(Just a quick tooth-rotting fluffy one-shot, because editing Nervous Nights has been frying my brain and writing this was a nice little break to have ｡ﾟ(TヮT)ﾟ｡ The title and main fic inspiration is a lyric from Song For Isabelle by Pierce The Veil.)
Apart from being extremely skilled with a hockey stick and puck on the ice, and with talking slash troublemaking his way out of every situation (no matter how sticky, surprising, or plain silly), and even having the unique ability to make his bushy eyebrows dance around like a pair of excited caterpillars at his whim, Kendall Knight was also blessed with the gift of being able to fall asleep really easily, which was quite the handy power to get to wield.
But unfortunately for him, this very same power just had to come bonus-packaged with the curse of being an extremely light sleeper.
Although he knew he shouldn't really be surprised, it was still a bit mystifying to the teenager. Maybe when his mom was pregnant with him, she had slighted slash accidentally angered a Sandman-type of witch (Sandwoman?), and in turn, the wicked enchantress had cast an irreversible spell upon Mrs. Knight's firstborn and made her innocent son fall unlucky victim to such a miserable fate.
And then maybe soon after Kendall was born—and pestered his mom with enough sleepless nights filled with snotty crying and poopy diapers, she finally managed to find a way to make amends and appease that very same sleep witch...Sandwoman...evil magic lady...whatever. And the witch felt so impressed with Jennifer Knight's hard work that she decided to endow Kendall's younger sister with incredibly sharp wits as a means of reparation; so that the lastborn Knight could have some means of looking after her eternally-accursed brother and her once-hoodwinked mother (who should reeeeaaally not have been meddling with supernatural powered creatures nor the mystical unknown in the first place).
Or at least, that's what Kendall liked to believe. It was kind of mean-spirited and definitely way too dramatic, but it certainly made for a more riveting tale than the actual boring explanation of a nonchalant shrug alongside life's ever-persisting mantra of 'things just happen sometimes.'
But whether the Knight siblings were cautionary fairy tales straight from the Brothers Grimm's magical anthologies, or just regular human beings who happened to catch a bit of a bad break like everyone else, Kendall was still thankful that he wasn't double-cursed with chronic insomnia like his unfortunate roommate.
He had often woken up to Logan awake and alert as an over-caffeinated owl, the boy genius spending one too many evenings hunched over his glaring computer screen as he tried to bide the witching hours by filling up his already-huge noggin with all sorts of wacky brain-busting information (and sometimes adorable animal vlogs). Sometimes Kendall reckoned that's why Logan couldn't get any sleep—he had so much crazy stuff cluttering his head and it was covering up whatever parts of his system that was telling him to shut down and get some rest for once.
Heaven knows Kendall himself had also spent some crawling stretches of nights chewing his nails to the bone and festering in putrid anxiety, drenched in sweat and overthinking about everything and nothing, until the darkness got too dark and he got entirely swallowed up by all of his pervasive worries, whether rational or stupid. Especially now more than ever, with this whole 'living in LA with my family and being the leader of a super famous boy band with my three best friends' status quo.
His reality chased him all the way to ends of his nightmares. He didn't have any cool action hero imaginary sequences, or 'secret agent with Beatles songs for soundtracks' fantasies, or even high-octane alien invasion dreams to tell over breakfast, like Carlos always did.
Kendall actually found himself quite jealous of the Latino, who, apart from enjoying the most colourful and imaginative dreams, also conked right out without fail as soon as his helmeted head hit (yes, hit, although 'forcibly slammed into' would also be a much more accurate description) the pillow. It usually took at least fifteen alarm clocks, a whole bucket of ice-cold water, and Kelly's airhorns strapped closely onto each eardrum—and even Katie's infamous painful ear pinches, in the most desperate of cases—just to wake him back up. For as boundless the amount of wound-up energy the small boy had in him when he was awake, he was the complete opposite when he was in slumber.
Carlos wasn't just a log, no; he was an entire chopped-down forest of unmovable timber, and if you tried to pull a single log out from the towering pile, the rest would come avalanching down on you and bash in your foolish skull for attempting to defy nature.
