[fic] Nothing And Nowhere Is Golden - 2/2
Title: Nothing And Nowhere Is Golden
Author: garnetice
Chapter: Two of Two
Pairing: Kendall Knight/James Diamond (minor pairings: Curt/Logan, Curt/Mercedes, Logan/Camille)
Rating: Barely PG-13.
Word Count: 13,531
Warnings: Bad words, bad analogies, very minor mention of character death (OCs), confusing use of dopplegangers
Summary: "That’s the other thing C.S. Lewis doesn’t tell you. Universe hopping is exhausting."
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine.
Author's Notes: Alright, this is based on those clips of the unaired pilot- which you don't actually have to have seen- long story short, the actor who plays Dak Zevon (Curt Hansen) is in Kendall's role, and the boys are skateboarders from Wisconsin. But this is not- um, that. This is Kendall going to an alternate world where he does not exist. This story ate me, body and soul, man. Oh, title is from Nothing & Nowhere by Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton.
Part One
---
Kendall ends up getting kicked out of Camille’s apartment the same night as her date with Logan, the same night her dad comes home. It’s cool. He’s made some friends, and Guitar Dude’s fine with letting him crash at his place. But it doesn’t stop Camille from knocking on the door near midnight, pounding until Kendall and Guitar Dude pause their rousing game of Halo and go to answer.
Kendall loses the coin toss.
But he gets a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and a, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Which mostly makes up for having to move.
She invites him out with her and Logan and the guys the next night, and Kendall agrees. It’s not like he has anything else to do.
---
He waits for them in the lobby around eight. Curt comes down first.
“Hi,” he says, and Kendall doesn’t really want to respond, but then he thinks about their fragile truce and grudgingly returns the greeting.
He’s searching for a topic of conversation when Mercedes Griffin walks into the Palmwoods. She glances at him, and then Curt. And then something weird happens.
Her cheeks turn red.
“Um. Boy who’s never been my boyfriend. Hi.”
Kendall blinks. Okay, Mercedes is flustered. This is new. He looks between her and Curt and then back again. Oh. Oh.
“What’s up, Mercedes?” Curt asks.
“Gustavo wants you to come to the studio. Something about laying down a new track.”
Curt sighs, “Guess that means dinner’s off.”
Kendall says, “Its fine. I’ll let Camille know.”
He wonders why Mercedes has never personally told him that Gustavo wants them. Except he thinks he kind of has it figured out.
---
He sees Mercedes again on a Tuesday, when he’s sitting by the pool with Logan and Curt, of all people. He’s not exactly sure how he ended up scoring an invite into their little huddle, except that he’s waiting for James to finish up some modeling gig.
When she comes, she does that same awkward, bashful kind of head ducking thing she did last time, and tells them they’re expected at the studio. Logan cowers behind a lounge chair until she excuses herself. Then he runs up to the apartment to grab a sweater, because its balls hot outside but the studio’s central air puts the building a few degrees colder than Antarctica.
Curt’s watching Mercedes stalk away, regaining her usual confidence. Kendall follows his gaze.
“Mercedes is kind of beautiful,” Curt murmurs, a bit wistfully.
“So why don’t you ask her out?”
Kendall feels like he’s missing something.
“She’s so, so beautiful,” Curt repeats, but then his gaze swings towards the elevators, towards where Logan retreated, and oh. Oh.
The amount of time those two spend together is suddenly making a lot more sense.
Hesitant, Kendall says, “So is Logan.”
Curt rolls his eyes.
“She makes me laugh.”
Kendall raises an eyebrow, like, yeah, So does Logan. Not entirely on purpose, either.
He thinks Curt gets the message.
---
Except apparently he doesn’t, because by the time Thursday rolls around, Curt’s asked Mercedes on a date. He knows because that night, Kendall goes out to dinner with James, Carlos, Logan, and Camille.
The whole time he’s thinking about Curt and Mercedes being somewhere across town, bringing sexy back to West Hollywood, or whatever.
Logan is smiling, laughing. But there’s something at the edge of his eyes that makes Kendall feel sick.
He looks at Camille, and he thinks he’s messed up.
After burgers, the five of them sit through a movie in a dark theater and he can’t focus on the plot for a second, even though it’s not much more than big explosions and dramatic proclamations of love. His head is spinning, spinning, spinning, and he’s wondering what the hell he’s done.
Logan, his Logan, isn’t like this. He likes Camille, he likes being with her, and okay, yeah, maybe they’re not soulmates, but Logan doesn’t look nearly so miserable in her presence. Like he’s guilty and ashamed.
He tries to think of a way out of this; he promised Camille he’d help her, and she’s probably going to think he was trying to trick her or- No. Camille’s forgiving.
Somewhat.
And she’ll understand that he didn’t know. How could he know? His Logan’s never looked at Dak sideways.
Kendall wonders if maybe he will, one day. If he hasn’t been distracting Logan with all their ridiculous pranks and mischief and ways of cheating the system. So instead of figuring out his sexuality, he’s been- busy.
Or maybe he’s bi.
Kendall doesn’t know. Kendall doesn’t know how to ask, or if he’ll even get a chance, or if, shit- he feels James’s fingers take hold of his, under the arm rest. His palm is warm, soft, skin chafed at the knuckles, grip strong.
And just like that, the world stands still.
---
Kendall kisses James on a Tuesday. He doesn’t really see it coming, but he thinks maybe he should have.
The band returns from the studio late, looking worn down, exhausted to the bone. As much as Kendall wants to go home, he doesn’t envy them this. Gustavo demands excellence, and he’s relentless.
