Archive of Our Own

James isn’t sure what love is, but he thinks maybe he has it with Kendall Knight.

Then Kendall disappears.

Can a person really say they’ve found their soulmate after less than a month of time spent together? James doesn’t know, but losing Kendall? It tears at him, like maybe part of his soul really has been ripped away. He isn’t very good at hiding it, either.

“Dude,” Curt says, the first time James hits the wrong key during a song, too distracted by thoughts of a boy he can no longer touch to focus on singing, the one constant love of his life. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” James snaps, because Curt’s one to talk. He’s been moping around the Palm Woods for weeks now, torn between two sets of pearly white teeth, two pairs of big eyes. It’s this never-ending tug-of-war between Logan and Mercedes, and James is sick of it.

Logan is an idiot, for not seeing the way Curt feels about him. Which mostly just pisses James off more, because Curt is right there, right in front of him. If either he or Curt want to make a move, they can. There isn’t an entire dimension barring them from it.

Not that James totally, one hundred percent believes that alternate universe crap. Mostly, he’d let it slide because Kendall’s dimples were gorgeous. He’d been hinging on Kendall being cute but a little bit crazy. Until the day that he disappeared, the day he’d been nestled into James’s side one second, warm and solid in his arms, and then gone the next. He blinked out of existence. Lost, like ashes in the wind.

James still doesn’t want to believe it, but he isn’t sure if he has a choice. Sometimes he will curl his fingers around the air, wondering. Just wondering. Kendall said that his version of the band lived in the same apartment in another world, and James wonders if maybe the two spaces overlap. If somewhere, across time and space, Kendall is lying on his James’s bed. If James concentrates hard enough, if he stays still enough, can he feel the heat of Kendall’s breath against his neck, seeping through cracks in the universe?

The idea won’t leave. James catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, a glint of gold like Kendall’s hair, a flash of plaid like one of those hideous flannel shirts he likes. It’s only ever for a second, barely more than the flicker of a shadow. But it’s unbearable.

Logan calls him out on it before anyone, because Logan is perceptive like that. The second time James bombs a song, he pulls him aside and demands, “Is this about Kendall?”

James freezes. “What? No. Yes. I don’t know.”

He rakes a hand through his hair and tries to remember to breathe.

“Haven’t seen him around in a while,” Logan says carefully.

“He’s gone.”

“Back to Minnesota?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you guys have a fight?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why don’t you just call him?”

“I can’t, okay?”

“Not okay,” Logan objects. “You’re not making any sense.”

James takes a deep breath.

“Hey, um. Do you believe in alternate universes?”

“Yeah. I mean, theoretically, they’re possible. Einstein proposed that for every decision we make in life, a new universe is created. Which would make the amount of universe out there- countless. Is this for school? You’ve never really been into science.”

James chooses not to answer. He can’t take the pity in Logan’s eyes.

Besides, how is he even supposed to explain any of it? Not just the crazy sci-fi crap, but the part where, when Kendall walked into his life, he filled a void in James’s chest that he hadn’t even known existed. For the first time, James understood what people meant when they said love made you whole. Now that he’s gone, James feels like maybe he’s vanishing too, like he’s splintering into a thousand pieces, spread across the universe, in search of a boy who doesn’t even exist in this world.

Or does he?

In Kendall’s world (and it’s still weird saying that, like maybe James is spiraling into insanity), there’s another version of James. He’s jealous of himself; of the boy who got to grow up with Kendall Knight as his valiant protector and the boy who probably, if he has any sense at all, is with Kendall this second.

James knows himself better than he likes sometimes. He knows that he would want Kendall, in any world. If he hadn’t made a move before, it was because he was biding his time. And if Kendall ever looked at the other world version of him the way he’d spent the past week looking at James? There wouldn’t be much time left to bide.

It makes James ache to think that maybe Kendall has found something new with a different version of him, with the person James could have been if he’d always had Kendall in his life. But it also made him wonder if this world has a Kendall.

It eats at him, until he can’t think of anything else.

And no one gets it. Curt, Carlos, and Logan? They want James to get his act together already. They don’t understand what’s going on in James’s brain, how he’s listened to so many sad love songs and so many stories about finding and losing, about wanting and needing, that he thinks maybe he conjured up the perfect boy out of his imagination. He doesn’t know how else to explain the way that Kendall was everything, loyalty and mischief and steadfast nobility, the slice of a blade through crisp ice and the swelling crescendo of a song in perfect symmetry. He was impossible, and James aches for him.

James is really fucking scared that he made Kendall up.

There’s this PI that works for Gustavo. Mostly he does stupid things, like spy on Matthew Mcconaughey or try to capture pictures of Griffin in compromising positions for future blackmail. James approaches him on a sunny day feeling like he’s stepped out of a noir novel, a bundle of cash under one arm and a request on his lips.

It doesn’t take long for the PI to come back at him. Apparently James could have hunted Kendall down with nothing more than a google search. He’s like, some kind of hockey prodigy in a town that used to be home.

More than that. Carlos’s dad, apparently like, knows him.

James tests the waters.

Carlos talks to his dad every night around nine, like clockwork. James shuffles in on the edge of the conversation, mumbles, “Carlos. Hey, um. Can I…talk to your dad for a second?”

Carlos frowns, obviously confused. But he shrugs, because he’s easygoing like that, and says, “Okay. Sure.”

James takes the phone with trembling fingers. “Hi, Mr. Garcia.”

“James! What’s going on, kiddo?”

“Uh. I was just…do you know someone with the last name Knight?”

“…Why do you want to know that?”

“I. Um. Just…” James isn’t sure what to say. How can he possibly explain this?

Fortunately, Carlos’s dad lets it slide. “I used to date this girl in high school. Jennifer. She married a guy on the force. Her name’s Jennifer Knight, now.”

“Does she…um, does she live in Minnesota?”

“As far as I know. It’s been a long time since I talked to her. Her husband’s…not a very nice man. James, what is this about?”

“Nothing. Thanks, Mr. Garcia.”

“Of course, but James-“

James hands the phone back to Carlos. He can feel the look Carlos is giving him burning into the back of his neck.

Carlos doesn’t ask him about it, doesn’t even approach the subject. He sends Curt instead. Curt, who finds James shoving clothes into a duffel bag. His eyes go wide. “What are you doing?”

James sighs. “I’m going to find Kendall. He left. Kind of.”

He bites his lip and tried not to think about how much that hurts.

“So…what? You’re going to drive out to- where the hell was he from, Minnesota? To track down some guy you only knew for a month? James, that’s insane.” James bristles, but Curt forages on, dauntless. “You barely know him.”

Softly, James says, “It doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I’ve known him for my entire life.”

