(cw: panic attacks, anxiety, mentions of bullying/child abuse)
"Once you fall, you never get enough
But the thought of you leaving ain't so easy for me
Don't hurt me, desert me, don't give up on me
(What would I wanna do that for?)
Don't use me, take advantage of me
Make me sorry I ever counted on you..."
–COUNT ON YOU
While the atmosphere in Apartment 2J gradually simmered down to an unsettling, almost smothering silence that spooked Carlos more than any low-budget slasher movie he had to sit through with Katie and Kendall (why the sibling duo were nuts for that whole fake blood, shaky camera, and horribly cheesy acting trifecta was beyond him), he decided that he would let James have their bedroom to himself for the night and sleep in the spare room instead.
Well, it was less of a spare room and more of a glorified closet, but Carlos didn't really mind the slightly-cramped conditions. After all, he was used to sharing only one room with literally every single one of his numerous cousins, whenever his family went for a visit and stayed over at their grandparents' place back in Venezuela. Leaving tens of incredibly-antsy children to be alone together instantly turned their communal bedroom into a full-blown madhouse, but abuelita's place was rustically small and everyone had to share some space, even the adults—and everyone was pretty much close with everyone else in the family anyway, so no one really complained about their temporary living arrangement all too much.
Except sometimes for Isa I guess, she loves going on about the awful heat and the smell of sweat and cousin Pablo's infected ingrown toenail when we couldn't open the windows 'cause of those bloodthirsty mosquitoes. And the giant tegu lizards who keep sneaking into tia's chicken coop too, they're good as wildlife photography subjects, but bad news for poultry business—abuelo didn't call those creepers 'el lobo pollero' for nothing!
But as much as Carlos usually loved reminiscing about his parents' extended South American family, all it did for his memory that particular night was to just start painfully reminding him of the whole situation between his two rivaling friends again, unpleasantly tainting the better times of his life with the bad.
Stupid Grif-grif and his stupid superstar bootcamp thing ruining everything for my bestest buds...jerkfaces like him should be cut up and fed to the tegu lizards…!
Hurriedly pushing away the rest of his thoughts about his feisty family and abuelita's pretty farm and gored-up chickens and minced elderly businessmen from his subconscious, Carlos tried his very best not to think about anything else as he went on with accomplishing his nighttime tasks. Emptying his mind should be easy enough for him.
Hah, I haven't been called thoughtless lots and lots of times in my life for nothing!
All Carlos had to do (besides the quick brain dump) was to clean up the rickety folding bed a bit, make sure it wasn't going to give him a crazy collapsible surprise while he was making a one-way trip to dreamland later on, replace the old sheets with fresh ones, make one heck of an unnecessary racket while doing all of that so that the silence wouldn't drive him crazy, and it was all golden. Or maybe bronze, because sharing a room with broken appliances and ragtag items left by previous tenants was hardly five-star slumming it, but whatever.
Afterwards, Carlos changed into more comfortable clothes—one of his papi's hand-me-down souvenir shirts he had stowed with him to LA, and a pair of board shorts with an obnoxiously-bright pink floral pattern that he found lying around the crib—and quickly finished preparing for his night in.
As he was finally all settled down with a glass of milk and in the middle of rereading his favourite jungle storybook, there was suddenly a knock at the door, followed by his name being softly called out. When he replied to come in, Kendall opened the loudly-creaking door and walked in, holding a plate stacked with freshly-cooked corndogs.
Carlos's face immediately brightened up at the sight of the food.
"Woah, are all those...?"
"For you, yeah." answered Kendall, scratching at his nape sheepishly. "Consider them my way of apology, for snapping at you earlier. I was really mad and I don't know what came over me, but I didn't mean whatever awful stuff I said to you. I swear my life on that."
"Oh, I know that." Carlos waved it off as he dropped his book and started attacking the corndogs. "Honestly, it's no big deal K-dawg, but thanks all the same for this delicious midnight snack!"
His overjoyed reaction made Kendall break into a fond smile. If there's one thing he really envied about his friend, it was his sheer inability to hold any sort of grudge towards anyone. Carlos was an optimistic and happy-go-lucky soul who found it relatively easy to forgive and forget. Now him, on the other hand...
Kendall grunted and tried to shake the unwanted thought away
"And uh, thanks for understanding, Los." He said. "I admit, I got really carried away there."
"Shinkawkinadid." Carlos replied through a mouthful of chewed food.
"What was that?"
"I said," the eating boy made sure to swallow before repeating, "that I think we all kinda did. Get carried away, I mean."
"Me and James, more like. You and Logan were just trying to stop our stupid fighting." Kendall woefully sighed. "It was really dumb of me to get way too caught up in it, and I never should've allowed you two to ever have gotten involved."
"Eh, we're your best friends—and we're super nosy ones too!—so we're probably gonna end up getting caught smack dab in the middle of it even if you tried to stop us." Carlos shrugged. "And anyway, at least it wasn't someone like mama Knight or even Mr. Bitters who got involved while you two were going all Daryl and Jambox on each other. Now that, would get us all into some kinda crazy trouble. And if we get another strike from Bitters for a noise violation, we're gonna end up homeless before the night even ends!"
"Yeah," Kendall laughed mirthlessly, "We caused quite the noise, didn't we?"
"That's just the thing about us, Ken," chortled Carlos, bits of food flying from his mouth, "We're four teenage boys. Of course we're always gonna be noisy."
"I guess you're right. I mean, the day we're actually quiet for once is the day Gustavo's gonna think he's stuck in a different dimension where some other cool teen heartthrob like...maybe, I don't know, Dak Zevon is your bandmate instead of me, and you're all from Wisconsin and go skating instead of playing hockey, and the band's named...Go Big Time! or something weird like that. And maybe even Katie's somehow older than me in that dimension and we all have other names or something!" Kendall grimaced. "Now that's super weird."
"Woah...that's some crazy imagination you got there, you should totally pitch a show pilot!" Carlos said jokingly. "But also, speaking of the big man though...did Gustavo even know about this whole sending James away thing?"
"If he has, he hasn't yelled a single word about it. Definitely not Kelly though, 'cause we know she's the absolute worst at hiding things, so if she doesn't know, then maybe it'd be safe to assume that Gustavo probably didn't, either." was Kendall's speculation. "Honestly, knowing Griffin, I'm probably the only one who entirely knew beforehand, seeing how much he lives for the unnecessary melodrama." He shook his head. "I think the old man has been watching too many soaps."
"Well, Griffin is a total dunghead anyway, with his stupid face and his stupid suit and—and—and his stupid everything!" Carlos threateningly punched a palm with the other fist, demolishing the corndog he was gripping and flecking its viscera all over his '¡Saludos Desde Caracas!' shirt. "I swear when I see him, I'm gonna go and give him the Garcia super hockey run-up tackle special, and he'll regret messing with our friendship forever!"
"Not to sound like Loges, but you will get in some big time trouble if you do that."
"Ahhh trouble schmouble—I don't care! Griffin could try to kick me all the way back to juvie or to his Slavic sweat factory or whatever the heck he wants to do to me, but I'm not scared of him! And I'm still gonna do everything I can to make him pay for hurting my friends!"
