Hey y'all! New chapter, this probably won't be up on the day I start writing, but oh well. This chapter is dedicated to Solarsun75 (Guest) for the request, which I'm sure will be very interesting. Especially since I'm trying not to make OCs, those are gross, so, let's see how I handle this. Looks like I'm going to abuse the cast of that NCSI show again? Yeah, that's my go to group.

The boys just dropped Logan's Top Picks playlist. I love most of it, most of the songs are extra groovy.

Happy reading! Enjoy!

It is stupid, it is so stupid, because he can't exactly remember the argument. He does remember how Carlos was getting on his nerves, just being his usual loud, chaotic, corn-dog enthusiast self. He also remembers how James was getting on his nerves, spraying his 'Cuda man spray into every crevice and crack of the apartment. He remembers how Kendall was getting on his nerves, asking him to stop taking everything so seriously and to calm down.

And he remembers very clearly, the slam of the door as he exits the apartment, total time undetermined.

"I need new friends."

It was like they fell out of the sky.

They were all wearing yellow jackets. In bold print on the back: PALM WOODS MATHLETES. He didn't even know the Palm Woods school had a math team. He thought he was the only kid in their little one-room schoolhouse that even remotely enjoyed the subject.

He was genuinely but pleasantly surprised as he discovered this was not the case.

Pretty soon, he was back in his safe zone, outside in the moderate sunshine with these new people, and, most importantly, the familiar math textbook. The only safe thing about it was the math.

Someone was finally understanding him, someone actually had the same interest. Numbers, numbers were cool, they were complicated but formulaic…math in general.

Kendall and James and Carlos never understood that love of his, never really understood him when he got really into solving an equation. When he would sit there for hours on end, knowing he was on the verge of the answer, and the instant euphoria when he solved it.

Kendall, James and Carlos looked at him like he was insane when that happened. And then someone would switch the subject, and Logan would be annoyed at them, but they wouldn't notice. And he would blank out of the rest of the conversation because all he wanted to do was tell his friends about this equation, once.

He used to have the problem of bringing up the same subject several times, this wasn't a problem anymore. Then he wouldn't bring it up again.

Even when they were little, he had been so obsessed with long division that he had done it for fun. He liked something about it, how there was always an answer. It was almost relaxing.

And these people in yellow jackets understood that about him. They all had that long division phase. They dedicated their lives to this, because they were good at it. Logan realized, well, he was way better at math than he was at singing or dancing.

He knew he would accept the yellow jacket before they had even handed it over to him. He pulled it on, the material uncomfortable, weird, like some plastic raincoat. But it was cool.

Logan was unsure of how long he actually spent sitting out there with the mathletes, sweating through his yellow jacket. These jackets were honestly so inconvenient. He wouldn't have left from that spot if Freight Train hadn't carried him off to the studio. And, while he normally enjoyed hitching a free ride with Freight Train, he really just wanted to finish another problem.

It could wait, he told himself. Once he got home, he could finish.

—

Kendall thought it was funny in the way where it wasn't funny at all, since, how in the world was it possible to lose someone you had just seen a second ago? All he had been doing, all James and Carlos (well, Carlos sometimes got distracted by the Jennifers) had been doing was staring at Logan the whole day, watching for signs of—anything.

Anger, upset(ness?), apathy. An anxiety attack, a panic attack, those awful despondent shutdowns, the even worse meltdowns. Literally anything. But Logan had spent the whole day without saying a word to them. He barely even acknowledged them today.

And, problem: they could not find him.

He had been with them in the lobby a minute ago. How could they have lost him in under a minute?

"Where did he go?" Kendall muttered as he waited for the elevator with James and Carlos.

James shrugged beside him, worried but not as much, hiding it well. Kendall was supposed to be good at that. He usually was. He was the one who told everyone to calm down, especially Logan, Logan panicked a lot. And Kendall was always the one with the plan to calm him down.

Right then, at this moment, he didn't know who he was. He was panicking, he didn't have a plan, and he was supposed to.

Why was he so worried in the first place? Logan was way more responsible than the three of his friends combined. Logan would be fine.

But Kendall didn't know that for sure.

This fact became blatantly obvious when, after a thorough search of the apartment, Logan wasn't there. Kendall couldn't see him down at the pool either.

So, yeah, Kendall didn't know for sure if Logan was fine, because how was he supposed to know that if Logan was missing?

"I'm going to find Camille," he said. "Maybe he's with her."

James and Carlos nodded, telling him Logan would be fine, and that they would stay here if he came back. Before Kendall shut the door, James nodded at him, holding up his ringing cell phone.

Okay, so, Kendall had come up with a plan. Now, all he had to do was not panic, and he would be back to himself.

Not panicking became impossible when Camille informed him she hadn't seen Logan all day.

"Try the park?" she suggested. "The mathlete team was meeting there earlier today. Maybe Logan got distracted."

"Maybe."

"Do you want me to go with you?"

Kendall shook his head. He offered up a small smile, seeing her disappointment, and shrugged.

"Call him. He's not really talking to us right now, maybe he'll pick up for you."

