Logan finds him ten minutes in, when he's just starting to take full breaths, to remember how his lungs work. The black water laps quietly at Kendall's bare hips where the rest of his body disappears into the dark - too quietly, he thinks. Kendall doesn't trust silence very well, which is why he always does his best to fill it. The jagged fringe of his hair sticks to his face in wide strips, salty drops collecting where the the strands narrow into points, before disconnecting and falling to his nose; his lips; back to the ocean where they belong. His fists are clenched tight at his sides, knuckles white from the strain and whiter from the slight cool of the water - but it's not cold enough to make him shiver.

The shiver comes from somewhere else.

"Ken?"

And just like that he's safe again, eager to open his eyes (and anything else) and accept the company, because nothing can harm him if he's not alone.

It's childish and irrational, but then... Kendall is scarcely past childhood himself, and Logan isn't the only one who scoffs at rationality through jaded jibes and over-stressed sarcasm.

"Hi." Kendall smiles, small and meek, which is far enough from his default that Logan's forehead immediately crinkles.

"The fuck are you doing out here all alone?" Logan inquires, but his tone is light and the corners of his lips are curled up.

Kendall hesitates before he speaks, another dramatic stray from his default, and glances back the sixty or so feet to shore, where half-naked Jo is attempting to dunk half-naked Lucy and failing miserably, while the guys all watch, mouths scandalously hanging open like it's cable porn (all except James and Carlos, who are too busy poking at a crab and leaping back like six-year-old girls when it lunges at them intermittently).

Kendall chuckles to himself, thinking how much easier life would be if that sight could cause such a reaction in him.

He looks at Logan, who seems to have gotten a lot closer in the past five seconds, and the proximity does nothing to keep Kendall from remembering the only things separating them are a few inches of air, Logan's underwear, and whatever horrors live in the water below Kendall's hips.

"I'm uh." He tries to unclench his hands, but they won't move. "I'm... conquering my fear."

"...Of naked women?"

"Shut up!" - Logan grins - "of sharks, asshole."

Logan softens at once, and Kendall doesn't fail to notice that's not exactly his default, either. "You're afraid of sharks?"

"Uh... kind of? Maybe? A little? Um, a lot? Since my friend let me watch Jaws when I was six and told me it was about a boy with a pet shark?"

"Oh."

"Yeeeah... I'm a loser," Kendall chuckles nervously, staring down at the blackness pooled around his skin.

"No you're not, you're just - Jesus, Kendall, you're shaking."

He reaches forward and Kendall holds his breath for the contact, but Logan's fingers never quite touch him, and Kendall's suspects it's because he wants it too desperately. Like he's psyched it out of happening.

"I'm okay," Kendall whispers even though it's obvious he's not, closing his eyes again and tipping his head down, because Logan's face, whatever it is, will either be irresistible or heartbreaking if he looks up, and with his phobias swelling up again just now, he's not sure he can handle either.

"Ken. Hey. It's okay, man. There's no sharks here."

"Yeah. I know. No, it's cool, yeah. I know. I just."

"Look at me."

Kendall does, because it's Logan, and he'd give Logan his last breath if he asked.

"Hey." Logan smiles, all gentle eyes, lips plump and dark from the water. "You're okay. C'mere."

He reaches forward, and this time he touches, both hands (and oh god, oh god), closing fingers over Kendall's tight fists, carefully easing them open until he can lace their hands together, and it takes a moment while their fingers tangle awkwardly, stiff and chilled from the water, but Kendall has no complaints because the way they're touching, opening and readjusting and drawing closer, it feels so fucking good, reminds him of how he imagines their bodies would do the same, and suddenly he's not thinking about sharks anymore.

He can't tell if that's a win or a fail.

"If you want to..." Logan starts.

And Kendall's lost, utterly, because he wants so muchand has no idea what he's allowed to take.

Logan steps a bit closer, causing the water between them to ripple and dip, and a latent awareness strikes Kendall not a moment too soon.

