The Human Condition

Disclaimer: I do not own Big Time Rush or any of the characters; these stories are just the perverted delusions of someone who leads a sad, lonely life… sigh…

Author's Note: Hey guys! Wow, a huge thank you and GIGANTIC hug to all of you who read, reviewed and alerted the last chapter, it really made this author smile! As always, I hope you all enjoy this just as much (maybe even more), so please sit back, enjoy the Kogan love and hit review!

The sounds of fraught scrambling filled the air with its desperation, irritably pulling me away from my state of comforting slumber to somewhere in between near deadly sarcasm and full on assassin annoyance. My eyes fluttered opened to their usual exasperation as I let out an inaudible curse for awakening, barely registering the six and two zeroes sitting innocently on my bedside clock. Early would only be a couple hours from now, this was like last call for the zombies to go back into their graves. Now normally, people tend to have mini heart attacks at the thought of a symphony of surreptitious sounds coming from their living room for fear of being murdered, or even worse, robbed; but I had come to familiarize myself with this ritual – it just so happened that it was my misfortune that this always happened on my day off from work. "Logan!" I called furiously, covering my head with the comforter in a futile attempt to fall back into my dreams. "Logan, how many times have I told you not to wake me up so early on my day off?" The incessant shuffling stopped, but I knew better. I could practically hear him think, literally trying to count the number of times that particular phrase had been flung out of my mouth. "Kendall, when you say how many times, what exactly do you mean?" came the innocently inquiring reply. My breath came in sharp blasts at his smartass reply. "Do you want statistics over the past week, or on a year-to-year basis?"

"And there goes my morning" I hissed through gritted teeth, hurling the comforter off my body. The morning air stung bitterly at my shirtless form, but my irritation knew no bounds. I should be better at handling this: it's not his fault for acting the way he does. It wasn't anyone's fault, but sometimes… just sometimes, it felt like God had made a fucking cosmic sitcom out of my life – and I wasn't the one who was laughing.

Within the space of twenty heated seconds, I made my way to the living room to find my roommate staring at me curiously with a cocked head, his eyes searching me intensely for some answer I couldn't give. "You're not wearing a shirt" he said quietly, contracting his forehead into a light frown. "You're supposed to be wearing a shirt."

"Logan, what is this obsession with you wanting me to wear shirts in the morning?" I sighed wearily, shifting my eyes towards the TV. The god of flatscreen entertainment flickered a dull blue on the AV channel, indicating that the DVD player had no disc inside. I returned my focus to the guilty party standing before me. "What were you watching?"

"You're supposed to have a shirt on" he mumbled absentmindedly, now fiddling with the folds in his pajama pants. I forced myself to suppress a laugh at the sight of a thick cotton Batman being comically folded around his leg. I did have to wonder why on Earth a man two years younger than me would choose to still wear superhero sleeping gear, but I guess it was a case of each to his own. "You can't be shirtless yet."

"Tell me what you were watching."

"Did you know that ninety-eight percent of all species that have ever existed on our planet are now extinct?"

"Logan-"

"Of course, two thirds of that percentage was wiped out with the dinosaurs, and the rest of those faded out because of evolution and human interference." I shook my head wearily, wishing that I could simply crawl back into my bed and forget this disruption ever happened. Logan always resorted to some mindless fact when he knew he was in trouble, and of late, I had heard everything from Einstein's sex life to the mythology of the Vikings. "Tell me what you were watching, or we don't go to the park tomorrow." I watched in pleasure as he arched his eyebrow in surprise. "You promised Kendall!" I had him right where I wanted him. "What was on the DVD player?"

His hand slowly lifted, extending his index finger gradually to point to the gleaming silver disc on the coffee table in between us. My heart immediately began to race, like it always did whenever I laid eyes on that piece of memorabilia. In my entire life, that disc documented the one day I would forever treasure. My life had mainly been a series of waiting periods, but that day… that day was nothing short of condensed ecstasy. "My wedding DVD?" My voice came out as soft choke, settling painfully in my throat rather than expelling itself out into the air. I hated how this one, fucking stupid piece of technology could induce untold thresholds of pain over me. "What were you watching that for?"