Curt winces. It’s there, hanging in the air between them, that he’s never felt like that about Curt. Still. He tries.

“Just forget that guy.” He leans his arms on the back of James’s desk chair, spins it around and around. “He’s not worth it.”

James’s eyes narrow. “How do you know? You didn’t even give him a chance.”

“No one’s worth tearing yourself apart like this, dude. Trust me.”

“I don’t though.” James says quietly. “I’ve never trusted you.”

Might as well air out all the dirty laundry before he goes. And it’s true, because no matter how long they’ve been friends, James has never really liked Curt. He’s loyal to him to a fault, but it’s only because he loves Logan and Carlos so very much.

He loves them, and they love Curt the way James has never been able to, so James knows that he’s stuck with him. Yeah, he’s grown fond of the kid as he’s grown to understand him. He’ll protect him like he would with any of his friends. But if it came down to Logan and Carlos or Curt, James would choose the latter, because they’re not just friends. They’re brothers. They’re practically blood, the way he’d felt about Kendall the second he met him.

Maybe that’s why he’d bought into this alternate universe crap so easily, because Kendall called to him in his pulse, in his heart.

“James-“ Curt’s mouth gapes open a little. “You’re my best friend.”

“Fine. As your best friend, I’m telling you that you should sort your shit out before worrying about mine,” James tells Curt.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do. I’m going to kill you if you hurt Logan, and Mercedes is sweet. In her own way. She doesn’t deserve to be lead on. Not unless you mean it.”

“You’re going to kill me? Like you could.” Curt snorts.

“I could,” James says, his expression completely blank.

Curt’s eyes grow wary, and he says, “You’re serious.”

“I am,” James agrees, and then, to lighten the mood, he slaps Curt on the back. Probably a little harder than is absolutely necessary. “So it’s time to choose. Give up or-“

“Big Time Rush,” Curt says softly, like a long ago echo. He stands, straightens. Pleads, “James, dude. Don’t go.”

James doesn’t listen.

He drives out to Minnesota on diet of soft drinks and convenience store taquitos, with only the playlists on his iPod to keep him company. The landscape of America is painted in the red clay, golden cornfields, blood orange sunsets, and crushed glass black sparkle of asphalt.

James goes home, or to the place that used to be home. Not a lot of people know that James’s mom back in Wisconsin isn’t actually his mom. She’s his stepmom, but he hasn’t referred to her like that since he was seven, and he chose to go live with her and his dad.

His stepmom isn’t exactly his favorite person in the world- she forced him through lessons on classical music and straight onto the honor roll as a kid when all James wanted was to play outside- but she’s better than his real mom. Brooke Diamond never forgave him for choosing his dad. They haven’t spoken in ages.

So. He’s dreading going back to the mansion where he lived as a kid. It feels every bit as big, empty, and desolate as he remembers, but it turns out he needn’t have worried about any big confrontations.

No one’s home.

No one’s ever home.

That night he watches TV and eats a microwave dinner of mac and cheese. James shifts the food around on his plate. Already he misses Mrs. Zevon and her home cooking.

His old bedroom is still decorated with Ninja Turtle posters and faded dinosaur wallpaper. James is kind of surprised that his mom hasn’t gotten around to turning it into an in-house gym or a yoga studio or whatever.

Kind of, but not completely; his mom’s barely ever around. She probably just hasn’t found the time in the past nine years, too busy trying to expand her cosmetics line.

He’s about to go to bed when his cell buzzes. The name on his screen is a surprise. “Curt?”

“Did you get in okay?” Curt asks, brusque.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“It would’ve been nice if you called to say so.”

“I did call. I talked to Logan this afternoon.”

“And that helps me how?”

“Dude.” James scowls at his phone. “The fuck is your problem?”

“My problem is that you’re an inconsiderate asshole,” Curt retorts. And then he hangs up.

“Weird,” James tells his empty bedroom. Michelangelo’s cartoon eyes seem to agree.

It takes him three days to find Kendall, three days of skulking around Small Town, Minnesota before he works up the courage to go to the Knight’s house. And then, fate tugging his strings like a marionette, James catches a glimpse of movement on a park bench three blocks from his destination.

The moment he sees him, a flash of hair like old gold and this truly horrendous plaid button down, James feels his heart settle in his chest. He’s been so scared that it was all a dream. That the boy with the crooked, dimpled smile he’d fallen in love with was just some kind of dream fabricated by his lonely mind. He’s halfway across the road before he’s even given his legs the command to walk. And then, when he gets closer, he stops.

Because the boy on the picnic bench is singing.

Well, more like humming along softly to his earbuds, but still. Even though Kendall told him that he was part of BTR back in his own universe, it had never once occurred to James to ask him to sing.

Now he can picture it. Now he can see what it would feel like to have the strength of their combined voices on stage. He doesn’t have any trouble imagining Gustavo snatching up this boy.

Not any longer.

Watching him there, watching him sing, makes James angry. Because this could have been his.

For seventeen years, he’s missed out on Kendall Knight, on watching him smile and sing and throw an easy arm over James’s shoulder. He’s been robbed of the person that Kendall could have made him, shallow and vain but full of so much laughter and hope. James wants so desperately to be that person, to lack all the dark corners and shadows that lie within him. Up until this moment, he’s accepted his life with a sort of weary resignation because it is good, and it is fun, and he’s always thought he was happy. What right did Kendall have to traipse into James’s life and make him realize that he hasn’t been happy at all? He has half a mind to yank his earbuds right out of his ears.

So he does it.

Kendall bolts upright, nearly falling off of the picnic table with wide eyed panic.

“Dude, the fuck is your problem?” Then he pauses, gaze resting on James’s face. “Do I know you?”

“Nope,” James replies brightly.

Kendall gives him this slow once over and asks, “Do I want to know you?”

“Absolutely.”

Kendall’s lips quirk. “You’re cocky.”

“I’m in a band,” James tells him.

Kendall snaps his fingers. “That’s it. You’re in- um.” He stares down at his lap, or more precisely, his iPod, fingers flicking through the songs. “Big Time Rush!”

Kendall holds up the screen so that James can see the album artwork for one of their singles. He doesn’t know whether to be flattered that Kendall recognizes him or insulted that he had to search for the band’s name. Almost immediately, Kendall seems to get that his reaction is maybe a little rude, because he shrugs and says apologetically, “It’s my sister’s iPod.”

“You’re not a fan, then?”

“I don’t really listen to music that much.”

“Why? I heard you singing. You’ve got a fantastic voice.”

“Okay, now I know you’re fucking with me.”

“I’m not.”

Kendall laughs. “Maybe you should find me a job then. Save me from picking a college.”