"Uh, I - " he stammers, eyes still squeezed shut as Logan presses their foreheads together. "I'm, uh, like, all kinds of naked right now."

He knows Logan's smiling, because he hasn't set any snark on him yet. "It's okay." They're close enough that he can actually hear Logan swallow, before he whispers, "Hold on as tight as you want."

Kendall hesitates as anyone would, because even though Logan tries to fight everyone's preconceived notion that he's apt to shatter at the drop of a hat, Kendall's still afraid of breaking him. But more than that, he thinks, he's afraid of pushing his limits with Logan. He's afraid of lettinghimselfbreak. It's not until Logan gives his hands an extra squeeze, urging him on, that he relents, gripping as hard as he can, as hard as it takes for him to forget, but he's not sure what he's trying to forget anymore.

He tells himself,stop thinking.

His mind listens, but his body doesn't.

And, oh. Okay. Fuck.

"You still scared?" Logan whispers.

Kendall nods, but it feels like a lie, because nothing's about sharks now.

Logan brushes a thumb over the back of Kendall's hand, humming softly, the whispered melody falling right from his lips to Kendall's, like a secret: "And maybe they won't find out what I know... you were the last good thing about this part of town."

He smiles, and Logan chuckles, breathy and nervous like he can feel it.

"I think I felt a jellyfish," he says.

Kendall laughs, a strangled, short-lived choking sound that really isn't funny at all.

"You okay?"

He doesn't answer, because Logan is about three inches away from finding out just how much more than okaythis is for Kendall.

"Ken, are you - "

And as the words come, it's like sick slow motion and fast-forward all together as Logan adjusts his footing on the ocean floor, causing his feet to shift and his hips to drop forward a bit and it's over, and Kendall's amazed at how little it takes to kill three inches.

It's almost nonexistent, the brief flash of friction, the brush of skin against cotton, but for the second it's there, it's enough for a sharp gasp to slip through and slice the air between them, and it's a long moment before Kendall realizes it didn't come from him.

They jump back a bit, fingers unclenching to release their hands at once, and in his surprise, Kendall's eyes spring open, an immediately regrettable impulse as they meet Logan's. Logan's are darker than the water but brighter than spotlights, guarded behind dark eyelashes and a hooded expression.

It's not by any means the first embarrassing moment he's experienced in Logan's presence; sharing a tour bus or Carlos's pull-out sofa doesn't exactly provide the most luxurious levels of privacy - but this. This isdifferent.

This is the first time Logan's acknowledged it.

Maybe a bit more than acknowledged, if they're being honest.

Their eyes are still holding tight to each other, and Kendall thinks it could be easy, so easy... just one step forward, and...

Logan swallows again, and Kendall completely ignores the lines of Logan's throat, the quick bob of his Adam's apple, and the way he just won't fucking look away like should.

"Um," Logan swallows again. "We should, uh. 'S getting late."

Kendall tries to nod, tries to laugh it off, tries to say yeah, let's go, but all that happens is he blinks, once, and his muscles refuse to move.

Unsurprising, considering how uncooperative his body has been so far.

"Right?" Logan prods, and Kendall can see the pleading in his eyes, the dark hunger (Hunger? When had Kendall's mind decided it washunger?) shoved aside and replaced with desperation, begging Kendall to comply.

"Yeah," he finally offers, feeling every missed chance slip through his fingers as the words leave his mouth: a cheap, cowardly surrender. "Yeah, I'll be along in a sec."

Logan watches him a moment longer, and it's Kendall's turn to plead with his eyes, begging Logan to let it go, to not make this any more difficult than it already has to be.

It's awhile before Logan says anything, just keeps staring, and with each second Kendall's false hope starts building, compounding, exploding, thinking maybe Logan's hesitation means what he's dying for it to mean.

"Okay," Logan says at last, little beyond a soft sigh.

Kendall's mind is so far gone on overdrive that he doesn't process it until it's too late, the two words Logan adds as he's walking away, so quiet they could easily be written off as part of the sloshing water when he moves:

"I'm sorry."

