AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey! This is my very first story on , and I'm excited to share it with you all :) There will be LOTS of angst and lots of dialogue, and the chapters will often be 4000+ words, so if you're not in to that type of thing, this probably isn't the story for you! But feel free to read anyway and tell me what you think. The story is about halfway complete, so your reviews may influence some later plot developments.

This story relies heavily on flashbacks and, to a lesser extent, dreams, and these parts appear in italics.

DISCLAIMER: Big Time Rush and all related characters do NOT belong to me.

CHAPTER ONE

In celebration of Big Time Rush's first year in Hollywood, Jennifer Knight had decided to surprise the four members with a special gift. She'd bought four expensive leather-bound journals and had each one engraved. "KK." "JD." "CG." "LM."

The boys had used these journals primarily for writing lyrics, but the one with "LM" on its cover had in its margins the written results of several years of seemingly unrequited love.

"Kendall and Logan Knight."

Nope. The two G's didn't look right. A black line was scribbled through.

"Logan and Kendall Mitchell."

The double L's. They just didn't look right. Logan scowled and made another scratch-out.

"Logan Mitchell & Kendall Knight."

For whatever reason, that worked. Just their names, the way they were, joined forever by a simple ampersand. Still, he violently scratched it out, gritting his teeth.

"Hey, what's up, Logan?" Kendall casually asked as he entered the apartment and went straight for the fridge. He wore swim trunks with a towel draped over his shoulders.

Logan slammed his journal shut and held it tight against his chest, definitely not expecting company. "Hey! Uh...I thought you guys were supposed to be tanning all day."

"Yeah, that was the plan," said Kendall. He'd grabbed an apple and taken a big bite out of it by the time he joined Logan in the living room area. "James is dangerously close to turning into Orange James again, and he's planning to take Carlos to that strange place with him, so...yeah, I thought it'd be best to find something else to do. And besides, there's someone else I'd rather spend my day with anyway."

"Oh, really?" Logan asked, a quiver in his voice. His excitement almost propelled him to his feet, but he forced himself to stay seated.

"Yep," Kendall said nonchalantly, oblivious to Logan's anticipation. "But Jo's out of town, so you, my friend, are the next best thing."

Simple words that broke Logan's heart.

"So, you wanna do something?" inquired Kendall.

He sat there shirtless. His hair was still a little wet, and there were tiny water droplets on his forehead, but the intense heat of the summer day had dried the rest of him off. His skin was lightly tanned, his arms stretched out across the back of the couch. He was also wearing what Logan had long ago noticed were his tightest pair of swim trunks. All of these shallow reasons made Logan desperately want to take him up on his offer, but the real temptation lie in Kendall's never ending quest to bring adventure and excitement to his best friend. "Yes," Logan wanted to say. "Yes, yes."

"Uh...I'd love to, but you know what? I have some errands to run," he said. The little voice inside him praised his excellent use of self-control. Kendall's let down expression, however, did not, and for a second, Logan would have changed his mind, but he stood firm.

"Oh," Kendall said forlornly. His feelings of disappointment soon turned to confusion, though. "Wait a minute. You're seventeen. You don't have any errands!"

Logan's eyes widened. "Well...um...did I say errands? No, of course not. What I meant to say was that I...have...an emergency meeting of the...Trigonometry Lovers Club. Yes. Trigonometry Lovers Club."

"Ah," Kendall replied with a slight nod of the head. He seemed to be satisfied with that answer.

Logan got up, never letting the journal leave his arms for a second, and started for the door.

"Enjoy those sines, cosines, and tangents, then," Kendall said as he turned on the TV.

"Heh, thanks," answered Logan, but when his hand hit the doorknob, he stopped. "I'm shocked, yet proud, that you even know what those words mean."

Kendall shrugged his shoulders. "You're my best friend. A little bit of you is bound to rub off on me."

"Oh...that makes sense."

There was no such thing as the Trigonometry Lovers Club. Logan figured he'd check around, though, because if there was one, he'd have to join it. Not only to make sure Kendall didn't discover his lie...but also because that'd have to be a cool ass club.

He sat in a cold, straight-back chair, against a cold wall, in the cold hallway of a cold building. The thought of ditching and getting into some fun-in-the-sun activities with Kendall kept eating away at him, piece by piece, but that old self-control wouldn't budge. He knew why he was here. He knew that it was important. If he were to ever be truly happy again, he had to face his problems head on.