But out of all of his friends' wildly varying sleepytime quirks, Kendall was just mostly glad that he didn't have to keep himself on a super-tight beauty sleep schedule like James did. This fascinatingly peculiar ritual included (but was not limited to): an hour-long bubble bath, slathering on a wide array of smelly and viscous facial serums along with other 'Cuda skin and hair care products, and having to stay in rigorous thought-out sleeping positions to avoid messing up his meticulously smoothed and shiny locks—although Carlitos had a rather bad habit of using his best bud as a human teddy bear and doing that for him anyway.
And on top of all that, James also set a million timers on his phone (one of the more annoying reasons why their 'unmovable timber' friend was his roommate and not anyone else) and counted down to the very last minute and second how much sleep he was getting—for "zero eyebags, peak muscle revitalisation, and maximum skin rejuvenation", apparently...
...whatever the heck that even meant.
But though sending himself off to dreamland was personally little to no problem for Kendall, it took no more than constant blanket tossing or an accidentally-dropped medical book to zip him right back into consciousness; and the moment his weary eyes opened up to ceiling blue and glow in the dark stars, it was instantly game over from there.
Even if he attempted to remedy it with some warm tea or with idle songwriting on his well-worn lyric notebook (Kendall found that he composed better when he was tired out of his brain, but he didn't really want to encourage this unhealthy behaviour, either), the intrusive rays of sunrise still usually beat him to the punch; the golden state's morning radiance obnoxiously bleeding into their drawn curtains as they blinded sunken stares and screamed for the tuckered-out boys to get up, get up, get get get up!
And then blatting alarms would start going off one after another in the crib, and he and Logan would fall in tandem and drag themselves out all drooly and gross and zombie-like, as their two other friends stepped out from the next room over looking like the most refreshed little angels who just took a merry cloud nine trip to heaven. During which Kendall's mom and baby sis usually would have already been long awake, ready to serve up some delicious breakfast over some juice box banter and put some life back into their lethargic souls, to get the four of them ready for whatever boyband training hell Gustavo and Kelly had in store for their dogs that day.
Tonight, it was no different for Kendall.
Maybe except for the fact that he didn't really know what woke him up, exactly.
There weren't any super-crinkly bedsheets or fumbled Merck Manuals, not that he could tell—otherwise, a puppy-eyed Logan would've been camped out at the foot of his bed and chomping at the bit to express his apologies to him. Anyway, whatever caused him to stir didn't really feel like anything loud or jarring, so maybe it must have been some other unfamiliar sound.
Kendall's ears perked up as he attempted to listen in beyond the expected discernable silence. He was long-used to the after-dark sounds of the Palm Woods. It was like his very own nocturnal lullaby, comforting and static and hushed, quite the stark contrast to the vivaciously louder-than-life atmosphere the apartment complex usually held when everyone—actors and models and musicians and all-around fame-chasing Jacks alike—was up and at 'em and shaking the floors. Especially when his very own rambunctious band of friends inevitably sparked up some big time trouble...Mr. Bitters wasn't constantly jabbing his cheesy fingers and shouting his cheese-fries breath right in their faces for nothing, after all. Matter of fact, he was probably just four dug graves short of putting his rowdy tenants to permanent sleep due to their nonstop 24/7 antics.
But their crabby apartment manager was thankfully nowhere to be heard now, most likely snoozing downstairs in his Scrooge-looking nightgown that came complete with a droopy silk cap and an old-fashioned candle holder (seriously, why does Bitters even use that when electricity literally exists?), so Kendall could easily cross that particular contingency off his list.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he continued listening in for a good minute or two, mentally ticking off the usual furtive noises echoing from inside the confines of their crib as he did so.
Their leaky kitchen faucet—we should really get around to asking Buddha Bob to fix that—steadily going drip drip drip. Check.
Their new next door neighbour's earthquake-like snores roaring as it shook just about every apartment wall on the second floor. Check, two.
Cold milk splashing against crunchy Powdered Sugar-O's whenever Katie hankered for a quick midnight snack—that one was noticeably not present tonight. No check.
