I <3 U, K?

He had to snap Justin out of it. (UKGSDFMJSDF I TYPED LUSTIN EDKUFGK,B) Probably a terrible idea, considering how paranoid Justin was, but James didn't know what else to do. So he grabbed Justin by the wrists and forced him to look up at him.

"Justin. Calm down. Tell me what's happening. I'm right here for you."

(OHBABEH)

"Fuck!" Justin shrieked as he was torn from his spiraling though process. He acted on pure instinct and swat at whatever had grabbed him, coming to his senses just in time to watch his fisted hand come into contact with James' chest, throwing the boy back onto the ground.

...

Oh God.

"James! Holy shit, James, I'm so sorry!"

(DDDDX)

James groaned as the wind was knocked out of him. He was somehow on the floor. The boy opened his eyes, blinked, looked up at Justin, who was staring down at him in horror. He blinked again. And allowed a pained smile to cross his face.

"No, it's my fault. That was really stupid of me, I wasn't thinking," James mumbled, wincing as he sat up.

"I was just trying to snap you out of it." He chuckled softly. "And it worked."

"Now tell me what happened."

Justin looked down at his hand.

"The... the symbol..." he looked up, deflated. "The sign..."

"And what does it mean?" James pried, trying to get a straight answer out of Justin.

"Are you talking about the...shock that ran up my arm when I touched your hand?"

"Yes!" Justin suddenly shouted, shooting from his stunned posture to begin pacing violently, back and forth, back and forth. "God dammit, of all people! And right after I fucking told you, what the Hell?!"

He stopped abruptly. And looked up.

"Fucking bitch, you know I hate irony!"

It'd be somewhat comical to him, yelling at the ceiling and all, if he wasn't so absolutely livid right now.

....Yeah James was going to assume that it was a certain LC that Justin was addressing at the moment. He wasn't sure exactly how Justin expected her to hear him, but that seemed a bit irrelevant right now.

Right now getting Justin to calm down was a bit higher on James' priority list.

He wasn't all that certain that it was possible at this point... Yeah maybe it would be better to let Justin yell himself out instead of risk getting another punch to the gut.

Justin grit his teeth and clenched his fists, knuckles whitening.

"God dammit..." he hissed, unclenching a fist to pull at his hair.

James winced. He was lost, he had no idea what to do in this situation. He had never seen Justin so livid.

"Please just tell me what's going on," James said quietly. "I want to be able to help. But I can't if I don't know what just happened."

"You can't help!" he shot back. "And I don't want you to help!"

He moved in close, jabbing a finger into James' chest as ha addressed him with eyes wild with fury. "Helping would get yourself killed and this is so beyond you! This is almost beyond me, and was never supposed to happen!"

James swallowed, stumbling back a step. It wasn't what Justin was saying that scared him. It was how he was saying, how all of that fury was now directed at him.

"A-alright. I'll go," James said quietly, taking another step back and raising his hands up in surrender.

He turned and walked briskly to the entrance door, opening it softly and slipping through. Why was it that his heart was thudding like this, leaving a dull ache in his chest? Why were his hands quivering like this?

He bit the inside of his lip and looked back at the door of Justin's suite, then shook his head as if to clear it and reached for the button on the elevator, pointedly keeping his eyes away from the uncovered windows in the entry hall. Now was not the time to have a phobia induced panic attack.

Justin hadn't realized James had left till he was out the door and gone.

Goddammit!

Fucking Hell, of course he would take it wrong!

he wasn't mad at James, he was made at the situation, but he'd never meant to yell at the blond. But shit, this was way beyond anything the blond could understand right now. And it wasn't an easy thing to explain...

Well, it kinda was, but wasn't.

And he couldn't worry about that right now, he needed to go after.

Not been bothering to grab a coat or anything, not even shoes, Justin bolted out the door, calling out the blond's name the whole way.

"Goddammit, James!"

The elevator doors opened almost instantly, and James stepped in quickly, moving to the corner and gripping the railings as the doors slid shut and the elevator began its slow descent down. He swallowed, sinking to the floor as the elevator lurched down. This was going to take a while, and he had nothing to distract him from every slight creak and vibration that the elevator made as its long journey down to the ground level. Except mulling over what had just happened up there, but that really wasn't much of an improvement for his mental state.

"Shit" he hissed, as the elevator made its decent.

But a glance to his left showed him what he needed and Justin bolted for the door and made his way down his old foe.

Stairs.

(this is too great XDD)

Finally, he was at the halfway mark. James kept his eyes glued to the lit buttons on the side of the door, counting the seconds between each floor. It really seemed like every floor took just a few seconds longer than the last, but that just might have been that he was counting slightly faster every time. He chewed on his lower lip anxiously, beginning to tap his fingers nervously on the carpeted floor. But then he stopped after a few seconds, because the tapping might screw with the inner workings of the elevator and then he'd be stuck in here for hours or it would drop and he'd die and then his ghost wou-...

Yes, better to count the seconds.

Finally!