"Research" he murmured, gripping his forearm tightly. He shuffled anxiously on his feet as he averted his gaze, a pink tinge coloring his face. "Are you mad at me? Did I do something bad?"

"No."

"Will you send me away?" I felt my mouth thin into a solid line. He could really amp the sympathy card without even knowing it. "Don't be silly; of course not." I let out a slow breath, rubbing a hand through my disheveled locks. "Look, go brush your teeth OK? Katie's coming over for breakfast." He made his way over to me in nervous strides, bobbing his head in a series of nods. He stopped only to take in my stone expression, gazing at me deeply into my eyes with that same searching look. "I'm sorry Kendall" he whispered before taking off into the passage behind me. My ears heard his footsteps patter away into the bathroom, but I kept my head focused straight ahead out into the balcony in equal parts of shame and barely restrained bewilderment. This life – if anyone could call it a life – was starting to weaken me. I had had it all, and in one fell swoop, it was snatched right out of my reach. "You sure don't play fair" I murmured unconsciously, though I had completely given up on the hope that someone out there would hear my words.

I trudged over the TV, swiping at the buttons to turn it and the DVD player off, lest my beloved roommate got an urge to perform a little more 'research'. My eyes immediately landed on the small photo frame hidden behind the vast expanse of the screen. My chest twisted up into painful knots of air, sending sparks of heartache shooting through my body as I studied the captured moment with the bitter sting of tears just waiting to be released. The gleeful emerald stare of my immobile counterpart stared back up at me, laughing as the man next to him planted a kiss on his cheek. It really was like looking at completely different person, someone who had yet to know the cruel twists of fate life was capable of dishing out. Actually, fuck that – it was like looking into a different world altogether. This is why I kept this stupid picture hidden behind the TV, the one place I'd never bother myself to look: because it hurt too much to wake up every morning and go to sleep every night to the reason of why my life had escalated into divine bliss and then pummeled itself into the depths of hell. My breathing grew shallow as I drank in the other man. His eyes were screwed shut, but I still remembered their golden warmth, so welcoming like the purest sunbeam. His lips were curled into a smile as they gently collided into my cheek. "You always were the most happy-go-lucky idiot I ever met" I whispered hoarsely, feeling a tear burn itself down my cheek with morose splendor. "I miss you James."

-xoxoxoxoxo-

"It's been far too long since I've had someone cook for me" yawned Katie, stretching her arms into the air like a deformed windmill. I watched her face return my quizzical glare, lazily slackening into an impassive slate. "You did promise Mom that you would take care of me when I moved to L.A."

"Yeah, and YOU promised Mom that you'd never need me and you just wanted everyone to get off your back so that you could live your life freely" I replied sardonically, pouring the conflagrating stream of rich, black coffee into our mugs. "Looks like we both screwed up, huh?"

"Hey, there is nothing wrong with needing a little help to get by now and then."

"Katie, you're here every week. You're way past the 'now and then' stage." My sister rolled her head back against the chair indifferently as I walked over to the kitchen to bring out the pan of scrambled eggs simmering patiently on the stove. If I really stopped to think about it, my sister and I were like ying and yang versions of the same person, the same obstinate personalities redone in varying shades of complexity. Our parents had always said that she tended to be the more lighthearted one; enthusiastic, determined and enough intelligence to ring circles around the common day idiot. I was the more skeptical elder son; intense and moody, but equally stubborn in whatever I wanted. It was hard growing up with another strong personality in the house: our home was a constant warzone with grenades of infuriated screams and insults being hurled around every passing moment. It would only take the slightest of breaths to set each other off, and we would automatically morph into assassins and aim for the other's throat. I remember my mother and father simply blocking us out and pretending that the finely honed chaos of their offspring didn't exist, but after I moved out from Minnesota to California, they didn't need to anymore. I'd get voicemails and text messages about how withdrawn my sister had become until I finally gave in like the big sap that I am and suggested she make the trek to the big city. Our liaisons had become slightly more civilized since then, though she never did fail to poke fun at something I loved. James had always said that the two of us would gladly stab the other through the ribs, but the thought of losing each other was more than we could handle. I'd always dismissed that as him being him, but there really was this beautifully synergetic truth to it all: Katie and I had gone from hatred to hatred with this heavy neediness attached to it. To put it simply, we were the most pathetic kind of parasites.