Kendall's mind drifts into consciousness before his eyes are open, and that's unusual for him. Usually he's gazing foggily at the world around him, ready to face and embrace it before his mind even realizes he's awake.

But this, this is kind of nice, he thinks before he's really thinking; it's nice being sense-aware like this without even seeing. Guitar Dude's warm beneath the half of Kendall that's draped over him; he's breathing even and slow and one of his hands is curled around Kendall's hip like always, familiar and predictable and safe: everything Kendall's come to love about Guitar Dude.

"Love you, puppy," he mumbles into the sleep-warm skin beneath his lips, shifting closer.

It's not instantaneous, but rather a few seconds' worth of progression, the way the heartbeat beneath his hand quickens, the breath shortness, and the entire body under his touch goes stiff.

It's then he notices the frame beneath him is too firm, too narrow to fit his presumptions; the skin softer; the fingers at his hip a bit shorter and chubbier - and the scent, even beneath layers of ocean air and sand smells that have seeped in, triggers a recognition in Kendall even more familiar, more comforting, but worlds away from Guitar Dude, and the shock shakes the last sleepy haze off Kendall's mind as his eyes spring open.

Logan's eyes seem bigger than ever this close, but maybe it's just been awhile, and it's not as though many opportunities have presented themselves since.

"Sorry," Kendall says at once, automatic before his mind has fully caught up. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he repeats as he climbs off Logan, seating himself a few feet away, legs folded and eyes fixed to the ground. "I thought you were - I'm sorry."

And the unspoken name rings louder through his ears for not having been vocalized, his eyes threatening with a light prickle, but he shoves it back, refuses to let it go any farther. Not here, not with Logan, not when Logan will feel obligated to touch him when Kendall knows Logan's not comfortable with affection like that.

Not with him, at least.

He looks back at Logan bravely, hoping to catch a reaction, but Logan's merely leaning back on his elbows, staring with a firm crease in his forehead, his face nothing close to upset.

Kendall can't read it, because he's not Carlos. He hates that, now more than ever. It's little things like this, recently - last forty-eight hours recently - that have sparked inexplicable anger in him: Kendall's always assumed, maybe a bit blindly, that the reason he can't read Logan's face, especially when he most wants to, is because he's not Carlos.

It's never occurred to him that Logan might have control over who can read him.

Kendall turns away before he can get any angrier, because Logan sprawled out like that, bare-chested with wildly tousled hair and wearing nothing but his underwear is a really, really nice sight, and Kendall may not have the world's most refined sense of decorum, but he knows letting those kinds of thoughts swarm through his mind at a time like this is probably achieving a level of inappropriate that even he'd never before reached.

But there's a hand on his knee, and when he turns his head, Logan has pulled himself up to sit beside him, still watching him with gentle eyes, and Kendall can't detect any sense of awkward obligation in his touch.

"I'm sorry," Logan says, his voice an unfamiliar echo of the deep, defined tone Kendall knows.

Kendall doesn't understand, and doesn't want games, doesn't want Logan's cryptic word mazes that only Carlos and Camille can ever seem to follow: Carlos because it's Carlos and they've known each other since birth, and Camille because Camille works the same way, using hidden depths to language to say things she doesn't want to say directly, or because saying it with more wit will earn him more attention. Kendall's never been one to see much past words at face value; never been one to pick apart Logan's elaborate dreamscape metaphors or Camille's mismatched, reinvented cliches. Over the years (the years since Logan), he's learned to hide words that want to escape, the I-love-you's and I-should-tell-you's, but when the words do come, allowed or otherwise, they're direct enough that no one has to interpret.

He watches Logan fruitlessly now, reading nothing but what looks like guilt, and now he's sure he's reading it wrong, because what on earth does Logan have to feel guilty for?

"For what?" Kendall asks.

