The next few days passed by relatively peacefully. Piper had a tendency to sneak off to spend scattered hours at his base tinkering with flutes and making use of the shooting range (he was destroying wooden Flashes almost as quickly as James could make them) but when he wasn't off rehearsing his villainy he was at home pretending to be happy and well adjusted. And James was letting himself be fooled into thinking the worst had passed.

Piper came back from his base one afternoon wearing real clothes (he'd been wearing his costume or pajamas for the most part) and sporting a new haircut. "Ooo…someone's styling."

"Please don't tease me." Piper actually blushed. "I haven't had my hair short since I still lived with my parents. Does it look terrible?"

James walked over and ran his hand through the soft orange strands. "It's gonna take me forever to get used to it, but I like it."

"Really?"

"Mm hm. Course you're so pretty you could probably even pull off a mullet, but that's beside the point."

Piper laughed. "Come on James, no one can pull off a mullet. Well, except David Bowie."

"You're so much hotter than David Bowie."

"That is really sweet of you to say," Piper said with a smile.

"So why'd you chop your hair off anyway?"

"Kind of a whim, but really I just felt like it was time for a change."

"Oh." He wasn't sure how to take that. "Don't change too much on me Pookie. I kinda like you the way you already are."

Piper squeezed his hand reassuringly. "Don't worry James, I'm still me."

Just when James started feeling like the worst actually was over, JJ died. He woke up one morning and the rat was perfectly still in his cage. He poked it a couple times, wondering if he could sneak down to the pet store and get a new one without Piper noticing. Then the bedroom door opened.

"Uh…Piper, uh-"

"His heartbeat stopped around four this morning. It's okay James, I know already."

"Oh." James turned around, ready to shower Piper with as much sympathy as he needed. "Baby, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't. It's fine. Rats…they don't live that long anyway. I'll bury him by my base this afternoon."

James frowned. Piper's voice was so even…casual. Considering the giddy glee he'd shown when he'd gotten JJ, James was expecting the rat's death to be difficult for him. Tears at the least. "Piper, are you okay?"

"I'm fine James," Piper answered, in that same flat voice. "I'm hungry though. Are you going to make breakfast or should I cook something?"

"Wasn't aware you suddenly learned how to cook," James teased. "What do you want?"

"Could you make those mango crepes again? They were interesting. I'd like to give them another chance."

"Sure. Anything you want Pookie." He gave Piper a quick kiss then went into the kitchen to start cooking.

The crepes took him awhile. The mango recipe was still definitely a work in progress. Finding a sauce he liked to top it was proving to be the most difficult part. By the time he finished two plates almost an hour had passed.

"Piper food's…done," James informed the empty apartment.

Well, the dead rat was still in the cage. JJ would have heard it if he weren't too busy being dead.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Can't believe he pulled that one over on me. Would never have god damn worked if I wasn't so…fucking stupidly in love with him. Fucking hell." James kept a profanity filled stream going under his breath as he drove a 'borrowed' vehicle to Piper's base outside Central City. He'd thrown breakfast into a Tupperware container, now sitting on the passenger seat, determined that Piper would at least eat something before he started obsessing over his villainous pursuits again.

Frankly, James wanted Piper to quit while he was ahead. That last stunt with the mayor had blown Piper's anonymity: Flash knew who'd been screwing with him. The best course of action would have been to lie low, but Piper was just as determined to amp things up as James was to convince him to skip town for awhile.

He pulled onto the road to Piper's base, and felt his stomach drop to his knees when he saw the wreckage of said base strewn about the grassy field.

"No. No-no-no-no-no-no-oh God! Oh God!" James hopped out of the car and ran for the base, looking through the destroyed building for any sign of his boyfriend. "Piper! PIPER! Where are you? Piper!"

James quickly shredded his fingers into bloodied stubs moving shrapnel. After littering his arms and legs with mild lacerations shifting wreckage he finally satisfied himself that Piper wasn't anywhere in the hideout, but that only stilled his panic a little. Just where the hell was he then?

He went back to the apartment to put some antiseptic on his cuts, bandage the ones that needed it and wrap his fingers in gauze. Just as he finished the phone started ringing.

"Hello?"

"James? What's going on with Piper?" It was Len.

"Damned if I know! I was making breakfast, and he took off, and now his hideout's all fucked up-"

"Oh kid, it's all over the news. I didn't expect-I mean I thought you'd know more than what they're saying, seeing as you're, um, well-"

"Len? Tell me what happened to my boyfriend or I'm going over to your house, dismantling your cold guns, and turning them into tinker toys," James ground out.

"Flash beat the piss out of him at his hideout and Hartley snapped. They carted him off to the crazy house. James…I'm sorry."