James sits down next to him. The bench is warm with Kendall’s body heat and the midafternoon sunshine. “You don’t want to go to school?”

“Nah, I do. I just- have to figure out which one. I play hockey,” Kendall explains. “I’ve gotten recruited by three of the big ones. But they’re all so far from home.” He stares off in what James has to assume is the direction of his house. “I don’t want to leave my sister all alone. She doesn’t have very many friends.”

James opens his mouth to say something, but Kendall ducks his head. “I probably shouldn’t talk. And you don’t care about any of this.”

“No, I do. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, about that. You go around ripping everyone’s headphones out?”

“You just- looked like someone I know.” He doesn’t say sorry, because he’s not.

“Well. Um. It was nice meeting you. My little sister is going to flip her shit when she finds out.” Kendall plants both of his feet firmly on the ground, standing up. He’s tall. James has forgotten that, how they’re nearly the same height. He’s used to Logan and Carlos and Curt; stocky boys who James towers over. But even though Kendall is an inch or two shorter, he feels bigger, somehow. Just standing there, he commands all of James’s attention.

Partially because of old memories. Like right now, James is thinking about how he liked to kiss the other version of Kendall on the nose, sometimes, just because it was there. Kendall says, “Well. It was nice meeting you. I have to go to work. I guess….enjoy your day?”

He’s going to leave.

James’s throat closes up, the reaction completely irrational, but all he can think is that Kendall will leave and this time he’ll never be able to find him again. “Wait. Uh. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Minnesota, and I don’t really…know anyone.”

It’s not a lie. This town isn’t James’s home, not anymore. It stopped being home the second Logan left, the day he met Curt and Carlos in Wisconsin (?).

“Oh?” Kendall asks warily. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets, looking acutely uncomfortable.

“Just. Do you want to hang out sometime? I’m here for a couple of weeks, and I guess I could use a- a tour guide, or whatever.”

“And you want me to show you around?” Kendall asks slowly, dubiously.

“Like I said. You look like someone I know.” James shifts from foot to foot, not used to the overwhelming feeling of awkward. Maybe he’s been in Hollywood too long, because it’s been a while since someone didn’t bend over backwards to try to accommodate him.

Kendall frowns. “Uh. Okay. I guess I could…tomorrow maybe, um. Where are you staying?”

“With my mom,” James replies automatically, even though his mom has no idea he’s even in town. He shifts again, not really budging from his place on the bench.

The thing is, he really, really doesn’t want to go home tonight. For reasons.

It must be obvious, because Kendall sighs. “You sound super excited about that.”

James tries to remember that they’re perfect strangers. Only, Kendall doesn’t feel like a stranger. He blurts out, “We’re not really close. It’s…awkward.”

Kendall makes this disparaging noise. His hands move from his jeans deep into the pockets of his hoodie. “You’re not a serial killer, right?”

“What?”

“You’re not planning on chopping me into little pieces and making stew with me or anything?”

“I- do you want to be stew?” James asks, confused.

“Not particularly. I guess you could, uh, come to dinner. At my house. If you want. I get off work at eight. My mom won’t mind. She’ll probably be ecstatic.”

“You know I’m a complete stranger, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Kendall shrugs. “But you’re famous, and my baby sister will probably kill me if I don’t get your autograph or something, and besides, when I said I was leaving you looked at me like I kicked your puppy. So come to dinner, weirdo.”

James can’t say no to that.

He stands outside the Knight house at eight o’clock sharp, shifting from foot to foot while he waits for Kendall to get home. He thought about knocking, but he’s never met Kendall’s mom or his little sister before, not even the alternate versions, and he’s not sure if Kendall gave them a heads up that James is coming. He stands around, awkwardly trying to appear like he belongs until Kendall’s familiar blond head turns a corner.

“James.” Kendall sounds surprised, his eyebrows doing this thing where they angle over his lashes like malcontent caterpillars. “How long have you been waiting here?”

“You said eight.” James shrugs off his creepy loitering, no big deal. A diversion is in order, here. He points to the duffel on Kendall’s shoulder, the oddly shaped olive green bag that he definitely did not have before. “What’s that.”

“Oh, uh. My gear. I left it at work yesterday, and, um. Yeah.”

“Gear?”

Kendall brightens, “I really love-“

“Hockey,” James finishes for him, realization dawning. He knows that from his Kendall, who lived and breathed ice.

“Right,” Kendall says slowly. “Did I tell you that before?”

“Yeah, and. Uh. Minnesota. Biggest sport around,” James replies lamely.

Kendall’s brow furrows. “I guess so. Do you play?”

James has a vague recollection of taking a spin around the ice when he was young, back when his dad and his mom still talked and his college aged stepmom wasn’t imposing ridiculous restrictions on his time. He must have been, god, five?

“No,” he says. He’s confident enough on skates, but he’s not willing to embarrass himself in front of someone who might be going pro.

“You should come see a game, sometime. It’s fun. I mean, I think it’s fun,” Kendall says a bit ruefully. “All the girls I’ve dated tell me it’s boring, but- uh. Not that I want to like, date you or-“

He is stumbling over his words in this cute, flustered way that makes it obvious how much he hates being embarrassed.

“I’d love to see a game while I’m here. Are you any good?”

“I’m amazing,” Kendall replies, completely confident in his own abilities. James grins.

Kendall fiddles with the front door, twisting his key, and yells inside, “I’m home.”

An adolescent girl’s voice calls back, “No one care, freakazoid.”

“Be nice! I brought a guest.”

Footsteps announce that the girl the voice belongs to is charging into the foyer, and she does, seconds later, all sleek brown hair and dark, sarcastic eyes. She reminds James a bit of Curt’s sister, before she went to college.

Kendall says, “This is-“

“Katie,” James extends his hand.

“How did you- no, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Katie’s mouth is hanging wide open. She says, “You’re James Diamond.”

James nods, albeit a little uncertainly.

“No, but. You’re James Diamond.”

Kendall grins at his little sister. “This was a brilliant idea. I have brilliant ideas.”

James laughs. “Nice to meet you, Katie.”

Katie says, “James Diamond is in my house. Mom! James Diamond is in our house!”

She runs off to go shriek at Kendall’s mom, while James glances around the house in complete and utter fascination.

The place is cozy, quaint, and painfully alien. With all that Kendall told James in the weeks they spent together, he’d hoped he’d somehow assimilated everything he needed to know. But this is not his Kendall’s home, and even if it was, he doesn’t know why he’d assumed he’d somehow be able to recognize it. It’s not like James has ever lived in anything other than the cavernous, echoing monstrosities that are his mom’s mansion, his dad’s townhouse, or the Palmwoods. Actual homes that don’t belong to Logan, Carlos, or Curt are outside his realm of experience.