The uh-oh-oh soundbite from their band's eponymous song that seemingly always coincidentally played at the worst times—I really hope I don't get to hear that one tonight! But it was also no check...for now.
The hypnotic clickety-clackety sound of Logan's typing keyboard going miles a minute, right over to the left of him, of course that one earned another easy check...
Scissors going snip snip snip, however, was something entirely unheard of. Quite literally.
Setting aside the little sound list from his mind, Kendall decided to investigate the unfolding mystery further. He kicked the blankets off his legs and stood up with a quiet groan and a generous stretch. Absently running icy fingers through his messy dark blond hair, he then slipped on some pink fluffy bunny slippers and started walking towards the door.
"Heading out?" was Logan's wry quip from behind him.
"I'm gonna check out what that weird sound is." replied Kendall. "Don't you hear it?"
"What was that?" His roommate's preoccupied gaze didn't leave the glowing screen as he motioned to his ears. "Sorry dude, earphones. I'm listening to a really interesting lecture about a research that uses immunovirotherapy for pediatric high-grade gliomas. See, these doctors are injecting an oncolytic, genetically engineered simplex virus called HSV-1 G201—"
"Alright, yeah, don't got it. Don't make me fall asleep while I'm standing up."
"What?"
"Nothing. Your mouth stinks."
"Aww, thanks, I love you too, dude!"
With an amused shake of his head, Kendall stalked out of their bedroom and made a beeline for the living room. As soon as he arrived by the end of the hallway, he blindly felt for the wall to look for the light switch, only to find himself flying off his fluffy bunny slippers and somersaulting forward as he accidentally tripped on something.
"Yowchies!"
Okay, make that someone.
Kendall hit the carpeted floor with a muffled thud, cutting off a pained grunt with his balled fist. He sat dazed for a moment, simply biting his knuckle and rubbing at his tingling elbow as that someone's footsteps frantically plodded past him, and he heard a quiet click as a nearby lamp turned on. Briefly squeezing his eyes shut, Kendall forced them back open and squinted as he tried to find out who his unknown companion was.
Even though his fuzzy vision was still adjusting to the sudden brightness, from the looks of the all-too familiar megawatt grin making a significant dent against the darkened shadows—as well as the whole explosive mess of arts and crafts materials surrounding them, Kendall didn't have to turn on any other overhead lights to figure out who the perpetrator was all along.
And it was exactly just as he suspected.
"Carlos...it's four in the morning. What on earth are you doing?"
"Making a greeting card!"
"Okay, that was obviously the wrong question...let me try that again." sighed Kendall, as he stood back up and leaned against the counter to steady himself. "Why on earth are you doing that?"
Carlos lazily shrugged. "'Cause James told me to."
"James...our James...told you...to make a card...a greeting card...at an ungodly hour of the night…?"
"Ohoookay," Carlos's cheeks began puffing up with air, as if gearing himself for a long tale, "so like, here's the whole thing. I kinda got rudely woken up a couple hours ago, which wasn't really very nice. And I was gonna just go back to sleep, but then I felt super cold all of a sudden, so I took Mr. Fuzzykins and my blankie and went to James' bed 'cause y'know, he's like, the warmest bear ever and he also smells super nice! I mean, he usually doesn't mind it…"
His ballooned-up face deflated into a sour pout. "...but then he got kinda mad at me for being way too wriggly and messing his hair up—and I guess also he said something about interrupting his Elite supermodel dream thingy, and I tried to say sorry, but then he got all snappy and told me to stop bugging him and go away and watch a stupid after-hours Hallmark movie and get lost or whatever...so, here we are!"
"Okay...I think I get it. Ish." Kendall scratched his nape, still vaguely confused about the winding story but far too exhausted to do anything about it. "Just one question...so where did the card part come in?"
"Oh yeah, thaaaat." Carlos snapped his fingers. "Well, I did seriously think about watching Hallmark movies at first, but I really don't wanna 'cause they're all sappy and dumb and—and they don't even have zombie pirates or like, super awesome action scenes with lots of explosions! Only lots of yucky-echy talking and smooching…"
He blew a disgusted raspberry, which Kendall assented to with an understanding nod.