Kendall’s practiced harmonies for twelve hours stretches, until his throat has gone raw, his voice shattered. He doesn’t miss it.
James is about to climb into the elevator, but at the last second he notices Kendall, sitting alone in the empty lobby, under the watchful eye of Bitters, who is mostly more focused on his late night soaps. James hesitates, and Kendall’s on his feet, about to tell him that he can come up.
Then he realizes it’s a bad idea, going inside an apartment that is nothing like his. Where there’s no mom or Katie, only the curious, unfamiliar gaze of the Zevons. He pauses, hand clenching into a fist.
James is quicker to react. He steps out of the elevator before the doors can slide shut, a tired smile on his lips.
“Hey.”
His voice sounds raw.
“Hi.”
Kendall picks up a bottle of water he’d been drinking from and hands it to him. James looks at it with something very much like gratitude, and sucks down everything that’s left.
“I needed that,” he laughs a little, “I guess you’d know.”
“Gustavo’s a slave driver,” Kendall agrees, “its part of his charm.”
James inclines his head, eyes dancing.
“Right. He has charm?”
“On occasion. I was going to ask if you wanted to walk down to the park, get something from that falafel stand that stays open all night- but you look- tired.”
“I’m good. Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?”
James stuffs his hands into his pockets, and Kendall watches the curl of his fingers under denim.
“I’m good,” he repeats.
“Okay.”
The walk to the park is slow, languid. Kendall likes nights like tonight, where it’s just him and James. He’s never really felt like this before, back home, where Logan and Carlos occupied most of his time. But now, they’re with Curt, and James needs someone to make him smile, the way his version hasn’t in so long.
It’s probably what annoys Kendall the most about this reality. How it took James disappearing into the background again for Kendall to really notice him.
“Kendall?”
“Yeah?”
“In your world- are we…?”
“Are we what?” Kendall asks, more than a little confused. He doesn’t know what to do with hanging questions, with a best friend who doesn’t say what he means.
James takes a deep breath, “Together?”
“Together? I mean,” Kendall scratches the back of his neck, “We spend most of our time together. Between rehearsals and school and- well, watching out for Carlos and Logan, it’s kind of a full time gig- so, yeah. We don’t get a lot of time to ourselves.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Kendall blinks.
Then he blinks again.
“Oh. Uh. No? Why- would you think that?”
“No reason,” James says quickly.
“No- but, there has to be a reason. Because you, my you, not you- you, likes girls. Like- he loves girls. He gives Casanova a run for his money.”
Kendall isn’t even lying. James loves girls. Tall girls, short girls, thin girls, fat girls. James is the kind of guy who appreciates beautiful things, and he’s constantly philosophizing that girls have beautiful souls, which he has to tend to like a gardener in a bed of roses, or something.
Kendall may not have been fully paying attention at the time.
Or any of the times. He’s reasonably certain he’s heard the speech more than once. It’s just, whenever James begins talking like he’s been thumbing through Kendall’s mom’s romance novels, Kendall’s mind tends to wander.
“And from what I can tell, you’re not doing so bad yourself,” he continues, staring at James and thinking of the movie theater, of the way his thumb stroked over Kendall’s knuckles, a fleeting touch that calmed his mind.
“It was my mistake.”
“That didn’t sound like a mistake,” Kendall says, and when did his heart started beating so fast? He wishes he didn’t have this thing, this whole noble idiot thing where he values honesty above tact, where his so called courage spurs him into saying things he doesn’t actually want to say, “It sounded like something you wanted to be true.”
James stares at him, and, if Kendall’s going to be totally truthful, he’s thinking about kissing him.
And he’s thought about kissing James before.
Okay, he’s thought about it a lot, with this James and his James.
Probably because he can’t forget what it feels like.
Back then, the band had been around for year, and was just lifting off, gaining notoriety in the eyes of thousands of screaming teenage girls.
So they went out to celebrate.
Logan knew a guy who knew a guy who made fantastic fake ids, but it turned out that half the fun of being a celebrity in LA was not needing them. Unless you happened to run into one of those morally righteous underage-kids-can’t-drink bouncers. Or the ones who were waiting to get paid a mint by the paps for a picture of wholesome superstars doing bad things.
Their bouncer that night was one of the latter.
He let them in, but he had no qualms calling the photogs. So later, when Kendall was feeling loose limbed and dizzy with alcohol, and James was giving him that shining, blinding smile of his, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to pull him stumbling drunk into the bathroom.
And Kendall still remembers the way his fingers fisted in the collar of his shirt, the way one of his hands gripped Kendall’s hips so hard it left an oddly shaped bruise.
They broke apart when the flash went off, panting and gasping and knowing they’d fucked up, big time.
It could have been a publicity crisis, but they ended up being lucky. The club they’d chosen had one of those seedy bathrooms, lit in black and red. The reporter hadn’t had the right kind of filter on his lens, and even though the hazy silhouettes bore a very striking resemblance to one half of Big Time Rush, the photos were vague enough that Kelly was able to work her media magic and cast doubt on the entire magazine that dared to publish them.
There was a whirlwind of speculation for a while.
Gustavo hadn’t even cared; he was of the opinion that every boy band had to have at least one gay scandal, which wasn’t really helpful at all.
And Kendall and James? They’d been drunk and stupid and horny, and sometimes in the locker room back at school Kendall might have fantasized about something like that happening, but it never would have if he hadn’t been sloshed out of his mind. Their friendship was strained, fractured for a little while under the weight of his overwhelming shame.