He sees a picture of a sandy haired man on the mantle and goes to it.

“Is this your dad?” James stares at the picture. “He looks nice.”

“He’s in jail.” Kendall shrugs. “Fraud.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Kendall actually smiles. “Perks of having a father’s who’s a conman.”

He looks like he might say more, except a red haired woman peeks around the entry way of the foyer. James assumes she’s Kendall’s mom, which makes it extra embarrassing when she stalks right up to him and pushes her index finger into the flesh right beneath James’s right pectoral, testing to see if he’s real.

She says, “You’re famous.”

James nods, because yes, he is. This is the first time he’s found it quite so embarrassing to cop up to, though. He sees Katie lurking behind her mother’s back, still slack jawed and completely awestruck.

“Why are you in my living room?” Mrs. Knight marvels. Without warning, she spins on Kendall, demanding, “Did you hit the famous boy in the head with a hockey puck? Is he concussed? Does he have amnesia?”

Kendall scowls, his cheeks turning pink. “No.”

“Oh.” Relief floods his mother’s face. She asks, “Why is he here then? Wait, is he my birthday present? He’s a little young, but-“

“Mom,” Kendall bites off the word, hard.

“Well he’s too old for Katie,” she says sensibly, smirking.

James suppresses his instinct to preen. Hitting on Mrs. Knight probably won’t get him in Kendall’s good graces.

“He’s here for dinner. Can we do that? Can we eat an entire meal without molesting the pretty popstar?”

“I suppose.” Mrs. Knight huffs a sigh. “One of these days you’re going to need to resolve this falling out you’ve had with Fun.”

“I know Fun. Fun and I are tight, okay,” Kendall tells hers prissily.

“Come along, Katie.” Mrs. Knight tugs at Katie’s elbow. Katie does not budge, still staring at James in gape-mouthed awe. “Katie. Come.”

It takes most of her strength to forcibly drag Katie into the kitchen, skidding on the heels of her sneakers, but Mrs. Knight manages. She seems like a pretty a tough lady.

James grins. Kendall catches it. “What are you smiling at?”

He grins wider and says, “You think I’m pretty.”

“I never said that.”

“Yeah, you did.” James knocks their shoulders together companionably. “It’s okay, you know. I am really good looking.”

Kendall gawps. “You’re really strange.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Something dark flickers across Kendall’s face. He asks, “Will I?”

“So you’re from Minnesota, sweetie?” Mrs. Knight asks, ladling out some potatoes.

“Originally, I’m from here.” James looks around and thinks, we could have been best friends. In another world, they are best friends. “I moved to Wisconsin when I was eight, and then California once we got discovered. I’ve been there ever since.”

“Oh.” Kendall says genially. “And you moved to Wisconsin ‘cause…you really like cheese?”

“That’s exactly the reason,” James agrees. “Cheese is awesome.”

Then something catches his eye; there is a jagged scar across Kendall’s forearm, puckered white.

Without really thinking, he blurts, “How did you get that?”

Kendall frowns, because yeah, it’s kind of an invasive question for someone he’s just met. “Car accident. Drunk driver ran a light. It’s not a big deal.”

From across the table, Mrs. Knight inserts, “Don’t be modest, honey.”

James blinks.

Kendall says, “Mom, not again-“

“Kendall saw the car coming. Katie was, what, six at the time? He tried to cover her from the glass. He was a regular little hero.”

“Mom,” Kendall says sharply, his ears turning red. “Come on.” He turns to James, and explains. “It’s her favorite story to tell. It really wasn’t a big deal. We were all fine.”

“Sixteen stitches is not fine, young man.”

“I’m fine now, aren’t I?”

James doesn’t know what to say. This isn’t a story the other world’s Kendall had told him. This is something unfamiliar and strange. And right then, he realizes that his being in the Knights’ house is like that too, strange and intrusive, and.

What is he even doing? He swallows, and tries not to show any of it on his face.

He feels like one of his own crazed fans, intent on getting Kendall to love him, no matter what.

But this is different, he tells himself. They belong together- okay, that doesn’t actually make it sound better. But. He and Kendall really were good together. He wants that back. Desperately.

Kendall says, “I’ve got a hockey game tomorrow, but after, if you want, I can show you around.”

James replies, “I’d really like that,” and he hopes that none of the Knights can tell that he’s choking on his own guilt.

He lays in bed that night, thinking about how life is completely, utterly, unforgivably unfair.

James was happy in Hollywood, where people are color and sound and different than everything he’s ever known in Wisconsin or Minnesota. Performing is the love of his life. He’s intoxicated by the sound of his own voice laid down against a backtrack of drumsguitarbass, underscored by the shriek of all kinds of girls. This is exactly what he’s always dreamt about, the one thing he’s always wanted. He was so happy.

Right up until he wasn’t. Where his problems started and ends is here; he never knew the gaping emptiness in his chest was a space waiting to be filled. James thought everyone felt the way he did, a little bit disenchanted, but mostly okay. Then he met a boy with starlight dancing in his eyes. A boy who laughed as easily as he breathes. A boy who told him that were he comes from, James is different.

Suddenly, James’s perfectly content existence wasn’t enough. Not when there’s another, better version of him out there, living in something closer to ecstasy.

Which he must be. He has to be. He is. Because that version of him has Kendall Knight. Kendall, whose pale green eyes are flecked with jasper and moss. Kendall with his quirky grin, so ready for anything, even if anything is reckless and dumb. Kendall, who made life inexplicably fun when before it was static; James going through the motions, convinced this was all there is.

Kendall flipped everything upside down. Then Kendall disappeared.

Losing Kendall tore at him, split his insides like maybe part of his soul really was shredded. But none of that makes up for him being here, for him stalking this kid who looks just like his Kendall but isn’t.

That doesn’t stop him from going to Kendall’s game the following afternoon. The old ice rink they hold it at is both familiar and not, a childhood memory that has warped at the edges.

Kendall though.

James sucks in a breath. Kendall, the other universe’s Kendall, had told him that he played hockey, but- James hadn’t really given it much thought until now.

The boy on the ice is fast, faster than James can ever imagine being, and powerful. He dodges the opposing team, weaving between a tangle of arms and legs meant to trip him, a gauntlet of limbs formed in a desperate attempt to keep him from his goal. Kendall sprints past them like it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done, like he was born with blades on his feet.

He’s a shark on the ice, and he glides in and strikes the puck with ease.

There’s this moment, like at a concert, right before the band goes on, where everyone’s holding their breath in this hushed anticipation. Then the dull thud of heavy plastic hitting net. The crowd goes insane. There’s cheering and clapping and a lot of stomping, and someone’s started up a rousing rendition of We Will Rock You, but James can only focus on one thing.

