The Things That Keep Me Alive (Keep Me Alone)

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: The alternate title here is We Were Born To Fuck Each Other (One Way Or Another). That should tell you what you're about to read. This story really, honestly does not have a single redeemable quality. It involves a lot of angst and anger, and doesn't portray either of the boys in a particularly positive light. You have been warned.

"Can I take your order?"

"Um, yeah. Okay, I'd like the Mexican Maki, the Tuna Tortilla- wait, the, um, Maki, it has tempura inside?"

"Yes."

"Okay, great, so yeah, that and the Tortilla and some of this Rocky Shrimp. Oh, and green tea?" The girl finishes, smiling brightly at him.

Her friend frowns.

"You always get spicy stuff. I think it's because you don't want to share."

"You're probably right. Order." The girl elbows her friend, metallic bracelets jingling on her wrist. "He's waiting."

"He can wait," the smaller girl says. She stares at the menu for a beat before deciding. "I want hibachi. Steak. And a coke, no ice. If you put ice in it, you're not getting a tip."

"Understood."

"Ignore her, you'll get a tip," the first girl assures him, ruby red lips curving.

James sighs, smiles back, and does his best to refrain from rolling his eyes. Instead, he adjusts his thick rimmed reading glasses on his nose, writing obediently on his notepad.

"Why do you always have to do that?" He hears the first girl ask as he walks away. "He was cute."

"He can be cute and still get my order right."

James plugs the order into the touch screen computer near the wall and brings the girls their drinks. The first girl is still smiling at him so hard he's a little worried that her face might break when she says thank you. The second barely looks up from the table but throws out a precursory thanks before returning to her conversation, which seems to be a vivid blow by blow of the most recent action in Palestine.

James doesn't have time or the interest to eavesdrop. He makes his way back towards the kitchen, ready to deliver orders to other tables when-

"Diamond," a voice snaps. A tiny Asian woman totters towards him in five inch heels. The Dragon Lady. His boss. She says, "Our floor show cancelled, and I've heard you have a voice on you."

James blinks.

"I can sing?"

"I don't know," she drawls, "Can you?"

"That's what they tell me."

James grins, tries to make a joke out of it. No one has asked him to sing an actual gig in at least five years.

"Great, I knew one of you would come through." She makes a vague gesture meant to encompass the waitstaff. "You're all looking for your break, hmm?"

"Uh. Yeah, I guess."

James rakes a hand through his hair, acutely uncomfortable.

"We have a list of approved songs. You can't sing anything by Nirvana or the chef on table four starts crying over the miso. He's not over Cobain. Gets messy," she confides, thrusting a paper towards him. "Take your pick of anything on here."

James skims the list. A lot of soft rock ballads.

At least ten by a name as familiar as his own.

The owner sees him looking. Her almond eyes crinkle, and she says with a Cheshire grin, "Don't you butcher any of the Knight songs. He's my favorite."

James grimaces and says, "Don't worry."

He won't sing one of Kendall's songs, even if the Dragon Lady pays him a million dollars. He doesn't think he'd be able to get through it without puking.

He doesn't say any of that out loud.

After she leaves, one of the waitresses approaches. She's a perky brunette with big green eyes who's been trying to get James out on a date for ages. James has trouble remembering her name.

She squeals, "Ohmigosh, Did she ask you to sing? I told her you were amazing. She was going to give the job to one of the bus boys."

She makes a face to demonstrate exactly what she thinks of that. She's been hounding James to sing for her ever since she caught him belting it out to a radio after closing, when he thought he was the only one left inside.

"Yeah, um. Thanks."

"No problem." She waves his gratitude away, rhinestone nose stud twinkling under the mood lighting. She says, "So, do you want to come out tonight?"

"Oh. I can't," he replies, trying his best to sound apologetic, even though he isn't. At all.

He never asked her to score him a job. He's never asked for her help with anything. He certainly has never asked for her kindness.

She shrugs.

"Too bad. They're filming a music video down in Malibu. One of Kendall Knight's. A bunch of us were going to try to hit it up."

James frowns apologetically again.

"Sorry."

"Maybe next time," she says with a sweet smile.

"Sure. Yeah. Next time."

If hell freezes over, and probably not even then.

He has ten minutes to kill before he goes on, and he spends it in a mad rush, trying to get all of his orders in so that the boss lady won't decide to change her mind. Those ten minutes are hectic, but perfect. There's the once familiar excitement welling up in him before stepping on stage; the anxiety and adrenaline and above all the rush of clean, fresh oxygen in his lungs that feels like a song, ready to leap from his throat.

But once he's up there, all that excitement sours. James pours his heart into the songs, lets himself feel the music deep in his ribs, the way it used to be back when he had the whole world at his feet.

It doesn't matter. While he sings, he watches the girls he served earlier. The taller one is half listening, ear cocked towards the sound. Coke-No-Ice isn't even paying attention. Just like ninety percent of the restaurant.

Whole stadiums of people used to come out to watch him work.

Now he can't even get the attention of the half price happy hour crowd.

Kendall's first girlfriend was his next door neighbor. Their houses were separated by a picket fence and a bed of daisies that would spring up, sunny and yellow every spring.

She loved those stupid daisies. She was constantly picking them, making flower crowns or necklaces or gathering bouquets. Half the time, she reeked of flowers. She had daisies on the brain.

James had always kind of hated her.

Daisy was the only person who knew Kendall better than James and Carlos and Logan. Kendall would blow them off to hang out on her trampoline or skate on the pond in the center of town or build forts with paisley print sheets.

One day, James was supposed to sleep over at Kendall's house while his parents had a romantic getaway weekend.

(He was nine years old, but he already knew that meant that his mom would lock their blackberries in a drawer for about half an hour, where they would stare into each other's eyes over a bottle of Dom; which was this sparkly, bubbly water stuff that James's mom would never let him try. And then the moment would break and they'd spend the rest of the weekend running up the room service bill and trying to catch up on work. His parents didn't really know how to prioritize.)

Anyway, James was standing at Kendall's front door, and Kendall's mom was saying that she didn't know where Kendall had gotten off to, Katie crying at her hip.

"Why don't you go play in the backyard, James, honey, and I'll hunt him down?"

James agreed, but only because he already knew where Kendall was.

Sure enough, when he peered through the slats of the wooden fence that separated Kendall's yard from Daisy's, he could see their outlines, feet dangling off the edge of her giant trampoline.

And then she shifted closer to Kendall and kissed him.

James didn't really know much about girls, or kissing, except that one invited cooties and the other was something his parents did, obnoxiously, half-heartedly; but often. It had always seemed kind of gross.

When Daisy kissed Kendall, though, it didn't look gross. It looked wrong.

James wanted to shove her off the end of the trampoline, even though his dad was always telling him violence wasn't the answer.

(His mom was totally cool with violence. The last time he'd started a fight at a hockey game, she'd been cheering him on in the stands, loudly.)

