OMWGNOTE: Okay, wow. Anyone that knows me knows that I need to stop writing Big Time Rush fanfiction because I turn a show meant for seven year olds into one huge plethora of angst and I just need to stop, okay? But I won't, never ever. Anyway, this is to date possibly the angstiest thing I have ever written in my life. It originally wasn't supposed to be a remake of Big Time Concert, but that's what happened. This story was just begging to be written. It has also gone through a title change three times before I discovered 'Therapy' by All Time Low and well…now it's a song-fic.
WARNING: Attempted suicide.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Big Time Rush or any characters affiliated.
In the pee wee hockey league, Kendall, Carlos, James and Logan had found themselves thrown together, not one of the five year olds knowing that they would soon become the best of friends. But when they realized that they were simply four pieces to the same puzzle, they all agreed on one thing; they would always stick together, even when they were old men and trying to play hockey with their canes.
Maybe it had been foolish of him, but James had always thought they would stay true to their word. During their time in Los Angeles, Kendall never let them forget who they were as people. When asked to be a bad boy, Kendall replied that he "never turned his back on his friends." And James thought that was true. Kendall was a fiercely loyal person to those he truly cared about.
But when he didn't give a damn, he would make it clear. And James was sure Kendall had made his point clear today.
Big Time Rush was dead. Even after months of hard work, Kendall, James, Carlos and Logan were sent packing and fled back to the unpredictable weather of Little Marais, Minnesota.
My ship went down in a sea of sound; when I woke up alone I had everything.
They gave up. Or, as Kendall put it, they were "moving on."
This was something James didn't get. When it was something they truly cared about, the four boys would fight for it until they won. It was how they worked, what with all of their scheming and plotting. They never went down without a fight.
So why were they giving up now?
Kendall had made it pretty clear to James in the parking lot of the local grocery store where he worked. There was nothing they could do; Gustavo was under contract with Griffin and therefore had to listen to anything the man said. Big Time Rush was dead and there wasn't going to be a revival any time soon.
And then his friends went as far as nearly ripping James' heart out of his chest. Kendall suggested that they all focus on their separate dreams; did the blonde boy not realize that James' dream was to be famous? That he couldn't achieve said fame by being in Minnesota?
A hand full of moments I wished I could change, and a tongue like a nightmare that cut like a blade.
Maybe James was asking for too much. After all, it was Kendall who got James to Los Angeles in the first place. Maybe Kendall was just showing James that he needed to get back to California on his own, that he can't rely on the help of Kendall and Carlos and Logan to get him where he needed to be.
But unless he was mistaken, when the four boys moved to Hollywood, James' dream of becoming famous and making it big time had become their dream as well. He thought that they all shared the same hope that they would become successful in their singing careers. He had been foolish enough to think that his three friends actually enjoyed singing and show biz as much as he did.
James thought that they would be on his side when they got back to Minnesota. That together, they would make it back to L.A. and make it big time, becoming a household name and touring the country.
In a city of fools I was careful and cool,
But he was wrong. He was dead wrong. And he knew that his friends didn't give a damn when they took his dream and threw it on the ground, watching it shatter into a million pieces as they laughed. Then they spat on it and kicked dirt at the broken, unfixable pieces of James' dream, turning their back on him and Hollywood life.
But they tore me apart like a hurricane…
James thought they were best friends. He had even considered them brothers. But did brothers ignore each other for days like he and the guys were right now?
A hand full of moments I wished I could change,
Before this separation, the longest time the boys had gone without talking to each other while conscious was three hours and forty two minutes. This was because they had all conveniently gone on summer vacations to different areas at the same time—the trip was really a ploy by their parents to try to pry the boys apart for at least a week. However, they would have four-way phone calls every night of their vacations, and the parents soon realized that like magnets, they wouldn't be able to separate these boys easily.
So why were they apart now? James felt like he was a faulty magnet, not being able to hold a place with his friends. He was like a bent puzzle piece, no longer able to fit into the place he had secured and kept over the last eleven years.
But I was carried away.
He didn't know one stupid fight would cause this. If he had known that his overwhelming desire to keep Big Time Rush alive and well would be the death of he and his friends' bond, he would gladly go back in time and agree to focus on dreams that could be achieved in Minnesota. But time travel isn't an option, and all he had now were headstones representing the deaths of both Big Time Rush and his friendship.