"Logan!" the doctor greeted when he poked his head out the door. "Come on in, my boy."

Dr. Riley was no younger than seventy years old. Way too old to be counseling teenagers, Logan had initially thought. But when he'd decided to find a therapist, all his nerves had allowed him to do was open the phone book, close his eyes, and let his finger fall on a name. It had fallen on Dr. Vernon Riley, and here he was. After their first session, Logan had decided that Dr. Riley wasn't as clueless as his age might have made him look.

Logan took his usual seat on the edge of a small, comfortable sofa, and released his grip on the journal for the first time. Dr. Riley took the spot he always took at the beginning of a session, right on top of his desk.

"So, how have you been?" he asked kindly.

"I've been...good," Logan squeezed out as if the question pierced his brain. "No, I haven't," he quickly corrected. "Not good at all."

"Aww? What's happened?"

"Well...no, no. Things have been great, actually. Things have been absolutely incredible." He feigned his best smile, but it soon melted into a frown. "Things have been horrible."

Dr. Riley chuckled a bit as he walked over to a large oak chair across from the sofa. He didn't like to sit behind the desk because that could intimidate his patients, so he'd sit right in front of a large window overlooking the ocean. One of the perks of having a practice in LA.

"Now, Logan, I know you to be a very intelligent young man. At least, that's what I've gathered from the two sessions we've had so far. But, if I can be perfectly frank, I have absolutely no idea what you're getting at."

Logan grinned nervously. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

They really had stricken up such a good rapport. Logan was a bit of an old soul, so he got along well with most older people. In those first sessions, though, he hadn't felt ready to tell Dr. Riley the real reason why he had to seek help. Oh, he had told the doc all about how he'd gone from being a hockey player in Minnesota to a singer and dancer in LA...

"Kendall's the whole reason why we're here. He's always looking out for us, you know. He always puts his friends first."

...and he'd told him that sometimes he felt like a fish out of water in sunny California...

"Kendall's a natural, though. He's always in the pool or at the beach. He fits in like a native."

...and he'd told him that being "the smart one" sometimes bugged him...

"Carlos teases me because sometimes I'd rather read than play video games, but Kendall always makes him knock it off..."

...and, last but not least, he'd told Dr. Riley about his awkwardness around the opposite sex...

"But Kendall...he can get any girl he wants. All he does is turn on the charm, and she's his. That's how he got Jo."

But now, on session number three, and as things were starting to wear him down around the Palm Woods, he felt it was time to swallow his apprehension and go for broke. He knew it was time to do it, but he was still scared and unsure. He'd never shared these feelings with anyone before, so merely saying them aloud was going to be a struggle.

He inhaled and exhaled deeply.

"Remember how in my first session you said that I could come here and just talk...talk about anything that might be bothering me?" he asked.

Dr. Riley's lips slowly turned into a grandfatherly grin. "Yes, I remember. That's what counseling is all about."

"Yes, of course," Logan said, blushing. "It's just that...well...I have sort of a doozy here."

"Just take your time. I'm sure it's nothing that I haven't heard before."

"Okay," Logan said. Inhale, exhale. He knew that this was it, but still...it felt like something someone else was responsible for. It was his problem, his issue, his drama, and he knew that the only way he could fix it was to talk about it, but if only someone else could start it off. If someone else could just say the words "I love Kendall" for him, he'd be fine to fill in the rest of the blanks. But there was no one else, so...

"Remember how I told you about my friend Kendall?"

"Yes," said Dr. Riley. He was very rarely impatient, and though it was easy to get annoyed by stuttering teenagers, he'd gotten used to them and their little quirks over the years. In a way, they were endearing.

"I think I might have feelings for him," Logan suddenly blurted out. It felt like the words had come from somewhere outside of him, but he knew he'd said them, and then he corrected them. "Actually, I'm pretty sure of it."

Dr. Riley slowly nodded his head and shifted in his seat. He'd seen this coming from a mile away. By the time Logan had mentioned Kendall's name for the fiftieth time in the previous session, he'd figured it out.

"And now you're freaking out," Logan said, his eyes glued to the doctor's response.

"No!" Dr. Riley protested automatically. "No, not at all. Listen to me, since the days of peace and love, I've had young people come into this office with problems very similar to yours. I promise you, it's not weird, it's not strange, and it is nothing new."

Logan sighed. "It's all new to me."

