DISCLAIMER: I do not own Big Time Rush or any of its characters.

Kendall sighed and closed his eyes as he stretched out on his bed after arriving home. He and the guys had just spent a long day at Disneyland, filled with a short concert, a parade appearance, a meet-and-greet, and, of course, all the rides they could go on. He was absolutely exhausted, but not in a way that he thought he'd fall asleep.

A knock came at his door before opening. Kendall propped himself up on his elbows to see Logan poking his head in the doorway. "Hey, man, you already going to bed?" he asked.

"Nah," Kendall said, shaking his head and sitting up all the way, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Just resting. Long day."

"Definitely," Logan agreed, nodding sympathetically. "Well, Carlos and James went to hang out down by the pool and thought you were asleep, but I just wanted to check on you. If you want to go down…"

"I'm not really in the mood," Kendall said blankly.

"That's cool," Logan assured him. "Just thought I'd let you know what they were doing. I'm just going to be in my room working on homework, but if you want to hang out, let me know." After graduating from high school, Logan had decided to start taking part time classes at UCLA. Kendall had gone too, for a semester, but had decided it was too much work with both the band and school. He didn't know how Logan did it.

"You work too hard," Kendall commented, thinking about just that.

"We all do," Logan said with a stifled yawn and shrug. "Besides, this paper is due in a week and I've barely glanced at it. And since Camille's filming on location until late tonight, I have a free evening."

"Don't forget to get some sleep," Kendall told him as he lay back down on his pillows. "We have recording for the album in the morning, and then the fittings for the video shoot after that."

"Yup," Logan said, and Kendall heard his door shut and Logan's footsteps go back down the hall and then, very faint, the sound of his own bedroom door closing.

Kendall closed his eyes again, willing himself to go to sleep, but thoughts raced around his head too fast for him to even comprehend. He wondered why Jo hadn't texted him back yet. He wondered if he would mess up the harmonies in recording tomorrow like he had during the rehearsal a couple days ago. He wondered if he had gotten mean messages on twitter.

He tried to drown out the thoughts until he couldn't stand it anymore.


Logan rubbed his hands over his eyes as he stared at his computer screen blankly. He had 1000 words to go in this essay. Resting his forehead in his hands for a few minutes, he almost nodded off—he got shocked back awake by the sound of a tapping on the door. "Logan?" came Kendall's voice, soft. "You busy?" Kendall pushed open the door slightly.

"No, I need a distraction," Logan said with a laugh. "What's up?" He turned around in his desk chair and stopped to comprehend what he was seeing.

Kendall stood there, in his pajamas and a t-shirt, looking sad and maybe a little scared. He was holding his hand over his wrist. And there was blood—all around Kendall's hand, and dripping down his arm.

"No," Logan sighed sadly.

"You've got all the medical supplies in here again, don't you?" Kendall asked, avoiding eye contact with Logan.

"Carlos abuses the cartoon character band-aids," Logan said, standing up and grabbing Kendall gently by the elbow, guiding him to sit on the edge of the bed. "And if I don't keep it all in here, it all gets misplaced anyway. Kendall, what happened?"

Kendall removed his hand, showing the several horizontal lines across his wrist, all of them still bleeding. Logan quickly grabbed the first-aid kit from his closet, and also a small white washcloth from the bathroom. He started wiping some of the blood from Kendall's arm. "You know what happened, why do I have to say anything?" Kendall murmured. "I thought part of this deal is that I don't get asked questions."

"That was years ago," Logan replied. He inspected the severity of the cuts. Long, but none of them incredibly deep. Nothing dangerous at the very least. "Kendall, I don't remember the last time you've cut."

"Yesterday," Kendall said simply, and Logan's head jerked up, surprised. "I started again last week," Kendall confessed.

"Kendall," Logan said in shock as he applied pressure, attempting to stem the bleeding. He pulled the cloth away, and did indeed see evidence of recent scars beneath the new cuts. "What the hell, man? How long's this been going on?"

"Since last week," Kendall repeated. "But before that, not since the last time you had to clean me up."

"That's so long ago, I can't even remember when it was." Logan dabbed at the cuts with some alcohol-soaked cotton balls, making Kendall wince.

"February 18th when we were seventeen," Kendall informed him. Logan glanced up at him in surprise.

"You really know the exact date?" he muttered, slowly looking back down at Kendall's wrist, starting to wrap gauze around it slowly.

"Of course I do," Kendall told him, also staring at his own wrist, transfixed by what Logan was doing. "It was crazy hard not to do it. I missed it."

Logan shook his head. He tied off the gauze and stared at Kendall. "Why did you do this?" he demanded. Kendall avoided his gaze. "Kendall."

