SHUT YOUR EYES - CHAPTER 10
Title: Shut Your Eyes
Authors: goten0040 and garnetice
Chapter: 10
Rating: M
Ship(s): Kendall/James, Carlos/Stephanie, maybe more.
Summary: Future!Fic. Kendall returns to L.A. six years after Big Time Rush disbanded. James has been missing for years. Imagine how things change when James reappears in his life. And he needs help.
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
I was absolutely miserable, which was pretty much par for the course.
I guess, in a way, I felt like everything was my fault. I’d backed out of hockey because I was terrified someone would find out my secret and decide America’s first openly gay hockey player was a prime mark for a hate crime. I was moping about losing the shape and the feel of being in the same room as my best friends, of nothing feeling the way it used to- when I was the one who’d dumped Big Time Rush and run off back home like a spoiled child. And I was mourning the death of the James Diamond I’d always known so hard because…god, because maybe if I hadn’t gone away, he never would’ve changed.
I knew it was idiotic. People always changed, no matter how hard we tried to make them stay the same. They weren’t photographs; static, stagnant memories. And you could never know every aspect of their psyche, even if you spent a hundred million years studying them.
But knowing something doesn’t always equate to accepting it.
I knew what Logan or Carlos, or even the old James would say. Breaking up the band had been important because it had finally been my turn to pursue my big childhood dream. Except, I hadn’t really gone to Minnesota to play hockey. It was a benefit, and I’d intended to do it since I was about three and got my first pair of skates, but man, I really had been running away.
I’d been wrecked about what had gone down between Jo and me, and all the realizations hanging like rainclouds over my head. I was acting like a jerk left and right. Things were moving too quickly, what with James talking about solos and Carlos dipping his feet into acting and Logan toying with the idea of med school. There was a point when I stopped and thought, ‘I’m losing all my friends. Maybe I’m alienating them. Maybe I’m just not doing enough to stop them as they slip through my fingers.’
But I realized that everyone goes eventually. If people don’t want to stay, you can’t make them.
So I decided to be the one who left.
I told myself that I just wanted clarity, and this huge part of me had insisted that getting away from the same people I’d known my entire life was the way to get it.
That had backfired. Big time.
See what I did there? Ha.
I was lying in my bed, listening to the nonstop traffic of Greater Los Angeles when my phone rang. It wasn’t quite noon, and one of my big resolutions now that I’d quit- well, everything that had to do with living and functioning like a normal human being- was to sleep in ‘til one. Only my biological clock wasn’t primed to sleep that late, and hadn’t been since high school, before I’d joined a busybusybusy boy band.
I sighed and made the executive decision that if I didn’t answer, I’d have to check my voicemail, which I absolutely loathed doing.
“Logan? What?” I asked flatly.
“You sound like crap.”
“Thanks,” I dragged out the ‘s’ sound into a hiss.
“So like, some sunshine would probably be good for you.”
Doubtfully, I squinted against the sunlight streaming in my window and wished I hadn’t torn down the dusty blinds in the midst of my cleaning fit the previous night.
“Are you asking me to go out?”
“Yes,” he practically chirped,
“Dude, Logan. I’m seriously not up to it today.”
“Kendall,” he drew out my name, “C’mon.”
“Um,” I frowned at my phone, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I could imagine the little furrow growing between his eyebrows when he whined, “We’re on vacation, goddamnit. We’re going to do vacation-y things.”
“Logie, did you just swear?”
“Shut up, asshole.”
“And again with the-“
“I mean it, Kendall. We are going to relax if it kills us.”
“My answer’s still no.”
“I must be hearing things.”
“What?”
“I must be hearing things, because I thought I heard you say no, and I’m not accepting no for an answer. I did not drag you out of your igloo so you could mope around in your moth bitten old bachelor’s pad for a month.”
I was offended, “There aren’t any moths.”