His hands clenched into fists at his side, and he gave some serious consideration to slugging Little Miss Daisy in the face. James wanted to protect Kendall, because girls were disgusting, and they had weird girl diseases, and besides, some flower picking, cootie carrying, paisley-print sheet having girl shouldn't have been touching Kendall like that anyway. James had always been told that you were only supposed to kiss the person you loved most in the world.

No way did Kendall love Daisy-Brain most in the world.

He couldn't.

About two weeks later, James spotted her playing alone at the park after school. Her mom was watching from a distance, face half buried in a romance novel. His was in the car, engine running, yelling at one of her employees about something that had gone terribly wrong in the cosmetic industry. It probably had something to do with pink being the new pink.

The second James saw Daisy swinging from the monkey bars, he knew what he had to do. He was always getting teased about how pretty he was, how charming. It was easy to tilt his head a certain way and grab her attention. Easy to apologize for always being so standoffish, but the truth was-

"I have a huge crush on you," he had said, willing himself to blush, to look as sincere as humanly possible. His whole body was shaking with nerves.

"But you don't even like me," she'd told him, suspicious, hanging from a rung, a daisy tucked behind one ear.

"That's not true. I like you so much, it's scary," he lied through his teeth.

She frowned.

"I like Kendall."

"Kendall doesn't like you."

"You're lying."

"I'm not. He told me," James lied again, and he had to do it, he had to save Kendall from the evils of girls.

James listened to her grow increasingly upset. He was as comforting and as nice as he knew how to be. Nicer than he'd ever been to any girl before. When she finally left the park, she kissed him on the cheek.

She stopped talking to Kendall for two whole weeks after that day.

Kendall was miserable.

James didn't tell him that he'd started hanging out with her. That she'd given him his first real kiss on a Wednesday, and that it was slimy but soft and kind of nice. James asked her to be his girlfriend right after. Not because he wanted a girlfriend or because he even really knew what it meant to have one.

He did it so that she couldn't be Kendall's.

When Daisy finally started talking to Kendall again, she told him that she had made a mistake. That James was cuter, sweeter, better.

Kendall didn't get mad at him. He called her a rude word he'd heard from his dad and sprayed her with his super soaker.

After that, he and Daisy-Brain sort of drifted apart. James, Kendall, Carlos, and Logan got involved with hockey. They already went to a different school and with the team they made newer, cooler friends.

James broke up with her the second he realized Kendall barely recognized her existence anymore.

It wasn't like third grade relationships counted anyway.

James's apartment is comfortable. He has a decent car. As long as he doesn't spend exorbitantly, he can make his BTR money stretch for a long time. He only bothers working for the connections.

Originally, he thought staffing one of Hollywood's hottest restaurants would get him out in front of bigwigs, people who might see him in action and say that's him. That's The Face we need.

He's hoping to land a modeling contract.

Of course, he'd forgotten how many pretty boy waiters there are in the world, waiting for their big break. And James is nearly twenty four now, well past the prime age for an industry where nineteen is considered old.

He knows, to get a real break, that all he has to do is pick up the phone. He's let most of his connections lapse, but he has one or two that will probably get him in the door. He has a few wild cards. He just doesn't want to use them, because he knows, instinctively, that Kendall will come up in their conversation.

James doesn't want to talk about Kendall.

Not now.

Not ever.

So he works his ass off, and the job keeps him out there, in the world, away from the safety of his apartment and the inherent danger of becoming a hermit. It gives him some extra cash to splurge on designer jeans; Rock and Republic and high end William Rasts and True Religions. Anything that lengthens his legs and makes women and men alike turn to stare at his ass.

Sometimes his mom will call and ask him to come back to Minnesota. She offers him a job with the marketing department in her firm, an entry level salaried job that he'll be able to scoot into without a college degree because he has experience and a handsome face and charisma on his side. She always says he can sell the apple to Eve if he wants, but James isn't half as charming as people give him credit for. He relies on his looks and his smile to get by.

Kendall's always been the one who has the cunning to back up a plan, who had the drive to back up James's ambition.

It isn't an exciting life, really. But James does what he can.

Tonight that doesn't seem to mean very much. Near three in the morning, James can't sleep. His legs are restless, jumpy, like he needs to get up and walk around. He knows it won't help.

With a sigh, he pulls his iPod out of his bed stand drawer, already thumbing through his music library for his playlists. They're all labeled by song lyrics. Obscure. The kind of thing no one else would be able to make any sense out of. But James knows exactly which one he's looking for.

There, smack in the middle, he chooses it, clicking shuffle.

Kendall's voice fills his earbuds, drowning out the city light and the sound of the traffic, the hum of the air conditioner and the thump of his heart. He finds strength in the swell of the song, in the lyrics that Kendall penned himself. He doesn't want to. God, he hates Kendall so much for all this useless beauty that he's created, all these pop songs that don't really mean a thing. They can't, because Kendall is a soulless bastard.

Or, no, that isn't true. Kendall just followed the rules of reciprocation way back when. When he took the solo record contract that was supposed to be James's.

James really does hate him, more than anything, but listening to his songs is the only way to hear his former friend's voice anymore. He lies still and listens, singing along until his voice mixes with Kendall's over his iPod, and for a second, if he closes his eyes, he can imagine they're back on stage, their voices reaching a crescendo.

Together.

He can feel Kendall's voice in his lungs, smell his cologne and his sweat, the music like a second heartbeat.

Kendall, his second heart.

Kendall met this girl in seventh grade.

James remembers that she wore glasses with thick frames and had a crooked smile.

She wasn't the prettiest girl in their class, or the most vivacious. Mostly she was kind of quiet. Some people said she was shy. Some people said she was just cold. A total ice queen. Most people leaned towards the latter, 'cause when she actually spoke up, she was confident, sure of herself.

Once, a teacher made a point of embarrassing her because she wasn't one hundred percent certain of her words, and instead of stammering or blushing like most of the girls in their class, the Queen of the Ice full on glared at him.

Kendall called her feisty. He was one hundred percent smitten. Every time he tried to talk to her, though, she stared at her shoes.

In the winter, James was assigned an English project with her. She did a lot of shoe staring.

Until he walked her home, lifted her chin, and kissed her. The Ice Queen melted on the spot.

She spent the rest of the year furtively staring at him from behind text books, completely unaware of Kendall's existence.

Just the way James liked it.

James wants to blame everything on Kendall. The truth is, everything is not Kendall's fault.

The thing that no one ever says out loud is that James sort of brought it on himself.

He'd always thought of Kendall like a brother, as close as blood. The thing about family, though, is that you have no choice but to put up with them. No choice but to love them, no matter what they do.

Kendall washed his hands of James, the way he never could of family.

Three weeks into high school, Kendall got his first real girlfriend. She spent most of her time in the school's tiny art studio, and always seemed to have a smudge of paint on her cheek, a slash of red or yellow in stark contrast with her kohl lined eyes. She sat with Kendall (and James and Logan and Carlos, because they were never far from Kendall's side) at lunch for over half a year.

Every time James subtly came on to her, she turned him down flat.