They bounced back, of course. Kendall made it perfectly clear he didn’t plan on what had happened, not ever, because it was obviously the alcohol’s fault. And he certainly didn’t plan on talking about it. The same way they didn’t talk about anything Carlos did when he drank too much caffeine, or when Logan had a sugar rush, or when James had one of his shopping benders at the mall.
James, his James, got the memo, loud and clear. He never brought it up, not even once, not even when their pictures were on the cover of every daily out there, their mouths devouring each other for everyone to see. And eventually, Kendall forgot about it.
Sure, it still pops up into his head every once in a while, when James is looking particularly good, or when he’s having a terrible day, or when its late at night, and he can’t think of a face to occupy his mind while his hand strokes lazily over his dick. But those moments are fleeting, subconscious, almost.
For all intents and purposes, Kendall thinks of it as one more idiotic mistake he’s made in a string of idiotic, hormonal teenage mistakes. He isn’t a dwell-in-the-past kind of guy.
Until now, with this version of James staring at him like Kendall has hung the moon and the stars in the sky.
He thinks about the picture, which he saved. It’s under his bed in his room back in the real world, because at the time, a single paparazzi photo seemed like the most important thing in the world. Life changing. Life destroying. And it's funny, but looking back at it now, it still does.
It still feels like that moment, trapped in time, is pivotal, but not for all the things it could have revealed to the world. Hell, Kendall will bet only a select few even remember its existence, much less care about it now. But for him, it’s still important for the captured smiles, the shared breath between him and James’s lips. It’s a frozen memory of what could have been.
When everything was too much, and never enough. When he and his version of James were young and invincible, living in a once upon a time land. Young, invincible, and so, so stupid.
It’s been a year since that photo was taken, and James is still the same person he’s always been. And Kendall still thinks about kissing him, but mostly, he thinks his moment has passed.
Whatever James might have felt for him that night; it vanished.
Adults always say that nothing lasts forever, but Kendall never believed them. Not really.
Not until it was too late.
And now it feels like he has a second chance.
He takes James’s hand and steers them off the path, away from the falafel vendor they’d been headed towards, away from the light strains of Arabic music slicing the air. James follows, wide eyed, questioning.
They lay down in the grass, James’s hand the only thing anchoring him to the ground. The stars, so rare here in California, are burning high overhead, pinpoints of light in the purple blue LA sky. They fade away the closer they fall to the horizon, which glows an artificial gold from the city lights, stars in and of themselves.
There’s a whole world out there, Kendall knows. More than one.
Except James isn’t looking at any of that. He’s ignoring the natural world completely, staring at him with something like wonder.
“You’re a miracle.”
Kendall feels something electric and shivery settle low in his stomach. He wants to say something about how corny that is, something masculine and douchey.
Something that will make James stop looking at him like that, like he means what he says. Kendall’s never felt like a miracle. Mostly he feels confused, a lot of the time. Whenever he manages to figure something out, he takes it as a small victory and moves on to the next problem, but he hasn’t been able to figure James out yet.
Either of them, actually.
“I’m really not,” he says hastily.
“But you are,” James insists, and then there’s this beat, this two second pause where Kendall is dizzy from inhaling their shared breath, and he wonders when their faces got so close together, and James’s eyes are there, blue and green and gold and hypnotic.
One of them arches across the distance between them, presses their mouth firm and hot and wet to the other wide eyed boy’s, and Kendall would like to say it’s him. He wants to think he’s brave and strong and true, but he also thinks its James, James who is beautiful and vulnerable and surprisingly brilliant.
Kendall kisses him while the world spins around them, and for the first time since he’s come to this alternate universe, he doesn’t want to go home.
---
There’s this thing.
And it’s that Kendall might be in love with James.
But he doesn’t know how to say it.
Guys don’t just go around spouting that kind of thing at a whim.
It’s a big deal. Not the way girls make it out to be, where it’s all about commitment and monogamy and shit.
Just, when a guy says he loves someone, it’s admitting a feeling, and most guys aren’t really keen on feelings in general. So.
It’s this thing.
Kendall doesn’t know what to do.
---
The problem is, things end.
Kendall wakes up one morning with his stomach twisting and the realization that he’s been stuck in this world for one month. An entire month of watching how the world has changed without him in it.
He’s spent the past week doing nothing but kissing James every opportunity he gets. He’d be living in James’s room in 2J if he wasn’t terrified of the Zevons; and even then, the idea of kissing James’s sleepy smile away when he first wakes is all too tempting.
But he wakes up on Guitar Dude’s couch, alone, with his stomach in knots, and he knows.
He has to find James.
Because it’s about to end, and it shouldn't.
He knows that it shouldn’t hurt so bad, that it shouldn’t tear at him. Everything ends, but he doesn’t want this to. Not like this.
If he has to go, he wants it to be some huge finale, but he knows it can’t be. It has to end the way it started, just like this, with a gasp, with a whimper.
Endings aren't supposed to be grand and tragic. That’s movie magic. Kendall knows that's the lie we all live, but eventually, everyone has to see the truth. It ends. It all just- ends.
He still has to find James.
James is by the pool, soaking up the sun, looking like a young, gorgeous god.
“I think I have to leave soon,” Kendall says, voice tumbling out in a rush.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t- it’s just this weird feeling I have.”
And it is; Kendall feels like he’s stretching too thin, like his atoms are about to pull apart and reassemble somewhere else.
James takes him to the ocean, to one of the places he likes to surf, because this version too belongs to the sea. They sit and watch the waves roll to shore for a long time, Kendall leaning into James’s side, listening to his heartbeat until darkness falls.