"Of course. Good luck."

—

He almost missed it. Logan was with all of those weird kids wearing those yellow PALM WOODS MATHLETES jackets.

Camille had been right. He had raced down to the park, just to do math. He didn't tell them, he didn't send a text, he just disappeared.

Logan was too absorbed in his work to notice Kendall behind him, but one of the other kids did. This guy was from that teen NCSI show. This wasn't the NCSI guy, Kendall didn't see him anywhere.

"What do you want?" the kid asked, like a bored receptionist.

"What?" Logan murmured, still not completely attentive to the conversation over his head.

"I want to get Logan out of your little math-cult," Kendall answered, staring down at Logan, who still hadn't reacted to him.

Instead, Logan tapped his pencil against the paper faster. He dropped it. Kendall smiled. Good, at least now he knew Logan wasn't completely ignoring him.

Logan turned to face him, swinging his legs over the bench and standing up. He did not say anything.

"Hi," Kendall prompted him, eyeing the yellow jacket that tightly attached itself to Logan.

Wasn't he uncomfortable?

They all had worn jackets like that during their last concert. Admittedly, it wasn't yellow, but it was the same material, same fit. It had been such a chore to get Logan to wear the jacket in the first place, and another thing to get him to stop pulling at it, gagging, like he was suffocating, dying right in front of them.

They didn't even finish the concert with the jackets on. Logan had gotten so uncomfortable he had thrown it off, and then Carlos thought it was part of the show, he threw his onto one of the stools. James and Kendall had to look uniform with the rest of the band, so off the jackets came.

Logan apologized at the end of the concert so profusely. They assured him it was fine, the jackets were uncomfortable for the rest of them to wear too. But he just kept apologizing, and by the time they got back to the tour bus (the door was jammed, it was excruciatingly hot out, there was a traffic jam in the next lane) Logan had worked himself into a meltdown.

Kendall was positive that at least Kelly had seen it.

When James finally got the door open, Logan, still deep within the trenches of a meltdown, couldn't and wouldn't move. They knew they couldn't touch him, they would've moved him themselves if it was a good idea. But it wasn't.

Mostly, their goal had been to shield the paparazzi from Logan and vice versa, which was largely successful.

Logan would do what he always did after a meltdown. He walked briskly into the bus, closing himself into his bunk, and probably read one of his books.

Logan hadn't said a word until the next morning.

Now, presently, Kendall wondered if Logan had forgotten all of this. Because it was all that stupid jacket's fault. And there he was, wearing the same jacket.

"Hey, Kendall," Logan said. He pulled at the jacket's sleeve. He was uncomfortable, Kendall knew it. So why wasn't he taking it off?

"You ran off to go and do math problems?"

Logan nodded. But then he stopped, his face froze. "What do you mean I ran off? I didn't, Kendall, I told you."

Kendall shook his head. "No, you didn't."

He was blushing now, pulling on the jacket sleeve. But he was smiling too. What was going on with him? "Sorry," he said, turning back to his work, since the kid from earlier was babbling about some theorem.

Kendall sighed. "Logan, we're going back to the apartment."

"Just let me finish this one problem," he said, lowering himself back down to the bench to finish.

Before Logan's pencil even hit the paper, Kendall interrupted him. "Mom's probably made dinner by now."

Always a rule follower, never a rule breaker, Logan, with rehearsed compliance, rises from the bench. He grabs the textbook/workbook combination he was using earlier, cradling the two in his arms. The other kids at the table wave back at him, someone tells Logan when the next meeting is. Tomorrow. Meeting?

Was Logan a full-fledged math-cult member?

This was exactly how he phrased his question at dinner, but Logan didn't answer.

"Math what?" his mother asked. To Logan, she said. "Don't tell me you're in a cult, sweetie."

Logan blushed harder. "I'm not, Kendall's lying."

Kendall rolled his eyes, smirking. "Come on. Mom, I'm not lying. I mean, look at his jacket. They were all wearing those."

"Definitely a cult," James agreed. He glanced at Logan's yellow jacket, then at Kendall. Back to the jacket. He couldn't stand looking at it. Why the hell was he wearing that?

He almost stumbled over his words, but caught himself. "And—that's an ugly jacket, Logan. I mean, it's one thing being in a math cult, it's another being in an ugly math cult."

James shot a look to Kendall, before pushing away from the table to come to Logan's side and take the jacket off him. Logan didn't allow this, and held onto the jacket tighter.

"Is it fun being in a math cult, Logie?" Carlos asked. "I don't think it would be."

Logan smiled wide, his eyes lighting up. "No, it's really fun. I'm having a lot of fun. We're actually meeting again tomorrow in the park, after rehearsal. We'll be meeting the whole week."

Kendall smiled back at Logan, hoping it looked more real than fake.

—

The first mandatory conference of the Logan committee was held in James and Carlos's room while the committee's namesake was hanging out with the mathletes. First order of business: the jacket.

"I hate the jacket," Kendall decided. "We need to get rid of it. Any objections?"