At that point he'd figured out what he was doing, gotten a reputation as a bit of a player. Girls whispered his name in the hallway, giggled when he smiled at them, blushed.

He couldn't quite seem to get Kohl Eyes' attention though, no matter what he tried. She only cared about Kendall, which was actually something James empathized with.

No matter how many girls he kissed, Kendall was never far from his mind.

Kohl Eyes just wasn't having any of it. She really, honestly, liked being Kendall's girlfriend. No amount of fake charm could change her mind.

Except she had this friend. This gawky guy friend who trailed her everywhere. He was very obviously deeply in love with her, paint splattered jeans and all.

James knew, because he caught them one day, arguing in the halls. The guy was saying things about Kendall that made James want to slam his head into a locker.

So he took advantage of it. He knew Kendall was a little bit jealous of Kohl Eye's buddy. James knew, and he made sure to mention it every time he saw them together in intimate, secluded locations. He planted the seeds of doubt in Kendall's head until all he ever did with his girlfriend was argue.

And then one day, James took a picture. They weren't doing anything. Kohl Eyes was sitting on the window sill at the art studio, backlit in natural light. Her friend was talking to her, his body close, their conversation hushed.

The angles made it look like they were kissing.

James wasn't proud of himself when he showed the picture to Kendall. Kohl Eyes denied it, of course, but Kendall would never take the word of his girlfriend over that of his best friend. That just wasn't the kind of guy he was. He was also much, much too nice to tell Kohl Eyes where the picture had come from. But she was smart.

On the last day of school, she cornered James in the boy's locker room. He was the last guy there; he was always lagging behind after gym to fix his hair.

"I know it was you," she said.

He thought about denying it. He didn't see the point.

"So?"

"I know why you did it."

He felt his heart jump into his chest, panic flooding his veins.

"You want me," she said, and no, James didn't want her. He hated this girl, the way Kendall had loved her, the way her hair was always messy and she always, always had charcoal under her fingernails, a smudge of paint on her elbow. That day it was yellow, the color of the long-dead bed of daisies that grew along the fence separating Kendall's house from his next door neighbor's; now a crotchety old man who didn't care one way or another about making crowns out of flowers. James felt guilt like bile choke him, hot and sick in his throat.

"You win. I don't care anymore."

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and James wanted to push her away. She smelled like oil based paints and some kind of vanilla body spray; the way Kendall smelled sometimes after his free period, and oh, James thought. That's why. Her mouth was soft, sweet against his, but she kissed him hard, desperate, bruising.

It was the first time he ever made out with a girl who didn't really seem to want to make out with him. And then she pushed him against one of the benches and-

James had fooled around with girls. In retrospect, he was young, too young to mess around with other people's hearts. But he'd grown up thinking he could have anything he wanted, and even though he'd never asked, some girls bent over backwards to make sure he had everything he wanted. Even if he didn't know he wanted it until there was a mouth hot and tight around him.

But when Kohl Eye's lips wrapped around his dick, the scent of tempera and vanilla in his nose, James knew it was wrong. He knew that there was a line, and that he was crossing it. Not just with this girl, desperate and apathetic all at the same time; trying to prove something while she kneeled on the filthy locker room floor, teeth scraping the underside of his cock.

This was a thing that Kendall would not be able to forgive.

It didn't stop it from happening, again and again and again. There was no love lost between James and Kohl Eyes, but they were young and horny, and the way they hated each other seemed to make it that much hotter when they came together.

They spent most of the summer before their Sophomore year experimenting with how far they could actually go.

James lost his virginity to her in the quiet of his bedroom on one of the many, many days when his parents were out. It was weird, thinking about it; when his fingers first grazed the fine brush of hair beneath her striped panties, his dad was playing power ballads for strangers at roadside diners. When his palm cupped the small swell of her breast through the satin of her bra, his mom was hocking power point presentations to potential buyers.

James was pinioned to the set of constellation sheets his grandmother had given him for his fifteenth birthday by that girl's eyes, kohl rimmed and full of intensity. Her gaze made him a butterfly at the end of a silver needle.

He remembers the way she clawed at his back when he settled between her legs, awkward and too much weight. He remembers how she mouthed at his throat when he slid home, tight hot heat and the shared breath between them.

He remembers what it felt like to come, her name a chant on his lips and Kendall's a steady pulse in his mind.

About three weeks after the singing incident, James goes to a cattle call. It's for a print ad, selling midrange perfume to buyers enraptured by the idea of old fashioned romance.

Obviously, modeling isn't his first career choice.

Music means so much to him. It lives in his chest, fills him with a warm glow, like love, and sometimes the things it makes him feel spill over, out into the world, eyes wide, lips parted, like breathing too much, too deep.

But after what happened with Kendall, with Gustavo, he doesn't think he can handle trying to sing for real, not ever again. A part of him thinks that maybe he just doesn't deserve to be heard anymore.

Modeling is easier. He doesn't usually have to do much more than stand there, malleable under the Cyclops eye of a camera, shutter flashing fast. No judgment. No heartbreak. Just a picture that will mean different things to different people.

Only, he can't seem to land a job. He's used to being one more face in a crowd of pretty faces now, and he waits, quiet, on one of the uncomfortable beige couches for his turn in front of the panel of people who have made this their life's work; marketing beautiful boys with beautiful dreams to bored housewives.

He's still three people behind the line when one of the other models, a blond boy with too-green eyes says, "You should stop that."

"Stop what?"

"The twirling thing."

He gestures to the way James's thumb subconsciously curls into his ring finger on his right hand, spinning a silver band around and around and around, the cool metal smooth against his skin. James stills.

Smiling, the guy says, "It's the only way I can tell that you're nervous right now. You hide it well, on your face, but-" he shrugs apologetically and continues, "It's a tell. If they think you're nervous, that's all they'll focus on. It'll hurt your chances."

James ends up going in before the blond boy. But he thinks about him while he stands in front of a no-nonsense couple in black suits, showing off his strut, saying a few lines from a script. He thinks about the green of his eyes and the way his smile dimpled and wonders what other tells he has.

He wonders if every stranger on the street can read him so easily. If they can see all the guilt and betrayal and hurt bubbling under his ribs, darkening his face whenever his smile slips.

He doesn't get the job.

There was a boy Kendall met in the overgrown parking lot three blocks down from his job, from the hustle and bustle of the supermarket blaring a thousand nineties hits that would eventually make them famous.

He had dark hair and a wicked smile.

It wasn't a big deal at first. Kendall had plenty of friends. James didn't think anything of it when Kendall told him the story about this particular kid practicing field hockey alone in an empty lot. This kid with the best slapshot Kendall had ever seen. James had his own friends too, his own string of boys and girls who occupied his time with lips and hands and curved smiles.

Then Kendall began to skip out on their rituals, on Thursday pizza night at Carlos's house, or Saturday movie night at Logan's. He skipped out on Sunday afternoon hikes with James; on their weekly day of racing each other to the tops of hills where they would collapse and spend hours staring at the clouds and talking about their future. The shapes and the viscosity of cumulus and dreams.