“Look, I get that you’re all down about- James,” his voice pitched higher at the end, “But like, we’re going to tackle that together. There’s nothing we can do until we track him down. Carlos has got a PI all over that. So come on, you…me…”
Logan began to say something else when I heard, “Oh, give me the damn phone!”
There was the sound of a scuffle on the other end of the line.
“Katie?” I asked tentatively.
“You’re going with us,” my little sister said firmly.
“Katie-“
“You. Are. Going. With us. Don’t make me repeat myself,” she threatened. My little sister had grown up terrifying.
“Right,” I agreed. Because otherwise I was reasonably certain they’d never find my body.
We drove down the highway with loud pop music blaring in Katie’s custom convertible. Most twenty two year olds drove broken down junkers, but not my sister, man. We took the auto ferry down to Balboa, and I was the first one out of the car and up on deck, leaning over the railing, inhaling salt spray and listening to the high pitched voices of too many kids. I kind of wanted to tell their parents to shut them up, but I knew I was being a total downer and made the executive decision to keep my mouth shut. Plus Katie, who had the maternal instinct of a praying mantis, kept them away with her scary force field of doom and gloom.
When we got off the ferry, we began to wander aimlessly, weaving amongst clapboard houses painted pastel, in varying stages of decay from the constant onslaught of wind and surf and unrelenting California sunshine. Some were home to businesses; kitschy boutiques and dental offices and pretty little restaurants that looked like they belonged in a painting.
Logan kept up a steady stream of chatter, entertaining Katie with tales of Floridian plastic surgery gone very awry. Both of them kept looking at me for input, but I didn’t really have anything to say about lopsided fake boobs. Or really any boobs.
Eventually they dragged me to the Fun Zone, hoping bumper cars and Ferris Wheels would break me out of my funk.
I’m not going to lie. It kind of did.
At the top of the Ferris Wheel, I took a deep breath and glanced around. I could see everything, all of Newport Harbor stretched out in front of me. For the first time in days, I felt a little calmer. Like maybe I didn’t have to fix all the world’s problems right that damn second. Katie cast me a knowing look, and Logan started spouting off facts about the Island that he probably thought were interesting, and I just breathed it all in.
By the time we decided on a place to eat lunch, and I was laughing and joking and helping Katie inappropriately hit on Logan, which she seemed to find hilarious. Every time she did it, he turned an increasingly brighter shade of red.
“So next weekend,” he said, ignoring Katie’s latest attempt to slide her hand up his thigh, even though his cheeks already resembled a tomato, “I was thinking Sea World.”
“Sea World? Seriously?”
“I like Shamu,” he protested.
Katie frowned, withdrawing her hand, “Shamu died, didn’t he?”
“Shamu never dies,” Logan squeaked, aghast, “He’s eternal.”
“No, I’m pretty sure he died,” she grinned and began to chew on a breadstick.
“She’s evil,” Logan hissed at me.
I rolled my eyes and high fived Katie under the table. The last thing I wanted to do was drag Logan around a theme park so he could tell me about the feeding habits of otters and the mating habits of beluga whales.
“Maybe we should go to Disneyland instead.”
“You know you don’t have to pack so much- vacationing into our vacation,” I told him mildy, tossing an oyster cracker at his face.
He blocked it, barely, “We’re not going to be here forever, you know. And I don’t get too many days off from work. I’d like to make the most of it, if that’s alright with you?”
I pursed my lips and tried my best to look extremely thoughtful, retaliating, “I bet Camille would go with you to Disneyland. Maybe she’ll even hold your hand on the Matterhorn!”
Immediately, Logan grabbed my bag of oyster crackers and dumped the whole thing over my head.
“You kind of deserved that,” Katie advised, now occupied with her BlackBerry.
“Probably,” I shrugged, picking a cracker out of my shirt and popping it into my mouth.
“We’re going to Disneyland,” Logan told me, eyes steely, “And that’s final.”
“Okay,” I tapped my fingers on the table, “But I will not be holding your hand on the Matterhorn.”
Dryly, he replied, “Somehow I think I’ll survive.”
