Hey y'all! Sorry there was no Minnesota Memoir update today but this is just better.
Well—either that or my addiction to this story is just clouding my thoughts.
Regardless.
Kendall and James have a big big fight! Gorgeous!
I'm in a fun little mood right now, giddy with angst and jittery fingers, ready to produce this angst.
It's shorter than I wanted, hope it's fine!
Happy reading! Enjoy!
"James, what the hell was that?" Kendall asked.
He wasn't trying to yell, he might be yelling, and the only reason that might be an issue is because he definitely does not need to wake up Mom and Katie.
Otherwise, he's fine with yelling at James. He deserves it, after all.
"It wasn't anything."
Kendall exhaled. He wouldn't yell, even if James deserved it, even if yelling was Kendall's default response, even if he really just wanted to. Mom and Katie were sleeping. Logan and Carlos were sleeping.
"It wasn't anything," Kendall repeated. "Are you insane?"
James was messing with his lucky comb, it never got through his hair. It just stayed there, in his hand, hanging down by his side. "I'm not. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was just talking to the one who's gone insane. Didn't you hear?"
Logan isn't insane. Logan isn't retarded. Logan isn't anything.
"Logan isn't insane, James."
James's eyes flashed at him. Wide, angry. It didn't matter. Kendall was looking at him the same way. "Maybe you are, too."
Kendall gaped at him. James was so ridiculous.
He wouldn't yell.
He wanted to yell so terribly, so badly.
He wouldn't yell.
"How am I the insane one?"
James didn't respond. There was no answer. Kendall was not insane. James was insane.
"James, do you even know what you said to him? Do you even care?"
"Of course I know what I said."
James was the one yelling.
Kendall was better than that, he wouldn't yell, he wouldn't.
Nope.
James was an idiot. James was self-centered. James was narcissistic.
He was better than that, he was better than James, he would not make this bigger than it was. He would not make this about himself, about either of them.
This was solely about James being an idiot to Logan.
James was looking at him, challenging him to respond.
Fuck it, Kendall's stubborn. He's not going to answer.
Argument immediately avoided, over, case closed.
Until James opens his mouth again.
Out of turn, that's not how arguments work. Kendall's been in enough to know that.
But James is stubborn and stupid.
"Was I wrong?"
Explosive. That's what Kendall is, not just stubborn, not just stupid. Explosive.
"What do you mean, was I wrong? Have you lost your mind?"
Clearly.
James doesn't get it.
Kendall is not going to punch him.
Kendall is not going to punch the wall.
Kendall is not going to kick down the door, he's not going to storm into Rocque Records, he's not going to jump on Griffin's desk—what used to be Gustavo's desk—and he's not going to demand he signs them back, that he reinstates the label, that he rehires Gustavo and Kelly, he's not going to do it.
Kendall knows it won't fix anything.
James doesn't know that yet.
He's delusional.
Kendall is the only one thinking straight. He's thinking straight, he's not angry, he's fine.
He's not going to lose his mind. He's not going to yell.
"Of course you're fucking wrong, do you even hear yourself?"
He yelled.
He yelled, and he knows someone's woken up.
Carlos is sleeping in the swirly slide.
Carlos is awake in the swirly slide.
He'll deal with it later. Carlos will be fine.
"Did you hear Logan?" James counters.
Like that's a valid argument, how could he not hear Logan?
"Yeah, and I handled it."
And James explodes too. "You didn't handle anything, you walked off the stage!"
"We all walked off."
"You made us!"
"I didn't make you do anything. You followed me."
"What was I supposed to do? Stay there?"
Kendall threw up his hands. They were frozen. He felt frozen, and stuck, and incapable and in a nightmare, just like with broken-record Logan.
He doesn't know, he hates not knowing, he's supposed to know.
He hates thinking he did the wrong thing, he hates thinking he ruined everything.
He's the leader, right, and the leaders have successful plans.
The leaders do not entirely screw up their own lives.
"I don't know, James!"
"That's not an answer."
Kendall is done, He cannot yell about this any longer. He needs to yell about this longer.
"Yes, it is! It's my answer, because I know I screwed up, but you did worse!"
"I didn't throw my career away and walk off the stage."
"It doesn't matter that I walked off! It happened! It's done, James, we're done, Big Time Rush is done. Everything is done. It wasn't going to last forever."
James glared. "It wasn't supposed to end because Logan had a meltdown, and you walked off."
Yes, he is aware he walked off the stage, he remembers.
"Logan said it wasn't."
"Logan's lying!"