Kendall is brilliant, a shooting star, a whole universe onto himself. He is the only thing worth watching out there on the ice. James’s heart beats faster, making him feel alive for the first time in weeks.

Afterwards, when they’ve won, James looks on as Kendall wistfully watches the rest of the team. He’s still the same confident, cocky boy that James met back at the Palmwoods, but for the first time James gets what’s really different.

The guy he fell in love with surrounded himself with people. When he wasn’t with James or Logan or Carlos, or god forbid, even Curt, he was spending time with Guitar Dude or Camille or- it was like he didn’t seem to understand what it meant to be alone. Like he didn’t know how to function without an entourage.

And it was reciprocal. People were constantly visiting him with questions and demands and friendly waves, even though he’d only been around for a month.

This version of Kendall still threw out high fives and strong smiles, but he didn’t pull anyone towards him. People didn’t gravitate to him like fireflies. He was alone, and he seemed resigned to it.

James doesn’t like it at all. He calls out Kendall’s name almost without thinking about it.

Kendall looks furious.

They’re in the locker room, Kendall shoving off his hockey jersey, and having him shirtless is probably the most distracting possible thing in the entire world. “I told you I’d meet you in town!”

“I know. I just…wanted to see you play, is all. People talk about you. I wanted to see what the fuss was about.”

Kendall softens almost immediately, shoves his hand through his sweat soaked hair and says, “Look, it feels like you’re stalking me, and that’s not cool, dude.”

“I’m not stalking you. You’re the only person I know here.”

“You don’t know me, James.” He pauses, and then adds, “But you keep acting like you do. I don’t know what to make of it.”

James doesn’t know what to say. He tries, “Then, can I get to know you?”

“Don’t you have friends of your own?”

“They’re home.”

“So go back to them.” He looks angry, crowding him up against the lockers all half-naked and sweaty, and James thinks of how in another world, he’s a hockey player too. There’s a whole other version of himself that is strong and probably not at all intimidated when a well-muscled athlete slams him into a wall.

James has never played hockey; he skateboards. He falls off rails and he skins his knees. He gets the occasional concussion, and sometimes he breaks something, but it’s all him. Skateboarding is not a contact sport.

He’s intimidated by Kendall. He’s also kind of turned on, but that’s neither here nor there. He can see that he’s not winning this argument.

James asks, “Why don’t you want me around, dude?”

“That’s not – you’re just being kind of intrusive, okay? You show up out of nowhere and start following me around, and now you’re everywhere. I’m used to…space. I’m used to having a lot of space.”

“I’m sorry,” James says, because he is.

Kendall throws on a ragged t-shirt and gives him a once over. “Make it up to me. You can buy me a smoothie.”

“I’ll get you a pink one,” James agrees, trying not to press his luck.

Under his breath, Kendall mutters, “This psychic shit is starting to freak me out.”

James eats dinner with his mom, who has little to say, and goes to bed early.

She’s always been like this. Cold.

It’s why he chose to live with his dad and his stepmom. His stepmom, who would say with utter certainty, “You want to be a musician,” when he was a kid, because yes, absolutely, that was all that James had ever wanted, more than friends or love or his parents’ pride.

James at four, James at six, James at eight – they’d all wanted nothing more than the opportunity to shine.

“I’ll get you lessons.” She’d smile benevolently, certain she was triumphing over James’s mom here, gaining the adoration of her only son. “But only if you get your grades up.” She bent down to his level, a kindness most adults never afforded Brooke Diamond’s heir. “You and I are going to impress your dad.”

She’d won James over that way, telling him over and over again, “People are placed on this Earth to create beauty. So sing, James. Give us something beautiful.”

But there had been a time before all those lessons, James remembers, that his mother had been his hero. She never got him singing lessons, but she never stopped him from playing, either, or watching TV, or pounding some butt at MarioKart.

After he’d moved to Wisconsin, he’d realized his stepmom wouldn’t let him do those things, and no one ever came to whisk him away.

Curt made him so angry when they were kids, this blue eyed, cocky brat that stole all of Logan and Carlos’s affection. James spent more than one night locked up alone in his house with a lap full of classical instruments, wondering whether his friends would perform a jailbreak, maybe, if Curt wasn’t around.

Someone was supposed to whisk him away, he knows now. It was supposed to be Kendall.

Kendall was the person meant to save his life. And he didn’t.

Why? Why does the other version of James get something beautiful, but James doesn’t?

He sits outside on the mansion’s veranda. The air smells like damp soil, rich and earthy. The trees are architectural, beautiful in a way that only nature can be. The stars are shards of ice in the sky in red blue and yellow.

James sits, and he wonders if he’s doing the right thing.

He always figured when he grew up, he’d see the end of new beginnings. Instead it seems like life is one fresh start after another, people remaking the world over and over again. This is his attempt.

He wants to remake the world, with Kendall in it.

If he can figure out a way to do that without coming off as completely crazy, he’d like that too.

James gives himself a once over in the mirror.

And then a twice over.

And then thrice.

It can’t hurt to look good when courting the guy of his dreams, or whatever.

He’s going to the movies with Kendall and Katie and their mom tonight. Kendall hadn’t invited him; keeping up boundaries after days of kicking around the town, learning the best restaurants and secret spots by the lake and all the other things he likes. But Mrs. Knight had, because she’s a sweet lady, and Kendall had extended the invitation ever so grudgingly.

James gets the sense that his mom thinks he needs friends.

She picks James up at half past six, Kendall in the front seat, and Katie watching him with open fascination in the back. From there it’s a barrage of small talk until she smiles at him benevolently and asks, “By the way, honey. How long are you in town?”

“Indeterminate,” James replies. “I don’t really have a deadline on being back.”

“Don’t you have, like, a job?” Katie demands. “Which is singing in the best band in the entire world, which is something you should prioritize always?”

James laughs, explaining. “We just finished an album. We’ve got a couple of months of promotion before it drops, and then tour…I guess I got homesick.”

Kendall frowns. “This hasn’t been your home in a long time, dude.”

“Call it nostalgia.”

“You’re really bizarre.”

“No, what’s bizarre is that shirt.” James reaches forward in the car to tug at the shoulder of Kendall’s plaid button down. “And by bizarre I mean hideous. I’m not sure I can stand to be around this utter massacre of fashion.”

Mrs. Knight looks like she wants to say something, uncertain if his statement is meant meanly, when Kendall burst out laughing. “Whoa, cool it, Hollywood. I don’t think our budding friendship can take your stinging criticism of my wardrobe.”