As Kendall patiently wiped off the corndog mess on Carlos's clothes with his handkerchief, he noticed that the Latino had the same manic look in his russet eyes as when he first laid eyes on the cherry-red wagon that mama Mitchell finally caved in and bought for Logan, after her darling Hortie promised at least a million times that he was going to be 'super extra careful'—coincidentally, that was also the day Kendall learned the concept of a white lie.
The small band of fifth-graders had spent all weekend tricking out the ride they christened Wagonie, and then spent the rest of their summer taking it out for a spin around every single road and location with extremely-specific names. They had the most glorious rides of their lives on Butt-Chapped Bend, down Broken Arm Hill, and even around and around (and around, and around…) Vague Vertigo Circle.
But even the adrenaline-addicted boys had to draw the line somewhere—and Kendall, James, and Logan had to call in Isabel Garcia (the most sensible adult they could reach at the time, that also wasn't going to ground their butts for the rest of their remaining vacation for driving fast and loose and probably racking up numerous traffic violations around Downtown Duluth), just so she could talk her younger brother out of taking Wagonie for one final solo ride at Instant Death Junction.
That's classic Carlos Garcia for you. Facing instant death, and loving every minute of it.
But that very same look also meant that Angry Carlos was surfacing; and while Angry Carlos was good for a little extra intimidation during tricky Gustavo Rocque negotiations, some forward offensive muscle in hockey matches, and the occasional wrestling team wrangling, Angry Carlos was also far too reckless and unpredictable and probably one of the last things they all needed for mitigating this precarious situation. Angry Carlos would drop everything and risk it all just to serve justice in the way he saw fit, and Angry Carlos never broke his promises.
Kendall was trying to defuse the situation while he could, not getting another one to arise in the middle of it all. So in order to do that, he knew he had to take it one baby step at a time.
Maybe starting with defusing Angry Carlos first.
"Litos, you know I love you, I really do." He decided to fight fire with fire and use a bit of brute force to knock some sense back into the riled-up boy. "But also, you're crazy!"
"Yeah, well you know I really love you too, but you're also crazy, with the way you went all WWE on James tonight!" retorted Carlos, adamantly waving his fresh corndog at him. "You're like a madman times five kajillion!"
His uncontrived assessment slammed Kendall into his imaginary boards and knocked the wind out of him.
"...Seriously?"
"Yep!" Carlos popped the word on his lips. "Like, I swear, I haven't seen an insane takedown like that from you ever since that one game where jumbo jerks from Rochester Century kept fouling us with rough play and interference. And when their right-winger body-checked Logan and flipped him over the stands, you just went gloves off and went full rogue on them. I mean, that's why you're the best team captain 'round the upper Midwest, but phew—! You also did not hold back when you wiped the ice with their ugly faces!"
Kendall also remembered that bloody match all too well. After all, the broken forearm, dislocated jaw, several head stitches, six weeks of recuperation, temporary suspension from the Peewee Hockey committee, and the embarrassing peppering of get-well smooches from his hysterical mom (which Kit-kat fully caught on video) that he earned from it made sure he would never forget it for as long as he lived.
Ah, darn. You play with fire, you get burned. Score, Angry Carlos.
"You...you really think I went too far? Tonight, that is?"
"I mean...you did beat up J-man's face real bad, Ken. And he also would've totally blinded you back if Logie and I weren't there to stop you two!" Carlos shook his head and swallowed hard, as he finally seemed to be mellowing out, to Kendall's joyless relief. "Just seeing my best friends all messed up like that, because of each other, it's so scary, it really is..."
If there was another thing Kendall knew about Carlos—and such a fact was present in that introspective moment more than ever—it was that he had a tendency to get brutally honest with people. Apart from being genuinely the worst at lying and keeping secrets, he also wasn't one to sugarcoat his words and mince his opinions, whatever that might entail.
And maybe that's what Kendall needed right now. A little bit of unfiltered truth from one of his closest friends.
And maybe some more frozen peas for my throbbing eye. He snorted derisively.
"I'm so sorry…"
"Ehhh? Wha' fo'?"
"Nothing...and for everything, I guess. But hey, uh...listen, Carlos...I've—I've actually been meaning to ask you something."
"With all these sweeeet corndogs you gave me, you could ask me a thousand things plus one!" Carlos considered. "Uhh, just don't ask me about school things like one of Miss Collins' nutty pop quizzes though, 'cause I don't know anything about that. Hey, maybe I'll bribe Logan with his favourite juice box to tell me the answer so that I could tell it to you!"
Kendall laughed. "Oh no, there's no pop quizzes or crazy school things here, I promise. It still might be kinda hard to answer though, so it's perfectly fine if you don't."
"Ummm, alright…" Carlos uneasily fiddled with the purple G-shock watch on his wrist. "Ask away, I guess?"
"I mean, I know I've technically known James the longest, but I think you probably understand him more than I do—I think, the most out of all of us, like you two are super close and all, so...how do you...you know...deal with him? When he gets like this?" Kendall hastily backtracked, afraid that he was going too far. "I'm sorry if that's a bit too personal—like I said, you don't have to answer it or anything, I just—"
"No...no, it's okay. I get it." sighed Carlos, and he stayed quiet for a while, completely lost in thought. Kendall felt like he overstepped something and was about to change the subject, but Carlos finally spoke up again.
"Okay, so I know we, like, love bickering a lot. And fighting over stupid things. And sometimes we love shouting and razzing and getting on each other's nerves and, and then we go ape-crazy, especially when we've all been spending too much time together—which we also do a lot, because...well, duh! And I guess a bit of stomping on each other's toes just can't be avoided sometimes, and it really sucks when that happens and I hate it!" he beat his fists on the pillow and huffed out, making Kendall's lips involuntarily curl into a tiny smile.
"But...at the end of the day, James is still my brother." Carlos softened, "And so are you, and Logan, and I love you all so much, I really do! We mess around and fight and forgive each other and then fight some more, but we just laugh about the silly things afterwards, because we know—or, at least I hope we know?—that the good will always make up for the bad. And anyway, it's all in good fun. Well, more often than not, at least."
"But what if it's not?" The tiny smile had all but disappeared now. "What if I—someone made a huge mistake, and there's no laughing it off, or turning back on it anymore? Then what?"
"I think...I think we all make mistakes. But even if we do, we shouldn't let that be the end of our world, you know? I mean, we've gone through so many things in our life together—good, bad, and real ugly—and we came out on the other side because we're together. And like, we still have each other right now, don't we, Ken-ken? Why shouldn't that be enough?"
"Yeah...I guess…"
"And as for James, well...he's my best friend. Yeah, he's stubborn and crazy sometimes, but he's also someone who makes me happy and grateful to have him in my life. I don't even wanna think about a life without him, and I don't ever want him to feel like he's all alone. I promised him ever since day one that I'll always be there for him, for his best parts and his worst, no matter what. And I am." Carlos gazed up at Kendall earnestly. "Are you?"
He knew Carlos didn't mean bad by it, but Kendall still couldn't help but feel a sudden pang of shame and guilt rapidly course through his chest, making him recoil back ever so slightly.
Your fault. Your fault for getting your nose in everyone's business all the time. Your fault for making the wrong decisions. Your fault for being unable to control your rage.