---
Chapter Eleven
Authors: goten0040 and garnetice
Chapter: 10
Rating: M
Ship(s): Kendall/James, Carlos/Stephanie, maybe more.
Summary: Future!Fic. Kendall returns to L.A. six years after Big Time Rush disbanded. James has been missing for years. Imagine how things change when James reappears in his life. And he needs help.
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
I was absolutely miserable, which was pretty much par for the course.
I guess, in a way, I felt like everything was my fault. I’d backed out of hockey because I was terrified someone would find out my secret and decide America’s first openly gay hockey player was a prime mark for a hate crime. I was moping about losing the shape and the feel of being in the same room as my best friends, of nothing feeling the way it used to- when I was the one who’d dumped Big Time Rush and run off back home like a spoiled child. And I was mourning the death of the James Diamond I’d always known so hard because…god, because maybe if I hadn’t gone away, he never would’ve changed.
I knew it was idiotic. People always changed, no matter how hard we tried to make them stay the same. They weren’t photographs; static, stagnant memories. And you could never know every aspect of their psyche, even if you spent a hundred million years studying them.
But knowing something doesn’t always equate to accepting it.
I knew what Logan or Carlos, or even the old James would say. Breaking up the band had been important because it had finally been my turn to pursue my big childhood dream. Except, I hadn’t really gone to Minnesota to play hockey. It was a benefit, and I’d intended to do it since I was about three and got my first pair of skates, but man, I really had been running away.
I’d been wrecked about what had gone down between Jo and me, and all the realizations hanging like rainclouds over my head. I was acting like a jerk left and right. Things were moving too quickly, what with James talking about solos and Carlos dipping his feet into acting and Logan toying with the idea of med school. There was a point when I stopped and thought, ‘I’m losing all my friends. Maybe I’m alienating them. Maybe I’m just not doing enough to stop them as they slip through my fingers.’
But I realized that everyone goes eventually. If people don’t want to stay, you can’t make them.
So I decided to be the one who left.
I told myself that I just wanted clarity, and this huge part of me had insisted that getting away from the same people I’d known my entire life was the way to get it.
That had backfired. Big time.
See what I did there? Ha.
I was lying in my bed, listening to the nonstop traffic of Greater Los Angeles when my phone rang. It wasn’t quite noon, and one of my big resolutions now that I’d quit- well, everything that had to do with living and functioning like a normal human being- was to sleep in ‘til one. Only my biological clock wasn’t primed to sleep that late, and hadn’t been since high school, before I’d joined a busybusybusy boy band.
I sighed and made the executive decision that if I didn’t answer, I’d have to check my voicemail, which I absolutely loathed doing.
“Logan? What?” I asked flatly.
“You sound like crap.”
“Thanks,” I dragged out the ‘s’ sound into a hiss.
“So like, some sunshine would probably be good for you.”
Doubtfully, I squinted against the sunlight streaming in my window and wished I hadn’t torn down the dusty blinds in the midst of my cleaning fit the previous night.
“Are you asking me to go out?”
“Yes,” he practically chirped,
“Dude, Logan. I’m seriously not up to it today.”
“Kendall,” he drew out my name, “C’mon.”
“Um,” I frowned at my phone, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I could imagine the little furrow growing between his eyebrows when he whined, “We’re on vacation, goddamnit. We’re going to do vacation-y things.”
“Logie, did you just swear?”
“Shut up, asshole.”
“And again with the-“
“I mean it, Kendall. We are going to relax if it kills us.”
“My answer’s still no.”
“I must be hearing things.”
“What?”
“I must be hearing things, because I thought I heard you say no, and I’m not accepting no for an answer. I did not drag you out of your igloo so you could mope around in your moth bitten old bachelor’s pad for a month.”
I was offended, “There aren’t any moths.”
“Look, I get that you’re all down about- James,” his voice pitched higher at the end, “But like, we’re going to tackle that together. There’s nothing we can do until we track him down. Carlos has got a PI all over that. So come on, you…me…”
Logan began to say something else when I heard, “Oh, give me the damn phone!”
