A/N: Hi. For those of you who have been reading my stuff for awhile, sorry that I haven't been on. Anyways, this is my new Kames angst fic. So yeah. That's that.
To anyone who was reading my old demon James/ hunter Kendall story and wondering where the fuck it went, my apologies, really. It got taken down from this site because apparently that story was just too badass. And that really sucks, too, because my old laptop crashed and I lost all the documents. That's also the big WHY for me not being on here. Plus, before it was summer, school was like, a pretty big deal, and it will be again once the school year starts. So sorry in advance if I'm a slow updater.
Last but not least, the title of this story is from a song by 3OH!3. At the beginning of each chapter, I'm gonna put a verse from that song because I feel like it fits with the story. As you may have guessed, the song title is Streets of Gold. It's kind of like, my "inspiration" for this, as lame as that may sound. But yeah, that's what the song verse at the beginning of the chapter is.
You could say "ahh"
and I could bite my tongue
'Cuz it would take all week
To tell you where I'm from
He was running. He didn't know where he was going, or what would happen next, but he was running. Sprinting. He was being chased. Chased at high speed, down a long, dark tunnel into a deep, unknown abyss. He couldn't feel any incline; whether he was running uphill, downhill, or flat, he didn't know. He opened his mouth, exuding all the energy he could, trying to scream "help" or "run" or even just make any sound, loud and shrill with terror, but no sound came from his mouth.
One time, he even tried to scream a name. Kendall.
He kept running, choking on the air that would not let him scream. He had know idea how long or how far he'd run, but he did know that he would never, ever, stop. He'd be running, screaming, crying for help, forever. It would never end.
James sat bolt-upright in bed, panting, beads of sweat running from his brow. His blankets, sheets, and pillows all lay on the ground, and he was gripping the exposed fitted sheet that covered his mattress.
The dream always started the same way.
He was walking down a hallway, a tunnel, long and pitch black. There was a bright light at the end, and it slowly got bigger as he got closer. The light gave off a warm energy. It was comforting, safe. James knew that when he got to the light, he'd be okay. It varied in shape, size and color; sometimes it was ambiguous, sometimes shaped like a man, sometimes huge and engulfing, sometimes tiny and delicate. He'd seen it in purple, green, pink, and white. But it was constantly a good, calm, safe presence. Every time, James would walk right up to it.
He would get so close to it, close enough to touch it. He stood there, staring in awe and wonder, his shiny hazel eyes glowing in the reflection of the entity.
The shape would reach out to touch him, and James welcomed it, embraced it. He waited for the warmth and comfort and joy to wash over him like a wave, and his heart would beat faster and faster the closer the shape got.
It got so close, the glowing, soft edges just barely about to brush his skin. Only a hair's breath away.
Suddenly, a switch flipped. Every time, right before it touched him, a terrified chill, a panic-stricken shiver, would run through his body. He would turn on his heel, the sudden horror hitting him hard. He'd start to run, sprint away, and the entity would chase him.
As he ran, it changed.
It morphed in shape, grew in size. It turned red and started pulsating, giving off waves of fear and mistrust and a kind of desire that just seemed strange and evil. He ran from it, and it pursued him, never slowing for even a moment. Sometimes, the ground on which he ran would fall away under his feet, every step like jumping off of a cliff. Sometimes, his teeth fell out. He could never scream, and he didn't always try. The air was always too thick and suffocating so he couldn't breathe right or make any sound of distress. Once, the dark, endless sides of the hall were full of terrifying, cartoon faces of people. The flesh had melted off of their bones and their eyes were sunken deep into their heads, but they kept smiling. They laughed, jeered at James and his inability to escape.
"Dude, are you okay?"
Kendall always asked the same question. From across the room, his face was lowly lit by the red light of his alarm clock. His green eyes, soft and concerned, were a safe haven. They were real life. They were James's job, his friends, his family, and Minnesota. In them, James could see himself, Kendall, and Carlos, out on the ice, tossing snowballs at each other and laughing without a care in the world.
"Yeah," James would pant out, gulping back tears and fear and insecurity as he stared at Kendall. Long after Kendall closed his eyes, James kept the image of the yellow-green shimmer, given a rusty-colored tinge by the clock's light in the front of his mind. It kept him safe.
Kendall kept him safe.
Once upon a time, Kendall had loved to party.
He'd loved to get drunk, to dance, to feel strangers' sweat rub against his skin and the thump of the bass shake his bones. Kendall had loved to hook up with random girls, to do beer bongs and kegs, to smoke weed with people he had just met and would never know.
As Kendall sat, his face resting on one hand, he wondered if that love of partying would ever return.