Logan's expression slips, just a bit, intensifies, like he's trying to evaluate Kendall's emotional state. Kendall's not used to it; Logan's usually too caught up in trying to evaluate his own emotional state - which really sounds more self-absorbed than it is; the pain that goes along with it, Kendall knows, tends to hit Logan harder than others. Kendall may be able to hide, but he's never doubted who he is, what he wants.

Logan swallows, still watching him. "I'm sorry you - that - it's. It's so." Wrong, unfair, fucked up to hell and back. "If I could trade places with you, I would."

The good thing about Logan is, he may not say a lot, but he never says anything he doesn't mean.

Kendall wants to say thank you, but words don't seem to fit here.

They're silent for a long time, until Kendall feels the hand on his knee disappear, and he glances up to see Logan pressing his thumbs hard against his temples, eyes squeezed brutally tight.

"Does it hurt?"

Logan nods.

"Do you... want me to..."

He doesn't expect Logan to nod so readily, so easily; Kendall's got this kind of magic headache-vanishing massage-thing he learned from some roadie from some band he can't remember, years ago, and has been using it on his band since then, much to their gratitude. Logan's always the last to accept, if he accepts at all. Kendall knows it's not because it doesn't work on him, but because Logan doesn't like Kendall to touch him.

It's taken a good number of years, but Kendall's come to accept it, to let the easy touches and hugs and cheek-kisses from James, Carlos, Jett, everyone, convince him that he doesn't have some kind of disease, that he's not fundamentally untouchable. That it's not him; it's just, it's Logan. Even Logan's tried to convince him, not so much in words but in pleading looks that Kendall's tried to ignore, because he grew quickly tired of Logan not just saying things to him, but trying to make him figure things out on his own.

Maybe it's different here, because there's no one around to see. No one who will think Logan is something he isn't, for accepting contact that supposedly means more to Kendall than it does to him.

Supposedly.

Kendall shifts so he's in front of him, placing his hands on either side of Logan's head and easing into the patterns, finding the pressure points and trying to remember all the extra sweet spots exclusive to Logan that he'd memorized from the few times Logan had let him do this.

"I'm worried about you," Kendall says softly. "Your cut's not that bad, but you could've damaged something inside, and how the hell would we know?"

"'S just a headache," Logan slurs, still sleepy and softening further from the touch, allowing his head to relax in Kendall's hands, his eyelids fluttering as they unclench. "Need coffee."

"Well, y'know, I think I saw a Starbucks through the trees, we can head over there if you want."

Logan's quiet for several moments, and Kendall is beginning to suspect he's falling back sleep, when he whispers, "I love you, Kendall."

Kendall's only human, and it's Logan, and the rhythm of his hands miss a beat but it's not like he can hide it. He only wishes it weren't so fucking hard to say it back - not because he doesn't mean it, but because he does.

"I love you too." He trips a little over the words, but it's not noticeable enough to acknowledge. "If you ever scare us like that again, I." His voice starts to shake, and just, no, he can't do this right now. "Just don't, okay?"

They both know us means me, but Logan nods all the same.

"Here." Kendall lowers his hands, grabbing for a water bottle and dumping it in Logan's lap before reaching across the sand to one pile of snacks. He selects a bag of trail mix, the healthiest thing he can find, and works on tearing it open. "I think James and Litos are at the plane," he adds, handing Logan the bag.

Logan stares at it, and back to Kendall. That, that, Kendall can read.

"We have plenty," he lies, reaching for a bag of pretzels for himself. "Eat."

Logan eats, slowly, the way he always eats, like he's evaluating the food's value to his physical being; and Kendall forces the pretzels into his mouth, because as far past hungry as he is, his appetite is still on hiatus. He eats slowly too, the way he never does, because as long as they're eating they don't have to talk, don't have to fill any awkward silence.

Logan watches him through it, though, looking away when Kendall catches his eye, and the lack of stealth is so unlike Logan that Kendall really does start to worry about head injuries. He worries more, though, about the way Logan's watching him, like he's waiting for the ball to drop; for Kendall to suddenly realize something and freak out, and it doesn't make any sense.

