A/N: This is shameless, shameless fluff. I am aware of this, and nothing you say can make me feel guilty of it. The boys are around ten or so here, if you're curious. Enjoy!
Be good, honey.
That was what Kendall's mom had said, when she dropped him off at hockey practice: be good. She'd said it gently, of course, with an almost teasing smile, ruffling his hair, but her eyes were serious and tired and Kendall knew what she really meant, which was: don't get into any fights. Which Kendall knew, of course. He needed to take care of Katie and do all his homework and find his mom a new boyfriend; he didn't really have the time to be making new friends and he certainly couldn't afford to get into any more fights. None of them could. It wasn't like Kendall needed to be reminded of that, but seeing his mom's slow, weary smile helped him remember.
He wasn't going to get into any fights. He was going to do the best at tryouts and he was going to play in the NHL someday and he was never going to get into trouble again.
That was the plan, anyway, and Kendall was good at making plans.
As he laced up his skates, he glanced around the locker room, trying to figure out who he knew and who he didn't; most of the kids he knew from the last few years were there, including Craig McKay (who, he knew, was probably going to get to be team captain again this year instead of Kendall, and that was fine and he was okay with that because New Kendall didn't get into fights). There were also a surprising number of boys who he didn't recognize, including one tiny kid with an oversize helmet who was running around pretending to be an airplane or maybe a superhero, and one kid who was almost as tall as Craig and who was wearing (Kendall was almost positive) glittery purple skates.
He was so busy looking around, though, that he didn't notice the boy next to him who had clearly never tried walking in skates before—didn't notice him, at least, until it was too late, and he stumbled and fell and landed nearly on top of Kendall.
"Sorry!" yelped the new kid, jumping up—he was short, with kind of spiky dark hair. "Sorry, I'm—sorry."
"That's okay," Kendall said, standing up to help the kid steady himself, and then tilted his head curiously; he looked weirdly familiar. "Have I met you before?"
"I don't think so," he replied, shaking his head slowly. "We just moved here."
Kendall remembered moving vans next door a week or so ago, which was a pretty rare occurrence in a town as small as this. "Do you live on Allen Street?"
"Y-Yeah," stammered the kid, startled, "how did—"
"Oh, no, I'm not stalking you or anything," Kendall said quickly, realizing how that must have sounded. "I just—that's where I live. I think we might be neighbors." He smiled, trying to be reassuring. "I'm Kendall Knight."
"Oh," said the boy, with a relieved, nervous half-laugh. "Okay. That makes sense. Um. I'm Logan Mitchell."
"Nice to meet you," said Kendall, before he remembered that, oh, yes, he was supposed to be focusing on hockey and tryouts and the NHL and taking care of Katie and much as he wanted to he didn't have time to make new friends. "Um," he said, feeling slightly guilty. "I should really finish getting ready."
"Oh!" said Logan, nodding. "Right, sure." He turned around, looking back to give Kendall a small wave. "Nice to meet you, too!"
He seemed like he was fine, but Kendall didn't stop feeling guilty for the entire tryout.
He still did alright, as far as the tryout went—as a matter of fact, he was pretty sure he did the best out of anyone, but that didn't change the fact that even with their new coach Craig McKay was probably still going to be team captain and center forward and whatever else, because that was how things always worked. (Not that it was a problem, because as long as Kendall was on the team he would be okay. He knew that. There was no need to get mad about it.)
He was one of the last ones to leave; his mom was going to be late since she had to go with Katie to her dance class, and so Kendall did laps around the ice for what felt like a ridiculously long time, and tried not to get mad about Craig McKay.
As he was heading back, though, he heard voices coming from the almost-empty locker room, which was definitely weird, and he paused for a moment outside the doorway.
"Listen," said a voice that was, surprise of surprises, definitely Craig McKay—but Craig McKay taking a lower, more dangerous tone than Kendall had ever heard him speak with, which was… well, frightening. "I don't know quite how it was where you came from, but I'm captain of this team, and I don't take too kindly to scrawny little brats who think they're smarter than me."
That was followed by a string of terrified, incoherent stammers that Kendall recognized almost immediately as coming from New Kid Logan Mitchell.
Oh no.
Kendall glanced around the doorframe, quickly, as he tried frantically to come up with a plan. (Because that was what he did, wasn't it? He made plans.) Craig McKay had Logan basically backed into a corner—and the thing to understand was that Craig McKay was absurdly huge for someone their age, considerably taller than Kendall and definitely taller than New Kid Logan Mitchell, and that New Kid Logan Mitchell was not as tiny as the kid who had been pretending to be a superhero earlier, but he was still not very large, and he wasn't winning any fights with Craig McKay anytime soon.
Kendall wasn't supposed to get into fights this year. That had been his goal as soon as his mom had dropped him off, and now it was still the first day of tryouts and he was already risking breaking that promise to himself. He ran through his options: he could go for help, but he didn't know who else was still here; he could wait for his mom to get here and ask her to help, but who knew how long that could take; he could go in there and try to talk Craig McKay out of doing anything, but the thing was you didn't really talk to Craig McKay.
It was while he was glancing around the doorframe, trying desperately to come up with a plan, that Logan happened to look away for the briefest of instants and meet Kendall's gaze over Craig McKay's absurdly huge arm. There was surprise on his face, for a moment, and then his eyes looked quiet and sorrowful and strangely resigned, as though he didn't really expect Kendall to help him… and that was what made Kendall really, really want to get into a fight with Craig McKay.