But James figured it was too late now. Big Time Rush was dead. Kendall, Carlos, and Logan might as well be dead, for they wouldn't talk to him. Maybe it was the other way around; maybe he wasn't talking to them. But still, he felt alone and horrible and pretending that everything was okay around his dad and some of the people he had come to be reunited with was becoming tiring.
Give me therapy; I'm a walking travesty, but I'm smiling at everything. Therapy, you were never a friend to me…
James felt unbearably sad at the moment. He had lost his best friends and his dream within forty eight hours. He wanted to be happy again. He wanted to be back at the Palm Woods. He wanted is friends back. He didn't want to sit alone in his room and try to come up with ways he could possibly cheer himself up.
And you can keep all your misery.
And then the perfect idea struck him. It was wonderfully horrible and he most definitely shouldn't be doing it, but he couldn't stop his body from moving and he didn't even try to stop his feet from taking the steps to the main bathroom of his house.
When James' grandmother died, his mother became severely depressed. Rebecca Diamond was very close to her mother, and when she passed away, everything changed. James saw as his mother practically deteriorated emotionally before his eyes. Before she was diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia and became hospital bound, staring at the dull walls all day without a care, she was prescribed to anti-depressant pills. She only used them for a few weeks, and James knew that there was at least half a bottle left.
Half a bottle may have been too many; as long as one did the job, James would be okay. They were anti-depressants. James was depressed. 'Anti' meant opposite. James didn't want to be depressed, and so he didn't feel wrong when he looked into the medicine cabinet and immediately found what he was looking for.
He wrapped his long fingers around the small orange bottle, quickly shutting the medicine cabinet and pouring himself a small Dixie cup of tap water before making his way back to his room. Even though he believed that the anti-depressants would help him, he wants to take them in the privacy of his own room. Wearing a façade around his father, he had no idea that James was depressed. James didn't want him to find out by seeing his son taking anti-depressants prescribed to someone else.
When he got back to his room, he just sat on his bed, staring at the bottle.
My lungs gave out as I faced the crowd, I think keeping this up could be dangerous.
Did he really want to do this? He knew that he didn't want to be depressed anymore, but maybe this wasn't the way to go about it. Maybe he should just stop feeling sorry for himself and go beg for Kendall, Carlos and Logan's forgiveness.
But a little voice in the back of his mind told him that they wouldn't forgive him. They would just turn him down and he would only become more depressed. Taking the medication was the only way to go. It would make him happy and as long as it did this, he would take any side effects it threw at him.
He knew that taking something that wasn't prescribed to him could be risky to his health. He'd seen commercials about anti-depressants that said people under a certain age shouldn't take this product because it could lead to suicidal thoughts and if you start having those you should immediately contact your doctor. But James didn't care. His mother didn't take the commercial brand of anti-depressants, and besides, that kind of stuff didn't happen in real life. It couldn't happen to him.
Besides, not taking the pills would be worse if he did. He would eventually face suicidal thoughts on his own eventually and even if the pills did cause him to think about ending his own life, it would only be a 'sooner-rather-than-later' situation.
I'm flesh and bone, I'm a rolling stone,
Before he could change his mind, James uncapped the prescription bottle and poured a few of the tablets into his hand. He put the excess amount back until he had one small, round tablet in his hand. He put the blue tablet on his tongue and reached for the water, taking a small sip and swallowing the water and the pill at the same time.
James set the Dixie cup on his bedside table, putting the prescription bottle next to him. He sat back, leaning against his wall, waiting for the pill to kick in. He knew he wasn't going to feel the effects right away, but he still had hope that they would take a toll on his mood quickly.
He sat there for five minutes, ten, fifteen. And when he only seemed to become more depressed waiting for the drugs to kick in, he reached for the prescription bottle once again.
James remembered back to when his mother was taking the drugs, how she was only supposed to take one per eight hours. It even had this same warning on the label in small print that James could only read by holding the bottle up to his face and squinting his eyes. But James didn't take this into consideration as he uncapped the bottle and poured five more blue tablets onto his hand.
He would take as many as he needed to until he felt happy.
And the experts say I'm delirious.
And so he kept taking them. James had taken a total of ten pills before he had to go back to the bathroom to refill his Dixie cup, feeling lightheaded as he made his way back to his room to take more of his happy pills, as he fondly called them.
Give me therapy, I'm a walking travesty, but I'm smiling at everything.
And then James really did feel happy. He could genuinely say that he didn't feel depressed for the first time in days, and it was all because of his little blue friends.