The second the first ray of moonlight breaks the sky, Kendall can feel the earth tremble, like a quake building beneath the surface.
James looks at him and says, “Don’t go.”
“I can’t not,” Kendall says, and it’s true. He doesn’t know how to stop this, even though he wants to. Desperately. He grabs James’s face in his hands, his fingers digging into skin, and as their mouths crash together-
He fades away.
When Kendall first crossed over, he’d thought the void was a place filled with stars that sparkled like diamonds, but now, as he is pulled back, it looks more like glass, meant for shredding his insides. He doesn’t want to leave, and he isn’t sure what that says about who he is or the things he wants, that he prefers this world where most of his friends and his family are conspicuously absent, but there’s still a boy who makes his pulse thread through his veins like a panicky kick drum, who makes his nerves jump and his stomach clench with nausea and his whole body ache with need.
Curt doesn’t deserve James, not any part of him.
---
Kendall wakes up on a lounge chair with James leaning over him, asking if he’s okay, and the first thing he thinks to say is-
“Are you wearing my shirt?”
James looks complete unruffled by the accusation, and Kendall wants to reach out, to kiss him but then-
James grins. It’s wide open and happy and the expression doesn’t belong to the boy who had folded Kendall into his arms just minutes ago.
At the beach. He has to get to the beach.
“What else are friends for, if not to snoop in your business and steal your clothes?” James says, but Kendall’s bolted up off of the chaise, and he’s halfway to the door of the lobby when he realizes that there’s not going to be anyone waiting for him.
“Dude?” James asks, “What’s going on?”
Kendall frowns at him, and even though this version is his, familiar as the back of his hand, he kind of wants to tell him to go polish his tiara so he can think about an identical boy a universe away. He has this frantic, aching idea that he’s going to live the rest of his life wishing to see a face that’s right in front of him, but belonging to someone he’ll never be able to see again.
He has to go back. He has to go back.
He has to go back.
And it’s not just James. Kendall thinks about what he left behind; the mess with Mercedes and Curt and Logan and poor Camille, who never seems to be able to get the things that she wants most, but is so resilient. He thinks maybe he should try to be her friend in this world, for real now.
It’s time she stopped being that slightly scary girl who slaps him a lot and occasionally dates his best friend. He’s not sure he can ever think of her that way again.
Then Kendall realizes there’s a hand in his jeans pockets and he looks down to see James lifting up his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Kendall shifts as James’s fingers skid over his skin.
“Um trying to figure out what happened to your cocky, irritating sense of self confidence. I know it’s around here somewhere.”
Kendall closes his eyes and wishes as hard as he can to go back.
---
He can’t go back.
---
Kendall spends a week moping around the Palmwoods.
Gustavo gets so mad at him that he threatens to kick him out of the band, but nothing works. He’s happy to see his mom and Katie and his version of Carlos, Logan, James, and Camille. He is.
But he feels like he’s lost something, and he doesn’t know how to change that.
He thinks that people are fleeting thoughts. They blink out too quickly, and rarely is the destiny they get the one that they deserve. James, the James he left behind, doesn’t deserve to be alone.
Neither does Kendall, for that matter.
He mopes and he mopes until one night, he spots his James trying to sneak out of the apartment.
“James? What are you doing?”
“I’m-“ James is hiding something behind his back in a very conspicuous way, is what he’s doing, but Kendall doesn’t feel like making a grab for it. He and James are pretty evenly matched on a normal day, but he’s too exhausted to grapple for whatever it is, even if they’re just playing.
That’s the other thing C.S. Lewis doesn’t tell you. Universe hopping is exhausting.
He puts on his best stern face, which he’s totally bogarted from his mom, and hopes for the best.
James sighs, “I’m going to see this band play at that one bar on LaCienega.”
“What band?”
“You wouldn’t have heard of them. They’re independent and like, virtually unknown.”
Kendall feels his heart stop dead in his chest.
“I thought- you don’t like anything that’s not pop?”
“I know,” James rakes a hand through his hair, actually messing it up, “I just- I walked past a club they were playing at on my way home from dinner with that one girl the other night and fuck, they’re really good. Like, amazing. And I remembered that I used to like stuff like that, before
I got this- like, image to keep up. I saw some bands back in Minnesota and- “
“You did? Why didn’t you take us? Why didn’t you take me?”
“I didn’t think you guys would be interested. It’s sort of- not what we listen to, and I guess I thought you think I was lame?”
“I already think you’re lame,” Kendall tries for jokey, but mostly he sounds sick- “Do you watch independent movies and read poetry when I’m not looking?”
“Nah, poetry’s lame, man. But music-“ he pauses, then says, “I think music is good no matter what it is.”
It’s wonderful and strange how easy it seems to fix things, once he lets himself stop worrying and just- does it.
“James- I. Can I come?”
His face lights up, like the sun, moon, and stars, and god, Kendall hasn’t realized how much he missed that smile.
“Sure.”
Kendall suddenly remembers what he knew in that other world; neither boy is so different. Not really.
It doesn’t change how he feels about the other things, about Curt and Logan and- Well. Some things are broken permanently, and he figures that the most he can do is try to forgive himself and move on.
But- some things don’t have to stay broken forever.
“James?”
Before he can stop himself, Kendall reaches for James’s hand, intertwining their fingers, “Let’s go.”
James’s gaze snaps to the place where their skin connects, and Kendall watches as his expression flickers from surprise to confusion until it morphs completely into something that looks a lot like happiness. James casts him a pleased smile, one of his damnable, gorgeous smiles that Kendall has memorized and categorized and analyzed so often in the past, and Kendall knows instantly.