Kendall finally introduced Mr. Best-Slapshot-In-The-World to them the day before James's first school play. The one he'd snagged the lead role in after a year and two months of hard work. The one Kendall promised he'd come to.

Slapshot was gorgeous in a way that made James's stomach clench. He stood so close to Kendall that their shoulders touched. James wanted to punch him in the face.

The next night, James rocked the play.

Kendall wasn't there.

James never figured out if Slapshot was anything more than a friend to Kendall. They got in a fight about something, and Kendall was in a sour mood for an entire week. James was pushing leftover pizza around on his plate on a Saturday night, wondering if Kendall's fits of sullen anger had broken yet, or if he was better off spending the evening watching terrible teen movies when he heard a rap on the door. Slapshot stood on his welcome mat, dripping with snow and staring at James so intensely he was scared he might catch fire.

He grabbed the front of James's shirt and yanked him into a kiss.

James never really figured out what hit him.

"You're coming."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I don't think you're entitled to an opinion. You have to come."

James sighs. He presses his forehead against the doorframe of his car and stares up at the sky. He just got off the morning shift from the restaurant, and he feels bone tired, exhaustion making his limbs drag.

It's too bright, and he has to squint against the afternoon light, sweat pooling in the middle of his back.

He loves the sun and the cheer of California, but sometimes, all he wants is a really good storm. He wants the sky to rip open and pour down all its sorrows. He wants flashes of lightning. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs while thunder booms overhead, filling the hills and the valleys and the canyons with noise. But storms are rare in Southern California; something that only happens a handful of times every year. He rarely gets his wish.

He feels like all the sunshine is going to drive him insane.

"Camille, I don't think-"

"James Diamond, do not make me come pick you up and drag you into the theater myself."

"Please don't."

"The play's only doing a three night run. You have to come. You have to, or- I'll never forgive you."

She's joking, but he can tell by the way her laughter goes silent that she knows she's said the wrong thing. The implication that he can't afford to have one more person hold a grudge hangs static in the air between their cell phones.

"I'll be there," he promises, heart heavy in his chest.

"Good," she chirps, trying to lighten the mood. "Bring a bouquet."

"But you're sure this is a good idea?" he asks in a hush, "They're- um. No one else is coming?"

"No."

"You're positive."

"I am. Look, worry about problems when they become problems, James," Camille advises him. "If you don't bring me flowers, that might be a problem."

James tries to force a laugh, because that's what she expects. He hangs up the phone and wonders what kind of person he is.

When Camille first told him about the play it was a pang in his chest, like heartache, like jealousy. Someone's Hollywood dream is finally coming true, but it's not his.

He had it.

Then he let it go.

When James hooked up with Kendall's second serious girlfriend, it was an honest mistake.

Things with Slapshot had gotten freaky serious. James liked the way his mouth felt, the brush of stubble against his chin. He liked the friction they created when the front of their jeans rubbed together during a really heavy make out session, and it scared him. A lot.

James knew in a vague, distant way that he was in love with Kendall. He consciously recognized it in glimpses and flashes, laid bare in the images he saw on the back of his eyelids when his hand stroked his cock. But he hadn't fully admitted it to himself. He thought of it as some nameless thing, pressing on his ribcage when he tried to sleep at night.

All the while he knew that there is a difference between things that are nameless and things that he was too scared to name.

So he understood that Kendall made him feel something, something hot and possessive that made his chest hurt. That he'd felt that way since before he really knew what love was. But the idea of getting off against another boy was completely foreign to him.

He wasn't sure whether he liked it or not.

So he went out to this party, this football tailgate party where neither Kendall nor Slapshot was invited because the hockey team and the rest of the stupid jocks weren't all that fond of each other. James didn't care. He crashed parties all the time; he had an in with most of the female athletes in school.

At this party, he met a girl. She was a sweetheart. He also vaguely recognized that she was a cheerleader. Mostly because she was still wearing her uniform. She was also a total cocktease, with brilliant red hair and a gigantic smile. She flirted with James across the backyard bonfire all night. Finally, when he had enough beer in his stomach turning everything golden, James caught one of her red curls around his forefinger, tugging it gently.

"You're cute."

Her lips curved into a grin and she said, "I have a boyfriend."

He glanced pointedly up and down her body, from the way her maroon skirt fluttered against her pale, creamy thighs to the haughty arch of her neck. "That's too bad. Beautiful girl like you shouldn't lock herself away with one guy."

She laughed, one eyebrow arching. "Oh yeah?"

"No good?" James snorted, not really impressed with his lame pickup line either.

"It doesn't exactly bring to mind visuals of the kind of guy who's looking for a monogamous relationship." Her mouth quirked. "Good thing I'm not looking for one."

She let James fuck her on the shores of the local lake, sprawled across a picnic bench where families ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was exactly the distraction he needed.

Except two weeks later, they had the homecoming dance. Kendall introduced James to the girl he'd been with for a little over a month. James stared at her and remembered the way her blue eyes reflected the starlight. He couldn't swallow back his nausea, not completely.

They took a limo to the dance, and when Pom Poms hopped out to go join her cheerleader friends, ignoring Kendall's proffered hand, he turned to James.

"Milady," Kendall said, eyes crinkled at the corners, sparkling. James let out a bark of laughter and took hold of his friend's extended hand. It was just a stupid joke.

Except Kendall being Kendall had to take it one step too far. He lifted James's hand to his mouth, lips pressing soft against the skin of James's knuckles.

James realized right then that what he felt for Kendall wasn't vague, distant, or nameless. It was love, intense, awful, and terrifying. It was something he'd been denying since the first day of preschool, since the moment that they met.

And he also began to understand, that because Kendall was straight, because Kendall could never love him back, he had been doing his best to make him hurt.

With Kendall's lips on his knuckles, the guilt James felt for banging his best friend's girl washed away.

Camille's good in the play. She's really, ridiculously good.

James is glad she finally gets to showcase her talent to the world. It's kind of nice to sit and watch, to let himself get pulled into another universe where none of his problems exist. At least, not for him.

It's nice to spend two hours thinking about something other than Kendall or the things he's done.

Some days it's a gaping hole in his chest, some days it's a tidal wave overflowing. A sick nostalgia he can't fight against. He drowns in it, struggles and gasps for breath.

There's this one memory James has, that he holds close to his chest. The band had just gone platinum. Late one night, James couldn't sleep. Turned out, Kendall was the same; too excited by their success. They both had too much energy, too much frenetic happiness to play Xbox for very long. They ended up stealing a bottle of booze from the Palmwood's room service kitchen. They drank it in the stairwell, halfway between the fifth floor and the roof. It was dark, and the danger of Bitters walking in on them was high, but that somehow made it better. Kendall's knee was pressed tight to his, their heads bent close, their laughter free flowing.

It's the last time James remembers being truly happy. He knows he should let it go.

