Here, Beneath My Lungs
I: Your Love Is A Melody
By: Jondy Macmillan
A/N: Okay. This is not a new...story, as it were. This is going to be a series of collected Kendall/James oneshots. I've written over ten small little oneshots over at LJ or on AO3 that I never posted here because they're less than 2k. My experiment here is going to be posting them all together as one story. Each, um, chapter will have nothing to do with the next- they're all self contained little worlds. Some will be happy. Some will be tragically sad. Some will be more than 2k. Some will be less than 1k. I'm going to mark the story "complete" when I've posted all of my current oneshots- BUT that doesn't mean that I won't come back and update later, in the event that I write more oneshots. Whether or not I will continue to post them here kind of depends on the response I get. So. Um. This collection is named for lyrics from the song Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face. About this specific story- the title is from Your Love Is A Song by Switchfoot. It has baby boybanders.
James is seven the first time he hears Kendall sing.
They've been friends for two years, and James knows a lot of things about Kendall.
He knows he likes to eat and drink weird things together; stuff James's mom says aren't good for you when they mix. Like milk and pineapple or olives or- well. Kendall will drink milk with anything.
He knows that he's the bravest kid in the neighborhood, and the only one who doesn't scream when they tell ghost stories at summer camp.
And he knows that Kendall makes a big show about how much he hates his baby sister, because she takes away all of his mom's attention. But secretly, Kendall's a really good big brother, when his mom's not looking, and it kind of makes James wish his parents still liked each other enough to procreate.
(That's the word Logan uses when he talks about where babies come from. James thinks it's another word for the cabbage patch. Which he went looking for, once, but he's pretty sure it's not in Minnesota. He's not really all that sure what cabbage actually looks like when it isn't cooked, 'cause cabbage is yucky. He doesn't tell Mrs. Knight that when she makes it though. Usually he just slips it over to Carlos, who will eat anything on the plate in front of him. Mrs. Knight's cooking is amazing, but sometimes the stuff she cooks makes him glad his mom always buys takeout.)
Anyway, James knows all of that stuff about Kendall, but what he never ever knew is that Kendall can't sing. At all.
He's really, really horrible.
James winces and backs away from the shower door, because even though he has to pee real bad, he doesn't want to do it while Kendall's butchering a country song. James is almost positive that it's illegal to be that off key. He didn't know anyone could be that off key.
Of course, he can't let it stand.
James has been singing since before he could even make real words, at least that's what his mom says. He used to babble with rhythm.
Once he was old enough, his mom booked him lessons with a real vocal coach, and he got even better. Now he's in the school choir. He tried to get Kendall to join, but he said no.
…It kind of makes sense now.
James doesn't want a best friend who can't sing. Carlos and Logan aren't amazing, but they can hold up a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star if need be. They're not mortifying; not like Kendall.
And quitting his friendship with Kendall? Yeah, that's not an option.
So James traps Kendall after hockey practice one day and says, "So the first thing you need to do is stretch your vocal chords."
Kendall blinks at him. And then he says, "Okay? What're you talking about?"
"I'm going to teach you how to sing."
"Yeah, no," Kendall says, "Singing is stupid."
"It is not."
"Is too."
"Is not."
"Is too."
"Is not-" James protests, and then before Kendall can reply, he says, "Please? I joined hockey just for you."
"You joined hockey because your dad made you. 'Cause he called you a little girl."
"That is not the reason. It was 'cause you said the team would die without an awesome player like me," he jabs himself in the chest, and ow, that kind of hurt.
"If you say so," Kendall looks like he's trying not to laugh.
"I do. So now you're going to return the favor and learn how to carry a tune."
"How do you know I can't?"
James shudders in remembrance.
"Trust me. You can't."
James spends a week teaching Kendall how to do scales, and then realizes that yeah, they need to bring in the big guns. He drags him to see his vocal coach on a Saturday afternoon, when Kendall wants to go to the rink and practice backhand shots instead.
His vocal coach is a white haired woman with kind blue eyes. She used to be some big shot singer in like, the eighteen fifties or something, but now she only teaches the gifted. That's what his mom says.
James likes being gifted. His mom likes telling people he is.
"Jamie," his coach says when he pushes in the door without knocking. She's in the middle of a lesson with someone else, but James doesn't bother getting embarrassed. He's her favorite, and they both know it.
"Jamie?" Kendall mouths, grinning. James ignores him.
He announces, "I have a vocal emergency."
"Sorry," his vocal coach tells her student, an older boy, "I have to cut our lesson short for today."
"Thank god," the kid says, throwing up his hands.
He's like fourteen, but James is taller than he is. He tries not to feel intimidated.
"When my mom swings by, tell her I'm playing basketball at the park."