"That's quite all right. This is why we're here. To talk about your problems and hopefully find ways to make it so that they aren't problems anymore." He shifted in his seat again, this time getting into a listening position. "Is it indeed a problem?"

"Yes, absolutely."

Logan leaned back into the couch. He could relax a little now, but he still felt some tension inside him. "I used to think I could handle it, but I really can't. Not anymore," he said helplessly. His nerves made him evade the doctor's caring eyes. "I always figured that after a long enough time, it'd just go away, but it hasn't...and if it won't now, I don't know if it ever will. Each day it seems like I'm falling deeper, and I really don't know what to do."

Dr. Riley extended a calming hand to Logan's knee. "When did you start having these feelings for your friend?"

"Oh, gosh..." Logan began, staring at the ceiling, somehow thinking that would help him remember. "It's been a long, long time. Before I even knew what it was, it was there. I mean, at the time, I didn't know, but looking back...I can see that it probably started at the beginning."

"All right, then. Start from the beginning."

Logan nodded. He was apprehensive about digging up the past, but from day one, he'd known that in order to fix the present, at least a little background would be needed.

He took a deep breath and began to tell the story.

"Well, Kendall and I first met in elementary school. Even then, he was a very...a very magnetic person. Lots of charisma. Just about everyone was drawn to him in some way. The teachers all loved him, all of the girls had little crushes on him, and all of the boys wanted to be friends with him. Of course, I was too busy in my own little world doing experiments to ever care one way or another about him. To be honest, I was a bit of a dork."

"I've noticed," the doctor said, eying the "Math is fun!" bracelet on his patient's wrist.

"...uh?"

"I mean...I remember you telling me that before," Dr. Riley quickly explained. He had a habit of being slightly inappropriate. "Please. Continue."

Logan reset himself in storytelling mode. "Anyway. I didn't really feel one way or the other about him at first. I guess if I felt anything, it might have been a little resentment. Like, why did he get to be so popular and not me? But things changed. It was in the fourth grade. We were in the same class, and we sat right next to each other, and on the very first day, he just started talking to me..."

The early autumn sun set firmly over the school and cast a golden glow over Mrs. Rebecca Martin's fourth grade classroom. The usual first day chaos was taking place in the room, but Mrs. Martin, a veteran teacher, knew how to keep things in order. She'd put the kids in their seating order and was now issuing textbooks.

Logan Mitchell (though that wasn't his name at the time), nine years old, sat at his desk. His feet could barely reach the ground, but he was too embroiled in a book about the solar system to notice or care. His big head and huge horn-rimmed glasses looked so awkward on his small body, and his steadily growing reputation as a nerd helped to keep the others from caring about his feelings. But one of the others was unlike all of the rest, and on this day, that one other decided to be the first other to care.

"Whatcha reading?" Kendall Knight asked. He turned around and took it upon himself to take the book out of Logan's hands.

"Hey! Give that back!" Logan exclaimed. It was sort of a reflex whenever another kid would invade his space, as they so often did. He'd repeat his demand once more, and then he'd go to the teacher. In the past, he'd just cry, but he was getting used to being bullied, and his skin was getting thicker.

"Not until you tell me what you're reading!" Kendall announced, a mischievous grin lighting up his whole face. He really meant no harm. This was just his way of getting a conversation started, as misguided as it was.

"I'm going to tell," Logan said in the snottiest voice ever, and he started to slide out of his desk.

Kendall gave up. "Oh, here's your book, for Pete's sake."

Logan was shocked to see him give up so easily, but he grabbed his book without hesitation. "Who's Pete?" he asked, a question mark still on his face.

"What?"

"Who's Pete?"

"Are you serious? 'For Pete's sake.' It's...it's something grown-ups say."

"Oh," Logan said. He'd planned to just go back to reading his book, hoping that this guy would leave him alone, but he found himself putting the book down.

"I know who you are," said Kendall. "You're Hortense Mitchell. I've heard about you."

"What have you heard?" Logan asked, but he knew. Kendall had heard that Hortense was a dork, a geek, a nerd, a loser. He sucked at sports, all of the girls thought he was gross, etc, etc.

"You're really smart," Kendall said.

"I am not!" Logan protested. Once again, another reflex set into motion. Deny all of their claims.

"You're smarter than me," Kendall said. "So you're going to help me."

"I'm not going to help you cheat!" Logan was beside himself. The nerve of this guy.

"Cheat! Who said anything about cheating? I know that you're a smartypants, and so when I'm having a hard time understanding something, you're going to help me."