Kendall finally looked up. "I shouldn't have to tell you," he complained. "That was the deal. We don't have to talk about it. You said that. You promised that."

"When we were kids," Logan reminded him. "And the deal was if you didn't do it too often. How many times in the past week have you cut?"

Kendall fidgeted. "Not many," he lied.

"See, I-I really don't believe you," Logan stammered in his hurry to get his point across. "Do you remember what we talked about back then? You have to find different ways to let it out, and to deal with the bad feelings, right? And clearly something you did worked, if you were clean for three whole years. You've got to keep trying, Kendall, okay?"

"Okay! Jesus," Kendall exclaimed, standing up. "God, I have one slip-up, and you jump all over me again. I might as well not even tell you when I screw up. Would you like that better?"

"No, of course not, man, but I just want you to be okay," Logan said. "I want you to not have to do this to yourself. Okay?"

Kendall pursed his lips and looked away. "Yeah, okay."

Logan sighed. "I'm sorry. I won't 'jump on you' like that again."

"It's fine," Kendall dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I'm sorry. Just…tired."

"Well…go get some sleep then," Logan suggested.

Kendall nodded. "Yeah. Thanks," he said, almost as an afterthought as he walked out the door. He paused and gestured to his bandaged wrist. "For the first aid."

"No problem," Logan murmured. When Kendall left, closing the door behind him, Logan just remained where he was for a few moments. He shut the lid of the first aid kit and set it on his nightstand and then walked back to his desk. After a few moments simply staring at his laptop screen, he saved his essay and shut down the computer. There was no way he could concentrate on his schoolwork now. Instead, he wandered over to his bed. Crawling up to the top, he leaned against the headboard, drawing his knees up to his chest and hooked his arms around them, hands clasped in front of him. And he wished with all his heart that Kendall would be all right.


Kendall pulled up to the gate that blocked off a long driveway leading up to an impressive mansion. He leaned out of his car window and pressed the call button. A few seconds later, the intercom crackled to life. "Kendall Knight, is that you outside my house at eleven pm?"

Cracking a smile, Kendall nodded and smiled up at the security camera that was trained on his car. "Yeah, let me in?"

"Maybe if I hear a please in there somewhere."

"Come on, Lucy," Kendall moaned, rolling his eyes.

Lucy Stone laughed and a second later the gate started to open inward. Kendall sighed and smiled, shifting the BTR mobile back into gear and heading up the hill. She came out the front door just as he was parking the car in the circular drive in front of the house. He stepped out, smiling as Lucy, clad in pajama pants and a black tank top, her black and red hair wildly half-curly, came walking down the front steps.

She outstretched her arms, pulling Kendall in for a hug. "I haven't seen you in so long, I forgot what you looked like," she complained good-naturedly.

"Yeah, well, I am your ex-fling and my best friend slash roommate is your ex-boyfriend," Kendall countered, laughing as he hugged her back.

"Ah, yes, how is Diamond, by the way?" Lucy asked, pulling out of the hug and walking back towards the house, gesturing for Kendall to follow.

Kendall sighed. "Sleeping his way through all the Victoria's Secret Angels, as I'm sure you've heard from all the gossip magazines," he told her as they walked into the black marble front foyer and Lucy closed the front door.

"Weren't you supposedly the bad boy of the group?" Lucy asked, folding her arms and jutting one hip to the side as she turned to stare at Kendall.

With a shrug, Kendall scoffed. "We switched at some point. Having a long-term "America's sweetheart" girlfriend seems to not be good for bad boy status."

"Stupid," Lucy commented, making a face and turning around to walk down the hallway. Kendall followed after her. "Sorry I'm a bit of a ratchet mess, I had a promotion party last night and was out 'till like five AM. I only got up like three hours ago."

"Sounds like you need to relax," Kendall commented.

"You sounded like you did on the phone, too," Lucy countered as she rounded the corner to her den. The secluded, tiny room was where she usually hung out with Kendall, or any of the guys when they came by to visit. It had a cushiony brown couch, two impossibly comfortable bean bag chairs, a stereo, a mini-fridge, and a selection of various activities like board games and puzzles on a shelf in the corner. One of her guitars was in there as well, laying across the couch.

Lucy moved it and gestured for Kendall to sit down next to her as she made herself comfortable. "I had fittings all day today," he complained, rolling his eyes at just the memory of the hours of poking and prodding with pins, the pictures, and the anxiety of explaining his bandaged wrist.

As fate would have it, Lucy nodded towards the gauze wrapped wrist at that moment. "What happened there?" she asked, as she leaned over to a small table beside the couch.

"Cooking accident," Kendall said simply, easily, and nonchalantly, as he had been all day. He wasn't so sure that James and Carlos had bought it, but they hadn't grilled him and he had headed over to Lucy's as soon as they had finished for the day, so they hadn't had a chance to ask. If he had to place a guess, they would probably quiz Logan all evening and argue amongst each other about what to do about him. He hoped they would just decide to let it slide.