So when he dumped the entire bottle's contents into his hand, he didn't think there was going to be a consequence. These magical happy pills were helping him not be depressed, helping him forget about how much Kendall, Carlos and Logan hated him. Now the pills were his friends. They didn't hate him. They made him happy. They were all he needed.
James felt himself smile for the first time in days as he took the last of the pills, only feeling a little sad that his pill bottle was completely empty. He lay back on his pillow, suddenly feeling very tired. While he waited for sleep to take him, he began tossing the pill bottle in the air like he'd seen so many people do with baseballs on television.
Therapy, you were never a friend to me…
It was Logan's idea to apologize to James.
Whereas Carlos was too busy trying to find an appropriate name for his superhero identity and Kendall was obsessing over living out their Minnesota dreams, Logan was the only one who even thought of James. Logan was the only one that acknowledged that James had no Minnesota dreams to fall back on, that being famous had always been his dream. When he brought this up to Kendall (Carlos running around in his spandex), the blonde told him that James could get back to Los Angeles on his own, that he didn't need Kendall and Carlos and Logan to be a singer.
But while Logan knew that James could easily become a pop star without them, he also knew that James didn't want it without them. They had made a promise in pee wee hockey that they would stick together, and James was ridiculously loyal when it came to keeping promises. When he brought this up to Kendall, he was still extremely stubborn about it and said that if James wanted to be friends with them, he would come back on his own terms.
It wasn't until Carlos joined the conversation that Kendall agreed they should do something.
"We need to right what was wronged in Minnesota, Hockey Boy," Carlos told him in his superhero voice. "And that includes righting what was wronged with Bandana Man."
And so that was why Kendall, Super Carlos and Logan were standing in front of James' house right now, waiting for Mr. Diamond to answer the door.
It had only been twenty seconds when Kendall had said, "Oops, I guess he's not home. I guess it's time to go, oh no."
Apparently Kendall was still mad at James for whatever stupid reason he was mad about in the first place.
Logan smacked Kendall in the arm, and ironically enough it was right when James' father opened the door.
Kurt Diamond looked nothing like his son, James and his little brother obviously getting their look from their mother's side of the family. It wasn't that their father was unattractive, it was just that his blonde hair and completely different face shape didn't carry on into his children.
"Hi Mr. Diamond," Logan said in a friendly tone, seeing as Kendall and Carlos apparently didn't want to say anything. "Is James home?"
Kurt nodded. "Yeah, he's up in his room." He jerked his thumb behind him, pointing in the direction of the stairs. "You boys can head on up."
Logan smiled and thanked Mr. Diamond, making his way into the house with Kendall and Carlos in tow.
And you can keep all your misery.
As James continued to lay on his bed, he felt himself becoming more and more tired with each passing moment. Soon gravity turned against him and the pill bottle he had been tossing into the air kept coming down to hit him in the face instead of falling neatly in his hand. James decided that he didn't like gravity.
James also decided that his pills weren't making him so happy anymore. They actually made him more depressed than he was before, something he thought to be impossible.
Arrogant boy, love yourself so no one has to…
He thought about how his friends hated him, how they thought he was selfish for wanted to go back to Los Angeles.
And soon his head came back to him, and he realized that he was going to die.
He had taken half a bottle of pills. That much medication couldn't be good for his system, and he knew that once he closed his eyes he would never open them again. But dying didn't really seem to bother him; he deserved it. No one would miss him, so maybe he made the right decision in taking as many pills as he did. Maybe he should continue to call them his happy pills, because they would make other people happy. By taking them, he would die, and that would make people happy.
They're better off without you, they're better off without you…
The three boys made their way up the stairs to James' room slowly, each trying to decide the best way to apologize to James. Even Kendall was formulating an apology, Logan and Carlos making him realize that he was a bit mean to James back at the supermarket earlier.
But soon they ran out of steps and eventually found themselves standing awkwardly around James' door, James himself not even knowing that they were there.
It was Kendall who stepped forward, knocking on the door and calling out James' name. It was Kendall who opened the door and Kendall who first discovered the something wasn't right, even though he had no idea what was wrong.
James was laying on his bed, looking sad and not even aware that there were tears streaming down his face. He didn't even notice that Kendall was standing frozen in the middle of the room, Carlos and Logan pushing in behind him and trying to see why he had stopped dead in his tracks.