Kendall lurched. Tried to carefully exhale the bad feelings out. Ended up choking on his spit instead.
"Kendall…!" The plate clattered off Carlos's lap as he whizzed up in alarm. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay, I'm fine, I just…" Kendall spluttered out, doubling over from his coughing fit. "Just, some—something went down the wrong way. Sorry. Sorry. I'm o-okay. Sorry."
After downing the tall glass of milk that was conveniently on the nightstand, accompanied by some gentle back rubbing from Carlos, Kendall finally managed to catch his breath and compose himself. Feeling quite assured of his friend's current situation, Carlos gave him a little peck atop his mussy blond hair, before picking up another stick of corndog and taking a giant bite in it.
"Listen, it's not like I know the full story between you two, and I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I get everything that's going on...but just know that whatever happened back there, it's not your fault. It's no one's fault. Except for Griffin, the slimy old fool, he's totally dead to us." He tried to assuage through a mouthful of chewed food. "I know you were only trying to do something right and help James out. And I know that he knows that, too. But maybe you just didn't do it quite...correctly, and James, well...he probably just needs some time alone to think about it and cool off."
Mr. Diamond and his poor bruised ego, such a diva star classic—no wonder Griffin needs him so badly for his plan, a snide voice in Kendall's mind echoed, but he didn't dare say it out loud in front of Carlos. In fact, he rather despised himself for thinking of his friend so terribly, even for a single second. He absently thumbed past his wrist and pressed down on it hard.
Stupid anger. Why don't you just get lost?
"Are you...still mad at him?" Carlos asked in a quivering voice, as if reading his thoughts. When Kendall didn't answer, he continued, "Please don't be. He's not a bad guy. I mean, you have every right to be angry at him, I get that, but like...I think he has every right to be angry towards you as well...um, no offence, just don't—don't hate him for it..."
"I don't think—I just—look, I tried my best, Carlos, heaven knows I tried! But this is...James just went a little too far this time. He can yell in my face all he wants—whatever, I had it coming and I can take it...but it isn't just me on the line here, you and Logan were there too, and he's just so...so freaking inconsiderate!"
Now it was Carlos's turn to be rendered speechless.
"I know James can be so hardheaded and self-centered and we're all used to that by now, but...gosh, he just gets way too difficult to deal with sometimes." Kendall avoided his older friend's pleading gaze as he kept twisting up his bracelet cords with restless fingers. "I don't know how you do it. I just don't."
"..."
"But like...I also don't wanna be mad at James, because...well, I love him more than I could ever hate him. I always have and always will." he admitted. "And despite everything that's happened—because of everything that's happened—I know I'm not exactly the good guy here, either. I know I messed up bad, big time, and I don't know what to do anymore. I really don't know..."
Kendall finally gathered up the courage to face Carlos. "But all I do know is that I wanna do better for you guys and try to fix this while I can. Anyway, best friend code says that I have to right my wrongs...and I promise, I won't ever let you down again. So I mean, I guess we'll just have to see how it goes, right?"
"Mmm...I guess…"
"I just really hope you could still trust me on this one, even if I know I don't deserve it."
Carlos stopped stuffing his face with corndogs, and the small room slowly filled with uneasy silence; breezy musings replaced with judgment hanging heavy in the air, every breath weighted, hitched lungs tipping over in guilt.
"I just want everything to be okay again." he murmured dejectedly as he pushed away the plate.
"Me too, Los. Me too." agreed Kendall, and this time around, he really meant it. Not just for himself, but for the rest of the boys, too. Even if there wasn't some arbitrary best friend code to uphold. Their friendship had been the most consistent thing in his life—and one of the best things to happen in their entire lives, honestly—and it was the only thing that the word 'forever' wouldn't ever exaggerate, so be cursed if he was gonna let everything fall apart now, just because of a single petty argument.
A petty argument that you caused, with all the things you hid from everyone, and all the lies you spouted out, Kenny. This isn't trying to save your friendship with a noble cause, this is just damage control.
Kendall blinked and tried to ignore the nasty taunting voice in his head. As much as that meanspirited brainworm needed a lesson or two in bedside manners, he just felt too tired to indulge it and argue back. He couldn't even really think properly anymore. From the euphoric heavenward ascent with Jo, to the hellish stomach-wrenching drop with James, the entire day had been quite an exhausting rollercoaster of emotions for him—and most likely also for everyone else—and that was the understatement of the century.
But if there's some valuable lesson to be found with those two nutty songwriters that Griffin once hired, it's that violently fighting Daryl and Jambox-style never solved anything.
As Carlos busied himself with noisily finishing off the last of the corndogs, Kendall decided that he would sleep it off for now and try his very best to patch things up with James tomorrow. Maybe he could even go to RCM-CBT GlobalNet Sanyoid's LA headquarters and talk to their CEO to see if anything else could be done about the whole situation.
Throwing away his pride and talking it out with James, saying his sorry's and explaining to Logan, having to deal with Griffin and his creepy cronies again, and if Gustavo somehow got involved in the whole imbroglio because of his disobedient dogs' personal issues, and Kelly had pull some strings and make a few unwarranted phone calls just to bail her troublesome boys out...it seemed like Kendall had a lot of apologising and potential grovelling on his to-do list, and he was already exhausted just from mentally rounding them all up and drawing in the checkboxes.
The worst hasn't happened yet, so I shouldn't get myself so paranoid and lose any more sleep about it. One baby step at a time...
James and Griffin were top priority for him. They were the main players in this long game, and Kendall was the one unfortunately caught up in the center of it all. So as much as he hated Arthur Griffin, hated even just the mere thought of being in that awful stuffy office with that awful greedy shill of a human being again, he knew that he had to do what needed to be done in order to make amends with James and keep their friendship and the band together, and nothing was gonna rain on his parade. Even if that meant changing James' mind about it. Or letting him go.
Whatever it takes.
"Hey, it's getting pretty late, so I better go now." Kendall told Carlos. "Gotta catch some shut-eye and all that. And you probably should, too."
He took the plate of now-stripped corndog sticks out of Carlos's hands, before wrapping him in a quick hug and affectionately ruffling his hair. As Kendall did so, his tired eyes caught the green and yellow Adventures in the Amazon storybook from the floor.
He picked it up and took a peek at the cartoon animals grinning at him on the hardcover.
"This is your favourite storybook, isn't it?"
Carlos nodded spastically.
"Well, I would love to tell you a quick story about the king of the jungle's super awesome party declaration, but my throat's still kinda sore from all the shouting tonight, and I don't know if I could do Lord Lion's fearsome roar any justice. Is it okay to take a rain check?"
"Oh don't worry yourself about it Kendall, I was just about done with the one about the watermelon-stealing monkey when you went in, anyway!"
"Then I guess I owe you a Supertastic Storytime Show sometime." Kendall said as he dropped off the book on the bedside table. "We haven't really done that in a while, haven't we? Being in a band and all is nice, but Kelly's killer boyband itinerary has really been killing all of our spare time for us. Especially with this whole second album craziness—I swear, Gustavo's torture methods have been getting more creatively brutal lately. His newly-installed studio eject button nearly knocked out my front teeth last Tuesday…" he sighed.
