Disclaimer; I do not own Big Time Rush in any way, shape, or form
Silence. That, and the heavy darkness shrouding any possibly visible surroundings, were all that took up Logan's mind. A dank, unsettling, nerve-wracking unawareness to the world around him. Of course, it wasn't necessarily nerve-wracking at the moment, for his brain was unresponsive to the situation and therefore couldn't form his general reaction. Not even his brain functioned so well as to unconsciously develop such extremities.
Soft padding, one following another quickly, was the first sound to actually register. Padding that slowly grew to a thudding, a thumping, a clacking, and grew much louder.
Footsteps. Hurried footsteps circled around where he was, sometimes slowing, sometimes quickening. He wasn't even sure how long it was before the monotony of a simple tap-tap steadied into the air, for it seemed after it started as that that it'd always been like that. Had it? Maybe he'd imagined the hysteria in the steps before. And there was also an insistent beeping, shattering any possibility of peace and quiet. Beeep, beeep. It was getting to be rather annoying.
Where were the footsteps and beeping coming from though?
Around him, obviously, he thought. What was around him though? Why were there footsteps? His bedroom was carpeted, and wouldn't be able to produce such a sharp sound as the footsteps had been creating. Tiled floor?
His eyes were locked tightly behind his eyelids, depriving him of sight. Wanting desperately to see, to just glimpse everything for a moment, he attempted forcing his eyelids apart. It was quite difficult; they continuously clamped back together like something was holding them in place, but in actuality they were weak from lack of use and wanted to continue resting. Maybe just another few minutes..
Giving up after a moment of feeble attempts at vision, he realized just how relaxed his body was. Relaxed probably wasn't the best word; his body wasn't moving. A pressure was forced down upon them, but from the inside, like he'd exhausted his entire body doing an insane stunt only Carlos would have the gall to lead.
Carlos. That brought up an image of a boy with strong shoulders, childish grin, devilish brown eyes, and helmet plastered on his head. He was Logan's friend. One of them; he was one of Logan's three best friends.
Carlos, James, Kendall. They looked so picturesque beside each other, a perfect little group of three of the best friends imaginable.
Carlos.
James.
Kendall.
Kendall. Kendall.
Logan's eyebrows involuntarily furrowed together, a headache suddenly forming.
Kendall?
A flash of something. Yelling? Blurred colors. Was he falling?
Then a pain.
Logan grunted and shifted a fraction in his bed at the remembrance of the sharp stinging in his chest not long ago. Or had it been long ago? How long had he been out?
His headache grew substantially in just a few moments and he felt himself fall into an uneasy rest, unsettled worry weighing heavy on his mind.
Kendall?
He practically pried his eyes open the moment he woke up from dreamless slumber, brain more in order than it'd been before but still fuzzy on a lot of details; like where he was, why he was there, what had happened to him, etc.
The first sight he was met with was a disturbingly bright light that piqued his eyes. Then, after blinking his eyes rapidly a plentiful amount of times, he noticed the walls were white, the room was small, he was on a white bed. And he was definitely not in his bedroom.
The hospital?
How did he end up in the hospital?
The sound of muffled crying underlying the beeping he could still hear from before then entered his eardrums. Sniffle, sob, repressed into a hand or arm maybe.
Logan moved his head off his pillow, grumbling from effort, and tilted his neck up to see a woman sitting on a chair near the foot of his bed, to his right. A woman. Her hair was brown and wavy, and fell just past her shoulders. Mrs. Knight?
She'd heard Logan's groan and was staring up at him, eyes rimmed red with tears still leaking down her cheeks. After a moment of processing the fact he was awake, she was squealing, "Logan!" and hugging him against the bed, crying in his neck, and he let her, despite the slight irritation it brought to his body.
He was confused. What was going on?
Did someone die?
Was he supposed to have died?
Had he been in a coma?
"Mrs. Knight, what's going on?" he asked, voice silent and raspy from disuse. She pulled away and wiped at her eyes with the sleeves of her red shirt. Taking a deep breath, she smiled down at him, trying to hide the pain with her mask of motherly assurance. Just how long had she been crying? And who was she crying for?