That stops James in his tracks.

Friendship.

“Well. I mean. Yeah.”

Kendall’s shoulders lurch up towards his ears, and he shrinks in on himself, guarded. “I mean, that was a joke. We don’t have to be, um.”

“Friends,” James nods enthusiastically, his voice turning reverent. “We should be. Absolutely.”

Mrs. Knight makes an ecstatic noise.

Kendall says, “This is weird. Why are you always so weird?”

“Talent.” James pats his shoulder. They’re both a little red.

They stay that way, blushing and awkward, throughout the movie. The whole friendship discussion was getting a little close to the kind of mushy crap that dudes just don’t talk about, but James is just so happy, sunlight at his stomach, because he’s getting somewhere.

He thinks of a time, not too long before, in a different movie theater, where he held another Kendall’s hand. He doesn’t risk it here, with Mrs. Knight and Katie so close.

But he likes the idea that he could.

James’s mom holds the landline out to him. “It’s that Zevon kid.”

He blinks. “I didn’t even know we had a landline.”

“Way to make me feel old.” Brooke smiles, soft wrinkles edging her lips.

James accepts the phone and says, “Thanks, mom.”

She hesitates, and then replies, “It’s nice having you around, you know?”

James thinks of all the years she’s spent living alone in this big, creaky house. He wonders if she’s been lonely.

Before he can ask, she wanders back down the hallway, pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. James picks up the phone and starts in on the daunting task of explaining to Curt that no, he’s not coming home just yet.

James has been in town a week, and Kendall still doesn’t trust him. He takes him all over – the sweet shoppe, camping, wherever James can figure out a pretext for going. It’s a pretty small town; he runs out of places he can reasonably ask Kendall to show him pretty quickly.

He starts asking if Kendall just wants to hang out, and sometimes it works. Sometimes he lets James dick around and play Halo with him…but others he draws into himself, hiding away.

He never opens up, not really. The vibrancy that James misses in the other Kendall; it’s not here, not in this town. Not in this boy.

That doesn’t stop him from looking. His shadow falls on the Knights’ doorstep as much as he thinks he can get away with, and the days that Kendall doesn’t slam the door in his face; those are the good ones.

Of course, the illusion that he’s being subtle is completely shattered by the person he least expects.

He abandons the living room after a five hour video game binge because he has to pee like crazy, when Katie corners him. She herds him up the stairs and into her room with the wild-eyed intensity of a wildebeest. Then, there, among posters of CNN screencaps and the FBI’s most wanted, she crosses her arms and says, “You’re in love with my big brother.”

“What?” Katie cocks an eyebrow, completely unimpressed. the expression so like Kendall’s that James doesn’t even think of denying it. Reluctantly, he says, “Yeah, okay.”

“I’m not sure how, since you’ve known him all of two weeks-“

“It’s been longer than that.”

“How?” She exclaims, outraged.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

And despite himself, James does. He tells her everything, and when he’s done, all Katie does is say, “Let me get this straight. In some other universe, I live in Hollywood? Sweet.”

“You believe me?”

“No, I think you’re insane, but you’re also hot, hopefully not a cannibal, and Kendall’s smiled more in the past few weeks than I’ve seen him smile in the past year. So. I’ll help you.”

He digs in his pocket and pulls out his cellphone. “I don’t know if this helps my story any, but.”

He flicks through his albums until he finds a picture taken the day before Kendall went back down his rabbit hole. He’s standing against the base of a tree in the Palmwoods Park, smiling towards the camera like he’s got something terribly mischievous in mind. James doesn’t know why the picture didn’t disappear into the ether when Kendall did, but he knows it by heart.

He looks at it every night.

Katie stares at it for a long time before deciding, “You’re really good at photoshop. And possibly a little creepier than I initially thought. Still.”

She looks at the picture again, like she’s trying to memorize the light in her brother’s eyes. James remembers what she said about Kendall smiling, and he thinks that maybe the picture is convincing her. Just a little.

To cover, Katie says, “Let me make this perfectly clear. I don’t care how famous you are. If you hurt him, I will find you.”

“…and do what?”

“Do you really want to find out?”

“Uh. No. Not really. Thanks, Katie. I really appreciate it.”

“Wipe that goopy, lovestruck expression off your mug. This is going to be a lot of work. Big bro’s not exactly in touch with his heart.”

“I noticed. He’s different than the guy I knew.”

“Do you blame him? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he has no friends. At all. Except me. And his hockey stick.” Katie crosses her arms around herself. “And when dad…went away…he really needed friends.” She blinks and then says, somewhere between mocking and accusing, “I guess he really needed you.”

“I needed him too,” James replies quietly.

“James?”

“Yeah?”

“In the picture…why did you edit out his scar?”

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t screw with me.”

“I’m really not. I didn’t photoshop it.”

Katie bites her lip, tracing her finger over the time stamp. “Yeah. Right.”

James’s mother is a ghost of the woman he remembers from his childhood, who was more a force of nature than an actual human being. She was a tempest, a hurricane, and now she is quieter, more subdued. James doesn’t wonder about the reasons why; he can’t imagine being abandoned by her husband and then her only child in quick succession was particularly fun for his mom.

He finds her in the kitchen of the mansion, making tea in an oversized knit cardigan. She’s glamor-free, and without any makeup her eyes look sunken and dark. “How are you enjoying town?”

“It’s different than I remember.”

“How so?” She turns to face him, leaning against the counter with a mug cupped between her slender hands.

“It seems bigger.”

“You seem bigger.” His mom smiles wryly. “Do you like California, James?”

“It’s better than Wisconsin.”

Brooke grimaces. “Wisconsin is your home.”

“I guess.” James shrugs. “It never really felt like it.”

His mother doesn’t tell him that leaving was his choice. James appreciates that, appreciates the way that she still looks at him with this mixture of exhaustion, exasperation, and fondness. He was so scared of being in the same house as her, and now he’s not even sure why. She’s still his mom.

He’s across the kitchen in a second, without even thinking about it, wrapping his mother in a gigantic bear hug.

“I didn’t mean to leave you all alone,” James huffs into her neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He can actually feel his mom go stiff all over.

“James, sweetie.” Brooke strokes a hand through his hair. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

And no matter what happens, whether Kendall accepts him or not, he has this now. He has the first step in rebuilding things with his mom. James thinks that makes this entire trip to Minnesota worth it.

He waits outside the rink after one of Kendall’s games, watching groups of guys leave in laughing, raucous packs. Kendall is one of the last people out, and when he sees James, he lights up, all luminous eyes, black-ringed-green, shot through with sunlight.

“Hey, stalker.”

“How’s it hanging?”