"Anyway, feel free to extend the invitation to Katie. And Logan, if he's up for feeling some secondhand embarrassment. Hey, with a quick friendly email to doctor dad Mitchell and the right pictures of 7th grade Hortensie in pink tights and a frilly tutu, we might just get him to star as Sir Sloppy McSleepy Sloth again..."
"Ooh, it would be really fun to see if Cam-cam's extreme method actressing has actually rubbed off on Lo…" Carlos gave his scheming friend a zippy salute. "So will do, boss man!"
"But hey, really…you'll be alright, won't you?"
"Ummm, I think I should be the one asking you that question, dude." Carlos pointed out, giving Kendall's battered face and haggard appearance a pufferfish-pout appraisal. "You look like you're literally staring death in the face right now. Ooh, would you like one of my Zom-B-Gon! sodas? I was gonna save them for the armageddon, but maybe that'll help bring some life back into you!" he started reaching underneath one of his pillows, but stopped as he realised something.
"Uh oh—my emergency pillow food stash is back in our room…"
"Oh, don't trouble yourself Litos, I'll survive." Kendall chuckled wearily as he reached out and smushed Carlos's puffed-out cheeks, which deflated with a rude noise. "And no caffeine or sugary stuff after 8 PM, mom's ultimate household rule number sixteen, remember? Even if you love breaking it with your illegal stash, you little rascal. And it also happens to break ultimate household rule number seventeen: no food in the bed or the ants will get everywhere."
"Well, what else are rules for, duhhh."
"And we know that better than anyone else. But still, I really appreciate the offer though."
Kendall stood up and made a beeline for the door, but hesitated just as he grabbed the doorknob. Sneakers shifting and one shoulder leaning against the creaky jamb ever so slightly, he sighed and turned back to look at his resting friend.
"Also...thanks a million for talking to me tonight, and for understanding the situation, Carlitos. And also for literally saving my life back there. You're like the best big brother we could ever ask for."
"D'aww, now you're just melting my heart on purpose, Ken-ken. And hey, you're also the bestest little brother any one of us could ever have too, and we love you!"
With tender smiles exchanged, Kendall waved at Carlos one last time, before finally taking his leave and carefully shutting the door behind him.
"Sweet dreams, little bee."
"Nighty night, big bear!"
Disaster. He was a total disaster.
Logan wanted to camp out in the bathroom for the rest of his no-good horrible life. He wanted to dunk his head right into the toilet and give himself a self-swirly just so his mind would stop feeling like it was on fire. He wanted to jump into the Big Time Rush mobile and drive all the way to California Hospital Medical Center in the middle of the night and, provided he didn't get pulled over by the cops or get into a vehicular accident on the way there, tell the doctors to pump him with a pharmacy's worth of medication and put him out of his misery already.
His throat was closing up...was it from anaphylaxis or just plain laryngospasm?...he was flushed, sweating, he couldn't find the thermometer in his bag so he must have left it at his friends' bedroom, but his temperature was probably bordering dangerously close to pyrexia and melting his brain...his chest was tight, so tight and yet so excruciatingly painful, it was like his heart had been replaced with a rubber ball band and all the strings were starting to snap...
Maybe he was five seconds away from contacting myocardial infarction and dying on the spot and they'd find his cold festering corpse already in rigor mortis come morning light and decorate his coffin with yellow and purple pansies for his funeral wake and he hated pansies and everyone attending priest and pallbearers and his old bullies included would laugh over his mangled dead body and he hated being laughed at even more than he hated those stupid bright pansy flowers but maybe he deserved it he deserved to be dead oh maybe he was gonna pass out now and crack his head on the sink and maybe he's gonna die—
...or maybe I'm just having another stupid panic attack again.
Forcing himself to ease his frantic gasping and squeezing his eyes shut as tight as he could, Logan unclenched his fists and started counting off:
Inhale, two, three, four…
Hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven…
Exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…
He painstakingly cycled through this breathing technique several times until he felt his taut rubber band heart slacking, just enough to stop leaving painful welts all over the underside of his chest. When his breaths had slowed and his clamouring mind shut up just a little, just enough, he took a moment by the sink—far more sanitary than a toilet self-swirly, and perhaps just as effective for shocking any inkling of sense back into someone—to splash himself with some cold water, before downing a few pastel tablets from the happy orange canister in the medicine cabinet (whose lock was now broken askew) and half a dot of Claritin for good measure...and promptly choking on it.
Hopeless. He was absolutely hopeless.
Water dripped down the sides of Logan's forearms as he violently jerked forward and tried to keep himself from heaving again—though he knew that the canary-coloured pills had long traveled far beyond his digestive tract, in the devout yet pyrrhic battle to dissolve the static fluttering all over his nerves. It may have been some side effect of the medicine he just failed to recall in his addled state, but the bitterness was somehow still there.
It weighed in his lolling tongue and constricted throat, the stuffy bathroom air tasted of it and it clung inside his lung capillaries and electrified his starved veins and it was so horrible but he couldn't get rid of it, no matter how many times he gargled James' extra strong emergency date night mouthwash and spat and gargled again and spat again until his raw mouth was a winter wonderland with a bitter blizzard ruining the scenery.
Maybe if I brushed my teeth, and swallowed the toothbrush too...
Leaving the faucet running, Logan pressed both palms into his tear-streaked cheeks to steady himself and soberly glanced up. The mirror in front of the sink had completely fogged over, and though it would've usually bugged him a lot, he didn't care to wipe it clean this time.
Good, he thought hollowly. He couldn't bear to see his stupid crybaby wreck of a face reflecting back at him.
The sole fact that James had to witness his stupid mental breakdown in full technicolour—ugggh, hockey pucks, that was super embarrassing!—made Logan cringe worse than the memory of getting humiliated by his best friends in summer camp in front of everyone (including all the counselors and his Debbie Crawford, his sixth-grade crush), but he felt even more disappointed in himself for being unable to sway his friend and somehow making the situation worse than it already was.
Worst. He was the freaking worst. And if James hated him for it, then so did he.
But worst or freaking worst, Logan wasn't quite done with his medical duties just yet. Even if he was having his own personal crisis, that was no excuse to neglect his obligations at the expense of someone else's health and wellbeing. Primum non nocere.
After wiping down his puffy eyes and face raw with a Palm Woods monogrammed washcloth, Logan reclothed his water-flecked lab coat, grabbed his abandoned doctor's bag, and skulked outside with the intention of checking up on patient number two: Kendall Knight.
Logan wasn't actually sure if their youngest friend had returned to the crib yet. Maybe he was still outside moping by the pool. Or finding some way to get Jo in trouble with her dad again and break her curfew just so he could have someone to talk to and mope and make heart-eyes with. Or breaking into Rocque Records to write and record a mopey song about how much life big time sucked. Or maybe he was being predictable for once, and doing a bit of destructive redecorating and punching holes in their bedroom a-la James Diamond to cope with the stress, which honestly wasn't sounding like a bad idea to Logan…
...or maybe patient Knight was already knocked out dead on the sofa—just on the one that his acting doctor hadn't tinkered with that afternoon—with his gangly legs splayed every which way and his muddy sneakers leaving track marks all over the coffee table.