"See, that's why I don't cook," Lucy said as she sat back up with the item she had been reaching for—her pipe. "Mind sharing?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

"You got a head start on me, you ass?" he teased. She only took a drag from it and then handed it wordlessly to Kendall, smoke pouring from her mouth.


An hour later they were still there, high as kites and having random conversations. Just as Lucy was describing something that had happened to her at the party the night before, Kendall's phone rang. Jo's smiling picture lit up the screen and Kendall just stared at it.

Lucy paused and stared at Kendall. "Aren't you going to get that?" she prompted on about the third ring. Kendall shushed her, holding up one finger, signaling her to wait. When the phone stopped ringing and "1 MISSED CALL—JO" showed up on the screen, he sighed.

"She would be so mad if she knew I was here, with you, high," he explained.

"You realize I didn't have to be quiet while the phone was ringing, right?" Lucy whispered exaggeratingly. Kendall reached over and slapped her lightly on the shoulder while she laughed.

The phone buzzed again, signaling Kendall that he had a voicemail. He grimaced for a minute, considered, and then picked up his phone, sliding to open his voicemail box.

"Hey, baby, uh, it's me. I just got done shooting for the night. Sorry I haven't been texting you..." she trailed off for a second and he heard some noise in the background. She was getting into a car. "Anyway, I thought I might stop by the crib on my way home. We can watch a movie if you want to, or anything. I miss you. Anyway, love you, bye!"

Kendall groaned. "What's up," Lucy asked, her mouth full of goldfish from the box she had snagged on top of the mini fridge.

"Jo's going to stop by the crib," he explained, rolling his eyes. "Man, I guess I gotta call James or someone, tell them to come up with something."

"How on Earth does your and Jo's relationship last in this condition?" Lucy wondered, dropping goldfish into her mouth from above. "You can't lie to her."

"She hates it when I smoke and she's not to big on you, either."

"I thought she was chill with me!" Lucy exclaimed, insulted.

"Yeah, well once you broke up with James and started going down what she called 'a slightly concerning path' she sort of lost all of that chill."

"Just cuz I'm don't have a stick up my pure white ass…" Lucy muttered. Kendall slapped her shoulder again, harder this time.

"That's my girlfriend, Luce," he pointed out as he pressed the speed dial for James. "Now shut up."

James answered after only one ring. "Hey, man, what's up?" he said in an odd tone that made Kendall think that James had just been talking about him.

He shrugged the paranoia off, not easily, and tried to sound easy-going. "Uh, not much, just hanging here with Lucy," he said.

"Wow, you're hanging out with my ex-girlfriend. Cool. Something I totally care about." That sounded like James.

"Yeah, whatever, she's basically my ex-girlfriend too, get over it," Kendall said too quickly, tripping over his words. "Anyway-"

"Wait, are you high?" James demanded.

"Maybe a little bit," Kendall admitted.

"You ran out on us after a long day of fittings to go get high without us? That hurts, man. Really does."

"Look, we'll smoke together next time," Kendall promised blindly. "Anyway, Jo might stop by the crib looking for me. I don't really care where you say I am, just promise not to say either high or with Lucy."

James was silent for a moment. "Are stoned and baked also not allowed?" he asked finally.

"Look, please? She hates it when I get high and I promised I would cut back, and I have, but she still gets so annoyed and-"

"Dude, calm down," James laughed. "I'll cover for you. And don't even worry, you barely ever let loose and relax a little. Jo's just being a girl."

"Lucy's a girl," Kendall commented.

"Oh believe me, he knows," Lucy said, now tossing goldfish in the air to catch in her mouth. She missed a lot.

"Yeah, I am very aware," James said at almost the exact same time, and Kendall cracked up. That made James laugh too. "All right, you have a good time. You gonna stay over there?"

"Probably," Kendall said. "If I don't, I'll call Logan or you."

"Do that. See you tomorrow, man."

"Later." With that Kendall hung up.

"You all safe from Miss Oh-So-Pure?" Lucy asked, holding her hands in front of her, palms pressed together in mock prayer.

"Hey don't make fun of her!" Kendall demanded. "I already told you to stop."

Lucy shrugged. "I can't help it. I'm mean when I'm high."

"You're mean a lot of the rest of the time, too," Kendall pointed out.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," Lucy conceded. "Only because I really think you need to relax. Every time I've seen you lately, you've been so wound up, I was afraid you'd just shoot out of a window and off into space."

They both cracked up over that. Putting the slight disagreement in the past, the both of them continued to smoke and hang out together for the rest of the evening.