"But then, it made me think of those super colourful greeting cards that they also make, so I figured I could make James one and give it to him when he wakes up, so that he wouldn't be mad at me for bugging him tonight!"
"Aww, that's a really cute idea. I'm sure James will appreciate that." Kendall smiled fondly. "But why the sudden awakening, Carlitos? You don't usually get woken up unless...was it those giant crab nightmares again?"
"No...it was giant crabs with lasers shooting out of their creepy wavy eyes, and we were all back in Minnesota and it was attacking our houses!"
Kendall had to amble a few steps back as Carlos passionately flailed his arms about and commenced pantomiming his action-packed dream, dramatic narration included.
"So, there the four of us were, right at the top of Broken Arm Hill. We were wearing our hockey uniforms and safety gear and we're also armed with these like, super huge rocket guns, 'cause we were trying to defend the neighbourhood and not holding back with destroying all the evil crabs. Houses were melted down, hiiiiissss! People were screaming, ahhhhh! The giant crabs were going snap snap snap! And we were going pew pew pew! But then I ran out of ammo...and then the giant crabs also shot your guns off with their green lasers...and then one of them caught me by the waist with its super sharp claws, and then it started lowering me down to its mouth full of crazy sharp teeth...and...and…!"
The smaller boy gulped as he turned pale, giving off a terrified shudder instead.
"That sounds awful…" muttered Kendall sympathetically.
"It really was...I'm just glad I woke up before I got turned into gross Garcia mush and became crab fertiliser…" Carlos sniffled. "But the worst part is...I'll never even know if we got to save the city…"
"Awww, of course we did, and it's all thanks to your hardest efforts! I mean, you didn't really get to finish the dream, right?"
"I...I guess not…?"
"Exactly, so who knows? Maybe James used a grappling hook and swooped in at the last minute to shoot the evil jerkfaced crab right in its evil tonsils, and Logan and I managed to get you free of its pincers, and then we blew up that giant crab space-high and showed it who's boss! Boom!" Kendall mimicked a huge explosion, complete with arm-flailing and mouth sound effects, making Carlos's lips curl into a tiny smile. "So hey—c'mere!"
Traipsing around the littered construction papers, broken crayons, child-safe scissors, and other myriad arts and crafts materials (probably leftovers from his and Logan's previous disastrous babysitting ventures) Kendall opened up his arms again, and Carlos willingly fell into the awaiting embrace, burying his face in the folds of his friend's stripy pyjama shirt.
"That was one heck of a wild dream, for sure." the taller boy soothed, rubbing gentle circles on Carlos's back. "I mean, for one, I didn't know crabs actually have teeth!"
"Me neither...I didn't even know crabs could actually shoot deadly lasers out of their scary beady eyes, too!"
"Umm...well, maybe we'll have to fact-check with Logie on that one. But it's all okay now, I promise." Kendall paused and thoughtfully gazed at the ceiling.
"Hmmm…"
"What is it, Ken-ken?"
"Just thinking...giant laser-shooting crabs rising out of the oceans and getting defeated by rocket launchers kinda sounds like an awesome apocalypse movie plot...hey, maybe we could call Stephanie and pitch it to her for a no-budget monster movie! And this time, we could totally help her out with all the effects and even star in it without getting unwittingly scared out of our pants." he tilted his head as his 'crazy lightbulb moment' smile faded a bit. "We're probably gonna have to change that cliffhanger ending into a happier one, though."
"Yeah...and then when that movie turns into a blockbuster hit, then she'll have tons of budget so she could make another one where the evil giant laser crabs have come back for revenge and are gonna have to fight against King-Kong and Godzilla—oooh, and also—! Also, giant transformer robot versions of Big Time Rush!" Carlos giggled.
Kendall was relieved to see the older boy being his usual cheery self again, glad to have made him successfully shake off his terrible nightmare.
"Big Time Fighter Bots? Now that's another cool idea!" he replied. "But maybe we could deal with bagging that movie deal—and also deal with getting Griffin to pay for building our ultra-mega-giant mech versions—when we're not totally zonked out of our brains, yeah?"