With a woeful sigh, Logan pulled off the filthy shoes and placed them in their rightful area by the doorway, redirected Kendall's akimbo legs back to the sofa, and wiped down the table with a paper napkin. He then carefully placed a cold compress on his unconscious friend's swollen eye and plastered a shark-printed band-aid on his wounded chin, before ducking into their bedroom to grab a fleece blanket.
Draping it over the sleeping boy with some gentle head pats and wishful whispers of "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedb...uhhh, the couch bugs bite", Logan went to turn off the lights in the living room and snuck off as quietly as he could.
Logan had been feeling fatigue readily creeping in his dulled-out bones (and he was almost numbly grateful for it), so he finally dragged himself back to his and Kendall's shared room. There, he shed his lab coat and shirt-vest-jeans outfit in favour of more comfortable nightwear—his favourite atom model-print pyjamas—in a halfhearted attempt to feel better.
Finally assured that he had done the best he could for his two friends, Logan gave his hypoallergenic pillows one last optimal fluff as he laid down on the bed to get some well-needed shut-eye.
An hour and a half of restless tossing and turning later, Logan found himself still dully staring up at the glow in the dark constellations on his ceiling.
His bleary gaze reached far beyond those fake plastic stars, and farther than the superstars, starlets, and rockstars taking residence in the somniculous city of angels; perhaps even going as far as to reach the astronomical stars in deep outer space, millions upon millions of light years away from where his insomnia-plagued self was currently being sucked in the black hole of his bewildering thoughts.
Still out on a futile mission to save whatever was left of his rapidly-dispersing sleeptime, Logan decided to momentarily slip out and make himself some chamomile tea with lemon.
He easily obtained that from mama Knight's expansive tea collection in the pantry, but he strangely couldn't find any teacups anywhere and had to settle for using Carlos's badly-chipped 'Gustavo Rocks!' mug, that their daredevil friend most likely nicked from their music producer's personal office cupboard at some point.
With Apartment 2J the most silent it had been in a long while, Logan's senses felt a thousand times heightened as he prepared his drink. His breaths were manual and a little too loud for comfort, the thumping of his own pulse steady in his slightly-ringing ears, and he could hear every slight shift and minute creak in the room. From the muffled buzzing of the blindingly-lit refrigerator, to the leaky kitchen faucet Buddha Bob tried to fix by whacking with a wrench but only ended up turning their entire living room into a mini-waterworld, to the rustling of the fleece blanket as Kendall mumbled James' name in his troubled sleep and turned over.
Logan could even hear the world's greatest pool languidly swishing around in its small strip of space outside, filled with chlorine and stray dynamite powder (from one of their recent disastrous 'great ideas' to turn the pool into a hot tub) and sweat and pathogens and pee of the future famous, but also several years' worth of wonderful memories for all of them.
It was such a strange, electrifying silence. Logan hadn't really known peace and quiet ever since his three best friends became a permanent part of his life. And when they all got ripped out of their hometown and shipped straight to California by Gustavo and Kelly (courtesy of Arthur Griffin, Fujisaki, and RCM-CBT associates) before one could say pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, he mostly dismissed it like nothing more than one of those mythological cryptids Carlos once obsessed over in 7th grade just before he graduated onto his UFO phase. It was simply something Logan occasionally caught a rare sighting of, but was hard-pressed to truly believe in.
But he was used to the chaos. Chaos was fun. Chaos was their normal.
So as much as he would have loved some calming serenity for once, this kind of quiet was simply too unnerving to actually feel truly peaceful. It was as if their bright and colourful cartoon world ran across a terrible error and had completely shut down for the night, and now they were stuck in a weird liminal space where the Hollywood magical realism they had been living in and actual gritty reality were converging their dimensions, and Logan was the only one still unfortunately awake to feel its disturbing corollary.
And even worse, it felt like he was only going to get brutally pulled apart by the two clashing worlds, the longer he stayed up.
A blip in the system. That's all it is. It'll sort itself out and reset when the sun goes up...right?
A clattering sound from behind him zipped through the concentrated silence and startled the mug out of his clammy hands. As he made his noble fumble for the fragile item, Logan was relieved to hear someone, probably Carlos, making a huge racket and humming their infamous giant turd song—yep, that's definitely Litos—from their spare room.
Usually, he'd get into a huge fuss about it and confront the offender, and the ensuing racket caused by their arguing turned slap fight would send Mr. Bitters thundering upstairs to give them a warning strike for disturbing the peace. It would also make a sleep-masked mama Knight crankily drag her two surrogate sons back to bed by the ears, which made Logan's sensitive earlobes all red and swollen and then he wouldn't be able to wear earplugs or sleep on his sides, which would be some sucky karmic injustice if Carlos decided to thunder-snore his way through the night. And while his log of a friend had no problem sleeping through a whole tornado picking up his bed and dropping him off at Oz, a single red-slippered footfall was all it would take for Logan to get wrenched out of his usually-dreamless sleep.
That is, provided he actually got any sleep at all.
But for tonight, Carlos's ruckus was one of the few things still keeping Logan sane, so he simply let it slide. His helmet-toting friend's unapologetic scrimmaging was like a comforting reminder that maybe the magical dimension was winning the fight, after all.
And maybe you're not as sane as you think you are with all this crazy conspiracy talk, genius!
The electric kettle clicked chirpily, red light fading into green. Logan poured its contents into the mug and plopped a teabag in it, and stuck a wedge of lemon on the lip. Armed with his steaming 'Gustavo Rocks!' drink and some broken-up pieces of the leftover super chocolatey chocolate chip cookies from the oven, he started making his journey back to the bedroom, but paused halfway past the living room.
Logan gave Kendall one last glance. Saw his pallid lips moving soundlessly. Watched his arms curl around one of the throw pillows and hold onto it for dear life. Noted the worried lines on his injured face gradually easing, as he felt the ones on his own only furrow deeper.
Once safely back in their room, Logan set down his modest snack and picked up his laptop, deciding to do the usual and distract himself with Schnooble-searching online scientific journal deep dives and browsing through calming cat videos on SchmoopTube. Thankfully, his roommate wasn't there for once to complain about the way-too-bright laptop screen keeping him up.
Logan couldn't really blame Kendall, though. Staring right into the blinding glare of the computer for hours at an end was also starting to make his watering eyes constantly cross over each other into strabismus territory, and he wouldn't be surprised if he would be needing reading glasses (or perhaps lasik surgery, because he'd never seen any popstars who wear spectacle implements—I suppose it'd be quite a hassle to sing and dance with them on when performing onstage) by the time he turned twenty.
But he wouldn't know what he'd be doing at that point. Maybe Big Time Rush would be a kajillion times more famous and hit gold far beyond Kerplankistan and take over the world with the ultimate boyband invasion. Or maybe he'd be just another one of the fallen burnout Hollywood has-beens and end up working as a host for some late night gameshow, living out the rest of his days being the question-toting, price-announcing, dimpled darling of Mrs. Majecowski and senior citizens nationwide. Or maybe, just maybe, he would be an esteemed student of Harvard University (or University of Pennsylvania, or Johns Hopkins University, he wasn't too picky about his choices) and finally working towards getting his doctorate degree, like he was always meant to do.
