Hmm, just more Logan angst I suppose? Yes, that seems to be what this is. My obsession with Logan and the grocery store keeps growing, there's like 1000 words just on that. Sorry. Happy reading! Enjoy!
Maybe the guidance counselor didn't suck. Maybe she was nice. She had a nice smile, she looked friendly. Kendall liked friendly people.
He just didn't like what she was trying to get him to do.
To talk, to admit.
To say Yes, yes, I have so many problems, look at me, an unfixable mess.
But he wouldn't say that because that would be a lie.
Kendall Knight could not consider himself a leader if he could not fix this himself.
See, it wasn't even a difficult problem to detect. He knew he had anger issues. Anger management difficulties. Of course, because people who didn't get violently angry didn't understand why he had punched holes in his wall, or punched people. But he knew who he was, he knew this was his problem.
Exactly. His problem.
Nobody else's, which meant Kendall had the right to take full responsibility for fixing himself. In the name of independence, and weren't all the adults always complaining they were not independent enough these days? Kendall was independent.
He made money, he had a job. He knew how to take care of his seven year old sister, how to cook dinner, he knew how to do laundry, he knew which gas stations were good, which ones were just a cash grab. He knew how to comfort his crying mother, he knew how to comfort Katie, he knew how to handle things.
He knew how to get people to calm down.
If anything, he was as independent as they come.
"Kendall," this guidance lady was saying. "I understand you like to have control over situations. I understand you like to be the one to make decisions. But don't you think that, in this case, punching someone would mean you lost control. Your emotions took over, activating—"
"I let my emotions take over. I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew why I was doing it."
It had been a month. Nobody was quite over the incident yet, but Kendall was ready for this lady to stop talking about it. She did not need to throw in her same two cents each session.
Yes, he punched someone.
Yes, he meant it.
Yes, he lost control.
Yes, he knows exactly why he did it.
Yes, this guy deserved it.
The lady nodded, as usual. She clasped her hands together, as usual, and leaned back. As usual. "Do you think that was the best course of action?"
Before he could stop himself, he laughed. "What else was I supposed to do?"
That was a mistake, he asked her a direct question. Sure, it had been bitterly sarcastic, as most of his remarks were during the sessions, but it was still a new question. Before, he had stubbornly kept quiet, answering her only with nods or stoic freezing.
"We want to help you before you get to the point where you feel it is necessary to harm someone."
Too bad, he could get to that point real quick.
"Kendall, I'd like to address what you think the root cause of this issue is."
Not a direct question. He didn't—couldn't—nod or freeze, so he pressed his lips together, shut.
"What do you think the root cause of this issue is?"
He shrugged. He knew, but it was almost four, and hockey started at four-thirty. He would not miss hockey for more therapy. "That kid was laughing at Logan."
"And?"
"He didn't have any right to laugh at Logan, Logan was—"
He would not talk about Logan. Talking about Logan would take at least an hour.
He only had thirty minutes.
"What was Logan?"
"Logan pissed himself in front of our entire history class, what do you think?"
She smiled at him with this sinister, innocent shrug along with it, like oh, I'm stupid, I obviously don't know, even though I'm supposed to have a degree in psychology or something. Please, Kendall, enlighten me.
"He was embarrassed, and that kid was making it worse, so I punched him."
"Okay. So, Logan —his behavior and his circumstance should—those are especially triggering to your anger?"
He finds himself nodding.
He doesn't want to be late for hockey practice, but he's going to be, he already knows it.
—
He knows he's late, because practice started at four, and it takes him ten minutes to pick up Katie from the elementary school, another ten walk to the rink in the opposite direction, and he left school at four thirty. He's at the rink at four-fifty. He's so late, but better late than never coming at all. And, even if he had left at four, he still–-he would've needed to compose himself.
Yes. He would've needed to compose himself, because after his session, he was a wreck. He had just started talking, he had been talking about things that happened years ago, and then what had happened in the past month.
The past month had been awful. Because, yeah, for the first week or two of his suspension, it was fun having Logan stay at his house. Kendall could forget about how awful the day at work had been, and just sit on the couch and play video games with Logan. He could relax, and they could just hang out. It was like summer vacation, despite his ten hour work shift. From six to four every day, except Sundays. Being a cashier most days, that was all right. He learned how to ring up items and bag groceries. But then, some days, he was a cart pusher.
His one and only task for a whole five hours would be to push carts back into the rack. Just bring them up and push them. For five hours.
He hated that part of his job, and he hated his boss, who always asked him to pick up more shifts, when he was already working ten hours. The boss was insane, too. He was always changing the layout of the grocery store, rearranging shelf positions and aisle boards and product destinations because it was supposed to make the store more appealing. It was better for business, they would attract more customers.