It was Logan who noticed the empty pill bottle in James' hand. It was Logan who pushed past Kendall, chanting, "Oh God," as he did so.
It was Carlos who started to cry before he even knew what was going on, the simple fact that he didn't know enough to make the tears start coming.
Logan knelt down beside James, who had yet to realize that he wasn't alone. "James," Logan said softly, trying to get the other boy to recognize his voice. "James, come on." And then James looked at him, his dull eyes taking a while to focus on Logan.
Arrogant boy, cause a scene like you're supposed to…
"Leave me alone, Logan," James said harshly, his voice sounding strong despite how tired he was. He didn't want Logan to be here, he didn't want Logan to pretend like he cared like he was doing right now, trying to pull the prescription bottle out of James' hands. James let it go without much of a fight; there was nothing Logan could do now, and James didn't even care if he did do anything.
Logan read over the label on the orange bottle and the color drained from his face as he did so.
"Logan?" Kendall asked, noticing that his best friend turned whiter than he normally was. "What's going on?"
His friend turned to him with a scared face. "These are anti-depressants," He said quietly. "And they're gone." His head whipped towards James, staring worriedly at the boy who was staring right back at him. "James, did you take all of these?"
"Yeah, and don't even act like you care," James said. "Without me and my stupid dreams Kendall can be a hockey star and Carlos can be a superhero and you can be a doctor. It'll be so much easier."
Kendall shook his head wildly. "Carlos, get Mr. Diamond, call an ambulance, something," He instructed, and the spandex-wearing Carlos did as he was told, sticking his head out the door and calling for James' father. He had no place for a cell phone in his spandex, meaning Mr. Diamond would have to do the honors of calling the ambulances. "James, you can't think that. You're our best friend, you can't think like that." Kendall had dropped to kneel beside James as well, Carlos following suit as Mr. Diamond could be heard climbing up the stairs.
"Shut up, Kendall," James said tiredly. "You'll be fine without me. Now leave me alone, I'm tired." He turned over, facing the wall and shutting his tired eyes.
They'll fall asleep without you…
Carlos started to cry harder. "No, James," He said. "You have to stay awake, you can't go to sleep. You'll die if you go to sleep." His father had been faced with many cases like this in his days as a police officer, often finding people dead on the floor or the couch, too late to do anything to happen. Hearing these horrible stories from his father, he didn't want the same thing to happen to James.
"Like you care," James mumbled tiredly, causing Carlos to sob again.
Mr. Diamond came up the stairs before any of the boys could respond to James, stopping in the doorway to James' room. "What's wrong?" He demanded. From the way Carlos sounded hysteric when he called Mr. Diamond's name, Kurt knew whatever was happening couldn't be good.
"James needs an ambulance," Logan informed him shakily, turning towards James' father with tears in his eyes. "He tried to overdose on drugs, and he needs help, and—" His flow of words stopped when Mr. Diamond ran out of the room, running to get the nearest phone.
Soon the boys heard Mr. Diamond informing the 911 operator that his son was dying, that he needed an ambulance right away, that no, he didn't know why James wanted to overdose and that all he knew that his son was dying and he needed goddamn medical attention now.
James didn't understand why Kendall, Carlos and Logan were making such a big deal out of this. He didn't know why he could hear Carlos crying and Logan sniffling and Kendall breathing heavily. He came to the conclusion that they were just trying to make him feel better before he died, that they were trying to make him feel like they actually loved and cared when they wouldn't even remember him tomorrow.
They would forget about him, and James knew that. He didn't even feel bad when he succumbed to the darkness.
You're lucky if your memory remains.
James woke to an incessant beeping sound coming from his left, felt the soreness in his throat and stomach, and knew where he was before he even opened his eyes.
Being in the hospital gave James conflicting emotions. For one, he was incredibly angry with Kendall, Carlos and Logan. What right did they have telling his father about the anti-depressants? They hated him. They shouldn't care if he tries to kill himself. But maybe they hate him so much that they wanted him to live out his life, suffer for years to come as he watched them live out their dreams by himself. But then there was the part of James that was happy that his friends—or ex-friends, rather—brought him to the hospital. Maybe he didn't have to refer to them as his ex-friends—maybe they came to his house so that he could apologize to them and they could forgive him and they could all be four happy boys playing hockey. And as he thought of this possibility, a small smile spread across his face, the gesture being the only thing that would give away his consciousness.