Thing is, people hold on tightest to the memories of the people who hurt them the most. James is the same. He doesn't know how to relinquish his hold on that sparkling, perfect moment. He can only loosen his grasp for hours at a time, like now, with Camille reciting her lines perfectly in front of him.

After the show's over, he finds Camille in the lobby, still in costume. Finds might not be the right word. She comes flying at him with a shriek and a hug, crushing the fistful of flowers James brought between them.

"You came!"

He laughs into her carefully curled hair. "I said I would."

"You did. But I'm still impressed." She draws back from the hug to look James over, but then, weirdly, her face shifts. She yanks James back into the hug and says, "Don't freak out."

The second he hears the words, James freezes.

"I didn't know they'd be here. I swear," she hisses out of the side of her mouth. It's not as inconspicuous as she seems to think. James pulls away, conducting a slow turn.

The first time James sees Kendall again, it's like teetering on the edge of a cliff, a swift kick of nausea and fear in his stomach. His reaction is visceral, and it shouldn't be. Just seeing another person shouldn't be able to make him come undone.

Kendall notices him at almost exactly the same moment, and it's like his face goes dark. Like somebody shut off all the lights behind his expression.

"At least he recognizes you," Camille hisses, and James has never even considered that he wouldn't. But it's been five years, so yeah, there is that.

Logan's standing right next to the blond, holding his arm, staring at James with wide eyes; a bunny trapped on the tracks of this imminent train wreck. James can barely muster up the interest to acknowledge him.

He's hypnotized by Kendall, who looks so good. Better than good. He also looks pissed, but that's pretty much been his default setting with James for the last five years.

They've only had two run-ins since he began his solo career. Once at the Sherwood Market on Christmas Eve, nearly six months after Kendall first stabbed him in the back. James was leaning against his car, wondering if he stared long enough, hard enough at the shopping cart lines, would the ghost of his younger self appear?

Instead he got Kendall, picking up a pie for his grandma. He walked right past James like he didn't even exist, but James knew he saw him. He watched when Kendall climbed into his car, slumping against the steering wheel. His whole body shook, and James wanted to go to him. He wanted to hug him, but knew he'd only make things worse.

The second time was a party. Carlos's idea.

Carlos had never really coped with the dissolution of James and Kendall's friendship. He'd looked up to them both. What had gone down- James was pretty sure it had broken his heart.

The party didn't work. Kendall walked in, saw James, and walked right back out. That's all the contact they've had until this. Until now.

James stares at his former friend, shining, brilliant. He used to think that what they shared made them indivisible. Now it's like Grand Canyon stretches between them.

He wants to walk across the opera house and say hi. He wants to run to the bathroom and puke his guts out in peace. Camille's hand on his arm is stopping him from doing either.

A stranger comes up to Camille with a bouquet of roses in hand. She ignores him.

"James, you probably- shouldn't."

James agrees. James wholeheartedly agrees. He should not do this thing that he is thinking of doing. It would be the worst thing he could possibly do. But Kendall's right there, his green-gray eyes radiant, and the thing is…James can't not do this.

That would also be the worst thing he could possibly do.

Because he's been dreaming (hopingwantingyearning) to talk to Kendall again, to hear words from his mouth that aren't brutal and angry and full of so much blame. Kendall may still hate him. Kendall probably still hates him. But he doesn't look nearly so fierce, so triumphant, so sad, as that day that he told James why exactly he was taking Gustavo up on his offer.

He can't scream at James here, in a room full of people that don't know him as anything other than a superstar. James pulls his arm free of Camille's grasp, and from a distance he can see Kendall mirror the movement, yanking free of Logan's viselike grip.

Camille snorts. "You're a moron."

He hears the rustle of her dress and tissue paper as she grabs the roses from the still waiting bystander and follows James towards his destination, towards the one person he's alternately run to and from for his entire life.

Logan's the one who talks first because Logan has this awful inability to keep his mouth shut in awkward situations. And it is most definitely awkward. Kendall is sizing James up, all menacing fury, and James has his hands shoved in the pockets of his dress slacks. He feels himself shrinking under the force of Kendall's gaze.

"Um, we wanted to surprise you," Logan tells Camille lamely. "Surprise!"

He shoves a bouquet at Camille. She smirks, accepting.

Kendall is the one who breaks their gaze first. He presses his fingertips into the hollows of his eyelids. James wants to kiss them, kiss the contours of his eyebrow and the flutter of his lashes; press his mouth to Kendall's.

James also wants to knee him in the gut, steal his breath away, steal his voice; the way Kendall has impossibly stolen his. His hatred burns the same way his love always has.

More so, because somewhere deep inside, James knows that he still loves Kendall, so much he can't stand it.

"Hi," James says, because he can't hold it back any longer. Logan gives him this weak smile, but Kendall- Kendall makes this face, like he's sucking on his tongue and teeth and the inside of his lips, trying hard not to let anything real show. He squints up at the weak light filtering through the opera house's chandelier.

He says, "You should probably. Go. Somewhere that isn't here."

Camille is quick to say, "James, no," and now Logan is looking at him with something like pity, cringing sympathy as what Kendall has said bites into him.

James doesn't like that look, because most of the time he treats Logan and Carlos like he's lost them in the break up, but he knows it's not true. He knows if he picked up the phone and called them, they'd answer. All he can remember whenever his finger poises trembling over their numbers, still on speed dial, is the way they looked at him after things had gone down with Jo.

Like he was vile.

Like every bad thing he'd ever thought about himself was actually true.

Kind of like the way Kendall's looking at him now.

So James doesn't listen to Camille. He tries to smile, and he shrugs a little apology towards her, even as she tells him, "Stop. You don't have to- James!"

He's already walking away. He can hear Camille yelling at Kendall now; something about ruining her play, and he feels awful, but not awful enough to turn back. Kendall wants him to leave, so he's leaving.

James doesn't want to challenge him. Not anymore.

During the whole of their friendship, they'd made a game of it. Of pushing each other to see how far they could really go. No matter how many times they crossed the line, they'd always take each other back with open arms.

At least, James would. He always accepted Kendall for who he was, did his best to love his flaws as much as he could. He thought Kendall was part of the game too. He thought Kendall was always going to be standing there, forgiving him.

Sometimes he tries to dismiss what he did as teenage stupidity. But the truth is that it had nothing to do with being young. He's still young. He forgets, sometimes, because people put so much pressure on twenty somethings to grow the fuck up, to accept age and responsibility and maturity. But he's still young, barely a sapling in a forest. He has so much life left to live.

And age has nothing to do with the mistakes he's made; he was just careless. He knew what the consequences of his actions would be, abstractly, but James had never had to deal with that kind of thing in reality. He'd never had to deal with real betrayal or rejection outside of his family, and then it was all just a distant, familiar ache.

When he was finally faced with what he'd done, it was a punch to the face, sharp and stinging. He could still feel it now, years later, burning on his cheekbone, sore in his gut. Until that moment, he hadn't realized how mistrust and suspicion were building. How Kendall was starting to weigh the pros and cons of their friendship against the impossible idea of ending it.

