Hey y'all! New chapter! It's Kendall's 12th birthday, I guess they're in sixth grade now? It's irrelevant. They're not going to school in this chapter. Um, Logan experiences pain? We're going to ignore the fact that Kendall's birthday is on a Wednesday.
And, also, the BTR Relationship Services Hotline is still down! How upsetting, because I simply cannot function until I hear some Real Talk with Logan. My sincerest condolences to all of the non US Rushers, especially.
Continuing on.
Happy reading! Enjoy!
It was four in the morning, there was an ongoing claustrophobic snowstorm blizzard mess that caused school to close for three days straight, it was Kendall's birthday, and Logan felt painfully empty.
He had felt it before, but he couldn't get used to it. It was—ringing. There was ringing in his ears, and he could feel his own heartbeat. He could hear the blood rushing through his body, his own breath quickening. Everything was going fast. Slow-fast. It didn't make sense.
He felt empty.
It felt like his DNA was denaturing inside him, the chromatin ripping apart into chromosomes sans mitosis. He felt like he was being pulled apart, like he was light and heavy. A weight was crushing him, he felt like he was suffering cardiac arrest, like he would die any minute from the suffocating pressure.
And yet, he felt weightless, untethered, floating away, leaving.
He kicked himself inside his sleeping bag. He banged his heel against the hardwood floors of Kendall's living room. He wasn't floating. He wasn't leaving. He knew exactly where he was.
He was in an uncomfortable, hot and cold sleeping bag. James was on the couch. Carlos had contorted his to fit effortlessly inside the small armchair in the corner. Kendall was in a sleeping bag a few feet away.
But he felt alone and empty.
It was four in the morning, he didn't even know how he was awake in the first place. But now he couldn't go back to sleep.
He was empty.
He needed something to fix this.
—
Kendall, when he had been eleven years old only a few hours ago, had the terribly unhealthy habit of staying awake until all his friends went to sleep.
He hadn't meant to acquire it, but it had just intensified as time went on, starting off with James Diamond.
When they met in kindergarten, James would always insist on beauty sleep. That meant, when they were five, an hour long nap, sometimes longer. Now that they were both twelve, it meant a full nine hours. It didn't matter to James what time he went to bed, or what time he woke up, as long as he had slept exactly nine hours. That was his beauty sleep standard.
Kendall had to stay awake when they were five to make sure no one (Carlos) decided to poke/kick/annoy James when they tried to sleep during their singular allotted nap during the school day. Kendall had to stay awake now to make sure that he knew when James went to sleep, and what nine hours from that time was. Logan was the math genius, but, over the years, Kendall had become an expert at calculating nine hours from any point to another.
This bad habit of staying awake until everyone fell asleep continued with Carlos Garica.
Carlos always had trouble falling asleep. His mind, his body, was constantly bursting with energy, with crazy ideas. And it was a long process to get Carlos's brain and body to calm down long enough so he could actually sleep. Staying asleep wasn't a problem though. Carlos slept like a rock, unmoving.
This bad habit of staying awake until everyone fell asleep was invigorated once again with Logan Mitchell.
Logan just didn't know when to stop. He would work himself to exhaustion, then wouldn't acknowledge that he was exhausted, so Kendall has to go through yet another process. He had to first confirm to Logan that he was exhausted. When he wouldn't believe him (which was often, if not always) he just ignored it, capturing Logan's attention with an exciting prospect: a routine.
Personally, the routines were not exciting to Kendall. But to Logan, it was like a drug. Routines made sense. So, because Kendall knew this, he created a routine for Logan without Logan explicitly knowing it. Logan, the chronic rule follower, would typically go to sleep if this routine was followed.
And really, Kendall didn't have a problem with his bad habit of staying awake until everyone fell asleep.
He just was incredibly annoyed that this meant he had to stay awake until four in the morning. Somebody was awake, it was either Carlos or Logan. Kendall was betting on Carlos, he could hear him moving around.
But that didn't make sense, Carlos was completely knocked out. One quick glance over at the armchair in the corner proved it.
Which meant it was Logan.
Immediately, he felt stupid. The sounds he was hearing, the movement he was hearing, those were not Carlos-like sounds or movements. Those were Logan sounds, Logan movements.
Kendall counted off in his head what he heard, how many of these sounds and movements Logan could possibly activate all at once. Mouth-clicking, muttering, cracking his knuckles—those were all the regular ones. Those were all happening. But there was a fourth one.
It stopped before he could figure out what it was.
He heard shuffling, then a tentative footstep onto the ground, the floorboard creaking gently.
Kendall rose out of his own sleeping bag quickly, intercepting Logan before he could take another step. He grabbed his arms, easing him back down the ground.
This close, he found out what the fourth thing was.
Logan was hitting himself. Hard, on his leg.
Kendall caught his hand. "Don't hurt yourself."
Logan shook his head, wincing. He switched hands, but Kendall held that one too.
"It's four in the morning," Kendall whispered. "Go back to sleep, okay?"
He shook his head again, trying to pry his hands free of Kendall's grip.
"I–I can't feel anything."