James decided then to open his eyes. If Kendall, Carlos and Logan were here with him, he would go with the option of them actually caring about his well-being and wanting to mend their four-way friendship. If they weren't there, then James would know it was the first, more depressing option that he came up with.
But he would never know unless he opened his eyes, and that's exactly what he did, looking around the room hopefully.
His hopes were crushed when he realized that he was alone.
Give me therapy, I'm a walking travesty…
James laughed bitterly, shaking his head. He shouldn't be this upset. He should have known that Kendall, Carlos and Logan wouldn't be here, should have expected it. They came to his house to yell at him more. James shouldn't be surprised, shouldn't feel depressed like he was now.
But the depression was still there, tugging at his already shattered heart painfully and ripping it into smaller pieces. It was still nagging at the back of his mind, mocking him and making him perfectly aware of how much he was hated, how if anyone gave a damn about him, they would be here.
James pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and hugging them tightly. He wished for someone else's arms around him, making him feel safe and warm and loved. But he didn't have that. He was alone and he deserved to be alone. The only love he should get he should get from himself, and even James was repulsed by his own being.
He buried his head into his knees and tried not to cry, but it was a lost battle from the start. "And I'm not going to waste a perfectly good day of my life feeling sorry for myself. None of us should," Kendall has said. And he was right; they shouldn't feel sorry for themselves. But that didn't change the fact that James did feel sorry for himself. He had to feel sorry for himself. If he didn't, no one else would. He had to do everything for himself because he was alone.
James began to cry harder, and he could hear his heart monitor pick up in response. As his cries turned into sobs, he heard the monitor go wildly out of control, and he wondered if someone could die because they cried too hard. James decided that if you could die because of this, then he would surely accomplish it.
Soon there was an alarming beeping sound emitting through the room, James crying too much to even care about it. But apparently the medical personnel in the hospital cared, because soon enough a swarm of doctors and nurses were in the room, or what James assumed to be doctors and nurses. He still had his head buried in his knees, crying his heart out.
He felt a small prick in his arm, most likely from a needle. This made him cry even harder, not only because he was afraid of needles, but the fact that the last time he had gotten a shot had been in Hollywood. Back when he had friends.
And as if to mock him more, he heard three familiar voices calling out his name frantically, pleading with him to calm down. And he was calming down, but that was only because of the drugs, not because of his Kendall, Carlos and Logan hallucinations begging him to do so.
And then James just suddenly stopped, falling back into the pillow with a thud, his tired eyes coming to a close.
When James regained consciousness, he didn't dare open his eyes again. He could hear the breathing of other people, but he felt funny, and he didn't want to open his eyes to be faced with the same crushing disappointment of being alone.
But he heard other noises besides the breathing. He heard these little whimpers, sounds that he had never heard anyone ever make, sounds that he didn't know that anyone could ever make. These sounds, they scared him. He had never heard anything like them before, and he didn't think that this was his imagination. He would never be able to conjure up sounds like those.
James decided to open his eyes to find out what was going on. He needed to know who or what was making those noises.
When he did open his eyes, he knew he was dead. He was dead or hallucinating. Either way, there was no way that what he was seeing could be reality.
It was Kendall, Carlos and Logan. Kendall and Carlos sat to his right while Logan sat to his left. Logan was simply staring at James' heart monitor, watching the green line make a distinct pattern across the black screen. It was like he was in a trance, the only thing on his mind being focusing on the jagged lines of the beeping machine. Kendall was staring at his hands and James couldn't see his face, but he hoped it didn't look like Logan's, which was pale and ghostly. He couldn't see Carlos' face at all, for the smallest boy of their group had his face pressed against the bed. James realized that the strange noises were coming from said boy, and he wondered why he was making such noises.
But more importantly, James wanted to know how he died or what drug he was on to make the obviously unreal appearance of his friends (if he could still call them that) make sense.
"I'm dead, right?" He asked blatantly, only becoming a little freaked out as three heads simultaneously snapped in his direction to look at him.
Carlos let out another pitiful whimper. "What?" He asked, looking so out of place in the white room with his helmet and superhero outfit on.
"I'm dead," James repeated.
The three boys shook their heads, confused. "You're not dead, James," Logan told him shakily, confusion and fear evident in his tone. He pointed to the heart monitor next to James. "See? That means you have a heartbeat. People with heartbeats aren't dead." James smiled softly and nodded.
But I'm smiling at everything.