Though being a popstar had been a blast so far and their blazing career was most likely far from over, surprisingly, the taste of glitter and gold can turn bland and even brackish after a while. Sometimes Logan found himself wishing he was anywhere but getting degraded by their stout manager during his infamous hours-long spirit breakers. Or being at the receiving end of Kelly's malevolent eye rolls and blaring air horns. Or being x-tensively x-ecuted by Mr. X in front of everyone for being an x-ceptional oaf with two left feet and no x-attitude to match. Or getting hassled into submission by Freight Train. And all that while being scrutinised by the public eye within the glossy pages of Pop Tiger and celebrity gossip channels alike, and getting marathon-ran down by frenzied fans and rabid paparazzi.
Seriously, when you've gotten your boxer shorts pilfered right under your nose during crowd-surfing and have had a personal shiatsu neck adjustment-chop delivered by your karate-trained not girlfriend-girlfriend after she read a made-up rumour in some dumb teen magazine about all the unknown girls you're 'dating', 'one for every day of the month', once in a lifetime is honestly enough to last you a lifetime!
For someone in a musical group as prominent as theirs, Logan wasn't even a singer or a dancer or even a self-confident charmer by nature, and his tandeming propensity for clumsiness and perfectionistic complex forced him to work twice, thrice, quadruple times as hard as his innately-talented bandmates—and even then, still he'd end up being the worst of them all. He was even so close to having his chance to finally break away from it all when Dr. Hollywood offered to recommend him to the Doogie Howser Junior Program...but he didn't take it.
Because Logan was a practical man above all else, and if x-breakdancing and harmonising as the next Justin Timberlake with more dimples and less frosted noodle-hair was going to be his one-way ticket into paying for the best medical education possible—and potentially even save him the financial trouble for the rest of his life—then it wouldn't hurt to stick it out just a little longer with his best friends and enjoy the wild ride, before time inevitably dropkicked their magical youth back into actual-gritty-reality-dimension for good.
Like mama Knight said, he was just a teenager. He didn't have to decide just yet.
Sure, it wasn't exactly what Mrs. and Dr. Mitchell had in mind for their son, but it wasn't like Hortie was completely throwing his number one ambition out the window. He was just taking a slight, unexpected en route along the Hollywood Walk of Fame to get there.
Because above all, what Logan really wanted to do was to be able to help people. Whether that meant easing people's ailments with medicine, or easing teenyboppers' worries with cheesy pop songs.
Spaced out and already fed up with the myopic headaches from his mundane link-surfing, Logan decided to do a bit of classic bedtime reading instead. He set aside his laptop, clicked the lamp open, and plucked out a random book from his meagre pile of fiction books (which went on the left side; the non-fiction pile went on the right because he visited it more often nowadays and it was more accessible by instinct) in the trunk luggage by the foot of his bed.
He left The Grand Design by the table behind the couch post-fight, and he was too lazy to get up and retrieve it. And by 'lazy', he basically meant that getting it meant having to see Kendall again whether he liked it or not, and having to see Kendall meant more conflicted emotions and elevated cortisol levels and stressed face wrinkling, and a wrinkly face is bad for boyband business. Or so James says.
So as keen as Logan was to dig into that chapter, Hawking and Mlodinow's exciting eleven-dimensional M-theory would unfortunately have to wait. And anyway, he just wanted to read something a little lighter than mind-boggling explanations for the origins of the universe, to relax his troubled thoughts.
The science of deduction wasn't exactly an established scholarly discipline, but along with the narrating doctor's recorded observations, it was a fanciful mental exercise Logan was more than willing to throw himself headfirst into for the night.
Looks like it's you and me, then, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson. What fascinating mystery have you got in store for us this time? Oooh...Devil's Foot, huh? That does sound like quite an adventure...
But even then, the mystical Cornwall adventure felt more like a torporific calvary to Logan, as he only found his tired pupils crossing and blurring over just as bad, if not worse, as it retread the same meandering sentence of 'then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blustering gale from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers then come the sudden swirl round of the wind—' and never quite comprehending anything.
So much for relaxing!
It wasn't always like this. In fact, it was never like this. Usually, books comforted Logan, and he adored them so because he knew that they would never, ever disappoint him. For the longest time, these fictional characters and intangible voices in literature were his only companions.
They showed him breathtaking new worlds and an enigmatic side of this world that he never thought possible. They taught him about the wildest secrets of the universe and took him on exhilarating journeys around the stars and back. The characters could feel like his closest friends that made him laugh and cry and feel, that wouldn't dare abandon him or betray him. Sure, sometimes they did questionable things and made the wrong decisions, but they were always sympathetic and poignantly-written enough to stay loved, and they always managed to restore their honour in a dramatic redemption arc or some grand sacrifice. With literature, he found his ultimate getaway from reality.
I guess it's just always nice to escape in a world that won't hurt you, when all the real world ever does is hurt and hurt and hurt you all over again...
Chauncey Jackson would never stab his metaphorical magic sword-wand into Logan's non-metaphorical back. Arthur Dent, Ford, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox would only ever make his sides hurt and stitch up with laughter from their insane intergalactic voyage misadventures. Heck, even the likes of famous serial detectives like the literary comrades of the anthology Logan currently held, as well as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, could make him feel alive with the thrill of the chase, as he speed-read right astride the tails of a cold-blooded murder or a baffling criminal mystery running afoot.
And none of them would mouth off and walk out on their best friends, or yell at them and wanna beat their face into messed-up Mitchell mush, or make them wanna have a bathroom sleepover in a bodybag, when all their friends are trying to do is help out because things are getting real bad…
But when things went bad for those fictional people—which it always did, 'cause duh, plot—how else would they handle it?
Chauncey would probably muster up some grand eloquent life lesson speech, and remember some obscure spell that would help him and his two friends defeat the giant monster-of-the-week that the big evil baddie Caulderot the Riddler sicced upon them. The Hitchhiker's Guide crew would probably banter and argue with Marvin the Depressed Robot and the sighing ship doors, before hitting the improbability drive button on The Heart of Gold spaceship and causing something beautifully impossible to happen. The clever quickfoot detectives would most certainly connect a series of seemingly-meaningless coincidences and overlooked evidence, which would then form a great big picture that made complete sense, thereby solving the case and allowing their common companions to revel in their pure intuitive genius.
And if I, Logan Mitchell, were the protagonist of some story, what would I do?
That mere thought was ludicrous enough to make him snort out the chamomile tea he was sipping back into his—Carlos's—Gustavo's—half-drained mug.
Sure, their life may feel like one big crazy children's show sometimes (seriously, some nobody hockey players from Minnesota turned into a famous Hollywood boyband almost overnight by a crabby nineties music producer and his long-labouring assistant, getting caught up in all sorts of outlandish slapstick shenanigans with other wacky personalities? Who'd ever heard of such a ridiculous thing?), but if Logan was indeed a fictional character, he'd probably just be demoted to the role of a nameless background character, because then he wouldn't be interesting enough for any major role.
Especially not when in contrast to his friends.