He watched from a distance, sipping lightly on his one and only beer of the night, as James put moves on a girl across the bar. Kendall rolled his eyes as he watched his friend move closer, stalking his prey by pushing her hair out of her face or whispering dirty things into her ear. He frowned as he saw the pretty boy's hand snake around the girl's waist, his nose press to her forehead, his lips part to welcome hers. Kendall didn't have to watch, but he did anyways. He didn't enjoy it; he didn't get anything from it, but he watched.
Kendall found himself longing for the days when he could go out and party. He used to go to a party with all of his platinum record-selling boy band, and the ever-dependable Logan was their designated driver. Logan babysat for the other three. He kept Carlos on a short leash, knowing he would get into ridiculous amounts of trouble otherwise, but James and Kendall he allowed to get as crazy as they wanted, provided they didn't get themselves arrested. Logan just made sure they got home safe.
At nineteen, the boys had been living on their own for a year and no longer had to worry about pesky things like curfews. This allowed James and Kendall to get wilder and wilder, and James especially did not always go home with the rest of the band as a night out came to a close. The end of the party was only the beginning of the night when James had hooked himself a girl.
After tiring of watching James and Kendall go crazy while he wasn't allowed to, Carlos eventually stopped going out to parties with the other boys. Shortly after, James and Kendall discovered that Logan was mostly going with them to keep an eye on Carlos. He just didn't have the same protectiveness over the more grown-up James and Kendall, so Logan politely informed them that he was done sitting through keggers and club scenes and red carpet after -parties just to make sure the two of them stayed out of trouble. They should take care of themselves.
At first, both boys thought it was great. But after a couple of shady car rides from strangers, a bar fight, and (worst of all) being unable to find James at a big party during one drunken stupor, Kendall realized that they did need someone sober with them after all. And James was much too far gone into the partying lifestyle to give it up.
So, Kendall sat on his bar stool, holding onto his lukewarm beer, watching James hook up with some random bimbo. To Kendall, they were all the same.
James, on the other hand, thought she was exquisite.
James's inebriated brain found the girl before him to be the most breathtakingly beautiful thing in the world. She had huge, gorgeous blue eyes, and her voice drawled in a sexy-scratchy way when she said his name. Her lips were pink and soft and shiny, her little purple top had the most amazing and intricate ruffles, and her fiery red hair fell in big curls. She was glowing and shimmering in James's eyes, and the light hit her just right, highlighting her skin in all the right places.
Kendall thought she looked like the human embodiment of gonnorhea.
The girl with James had big bug eyes with huge bags under them. Her voice was low and gravelly, probably from years of heavy smoking. She had so much lip gloss on her lips looked sticky, and her tube top was much too small, squeezing her boobs so they overflowed and pratically fell out of the top. Her hair was cracked and dry and, judging by the brown roots and the way the color didn't match her skin tone, poorly dyed. The girl had blotchy, tired-out skin that looked like it had been mistreated by its ower, causing it to age too fast. She was probably a crackbaby who had hitched a ride with some rednecks and had them take her to Hollywood.
Kendall shook his head, accepting that he would never understand the workings of the mind of a drunk James.
The girl writhed, twisted, and squirmed, arching her back up towards James, bucking her hips into him. Her fingers tangled through his hair as he pushed and pulled himself in and out of her again and again.
'If only daddy could see me now,' James thought to himself, hearing his latest endeavor screaming his name somewhere in the back of his mind.
James Diamond's father, called "William" by his associates, "Bill" by his friends, and "Sir" by his children, had a presence like a bull. He commanded respect, fear, and obedience in everyone he met, and, with a hand the size of his oldest son's head, he could ensure that everyone would listen to him.
"What the fuck do you think you were doing?" Mr. Diamond screamed, his face red. A deep furrow of disapproval and anger ran across his forehead, and his eyes blazed with hatred.
"N-n-nothing, Sir," James stuttered out in reply. At six-foot-four, James's father only stood two inches taller than his son, but he had a bigger build and a personality that made James feel like a tiny, helpless child.
James loathed the man. He hated staying weekends at his dad's house, all four-thousand sparkling, pristine square feet of it. James hated watching his father with his tiny, blonde trophy wife. He hated seeing the housekeeping staff come sweeping through the place without a single word of acknowledgement from the man whose house they were cleaning.
"When I see behavior like that," Mr. Diamond bellowed on, "I think to myself that maybe, I've raised a queer! Now, James, I know I did not raise a queer. My boy will not be behaving like that, do you understand? What would my colleagues say? We live in Minnesota, not San Francisco!"
"Sir, it was just-"
"No, boy, I am not done with you yet! What do you think ran through my mind when I walked into my first son's room and saw him wrapped around another man? I've never liked that Kendall, and this just goes to show why. He's turning my son into a fucking queer!"
