Disclaimer: I do not own Big Time Rush or T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Hollow Men".
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way—
Logan can't remember how the poem ends or why he wants to know. He stumbles onto his bed and lies, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling. He needs to sleep; he's been up for the last forty-eight hours, at least, polishing, perfecting and ultimately submitting his college applications. It's almost midnight and Logan thinks that when he wakes up he will have turned eighteen and then wonders idly if he should even bother waking up.
In the dark, Logan's depression turns to dreams. He sees black roads and silver rain and cars that become hearses. He smells alcohol and the heaviness of freshly dug earth. He tastes salt and bitterness.
But a light appears, a blinding light, and Logan wonders if he's dieing. But the light resolves itself it in to a sun, which warms his face.
Logan dreams now that he had gone to Hollywood with Kendall; they all went. Somehow in the dream this makes sense, forming a boy band makes sense, uprooting his life makes sense. Logan watches the other Logan live through the last two years.
Other Logan is so happy in LA: he lounges by the pool, he wrestles with his friends, he learns to sing, to dance, to live for the moment rather than for some distant future self.
Other James has his fantasies become realities: mere days after declaring he's going to marry Nicole Scherzinger, he meets her in person. The opportunity to be famous overshadows any bitterness other James feels towards Kendall, unlike Logan's James, who lost his confidence and his ambition.
Other Carlos still speaks to his friends, so different from Logan's Carlos, who can't bear to be around them as they collapse. But in the dream, Carlos has a swirly slide and dome hockey and a pool and no reason to be sad.
And other Kendall— well, even in a dream, it hurts to think about Kendall.
Logan dreams this other life. He dreams about hanging out with the guys, about performing for a thousand screaming fans. He dreams about skinny dipping in the pool and getting caught by the paparazzi. He dreams about staying up all night, about parties and work and stealing quiet moments to read his books.
Other Logan discovers new sides to his personality, spontaneity and ingenuity and creativity. He doesn't need to be a doctor. He doesn't need to have his perfectly planned life stretching out before him.
And then Logan wakes up.
Kendall is standing next to his bed. He looks the way he did in Logan's dream, not how he did the last time Logan saw him.
"You're dead."
Logan says it and he knows it, but he doesn't see it.
He doesn't see the shadows under Kendall's eyes: he hadn't been able to sleep in the California heat. He doesn't see the blank expression on Kendall's face: the pills to help Kendall sleep left him feeling empty. He doesn't see the scars: loneliness, stress and exhaustion made Kendall self-destructive. He doesn't see sallowness in Kendall's complexion: Kendall drank to much and ate too little.
Logan doesn't see the bruises, the crooked nose, the cuts and scratches. He doesn't see any evidence of the car accident. He doesn't see the broken body the EMTs brought to the hospital.
Logan sees Kendall, confident, healthy, beautiful. This other Kendall, so real and so false, reaches out a hand to him. Logan intertwines their fingers and moves over on his bed, pulling Kendall down beside him. For a brief moment, Logan is held in Kendall's arms, poetry in his heart.
—the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
And then Logan wakes up.
Its a chilly dawn in a Minnesota winter. Logan is sixteen and he's never even heard of Gustavo Rocque. But somehow, when the time comes, he knows what he must do. Somehow, he knows what he can't remember seeing in a dream he never had.