"So Dr. Knight, pray tell how goes work?" asked Katie, inattentively twirling a silken strand of auburn hair around her finger, her eyes fixed intently at the ceiling. I furrowed my forehead into a frown, carefully setting down the pan of sunshine-colored mass, liberally dotted with freckles of black pepper. "The usual" I heard myself say, swiveling my line of sight towards the huddled figure in my living room. I watched on bewilderedly as Logan stared unblinkingly at my laptop screen, isolating himself with adamant perfection from the company at the dining room table. "People get sick, I fix them. Nothing more to it."

"Don't flatter yourself, I didn't say there was" said my sister flatly, making sure the edge of mocking sarcasm wasn't wasted upon my ears. I returned my attention to her just in time to catch her steal a glance at Logan. "Speaking of which, is our Sheldon Cooper doing any better?"

"Katie, he's autistic, not suffering with the common cold. Would you stop being so insensitive?"

"That wasn't what I meant asshole!" she whispered angrily, flicking the stray lock of hair back into place to give me the full extent of her irritation. "I meant, how's he doing after the accident?" My heart began its familiar dance, beating out the song of an angst ridden lover spurned by the wheels of life itself. As a doctor, I fully understood the need for the full disclosure of pain, but ironically I could never bring myself to open up about my own wounds. The risk of falling apart and never picking up the pieces was too great. Besides I had someone else I had to be strong for now – indulging my injuries was something I could never afford to do. "He's fine" I said slowly, dishing out a healthy portion of eggs onto Katie's plate. I averted my gaze back to the pan, avoiding her wondering gaze. "And what about you?" she asked quietly, reaching over for her fork. My hands made quick work of filling Logan's plate, before claiming the final portion for myself. "I have my days" I said softly, hastily taking the seat next to her. "Logan, breakfast."

My roommate shuffled awkwardly into a presence exactly a minute later with my laptop tucked neatly within his grasp, nodding politely at Katie before turning to face me. "Can I skip breakfast?"

"Why?"

"I need more use of your laptop."

"Let me guess. Research?" Nodding fervently, he cocked his head to the side, giving me that same hunting look as this morning. What the hell was he looking for from me? I felt a cold shiver pass through my body, feeling his limpid cocoa eyes slice right down to my core, as if there was some sort of sign on me only he could see. Logan had always seen the world as an entire set of experiments, a series of interlocking facts just waiting to be unraveled. To him, I was nothing more than part of that hollow matrix, but he was part of the axis around which my world revolved. I could never rely on any emotion on his part, but there was this peculiar comfort in knowing that he was there, solid and unswerving, the little brother I had always wanted to replace Katie with. "Logan, please?" I said quietly, nearly hypnotizing myself against the mahogany irises. "Come on, you know I can't sit with Katie all alone."

"Yeah, this fork of mine might accidentally land in his neck all on its own without any help from me" replied Katie happily, smiling up at my roommate. Logan shook his head once more, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on me. "Only thirty percent of sibling rivalry actually results in bodily harm" he said monotonously. "The odds are in your favor." I let out a sigh, pushing his plate away from mine. "If I let you go, will you eat later?"

"Yes."

"Promise me or no park trip tomorrow." His eyes lit up excitedly, but his face registered no such expression. "I promise." With a final nod, he scurried off into the passage and away to his room, leaving my head spinning in with burning entropy. There was so much I wanted to ask him… and so much I knew he wasn't willing to tell.

"What kind of research is he doing?" asked Katie, gracefully slipping a forkful of egg into her mouth. My head snapped away from the passage and turned to face her. "I wish I knew."

"No hints?"

"He doesn't like it when I'm shirtless in the morning. Plus I caught him watching the wedding DVD" I said quietly, trailing my fork across the bright yellow expanse on my plate. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Did you ever think that maybe he misses James as much as you do?"

"Why does everyone insist on circling around that?" I asked wrathfully, dropping my fork against my plate with a deafening clatter. "Do you think that my entire life-"

"I think your entire life stopped and you're not willing to start it again" said Katie calmly, gently laying down her fork beside her plate. She looked up stubbornly, neutralizing my brief anger into utter confusion. "You're waiting for someone who isn't coming back."

