially uncomfortable that they were doing this behind JC’s back because he would’ve preferred to ask him, but he knew that wasn’t an option because there’s no way JC would want to share that information with them. That was if he even remembered. Justin wasn’t sure if it would be worse to not remember what’d happened to you as a kid, or to remember something that could possibly be hurtful.

“Hey, JC,” Lance greeted, bringing Justin out of his thoughts as he saw JC come over to them.

“Hey,” JC said, his voice sounded kind of rough. Justin reasoned he’d probably just woken up.

“How are you feeling?” Joey asked.

“Better.” JC looked over at Justin with a critical eye. No doubt trying to see if there was any change in his appearance since he’d last seen him. “How are you holding up?”

Justin smiled. “I’m good.”

JC’s eyes then trailed over to where Chris was standing and Chris held up his hand. “Don’t bother. I’m fine except that I’m starving.”

“Are the burgers nearly done?” Joey asked.