Logan sucks at lying. "Why would he lie about forgetting where he was?"
Logan had never sounded so scared in his life.
James pauses. He doesn't have a refute, he can't make a comeback here, he lost. "He doesn't have dementia, Kendall."
"What if he does?"
"He's eighteen!"
Logan doesn't have dementia. Logan is fine.
It's not possible, anyway.
Logan probably knew.
There was no way he was asking Logan in the morning.
"Nothing is wrong with him," James says, almost like normal. Not seething with anger.
James was defeated. He lost the argument.
"Nothing more than usual, anyway."
Kendall is done.
James always has been dramatic, he always wants the last word.
Kendall slams the door shut.
—
The door slam wakes him up.
The textbook.
It's in the living room.
Logan knows it's in the living room.
There was no reason for his fight with James, then, no reason for any of this.
Logan doesn't care, he needs the textbook.
Before he forgets that his suitcase is still open on the bedroom floor.
It's dark in the living room. He can't see anything, he knocks into something, probably actually someone, not something.
"Logan?"
It's Kendall, not James,
The door had slammed,
Kendall and James were fighting for hours.
"The textbook," he offers as an explanation.
It's in the living room.
"What?"
"I'm just looking for something."
The textbook is in his hands,
He places it in his suitcase, he's packed up.
His laptop is right there, too.
It's his last night in the Palm Woods.
He tries to research.
Nothing comes up.
So, he sets it back in the suitcase, next to the textbook. He's not going to forget that the textbook is there in the morning. He zips the suitcase up.
He can't sleep, he's not going to be able to forget the yelling, the fighting, the door slamming.
It won't happen in Minnesota,
He's not sure what is going to happen in Minnesota.
—
The swirly slide is getting smaller the longer he sits in it.
The yellow plastic didn't do much to protect him from the yelling like he thought it would.
It's just plastic.
All it did was make sure he didn't have to see it.
He just got to stare at the yellow plastic above his head.
There's no swirly slide in Minnesota.
Carlos forces himself to open his eyes again. He's tired from Kendall and James fighting, he's so tired.
But he doesn't want to forget what yellow plastic swirly slides look like.
He doesn't want to end up like Logan.
He doesn't want to forget where he is.
He's in the swirly slide, he's at the Palm Woods, he's in Los Angeles, he's in California.
Tomorrow morning, maybe just in a few hours, he'll be back in Minnesota.
He doesn't want to go back to Minnesota.
"Carlos?"
He is silent. Kendall is not going to tell him to get out of the swirly slide. Even if he does, there's no way he'll do it.
He doesn't do everything Kendall says.
Just when it's important.
He walked off the stage.
"Carlos?"
Kendall knocks on the slide. Like it's a door, it's clearly not.
It's the yellow plastic swirly slide. He doesn't want to forget it.
"Carlos?"
Fine. "What?"
"You don't have to sleep in the swirly slide."
"Yeah, but I want to."
He wants to only because James had been saying stupid things to Logan, and yelling at Kendall.
He doesn't want James to say stupid things to him or yell at him.
He can stay in the swirly slide, it doesn't matter, not really, that it gets smaller and smaller each minute.
"You want to?"
"Yeah."
Kendall knocks on the slide again.
"It's not a door, Kendall."
He heard Kendall slam the door a while ago.
"I know that, Carlos."
Kendall had been telling James he didn't know.
Kendall doesn't know everything, but whatever Kendall doesn't know, Logan does.
Always.
But Logan had forgotten where he was.
Logan didn't know everything either.
"Night, man."
But Carlos doesn't sleep. The swirly slide keeps getting smaller.
But he doesn't leave, he won't leave until he absolutely has to.
Which is six in the morning, when they need to go to the airport.
To Minnesota.
James isn't talking to anyone.
Logan isn't talking to anyone.
Kendall isn't talking to anyone.
This is worse than the swirly slide shrinking on him, Carlos decides.
He'd much rather go back to the swirly slide.
But now, he's back in Minnesota.
It's just like it was.
It's the same as last time he was here.
Which is weird, and makes his head spin, he feels dizzy.
Last time they were here, it was Christmas, they were talking, they were laughing, they were playing hockey, they were having fun.
But now everyone is quiet.
Carlos hates it, he hates this.
Logan hasn't said a single word to James, James hasn't said a single word to any of them.
Logan and James are always the best at the silent treatment.
Carlos wants a door to slam, he wants someone to yell.
Because at least that means they're all paying attention to each other.
Nobody is paying attention anymore.