"I know that" I said softly, waiting for the heavy clouds of breath to lift themselves from my chest. "Talking about it didn't help when I waited for hours that night at the hospital. It didn't help on the day of his funeral, and it won't be any good now."

"You need to Kendall" said my sister, reaching across to take my hand into her own. I looked down firmly at my plate, afraid of breaking down into the infinite melancholy gnawing away at my heart. "Why?" I asked thickly. "So that I can break down?"

"Sometimes you need to break down. You can't explain it, you just need to." Katie shuffled her chair closer to mine, squeezing my hand sympathetically as she burned her gaze into the side of my head. "You know, a long time ago, I knew a doctor who took in a patient because he had no one else. A lot of people thought he was going off the deep end, me included. But he always used to say that he couldn't move on knowing that someone so special was being left to fend the cruel world alone. For the past six months, I've been wondering what happened to that doctor."

"He got lost" I whispered, fighting of the acidic mist stinging my eyes. "He got broken… and now there's no one to fix him. Not even himself."

-xoxoxoxoxo-

It should have all been so perfect: my head was on the pillow, my body was at the right angle and I'd even managed to down three glasses of warm milk before going to bed; and yet my body resiliently refused to obey my wish of simply escaping into the black recesses of a dreamless sleep. I found myself staring outside to a city that knew nothing of the breathlessness that kept fracturing me into malicious little shards of what I once was… what I should be like now. I felt a leaden exhalation heave my chest inward as I rolled my head to the side to escape the ceiling's uniformity. There was so much that I wanted to say, so much that I needed to put into words and let my inhibitions melt away; but I was fast realizing that it was a hell of a lot more difficult than Katie made it sound. Whatever I expected to gain out of our breakfast meeting, it certainly wasn't the piercing wisdom of her words today. Past my defensive arrogance, I had to grudgingly admit defeat in her hands. I really did put my life on pause to wait for someone that wasn't coming back under the pretense that I was moving on with my life. I had immersed myself so deeply in the small, in between moments of my life that the big ones kept utterly devastating me. They were becoming harder and harder to fight off, and the more I ignored it, the more complicated my world became. Logan's self-named 'research' would just be the tip of a very precarious iceberg – soon every single moment would herald some callback to James, and it didn't take my little Sheldon Cooper to figure out that it was only a matter of time until I was barely able to function emotionally. The untainted slivers of moonlight grew hazy under my watch, hidden behind the thin film of tears I had become so fucking annoyed with. "If you were here, you'd make this all go away" I murmured, gripping at the comforter that lay on my body. "But you're not, so I'm stuck in this hell." I shook my head wistfully, capturing my bottom lip in between my teeth. Hell was far too good a word for this. Was I truly beyond repair? Could no one save me from the swirling highs of depression inside of me, or had losing my one true love rendered me as something below human? "What do I do James?" I choked hoarsely, feeling my chest burn in all of its glorious melancholy. "Where do I go from here?"

"Kendall?" My body bolted upright at the soft call of my name to see Logan's slight figure loom uncertainly in the doorway. As if by instinct, my hand lifted itself to wipe away my barely fallen tears, erasing all proof that they ever existed. He didn't need to see me like this. I was supposed to be the strong one here, sworn to protect him from all I could. "What's the matter Logan?"

"I'm done with my research."

"That's great buddy" I said, my eyes barely making him out in the thick velvet of the darkness. "But shouldn't you be asleep? You can tell me all about it in the morning." The indistinct steps of his feet against the carpet pricked my ears into sudden alertness until I felt the side of the mattress yield to my side as he clambered up next to me. The faint light of the room fell across his milky skin like dewdrops on silk. My eyes roamed across his form bemusedly, but my lips couldn't help but curl into a smirk. "Who's shirtless now?"

"The website said the best time was exactly at midnight. We have approximately thirty seconds until then" he said, staring straight at me with those limpid eyes. I couldn't take it anymore. "What website?" I asked, my voice cutting a fine balance between tender and firm. "What have you been getting up to?"