It was a grocery store. Customers were attracted because it sold food. There was no need for this constant rearranging.
It was confusing to walk in every day and see something out of place. Usually he wouldn't notice until one of the elderly customers came up to him, asking for help finding some obscure food item. But then, Kendall would be helping, and he would turn the corner, only to understand that the entire grocery store had been flipped again. Or, that they weren't carrying certain products that they had been the day before. Or the shipments were late because the boss placed an order late.
Kendall's boss did not know how to run a grocery store.
Kendall hated it especially when these elderly customers would accuse him of being wrong, yelling that the customers were always right, and that the bag of dried prunes was always in the dried fruit aisle, Aisle 7, like it had been for the past thirty years.
Kendall nearly always felt the inclination to reply, sorry, ma'am, but I wasn't alive twenty years ago. I only started working here thirty days ago.
But he wouldn't do that, because then this elderly person would draw up a complaint, and he would be fired. He could not afford to be fired, especially since this was the most stable source of income for the Knight family at the moment. He actually got paid more than his mother at the diner, which was absurd. Kendall knew that this was also absurd, working here, but if he didn't work at the grocery store, if he got fired from the grocery store, then he would be met with a consequence.
More counseling sessions.
Counseling was the root of all his problems, he decided, because he was late for hockey practice. He loved hockey, and though he wasn't eccentric when it came to the importance of punctuality like Logan, he still loved hockey. He didn't mind the grueling practices. It was something that he loved. He would much rather do ten hours of hockey than cart-pushing and cashier duty.
There's someone standing outside the doors to the rink, and Kendall exhales a sigh of relief. He's not the only one who's late. He's probably the only one who's late because he was too busy venting to a girl therapist, but he's not the only one late.
"Hey, man," Kendall called, still a few feet away. "Can you tell Coach I'll be on the ice in five? There was—"
Therapy.
"A school thing that ran late. Tell him I'm sorry, I didn't even want to go to the thing."
The guy by the door might not hear him, because he doesn't move. When Kendall gets closer, he knows why.
It's Logan.
Kendall just spent an hour of his life talking about Logan, to some stranger, who's probably going to call CPS on Joanna Mitchell, and call for a mental asylum to take Logan away. Kendall can't look at him, and Logan can't look at Kendall.
"The door's locked," Logan says. "It's been locked for a while."
"Why are you even out here?" he asked. "You were on time, weren't you?"
Logan rubs the back of his neck, ducking his head. "Yeah, but, you weren't. So I told James I was going to wait out for you."
"Did James think that was a good idea?"
Logan shrugged. "He said 'good luck' to me."
"That doesn't mean it was a good idea. What good is it that you were waiting for me?"
Logan turned away, again to the door. He pulled again. "I thought you were behind me! And then you just weren't, I thought you might have gotten hit by a car, or trapped in a snow ditch, or stuck in detention or something bad."
"I had to get Katie," Kendall argued, gesturing towards her.
"You should've told me so I didn't think you had gotten murdered!"
"No one gets murdered in Sherwood, Minnesota."
"That's not true."
"Well, obviously I didn't get murdered. Everything's fine."
Katie crossed her arms, scowling at the argument taking place over her head. She glared at her brother. "Stop fighting, Kendall. Mom says you two fight too much."
"We're not fighting. Logan did something stupid."
This seemed to confuse her, because she looked between the two of them, her eyebrows knitted together. "Logan's not stupid."
"I didn't do anything stupid," Logan protested, his voice quiet. He pulled on the door handle again, to no avail.
"You got us locked out."
"I didn't mean to!"
Logan's voice rang in the air, sharp and piercing. He started to pace, to stalk off to some unknown location. Kendall grabbed his arm. "Don't move. I got it."
He tugged on the door. It wouldn't move. He pushed it.
It opened.
"Logan, it's a push door."
Logan's frown deepened. He didn't respond, instead just walking past him into the rink. Katie followed after him, Kendall behind her. He let the door shut.
—
Kendall's old skates, the ones on Logan's feet, were too small. Kendall could tell even before Logan sat down on the bench to tie them. The laces were practically non-existent, so frayed at the edges, it's just a long clump of string trailing behind Logan as he walks out onto the ice.
Kendall knew the skates were a whole different problem, Logan had neglected buying new ones for years. He couldn't get him new skates. But it was quite the stroke of luck that between Katie's school and the grocery store was a sporting goods shop. Hockey laces were sporting goods, and they were cheap enough, and the store was empty.
So, it did add to his overall lateness today, but only by about thirty seconds.