They’re going to be fine.
---
♥
Author: garnetice
Chapter: Two of Two
Pairing: Kendall Knight/James Diamond (minor pairings: Curt/Logan, Curt/Mercedes, Logan/Camille)
Rating: Barely PG-13.
Word Count: 13,531
Warnings: Bad words, bad analogies, very minor mention of character death (OCs), confusing use of dopplegangers
Summary: "That’s the other thing C.S. Lewis doesn’t tell you. Universe hopping is exhausting."
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine.
Author's Notes: Alright, this is based on those clips of the unaired pilot- which you don't actually have to have seen- long story short, the actor who plays Dak Zevon (Curt Hansen) is in Kendall's role, and the boys are skateboarders from Wisconsin. But this is not- um, that. This is Kendall going to an alternate world where he does not exist. This story ate me, body and soul, man. Oh, title is from Nothing & Nowhere by Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton.
Part One
---
Kendall ends up getting kicked out of Camille’s apartment the same night as her date with Logan, the same night her dad comes home. It’s cool. He’s made some friends, and Guitar Dude’s fine with letting him crash at his place. But it doesn’t stop Camille from knocking on the door near midnight, pounding until Kendall and Guitar Dude pause their rousing game of Halo and go to answer.
Kendall loses the coin toss.
But he gets a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and a, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Which mostly makes up for having to move.
She invites him out with her and Logan and the guys the next night, and Kendall agrees. It’s not like he has anything else to do.
---
He waits for them in the lobby around eight. Curt comes down first.
“Hi,” he says, and Kendall doesn’t really want to respond, but then he thinks about their fragile truce and grudgingly returns the greeting.
He’s searching for a topic of conversation when Mercedes Griffin walks into the Palmwoods. She glances at him, and then Curt. And then something weird happens.
Her cheeks turn red.
“Um. Boy who’s never been my boyfriend. Hi.”
Kendall blinks. Okay, Mercedes is flustered. This is new. He looks between her and Curt and then back again. Oh. Oh.
“What’s up, Mercedes?” Curt asks.
“Gustavo wants you to come to the studio. Something about laying down a new track.”
Curt sighs, “Guess that means dinner’s off.”
Kendall says, “Its fine. I’ll let Camille know.”
He wonders why Mercedes has never personally told him that Gustavo wants them. Except he thinks he kind of has it figured out.
---
He sees Mercedes again on a Tuesday, when he’s sitting by the pool with Logan and Curt, of all people. He’s not exactly sure how he ended up scoring an invite into their little huddle, except that he’s waiting for James to finish up some modeling gig.
When she comes, she does that same awkward, bashful kind of head ducking thing she did last time, and tells them they’re expected at the studio. Logan cowers behind a lounge chair until she excuses herself. Then he runs up to the apartment to grab a sweater, because its balls hot outside but the studio’s central air puts the building a few degrees colder than Antarctica.
Curt’s watching Mercedes stalk away, regaining her usual confidence. Kendall follows his gaze.
“Mercedes is kind of beautiful,” Curt murmurs, a bit wistfully.
“So why don’t you ask her out?”
Kendall feels like he’s missing something.
“She’s so, so beautiful,” Curt repeats, but then his gaze swings towards the elevators, towards where Logan retreated, and oh. Oh.
The amount of time those two spend together is suddenly making a lot more sense.
Hesitant, Kendall says, “So is Logan.”
Curt rolls his eyes.
“She makes me laugh.”
Kendall raises an eyebrow, like, yeah, So does Logan. Not entirely on purpose, either.
He thinks Curt gets the message.
---
Except apparently he doesn’t, because by the time Thursday rolls around, Curt’s asked Mercedes on a date. He knows because that night, Kendall goes out to dinner with James, Carlos, Logan, and Camille.
The whole time he’s thinking about Curt and Mercedes being somewhere across town, bringing sexy back to West Hollywood, or whatever.
Logan is smiling, laughing. But there’s something at the edge of his eyes that makes Kendall feel sick.
He looks at Camille, and he thinks he’s messed up.
After burgers, the five of them sit through a movie in a dark theater and he can’t focus on the plot for a second, even though it’s not much more than big explosions and dramatic proclamations of love. His head is spinning, spinning, spinning, and he’s wondering what the hell he’s done.
Logan, his Logan, isn’t like this. He likes Camille, he likes being with her, and okay, yeah, maybe they’re not soulmates, but Logan doesn’t look nearly so miserable in her presence. Like he’s guilty and ashamed.
He tries to think of a way out of this; he promised Camille he’d help her, and she’s probably going to think he was trying to trick her or- No. Camille’s forgiving.
Somewhat.
And she’ll understand that he didn’t know. How could he know? His Logan’s never looked at Dak sideways.
Kendall wonders if maybe he will, one day. If he hasn’t been distracting Logan with all their ridiculous pranks and mischief and ways of cheating the system. So instead of figuring out his sexuality, he’s been- busy.
Or maybe he’s bi.
Kendall doesn’t know. Kendall doesn’t know how to ask, or if he’ll even get a chance, or if, shit- he feels James’s fingers take hold of his, under the arm rest. His palm is warm, soft, skin chafed at the knuckles, grip strong.
And just like that, the world stands still.
---
Kendall kisses James on a Tuesday. He doesn’t really see it coming, but he thinks maybe he should have.
The band returns from the studio late, looking worn down, exhausted to the bone. As much as Kendall wants to go home, he doesn’t envy them this. Gustavo demands excellence, and he’s relentless.