The day James pushed too far, Kendall pushed right back. And it turned out that, yeah, there was a line James couldn't forgive him for crossing.

They were both careless. But Kendall could live with the consequences, is living with them. James isn't handling it nearly as well.

He's still stupid, still stumbling. With his friendships. With the people who try to get close, who he ends up pushing away, keeping at an arm's length. Like the girl, the one at the restaurant who likes him. It would be so easy for James to say yes, to go on a date with her. To just lean over and kiss her.

The idea of it disgusts him. And he knows that is a kind of carelessness. Rejecting love when it is so freely given.

James leaves the opera house going ninety miles an hour. His apartment overlooks Mulholland, the winding streets thick with jacaranda and hyacinth, the walkways lined with birds of paradise. He has one huge picture window that lets him look down on the whole of Hollywood, on the greater Los Angeles area stretching out like some great oil spill strung with Christmas lights, twinkling on a shadow.

Taking the streets so fast is dangerous. Stupid. Careless.

James doesn't care.

He steps on the pedal, turns up the music, and screams at the top of his lungs.

James didn't have to seduce Kendall's last Minnesotan girlfriend.

Turned out, she'd only started hooking up with Kendall because she had a crush on James. She was an aspiring singer, like him, and James liked the way her voice sounded when he moved over her, inside her.

She always wore this thick designer lipstick; Chanel or Givenchy or Dior. Kendall said they never had sex, but James knew it was a lie. She would come to him afterwards, still wet from Kendall, slick from riding him half an hour before. Nights like those, an impish smile would tease at her Chanel coated lips because she knew it turned James on.

Chanel thought it was the danger, the inherent naughtiness of fucking around with his best friend's girl. She would describe what she'd done, describe the way Kendall's lips felt on her breasts, her navel, her thighs. She would talk about how hard he'd been; show off the bruises his fingertips had left on her hips. And then she'd let James bend her over his living room table, too horny to even bother yanking her jeans past her knees, too eager to touch all the places Kendall had been.

Kendall caught him balls deep in the girl on a night when the promise of rain hung thick in the air. He'd come over unannounced, knowing James's parents were out (they were always out), wanting to play a rousing game of zombie-killing.

James never figured out how long he stood there for, watching James pull his relationship apart at the seams with every stutter-thrust of his hips. He only knew that on the heels of his orgasm, he saw Kendall's face- which wasn't all that strange in and of itself. He'd been seeing Kendall's face since he first learned how to make himself come, in the quiet of his own bedroom, tucked under his comforter, hands sweaty and fumbling.

But this time Kendall was actually there, watching, staring, the expression on his face completely inscrutable.

Chanel; she'd begged. Pleaded with Kendall for forgiveness, like it was something she even deserved.

James didn't say a word. He didn't need to. He knew forgiveness wasn't a thing he deserved either, but he'd get it all the same, even as he sagged back against the couch, the girl's Coco Pink lipstick smeared across his mouth, a brand against his throat.

Kendall stopped talking to him for an entire month, the longest period of silence in James's life until that point.

Then, on a bleak winter afternoon, he called and invited James for pizza, and just like that, things were normal again.

All James can think about from that day on is Kendall. Which isn't all that weird; he's always thinking about Kendall. But he's suddenly struck with the need to see him, again and again, not through a TV screen or on a poster, but in real life.

He needs Kendall to be solid, to be something he can touch.

He's not stupid enough to seek him out, but-

James likes to spend days at the beach, splayed out on a blanket, toes dug into the sand, a dog-eared paperback that he'll probably never get around to reading lying face down next to him. He likes the way the sun feels when it seeps beneath his skin, like it can sear out all the negativity inside of him. He'll breathe deeply, salt air in his lungs and the wind carrying the laughter of Japanese tourists. Sometimes he'll surf, the board waxy smooth beneath his feet, and when the waves give way he'll feel like maybe he can conquer the ocean, as wild and untamable as it is. Later, he'll walk the sidewalks lined with glass-fronted boutiques hawking pastel painted shells, the sun burning blond streaks into his hair, his shoulders beginning to smolder.

The beach is his place.

But when he decides to hit it up a few weeks after Camille's play, it's been converted into Kendall's. The sand is crowded with fans, hipsters in tight pants and girls in gladiator sandals, eyes thick with mascara. James can't hear the waves over the sound of their excited chatter.

He remembers hearing about this charity concert on the radio. He tries to figure out if he came here today on purpose, because of how much he's wanted to see Kendall in person. James is about to leave, because subconscious yearning or not, staying would be the worst idea in the world.

Then he reconsiders.

He thinks he's being inconspicuous. There must be a couple hundred people milling around in the crowd. And he wants it so damn bad.

Kendall on stage is a hurricane, unstoppable, unavoidable. When James watches him, the only thing he can think to do is batten down the hatches and board up all the places he's weak. It never helps; his voice carries on the wind, permeates all the cracks and slivers where James hasn't been able to wall himself away.

Halfway through the first song, Kendall sights him. His voice falters, just for a second, but he's the consummate professional. He picks up the verse again with ease, and if anyone noticed that he nearly turned the word fake into fuck, they don't say anything.

James watches in silence, aching. The way he wants Kendall makes him feel like his insides are burning, turning to ash as he stands there, watching his sweat slick body in the sunlight.

When the concert is over, he makes his way around the collapsible stage, towards the tunnel of tents that make up backstage. James is used to the insanity in there. He knows where the gaps in security are. He knows how to slip between them.

He's dressed like he belongs, really, and when he makes his way over to the little makeshift dressing room they've set up in a trailer, no one even spares him a second glance.

He stands outside of the trailer until he can work up the nerve to knock.

"What are you doing here?" Kendall asks when the door swings open. He's toweling sweat off of his hair and all he's wearing are a pair of faded jeans. He looks like he has every time he was in the locker room after a hockey game, following every concert; but there's something different about him. And James realizes it's that he doesn't look angry.

James knows it's the adrenaline and endorphins stirred up from singing live. But he relishes it anyway.

Kendall's still got this thick stage makeup on, and James kind of misses that. He never minded slathering crap all over his face. It felt like warpaint, like in wearing it he was ready to do battle, to do anything.

Be anyone.

"I. Um. I was- it's my day off," James says dumbly. "Can you. Um. Is this-"

Kendall stares at him, expression inscrutable. And then he says, "Not here. Follow me."

Kendall's rented a beach bungalow three blocks from the venue that is the complete opposite of James's sleek, modern apartment. There's a wind chime made of shells and sea glass that jingles a tune when James passes by, wind ruffling his hair like a warning. Inside there is faded yellow paint like honeysuckle and white wicker furniture. A towel lies discarded in one corner next to some flip flops that were haphazardly thrown off.

The whole place is the size of James's bathroom.

Kendall plops down onto a loveseat and asks, "So?"

"I don't-"

"You have a job?"

"I. Um. I'm a waiter," James says, and he refuses to blush. He refuses to be embarrassed that he hasn't made anything of himself in all this time.