Kendall's done his freaking out. Maybe Logan wasn't around to see it, wasn't there to hear Kendall screaming at James and pushing Carlos off or clawing at sand for hours on end, crying until his body nearly dried up. But he must know, from how quiet Kendall is now, that the worst is over.

Without thinking, Kendall chomps down on a pretzel and accidentally bites the inside of his cheek, and remembers last week when he bit his tongue and whimpered and Guitar Dude took his hand, raised an eyebrow, and offered to kiss it better.

...But no.

No, he's not freaking out. His eyes can sting all they want and his breath can catch until it breaks, but he's not freaking out.

He looks up. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

Logan nods slowly.

"We need to find water."

Another nod.

Kendall stands, brushing sand and crumbs off his lap before offering his hand to Logan, who accepts it, but Kendall over-aims a bit as he hoists Logan up, always underestimating Logan's lack of body mass, and Logan stumbles forward a step and they're face to face, again, too close and Logan's still fucking watching him.

Kendall wants to say What, WHAT, but he doesn't think he has the energy for an answer.

"You shouldn't - " Logan starts on his own, looking exasperated. "You shouldn't be - I - I should be taking care of you, you're the one who - "

And there's just no way, none, that that sentence could be finished.

Kendall wishes there were a safe way to tell Logan that taking care of him comes as easily to Kendall as breathing. Instead, he gives the hand still clasped in his a gentle squeeze before releasing it, turning and starting for the forest behind camp.

He's not too keen on retracing yesterday's path: too many blurred, chaotic memories, none good and several bad, and besides, Carlos has already started beating down some of the plants to make a path, where he'd been collecting leaves and vines. And, Kendall suspects with a slight sinking in his stomach, where Carlos and James had probably taken off looking for him, for god only knows how long.

There's too much to see, to watch for, to wade through, for them to speak, and Kendall's grateful, because perhaps for the first time in his life, he doesn't think he could string together enough words to make logical sentences, or even his more traditional illogical sentences. It's taking all his mental energy to keep his thoughts off Guitar Dude, off Freight Train and Jett and reality and how much it's everything reality shouldn't be, ever. Logan's silence is nothing uncharacteristic, but somehow, it seems more silent - like it's not that he doesn't have anything to say, but rather that he can't say it.

For twenty minutes the silence remains easy, and Logan follows, keeping up well and not once complaining about the floppy, low-hanging branches and eccentric plants in their way, the uneven ground, or the steadily uphill trek - and it's yet another warning to Kendall that the Logan who woke up last night may not quite be the Logan who sat on the plane merely two days ago.

This bit of the forest looks much like all the other bit, and Kendall's just starting to wonder how many identical miles of forest they might have to breach, when Logan's hand reaches from behind and clamps down over Kendall's wrist.

Kendall's half a breath away from a What, what, are you okay, but an unfamiliar impulse silences him, letting him simply study Logan's face, and as he does, he reads. He reads, just like Carlos does.

Logan's eyes say, Listen.

Kendall goes so far as to hold his breath, focusing on Logan's eyes instead of the distractions around him, desperate to learn if there's anything else he should be reading, but he's jolted from his focus when something collides with his ears, something new that isn't the sound of their own footsteps, crunching unknown surfaces beneath them. Something that isn't insects or birds, something that isn't life, but somehow, greater.

It's nothing he's used to hearing, and at first it sounds like traffic, the far-off rush of a single car along a highway, but this sound doesn't crescendo and fade; it's steady, neither approaching nor departing, and -

Oh.

Logan releases his hand and steps forward, beginning to lead the way, and Kendall's more than a little wary of letting him go first, worried he won't be able to protect him, but Logan seems set on it. The sound grows louder but never deafening, and Kendall is somehow expecting it to be both more and so, so much less than it is.

It's a fucking waterfall.