Carlos nodded frantically, his spiky hair tickling Kendall's chest.
"Ugh, I just remembered we have eight hours of harmonies today, too." the blond made a face. "Luckily, Mr. X is taking an x-tended vacation somewhere in Poconos so we don't have to do any dancing, but still. Gustavo's so not gonna be happy if three of his dogs are dead-faced and do more howling than singing."
"Well, then we'll just have to bite his ankles off if he turns into an evil grouch again." Carlos drew his face back from Kendall's shirt and loudly snapped his jaws a couple times, making him laugh.
"Yeah, but then we're the ones gonna get blown up with evil giant Gustavo's rocket gun if we do that!"
"Hey, if I could fight off giant evil laser-shooting crabs and help save Duluth from total doom," Carlos grabbed his helmet from the dining table and put it on, giving it several resolute slaps, "then I could just as easily fight and take down a big meanie LA music producer!"
"Of course you can, ya 'lil rascal." Kendall smirked, knocking a playful fist on his helmet. "But really though, you wanna catch a couple more z's in our room, Los? You're gonna need some extra sleepytime-strength if we're planning to do some big time Rocque wrangling later on. And anyway, James is probably still lying like a vampire and dream-modelling with stuffie puppies for Marcos, and Logan's probably not gonna be too pleased with you hogging up his tidy bed, but I could definitely make some space in mine."
"That's really sweet of you Ken, but um...maybe just a couple more minutes. I still have to finish this apology card and stuff..."
"Are you sure? I'm no James Diamond, but I could give some pretty warm darn snuggles too!"
"Oooh, that's super tempting," mumbled Carlos, sucking his teeth in, "but I just...Jamesie's card…I just, I really wanna give it to him for breakfast, otherwise he's gonna hate me for the rest of the day, and I'm probably gonna do bad in band practice 'cause I'll be thinking too much about my bestest bud being mad at me, and then he's just gonna hate me even more...and I would really hate that..."
His lower lip started wobbling at the disagreeable thought, and he stubbornly bit it back.
"Well, maybe I could help you with that." Kendall said. He sat down on the carpet cross-legged and picked up the kiddie scissors, opening and closing them with a reassuring schwick! "Four hands are better than two, after all."
Carlos's sombre mood instantly lit back up. "Really?"
"Are you kidding me? A little late night arts and crafts is waaay better than having to listen to Logan's nerdy science rambling! I love our smartie brother and all, I really do—but I swear, even two stacked pillows and a heavy comforter and mom's thickest pair of noise-cancelling earmuffs aren't enough to keep my head from hurting from all those brain-melting words…"
Rubbing the bridge of his nose to shake the mini-migraine away, Kendall glanced up to persuade his friend, that ever-familiar devilish lightbulb look on his face refusing to fade then.
"So, what do you say, Litos? It'll be like our little project!"
With this invitation, Carlos broke out into an overjoyed grin and plopped down next to him, scooting closer and splaying his legs on his friend's lap as he grabbed his half-finished card and a tube of glitter glue. He gave Kendall an eager salute and ended up smearing tiny stars all over his forehead.
"All ready for battle!"
"Copy that!"
Returning Carlos's zippy salute and brilliant smile with his dimple-dotted ones, Kendall rummaged into the hurricane of butchered papers, fished out a large piece of yellow construction paper, and determinedly brandished his kiddie scissors as they both got to work.
Snip snip snip snip snip
By the time the two boys had begun wrapping up their modest project, shy sunlight was beginning to stream from the open windows, illuminating the living room's lemon swirly slide and limey walls as it slowly roused their resplendent home back to colourful life; also flushing the pair of tousled bedheads with paint-smirched faces under hazy washes of soft peach and cool slate grey alike.
The proud twinkle in Kendall's bottle-green eyes was only outmatched by Carlos's delighted beam, as the Latino signed his name with a robin's egg blue crayon at the back of the card. With this final task accomplished, Carlos nervously held up their finished work and presented to his fellow artist.
"Do you think James will like it?"