Kendall’s practiced harmonies for twelve hours stretches, until his throat has gone raw, his voice shattered. He doesn’t miss it.
James is about to climb into the elevator, but at the last second he notices Kendall, sitting alone in the empty lobby, under the watchful eye of Bitters, who is mostly more focused on his late night soaps. James hesitates, and Kendall’s on his feet, about to tell him that he can come up.
Then he realizes it’s a bad idea, going inside an apartment that is nothing like his. Where there’s no mom or Katie, only the curious, unfamiliar gaze of the Zevons. He pauses, hand clenching into a fist.
James is quicker to react. He steps out of the elevator before the doors can slide shut, a tired smile on his lips.
“Hey.”
His voice sounds raw.
“Hi.”
Kendall picks up a bottle of water he’d been drinking from and hands it to him. James looks at it with something very much like gratitude, and sucks down everything that’s left.
“I needed that,” he laughs a little, “I guess you’d know.”
“Gustavo’s a slave driver,” Kendall agrees, “its part of his charm.”
James inclines his head, eyes dancing.
“Right. He has charm?”
“On occasion. I was going to ask if you wanted to walk down to the park, get something from that falafel stand that stays open all night- but you look- tired.”
“I’m good. Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?”
James stuffs his hands into his pockets, and Kendall watches the curl of his fingers under denim.
“I’m good,” he repeats.
“Okay.”
The walk to the park is slow, languid. Kendall likes nights like tonight, where it’s just him and James. He’s never really felt like this before, back home, where Logan and Carlos occupied most of his time. But now, they’re with Curt, and James needs someone to make him smile, the way his version hasn’t in so long.
It’s probably what annoys Kendall the most about this reality. How it took James disappearing into the background again for Kendall to really notice him.
“Kendall?”
“Yeah?”
“In your world- are we…?”
“Are we what?” Kendall asks, more than a little confused. He doesn’t know what to do with hanging questions, with a best friend who doesn’t say what he means.
James takes a deep breath, “Together?”
“Together? I mean,” Kendall scratches the back of his neck, “We spend most of our time together. Between rehearsals and school and- well, watching out for Carlos and Logan, it’s kind of a full time gig- so, yeah. We don’t get a lot of time to ourselves.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Kendall blinks.
Then he blinks again.
“Oh. Uh. No? Why- would you think that?”
“No reason,” James says quickly.
“No- but, there has to be a reason. Because you, my you, not you- you, likes girls. Like- he loves girls. He gives Casanova a run for his money.”
Kendall isn’t even lying. James loves girls. Tall girls, short girls, thin girls, fat girls. James is the kind of guy who appreciates beautiful things, and he’s constantly philosophizing that girls have beautiful souls, which he has to tend to like a gardener in a bed of roses, or something.
Kendall may not have been fully paying attention at the time.
Or any of the times. He’s reasonably certain he’s heard the speech more than once. It’s just, whenever James begins talking like he’s been thumbing through Kendall’s mom’s romance novels, Kendall’s mind tends to wander.
“And from what I can tell, you’re not doing so bad yourself,” he continues, staring at James and thinking of the movie theater, of the way his thumb stroked over Kendall’s knuckles, a fleeting touch that calmed his mind.
“It was my mistake.”
“That didn’t sound like a mistake,” Kendall says, and when did his heart started beating so fast? He wishes he didn’t have this thing, this whole noble idiot thing where he values honesty above tact, where his so called courage spurs him into saying things he doesn’t actually want to say, “It sounded like something you wanted to be true.”
James stares at him, and, if Kendall’s going to be totally truthful, he’s thinking about kissing him.
And he’s thought about kissing James before.
Okay, he’s thought about it a lot, with this James and his James.
Probably because he can’t forget what it feels like.
Back then, the band had been around for year, and was just lifting off, gaining notoriety in the eyes of thousands of screaming teenage girls.
So they went out to celebrate.
Logan knew a guy who knew a guy who made fantastic fake ids, but it turned out that half the fun of being a celebrity in LA was not needing them. Unless you happened to run into one of those morally righteous underage-kids-can’t-drink bouncers. Or the ones who were waiting to get paid a mint by the paps for a picture of wholesome superstars doing bad things.
Their bouncer that night was one of the latter.
He let them in, but he had no qualms calling the photogs. So later, when Kendall was feeling loose limbed and dizzy with alcohol, and James was giving him that shining, blinding smile of his, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to pull him stumbling drunk into the bathroom.
And Kendall still remembers the way his fingers fisted in the collar of his shirt, the way one of his hands gripped Kendall’s hips so hard it left an oddly shaped bruise.
They broke apart when the flash went off, panting and gasping and knowing they’d fucked up, big time.
It could have been a publicity crisis, but they ended up being lucky. The club they’d chosen had one of those seedy bathrooms, lit in black and red. The reporter hadn’t had the right kind of filter on his lens, and even though the hazy silhouettes bore a very striking resemblance to one half of Big Time Rush, the photos were vague enough that Kelly was able to work her media magic and cast doubt on the entire magazine that dared to publish them.
There was a whirlwind of speculation for a while.
Gustavo hadn’t even cared; he was of the opinion that every boy band had to have at least one gay scandal, which wasn’t really helpful at all.
And Kendall and James? They’d been drunk and stupid and horny, and sometimes in the locker room back at school Kendall might have fantasized about something like that happening, but it never would have if he hadn’t been sloshed out of his mind. Their friendship was strained, fractured for a little while under the weight of his overwhelming shame.