"For the sake of introduction, my research has been based on the purpose of trying to make you feel better."

"Logan, I'm fine-"

"Fifteen seconds left" he whispered, gripping my wrist urgently. "I think you have time for one more question." I scoffed in awe, wracking my head through the waves of sadness it held onto for dear life for some possible reason to explain my roommate's behavior. From what I could make out, his expression gave away no clues, set in its deadly seriousness. "Logan, what are you doing?" I asked quietly as I halfheartedly tried to free my hand from his grip. I felt him lean in closer until his forehead gently rubbed across mine, his breath intermingling with my own in hedonistic clouds of warmth. His scent drew up thick notes of lavender, probably from the soap in his bathroom. "It's midnight" he whispered before capturing my lips with his own. Like liquid satin, they slipped across my mouth, halting the defense of my stolen words and clouding up my psyche with every form of confusion possible. His tongue ran illicitly against my wall of lips, slyly making its way into my mouth with the most clinical purposes of lust in mind. His hold on my wrist grew tighter, his fingers cutting right into my skin. Somewhere, a throaty moan escaped into our lock of lips, enticed by the sweet taste of his tongue running across the moist insides of my mouth. Sensing my need for air, he pulled back, studying with curiosity hinted with the tiniest flare of concern. The intensity in his eyes mellowed to a rough semblance of sympathy, their warm chestnut sparkling within the white cuts of moonbeams. "Are you OK?"

"What the-"

"The website did say that some men don't respond to kissing" he murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe this would be better."

Either he showed a surprising burst of agility or my head was reduced to mere butterflies of incoherence, but in either case Logan lifted his body up and straddled himself across my hips. "Logan, stop this please" I said imploringly, feeling my head finally exhaust itself of reason. Ignoring my plea, my roommate rearranged himself until his body was parallel to mine, inciting the skin across my collar bone with a quick flick of his tongue. My body arched unwillingly, accidentally grinding our crotches together through the flimsy layers of my boxers and his pajama bottoms. Logan let out a guttural groan from his throat as he made his way down south, alighting my skin with affectionate licks and kisses. My head lolled helplessly to the side as my eyes screwed themselves shut, trying desperately to form some king of resistance to this passionate onslaught. This was too refined to be completely random, I could tell. My body was betraying me and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it. A forceful tug at my boxers partially skewed them out of place against my thighs. I was scared to look down, afraid of what I might see if dared open my eyes. Logan wrapped his hand around my thickening erection, his touch sending electricity sparking across my body, forcing me to gasp in pathetic whimpers. His fingers were like flower petals against my rampantly growing lust; touching me to test me, break me so that I really was the fucked mess I thought I was. His thumb rubbed across the head, robbing me of the air stowed away in my lungs. "Logan, don't" I muttered weakly, struggling to fight him off. A second later, I felt the warmth of his mouth engulf the head as his tongue took tentative licks of my erection, shooting my eyes back open to the ceiling. With a primal roar, I pulled his head up towards my own, my eyes blazing with in infernos of sea green. This couldn't happen; I couldn't let someone else touch me. I wouldn't. "Get back to bed" I snarled, this time giving him my own fiery glare. "And don't you ever fucking try anything like this again!" His eyes grew wide, perfect circles of fear. "Kendall-"

"NOW!" My iron grip released the back of his head, causing him to stumble off the mattress. As he scrambled away, I turned my head to the side, feeling the tendrils of shame coat my sadness. This would never end, I knew that now. I was a prisoner of both fate and myself, and there was no way out. "Fuck."

-xoxoxoxoxoxo-

"Go ahead Logan, what do you want to say to Kendall on his wedding day?" The scathes of sunlight had barely broken over the horizon, but I was too wound up to even notice what time of day it was. Not a single pulse of adrenaline ran through my blood, but the fear of falling asleep kept me sharply focused on the screen ahead of me. I had placed the DVD on replay ever since Logan had returned to his room, and eight times later I was just as confused as when I started. My heartache had gone beyond the realm of human capability, placing my body into a malicious limbo where not a single feeling struck full through my head. I was actually thankful for it – I wouldn't have been able to watch all of this if I was capable of human emotion at this point, though I highly doubted I could get much worse. I was Humpty fucking Dumpty at this point, minus all the king's horses and men to piece me back together. I blinked several times at the TV screen, watching as James smilingly wrapped his arm around a camera shy Logan as if to assure him. "You guys know how you always talk about love?"