The whole card was deep purple—a royal midnight indigo-kind of purple—which was not only perfect for their chosen theme, but was also James' favourite colour. At the front cover was a greeting in bold print, surrounded by a fluffy cloud balloon and glittery yellow stars, cheerily proclaiming 'I WISH YOU THE MOST STELLAR DREAMS!'—and underneath it, a crayon drawing of James and Carlos, spacesuited and stick hands locked together as they frolicked through the surface of the spotted crescent moon, while an army of defeated giant laser-shooting crabs floated away from them, all with x's for eyes and dead as crustacean doornails. There was also a slime alien photographer standing on a nearby passing meteor, grinning with three yellow-green mouths as he flicked a magenta-tentacled appendage to diligently snap photos of their astronaut model extraordinaire friend.
Kendall and Carlos had even taken the time to studiously scribble in the rest of the solar system revolving right around these drawn cartoon figures, which also took a few minutes of interrupting Logan's tedious doctory immunoblabbery-blah lecture for a quick fact-check. And of course, Carlos's hockey helmet was still worn underneath his space helmet, but James' lucky comb and 'Cuda Blackberry Burst Man Spray were a little less fortuitous, as they had drifted away from his grasp and had apparently taken orbit by Saturn's rainbowy rings.
Meanwhile, on the inside of the card was a smattering of other painted astral bodies, collaged shimmery stars of different shapes and sizes, and smack dab in the middle, encased in gemstone-speckled popsicle sticks, was Carlos's short yet sincere note of apology:
'I'm very really super sorry for waking up the brightest most twinkliest and beautifulest star ever, not just in Minnesota and LA, but literally in our whole universe, and I promise to all the planets and other huge floaty stuff in the galaxy to not mess up your hair and also never interrupt your out-of-this-world superstar dreams again…'
…while a smaller crayon stick-figure Kendall and Logan mischievously waved at the reader from inside a razzmatazz-red rocketship, launching off at the very bottom of the page.
And at the back of it, putting any and all sleek and sophisticated Hallmark cards ever mass-produced to shame, was the biggest, sparkliest, most extravagant diamond that could possibly be printed on any card ever. This ornately-decorated shape served as a frame for a smiling-pretty-pretty photo of James that they cut out from the glossy pages of Pop Tiger magazine, and it was surrounded by at least a hundred hand-drawn chromatic hearts and underlined with a dry note and squiggly initials:
'Don't be a jerkface or you will see stars! Love, K.K.'
As well as a smiley face-punctuated:
'super sorry again times a hundred kajillion Jay-bear and I really hope you like our awesome apology card! love you forever, Carlitos :)'.
Smiling wistfully, Kendall took the handmade card from Carlos and hugged it close to his heart.
"Yeah...yeah, he'll definitely love it."
"Are you sure? Did we put enough stars in? I think we can put a couple more stars in, if I could just get these ones unstuck, hang on…" Carlos's russet eyes crossed upwards in concentration as he tried picking at the tiny constellation above his furrowed eyebrows.
"No, I think it's perfect. And you know what?" Kendall brushed his free hand through the older boy's short-cropped hair and drew him in to give his glittery forehead a soft kiss. "I love it just as much as James will."
"Ah—awe—awesoooooomeeee…" was Carlos's garbled response. He let out an extravagant yawn right in the middle of it, accompanied by some arm-stretching and bleary eye-rubbing and a heavy head that was drooping dangerously closer and closer towards Kendall's shoulder...
"And if I'm not wrong," Kendall covered his mouth to stifle back a yawn of his own, "I think we still have a couple extra minutes left for a little power nap before mom wakes up and starts cooking up some of her super tasty breakfast burritos with Katie-cat…"
With this, he scooped up the sleepy boy with a slight heave and carried him over to their carrot-orange couch, where he carefully set him down, Carlos's head noiselessly sinking into fleecy cushion as soon as it touched one of the throw pillows.
Kicking off his pink fluffy bunny slippers, Kendall contentedly curled up right next to Carlos, and he wrapped his arms around his already-dozing friend and hugged him even closer; shared warmth and slow heartbeats coalescing into darkness as his own tired eyes peacefully fluttered shut.
"Now let's go have some stellar dreams of our own."