A/N:

I don't own anything (by the way)

Here's the next chapter.

Logan gets out of bed late the next morning due to an alarming amount of tossing and turning the night before. He barely has time to grab some money from his dad's wallet for a vending machine breakfast before he has to rush out the door and hop on his bike, hair a mess and clothes a bit mismatched. He looks a bit like a mad scientist, which is what a few people call him, especially when he oversleeps and comes to school looking...like a mad scientist.

Despite his valiantly going without brushing his hair, he doesn't manage to make it before the late bell, and he still has to stop and but breakfast. As he's pushing the first quarter into the slot, the rest of the change slips out of his hand and spills onto the tile, making him swear and forcing him onto his knees as he fumbles to pick it up. He thanks whatever divine force is watching that the hallway is empty, knowing it would be impossible to get the change back with a crowd of people tripping over and shoving past him.

"Where the hell?" Logan scans the floor for his last quarter, spotting it a few machines away. Sighing he crawls over to it, wondering how idiotic he looks on the security camera, and picks it up, "Gotcha."

It's then that he hears footsteps and a few voices, male voices, coming closer. In a moment of irrational panic he dives in-between two of the machines (they're spaced far apart and he's always been skinny) and tries not to feel too bad about the fact that he's hiding from freaking teenagers. And not even harmful ones at that; they're probably just going to the bathroom or something. Still, they're way too close for crawling back out into the open to be an option, so he's left to feel like an idiot and pray that they don't see him hiding in the snack machines. As if he needs another reason for people to tease him.

"Come on, we're gonna be late."

Logan cocks his head at the voice and scoots closer to the edge, watching as three pairs of sneakers come into view. One pair of beat up, gray converse, one pair of black Adidas, and one pair of pristine white Sperry's. Holding his breath he moves even closer and risks leaning forward, just enough to see the legs and torsos and faces of the three people who managed to chase him into a dusty, tight space.

"Shit!"

The curse is out of his mouth before he can stop it and the shoes (and their respective owners) pause. One of them, tall and lanky, but handsome, looks around bemusedly, "Did you hear something?"

"Yeah." Another one, dark haired and short, looks around as well. He doesn't seem concerned though, merely shrugs and grins at his taller friend, "Someone's mad."

"It sounded like it was coming from the vending machines." Kendall glances at the rows of machines and Logan moves even further into the shadows, trying not to move or breathe. His heart beats faster at the thought of Kendall finding him like this, cowering in the corner like a caged animal, and he can feel his face heating up at the thought. He has no real way of explaining his irrational need to hide, because all that's running through his mind is the fact that Kendall goes to his school.

How could Kendall possibly go to his school?

It makes sense, since Kendall lives in the same town and it's the only school for a while, but Logan can't help but wonder how he could have gone so long without noting the handsome teen's existence. Surely, with Kendall's looks and charm, it shouldn't have taken a hospital visit for him to come to Logan's attention.

Of course, he has more pressing concerns right now, such as the impending search and seizure of his dignity, which could possibly kill him from mortification alone.

"The vending machines?" The tall one wrinkles his nose and looks offended at the idea, "It's dirty down there."

"Whatever." Kendall shrugs, "We're already late."

Logan breathes a sigh of relief as they disappear and he's allowed to crawl back out into the open, scowling at the dirt and grime on the knees of his jeans. When he rubs it off, it burrows even deeper into the fabric, and now he looks dirty as well as unkempt. He looks like a mad scientist with a bunch of bodies buried in his backyard, thanks to the dirt on his jeans. And, to top it all off, he's really late to class now.

"Shit." He swears again and shoves the rest of the change into the machine, pressing buttons blindly and grabbing the snack with little thought as to what it is or how it will taste. His first class isn't too far, but the lecture's already started when he reaches the door, and he has to knock because the door's locked. There's a look of utter disappointment on Mrs. Morris' face when she pulls the door open, gray hair pulled back into a bun as usual, and Logan tries his best to look repentant, even as he wishes she would just give him a break.