"Oh. That's-" Kendall bites his lip. "Nice."

"We don't all have Gustavo Rocque backing us."

It's bitter. It's so, so bitter. He regrets saying it the moment it leaves his lips.

Kendall doesn't even look fazed.

"You want me to be sorry for that? Because I'm not."

"Don't," James bites out, because he doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't think he can take it.

"What? Does the truth hurt?"

"No. Kendall, I-"

Except whatever high Kendall's gotten from his concert, it's dissipating. He hops to his feet, starts pacing back and forth across the tiny little room.

"You're such a dick."

"Dude. I just came here to see you. I just- wanted to see you, okay. I don't want to argue."

"You think I'm stupid? You think you're going to fool me into thinking you care about me? At all?"

"What? If you think I don't, then you're an idiot!"

"Please. You think I don't know that you're the reason Jessica stopped talking to me in grade school? You think I didn't notice when Paige went from liking me to you in the space of a day?"

The next door neighbor and the ice queen. James winces at the sound of their names.

Kendall barrels on, "You've tried to steal every girl I've ever liked. Every- person-" he pauses. "Taylor."

Slapshot.

"I knew you had a thing for him," James says, automatically sure that he's responding to the wrong part of the accusation.

"And he, ridiculously, thought you had a thing for me. That's why we fought. Turns out he just wanted into your pants," Kendall shook his head, tone acidic when he continues, "Just like every other person I've ever been with- Ruby and Faith and don't even get me started on Xander."

Kohl Eyes and Pom Poms and Chanel; the art student and the cheerleader and that one starving artist.

"Or Jo," he mutters, pain evident in his eyes.

Of course. Five years, and he still isn't over her. James would find it pathetic if it didn't make him into a huge hypocrite.

"Kendall-"

"Singing is the only thing you ever fucking cared about," Kendall screams, his voice raw at the edges, and all James can think is that he probably has a concert or an interview or something the following morning; that Kendall is never going to be able to sing. He'll be ruined, just for a day.

James keeps on ruining him.

He barrels on, not seeming to care, "I had to take something from you. Just one thing. The most important thing."

James stares at his boots and wonders if he's supposed to answer, to justify Kendall's anger. He knows how much Kendall loved Jo. He knew it way back when.

It had torn at him, eaten away at his heart until he thought he would go insane.

Guilt weighs heavy on his shoulders, but at the same time, he still doesn't feel like it's a fair trade. James's dream for a girl who was never supposed to mean as much as she did.

Quietly, James says, "It wasn't the most important thing. But you took that away too."

It isn't fair of him. He wants so much to be the mature one, but he can't. He hurts, all the time, pain. Edging at muscles in his neck, at the base of his skull, around the fringes of his heart. Betrayal is a wound that never fully heals. It makes it difficult to trust, to open up, to give parts of yourself away when it was always so simple before.

Kendall stares at him like he doesn't know what he's talking about, and he probably fucking doesn't. He says, "Get out. Just get the fuck out."

James was never proud of what went down with Jo. She was dedicated to Kendall. She loved him.

Jealousy is many things; a hot, electric slice like a knife sliding easy through a person's insides, a cold chill raising hair on the back of a neck, a stiff tension between muscles and the overwhelming knowledge that you can never match up.

At that point, James had his own very long string of former lovers; girls and boys who had nothing at all to do with Kendall. Only, when he closed his eyes, it was not his conquests that haunted him, but those of Kendall's. The scent of daisies and a smear of red paint, pink lipstick and rain-damp skin. They were a constant reminder pressing on his brain with the knowledge that James would never be good enough for Kendall.

He'd never be equivalent to Jo in the blond's eyes.

So he'd done whatever he could to destroy their relationship.

But Jo was sweet. Nice. She was immune to James's charm.

One night, she got in a fight with Kendall. It was stupid, but James saw her, crying, out on the terrace. He liked to do laps in the evening, when the moon silvered everything. It was dumb luck that he spotted her.

He called up to her, asked her if she needed some company.

And then he'd gotten her painstakingly, rip-roaringly drunk.

It wasn't anything more than a kiss. James couldn't bring himself to fully take advantage of her. She was so damn wasted.

But she was a nice girl. She broke up with Kendall.

Right after she told him what had happened.

James still to this day remembers the way Kendall looked at him when he came back to the apartment; like something inside of him had shut down. And James thought that it was official. He'd destroyed their friendship forever.

Kendall, though, hadn't seemed to have gotten the memo. He acted like things were normal.

Until a month later, when Gustavo offered him a solo record contract.

The same contract Gustavo had been attempting to push since the band first got its start.

The same solo contract that Kendall always turned down, like clockwork.

This time he took it. He took it, and he looked at James when he accepted, smiling, like it was a victory. Like he'd just won something.

When James confronted him about it, Kendall punched him in the face and yelled that he knew why.

And James did. But he thought that the betrayal hurt so much worse than the theft of a string of bubble headed girls.

This was his dream. This was the guy he loved.

Both were swept away from him.

He wasn't sure if he had anything left.

There's a knock on his door later that night, and James almost isn't surprised when it's Kendall. He's felt this weariness for the entire day, this exhaustion that settled deep in his bones. He doesn't want to have so many regrets.

"Why are you here?"

"That's my line," Kendall says, almost smirking. "I- Logan gave me your address."

James wasn't aware that Logan had his address until right this second, but okay. He figures there will be time later to figure that out.

"You came to my concert. Why? Really?" Kendall shoves his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking nervous.

"I didn't know you were having a concert. Or I did, but- I didn't meant to be there." It's as close to an apology as James knows how to make.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you. It wasn't- if someone had gotten pictures of that, it would-"

"I won't tell if you don't."

Kendall snorts and then says, "Don't make me laugh. Please."

"Why not?"

"Because I really hate you. I've never hated anyone so much in my entire life," he lifts his eyes so that James can see everything in them, all the hurt and the sadness and the things that he tries to hide behind a dimpled smile.

All the things that make James hate himself even more.

"I know," he says, "I've been trying to stay out of your life, okay?"

"But- a waiter? You're working as a waiter?"

"It's not a bad way to live." James shrugs.

"It's not you. You're supposed to be-"

"Singing? You're supposed to be playing hockey."

Kendall looks away, ears coloring with something that James can almost fool himself into thinking is shame.

"For what it's worth, I like your music."

"You listen to it?"

"Sometimes," he says, but he doesn't tell Kendall about all the nights he's spent with his earbuds in, lonely and sad and wishing that things were different.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because." James takes a deep breath, and he's tired and he's really just done with being sad. This might be his last chance, so he says, "I always-"

"Don't," Kendall growls, slamming him against the wall. James feels his shoulder bruise with the force of his former best friend's grip. "Don't apologize when you don't mean it."

"I wasn't going to apologize," he grits out, puffing up his chest, trying to look stronger than he feels.

"Then what were you going to say? What could you possibly say that will make this okay?"