Dweebish as it was, Logan couldn't say that he hadn't given it much thought before. If he were to fit them in some archetypal role, then Kendall would be a classic valiant and noble hero leading his battalion straight to victory. James would be the charming and goonishly loveable Casanova with the handsomest face and the darkest secret past. Carlos would be the swashbuckling renegade pirate with enough willpower and optimism to shake mountains—and also enough lousy wisecracks to make said mountains crumble to dust. And Logan would...he would…
Probably get killed off in the first few paragraphs, honestly.
Maybe he would be one of the nameless students who'd get sacrificed to the infinite-headed Lernaean Hydra living beneath the fortress-like campus's secret dungeon. Or some boring loser poetry-read to death by the bureaucratic Vogons. Or perhaps he'd even be a poor paperboy victimised by a scheming villain with a shiny monocle and shark-smiles glinting elusively within the shadows of a grimy alleyway, lying in desiccating wait for a constable to stumble upon his mangled body and make him the next big headline for the still-living paperboys to excitedly announce to the smoggy city of Victorian-era London at the first crack of dawn.
It's not a very nice thing to think about...but someone's gotta do the job and be miserable for the rest of the main characters to either save or mourn or get some kind of story advancement from, because that's just how life is supposed to be sometimes!
Because unlike the diabetic-sugary fairy tales that Carlos loved to make Kendall read aloud to him (their oldest friend found it more compelling when 'big bro' Kenny went all-in with the narration and even did interactive scenes complete with dramatic voice-acting), Logan wasn't afraid to read books that had bad endings. Or books that were horribly grotesque (okay, so he technically only skimmed one of them out of plain ignorance, and a few sentences from Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho was more than enough to keep him unpleasantly-queasy and night terror-fueled for a week, but it still counted!). Or even books with no endings at all, left hanging open with a frustratingly sour aftertaste and more questions left unanswered.
At least they made a lot more sense to him, because real life wouldn't readily offer up a happy ending wrapped in a silk red bow with all loose ends tied up neatly—life was messy and complicated and more often than not, never held any happily-ever-afters for anyone.
For this worldview, Logan's friends had often called him pessimistic—and Katie had even gone so far to describe him as a 'neuro-cynical man'—but he simply called it being realistic.
'The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place…'
Sighing defeatedly, Logan dogeared the book page and set it down, carefully aligning the corner with the parallel grooves in his bedside table, before clicking the lamp shut once more. None of his previous tried and tested methods were working for him anymore, it seemed.
So instead, he called the official time of mission failure at 3:27 AM and simply resorted to playing catch with his special hockey puck, hoping that the rhythmic deadened thuds as it hit the star-studded ceiling would hypnotise him into even just some pathetic semblance of a slumber, somehow.
Minutes ticked by. The puck gathered ceiling cobwebs. Logan's arms were tiring out.
So far, still no luck.
Though it was far from something new and his comprehensive medical history was fairly denoted with a persistent history of chronic insomnia, this time around, it felt a lot...different than one of his usual midnight long hauls, somehow.
Now that Logan was all out of fickle distractions and the bitter chalky pills were starting to lose the battle against his static-filled body, he was starting to feel the full impact of the sheer wracking anxiety and it was bad. It killed him to even think about falling asleep, his overactive mind had commenced spinning around in circles, and it was making him feel physically dizzy and even sicker to his flip-flopping stomach as it manically circled back upon pointlessly contemplating about that particular night's events, over and over and over again.
I'm like a human washing machine...and yet I feel dirtier than ever...
Logan didn't just know, he dreaded the fact—he wasn't staying up just because of a few minor disruptions in circadian rhythm, or some textbook medication side effects, or any other stumbling wonky brain chemicals, it was a lot more personal to him.
It was about the three people he cared about the most, and how they didn't seem to leave any cares on the table.
Try to deflect his attention out of it as he may with Schmikipedia articles and mischievous cat vlogs and wax poetic book escapism and existential rumination in between sips of sleepytime tea and cookie crumbs, so many things just happened that fateful night for Logan to not think about at all, so quickly and out of nowhere...
Griffin's stupid letter. Kendall's confession. The whole crazy fight. The not-peaceful peaceful dimension collision aftermath. Carlos hiding away. James terrifying the wits out of me...
The last one seemed more and more ridiculous to Logan, the more he thought about it, because he knew that no matter what happens, James would never willingly hurt him.
But then again, James had hurt him quite recently; even if it wasn't intentionally, nor physically. It was even worse, because James went straight for the heart—and Camille's lips—while helping her out with her robot princess audition practice. Even with the full knowledge that she and Logan were together at the time, the acting hair model spy prince still allowed their scripted 'kiss' to somehow get just a little too immersed in real life.
And James didn't even have the guts to face his friend and come clean about it, not until Camille angrily blurted it out herself in a fit of misunderstanding and Logan had to find out the hard way.
Logan wasn't one to get easily caught up in his own riled emotions; but then again, he had never been cheated on in his entire life, least of all by one of his best friends in the world, so that made him reach next-level Logan fury. He came so close to punching James, breaking his lucky comb to pieces, screaming and hurling the James-asteroid and demolished planet Venus model in his smug model face, and fracturing every bone in his beautiful body while naming every last one of them.
But instead, it ended in a less-brutal yet still pretty intense spitball duel at the Palm Woods parks, with Mr. Bitters and Katie at the grandstands passing the popcorn, poor victimised parkgoers getting hit by stray wet paper ammunition, and a very parched Logan and James fighting to the bitter end and collapsing of partial dehydration as they finally shook it out.
James said he wouldn't hurt Logan because he was his friend, and Logan believed him because...well, why shouldn't he? Friendship prevails in the end. Live and let live. Play that freaking uh-oh-oh soundbite and roll credits. Bleep bloop blech.
So the incident wasn't like a raw wound or anything. James did seem genuinely remorseful for his actions, and it was probably more just a wild fit of teenage hormones and dopamine and oxytocin to blame, so Logan meant it when he said everything was cool between them.
Still, it was more like a faded bruise that still caused mild discomfort when accidentally pressed.
And that particular contusion was bothering Logan more than ever, with him currently being on a shaky on-and-off relationship with Camille, trying to stay 'just friends' with her and keep his cool around her yet still stupidly finding himself fixating on her wind-chime laugh, her delicate fingers absentmindedly twirling the curls of her wavy hair, her cute nose twitches when she's habitually fiddling with her birthstone-decorated butterfly necklace that was a birthday present from her mom, and the way her coffee-coloured eyes lit up brighter than stage spotlights whenever she got super into performing her lines.
And whenever Camille's intense gaze landed on him, it gave him a buzz stronger than Kelly's morning espresso, sweet lipstick leaving little carmine hearts all over his shocked strawberry face, all before the fateful slap landed for the closing wake-up call…
Logan winced as he felt the phantom pain sting his cheeks, travelling all the way down to his heart.
Because even as he internalised the fact that 90% of first relationships would inevitably fail and it was probably all for the best that things ended amicably between them...come evening gloom, he didn't think about rational statistics. He only ever thought about wanting to have his last one with Camille Roberts and only Camille, and that was a different kind of hurt.
But girls don't fall for wimps. Pretty boy James Diamond knew that. And he made sure professor geekzo Logan Mitchell knew that, too. James wouldn't hurt him, sure, but what's stopping James from kicking him while he was down?