"Okay. Now," she turns to James and Kendall, "Who have you got there?"
"This is Kendall. He's my bestest best friend in the entire universe. And when he sings it sounds like a rampaging hippo."
"Jamie," the woman chastises, "That's not nice."
"It's true," he insists.
"I don't sound like a- like a what?" Kendall frowns, "Hippo? Did you just call me fat?"
"Jamie tends to be a little melodramatic," the woman tells Kendall, narrowing her eyes at James real quick before turning her full attention to the blond, "How about you sing me- oh, I don't know. Something you know the words to?"
After a little bit of hesitation, Kendall does. And James watches the way his vocal coach's eyes grow comically wide and knows she now sees what a dire situation this is. That's what his dad calls something when it's really bad, like someone stealing. Or a broken guitar string. Melodrama is inherited.
"I, uh. That was- good, dear," she tells Kendall, and from the way his cheeks get pink, James knows he knows she's lying through her teeth. She continues, "Is your mom okay with you coming here for lessons? I charge-"
"No!" Kendall says, and he looks at James, "We can't tell my mom."
"Why not?" James asks. Kendall frowns at the ground.
Finally he says, "If we tell her, she'll try to pay, and um, shecan'taffordit."
James blinks, because that was the fastest he's ever seen Kendall talk. Besides, he hadn't really thought of that. His mom and dad are kind of rich. He forgets, sometimes, how Kendall's dad disappeared. Kendall and Katie spend a lot of time at their grandma's, while Mrs. Knight works at the diner.
"She can barely pay for hockey," Kendall says.
"I can't, er-" his vocal coach begins, and James knows she's going to say no, and that can't happen.
"I'll pay you," he announces.
"What? Jamie-"
"He has to be able to sing. He has to."
"I don't-"
James glares at Kendall and says, "Shut up. You have to."
"Jamie, language."
"Okay, fine," he grumps, "But I can pay you."
Kendall stares at him.
"I get five dollars a week allowance," James continues proudly, "That's- twenty dollars a month."
He's pretty sure his mom pays a lot more for James to come here, but twenty dollars is a lot.
"With twenty dollars, you can buy new curtains," he frowns at her lacy pink drapes.
"What's wrong with my curtains?"
"Oh. Uh. Nothing," James squeaks. She can't possibly like all that pink, can she? Ugh. Kendall kicks James in the foot. She rolls her eyes.
"Okay. I'll make you a deal. He can come to your lessons. Twice a week."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously," she agrees, "But you have to tell your mom."
"Okay," James agrees, because he knows he can convince him mom not to tell Mrs. Knight if they say its part of like, a birthday surprise or something. He's good at thinking up lies.
The day Kendall starts hitting notes is like, amazing. He's good. He's really, really good, and even his voice coach is impressed. James has never been so proud in his life.
Or, no, that's not true. Because James is even prouder when he sleeps over one night, right before his eighth birthday. Kendall tells him they can play Mario Kart in a minute- he just has to do one thing.
Katie is wailing, and Kendall's mom is still at work, and his grandma's outside, watering the garden before it's fully dark. James thinks he's going to run into her room, chuck her a pacifier and come back down.
Ten minutes pass. Then twenty. James is bored, and the crying has stopped. So he walks to Katie's room. And then James eavesdrops at the door as Kendall sings lullabies to her, and she falls asleep sucking her tiny little thumb. And he thinks, yeah, this totally counts as his good deed for the year.
But it gets even better.
Years later, James sees Kendall on stage for the first time. He knows he's gotten better than good. He's heard him sing in the showers after practice, in the school choir (he joined for a whole day, before he quit), and in defense of him, in defense of James's dreams.
He's heard Kendall lay down tracks in the sound booth at Rocque Records, and he's heard him hum softly into Katie's ear, when she's scared but doesn't want anyone to know. A tough ten year old girl is still ten years old.
James is already a little bit besotted with Kendall's hero complex, with his unshakeable loyalty and the way confidence seeps from every pore on his body. With the way Kendall can be awkward and gruffly sweet when he thinks no one's looking, whether it's delivering an apology or throwing James a water bottle when his lungs start to burn. He's infatuated with all of it, with every unexpected quirk of Kendall's personality.
But that single moment when Kendall stands in the spotlight, his body glowing gold, his voice strong, a little rough, but true; reverberating like a second heartbeat through James's ribs?
That's the moment James falls in love with him.
James runs out on stage, for his first real taste of fame, and Kendall's looking straight at him, a grin spread so far across his lips that his face is close to breaking from joy.
Their voices overlap, and James thinks, yeah, teaching Kendall how to sing was the best thing he's ever done.
A/N: Please review.