Hotblack

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: I'm on a oneshot writing stint, man. My first one. I've written more oneshots this year than, um, ever. So…uh…warnings. Warnings. I don't know- bad language, talk of murder- but no vivid descriptions I don't think- and implications that sex might happen one day soon? Uh, also, an excessive amount of page breaks. This is purely Kendall/bamf!James. Enjoy!

"Hotblackers are vicious and detestable foes."

-Urbandictionary dot com-

-Hotblack by Oceanship-

Kendall never talked about his dad, and no one ever asked. It was an unspoken rule.

From playground bullies to paparazzi photogs, no one could taunt, tease, or even lovingly coax the story of what exactly happened to Mr. Knight out of him.

Except- there was no Mr. Knight; that was the one thing the fan sites were all so sure of. There wasn't any record of such a man. Kendall had taken his mother's maiden name.

It piqued interest. A lot of interest. Everyone wanted to know why he was so tight-lipped when Big Time Rush was at the peak of their fame.

He should have made something up. That's what the PR dudes at Roque Records said. Other bands' familial issues weren't such a big fucking deal because they were forthcoming. But Kendall, man, he wasn't the greatest liar. In the spur of the moment, he could do it; but his voice got that pitchy uncertainty, his eyes went shifty, and his shoulders rose up near his ears like a cowering puppy. He was barely passable then.

At an interview, where he had to actually rehearse? He would fail, miserably.

All of which was a moot point, because Kendall refused to lie about his origins.

He refused to say anything at all.

James had done his fair share of snooping. When he was younger, he'd let his curiosity get the better of him. He hadn't exactly been from the most upstanding family in Small Town, Minnesota, and thus hadn't had any qualms breaking into the registrar's office at their elementary school in search of Kendall's file. Only, there was nothing there about the elusive mystery father.

James hadn't yet learned to respect boundaries, and as far as he'd known, Kendall's paternal heritage was the only boundary they'd ever had. His next try involved searching Mama Knight's room one evening when he was fourteen. She was working the late shift at the local diner, and Kendall was taking a shower. They'd planned this sleepover for weeks.

Kendall didn't take very long showers. When he caught James snooping through a shoebox under his mom's bed, he'd kind of freaked.

James had known Kendall for a long time, and once their freshman year of high school had rolled around, he'd pretty much established himself as a Nice Boy, as the Generally Good Guy, the kid teachers liked well enough and girls thought was more sensitive than your average hockey head. But James remembered the dark days, back when they'd first met. The years between six and eleven where he'd gone through a rough patch.

The ones where Kendall would come home more often than not with a bloody nose and a black eye, James limping beside him with bruised ribs and a matching shiner.

They'd struck up a grudging friendship at Peewee hockey when they were both forced onto the team to deal with their anger management issues, but had only really hooked up as Best Friends For Life when they'd gotten into a fist fight over who would win the title of team captain. After that, sure, they'd discovered they had all kinds of things in common. Like music and pranks and a subtle appreciation for having a really good time. But they'd definitely gotten off to a rocky start.

Point being, James hadn't seen that out-for-blood look in Kendall's eyes for a while, but it was one he was intimately familiar with. The kid was vicious in fights, and he kind of looked like what he wanted most was to pound James over the head with his mom's bedside lamp.

It could have been a deal breaker for their friendship.

It wasn't. Sure, Kendall was pissed, and sure they fought like two alley cats in the rain. When Kendall's mom had come home, it was to find them both collapsed on her bed, bleeding and panting. But at that point, they'd already made up.

See, it was somewhere between Kendall's knee in his gut and James's fist in the blond's jaw that both of them ended up wheezing for air, summarily calling a temporary truce once those blows had been landed. The second James had caught his breath, he'd apologized for being a nosy bastard. He was starting comprehend that pawing around in his best friend's business was wrong.

And Kendall had grit his teeth and said it was okay, and once he'd calmed down enough, he'd said it again and actually meant it.

"You know you can tell me, one day, if you want," James had told him.

"Dude, I know," Kendall half laughed, half gasped, his arms clutching his stomach. James almost felt guilty for the punches he'd delivered there, "I'm not- not telling you because I don't trust you, okay? I do. With my life."

James had sucked in a breath when Kendall cast him the sunniest smile he'd ever seen, and it wasn't because his friend had landed a single fist to his gut. He'd noticed, once or twice, that being in Kendall's proximity did strange things to him. The kind of things that only girls were supposed to make happen, make you feel.

Not for the first time he thought maybe Kendall was perfect, a gift from the gods of old mythology. A muse created just for him out of blood and song and clay. Perhaps his dad hid up on Mt. Olympus, watching over the clouds to see whose eye his boy would catch, which person was most worthy of his affection. Who loved Kendall best.

That day, James hoped he measured up, because sometimes he could privately admit to himself that his best friend made his heart ache and it was toomuchtoomuchneverenough.