"Nothing," James tells him, and he feels the weight of truth in those words. There really is no way to fix what they've done to each other. To magically heal the wounds left over from a war James inadvertently started, a war Kendall expertly ended.

"But I l-"

"Stop," Kendall orders, eyes fearful, and it's years of friendship, years of loyalty to this boy before their past five years of radio silence that makes James shut his mouth, if only for a beat.

"Fine. I won't talk," he says, yanking yard on the front of Kendall's stupid, ugly plaid shirt, pulling him into a burning kiss.

The noise Kendall makes is wounded.

But he kisses back. He kisses so hard that James feels his mouth bruising; their teeth click, and he thinks that one of them has bitten his tongue. Kendall's still pressing him against the wall, whispering into his mouth, "This is all you want, isn't it?"

James murmurs something that sounds like agreement, groaning against his lips, against the way he tastes familiar, like home. His mouth is hard against James's, hips pushing insistently at his. Then Kendall says, "You dirty fucking whore."

A part of James is crushed by those words, but another part thinks that he really deserves nothing less. And the largest part of him just finds it insanely hot, thinks the way Kendall's rocking against him might actually drive him insane.

Kendall's fingers keep moving in this pattern, four letters, like he's tracing a brand that says slut into James's side. But James can't concentrate enough to figure out what he's writing. He can't concentrate on anything except the scrape of Kendall's teeth against his lower lip and the way he's so fucking hard for him, for James.

They move stumbling into James's bedroom, Kendall tearing James's shirt up and over his head. James fumbles with the buttons on Kendall's button down. Five fucking years and he still wears fucking flannel; it's a crime against fashion that he can't bother addressing at the moment.

He feels Kendall's hands trembling over his pants and James saves him the trouble, because it's what Kendall expects. James is okay with being a whore, tonight, just this once, just for Kendall. He flicks open the button of his jeans, tugs at the zip, and shoves them down so that he can step out of them.

He drops to his knees in front of Kendall, who is staring with heat and anger and things that James can't name because it scorches his insides. He undoes Kendall's belt, the front of his denim, and then, once he's naked, he steps back. He knows what he wants to do, but he's not sure if Kendall wants him to.

Kendall pushes him onto the bed, and Gustavo was right, he's got ridiculous anger management problems, because he's attacking James's neck like some kind of animal, sucking and biting and doing things with his tongue that makes James's hips stutter up.

The first time his cock gets enough friction against Kendall's, he thinks he sees white. Kendall's hand slips between them, taking hold of them both, but the slide of his fingers slick with their pre-come isn't even close to enough.

He doesn't bother asking when he fumbles for lube in James's nightstand, and James doesn't bother wondering if Kendall remembers that's where James has always kept it or if it's just the predictable place to look. He watches, breath baited, as Kendall slicks up his fingers. He watches as Kendall crooks one inside of him, his head pressed back up against the headboard. James feels it slide in, warm skin and the rigidity of bone. A second follows too quick, and then a third, stretching James from the inside out.

He winces, because it's been a while, but when Kendall sees he just spreads his fingers further, taking a kind of sadistic pleasure in it. James can see the things that are going through his head, can see the accusations that lie there while he has James spread out in front of him like a hooker.

When James is ready, Kendall presses the head of his cock up against his ass, and it feels so much hotter, thicker than his fingers ever could. It scrapes against his skin when Kendall pushes inside, hitching one of James's legs up so that he's all awkward angles.

James lets Kendall fuck into him, his body twisted in half, one of his legs disappearing over the freckles on Kendall's shoulder, the other twisted uncomfortably under his arm. He fists his hands in the scratchy sheets, not knowing if he's allowed to touch, to pull Kendall closer, until he's so far inside of James that he can't process anything else.

He doesn't know if that's what Kendall wants or if that will make him stop. James doesn't know if he can take it if Kendall decides to pull away. He feels more fragile than he ever has before.

He feels like he is breaking into pieces.

The harder Kendall thrusts, the more James can't help it. He has to hold on. He has to cling to Kendall's shoulders, his side, before the whole world falls away. Kendall's breathing little raspy words that at first James thinks are exhalations of the many synonyms of whore. Except then he pushes his hips back down, shifts so that the angles better, so that Kendall slides in more easily, and the words are louder.

This is joy: hearing the person who makes your heart sing say I love you for the first time.

The words force James hand, his orgasm painting Kendall's stomach white. When Kendall follows him over the edge, he whispers them back, into Kendall's shoulder so that he can't actually hear.

He holds him close as the tremors take his body, and he can feel Kendall's cum so deep inside of him that he thinks it will seep into his organs, forever more a part of him.

There's no fuss afterwards. Kendall is gone within the hour, leaving James to pick up the pieces again. James thinks that it's weird; he thought having would make the wanting burn less, but it doesn't.

This is pain: realizing for the first time that all the I love you's in the world might not actually be enough.

James gets a text message from an unknown number a few days later.

It asks, Why did you do it?

And he knows it's from Kendall. So he takes a deep breath and types back, Because I wanted you.

He doesn't get any more texts after that.

James lands a modeling gig after months of hard searching, and he's so excited that he wants to tell someone. Thing is, there's no one to tell. He's cut himself off from Logan and Carlos, and he doesn't know if he's ready to reestablish contact. Camille's an option, but she's off filming a commercial in some exotic location, and it costs like eighty bucks to call her.

So he doesn't tell anyone at all, but he can't stop grinning when he shows up to the shoot.

One of the makeup artists tells him that he's lucky he got the job. He tells her he knows, but she goes on to say, "It's nice to have friends in high places."

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't know? Kendall Knight recced you for this. He's in tight with the marketing team."

James doesn't know how to feel about that, because he wants to succeed on his own merit, still. But somehow, it seems less important than the fact that Kendall is suddenly this silent presence in his life. That for the first time in a long time, Kendall's giving him something other than heartache.

He texts the unknown number, Thanks.

James goes to one of Kendall's concerts in late July. He finds Carlos in the crowd, up front, and actually brings himself to say hi.

When Kendall sees James from the stage, he smiles.

It's the casual reparation of a friendship that lasts the course of a year. James doesn't stop hurting, and he doubts that Kendall does either. But the pain is no longer so sharp edged.

When James gets an invitation to RCM CBT GlobalNet Sanyoid's annual holiday party, he goes. Kendall finds him standing at the bar, and with a soft grin he asks, "Still serving sushi?"

"I don't remember ever telling you what kind of restaurant I worked at."

"Worked? Past tense?"

"Knowing a famous popstar opens a lot of doors." James arches an eyebrow.

Kendall inclines his head, smirking. "So I was thinking."

"What?" James watches, curiously, as Kendall takes a step closer to him, and then another. He's all up in James's personal bubble, and James can't really say that he has a problem with it.

"That it's time I forgive you."

James's reaction is immediate. "You shouldn't do that."

"But I need to," Kendall explains, eyes earnest.

"Why?" James asks.

Kendall presses his lips to James's and whispers, "Because I want you, too."