They bounced back, of course. Kendall made it perfectly clear he didn’t plan on what had happened, not ever, because it was obviously the alcohol’s fault. And he certainly didn’t plan on talking about it. The same way they didn’t talk about anything Carlos did when he drank too much caffeine, or when Logan had a sugar rush, or when James had one of his shopping benders at the mall.
James, his James, got the memo, loud and clear. He never brought it up, not even once, not even when their pictures were on the cover of every daily out there, their mouths devouring each other for everyone to see. And eventually, Kendall forgot about it.
Sure, it still pops up into his head every once in a while, when James is looking particularly good, or when he’s having a terrible day, or when its late at night, and he can’t think of a face to occupy his mind while his hand strokes lazily over his dick. But those moments are fleeting, subconscious, almost.
For all intents and purposes, Kendall thinks of it as one more idiotic mistake he’s made in a string of idiotic, hormonal teenage mistakes. He isn’t a dwell-in-the-past kind of guy.
Until now, with this version of James staring at him like Kendall has hung the moon and the stars in the sky.
He thinks about the picture, which he saved. It’s under his bed in his room back in the real world, because at the time, a single paparazzi photo seemed like the most important thing in the world. Life changing. Life destroying. And it's funny, but looking back at it now, it still does.
It still feels like that moment, trapped in time, is pivotal, but not for all the things it could have revealed to the world. Hell, Kendall will bet only a select few even remember its existence, much less care about it now. But for him, it’s still important for the captured smiles, the shared breath between him and James’s lips. It’s a frozen memory of what could have been.
When everything was too much, and never enough. When he and his version of James were young and invincible, living in a once upon a time land. Young, invincible, and so, so stupid.
It’s been a year since that photo was taken, and James is still the same person he’s always been. And Kendall still thinks about kissing him, but mostly, he thinks his moment has passed.
Whatever James might have felt for him that night; it vanished.
Adults always say that nothing lasts forever, but Kendall never believed them. Not really.
Not until it was too late.
And now it feels like he has a second chance.
He takes James’s hand and steers them off the path, away from the falafel vendor they’d been headed towards, away from the light strains of Arabic music slicing the air. James follows, wide eyed, questioning.
They lay down in the grass, James’s hand the only thing anchoring him to the ground. The stars, so rare here in California, are burning high overhead, pinpoints of light in the purple blue LA sky. They fade away the closer they fall to the horizon, which glows an artificial gold from the city lights, stars in and of themselves.
There’s a whole world out there, Kendall knows. More than one.
Except James isn’t looking at any of that. He’s ignoring the natural world completely, staring at him with something like wonder.
“You’re a miracle.”
Kendall feels something electric and shivery settle low in his stomach. He wants to say something about how corny that is, something masculine and douchey.
Something that will make James stop looking at him like that, like he means what he says. Kendall’s never felt like a miracle. Mostly he feels confused, a lot of the time. Whenever he manages to figure something out, he takes it as a small victory and moves on to the next problem, but he hasn’t been able to figure James out yet.
Either of them, actually.
“I’m really not,” he says hastily.
“But you are,” James insists, and then there’s this beat, this two second pause where Kendall is dizzy from inhaling their shared breath, and he wonders when their faces got so close together, and James’s eyes are there, blue and green and gold and hypnotic.
One of them arches across the distance between them, presses their mouth firm and hot and wet to the other wide eyed boy’s, and Kendall would like to say it’s him. He wants to think he’s brave and strong and true, but he also thinks its James, James who is beautiful and vulnerable and surprisingly brilliant.
Kendall kisses him while the world spins around them, and for the first time since he’s come to this alternate universe, he doesn’t want to go home.
---
There’s this thing.
And it’s that Kendall might be in love with James.
But he doesn’t know how to say it.
Guys don’t just go around spouting that kind of thing at a whim.
It’s a big deal. Not the way girls make it out to be, where it’s all about commitment and monogamy and shit.
Just, when a guy says he loves someone, it’s admitting a feeling, and most guys aren’t really keen on feelings in general. So.
It’s this thing.
Kendall doesn’t know what to do.
---
The problem is, things end.
Kendall wakes up one morning with his stomach twisting and the realization that he’s been stuck in this world for one month. An entire month of watching how the world has changed without him in it.
He’s spent the past week doing nothing but kissing James every opportunity he gets. He’d be living in James’s room in 2J if he wasn’t terrified of the Zevons; and even then, the idea of kissing James’s sleepy smile away when he first wakes is all too tempting.
But he wakes up on Guitar Dude’s couch, alone, with his stomach in knots, and he knows.
He has to find James.
Because it’s about to end, and it shouldn't.
He knows that it shouldn’t hurt so bad, that it shouldn’t tear at him. Everything ends, but he doesn’t want this to. Not like this.
If he has to go, he wants it to be some huge finale, but he knows it can’t be. It has to end the way it started, just like this, with a gasp, with a whimper.
Endings aren't supposed to be grand and tragic. That’s movie magic. Kendall knows that's the lie we all live, but eventually, everyone has to see the truth. It ends. It all just- ends.
He still has to find James.
James is by the pool, soaking up the sun, looking like a young, gorgeous god.
“I think I have to leave soon,” Kendall says, voice tumbling out in a rush.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t- it’s just this weird feeling I have.”
And it is; Kendall feels like he’s stretching too thin, like his atoms are about to pull apart and reassemble somewhere else.
James takes him to the ocean, to one of the places he likes to surf, because this version too belongs to the sea. They sit and watch the waves roll to shore for a long time, Kendall leaning into James’s side, listening to his heartbeat until darkness falls.
The second the first ray of moonlight breaks the sky, Kendall can feel the earth tremble, like a quake building beneath the surface.