It might have actually been two minutes, because Kendall stood outside the grocery store for that time, wondering whether or not he needed to talk to this idiot general manager of his ino order to get his permanent shift schedule revised, which needed to be changed since his suspension ended two weeks ago.
Subconsciously, He would not dare step into today, not until seven o'clock, for the late shift. But he still stood, weighing his options. This weighing stopped as another thought hit him.
The late shift. Seven to eleven.
He was almost ten-thousand percent positive that there were child labor laws that prohibited him from working that late on a school night, but then again, he had lied about his age on his application to secure a spot.
Regardless, the late shift could not be more inconvenient.
Logan's never babysat before and unless Kendall brings them both to his shift, which will mostly be a problem for Logan, not so much for Katie, who'll end up figuring out how to sell the free fruit at the front to the store for like, ten bucks apiece, Logan will end up having to babysit. No, Logan would definitely have an issue at the store, and Kendall can't deal with Logan's issue(s) when he's working. That would not work. Logan would have to babysit.
That was yet another task Logan was essentially incapable of. The genius wasn't incapable of much, but the stuff he was incapable of, he was hopelessly and completely incapable.
Kendall could probably leave Katie home alone, he reasons, just until Mom gets back. Katie's independent, and hasn't needed Mom's help since she was five and learned how to play online poker.
That means that it's actually Logan that would need to be watched during those hours Mom won't be home.
Katie wouldn't bother Logan, but then he'd end up doing research or something, and by the time Kendall got back (eleven—his mom got off at two in the morning or something) Logan would still be typing away at his computer, not sleeping, not eating, not moving.
Logan needed to be supervised. He couldn't do it, he couldn't skip his shift, or else he'd get fired, then Mom would make him do more counseling, and counseling was what got him into this job mess in the first place.
Kendall cannot think of a plan to handle the fact that something is going to go wrong if he doesn't get his schedule sorted in the next five seconds. He won't panic, he doesn't panic. But he is confused, and he hates that.
Logan is about to skate out to the ice, but Kendall grabs his arm, still half-stuck in his confused daze, letting him stumble backward, falling onto the bench.
"Kendall—practice started."
Practice. He can't practice right now, not when his brain is running wild, trying to get the next few hours of his life under control. He clears his throat, focusing on the words he's saying to Loagn.
"I know. But you're not going to be able to skate in those like that. Can you even feel your feet?"
Logan bit his lip. "Yes, I can feel my feet. And I just tied up my skates, can you move so I can get on the ice."
"In a minute."
He produced the box of new, black, skate laces.
Logan grimaced. "You did not just pull that box from your—"
Kendall shrugged. The laces were in a box anyway.
"What other odd things do you carry in your pockets?" Logan muttered.
Kendall ignored the comment, untying Logan's skates quickly. He pulled out the ratty laces, and re-laced the skates with the new ones. Logan's feet swung laterally, then, on a few occasions, swung backwards. The metal on metal contact produced a dull clang. Kendall grabbed Logan's foot to stop the blades underneath to impale him.
"It takes longer to do if you maim me."
Logan wasn't paying attention. Kendall knew he was making him more nervous, taking up not even three minutes of their practice time. But, better late than never, better conscious than unconscious from knocking into the ice, tripping over frayed laces.
"It takes longer because you're going slowly. This couldn't've waited, you had to make us later than we already were, when we've already missed an hour of practice."
Technically, it was Logan's fault he missed. He didn't need to wait for him.
"No, this couldn't've waited."
"My laces were fine."
They weren't, but that's not the point.
He's made up his plan. It's a bad plan, it's quite possibly a horrible plan, but he's distracted and needs to get out there now. "You're coming with me to work after this. We'll be there for a while."
"How long?"
"Seven to eleven."
"Four hours."
"Yeah."
Kendall pushed himself up from his kneeling position at the bench with his hands
"You could say thank you," Kendall prompted, meaning about the laces. Maybe Logan didn't understand that, because it took him another minute to respond.
"Thank you."
Logan began to skate away, gliding down the ice.
Kendall tried to ignore his hostility, following after him.
—
The grocery store goes exactly as he expected it would.
Katie doesn't waste time, immediately spotting the fruit baskets. There's paper signs on the fron tog them reading FREE HEALTHY FRUIT FOR THE KIDS. Katie rips these signs off, turning them the other way. Instead, on this blank side of the paper sign, she writes HEALTHY FRUIT $3 EACH.
There's no way people are going to pay for that fruit.
Kendall blinks.
There's already a line.
He shakes his head, tightening his apron, ready to deal with the more difficult part of this situation.
Logan.
As expected, Logan's already maneuvered himself through the dwindling nighttime shopper crowd, his feet firmly planted next to register 14, Kendall's usual register. He remains mostly still, or tries to, but Kendall can tell, even from yards away, that the atmosphere is getting to him.