"Oh," James said. "Then I'm hallucinating, right?" His gaze shifted between the three people with him, not quite understanding why they looked so confused. The small smile that had been on his face faded immediately. Why were they confused?
"No," Kendall said slowly. "This is definitely real."
Now James was terribly confused. "But it can't be real," He protested. "That wouldn't make any sense."
"Why wouldn't it make sense?" Kendall asked.
James let out a small laugh. "Because that would mean you guys actually liked me," James told them. "And that wouldn't make sense. I see what this is—you guys are just a figment of my imagination. I guess this is my way of trying to convince myself that you guys care. I never knew that hallucinations could be so stubborn."
Another whimper came from Carlos. "James, we're not hallucinations," He told James, his voice cracking on the last syllable of the last word. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We're not hallucinations. We're h-here and we care about you." His voice cracked again several times and he decided to give up on keeping his composure. However, he still blushed, embarrassed by his stilted speech.
James still looked confused.
"James, it really is us," Logan tried to reassure him in a shaky voice. "We're at the hospital. You tried to overdose, remember? But then me and Kendall and Carlos found you and the doctors pumped your stomach and now you're okay."
"And you woke up a little while ago but they had to sedate you because you started crying," Kendall added, feeling a tiny bit of relief as James' features clouded with realization. "The doctors said it wouldn't be good if you were alone, so while your dad went to the mental ward to visit your mom we decided to stay here with you.
James nodded. "So you're staying here until my dad comes back."
Logan shook his head. "James, we're staying here as long as you're going to be here."
"Well, that's dumb," James said, turning to Logan. "Why waste your time here if you're just going to leave again?"
Therapy, you were never a friend to me, you can take back your misery…
Kendall sighed. He felt happy but miserable at the same time. He was happy because James finally seemed to accept that this, in fact, was reality. But he was miserable because James just didn't seem to grasp the fact that they cared about him and that they weren't going to leave him, not again, not ever. He knew that the only people that could be blamed for this were the three guilty culprits sitting beside James, trying to convince him that they were his friends when they were the ones that got him here in the first place.
Therapy, I'm a walking travesty, but I'm smiling at everything.
"James, you have to believe us," Kendall whispered. "We're never going to leave you again, we promise."
The expression James gave him broke his heart, almost as much as the words James chose. "You also promised when we were pee wee hockey players that we would stick together," James said. "But we didn't. We got fired and sent back to Minnesota and then you wanted to pretend like Big Time Rush never happened. You wanted to forget that becoming famous became your dreams, too. And you all had your Minnesota dreams to fall back on but I didn't because being famous has always been my dream. And I was really sad, and so I took the anti-depressants but they weren't working and I kept taking more and more but they only made me more depressed and I started thinking about bad things and—"
"James," Logan interrupted, cutting off the rant that sent crushing waves of guilt over the three boys, trying to drown them. "If we had broken our promise then do you think we would be here right now?"
"Well, no—"
"And if we had broken our promise," Carlos said, his voice still cracking in random places. "Do you think we would have made sure you got to the hospital so you didn't—" He gulped. "So you didn't die?"
James shook his head.
"So then we haven't broken our promise," Kendall concluded. "We're still together. One little fight doesn't change anything."
Therapy, you were never a friend to me…
"But I thought you hated me," James whispered.
Logan let out an uneasy laugh. "James, we could never hate you."
"And whether you like it or not," Kendall added. "You're stuck with us. Forever. That's a promise."
James smiled for a moment, finding a little comfort when his friends smiled back. But then his smile faded. "I'm sorry," He said. The two words were meant to mend their fight and the fact that he almost died.
Kendall, Carlos and Logan didn't respond, just surrounded James and pulled him into a hug. In his best friend's arms, James felt safe. He felt loved.
And you can choke on your misery.
OMWGNOTE: Originally, I had intended this story to end with Gustavo coming back and being like, "Yay! Everything is fixed!" But then I decided to leave it open. This isn't supposed to end up exactly like 'Big Time Concert' did. Not all things have super happy endings. I left this open so you can decide what happens. You know, if Gustavo comes back, if they stay in Minnesota, if they're all hit by a car and killed while walking out of the hospital…honestly, it's up to you. I hope you liked this.
If you're wondering about the amazing song that I tried to tie this fic to, that would be Therapy by All Time Low. I think you should check it out.
Lastly, I know it's 2 minutes late, but I'd like to remember all of those who lost their lives on 9/11. It sucks, a lot. Sorry to be so blunt about that.