He would've assumed it was tiredness, but Logan looks like he might cry. Which could also be tiredness, but that's not all there is. Something is wrong. "What?"
"It's—too slow, too fast. Like…"
Logan jerks his hands away, interlocking his fingers together. Then, slowly, he pulls them apart, making this weird static sound. He groans, grabbing the back of his head, pressing his face to his legs. He slams one heel on the ground. Kendall reaches for his hands again.
He doesn't have any right to be mad at Logan. But he's hurting himself for no reason, it makes no sense, it's frustrating and awful to see him like this, and Kendall can't figure this out. But he needs to figure something out.
He squeezes Logan's hands harder as he starts to cry. Logan slams his heel on the ground again, and Kendall would grab his leg, but he's out of hands.
"What's wrong, buddy?" he says, deciding to pull him closer. He's shaking, he needs to stop shaking.
Logan cannot answer, he's crying still.
And Kendall just doesn't have an answer. He has no clue what's wrong. It's scary, because Logan, the genius, is out of commission. It's scary, because Kendall, the plan-maker, has no plan.
He can't think straight at four in the morning. He can't make plans at four in the morning.
All he can do at four in the morning is wait for Logan to stop crying, all he can do is keep holding him and make sure he doesn't hit himself.
Why is he doing that?
"It's okay," Kendall tries to say. It's not, obviously. "You're okay, you just need to go back to sleep—"
He's rambling on, more nonsense about how everything is fine, when right now it is not. His rambling is interrupted when Logan, his hand still enclosed within Kendall's, hits him. It's probably not intentional, but it hurts.
Logan's hand lingers there, pressing into him. That hurts too, Logan is applying a lot of pressure. Kendall removes it. Logan places it there again.
"Logan…"
The small genius is still crying, still violently upset, but now he's secured his grip on Kendall. His hand is firmly attached to his chest. He, within the next second, has collapsed on top of him. His face buried into Kendall's shoulder.
It's probably four-fifteen in the morning now.
Kendall still doesn't understand what's exactly happening, but he tries to think of what is going to work, what is going to calm Logan down. He starts rubbing his shoulder, then just rubbing his back. It's Logan, so Kendall tries to come up with some kind of pattern to follow. Logan always likes patterns.
Logan hits him again.
"It's okay, buddy. You're okay," Kendall murmured, not caring, not caring enough, that his arm was now stinging with pain. The fact that Logan has been hitting his own body with the same force puts it in perspective.
Two hits to Logan's two thousand. Self-inflicted, but still. Two thousand. Kendall could live with two.
Logan makes some sound, it's unclear if it's positive or not. He repeats this sound. Unfortunately, this repetition is still accompanied by the hitting. Kendall wants to scream, his back is raging with searing, burning pain. He won't. He can live with three, four, five hits.
Six seems to be the breaking point. He won't scream, because it's four-twenty in the morning. And Logan is still in whatever subpar mental condition he's in. But it hurts a lot, no matter how determined he is to ignore it.
"Logan, holy shit, stop, alright?" Kendall whispers. "You can hit hard."
He hums, his volume high and distressed.
Kendall wants to give up. He just wants this all to stop.
He's failed anyway, he doesn't know what's happening to Logan. He can't fix this, this has happened before. Logan's been a hysterical mess before, just like this. And Logan couldn't explain it, not that they asked him. But if Logan didn't, with his excessive and extensive knowledge on everything, know what was going on, none of them would be able to figure it out.
At four–twenty-two, after two minutes of falling apart, Kendall has a plan.
Logan's movements and sounds were indecisive. Like last time.
This has happened before. They were in the kitchen, and Logan couldn't even get himself a glass of water. He had swung his arms back and forth, maybe that's what it looked like from his angle? Maybe Logan had really been hitting himself, just like now.
Why? Kendall isn't sure.
He chooses not to dwell on the fact that at the bare minimum, Logan had picked up the habit of hitting himself a few months ago. Logan had been hurting himself, and Kendall hadn't noticed. For months.
He chooses not to dwell on the fact that he's a horrible friend for not noticing this.
He chooses not to dwell on the fact that it's been twenty-five minutes and he has not successfully calmed Logan down.
He chooses not to dwell on the fact that Logan has been crying for twenty-five minutes straight.
He chooses to continue to rub Logan's back, and not think about anything else.
He can't think about anything else. If he does, he'll probably get angry.
If he gets angry, he'll punch something, and his mom will be right. He'll need a therapist. And this therapist will be paid obscene amounts of money to fix Kendall's 'anger management' problem.
Except, Kendall doesn't have a problem at all. He's handling his anger just fine, because he hasn't punched anything. It doesn't matter anyway. Especially since it's not a problem at all.
The only problem that exists right now, that matters right now, is Logan's problem.
Kendall is going to figure out how to fix Logan's problem. He has to, he's the leader, he's the plan-maker.
Logan is the genius, but he panics under pressure. He's obviously panicking, there's obviously pressure. If only Kendall knew what this pressure was.
Then Logan wouldn't panic, and there would be no more problems.
It's four-thirty in the morning and there's still a problem.
This problem.
Logan's problem.