Summary: He might actually die today.

I.

Dark Ages

October 2009

At first, he isn't sure how not to hate it.

He can't dance. He can't sing. Logan's fairly certain the large man is going to decapitate him and adorn the mantelpiece in his ridiculous condo with his head while the likes of P Diddy and assorted members of Boy Quake sip their brandies and study him like art. He of tracksuit and gold chain seems to grow wider and stronger on a steady diet of tears and humiliation, and the furious quivering of his terrible jowls play on a loop in Logan's brain at bedtime. Thanks to his eidetic memory, the horror of this image makes sleep impossible, ensuring all manner of flaily, dance floor tragedy that neatly segue ways into cartoonish-if-it-weren't-so-terrifying anger, airborne saliva, and semi intelligible, slightly racist rhetorical questions ("How can you fail at White Boy Dancing when you're white?").

Cue close up of aforementioned furious, terrible, quivering, jowls.

This cycle repeats itself until the day the hue of Gustavo's cheek turns a pugnacious shade of terror alert purple and Logan catches a glimpse of the fiery hell awaiting members of failed boybands. (He'd always imagined it would resemble Dante's Hell, but with every member of the Mickey Mouse Club not named Britany, Christina, or Justin.)

Whilst expertly butchering some kind of half spin move, Logan almost takes himself out on the bar at the back of the studio, leaving Gustavo plenty of room to advance upon him like an Uruk-hai chieftain who's just spotted a delicious, jewelry-carrying half-ling. True to form, Logan scrambles up against the mirror and tries to make himself smaller, mentally attempting to distance himself from his appendages in the event that one of them is snapped off in the next four to five seconds. The remainder of Gustavo's face is a volcanic red, trembling with un-manifest bellowing and self-esteem crushing mini-tangents as he lumbers forward, sucking in great gasps of air Logan likes to think he can actually feel whipping across his face.

He's certain the amount of rage is directionally proportional to the number of times he manages to dishonor this stupid little half-spin move (and rhythm as a whole) that's easy for everyone not named Logan, and that this correlates to the frequency with which any part of his body comes into contact with the satanic bar at the back of the room.

All of which means he might actually die today.

Hence the vastly uncool "meeps" of terror that flare up just before he's able to slap both hands over his mouth. At the outstretched index finger, adorned with bling, quaking with rage, Logan's brain starts simultaneously overproducing heartfelt apologies ending in "your grace", and really sincere-sounding reassurances that women find Gustavo's specific type of male pattern baldness wildly attractive. Before he can choose a method of survival, Gustavo's barreling down on him screaming what was until very recently English and is now intense, enraged gibberish, and Logan's brain-in the midst of debating whether or not kissing the edge of one of the two gigantic Converse sneaker in front of him while begging for his life would be too much-immediately reverts to that of a small, prehistoric land mammal being chased by a mammoth.

So caught up in the sudden possibility of no longer being alive is he that for a moment, he forgets about the absurdly predictable nature of his life.

"Dude."

At the slightly scratchy inflection, all eyes swivel toward the upper right hand corner of the room.

Kendall's kind of magnetic like that.

The boy raises one enormous eyebrow and then the other, the effective of which is a confused Muppet being gradually enlightened. The room's predominant sounds are Boy Quake and Gustavo's labored breathing that might as well be tickling Logan's hair. Sweat runs mini marathons down Gustavo's face as he stares into the serene expression of the boy across the room. The silence grows.

Gustavo's face begins to simmer.

Kendall glances at the ceiling.

"What?" Gustavo yells.

Kendall holds up a finger, takes the next thirty-five seconds to rock back on his heels with his arms folded across his chest, smiling slightly, like he's been waiting for this moment forever.

"Chill out man."