Like, a real one, the kind in pictures, and movies, a waterfall in the middle of the forest, their forest, right fucking here, twenty feet high and spilling lazily into a shallow pool about fifty feet across, blue as can be and trickling off into a stream on one side that drizzles southwest of where they came. They watch it, dumbfounded, from a mossy plateau some thirty feet up from the bank, overlooking a rocky patch at one edge of the pond.

Words strike Kendall, but again, become jumbled in the mess of his head and never quite make it out.

Logan doesn't turn around, just keeps staring out over it, but Kendall is at once prodding around to find a way down to the pond. At one edge close to the forest he locates a drop that looks safe enough to tackle, not too steep or slippery. He looks back to ensure Logan's following him, a quick glance he's only half-focused on, until -

"Logan - what the - Jesus fuck, Logan! - "

He's a scant fifteen feet from where Logan's standing, but it feels like he's in a dream, moving in slow motion and unable to control it or speed it up, the way he clambers back up the plateau to where Logan is perched at the edge, the tips of his shoes just hanging off the cliff, his arms limp and loose at his sides. Kendall grabs one, jerks Logan around and doesn't think twice about the spark of fury that he knows must show in his eyes with the panicked, heaving breaths shuddering through his lungs.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

It's hardly the first time he's raised his voice to Logan, but possibly the first time Logan hadn't raised his first.

It's no longer the scene that terrifies Kendall, the image pounding against his eyes of seeing Logan standing there, so close, so fucking close - but rather, the fact that Logan isn't fighting him, isn't jerking away with a fuck off, isn't shooting daggers with his eyes. In fact, the only life Kendall can detect in his eyes right now is a glimmer of tears. The rest of Logan's face is calm, relaxed, eerily so.

"The fuck?" Kendall repeats, but it's weak this time, choked and scared-sounding and followed by an all too familiar sting in his eyes. He adjusts his grip on Logan's arm so it's not deathly tight, carefully pulling him back until a solid ten feet of ground is between them and the edge. Logan follows like a puppet, a well-trained dog, not protesting one inch.

Logan is watching him still, not angry, merely blank, and Kendall isn't surprised that he can't read a thing.

"What the fuck was that?" he whispers, voice weaker than ever from pounding in his heart, exhausting him. "You almost - Logan, please."

"Nothing," Logan says, quiet and unaffected, like it really is nothing. "It's nothing. I was just looking. I'm sorry."

Kendall focuses as hard as he can, wills his eyes to speak, I don't believe you and talk to me, please. He holds his breath and waits, waits for Logan's eyes to say something back, but they don't.

"Come on," Logan says, gently peeling Kendall's fingers from his wrist. "Let's go down."

Kendall lets him lead the way, if for no other reason than so he can keep an eye on him. It's an easy trek down, and Logan's on his knees at the shore before Kendall can even blink, scooping up a handful of water and lifting it to his lips.

"Logan - dude! We don't - we don't know if it's - it could be - "

Logan looks up and shrugs, "Only one way to find out," and slurps some through his lips, swallowing easily.

Kendall holds his breath, and when in god's name did their roles reverse like this, cautious tight-ass versus mindlessly careless daredevil? In some corner of his mind, he suspects it has something to do with necessity. If Logan's going to abandon his rightful role, someone's got to fucking take it up.

Logan looks at him, testing the taste with a few licks over his lips. "Seems fine."

Kendall nods absently. "Let's go."

It takes the trek back up the slope for his heartbeat to return to normal, for him to remember to breathe, and they're halfway back into the woods when a return to relative mental normalcy causes Kendall to stop in his tracks and turn around, taking in the sight before them.

He wonders what Logan saw when he crept to the ledge; wonders what his eyes were chasing, drawn to. He's not sure about Logan, but for Kendall, it hits him at once.

It's nothing new, really, but it's the first time his mind's let him think it.

The sight is maybe, a little bit, completely perfect.

It's perfect in the way the sunset was perfect, in that sickening way where nothing should be perfect.

It's perfect in a photographer's way.

It's.

Yeah.

Kendall swallows the lump in his throat, quick and efficient. He's getting good at that.