No objections. That was settled. Second order of business: the fact that Logan was hanging out with the mathletes. As in, hanging out. As in, willingly spending his free time with the mathletes, and not them. As in, practically unacceptable behavior.

"We should check on him," Carlos suggested. "Maybe he's having fun—"

"Not too much fun," James added.

"Or," Kendall said. "He's still mad at us."

The three nodded to themselves, pondering these two options and the possible outcomes of the situation in which they check up on Logan. In the end, it didn't matter. They were going to check up on Logan because they needed to.

Carlos had been correct. Logan looked so relaxed, smiling to himself as he figured out some complicated equation. He must have been going for record time, since everyone cheered when he threw his pencil down. That's when he made accidental eye contact with James, who took it as the perfect invitation to ambush the little math-nerd party.

"Hey, Logan," James started off, not knowing how this was going to go.

"Hey." Obviously Logan didn't particularly care, he was too excited about math (ugh, how?).

"Are you still mad at us?" Carlos interrupted. "Because we're really sorry for fighting."

Logan blushed, alternating between looking down at his shoes and Carlos's face. "I don't remember what the fight was about."

"Really?" Carlos asked. He tapped on his helmet. "You know what, Logan? I don't remember either. Forgive us?"

Logan nodded, turning back to his math. "Yeah."

Once again, he was engrossed in an equation, tuning them out. He tugged on his jacket sleeve harder, twisting the cuff around his wrist.

Kendall was flabbergasted. Furious. Logan was obviously uncomfortable in the jacket, why was he still wearing it?

"Logan," he tried, keeping his voice level when really he was seething. Was this little cult of his making him keep the jacket on because he was uncomfortable? Well, two of the kids from the NCSI show were on the math team, maybe this was all the NCSI guy's plan. Carlos had mentioned something about him making fun of Logan at the park before.

"We're going to the pool," Kendall said instead, trying to distract himself from his train of thought. "Come with us."

"Please, Logan?" Carlos and James chorused together, pouting, their hands clasped together, begging.

"Actually, I was going to go with the rest of the team to Fun Burger," Logan said, pausing when Carlos and James still had those looks on their faces. "Maybe after."

As it turns out, Logan never showed up.

Kendall knew what his problem was, he was sure James and Carlos had the same problem: jealousy.

—

Logan slipped on his yellow jacket, then out the door. It was early, six in the morning. They had to hold the regular meetings early because of school, and then Logan's recording schedule, it was a nice accomodation.

"I have to say, Logan," a sleepy Mr. Bitters called from the reception desk. "It's nice that you're on the mathletes now. Nice and quiet, no messes, no bumbling hockeyheads…"

With the exception of the last comment, Logan wholeheartedly agreed. It was always quiet, the perfect environment for math. But, it was so quiet. So quiet he could hear himself think, he could hear himself all the time. He never needed to repeat questions, that was good. He would repeat stuff anyway, just in case, but that was met with stares.

He had troubling remembering that this was not Carlos's tutoring session. This was mathletes.

And mathletes also did not appreciate Freight Train coming to collect him for rehearsal. They did not appreciate the sounds Logan made. Talking was the main one, he was the only one who really talked. But, Logan could hear himself all the time.

Sometimes he was humming his part to a new song, just to commit it to memory. Something he swore when his pencil broke. Sometimes—oh, the was the problem—he could hear himself with his stupid anxiety tics: cracking his knuckles, bleep blap bloop, that stupid mouth clicking thing.

These were not appreciated.

But! There were no messes, ever, except for the one time the pencil sharpener opened up, spilling the shavings all over the floor. That had been Logan's fault, actually.

The mathletes also did not appreciate his friends barging in at the most inopportune times.

Unfortunately for them, this was one of those times.

"Logan!" that was Kendall.

What were they doing here at six in the morning?

"Yes?"

And they just dragged him out of the room. The mathletes shut the door behind him.

"Looks like you guys got me kicked out of mathletes," Logan muttered, shrugging off the jacket.

Kendall grinned. "That was the plan."

"Okay."

Then Kendall frowned. "What? Did you actually like it there?"

Logan shrugged. "I mean, I took off the jacket."

"You did."

"The jacket was really uncomfortable."

"So…" James interjected, drawing it out. He opened the door to the apartment, passing out the controllers. The platinum controller remained firmly secured in his grip. "You're not mad."

"No. I'm a little annoyed."

"Why?"

"Well, because the platinum controller is not in my hand."

With that, Carlos tackled James. Logan thought, how nice, his friend was going to steal the controller back for him. Oh, no. He was incorrect. Carlos was going to take it for himself. Logan could not let that happen. So, against his better judgment, and probably a severe danger to his health, he jumped in between the two of them. Pretty soon, Kendall did too.

And there they were, wrestling for a video game controller on the floor of 2J.

All before 6:30 in the morning.

Let's just say, all the commotion woke up a very confused Mrs. Knight.

Woohoo I updated! Hope you enjoyed, sorry this took a week. I now have even more ideas and even less time to work on them. Life is funny. Have a lovely day.