"You're late."

"Yeah, I overslept."

"Late night?"

"At the hospital." Logan responds coldly, "I was helping my dad."

Mrs. Morris' clucks softly and waves a hand towards the rows of desks and Logan's empty seat, shaking her head at the excuse and mumbling about teens being teens and not free labor. It makes Logan angry because his dad isn't using him for free labor, in fact he was against Logan's taking on longer shifts at the hospital for the very reason Mrs. Morris is clucking about. If anything, he wishes she would be a little impressed, since he's a sixteen year old kid living a med student's dream.

"Mad scientist." Someone snorts when Logan slips past and he rolls his eyes, because it's a stupid nickname and he's too tired to deal with it. At least no one tries to trip him like jocks do in the movies, because unlike the movies there are jocks in the AP English class. While the stereotype holds mostly true, not all of them have suffer from a lack of intelligence due to too many head to head collisions and a lack of interest in anything but sports.

"Late night at the hospital? What was he doing; dissecting dead bodies?"

Logan resists the urge to remind them that morgues at hospitals aren't all that easy to get into and, more importantly, not exactly pleasant, but Mrs. Morris has restarted her lecture and his seat is within reach. Falling into it he drops his bag on the ground by his feet and allows himself to get lost in the task of taking notes on ridiculously obvious things while the jocks and their followers speculate about whether he kills the people or lets someone else do it for him instead. It's not exactly bullying, just teenagers being teenagers, it's just really annoying.

Mrs. Morris begins asking questions (choosing her victims based on who was paying the least amount of attention), so the annoying topic is dropped pretty quickly as the ringleaders scramble to get together the proper information with no clue where to begin. Logan smirks at their panic and waits for Mrs. Morris to pick them off, which he's sure she will. He can almost forgive her judgmental clucking.

"Now, Bryan, how does Hester-"

The rest of the class period is full of pointed questions and jocks fumbling for something remotely intelligent to say. Most of them get only as far as the first word before they crumble and allow Mrs. Morris to pin them with a disappointed look and move on to her next victim. When Logan's turn finally comes he answers the questions shortly and correctly, earning an approving nod from Mrs. Morris and an all too familiar grumbling from the rest of the class.

When the bell rings he hits the hallway before anyone else and everywhere he looks he sees Kendall, even though he's fairly certain he doesn't see Kendall once the whole way to his second class. Now that he's away from the nuisance that is Bryan and his friends he can think about Kendall and how bad it is that they go to the same school and how he could have possibly missed it. Kendall a surprising effect on him and he can't believe he's never noticed the blonde. Of course, if they don't have the same classes, there are few chances of them actually getting close enough to see each other.

If anything is certain, it's the fact that Kendall isn't going to be in any of Logan's classes. At least, he's not in his first or second, and Logan doubts Kendall is in his third or fourth (going by the logic that someone so handsome would have caught Logan's attention; gay or no).

"I have your tests here."

The class groans as Mr. Smith closes the door and places a hand, fingers spread, on top of a thick stack of papers on his desk. He smiles and says something about how "most everyone" did well and Logan feels pretty confident that he made an A. A few of the surrounding people don't look so sure of themselves, and one girl makes loud comments about how she left the last ten questions blank. Her friends look sympathetic and attempt to placate her with promises that there were a lot of questions, so maybe those last ten won't do her much harm.

It's bullshit and everyone knows it, but no one bothers to say it out loud.

"Here you go." Mr. Smith heads around the room, passing out papers with smiles and frowns respectfully, telling people they did good or they could do better as needed. When he gets to Logan he pats him on the back and proclaims, quite happily, that Logan got the only perfect score. Logan can feel his cheeks heating up as everyone turns to look at him, a few of them glowering. He can only assume that they made far from a perfect score, or else they almost made a perfect score and can't believe someone beat them.

"You can do better."