“I mean, I kicked some ass out there, so I can’t complain.”

James grins. “Do you want to get pizza?”

Kendall laughs, sharp and bright. “You take me all the nicest places.”

“I could take you anywhere, you know.” James tells him, albeit a bit shyly. Kendall swings an arm around James’s shoulders, herding him into a walk. He leans his head against James’s collarbones for the briefest moment, nearly a nuzzle, his hair stiff with sweat. It should be gross, but he still smells like shampoo beneath the hockey funk. James doesn’t mind.

“With your fancy private jet and all that cash?” Kendall tells him with a smile. “I don’t need you to save me.”

“Why not?” James pauses and says, “You saved me.”

“How?” Leaning into Kendall’s touch, James decides he likes this, the way Kendall’s wiry muscles go slack against him. It’s weirdly comfortable and intimate. “I was lost. You found me.”

Kendall throws him a quizzical smile before hiding his face again. “Idiot. You’re the one who hunted me down.”

James can’t argue with that.

Things are going well. So well. James has been in Minnesota for upwards of three weeks, and he’s comfortable here, minus all of Curt’s psychotic phone calls. It’s only natural that it all comes to a head.

Kendall invites James to play hockey. James takes that as a sign of progress.

He’s embarrassed of how wobbly he is on skates, of the coltish manner in which he makes his way around the rink. He used to be better than this when he was a kid, practiced at making his way around a rink, he thinks. For what it’s worth, Kendall doesn’t laugh, and that means a lot.

He teaches him his best moves, his grin lightning quick and fierce every time James gets one down. Their game of one on one isn’t really evenly stacked, but it is fun. James is panting, out of breath, but it’s the same feeling he got when he first learned how to land an ollie, and that’s an accomplishment. There’s not much other than singing that makes him feel exhilarated like this anymore.

When they take a break, laughing and out of breath, Kendall leans against his stick and says, “How are you liking home?”

Easily, James replies, “It feels more like home than I thought it would. Of course, I think you help with that.”

Kendall blinks. “You’re so weird. I don’t know what you want from me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…why are you here, James? I don’t know you. But I know you. And that’s creepy.”

James laughs. “I know the feeling.”

“Do you?”

“There’s an entire world out there,” he tells the blond. “A place where we grew up together. Best friends.”

“That sounds nice.” Kendall swings his stick. “And a little bit delusional.”

“It exists,” James insists.

“How do you know?”

“Because- I met you. I met you, and I know what it’s like to kiss you, and you’re standing here telling me you’ve never left this town. How could I know what it feels like when you come if I hadn’t?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. When I what? What kind of sick freak are you?” Kendall shouts across the ice.

James flinches. He calls back, “Tell me you don’t feel anything”

Kendall stops skating, spotlit in the middle of the ice. “Uh, how gay can you actually get?”

“Being gay isn’t a bad thing.” James skates closer, trying to meet his eyes.

“Maybe where you’re from,” Kendall replies, bitter.

“So you’re scared?”

“I don’t get scared,” Kendall objects, and his fierce pride is very familiar. It makes James choke with how much he wants him, the boy he was in the middle of falling for.

When he reaches out to touch Kendall, he does not let him shrug James’s hand away. “You look pretty scared.”

“M’not,” he protests, and James smiles. That stubbornness, that bravery; that’s what he liked about the other Kendall. He’s glad to see this one has it too.

“Prove it,” James challenges, crowding in to close. It’s a dumb risk, it’s too soon, but that doesn’t stop him from tasting Kendall’s breath and wondering if maybe, just maybe, he’ll get what he wants.

Kendall crosses the distance between them tentatively, a combination of bravery and trepidation written across his features. He’s wobbly on his skates in a way that he probably has been since he was a mighty mite, and James wonders how much of that is fear and how much of that is anticipation.

Once he’s up in James’s airspace, he challenges, “You know what it’s like to kiss me, huh?”

“I do,” James agrees, breath bated. He doesn’t want to spook Kendall, but god, does he want to see if kissing this world’s version is the same as the one who left a whole in his heart.

Kendall, for his part, leans on his hockey stick. There’s intrigue on his face, daring James to lean in closer, but there’s also a healthy amount of skepticism. “You sound insane. You know that, right?”

“I do,” James repeats, reaching out for him with slow, steady hands. He waits, watching for a flinch, a movement, anything to tell him that Kendall doesn’t want this. But Kendall took his words like a dare; although he eyes James’s hands as they grasp the front of his jersey, pulling him in close, he doesn’t fight it.

He says, “I don’t know why I’m letting you touch me.”

Hypnotized, James says, “I can stop.”

There’s this long thread of a moment that stretches between them. In it, James can see all of Kendall’s fears, the things he grew up knowing were wrong and the things he’s starting to feel for James. He weighs them, carefully, unwilling to go all in.

That deliberation, that thoughtfulness; it isn’t the same Kendall Knight that James knows.

He kisses him anyway.

For a few beats, it’s perfect. Kendall’s lips are soft, moving over his, and even his tongue is adventurous, darting against James’s. It tastes like the chill of the rink and something more familiar. Like coming home.

Kendall moans into James’s mouth, this little noise that rips from his throat. A flush rides high onto his cheekbones and he jerks his head away.

He says, “I can’t do this.”

“What?” James doesn’t mean to sound so put out, but like, what? He’d sort of been hanging all his hopes onto his frankly fantastic kissing skills.

It worked fine on the last version of Kendall. Why wasn’t this one falling all over himself to get more?

James tongues the inside of his own cheek, checking to make sure the inside of his mouth hasn’t become a desert wasteland or something. Nope. Still awesome.

“I’m sorry,” Kendall says. “You just. I don’t know, you’re just some crazy person who wants to…I don’t know what you want to do, but you’re clearly crazy, and. I can’t be a part of this.”

James skates back a few steps, putting some distance between them. He doesn’t know what to do, or how to fix this. He feels…really stupid, actually. So he tells Kendall, “Okay,” and gets the fuck out of there.

What else can he do?

James misses his friends. He misses Logan and Carlos, and even Curt.

Curt, who has always been there for him, whether he wanted it or not.

Curt, who persistently calls and begs, “James, come back home. We miss you. I-“ Curt cuts off. He says, “Logan and Carlos can’t function without you.”

“Curt-“

“Just do it.”

So after a few days of radio silence from the person he came to see, James does.

There’s nothing left for him here anyway.

He rockets across the country in this rented vintage car, like an old school action hero.

What does it matter that he didn’t get the guy? He’s still James Diamond, international popstar.

That’s what he tells himself, turning the radio upupup when all the naysaying voices in his head get to be too much.