"Yeah."

"Well, scientifically speaking, its just biochemical reactions occurring within in between the brain's neurons and cortexes. But I hope it lasts forever for you guys."

"Aw, how sweet! We biochemical reaction you too pal!" exclaimed James animatedly, pulling my roommate into a bear hug that nearly turned the shorter man blue in the face. A brief smirk came to my lips before evaporating, forcing me to fast forward to the next scene. Logan was always highly aggressive when it came to his personal space, only allowing me to invade it, and that too had to be for a maximum of ten minutes at the most. He must have been feeling pretty welcoming that day to let my husband hug him like that. Fuck, he must have been feeling pretty special to pull every sexually entrapping trick out of the book last night. I kept my focus ahead on the screen, watching our reception play out before my eyes. James and I were cutting the cake that Mom had harassed the local bakery for, grins plastered to our faces like the carefree idiots we were. He leaned over to the side to whisper something in my ear. I couldn't even remember what that was now. It could have been anything from 'I love you' to 'this cake looks dodgy'. I kept rewinding to that exact moment in attempt to read his lips, but it was futile. What he said to me was already lost, just like he was. My hand grabbed the remote on the table and switched the TV off as I screamed at myself in my mind using every curse I knew for forgetting those insignificant words whispered so lovingly to me. I was already forgetting the small bits of him that made him mine, and in the process, starting to lose myself.

It was a full three minutes before I finally blinked once more at the black screen ahead of me, hoping that it would come to life and give me the solutions to all my problems. How was it that I could repair the most battered of survivors at the hospital, and yet be at such a loss when it came to my own life? I had watched this DVD over and over again, and I couldn't bring myself to see what Logan had. "My research has been based on the purpose of trying to make you feel better." Had I been that obvious? Of course, I had become more subdued after the funeral, but I never gave a thought that he could pick up on that… imagine, all of that churning around in his head and he didn't say a word. Then again, I couldn't judge. The world had become my enemy, and I sure as hell wasn't willing to let even the people I trusted the most become burdened with my own frustrations. I dropped my eyes morosely to my feet as I pulled them up to the couch. I could still feel him on top of me, his hands pinning my own to the bed to force me to feel at least lust if not anything else. No one had touched me since James, and I wasn't sure anyone could. How could I just expect myself to forget that at one stage I actually had a soul mate? Not just like in the fairytale crap, but someone who fitted into my life so perfectly that they took away everything when they left? "Because there is no expectation" I thought darkly, feeling the fatigue of the past six months traverse its way across my being. "Just like there was no expectation of losing him in the first place." I smiled sadly to myself. "Or take in someone who lost everything because they couldn't fight against the world."

"Kendall?" My head slowly turned to the side to see Logan stand next to the couch, his eyes fixated on anything but my own. His backpack was strapped symmetrically across both his shoulders, weighed down by the sheer volume of contents it held. "What's in the bag?" I asked quietly, trying to make eye contact with him. He shuffled his feet anxiously. "Necessary clothes, food items and your credit card."

"You know its theft if you take it without asking, right?"

"But I just told you." I snorted derisively to ease his tensions, but to no avail. "Where are you going?"

"I have a cousin in Seattle I can stay with."

"Yeah, I bet they'll just love you there." He nodded vaguely, indicating my go-to sarcasm was wasted. No doubt last night was a turning point for him too. I'd always regarded him as too flat to even think about having sex, not because he couldn't, but because I thought there were so many other things that went on in that supercomputer of a brain. We were both tied to this, bound together by our weak semblance of emotions. The time to stop pretending had come, no matter how much it hurt to give into the truth. "Before you go, can you sit next to me so that we can talk?" He lifted his head up gradually, staring at me like a wary rabbit. I pressed further, reaching out my hand to his and holding like glass. "Please." Another nod trembled his head before he let go, wandering across the couch to the other side of me, his backpack still attached to his shoulders with absurd perfection. He placed his line of sight straight ahead at the blank television set, stealing the occasional glance at my face. "I'm not upset at you Logan" I murmured, searching out his fingers once more. His body tensed as soon as I made contact so I limited myself to the naked touch of our fingertips. I angled my body to face him, meeting his eyes at last. The undressed brown was still as entrancing as ever. "You're not?"