He hadn't realized how lost he'd been in his thoughts until he feels Logan beside him, slipping still-damp fingers into Kendall's.

"Isn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" he whispers sadly, like its beauty is cursed.

Kendall doesn't answer, because Logan is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

"We'll take a picture," Logan says. "Before we leave, we'll take a picture. For Guitar Dude, and Jett."

Kendall still doesn't answer, because this time the lump in his throat is too big to swallow.

The walk back is silent, not forced but natural, and Kendall lets himself breathe.

It's so silent, so trance-like with the repeated rhythms of the forest's sounds, that the moment they hit the beach, their feet colliding with sun-baked sand, the noise that greets them, far from the harmony of insect choruses they'd come to tune out, nearly scares them out of their fucking skin.

"FUCK!"

By the time Kendall has blinked, Carlos has flung himself at Logan, lifting him off his feet and holding him as tight as if someone were threatening to rip Logan from his arms. Logan simply goes with it, gripping back just as tight like he'd been equally worried about Carlos, wrapping his legs around Carlos's waist like a kid and burying his face in Carlos's neck. Kendall can hear Carlos spitting out halfheartedly angry nonsense like "off by yourself" and "not telling us" and "don't ever again," and Logan just clings silently, never once looking up while allowing Carlos to carry him the few feet back to camp.

James isn't quite as ravenous. He watches their scene until Logan's safely back at camp with Carlos shoving snack packs at him, before turning to Kendall, standing alone at the edge of the forest.

James steps forward. "We were worried."

"Sorry, I'm sorry, we just - "

"Jesus fuck, Ken, shut up," James sighs tiredly before closing the distance between them and scooping Kendall into a bear hug. "Just promise you won't take off again without telling us, okay?"

Kendall nods, holding James tight against him.

James lets him go after a moment, holding him at arm's length. "Where'd you go?"

"We found water."

"You - fuck. Seriously?"

Kendall nods, staring at his shoes, still guilt-ridden for having driven Carlos into such a fit.

"Fuck, Ken, you're awesome."

"Logan found it."

"Then you're both awesome." James smiles, squeezing Kendall's shoulder.

Kendall nods a brief acknowledgment, not looking up as he starts toward camp, but James catches his hand.

"Um. Hey. Um, we - Litos and I were talking." He waits for Kendall to meet his eye, but when he does, he looks like he's lost his nerve to continue. "Um, we want - we want to have a burial."

Kendall doesn't breathe, because it doesn't seem necessary, if even possible, right now.

"We - there's, um. Some parts of the plane, we could use to dig. Me and Litos. And - there's a place, a little ways into the forest, where's there's some flat ground. And. You wouldn't have to - we - Litos - we could do it, you wouldn't need to see, I mean - and then. If you wanted to, after. Y'know. You could be there."

The working parts of Kendall's mind tell him to nod, but somehow he can't.

"You don't - we don't have to," James quickly adds.

"No," Kendall says to the ground. "We should. I want to."

"Are you sure?"

He nods, unthinking. "Thanks."

The word feels obligatory, not right, because he shouldn't be thankful for anything right now, what's to be thankful for, with everyone gone? But James's so earnest, so fucking sincere and desperate that Kendall couldn't say no, couldn't deny him this, couldn't let him think this is unappreciated, because it's really not.

It's just hard. Or whatever is a thousand times beyond hard - having to be reminded, of everything.

He tells himself Guitar Dude would want this, and so would Jett, being immortalized in the most beautiful place on earth, an artist's paradise. And Freight Train, Freight Train would want this too, would want it to be them, the four of them, the ones he's protected for so long, now protecting him.

He tells himself all this to convince himself he can handle it, but really, none of it is hard to believe. It makes enough sense that it stops feeling like bullshit, and when he looks up at James, he nods again, this time conscious and solid, and virtually speechless at James's strength through it all.

"James, I."

"I know."

When he tries to read James's face, it's the easiest thing in the world.

Almost as easy as loving him.