He misses Kendall with an ache that he can’t quite name, but it’s different, now. The Kendall he remembers from the Palmwoods is dimmer in his mind, replaced by this new version, the one that is angry and earnest in turn.

The one that does not want him, not in any way.

James feels defeated.

All he wants is a hug. And a shower. Not necessarily in that order.

He drags himself into the Palmwoods with a visible air of defeat. Bitters doesn’t even bother giving him grief, and that’s disheartening in and of itself. He must look like a total car wreck. He slumps against the inner wall of the elevator, breath held.

He’s home. He’s okay now. He’s home.

When he reaches the entryway to 2J, he fills his lungs, deep, before fumbling his key in the lock.

The first thing he sees when the door swings back is Curt and Logan.

James looks between their linked hands and says, “Good for you.”

He means it.

And then he falls into their arms, and they clutch him just as tightly back, Carlos running to join the second they yell for him.

It’s a puppy-pile of joy, a rush of adrenaline in James’s veins for something he didn’t even realize he needed so badly.

He spares a second of thought for Kendall, back in Minnesota with nothing at all like this.

Only that second of thought stings, the same way Kendall’s name pierced his heart the entire way home.

James’s thinks he’s left that angry, lonely boy far behind him now.

He hugs his friends tighter and hopes that one day he’ll be able to forget.

James mopes, now that’s he’s home. A lot.

Sometimes he mopes with Camille, because she seems to miss Kendall – the old Kendall – just as much as he does. They got along like a house on fire.

But Camille didn’t love him, and James did – does, even if those feelings exist for a different version of the same boy, and they can’t mope together forever.

She lands a bit role as a cheerleader and kicks him out of her apartment, because he brings down the mood. “You’re in as much of a funk as I am,” he calls through the door she slammed in his face.

“Yeah, but Misty Pom-Pomkins is the happiest person on earth,” she throws back in a disgustingly high pitched voice. James can already hear her practicing her go-team chants.

This isn’t going to work at all. Logan and Curt are on a date, because that’s a thing they do now.

It’s simultaneously endearing and sickening. James is jealous as fuck.

Carlos is off shopping with the Jennifers, again, because god forbid he didn’t spend his entire paycheck on Italian leather shoes patched with like, gator. James tries to escape poolside, but that doesn’t work either. The stupid sun reminds him of Kendall’s stupid hair.

The obsession has to stop, James decides. He can’t torture himself because Kendall was an idiot and couldn’t see his awesome. Depression is bad for his complexion.

An immediate distraction is warranted.

So James is in Palmwoods park, reading one of Mama Zevon’s pulp novels with a sort of disengaged fascination and a bowl of popcorn, when a shadow falls across the pages.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

The voice is so familiar that James aches with it. He doesn’t actually expect to find Kendall standing in front of him, because he’s not actually the crazy person he was accused of being. Only, it is. He’s there. Real and solid and silhouetted in that same stupid sunlight, as beautiful as the day James left him on the ice.

“Uh,” he replies, ever eloquent.

Kendall sits anyway, shifting a duffel bag onto the ground first, and then following it as he sinks to his knees. “I’m wearing my apology-face. It’s full of repentance. I don’t know if you can see all that.”

“I can,” James says, even though the look Kendall is giving him is more wry awe than remorse.

Kendall tilts his head down, running his palm through the grass. “I’m sorry.”

“I gathered. And you’re here.” James adds, “In Hollywood,” just in case Kendall took a wrong turn somewhere and that wasn’t clear.

“Yeah. I, um. It wasn’t that hard to track you down.”

“I left my address with Katie.”

“…she didn’t tell me that.” Kendall pauses. “I think she’s mad at you.”

“For hurting you?”

“For not taking her with you.” Green eyes darting, Kendall tugs at a few blades of grass, before he surrenders. He hugs his knees tightly and says, “If anything, I’m the one who hurt you.”

“You didn’t let me down gently,” James agrees.

Kendall laughs, then, like he didn’t expect such blatant honesty. “You’re the strangest guy I’ve ever met.”

“You’ve mentioned. Once or twice.”

“I have, haven’t I? I’m not very nice.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. If I was better, stronger, nicer-“ Kendall bites his lip. He exhales, softly. “Maybe people wouldn’t leave. Maybe you wouldn’t have left.”

Surprise trickles up James’s spine. “I didn’t think you wanted me there.”

“You. I. I did. I just. I needed time to figure it out. You showed up out of the blue, and you told me this crazy story- you do know it’s crazy, right?”

“I know,” James acknowledges, rueful.

Kendall accuses, “And then you- you kissed me.”

“I did,” he concedes.

“I’m not – I never thought about being-“ Kendall grits out, haltingly, “Uh. Gay.”

“That was pretty evident.”

Fire burns in Kendall’s eyes, defiance shining through. “I’m enough of an outcast as it is. I don’t need to add ass-fucking to my resume.”

Tiredly, James asks, “Then why are you here?”

“I.” Kendall shoves a hand through his hair, frustrated. “This is coming out all wrong.”

“So what are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say that I never thought about being gay, and then you kissed me, and now I haven’t stopped thinking about it. And I think I might be. Gay. Or bi. Or, I don’t even know.” Kendall’s gaze goes steely and he says, “But I want to find out. I want to find out who I am, and I want you to help me.”

Patient now that it’s clear Kendall didn’t drive to California for some sort of really elaborate hate crime, James asks, “Help?”

Kendall lets go of his knees. He reaches across the distance between them, touching James’s forearm with a sort of strangled reverence. “Yeah.”

James sucks in a breath, because oh. This is really not a thing that he expected. Why would he? Life isn’t a romcom, and people so rarely get what they want.

Kendall asks, “Can we start over?”

It feels like that’s all he does with this boy, but James swallows and says, “I’d like that.”

He barely gets the words out before Kendall darts a nervous look around the park, and follows it with the quickest, softest kiss. It’s there and gone like a snowflake melting against James’s lips.

He still feels it in his bones.

“What changed your mind?”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever- clicked with,” Kendall explains, almost meek.

“Maybe not the only one,” James says.

He begins fishing around for his cellphone, where his best friends are on speed dial.

He has a hunch that Kendall’s social circle is about to expand.

Rapidly.

When he thinks about Kendall now, it’s maroon and gold and a hint of loneliness; not the boy with the clear eyes he met at the Palmwoods.

And he thinks and he hopes that version of Kendall found love with his version of James, because James has found it with this boy, with this sad eyed hockey player in the midst of Minnesota.

One night, when the apartment is quiet and the moon is high, Kendall’s head is pillowed on James’s chest, fingers intertwined with his.

His green eyes glow as he says, “Did I ever tell you that I used to go looking for Narnia when I was a kid?”