Pretty Dead City Something was touching his face, light, feathery touches, tickling touches. He sneezed and woke up.
He was clinging to JC like JC was the last lifeboat in a storm. He'd pressed his face into JC's soft hair; he could smell the faint traces of lemon-scented shampoo.
It was quiet. He couldn't hear JC breathing. He couldn't hear anything.
"Um," he said. "JC?"
JC didn't move. Chris took a deep gulp of air, got JC's hair instead, jerked upright and pushed JC hard.
JC exploded out of sleep and tackled him, panther-fast and silent, and his hands were like a steel wire around Chris' throat, tightening.
Chris opened his mouth and got no air. JC's face was horribly impassive.
Chris twisted and got his knee up and kicked. JC grunted and fell on him, crushing him into the carpet, but the grip on his throat loosened.
"Jesus," he panted, "Jesus fucking CHRIST--"
JC was too heavy on top of him, and what the fuck was going on, anyway, where the fuck was everyone else, and wh--
"JC?" he said. "JC?"
"Chris?" someone else said - Justin, it was Justin, in a small, breathy voice - "Chris, what?"
"Mmmmmh," JC said and lifted his head from Chris' chest. Chris saw Justin's arms come around JC's neck and shoulders, pulling him away, and Chris could breathe again.
"Are you okay there?" Joey said on his other side, and Chris gulped down precious, precious air and looked around.
"Where's Lance?" he wheezed.
Only Joey heard him, because Justin was busy stroking JC's hair and murmuring softly to him. JC had buried his face in the crook of Justin's neck.
"I don't know," Joey said.
Back on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. The street was empty again. The light was the same. Some doors had opened or closed, some streetlights had changed, but otherwise everything was just like before.
"Where the hell did he go?" Joey said. He was looking mildly frantic, pacing up and down the sidewalk and peering through display windows.
JC stood behind Justin, a little wild-eyed but pretty calm under the circumstances. No one had mentioned the fact that Chris couldn't fucking speak for shit because his throat was bruised, or that JC had tried to kill him. Justin threw them both nervous glances every once in a while, but he wasn't saying anything, either.
"We have to, we have to look for him," Justin said now.
"How?" Chris said, but he was thinking about options. Lance had wandered off somewhere. Then JC got murderous all of a sudden. Bad shit was going down, in short.
"Someone might have taken him," Joey said. "Someone could've just, I don't fucking know, fucking BEAMED him up to the goddamn mothership--"
"Shut up, Joey," Chris said. His head hurt a little, but not as much as his throat. He could feel every one of JC's fingers, every time he swallowed. On top of that, his mouth and forehead still hurt from hitting the sidewalk earlier. I'm doing a John McClane, he thought and said, "I don't think anyone took him. He walked off on his own two feet. It's this place. It makes people...do stuff," and he couldn't help glaring at JC then, and JC glared back.
"So what do we do?" Justin said. He was looking strangely fragile again. It was as if this place sapped him of all his character - his eyes were childlike and plaintive. JC looked like a thug next to him, and there were just so many things wrong with that image that Chris had to turn away.
No one said anything for a while.
"He'll be back," JC said suddenly, just as Chris had decided to attempt something cheering on his own. He didn't think he could have managed quite the gusto JC had. JC sounded like he believed it.
"Then we'll wait," Chris said because he wanted the last word.
They waited.
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