"I'm just confused. Last night… why did you do that?"

"You miss James don't you?" I nodded silently as a painful lump made its presence known in my throat. He swiveled his head uncomfortably. "I thought that if I did that… that maybe you wouldn't feel so bad. I see I failed."

"Logan, I appreciate the sentiment" I mumbled thickly, growing bolder and slipping my fingers in between his. "But that… that's not our kind of relationship. It can't be."

"You miss him?" I nodded my head with a melancholic grin. "More than anything."

"I miss him too. He was a good man." Tilting his head like a puppy, my roommate leaned forward and wrapped his free arm around my shoulder, pulling me into a loose embrace. My body froze into a rigid stick from the shock, but slowly shuddered against his steady form. To think, twenty four hours ago, my biggest problem was waking up early. Katie was right, I had to break down to move on – to hit rock bottom and realize that there was life after all beyond the pain. As I sat there encapsulated by his body, the tears I had waited so long to release finally came. No chokes, no cries; just the soothing cleansing of accepting this hurt and starting to live for myself instead of someone long gone. It wasn't complete or even perfect for that matter, but it was something: hope for the future. "Kendall?" said Logan quietly, slotting his head against my shoulder. I buried myself into the nook of his neck. "Yeah?"

"I love you." I laughed shakily against the soft skin, bringing my hand across the nape of his neck. "I biochemical reaction you too."

-xoxoxoxoxo-

"Do you like your ice-cream?" The thick plates of sunbeam fell angelically across the rolling emerald fields of the park, heating up the air to freeing, wild breeze. I turned in time to see my roommate take a lick of his chocolate and vanilla swirl cone, nodding enthusiastically to show his agreement. I chuckled softly, returning my head to the scene before me: two kids lost utterly in clouds of laughter as they chased each other around the trees; the thick foliages witness to their blissful hearts. I sent out a mental prayer of thanks to my sister, amusing myself at how these two would turn into younger versions of me and my sister given enough time to steep their personalities.

"Do you think that maybe you could find another James?" asked Logan, gently prodding at my shoulder with his finger. I shook my head with another laugh to myself. "I don't think there'll ever be another James out there."

"Statistics show that there are at least four people for every combination of characteristics, so actually there is."

"OK, I'll rephrase that: I'm not going to look for another James. The one I had was more than enough."

"So you're not going out there to date? Or bring anonymous men home for sex? I believe the website called it a one night stand."

"Exactly what website were you looking at?" I asked, a mock frown appearing on my expression. My face immediately lightened at his look of shock, my smile reassuring him of my joke. "I don't think that I'm ready yet."

"So what are you going to do in the meantime?"

"Spend time with you like I've always done. I asked the hospital for a couple of weeks off." Logan ceased his oral assault on his ice-cream long enough to shoot me a questioning gaze. "Could you be more specific please?"

"OK, three. I took three weeks off and I thought that we could go on vacation."

"Where to?" I threw him an impish smirk and moved closer to him, lowering my head to his ear. "Cancun."

"We'll need sunblock." I withdrew my head from his vicinity and turned my attention back to the vast green expanse of my roommate's kingdom. "Yes we will."

"Why did you do that?" My hand sought out his, rubbing our palms together as our fingers snaked themselves together affectionately. "Because I realized that all the sadness in the world isn't going to bring him back. And you, for all your 'research'… you really helped me see that." I turned to face the rock that had kept me steady, my rescuer from the blackened fingers of sorrow without even realizing it. "I can't love you like I loved James. But that doesn't mean I don't love you."

"Biochemical reactions that last forever" he whispered, returning the grip on my hand. Where others saw difference in him, I saw unparalleled innocence and beauty, enough to light up the darkest of hours… and suddenly, my world was that much brighter.

So guys, what did you think? I hope you liked it! Till next time, stay safe, keep calm and Kogan on!