"DAD!," James screamed, finally getting the attention of the older man, "Just shut up for a second, would you? We weren't doing anything, I swear! It gets cold here, because, I don't know, we live in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota, and you refuse to turn on the heat even in the middle of the winter! And even if something was going on, you of all people would be the last who should be allowed to tell me it's wrong. You're married to a girl who I could date, for God's sakes. Can she even buy her own drinks? I mean-"
James's long, ranting speech was cut short. The hand that was as big as his entire face was flying towards him, palm first, fingers outstretched. It made contact with James's cheek with a force that knocked the boy sideways, making his skin tingle and sting and his eyes water and get hot.
Furious, James turned on his heel and stalked off to his room. He fought back burning, treacherous tears and kept his jaw clenched as he pushed his bedroom door open a little bit, then slammed it closed behind him. Through the low light, he saw two light green eyes, widened in awe and disbelief and dread. James said nothing, just walked quickly over to the bed and crawled under the covers.
He didn't have to ask permission to put his head on Kendall's chest. Kendall, in turn, said nothing when he felt hot tears seep through his thin cotton shirt.
James knew he wouldn't have to explain what had happened to Kendall. That was the problem with high, rounded ceilings, whether they were adorned with glittering chandeliers and complimented with marble surfaces or not.
Sound carried.
"Hey," Logan chirped, waving a single hand to greet Kendall as he walked through the door way. Carlos also waved, but he didn't say anything because his mouth was full of... no one was really sure. Food. Maybe.
"Hi," Kendall sighed, tossing his keys onto a nearby table. His shoulders slouched down, defeated, and his head hung a little. Exasperated, he pulled a chair away from their dining table and sat down, elbows on the bare, smooth wood. The boys had this huge, glossy mahogany dining table without a single thing on it. Nothing but Kendall's keys. It felt strange for Kendall to even be sitting there.
"No James?" Logan asked tentatively. He could sense Kendall's distress easily, as anybody would, especially someone who had been Kendall's best friend for as long as Logan had. Carlos, next to him on their couch, sat, oblivious, absorbed in his video game and his mystery snack.
Kendall shook his head no, his cheeks puffed out and his eyebrows raised. He even laughed a little, trying desperately to convince himself that there was humor in James's situation.
"He's in some girl's bed somewhere," Kendall said with an offhand shrug, showing Logan how little he cared. How little it bothered him. How it didn't matter at all.
"Figures," Logan agreed.
"I just wish someone would talk to him," Kendall muttered, staring at his hands as they lay in front of him on the table. He looked up at Logan, his green eyes wide and begging for a confirmation.
"Someone should," Logan replied, "like, I don't know, his best friend?"
Kendall slowly put his head in his hands, looking though his fingers at Logan and then back away with tired eyes.
"He won't listen to me," Kendall told him, "He needs to be told by someone of... authority."
"What, like Gustavo?" Logan suggested, chuckling a little. Kendall let out a small, half-hearted laugh in agreement, but it was leaden with insincerity, and very obviously so.
Gustavo would never tell James to stop partying. The more trouble James got himself into, the better. James went to an interview drunk; the video got a million hits on YouTube. James got arrested for trying to buy alcohol with a fake I.D.; they sold 15,000 more albums. Paparazzi snapped a picture of James putting his tongue down a stripper's mouth; he wound up on the cover of People magazine. Every time a story went around about "James Diamond, startilingly attractive singing sensation of the popular boy band Big Time Rush," a few more people decided to check out the once-small-town kids, no longer hockey players from Minnesota.
The more buzz, the better.
Gustavo finally had his bad boy, and he was not about to let go of that just because Kendall was "concerned." He'd had that conversation multiple times before with both Kendall and Logan, and it always came to the same conclusion: Gustavo would do anything to inch his now-favorite a little bit closer to landing a star on the legendary Hollywood Boulevard. Therefore, Kendall and Logan should leave him alone. Let James be James.
The problem was, Kendall knew James wasn't being James. He was being someone else, a stranger, and Kendall found that to be absolutely terrifying.
Logan could tell that Kendall was still upset, but he let the subject of James's behavior drop. If Logan were a little more awake, or feeling a little bit more charitable, he would have asked Kendall to talk about it. Asked him why James crawling into bed with every random girl bothered Kendall so much. Or why Kendall was always so stressed following looking-after James for the night, whether the other boy came home with him or not. Or, if it was hurting him so much, why Kendall didn't just tell James to take care of himself and stop going out with the trainwreck that was James Diamond.
As if Logan didn't already know the answer.
Somewhere in Hollywood, splayed out between the sheets of some girl's bed, half an arm wrapped around his already-forgotten partner, James Diamond was getting the best kind of sleep.
It was black. It was dark. There was nothing, just real, true, rest.
No dreams. No chase.
There was one way for him to get that kind of sleep, and it was this: a total blackout.
So, James drank until the scary glowing thing couldn't chase him any more, and then he slept.
In peace.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you guys like it so far. A review would be much appreciated.