No sooner had he made this decision, though, and stepped into the doorway, than there was a ridiculous shout of "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" and the tiny superhero kid with the oversized helmet leapt down from out of nowhere and tackled Craig McKay to the ground. In retrospect, it was probably the most awesome thing Kendall had ever seen, and if he hadn't been so shocked at the time he probably would have been totally thrilled. (New Kid Logan Mitchell, on the other hand, just looked confused and a little bit like he was going to faint.)
They both watched as the two fought on the floor; Superhero Boy shouted a lot of incoherent noises, interspersed with things like, "Leave him alone!" to which Craig McKay responded with, "Get off me, freak!" Always the charmer, that one.
Despite the strangeness of the moment, though, and Superhero Boy's element of surprise, Craig McKay was still a whole lot taller and a whole lot stronger, and after a moment he stood up, throwing Superhero Boy practically against the wall, and that was when Kendall realized he needed to take action.
"Alright," he said, coming into the room and placing himself firmly between Craig and the other two; Logan grabbed his sleeve, almost unconsciously, whereas Superhero Boy wielded his hockey stick like a baseball bat. "That's enough."
"Oh really, Kendork?" said Craig with a snort, adjusting his hockey jersey. "And what are you going to do about it?"
Kendall glared at him, firmly, standing his ground, trying to cover for the fact that he didn't have an answer to that; Superhero Boy made a noise like a growl and Kendall nudged him back.
Craig smirked. "Are you going to hit me? Go ahead, try. Then maybe you and both your little boyfriends can get kicked off the team."
"Logan didn't do anything," Superhero Boy said defiantly, and how he knew Logan's name, or why on earth Logan was the first thing on his mind, Kendall would never understand.
Craig looked at him incredulously for a minute before snorting, again. "No," he said. "No, that's right, he didn't. Alright, then. You two—" He nodded to Superhero Boy and Kendall. "—can get kicked off the team, and then maybe I'll be able to teach him—" And he looked darkly to Logan. "—the lesson he deserves."
Logan gripped Kendall's sleeve the slightest bit tighter and made a tiny whimpering noise, the kind that would be almost imperceptible if he wasn't standing so close behind Kendall, and then Kendall made a decision.
He wasn't supposed to get into fights. He knew that. He had been done with fights since about three months ago, and he knew—he knew—that if he broke Craig McKay's nose like he wanted to, not only would he be kicked off the hockey team but he would probably get suspended, and his mom would have to come in and talk to the principal, and she would look at him and try not to be disappointed because Kendall was supposed to be taking care of things now, taking care of him and Katie and his mom and all of them and he couldn't do that if he got suspended; but New Kid Logan Mitchell was clinging onto his sleeve, and making noises like a frightened puppy, and Kendall really couldn't think of anything besides breaking Craig McKay's nose so hard that it healed all funny and he had to spend the rest of his life with a funny-looking nose.
He stepped forward, fist raised, Craig McKay still smirking, when all of a sudden there was a shout from the doorway of, "Hey!"
They all turned to see the tall kid with the purple skates and the long hair standing there, arms folded, and Craig McKay rolled his eyes. "What do you want?" he said.
The purple-skated boy looked to all of them, in turn. "My dad's the coach, you know," he said finally, slowly enough so they all could understand exactly what that meant, and Kendall sighed heavily because now he was dead for real, and he hadn't even hit Craig once.
And then, somehow, miraculously, the kid glared straight at Craig and said, "And unless you want to get kicked off the team? You should leave them alone. Now."
Craig's face fell. "Are—you—he was about to hit me!" he stammered.
"Oh, I know exactly what was going on here," said Purple Skates, arms still folded, drawing himself up to his full height. "And I'm pretty sure I'm going to tell my dad you shouldn't be team captain, and if you don't leave right now you're not going to be anything."
The two glared at each other for the longest moment of Kendall's life; and then, in what was possibly the third miracle in the last five minutes, Craig McKay stormed silently out of the room.
The four of them stood there, quiet, and then:
"Oh my god, that was awesome!" shouted Superhero Boy, looking eagerly from Kendall to Purple Skates and back. "It was like—like something out of a movie!"
"I'm going to be a movie star, actually," replied Purple Skates matter-of-factly—and was that him fixing his hair, Kendall wondered. "Or a popstar, I haven't decided yet. …I'm James Diamond, by the way."
"…I'm Carlos and that is so awesome," said Superhero Boy, awestruck, and James smiled in reply. Kendall turned to face Logan.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Logan swallowed, apparently trying to compose himself. "…Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you."
He sounded startlingly sincere, and Kendall blinked. "Does this… happen a lot?"
"What, me getting beaten up?" Logan laughed weakly and looked down. "Not a lot, no, just sometimes. It's the kind of thing that happens when you're a ge—when you do well in school, I guess," he finished.
Carlos popped up next to him just then; Kendall had no idea how long he'd been there. "Well, not anymore!" he chirped. "Because now two of your best friends are a future movie star and probably a hockey team captain." He looked eagerly between Kendall and James again. "Right?" he said.
James nodded, casually, seemingly without hesitation. "Right," he said.
And then all three of them looked to Kendall—James curious and Carlos eager and Logan's eyes full of the same careful resignation that he'd seen before—and part of him knew that he wasn't supposed to have time to make friends, not with everything he had to do now; but another part of him knew, in a way he couldn't quite explain, that he couldn't afford not to make friends, not now.
And all of him knew, on a day when so many miracles had been happening, that this had to be something special.
"…Right," he said, and James grinned brightly and Carlos punched the air and slung an arm around James's neck and Logan's face broke out into surprise and gratitude.
Kendall had already pretty much broken the two rules he'd set for himself this year, and somehow he felt like it didn't even matter. The four of them left the room together.