// counting trees //

JC is counting trees as they flash past through the car window. It makes his eyes hurt and his head ache with silvery stabs, but he's started and now he has to finish.

One hundred and three. One hundred and four. One hundred and five.

Softly, barely out loud, his palms spread flat against the cool glass, each whispered number sending a breath of warm air shimmering between his fingers. One hundred and six. One hundred and seven. One hundred and eight.

"JC?" Chris' voice, and a tiny thread of panic flickers through JC's belly, because he's started and he can't stop now. If he doesn't answer, if he just stays quiet and still, then maybe he can finally finish. He holds his breath and stares out into the late afternoon light.

The seat dips and shifts as Chris slides across closer to him, and JC blinks and shakes his head a little. Was that one tree or two? At the back there, a bunch of them, all at once outside a strip mall. Five, he thinks, I'll count it as five.

One hundred and fourteen. One hundred and fifteen-

"Hey." Chris leans into his shoulder, nudging him gently sideways, and JC's fingers skid across the glass a little. Smeared breath, a tiny little slipscream, and was that two trees or three? He cranes his neck, twisting awkwardly to look over Chris' head, but he can't quite see, the car moving too fast, wheels swallowing the road beneath them in eerie silence. Another five, then. I'll count it as five again. He blinks and sees the numbers flash in his head, a shuttersnap of black on white behind his eyelids.

One hundred and twenty.

And then no more, because Chris' arm is hooked around his neck, tipping him sideways, his fingers fluttering against JC's ribs like a thousand tiny butterflies. "Stay with me," he murmurs against JC's neck, his mouth hot and wet where it touches, a sudden scrape of teeth across tendon and JC shivers. No more trees flashing past his eyes, but now he's counting breaths, in and out, his chest hitching as he sucks air in through his teeth.

"I can't--" he starts to say, and Chris' fingers snatch the words from his lips, then crumple them into a loose fist.

"No more counting," Chris says softly. "No more trees, JC. You need to stay here with me." JC looks, and Chris' eyes are dark and sad, his jaw set firm like a secret. His fingers are soft and warm when they touch JC's face, brush the hair from his eyes, trace over the curve of his lip. "I need you here with me," he says again, "I know you remember how," and JC curls in close, then closer still, his body fitting against Chris' like he never expected it to. Even now, even here like this, it still surprises him. Like slipping that final piece of a puzzle into place and suddenly seeing the complete picture.

"When I can't see all of them, I always count it as five," JC says, and closes his eyes.

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