Hey y'all. New chapter! This chapter is dedicated to RunWild47 (Guest) for the request. Um, sorry for Logan's opinion on Perks. I love that book and movie with all my heart, but I just have this feeling that Logan wouldn't be able to get into it. That will be relevant when you start reading.

Speaking of…

Happy reading! Enjoy!

He can hear them before he sees them. He sees them before the cameras, and the cameras, dormant, before the quick white flashes.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

It's taken less than three seconds three seconds for him to become disoriented in the darkness, the swath of black sky being offset by the bright lights of the cameras. They burn.

"Excuse me," he says, his arm brushing past that of another paparazzi. The hairs on his arms stood up, a chill racing down his spine. He shuts his eyes for a moment.

Just push through them, it shouldn't be that hard.

It's not hard, but it takes too much time, too much energy. There's so many of them, and they're asking all the same questions as each other. Or just shouting his name. And the cameras click and flash, mercilessly.

He elbows another dozen out of the way, eyes closed.

The relief floods through him when his hand wraps around the door handle. He pulls at it.

The relief evaporates as his pulls on the door again. It's locked.

Gustavo had the nerve to call a rehearsal at ten at night, and yet, the door is locked. He tugs on the handle again. Then he bangs on the door, his palm, flat, smacking the door with all his strength. He has to stop after only a few hits, his hand stinging with pain. His last resort is yelling, but he really doesn't want to, the paparazzi are right behind him.

Right behind him.

To the left of him.

To the right of him.

Surrounding him.

The door is still locked. He's run out of options, and he still doesn't want to, but he does.

"Gustavo! Kelly! The door's locked!"

No answer. Gustavo's probably in his office. Kelly might be with him. They're either yelling at each other, or Kelly is trying to get his blood pressure bad to a reasonable level. Whatever it is, nobody can hear him.

"Kendall! James!"

They did get here before he did, but only by a few minutes. Logan had been having a bad week, unable to remember where he put half his things. This morning had been fine, but then, when they all got home from school, he had set up to do his homework. But then, someone (Carlos) had come up with the brilliant suggestion of going to the pool. They went.

He had wanted to protest, because the pool was too loud, too crowded for him right now. And he really needed to study for his history test. And, not to mention the massive English paper. He was absolutely horrible at writing papers, especially character analysis papers, which is what they had been tasked with.

They had been assigned a genre. Now, he would've picked nonfiction, but that wasn't an option. That was already frustrating, because he could most definitely write a paper about a nonfiction science encyclopedia. But instead he had gotten stuck with the General YA genre, most of which he had never read.

He had been assigned The Perks of Being A Wallflower when he became so indecisive that Kendall told him the first book that he grabbed blindly off the shelf would be the subject of his paper.

Except, he didn't understand the structure of the book, he didn't like first-person narrative, and he just didn't want to read it. He had neglected picking a new book. He was stuck with it. The problem was, the papers were due in a few hours. Eight in the morning tomorrow, and he hadn't even finished the book.

That assignment had already been stressing him out. Putting it off longer by hanging at the pool stressed him out more.

Calling a night rehearsal that started at ten stressed him out to the most infinite level of stress.

The paparazzi continued to take pictures.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

He was throwing himself at the door now. Soon, he was on the ground. And he lost it.

—

"Logan's late," Carlos points out, nodding at the clock on the wall. It was quarter-past. "He was behind us, right?"

"Yeah," Kendall agreed. "I'll call him."

Gustavo's already blown up at them once, for being apparently unproductive in the morning rehearsal they had a few hours ago. Kendall could see him bobbing his head, nearly convulsing, sitting down at his desk. The door to his office was open. He could hear Kelly, too, slipping on a pair of noise canceling headphones.

What? How was it fair that she got a pair of headphones (multipurpose–theirs were shut up in the sound booth, to only be used for sound booth business) and all they got to do was cover their ears?

It wasn't.

Kendall could feel himself deafening as Gustavo bellowed. Mostly just nonsense and yelling. Just, extremely loud nonsense and yelling. He had barely recovered from the first explosion a few minutes ago. This one last longer, a record five minutes.

Then, miraculously, he stopped.

"Dogs. Booth."

James and Carlos followed after Kendall, who was just about to slip on his non-multipurpose headphones. He held them over his ears, about to let go so they would clamp around his ears, isolating out sound completely. But he stopped.

"Do you hear that?"

He settled his pair of headphones back on the mic stand.

"Hear what?" James asked, headphones partway on.

Someone was crying.

"Uh, nevermind. I'm just going to check it out."

Gustavo shoots him the glare to end all glares, and Kendall's sure he's two steps away from getting fired, or at least, a threat to be fired. He takes the two steps.

Out of the studio.

Out of the building, through the front door.

Nobody's there, but he can still hear someone crying. He walks around the back.