James looks at him and says, “Don’t go.”
“I can’t not,” Kendall says, and it’s true. He doesn’t know how to stop this, even though he wants to. Desperately. He grabs James’s face in his hands, his fingers digging into skin, and as their mouths crash together-
He fades away.
When Kendall first crossed over, he’d thought the void was a place filled with stars that sparkled like diamonds, but now, as he is pulled back, it looks more like glass, meant for shredding his insides. He doesn’t want to leave, and he isn’t sure what that says about who he is or the things he wants, that he prefers this world where most of his friends and his family are conspicuously absent, but there’s still a boy who makes his pulse thread through his veins like a panicky kick drum, who makes his nerves jump and his stomach clench with nausea and his whole body ache with need.
Curt doesn’t deserve James, not any part of him.
---
Kendall wakes up on a lounge chair with James leaning over him, asking if he’s okay, and the first thing he thinks to say is-
“Are you wearing my shirt?”
James looks complete unruffled by the accusation, and Kendall wants to reach out, to kiss him but then-
James grins. It’s wide open and happy and the expression doesn’t belong to the boy who had folded Kendall into his arms just minutes ago.
At the beach. He has to get to the beach.
“What else are friends for, if not to snoop in your business and steal your clothes?” James says, but Kendall’s bolted up off of the chaise, and he’s halfway to the door of the lobby when he realizes that there’s not going to be anyone waiting for him.
“Dude?” James asks, “What’s going on?”
Kendall frowns at him, and even though this version is his, familiar as the back of his hand, he kind of wants to tell him to go polish his tiara so he can think about an identical boy a universe away. He has this frantic, aching idea that he’s going to live the rest of his life wishing to see a face that’s right in front of him, but belonging to someone he’ll never be able to see again.
He has to go back. He has to go back.
He has to go back.
And it’s not just James. Kendall thinks about what he left behind; the mess with Mercedes and Curt and Logan and poor Camille, who never seems to be able to get the things that she wants most, but is so resilient. He thinks maybe he should try to be her friend in this world, for real now.
It’s time she stopped being that slightly scary girl who slaps him a lot and occasionally dates his best friend. He’s not sure he can ever think of her that way again.
Then Kendall realizes there’s a hand in his jeans pockets and he looks down to see James lifting up his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Kendall shifts as James’s fingers skid over his skin.
“Um trying to figure out what happened to your cocky, irritating sense of self confidence. I know it’s around here somewhere.”
Kendall closes his eyes and wishes as hard as he can to go back.
---
He can’t go back.
---
Kendall spends a week moping around the Palmwoods.
Gustavo gets so mad at him that he threatens to kick him out of the band, but nothing works. He’s happy to see his mom and Katie and his version of Carlos, Logan, James, and Camille. He is.
But he feels like he’s lost something, and he doesn’t know how to change that.
He thinks that people are fleeting thoughts. They blink out too quickly, and rarely is the destiny they get the one that they deserve. James, the James he left behind, doesn’t deserve to be alone.
Neither does Kendall, for that matter.
He mopes and he mopes until one night, he spots his James trying to sneak out of the apartment.
“James? What are you doing?”
“I’m-“ James is hiding something behind his back in a very conspicuous way, is what he’s doing, but Kendall doesn’t feel like making a grab for it. He and James are pretty evenly matched on a normal day, but he’s too exhausted to grapple for whatever it is, even if they’re just playing.
That’s the other thing C.S. Lewis doesn’t tell you. Universe hopping is exhausting.
He puts on his best stern face, which he’s totally bogarted from his mom, and hopes for the best.
James sighs, “I’m going to see this band play at that one bar on LaCienega.”
“What band?”
“You wouldn’t have heard of them. They’re independent and like, virtually unknown.”
Kendall feels his heart stop dead in his chest.
“I thought- you don’t like anything that’s not pop?”
“I know,” James rakes a hand through his hair, actually messing it up, “I just- I walked past a club they were playing at on my way home from dinner with that one girl the other night and fuck, they’re really good. Like, amazing. And I remembered that I used to like stuff like that, before
I got this- like, image to keep up. I saw some bands back in Minnesota and- “
“You did? Why didn’t you take us? Why didn’t you take me?”
“I didn’t think you guys would be interested. It’s sort of- not what we listen to, and I guess I thought you think I was lame?”
“I already think you’re lame,” Kendall tries for jokey, but mostly he sounds sick- “Do you watch independent movies and read poetry when I’m not looking?”
“Nah, poetry’s lame, man. But music-“ he pauses, then says, “I think music is good no matter what it is.”
It’s wonderful and strange how easy it seems to fix things, once he lets himself stop worrying and just- does it.
“James- I. Can I come?”
His face lights up, like the sun, moon, and stars, and god, Kendall hasn’t realized how much he missed that smile.
“Sure.”
Kendall suddenly remembers what he knew in that other world; neither boy is so different. Not really.
It doesn’t change how he feels about the other things, about Curt and Logan and- Well. Some things are broken permanently, and he figures that the most he can do is try to forgive himself and move on.
But- some things don’t have to stay broken forever.
“James?”
Before he can stop himself, Kendall reaches for James’s hand, intertwining their fingers, “Let’s go.”
James’s gaze snaps to the place where their skin connects, and Kendall watches as his expression flickers from surprise to confusion until it morphs completely into something that looks a lot like happiness. James casts him a pleased smile, one of his damnable, gorgeous smiles that Kendall has memorized and categorized and analyzed so often in the past, and Kendall knows instantly.
They’re going to be fine.
---
♥