Pretty Dead City Dream: They're singing, for all they're worth. He can't hear it, but he can feel the sound leaving his throat, full and clear and perfect, and he can feel the satisfying hum of the harmonies hitting perfect pitch, of five voices becoming one. He doesn't know what they're singing.
The church around them is a cathedral, an enormous, gilded structure; the Notre Dame of Paris rendered in gold and marble.
It's empty, save for the five of them and a small, green-clad figure sitting in a front pew. Chris can't see his face, doesn't want to. He turns away, looks at his friends, their glowing, enraptured faces.
JC opens his eyes and meets his, and the harmony breaks and shatters and
Chris gasped his way out of the dream, clamped down on the scream and all that came out was a choked little whimper.
He unfolded himself from the sofa. His neck hurt. The room was still as light as it had been when he fell asleep.
On the bed, Joey, Lance and Justin had clumped together like a litter of kittens. Justin had his arms twined around Lance. Lance was leaning his head on Joey's shoulder.
JC wasn't there.
The door was open and he tiptoed out into the corridor outside. For some reason, it felt wrong to make sounds, to disturb the stale air. His chest ached dully and he noticed that he was holding his breath. He curled his hands into fists and exhaled slowly, inhaled even slower. He could hear his heart thumping, blood pounding in the veins at the sides of his neck.
The faintly shimmering ghost of an old lady with a broom appeared in front of him and walked right through him with light steps, leaving a tingling, and he had to force himself to breathe again. He walked on, towards the slight shift in the light at the end of the corridor.
JC was standing at the window, outlined in the arch of it, looking out.
When he turned and met Chris' eyes, Chris felt the memory of his dream drag cold fingernails down his back. He flinched and felt stupid. It was just JC, wearing the same worn jeans and Giants t-shirt he had for days now. JC with his curls floating in small listless clouds around his head, backlit by the window. His eyes fell in shade, for some reason, even though there were no real shadows here, just spots with slightly less light.
"Can't sleep?" Chris asked. He couldn't get his voice to rise above a whisper.
Even though he couldn't see JC's eyes, he felt them harden. "I miss my life," JC said. His voice sounded dry and harsh, like a drumbeat. He didn't sound miserable or plaintive.
Chris opened his mouth to say, "I'm sorry," but closed it again.
JC looked like he wanted to say something more, something harder, but he seemed to be holding it back. When he turned back to the window, his eyes gleamed in the light, and they looked pale, pale blue, like Justin's eyes.
Another ghost brushed past Chris - an elderly white guy in a suit and tie - and Chris shivered and stepped away and somehow bumped into JC. JC twirled around with perfect, furious grace and lifted his hand.
Chris caught it on the way to his face and held it, his fingers crushing JC's thin wrist, harder than he wanted to, not hard enough. JC bared his teeth at him and Chris felt the screaming wrongness of his dream in this. He wasn't breathing again and his chest was burning.
JC stared at him. Chris could see his eyes clearly now, and they were hard and it was wrong in every way, and he couldn't believe this, couldn't find the place he turned wrong, couldn't find what he did to make it like this.
JC's eyes blurred and tears leaked from the corners, but they stayed hard underneath it. Chris couldn't make himself let go of JC's wrist. He was using all his force; his fingers ached and his arm was starting to throb with every heartbeat.
He tried to remember again; what had he done? Why had he done it?
JC's face was pale and hazy-smooth, his skin translucent over sharp bones. They'd been here for how long? but there was no stubble on his chin, just the ridiculous strip of softly shiny brown hair. Chris remembered wrestling JC one day, tickling him into submission and pulling a pair of neon green bikini underwear over his face. JC had laughed and swatted helplessly at him and said, afterwards, "You're just bitter cause you don't have a pretty face to fuck up."
JC laughing seemed like something that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and here JC was staring at him with his newly hard eyes. Chris blinked and saw something moving behind JC, down on the street, but when he blinked again, it was gone.
"Let me go," JC said.
"No," Chris said and twisted JC's wrist upwards, made JC cry out and step closer, and it shouldn't have made it easier to breathe to know that it hurt, but it did.
"Let me go," JC said, but he wasn't really struggling. Chris leaned closer and put his mouth against JC's face, rested his lips on the sharp ridge of a cheekbone. JC shivered and Chris felt tendons tighten like piano wires in his wrist.
Then JC turned his face and his mouth was hard and angry on Chris', and he twisted his body around and Chris lost his grip on his wrist and lost the upper hand.
He felt sharp teeth on his lip and sharp fingers on his arms and JC muttered something into his mouth that might have been "I hate you" or "I love you" or neither.
JC pushed him backwards and he tripped over his own feet and fell gracelessly, bones rattling and teeth clicking together painfully around the tip of his tongue. JC landed catlike on top of him without crashing into him. Chris fought to catch his breath, fought and thought he might lose the fight for a second, and then JC kissed him again and he sucked in a great gulp of recycled air and the pain in his diaphragm unravelled and spread through his chest and abdomen and faded.
"How long?" JC hissed. "How long did you want this?"
"I didn't," Chris lied. "I-- don't."
JC had a leg between his, knee bent and his thigh was pushing against Chris' crotch, too hard, too fucking hard and it hurt. Chris snapped his teeth together around JC's tongue and lifted his hips. JC got a hand between their chests, pressed his fist knuckles first into Chris' chest, right at the breastplate, over the heart, and that hurt, too. He pressed hard, like a slow motion punch, like he wanted to split Chris' chest open under his fist.
"I dreamed I tore you open," JC said, his voice raw and crackling. Chris bucked his hips again, crushed his aching cock against JC's leg and closed his eyes. He didn't mean to, but he thought of Justin, for a second only. Justin's long body pressed against his, Justin's gentle hands on his shoulders.
"That's not who he is," JC said, hardly out of breath when Chris was gasping and trying to get air into compressed lungs, and ground down hard. "He's not fifteen anymore."
You don't know what I think, Chris wanted to say, but he heard something, a faint whisper somewhere, tickling his ears with the knowledge that he'd missed something. JC licked his sore mouth and thrust against him once, twice, shuddered and groaned softly. Chris felt him go limp for all of two seconds, and then he was backing off, getting up again, walking away.
Chris sat up and cupped his aching groin gingerly, too exhausted to be as angry as he should be. He thought about jerking off and decided against it.
He looked over his shoulder, out the window, and saw creatures moving around down on the street.
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