"Everything's okay now, Logan. Just get some rest, okay? I'll go tell everyone you woke up."
He did not want to 'get some rest.' How long had he been 'just resting'?
But she was gone before he could protest, and he was left to his thoughts, which he was very afraid to be left alone with at the moment.
He wished he could remember what happened, so badly. At least know everyone was alright.
A nurse's light feet padded into the room, and stopped beside the bed at the machines that were the source of the beeping in the midst of his thought process, putting a liquid into the tube that led directly to, Logan finally noticed, a vein in his arm. She smiled down at him, insincere, just a smile she needed to give because it was her job.
"The cyclosporine will help your body adjust," she explained as if he'd asked. Maybe he did. Or maybe she just thought he did. Or maybe she was just amusing herself with giving this information he really wished he didn't know.
He slipped unconscious with his mind ready to panic.
Something wasn't right.
He dreamed this time.
He felt completely at peace, he remembered, though tears were still cold and wet down his cheeks.
He recognized his bedroom. His and Kendall's bedroom. Logan and Kendall's room.
"Our room." That sounded better.
He still felt that peaceful air surrounding him, even with the cool of something pressed against his temple. He realized he was the one holding the object to his head, only when it shot him.
He woke with a brain set on hysterics. He shot up against the screams of anguish from his body. He was shaking.
"Mrs. Knight!" he called weakly. She still managed to hear him from out in the hall.
"What.. happened?" he gasped out. He had to force back tears that nearly shrouded his vision, coming from either the pain his body was in or the reality of the situation.
"Logan, I think you should just go back to sleep." She looked about ready to start crying, too.
"Please," he whispered.
"L-Logan.." She brought her hands to her eyes to wipe away the sudden streams pouring out, but she couldn't hide the sob that broke free of her lips.
"Y-you guys w-were," she stopped short and brought the chair from the foot of his bed beside him and sat in it, sniffling the whole while. "You guys were j-just out walking a-and then there was a mugger. One of you punched him-"
Kendall, Logan thought immediately.
"-and you all started running. You were getting away. But then," she hiccuped, "then he had a gun. And he shot you. And it was so close to your heart, that it just stopped working altogether. And you died."
Logan sat in silence. He just stared at her as she started crying again. It hurt to see her like this; she was like his second mother, and she was always seen with a smile and composure in such situations.
But he wanted to know why he wasn't dead.
"How-" he cleared his throat. "How am I alive?"
She took a ragged breath in to calm herself before being able to respond.
"They shocked your heart, tried to jump-start it. But nothing was working. The bullet fractured and-and pieces got into your bloodstream and they cut up your heart. They gave up. Said you needed a transplant right away because there was no way to fix yours, but there were no matching donors. We made them keep you on bypass, it breathed and worked your blood for you o-or something." She sniffled again. "We knew someone would come along. We knew someone would be compatible. We-we just di-didn't know-" she stopped and started sobbing hysterically again. Logan really didn't want to know more at the moment. He reached over, sharp stings and tingles rippling through his body, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She cried against him for a long while. He didn't even realize he'd drifted off.
He realized only after he'd awakened.
Mrs. Knight was standing in the doorway, a smile drowning beneath her tears.
"You should listen to your voicemail." She walked over and meekly placed the cellphone in his resting palm before leaving, without saying another word or even looking back at him one more time. She'd closed the door behind her and left Logan stranded in the little white room.
He stared at the device for a moment. Listen to his voicemail?
He hoisted himself up, noticing the pain in his body had reduced substantially, though he was still weak. His arm idly moved up and fell onto his stomach. He bent his wrist slightly to see the screen of his phone.
3 new voicemails.
Logan gulped and looked at the missed calls.
Carlos, 10:49 pm. He checked the date. Five days ago?
James, 9:32 pm. Five days ago.
Kendall, 8:25 pm. Seven days ago.
Logan brought the phone carefully up to his ear.
He called his voicemail, and listened to Carlos' message first, the more recent call.