At the bottom of the stairs (and barely winded, so there), Justin veered to a halt and waited for the elevator to reach the bottom.

James got tired of his lip and started gnawing on the inside of his cheek, and it was soon raw. His eyes still hadn't left the lights, he hadn't even blinked. And now that he thought about it, that was probably why his eyes were watering so much. Yes. That was why. Because he had been having a staring contest with the buttons. It had no relevance whatsoever to his current situation. None. Nooo relevance. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Noooooone. At aaallllllll.

Despite himself, his fingers went back to anxiously tapping at the floor. If the stupid thing was going to drop him, might as well get it over with. A quick death was preferable to this waiting. Seriously! It was like the elevator wasn't even mo-

He blinked.

The elevator wasn't...moving...

Shit.

Justin frowned when the light didn't shine that the elevator hadn't gone beyond level four. And even more alarmed when the light for level four went off, basically making Justin question for a split second that the elevator had even existed in the first place. His second thought was that James was now in the Twilight Zone. Stupid, yes, but weirder had happened. And finally, his last thought was to get James out.

Being one of those "yee of little faith," Justin set to the task of opening the doors himself. And it wasn't that hard. Justin wedge that weird knife Torn had given him for his birthday (the unbreakable one) and pry it open just as he had enough room to get his fingers in between. And really, separating the doors was the hardest part. Once he was actually tugging them open, it was almost as if they slid open on their own.

He look up the elevator shaft and saw the elevator.

"James!" he screamed, hoping that the blond would be able to hear him.

James wrung his clammy hands together, still unable to look away from the buttons, which had all lit up for a moment and then gone out, making his heart leap up into his throat and threaten to choke him. His throat was dry, and he kept swallowing in vain, skin gone pale with something awfully close to terror. He heard something from down below, it sounded like...someone shouting. Would they hear him if he shouted back?

"I'm up here!"

Justin heard him.

"James! It's me!" he tried, hoping he was loud enough.

"I'm gonna try and get you out!"

God, the poor guy must be flipping out right now.

The words were muffled and jumbled, but James was sure someone had heard him and would try to help. The thought wasn't much of a comfort, because if people began fiddling with the elevator they'd probably screw it up and he'd die in here. Oh the movies he had seen about elevators. Like that hotel one. With the ghosts. And there was that ride in Universal Studios. A ride for God's sake, a ride that people waited in line for hours to go on, every single day! Hundreds and hundreds of the insane general populat [lining up to very possibly die![/i]His breathing quickened and he couldn't move, couldn't turn his head to look away from the buttons, couldn't even allow himself more than the quick shallow breaths.

Sure, it made him light headed and he was pretty sure that he was a minute or so away from hyperventilating and passing out, but that would be better than moving too much and-and-and-and dying!

As if on cue, the elevator rattled ever so slightly, making James give a soft whimper of terror.

Justin scowled when no reply came, opting to scan the walls of the shaft itself, pretty much contemplating scaling the thing and getting to James that way. But there was no way inside the elevator from the bottom and he didn't want to take the time to climb up the stairs to get to a high enough level, then scale down.

He quickly pulled his head out and searched the hall, knowing that there had to be a box somewhere.

There.

Next to the emergency phone.

He opened the box, grabbed the phone, and dialed Zannin's number.

It would probably be safer to ask an expert on everything on how to get an elevator down than to just fiddle with the wires and risk killing James.

As the seconds crawled by, James found himself not only unable to move, breathe, or think, he was shaking. And not just little tremors here and there, he was shaking like a leaf caught in a windstorm. His vision was beginning to go dark at the edges, and he found himself blinking hard to stay conscious.

And then the elevator fell at breakneck speed, and James screamed louder than he would ahve ever known possible as he was flung upwards. The elevator stopped after only about a five foot drop, and James fell to the floor in a trembling heap.

Justin cursed at what he heard, slamming the phone back onto its receiver and bolted up the stairs without a second thought. And on level four, he stopped, doing the same as he had done below and wrenched the doors open.

And then thanked whatever God was up there.

The elevator had stopped a little less than halfway past the the door to the fourth floor and he could see James, huddled on the floor in fear.

"James!" He yelled to get the blond's attention, hoping that he wasn't too enveloped in his own fear to hear him.

James flinched violently as a shout jolted him out of the dark haze filling his mind. He looked up slowly, barely moving his head as his eyes darted frantically to the source of the noise.

A teenager with brown hair was calling down to him, and somehow knew his name. It...didn't make sense. The face didn't quite register in his mind. He should know that face...Those eyes. The eyes of the one who had shoved him and kicked him and made him bleed, the eyes of the one who had made school a living hell and he had done everything in his power to return the favor. He hated that boy.

James opened his mouth as if to answer, but no words came out, just a pathetic whimper. He looked away, shivering. So was he going to finish the job? Cut the elevator wires? Laugh as he plunged down into nothingness, as he screamed in sheer terror?

He'd rather die now than give Justin the sick pleasure of seeing that.