hurt comfort, angst ending in schmoop. JC/Justin. languid, reconnaissance, neglected, prerequisite, levitate. For Dacey: Happy Birthday, sweetie. You deserve one.

Justin hated it when JC started painting. Painting meant days of walking around covered in peeling acrylics. It meant splotched pants, and forgotten meals, and forgotten Justin.

It wasn't that JC *meant* to not talk to him, or kiss him, or smooth his furrowed brow or any shit like that. Justin knew that. He did. It was just that JC got so caught up in capturing the light, the way Seurat had, and frankly it all looked kind of blobby to Justin, and he didn't get why he shouldn't have any sex for days and days while JC perfected Blob, Number 17 (with fruit) or whatever the fuck it was. But of course, he did go without sex, because JC couldn't be bothered with actual relationships or life or food or anything, not when he was being Called, and Justin got used to it, most of the time.

Where "got used to it" meant "counted the seconds until JC was done".

He peeked his head outside the kitchen door, intent on his secret reconnaissance mission. He was going to make a bagel brunch, even though it was nearly dinner time. JC wouldn't notice, and Justin felt like lox. And they'd have time together, just the two of them, no painting or anything, just JC and Justin and bagels with cream cheese and raw fish.

"C," he whispered. "Hey, Jayce, come on. You can leave it for just a few seconds. Just a minute, that's all."

"Not now, Justin. The sun's moving too quickly -- the light'll be gone soon."

"That's why we have lamps."

"Justin. I'm painting our garden in late afternoon. Sunlight is a prerequisite for late afternoon. Can't you bug Chris, or something?"

Justin sighed, and pouted, and when he realized the pout wouldn't work because JC wasn't looking at him anymore, but was instead carefully scrutinizing a conch shell, he sighed again and wandered inside.

He started cutting a bagel, thinking vaguely that if his hand slipped, if the knife cut into his palm and starting bleeding, if he sliced his thumb off or something, JC wouldn't neglect him then. When Joey was hurt, JC had fluttered around him for weeks, fluffing his pillow and bringing him food and drinks and Gameboy games and presents and kissing his cheek and neglecting Justin.

Justin hated being neglected.

It wasn't that he felt he should be the center of attention all the time, or anything. It was more that he always had been. He was used to it, used to being loved, had come to expect it. No one had ever *not* loved him, and especially not JC, who had loved him for as long as Justin could remember. JC used to take him out for milkshakes and play basketball with him, back on MMC. JC had taught him how to throw a football properly, and practiced dance steps with him (though neither of them had needed it) and had smiled his wide, crinkly-eyed, truly happy grin when Justin got Chris to invite him into the group. When JC was busy loving other people, Justin felt it in his heart, a raw ache that refused to be soothed until he had JC back in his arms, whispering sweetnesses to him and loving him first and best and always.

Despite the melancholy turn of his thoughts, he hadn't actually *meant* to cut his palm with the bread knife. In fact, he dropped the knife in the sink immediately afterwards, and stared at his hand. At the blood dripping down his fingers.

"Jayce?" he called. He felt stupid. He ought to be able to stop bleeding, oughtn't he? He'd helped Lance hold Joey's leg together. He'd cut himself before, he had. But somehow he couldn't take the memory of Joey's leg and the reality of his hand, and put the two together to create a plan of action. "Jayce, please!"

"Jesus, Justin," JC shouted from the garden. "Give me five fucking minutes!"

In five minutes, he might be dead, Justin thought. He might lose all the blood in his body in five minutes. It could all slide down the drain. He felt queasy.

"Jayce!"

"Fine!" JC carefully placed his palatte on the ground, dropped his brush into a waterglass, and stomped towards the kitchen. "Fuck fuck *fuckity*... Justin!" He ran to Justin's side, grabbing a dishtowel and wrapping it around Justin's palm.

"Oh," Justin said stupidly. "That was a good thought. The blood won't go down the drain, now."

"What the fuck were you *thinking*?" JC asked.

"Brunch."

"It's nearly six o'clock, Justin."

"I wanted lox. And a picnic. And my hand hurts, Jayce."

"I know," JC said. "You cut it in half."

"Not quite in *half*," Justin said, honest to a fault. "But pretty deep, I think."

"You want to go to the hospital? Maybe we should take you to the hospital. It didn't look that deep," JC said, "but if you're feeling dizzy or something. How long was it like that before you called me?"

Justin shrugged.

"Right," JC said, "the hospital it is."

"Lonnie's gonna kill me. It's a Sunday."

"I'm gonna kill you. Don't you know not to cut towards your palm?"

Justin dropped his head onto JC's shoulder, thereby making it harder for JC to pull his jacket on.

"Come on, Justin. The time for languishing has passed. Let's get you to a doctor."

Justin lifted his head up and followed JC to the car. Somehow, he didn't remember things being like this when Joey hurt his leg. JC had cared, then. Had been incapable of driving, incapable of even thinking coherently. They all had, really. And the worst part was that there was no one to blame. They'd been told how the trapdoors worked, Joey just hadn't listened. Had expected to fucking levitate up, or some shit, and yet when he hurt himself JC had *still* flocked to his side and spent ages making him comfy.

Lonnie met them at the door to the ER, and sheperded them straight through to a doctor. Justin's hand was pronounced fine, JC was given a prescription for tylenol with codeine, in case Ibuprofin proved inadequate to the cause, and they were back in the car headed home before Justin really knew what had happened.

He took two advil when they got home, because Lonnie hadn't arrived with the prescription yet, and his hand was aching in a dull, throbbing kind of way, and JC was mad at him for cutting himself and interrupting the last of the sunlight (even though, hello? it would be sunny again tomorrow) and he thought taking medicine would make him look sad and pathetic and maybe elicit a nice response.

JC ignored him.

"If your hand hurts that much," he said, not looking up from scrubbing the cutting board, "go lie down and sleep."

Lonnie rang the doorbell then, and Justin scuffed his foot when Lonnie scowled, and dry swallowed some tylenol with codeine and wondered idly why the whole world seemed to hate him. Except Chris, but Chris was at home instead of Justin's, or he probably would too. And Joey and Lance, if they were there, because it was just like them, and his hand hurt and he was feeling fuzzy, so he went to bed.

JC woke him in the morning with a kiss on his forehead.

"I didn't realize you were in so much pain," he murmured. "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"'s okay," Justin said, stretching languidly. "Love you."

JC handed Justin a bagel with cream cheese and lox, and even though it got crumbs in bed which he'd have to clean up later, at that moment, Justin thought his life was pretty much perfect.

"I love you too," JC said, and Justin realized he had been right.