After History Logan has Science, which is a few halls down. He scans the crowd for Kendall, ducking at the sight of blonde hair and inspecting people's shoes. At one point, he spies a pair of beat up Converse coming towards him and nearly runs the other way, until he realizes that the legs are way too feminine.

Not wanting to risk another illogical (and completely logical) panic attack, Logan practically runs to his third period and all but crashes into his desk. The few people that are already in the room laugh at his display and he feels his cheeks heat up, tapping his fingers against the top of the desk to keep from looking anyone in the eye. When an appropriate amount of time passes he glances back up and nearly falls out of his desk because right there, a mere two desks away, is Kendall's brown haired friend. He's talking somewhat bored-ly to a pretty blonde girl and doesn't seem to care about anything but his nails. The girl, for her part, is listening closely, even though she could probably get up and walk away without the brown haired guy even bothering to look up.

"Someone in the vending machines?" Logan catches a part of their conversation and looks down automatically, praying that they won't look up and see him, though they have no way to know it was him.

"Yeah." The guy answers calmly, "Or, someone around the vending machines."

"Swearing?"

"He said 'shit'."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was stuck?"

"In what?"

"The vending machine...?" The guy trails off and the girl sighs, shaking her hair back. Logan drops his gaze again as she glances around the room at the filling desks and the blank walls. The conversation, apparently, is over, because she doesn't ask anymore questions and he doesn't continue the story. Instead, the class begins, with a worksheet five pages long ready for them to complete. The class is quick to pull their desks into circles and pairs, the guy and the girl doing nothing but moving a bit closer together. Logan remains in his corner, packet ridiculously easy and ridiculously long in front of him. He flips through it and runs a hand through his already disheveled hair, mentally answering every question he can before deciding he'll need his book.

"Hey, nerd!"

"Do you mean me?" Logan glances up from his paper as the whole class turns to look at him and one of the most annoying people in the whole Junior class smirks at him.

"What's the answer to number five?"

"I have no idea." Logan studies the question and writes the answer neatly on the blank space, "Look in your book."

"That's too hard." The guy complains, but doesn't bother Logan again. He can feel someone's eyes on him, lingering as if they expect something else, and he looks up to meet the guy's gaze. He smiles uncertainly and the guy rolls his eyes, tilting a head slightly at the group that bothered Logan. When Logan's smile grows he grins and goes back to his packet, leaving Logan with his own smile. It's nice to know that not everyone's an asshole.

It's not like Logan doesn't realize there are good people in the world, he's not that much of a cynic, it's just that he doesn't associate with enough people to find the nice ones.

At lunch, Logan takes his science book to use as a sort of cover, in case Kendall happens to have the same lunch. He also takes his packet, in case Kendall doesn't have the same lunch and he just looks stupid. It's good to have something to do at lunch, since none of the people he tentatively considers friends have the same lunch period as him. They always talk about science and debate teams, but it's better than sitting alone.

He takes a table in the corner and scans the whole cafeteria before he hits the line, not seeing any sign of Kendall or his friends. He doesn't even see the brown haired guy and the girl, who seem to have vanished into thin air as soon as they left the class. Logan isn't sure if he likes not seeing Kendall at lunch, or if he's in far enough that he regrets not seeing Kendall at lunch. It doesn't really matter, he decides, because he's not going to spend his whole lunch period thinking about a guy he met once. He's going to work on his packet, possibly finish his packet, and forget all about Kendall and his girlfriend.

It's easy enough once he gets started, because school is something he's used to. The cafeteria and the people and the food that isn't really food don't matter as much as the answers and finding the right ones; be they in his brain or in the thick book. He loses himself in the process, meditative and hypnotic, blocking out everything until something manages to break through his wall of concentration.

"See you around, Dr. Logan."

Logan doesn't process the words or the voice until it's too late and Kendall, followed by the brown haired guy and the girl, is disappearing through the double doors of the cafeteria.

The packet goes forgotten.