There was the sound of a scuffle on the other end of the line.
“Katie?” I asked tentatively.
“You’re going with us,” my little sister said firmly.
“Katie-“
“You. Are. Going. With us. Don’t make me repeat myself,” she threatened. My little sister had grown up terrifying.
“Right,” I agreed. Because otherwise I was reasonably certain they’d never find my body.
We drove down the highway with loud pop music blaring in Katie’s custom convertible. Most twenty two year olds drove broken down junkers, but not my sister, man. We took the auto ferry down to Balboa, and I was the first one out of the car and up on deck, leaning over the railing, inhaling salt spray and listening to the high pitched voices of too many kids. I kind of wanted to tell their parents to shut them up, but I knew I was being a total downer and made the executive decision to keep my mouth shut. Plus Katie, who had the maternal instinct of a praying mantis, kept them away with her scary force field of doom and gloom.
When we got off the ferry, we began to wander aimlessly, weaving amongst clapboard houses painted pastel, in varying stages of decay from the constant onslaught of wind and surf and unrelenting California sunshine. Some were home to businesses; kitschy boutiques and dental offices and pretty little restaurants that looked like they belonged in a painting.
Logan kept up a steady stream of chatter, entertaining Katie with tales of Floridian plastic surgery gone very awry. Both of them kept looking at me for input, but I didn’t really have anything to say about lopsided fake boobs. Or really any boobs.
Eventually they dragged me to the Fun Zone, hoping bumper cars and Ferris Wheels would break me out of my funk.
I’m not going to lie. It kind of did.
At the top of the Ferris Wheel, I took a deep breath and glanced around. I could see everything, all of Newport Harbor stretched out in front of me. For the first time in days, I felt a little calmer. Like maybe I didn’t have to fix all the world’s problems right that damn second. Katie cast me a knowing look, and Logan started spouting off facts about the Island that he probably thought were interesting, and I just breathed it all in.
By the time we decided on a place to eat lunch, and I was laughing and joking and helping Katie inappropriately hit on Logan, which she seemed to find hilarious. Every time she did it, he turned an increasingly brighter shade of red.
“So next weekend,” he said, ignoring Katie’s latest attempt to slide her hand up his thigh, even though his cheeks already resembled a tomato, “I was thinking Sea World.”
“Sea World? Seriously?”
“I like Shamu,” he protested.
Katie frowned, withdrawing her hand, “Shamu died, didn’t he?”
“Shamu never dies,” Logan squeaked, aghast, “He’s eternal.”
“No, I’m pretty sure he died,” she grinned and began to chew on a breadstick.
“She’s evil,” Logan hissed at me.
I rolled my eyes and high fived Katie under the table. The last thing I wanted to do was drag Logan around a theme park so he could tell me about the feeding habits of otters and the mating habits of beluga whales.
“Maybe we should go to Disneyland instead.”
“You know you don’t have to pack so much- vacationing into our vacation,” I told him mildy, tossing an oyster cracker at his face.
He blocked it, barely, “We’re not going to be here forever, you know. And I don’t get too many days off from work. I’d like to make the most of it, if that’s alright with you?”
I pursed my lips and tried my best to look extremely thoughtful, retaliating, “I bet Camille would go with you to Disneyland. Maybe she’ll even hold your hand on the Matterhorn!”
Immediately, Logan grabbed my bag of oyster crackers and dumped the whole thing over my head.
“You kind of deserved that,” Katie advised, now occupied with her BlackBerry.
“Probably,” I shrugged, picking a cracker out of my shirt and popping it into my mouth.
“We’re going to Disneyland,” Logan told me, eyes steely, “And that’s final.”
“Okay,” I tapped my fingers on the table, “But I will not be holding your hand on the Matterhorn.”
Dryly, he replied, “Somehow I think I’ll survive.”
---
Chapter Eleven