"Hey, Logan. Um," the thickness of his voice through the phone was obvious. He'd been crying. It was so unlike him, it made Logan's eyes sting and prickle with the threat of tears. "Well, they just said you're going to recover completely!" He laughed, though it was a pathetic mix of joy and utter despair. "I wanna see you, right when you're able to be on your feet. The doctors said it wouldn't be good to see you before, for some reason. I don't know. I brought your medical book for you last night. I know you like to read it when you're confused or bored, so I thought you might like to have it." His voice sputtered on something he tried to say, but he stopped and let out a small whimper from crying. "So um I'll see you soon, dude. Maybe we can go let out some animals at the zoo when you're better," he joked. Logan smiled a bit. Then the message ended and the automated voice asked whether he'd like to save the message or not. He didn't. He never wanted to hear Carlos so depressed like that again.
"Logan, buddy!" James was much better at masking his sorrow, but there was still an uncharacteristic somber and mournful undertone to his voice. "The doctors are.. trying to get you all fixed up. I hope you can hear this message. I love you, man. I ca-can't stand losing you guys." His voice cracked a bit. "This is hard. Why'd we have to go out that night?" James stopped to take a shuddering breath. "If- No, when you get out of the hospital, we're going to hang out. All of us." He stopped for a second. Something he'd said caused this delay. "I-I.. I'm sorry. We're going to just hang out and watch movies all day, like you always love to do. It'll be fun." He hung up, before Logan could hear if he really had started crying or not.
Logan didn't save that message either.
He almost didn't listen to the next voicemail. He hung up on the voicemail before it played, and his screen displayed an icon of the message that hadn't been listened to.
He stared at that little icon for a minute, maybe a few minutes. Maybe it'd been an hour. He really wasn't sure.
But he finally called his voicemail back and let the message start.
It was silent, for a minute. Completely and utterly silent.
"Logan." It was Kendall. Kendall's voice, weak and strained. "You were shot. You were shot, and it was because I punched at the guy, and we could've just given him our money and he would've let us go, but I punched him and he shot you and y-you're dying. They said you're already dead, but you just need a heart. You just need a heart." Kendall was rambling.
"Kendall.." Logan quietly murmured, pain leaking from him.
"You need a heart," Kendall repeated. "But no one's compatible. But I.. I'm pretty sure- I know how to make it work. Logan, you can't die." He heard a click. What was that click? He was suddenly alarmed, gripping the phone tightly in his hand.
"Logan. I know what I'm doing. Don't blame yourself, ever. Don't feel sad, or anything like that, because this is my choice, not yours. Take care of my mom, Katie, the guys, everyone. And take care of my heart, because I'm leaving it with you."
There was an deafeningly loud BANG, then silence.
The doctors later told him it was a miracle; the anonymous donor had been brain-dead from a gunshot to the head, but his heart was still completely healthy and would work in Logan's body. It was perfectly compatible. Logan's body accepted the heart better than anyone expected, and he recovered completely.
And take care of my heart, because I'm leaving it with you.
Logan saved that message.
I have no idea what compelled me to write this. Oh, yes I do; a book I checked out of the library composed of 10 short horror stories. I got this idea from that. Inspiring stuff.
This can be seen as Kogan romance or just total die-hard friendship. I'd give my heart for my close friends, so I think it's safe to say Kendall would too. Mhmm.
Sorry for the heartwrenching(OH wow lame pun) story here(well it was heartwrenching for me pff) but it's been stuck in my brain, so I unloaded it on you, reader. c: It's just a one-shot, there won't be a continuation, since it kinda just.. ENDS. Sadly. But it's still an end. Sorry, can't bring the dead back to life.
I am awful ;-;
Review, gimme tips and critique~? I'll love you forever~?
EDIT 08/07/11; Oh wow, didn't expect y'all to read this. Sorry for inflicting any tears on anyone, but I've got to say it's cool to hear. I just edited the writing a bit, thank you for reading. (Kendall's still alive in canon, so shhhh be happy, everyone. Think happy thoughts about kittens 3)