He's closer to the sound now, but it's dark and he can't see anything.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

Shit. The paparazzi are here.

He can hear them before he sees them, their loud, excited paparazzi chatter bubbling up, getting louder and louder.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

Is it Logan?

It's Logan, backed up against the door. He's surrounded.

That's what it is, he's the one who's been crying.

Why did he try to go through the back door?

Kendall shakes his head, already pushing through the masses. The paparazzi are yelling for his attention now, too. They're just yelling, at him, at Logan, at both of them.

He pushes the ones on the sides of Logan out of the way the hardest. He places one arm around Logan to support him into a standing position, and extends his other arm forward, forcefully clearing a path to the front entrance.

He barely slips through the door with Logan pressed against his side like he is, but he does it.

Kendall holds Logan by the shoulders, easing him down into a chair. Logan's hands are twitching, his whole body consumed with tremors. Kendall pulls up another chair for himself, sitting across from Logan, grabbing his hands.

Logan can barely breathe, he's crying too much, hiccuping, gasping for breath.

"Hey, buddy," Kendall says, squeezing his hands lightly. He's not going to do anything more than that. He just needed to talk him out of it.

Logan tries to pull away, but Kendall keeps holding his hands. If he lets go, Logan's going to grab his head, or crack his knuckles, or something to cause him pain. Why he would do that, Kendall doesn't know. So he doesn't let him.

Logan pulls away again, tries to, anyway.

"You're good," Kendall assures him. "Do you remember what you're supposed to do next?"

Logan has a process. The easiest way to get him to go through with this process is to break it down in steps, in rules. The first rule is breathe.

Logan can't. He can't function, he can't follow through with his process.

No, instead, he's going through with the other process. The panic one.

He's curling into himself on the chair, wrapping his arms around his legs, pulsing his feet back and forth.

He's still crying, and Kendall can hear people moving in the studio.

Logan half-falls off the chair, he's unresponsive. He's still doing things, he's still conscious. But he just keeps sobbing, his whole body shaking.

He's muttering through his tears, Kendall doesn't know what it is, exactly, but he can't sit and just watch.

The first idea comes to him: the light switch.

The lights in the main part of the hallway switch off.

It might have worked. Logan's breathing becomes more regular, he's not pulsing his feet anymore, just flexing them. Kendall joins him on the floor. It's difficult enough to see, but he's not about to set back Logan's progress by turning the lights on.

"Hey," he tries again. It's too dark. He can't see anything at all, he can only hear Logan.

Logan stopped crying.

Kendall finds what he guesses is Logan's shoulder, safely placing his hand there. "Logan—"

He's back to normal, probably, just agitated and uncomfortable. He shrugs Kendall off, and is about to stand. Kendall clamps his hand back down on his shoulder, lowering Logan to the floor again. "I'm fine, Kendall."

He brushes him off again. Kendall places his hand on his shoulder again.

"Was it the paparazzi that got you all freaked out?"

"No."

Logan's a terrible liar. But Kendall's good at getting him to talk.

"The paparazzi are terrible. Always in your face with the bright lights, clicking cameras, and yelling your name, right?"

It's always so easy.

"Yeah."

Logan doesn't talk after that, and he won't after, either.

"Lights on?" Kendall asks. He really wanted the lights on.

"Okay."

The one word answers were expected, but Kendall still hated them. Something was still wrong.

"Logan, if you don't want me to turn the lights on, we can keep them off."

All the genius does in response is garble out some agitated sound. Kendall decides to keep the lights off.

"Turn them on," Logan mutters, obviously irritated by something.

Kendall does, only at his request. He's glad to see again, just not what he sees.

Logan has his face twisted in this sour expression he probably doesn't even realize he's making. His eyes are closed, he's lying down on the floor.

"Logan—"

He snaps. He just yells.

It's short, it's quick. But Logan doesn't yell.

Kendall sits back down beside his friend, who hasn't moved from off the floor.

"You just yelled at me," Kendall says. "Any reason why?"

Logan opens his eyes, only to turn his head away. "Stop staring at me, Kendall."

"Stop being mad at me."

Then his eyes widen, he sits up, mouth open. "I'm—not!"

But there was still something, Kendall could feel it. He stands up, lingering by the light switch.

"Lights off."

He's met with only minor protest noises, which aren't even genuine.

Kendall can't see anything, so he practically trips over Logan, who's lying on the floor.

"Kendall, you just kicked me in the ribs. Stop."

Logan yawns, kicking his feet at Kendall's ankle.

"Ow."

"That's what you get for kicking me."

"I didn't mean to kick you!"

Logan doesn't respond.

He's asleep.

It's ten-thirty.

Kendall shrugs, repositioning himself on the floor.

Serves Gustavo right for holding a night rehearsal.

So they slept.

This was a bad ending, sorry. Hope y'all enjoyed anyway. Have a lovely day!