Logan is tense. He's biting his lip, balling up his fists.
Kendall takes his place by the register. "Logan, you don't have to be right here, you know."
Logan didn't even take the time to nod, he's unfocused. He makes a sound, one of his small, high-pitched, nervous sounds.
Kendall doesn't ask if Logan is okay, because he knows he isn't. Kendall's plan was stupid. He doesn't like when plans fail, but especially when plans fail without an alternative solution.
All Kendall does is take Logan's wrist, leading him out of the store, into the hallway. That's the desired destination. Out.
In the hallway, there's the adjoining childcare center (read: the chaotic dump where frazzled parents but their heathen children—Kendall's heard the kids, they are loud, insane, and completely demonic), which technically closed an hour ago, but he has a key. Logan can sit in there, it's dark, it's quiet, and there's no one there. He'll be fine there. For four hours? He might get bored, but he'll be fine.
This might be the desired destination, but they don't make it. They don't even pass Katie by the fruit baskets.
Aisle 13: Logan makes more sounds of his, but tries not to.
"I don't want to be here for four hours."
"You won't be."
Aisle 12: Sounds, and he's pulling away from Kendall, unsuccessfully.
"I don't want to be here for four hours."
"You won't be, you're good."
Aisle 11: His eyes are closed.
"I don't want to be here for four hours."
Aisle 10: He tears his arm out of Kendall's grasp, wincing as he presses his fingers by his eardrums, blocking out the noise.
Aisle 9: Some crazy sleep deprived father brought his kid with him. This is obviously the type of kid belonging to the loud, insane, demonic category He's wild—-like Carlos, if Carlos was cross-bred with a rabid raccoon and then given steroids. He's literally bouncing from the two shelves that make up the aisle. He falls, knocking into the grocery cart his father is trying to push.
Logan is nearly knocked to the floor as well, the cart is launched in his direction. Kendall helps him back up, placing a hand on his shaking shoulders.
Aisle 8: An announcement comes in over the intercom, all static, barely any real words. Logan stops walking, fully clamping his hands over his ears.
"Kendall—"
Aisle 8: There's an old man picking up oatmeal containers, shaking them close to his ear. Kendall knew the quality of oatmeal was not affected by how it sounded being shaken in a box, but he lets the man do what he wants, pushing Logan into the next aisle.
Aisle 7: This is when everything falls apart.
Kendall is perfectly aware everything is about to fall apart, but he tries to push Logan through this aisle as well. They've only got a few more to go, and then they'll be out.
But everything has decided to fall apart right here.
Logan sinks to the floor, his back pressed up against the left shelf of Aisle 7. This is the cookies, crackers and chips aisle. It was the cereal aisle two weeks ago. Kendall sees a single box of Raisin Bran behind a party-size bag of Lays. Then, his eyes snap to Logan, watching as he falls apart.
He's crying, sobbing, head resting on his knees.
He's still shaking, still rocking back and forth, pulsing his feet.
Kendall can't do anything about it.
He knows he should do something more than stand and watch, refastening his red apron like everything is fine, but he doesn't know.
"Kendall? Logan?"
Katie had abandoned her fruit baskets, standing, watching.
"I got it," he answers. "Everything's fine."
Logan's face is red, streaked with violent tears.
"You should call Mom," she says, and Kendall realizes her voice is shaking. She's scared. She's actually scared of what's happening to Logan. He is too, of course, but there's no reason for him to show it.
"Mom's working. I'm working."
Kendall takes another glance at Logan, kneeling down in front of him, taking his hands, which had been hitting his head. He lets go, only for a moment, to dig in his apron pocket, fishing for the keys to the childcare heathen cage. He tosses them to Katie.
"It's the third key. The—"
Heathen cage.
"Childcare center. Hang out in there for a minute, please?"
Katie's eyes are still wide with fear, with apprehension, but she walks off.
Kendall continues to hold Logan's hands, begging that his boss does not see this.
He is working. He's helping a distressed customer, that's what he'll say,
It he could think,
Which he can't.
He just squeezes Logan's hands tighter.
He hates himself. He caused this. It's his fault that Logan is here like this. Because of his plan.
Not only did this plan fail. It was catastrophic.
Good plans do not turn into catastrophes.
He was supposed to be good at making plans.
Not creating catastrophes.
Hope you enjoyed this mess of a chapter. It's Lent tomorrow, I'm Lenting (fake word), so I won't be posting until Sunday. Until then, I'm going to head over to Sick Logan and Other Oneshots and try to write two chapters in an hour!
also Some Nights by fun.
Is the most Kendall Knight-esque song ever created.
Have a lovely day.