Sleep never came easily anymore. He was always plagued by memories and faces of people he hadn’t seen in years, by doubts that they were even still alive. He wondered where Heather and Tyler were.

Tonight it was worse. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Joey’s face, crumpled and broken by the knowledge that he’d been betrayed.

Eventually he stood and went for the door of the little room he shared with Justin and Chris. He could walk until he was tired, until he collapsed where he was. He stopped when he felt a hand on his arm. Chris gestured as if to follow, and JC nodded. He could stand the company.

Chris took him to the gardens Justin had told him about and for a few moments, JC couldn’t speak. He hadn’t seen the color green in years.

He laid along the ground, in the dirt, his cheek over the roots and his eyes full of the green stalk of the plant. Whatever it was. He might have cried.

“It makes sense though,” he said, and saw Chris nod. “Remember the time on the Pop Odyssey tour when I called Steve a leech? And it turned out he was standing right there? Because when I was there, strapped to the table, I thought I heard him again, thought I heard him say something about being a leech, but I just thought I was dreaming. But it makes sense now.”

Chris nodded again and JC spread his hand along Chris’s arm, fingers extended and pressing into warm skin. Chris was really there. He felt Chris tap against his cheek, drawing his eyes up from Chris’s arm to his eyes.

“No, I’m fine,” he said, answering the unspoken question. So long apart and he can still read Chris like he used to. “I just, I don’t know what to say anymore.”

Chris wrapped his free arm around JC’s shoulders and JC tucked his head against Chris’s neck, his arm curled in against his chest.

“I’m so tired.”

Chris’s arm started a slow path up and down JC’s back, slowly rubbing and warming the skin beneath the cover all.

“I healed Joey, you know.” He felt Chris’s hand still against his back, and he sat up to look into Chris’s eyes. This was something that needed to be said to his face. “He was shot and they just left him, left him there to die. He was so close when we found him. A few more minutes and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. But it wasn’t too late. I healed him, Chris.”

For a few moments Chris just stared at him, like he didn’t know what to do, but it quickly dissolved into self-directed anger and JC knew he was thinking about what he said when JC first offered.

“No, stop. It’s okay, and he’s probably already forgotten about it. It’s not using me, Chris. Or, it is, but I want to.” He reached his hands up to cup Chris’s face and neck, leaned in so he whispered into his ear, his cheek pressed to Chris’s. “We need you back as much as you need us.”

And the look froze on Chris’s face somewhere between anger and hope, a desperate longing. His hands clenched in JC’s.

“Please,” JC whispered.

Chris nodded.

Much slower with Chris, but his need was less immediate than Joey’s had been and he figured that somehow, whatever it was in him that helped him heal people knew that. Chris tried to turn over on his stomach but JC stopped him, kissed his cheek and ran his hands over Chris’s stomach and when he slid inside, Chris shuddered.

The voice didn’t take over this time, his chip was gone, and he felt everything, controlled everything, long, slow thrusts that made Chris’s breath hitch. He came moments after Chris did and felt, again, the transfer of energy from him to Chris and he shut his eyes, unable to watch as Chris’s skin knit together, rebuilt itself in front of him.

He opened his eyes again when he heard Chris gasp, met both of Chris’s eyes as they stared back at him, up at him, and blurred with tears.

“God,” Chris said, and it was just like a prayer.