There was something about the determined look in his face that made it hard for Logan to refuse him. He'd heard about Kendall, and he knew the guy could talk his way into and out of anything.

"Oh," said Logan.

"You really need to lighten up," Kendall suggested.

As Kendall turned back around, Logan could feel a sudden nervousness within him. Was that...a conversation? With another kid...who was actually being nice?

Mrs. Rebecca Martin went to the front of the classroom to begin talking to her students. Little did she know, her seating chart skills had just played a part in the creation of a special friendship.

"At first, I kept my guard up. I mean...I'd gone through a few years of being bullied and tortured and teased by just about everyone in that school. I was just used to the fact that everyone would turn on me within days of knowing me, and I knew this was going to be no different," Logan said. "But it was very different."

"How so?"

"Well, I did help him, just like he said I would. He wasn't so great at math, so whenever we'd have free time in class, while all of the other kids colored and played games, we would be in our own little corner doing word problems. And it worked! It really worked! He went from making C's and D's to getting mostly B's, and he was very appreciative of my help. He'd find me at recess and just ask tons of questions about me. It really felt like he'd taken an interest in me."

Logan chuckled. "We used to play Insect Hospital. There used to be these big grasshoppers that would hop around by the fence, and I'd use pencils and scissors to operate on them. Kendall never thought it was stupid or anything like that, either. Well, I'm sure he did, but he never said anything. He'd just play along with me."

The memory was vivid and clear, and going back to that time, when they were kids, when feelings couldn't get in the way, put a warm feeling in his heart.

"His friends would come over, and they'd ask him why he was wasting his recess playing with me. He'd just tell them to buzz off, and we'd just keep on cutting open grasshoppers and getting to know each other."

"I think we're gonna lose him!" Logan shouted. "We're gonna lose him! He's losing too much blood!"

"But we can't lose him! He was...he still is in the prime of his life!" Kendall sobbed.

The twitching in the grasshopper's leg slowed down until it came to a complete stop.

"He's gone," Logan said. "He's gone."

Kendall looked from Logan to the grasshopper and back again with panic in his eyes. "Hoppy's dead," he whispered.

"All right, I'm calling it," Logan said, taking this far more seriously than he should have. He glanced at his Scooby Doo wristwatch. "Time of death...12:17 PM."

"More like 'Time of Dork,' you mean," said a grimy voice. Logan and Kendall turned around to see big, hulking Paul Garrett. Standing behind him like sheep were his partners in crime, Calvin and Nicky.

"What are you doing with this clown, Knight?" asked Paul.

"Yeah, what are you doing with this clown?" Calvin repeated annoyingly.

Logan ignored them and quietly put his surgical equipment - grasshopper guts and all - back into his back pack. If he ignored them, they'd go away.

"He's not a clown," he heard Kendall say. Logan stopped in his tracks, but he still wouldn't face them.

"Look at him. What in the hell is he doing? Playing with grasshoppers? What is he, a kindergartener?" Paul taunted, preparing to kick Logan's back pack.

"Yeah! A kindergartener!" Nick stammered. "A k-k-k-k-k-kindergartener!"

"Don't do that," Kendall said, noticing Paul's cocked foot. "You kick his stuff, and I'm kicking your ass."

"Yeah, right," Paul said.

"I'm serious."

Logan turned to look at the rowdy boys behind him. "Kendall, don't," he said. The last thing he wanted was for Kendall to get in trouble on his account.

"You better listen to him, Knight!"

"No," Kendall said valiantly. "From now on, anybody who messes with Hortense is gonna have to mess with me."

"Hortense" incited giggles, but Paul put his leg down and smirked at Kendall and Logan. "You're both losers," he said. "Especially you, Hortense!"

Kendall clenched his hands into fists as the dumbasses started to walk away. Logan finished cleaning up the operating table (a stray brick).

"Horty, I'm serious," Kendall said to him thoughtfully. "If anyone tries to start anything with you, let me know. I'm not gonna let them mess with you anymore. You don't deserve that crap from anyone."

"Okay," Logan quickly said. He just wanted it all to be over. Being accosted by bullies was awkward enough without having someone pity him and feel the need to stand up for poor, weak, pitiful him.

The bell rang, and they walked back to the school building. It was then that the thought occurred to him. Kendall had just stood up for him...someone had just stood up for him. Maybe he didn't have to fight them off all alone anymore...