James chewed his lip. "No. That didn't happen. Hartley's-he's, he was getting better. He's fucked up but he's…" His voice gave out so James hung up the phone. He paced back and forth, eyes falling on the dead rat, still in his cage. A sob escaped his throat.

He turned on the TV, and flicked through until he caught a breaking news report that did in fact show Piper, dazed and a little banged up, being taken to Breedmore Mental Hospital.

"P-piper's not…he would have told me if things were, if they were that bad he would have…" James dropped onto the couch, hugged his knees, and wept.

Len tried calling James a few times, but he wasn't really surprised when he didn't get an answer. He gave it an hour, then tried again, then drove past the apartment, but he finally found James' car in the parking lot of the Breedmore hospital. He walked up to the car and tapped on James' window.

James was sitting in the driver's seat staring at the front entrance of the hospital. His eyes were red rimmed, but he looked outwardly calm. He flashed a smile at Len and rolled down the window. "Hey Cold. What brings you by?"

"They wouldn't let you in for a visit, huh?"

"Threatened to call the police and threw me out on my keister. Piper's on a family only list, and it doesn't matter that his relatives aren't speaking to him either." James shrugged. "So now I'm trying to think of a way to blow up that fucking building without hurting my pookie. I haven't come up with anything useful."

"For the record, Digger and Sam already tried to spring Piper but he wouldn't move. They said he was drugged up pretty bad. At first he wasn't responding at all, but when he did address them he claimed to like it there. He was talking like the Flash had done him a favor, giving him the mental breakdown."

James frowned. "Well Hart's a bit of a masochist sometimes. I could see that amping up if he's delusional. So wait, they just left him?"

"He wouldn't leave. We're having a meeting to discuss a course of action. Between Flash killing that reverse asshole and what he just did to Piper, we figure a little deterring action on our part is necessary. I assumed you'd want in."

James glanced back towards the hospital. He let out a slow sigh. "Yeah, I'm in."

James was mostly just going through the motions for the team-up. Sam and Digger were going on about a mental patient they'd found that they wanted to kidnap and outfit as their new enforcer. It sounded like a really bad plan, but Len and Mark were going along with it, so James just kept quiet and waited to leave.

He went to his own apartment for the first time in weeks, made himself some fake identification, then swung by Piper's place, grabbed a change of clothes, and prepared for his second attempt at getting into the hospital to see his boyfriend.

One of the perks of having such a flamboyant costumed persona was how unrecognizable James became if he dressed like a normal person. He put on Piper's clothes (bland earth tones, mostly green) and voila! Instant citizen, no need for even a hood or sunglasses.

James walked into the hospital, signed the visitor's log (Jamie Rathaway, a fake cousin), got his VISITOR sticker and was shown right to Piper's room.

And discovered to his horror that Sam and Digger hadn't been exaggerating in the least.

Piper was sitting in a chair staring placidly out a window, blinking far too infrequently with a bit of drool sliding down his chin. His hair was unwashed, his skin chalky pale, and he had dark smudges under his eyes.

"I don't expect you'll get much out of your visit," The nurse said with a sigh. "The doc upped his dosage again this afternoon after something upset him. But the stimulation might help. Visiting hours end at eight, so I'll be back then, but if you want to leave earlier just check out at the nurse's station by the elevator."

"Thanks." Feeling somewhat numb, James pulled a chair up next to his boyfriend.

"Pookie?" The much loathed nickname got no response. Frowning, James smoothed back the orange bangs, trailing his fingertips down the side of Piper's face. He didn't blink. "Piper? Baby, it's me. James. Come on hon, look at me."

James took Piper's hand in his and squeezed it. He was starting to get freaked out. "So, um, I'm gonna try to swing by as often as I can until we can get you outta here. And I promise, I'm working on it. It's just hard, y'know...they do way more background checks before they release a mental patient with a criminal record into your custody than...than...Hartley, c'mon...baby, you're in there, right?"

He tilted Piper's face towards him, but still got no response.

"Piper, please say something. Come on Pookie, I'll do anything. I'll buy you fifty free range rats-I'll build a new homeless shelter, anything you want!"

James pulled Piper into a fierce hug. Limp in his arms, he smelled like disinfectant and waste, just like the damn hospital. James started sobbing. "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"

James left at 8:05 and was back the next night as soon as visiting hours started. This time he brought a portable CD player and a stack of burns they'd made together. The next night he sat and read comics to himself while Piper looked out the window.

By the end of the week most of the staff had figured out who James really was. But since he left with reddened eyes every night after coaxing Hartley towards responsiveness as best he was able, they decided it wasn't worth reporting.

Rathaway was a medication-induced vegetable with a spineless doctor who was being leaned on by Central's now-jumpy mayor. If anything, James Jesse had the night staff of Breedmore hospital's sympathy.