Though, nevermind all that irrational nonsense for the moment...this kind of hurt wasn't just about Logan's foolish infatuation kicking up to high gear. It wasn't about some overblown teen romance drama with Camille (as if he hadn't had enough of that utter mess from Griffin's stupid failed reality show idea) or any other unrelated girl troubles—you should really be moving past that anyhow and die alone like you should've, genius—but this hurt was about his best friends. Caused for them. Caused by them, even.
Him and James. James and Kendall. Kendall and Carlos. KendallJamesCarlosLogan. All four of them affixed, that always sounded right to everyone, made the best sense for good reason. Their names had always been tied together in a single breath, never an article or a space or a punctuation in between.
And now there were suddenly miles of it stretching out and keeping them apart, parallel impossibilities in the middle. Their worlds are diverging precipitously. Will the incredible power of friendship be enough to pull it back together?
Not in not-fairy tales, they won't…
Even just thinking about it caused Logan some next-level hurt, and there was nothing stopping it from killing him from circulatory shock.
Would you do that to me, James? Hurt me just so you could feel something?
There it was again, that irrational feeling of fright, raising goosebumps all over his skin and making his rubber band heart threaten to snap in half again.
After all, Logan had just been hurt so many times before in his life, it was really hard not to feel really scared a lot of the time. It wasn't easy to stay at ease when he felt like a walking target almost all the time, and if he ever foolishly let his guard down, some circling vicious predator might just sense the weakness and prey on him, tearing him apart until he was nothing more than bits of rended flesh and cascading blood in the water.
Philanthropic Logan might want to see the good in everyone and tried to not judge a book by its cover, but neuro-cynical Logan also knew better than anyone else that people could be such cruel, spiteful, nasty, sadistic creatures and all they ever did was judge each other based on stupid juvenile thoughts and extremely shallow observations—and sometimes the cover told everything he needed to know, anyway.
For example, I don't need to read the gushy summaries of those tiny paperback books in spinster auntie Gerda's shelf with muscular shirtless Fabios and beautiful swooning women in flowy nightgowns and the sparkling white horses—seriously, what is it with the horses?—on the cover to know that it definitely isn't gonna be a book I'd wanna pick up with my bare hands, unless I wanna risk catching some virulent strain of cooties from it!
Of course, there were always some rare exceptions to the case, like his scary-hulking, walnut-cracking, psycho-playing partner for Miss Collins' environmental social studies project. But nice 'bullies' like Ozzie Clark were aberrations, not the gold standard. It was exceptionally hard to tell the difference between a misunderstood, misguided loner and a genuinely bloodthirsty sociopath, and Logan wasn't going to mess around and find out whether he'd earn a new friend, or had to have his demise avenged by his current ones by the end of it.
Once upon a time, I've tried making friends before...I swear, I've always tried my very best, but all it ever got me was the worst, 'cause no one wants to be friends with a total loser...
Certainly not all those older bullies in his first school who used to terrorise him daily, and forced him to do horrible things or else they would pummel his dweebo head down to a biodegradable pulp, and constantly humiliated him in front of everyone as the other hive-minded students jeered along and his impassive teachers turned a blind eye from the childish abuse. Logan felt like they broke something inside of him; and sometimes he still felt those broken parts jangling around him and weighing him down whenever he moved around and thought about it too much.
That's the human condition, I suppose. Everyone's got some damage, and they either spend their whole life either trying to fix it or passing it off to someone else.
But despite all his constant struggles, the junior Hortense couldn't tell anyone about it, not really. Always tackily covered up with lame fibs of "Thad just opened his locker and I weren't looking where I was going, t'were an accident momma, promise!" and never in full gory detail of the actual locker walloping and locking-up, or else his parents would probably come storming into the principal's office to complain about it, and the apathetic administrators would simply brush off their concerns and send them home with false assurances of 'taking immediate action' and all-teeth smiles again.
And even worse, if someone spots the grownup Mitchells making an uncalled-for haunting in the hallowed grounds of Thornton Elementary, rumours about Hortense Logan Mitchell—the right brick slicker who wouldn't bite a darn biscuit...his mam and pop were fixin' for somebody's bruisin' and he were hidin' his lily-livered face in their pansy-purple aprons again...if I catch his tails hangin' about, I swear 'pon Saint Mary he better say his Fatima Prayers fast—would echo through the school hallways and rapidly intensify, until it turned into a clamorous roar and set off an avalanche that would biblically hurtle down and bury the hapless brick slicker traitor for good.
For when it comes to bubblegum gossip, news travels fast, and bored barbaric children work harder than God themselves when it comes to quashing blabbermouths and turncoats who dare threaten the sanctity of their lawless academic kingdom.
But it wasn't all bad for Logan. Back home, he was still his parents' light and joy, momma's only beloved darling son who would follow in doctor dad's footsteps and soon join the outstanding line of remarkable Mitchells with several hefty PhDs and MDs attached to their names.
Sure, just like any other parents, they got a bit too caught up with work sometimes, especially Dr. Mitchell. But Logan certainly wasn't going to begrudge it over his cardiologist father, who literally saved lives by the hour, and his real estate agent mother, who provided roofs over people's heads so that they could keep the one above theirs. And the two of them always made sure to show how much they love their baby Hortie, spending quality time with him every weekend and holiday off to take him places, spoiling him silly and supporting his scientific endeavours—no matter how regrettably explosive the outcome—and even encouragingly pushing him to try out new things like skateboarding and gymnastics and everything else under the sun, even though he was never really brave enough to continue it.
Even back then, the young Hortense was already neck-deep in cognitive behavioural therapy and dosing up with one too many mild SSRI prescriptions and atypical natural remedies to begin with, and his momma and doctor dad were so hopeful for him and his bright 'n sunny future, so he wasn't about to ruin their chroma happy-ever-after illusion just because of some troglodyte-brained creeps who really need to find better hobbies than beating the hide out of helpless children until their sitting ducks start to see the light of Jesus shining down upon them.
So everywhere else, Logan had to be content casting shadows in darker places; otherwise he'd end up standing out as a big-headed nerd, the snotty genius who thinks he's better than everyone else and needed to be knocked down a couple pegs, and he'd most likely end up face-deep in some stinky bog pit and come out looking like an actual blobby shadow monster and standing out starker than ever.
It was so deeply ingrained in his mind that in the public eye, he shouldn't just be no one. In fact, he was much, much lower than that—he was not worth a pink spit in a milkmaid bucket, all cut up like a boarding house pit, so low that he could probably shake hands with Satan and the horned red devil would wanna wash his hands in the lake of fire afterwards, and these were only some of the nicer terms (sans the expletives) used to refer to Logan, by some jerkfaces with only ever enough brain cells bouncing around in their hollow heads to chew gum and cud up some creatively denigrating insults in the same breath.
So when his nuclear family finally decided to make the radical move from Temple, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota and Logan had to change schools in the third grade, it was practically a blessing in disguise to him. Especially when he met the three people who would change his life forever.
James. Kendall. Carlos.
His best friends in the world.
(a/n: I know this chapter got super inner monologue-heavy, but the next one is gonna have a full-fledged flashback with kiddie Big Time Rush, so I swear there's gonna be a break from all the thought rambliness QvQ)