Logan came back and realized that he must have been boring the poor doctor. "I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?" Dr. Riley asked. He didn't look perturbed. On the contrary, he couldn't have been any more fascinated. This was what he lived and breathed for, hearing the details of a patient's history. This was how he did his work.

"I don't know," Logan said. "It's just...no one had ever gone out of their way to be nice to me like that. Kendall was my first friend. My first real friend."

"That's nothing at all to apologize for! At that age, all we want is to know that we're accepted by our peers. You'd gone through such a long period where you hadn't been accepted at all, and then, out of nowhere, this other kid was giving you that feeling of belonging. It's perfectly understandable."

Logan sat in silence for a very brief moment. He'd think about the past every now and then, but he'd done a good job of trying to forget about it all - all of the little things Kendall had done over the years. As fond as those memories were, all they'd ever done was make him want Kendall even more, in turn causing him more pain. But now that he was talking to another person about it, he felt that he could get into details without it messing with his head too much.

"The thing with Kendall is," he continued, "and this is still true today, he never does anything just because everybody else is doing it. When everyone else would call me names and make fun of me, he was the only one who'd ever stand up for me and protect me. Even when they started to call him a dork by association, he didn't care. It was as if he decided for himself that he'd rather be my friend than have everyone else just running around and following him all the time."

"That's a very admirable trait for a person to have, especially at such a young age," Dr. Riley commented.

"Absolutely. Definitely. And I admired him, all right. I was...I was pretty much obsessed," Logan admitted with nervous red appearing in his cheeks. "He taught me how to play hockey, and I had never been interested in hockey at all before, but I was excited to learn just because it meant spending more time with Kendall and building our friendship..."

"Where are you headed?" Joanne Mitchell asked her son as he headed out the door. She'd noticed for the last few months that he'd been spending more time outside, and she was definitely not complaining, but still, she was itching to know what he had been up to.

"Nowhere, just going to the park with Kendall," answered Logan. It was summer, so Kendall always wanted to play soccer, all the while counting down to the first big snow of the year.

"Oh," Mrs. Mitchell said merrily. "I'm glad you've been spending a lot of time with him. He seems like a sweet kid, and it's good that you're being active."

"I know," Logan said. "My metabolism has increased exponentially."

"Is that a good thing?" Her son always knew how to go right over her head.

"Yes, it's a great thing, Mom!" His mother always knew how to miss the obvious.

"Well, good! Listen, why don't you invite Kendall over for dinner? He can come over after you boys finish at the park. I'll call his mom to make sure."

Logan thought for a minute. Kendall...in his home? That's what other people did...other people who had friends. They'd invite their friends over for dinner and a sleepover. It was a foreign concept to him, but if he was gonna do it, Kendall would be the best person to do it with.

"And then maybe he can spend the night one day next week," Mrs. Mitchell added, startling him.

"That would be awesome!" Logan exclaimed. "I'll ask him!"

Kendall had loved the idea, and so did Mrs. Knight. The following week, Kendall rolled out a sleeping bag on the floor of Logan's bedroom. In the darkness of the room, he felt it in himself to say something he knew Logan might appreciate hearing.

"Hey, Horty," Kendall called out.

"Yeah?" Logan asked. He'd been so nervous. He'd hidden all of his dorky gadgets and all of his nerdy books, just in case Kendall might find something weird. He wanted so badly for this to turn out well.

"I don't know if I've ever told you this, but you're not so bad for a dork," Kendall said

A terrified Logan didn't respond. Kendall had just called him a dork, and it felt like a knife in the back.

"I'm kidding! Just kidding. About the 'dork' part, I mean. You are not a dork! You're a pretty cool guy, actually," Kendall explained, and he felt a pleasing sense of benevolence in his own body just as Logan felt relief in his own.

"Really?" Logan asked, just a little bit in disbelief.

"Yeah. I'm glad I got to know you," said Kendall.

That night, Logan could hardly sleep. One of the coolest guys from school was in his house, sleeping in his room! Never in a million years would he have guessed this would happen, but he wasn't questioning fate. He was too happy to wonder about the hows and whys. He was too happy to think that there was anything strange about the way he silently watched Kendall sleep on the floor next to his bed.

In the present day, Logan sat still. "From that moment, I knew he was my best friend."

NOTE: Chapters 1 and 2 were originally written as one chapter, but it would have been too long, so the next chapter will pick up with more of Logan's session with Dr. Riley.