He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he exhaled, which only happened when Kendall's fingers wrapped around his, and they lay there, staring at the ceiling, holding hands until keys jingled in the lock.

James hated that Kendall thought he had to keep secrets, but he had decided after that fight that he was going to be respectful and actually wait for the day when Kendall wanted to tell him.

Which was a good idea until the plan blew up in his face.

The night before things went to hell, they'd just finished the first leg of their Worldwide Tour. London, Paris, France, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney, Guadalajara, Toronto and on and on and on. James's eyes had crossed just looking at the list of cities the tour had hit. He could barely remember a single distinguishing feature about any of them, much less believe he'd actually been there. Being home was pretty much the best thing in the history of ever, and he'd been firmly inclined to lounge by the Palmwoods' pool and sleep through California's mild winter.

Only, the Garcia clan had made a surprise trek out to Hollywood, and even though the guys were all so tired they tended to waver where they stood, all of them jumped at the chance to take the Mr., the Mrs., and Carlos's tiny-tot siblings out on the town. After touring Grauman's and Rodeo Dr., they settled on an out of the way sushi restaurant for a quiet dinner, despite Carlos's dad's insistence that real men only ate red meat. He was easily distracted by the brightly colored tropical fish they kept in a floor to ceiling aquarium by the window; he named each one and began to regale his kids with a grandiose epic about how they'd come to find themselves in that exact tank. Carlos immediately jumped in, and since he had the most vivid imagination in the world, the story quickly denigrated into an explosion of robots and aliens and an inter-galactic swirly slide.

Kendall was making polite small talk with Carlos's mom, while Logan tried to explain to Carlos that none of the things he theorized about where scientifically possible. James, however, wasn't going to lie. He got caught up in the tale, like a five year old.

It was only when he finally tuned into the silence next to him that he realized something was wrong. Kendall's tentative dialogue with Mrs. Garcia had trailed off, and now he was just…staring.

Staring was something James was also intimately familiar with. Particularly, staring at Kendall. He'd spent most of their tour doing so, during concerts, in interviews, and when they were just plain relaxing. Sometimes, he found it intrinsically difficult to tear his eyes away. Especially now, after their last night in Tokyo, when Kendall had finally, maybe noticed. There had been this moment, when the lights outside their hotel had been shining so bright and James was convinced that something might actually happen between them.

Nothing did. Which didn't stop James from still wanting it, from wanting Kendall with his whole body and soul.

For the rest of the meal, James watched him watch Carlos and his family wistfully.

It was one of the saddest things he'd ever seen.

All Kendall had ever wanted was like, one of those huge Italian families he saw on TV, where everyone talked like they were part of the mafia and was in each other's business twenty four seven.

Where everyone was tooclosetooclosetooclose, but never, ever alone.

Kendall had Katie, and his mom, both fierce and brave and beautiful; but his whole relationship with them was a mess. He thought he had big shoes to fill, that he had to stand in as the man of the family. He tried his hardest not to burden them too much, even if it was what he wanted most. They, in turn, were the ultimate feminists, trying to be strong and independent (and succeeding so, so well); they would never have to lean on any person, be it Kendall or the absentee father and husband who'd left a hole in their life. Katie would barely even rely on her mom, and she wasn't even eleven yet.

Sure, Kendall had him and Carlos and Logan, but best friends weren't the same thing as blood. No matter how many late, hot nights they spent sneaking into each other's beds from Los Angeles to Rome to Mumbai, piled together like puppies. No matter how many moments they let flicker by them in sky scraping hotels on distant Asian islands.

James's gaze must've been too intense, because Kendall caught him looking right before they were set to pay the check. Carlos had chivalrously grabbed it from his mother's hands, and now they were bickering about who exactly would be allowed to lay down the cash. Mrs. Garcia won, because she was scary-awesome that way.

Kendall made a face at James, a what-do-you-think-you're-looking-at expression that made him guiltily avert his eyes. He knew what Kendall was thinking. People always assume when you come from a broken home, you're broken too. It's like they look at you and see cracks running down your body, fragmenting your ribs, your cheekbones, your heart.

There was no way to relay that what James felt when he watched Kendall had nothing to do with pity.

Morning rolled around and they were set to perform live on Good Day LA, which was kind of small time now that they'd made appearances on every talk show New York City had to offer, but James always reminded himself to smile and be grateful for the opportunity.

Their limo had just pulled up to the studio when everything went awry. Fans always lined the walkways now, but one was reaching out with a rather conspicuous tape recorder. James recognized the guy; a small change tabloid reporter who never seem to catch something big enough to stick his byline on, but was determined to keep trying.

Since the band had been taught to be gracious, they moved slowly through the crowd, signing autographs and shaking hands. Logan had once mentioned that it felt like he was running for president. All that was missing were the photo ops with smiling babies. By the time they reached the reporter near the door, James had nearly forgotten he was there. It was only when he spotted the twisted smile on the guy's lips, his cold shark eyes devouring them that his stomach began to twist.

"Kendall, Kendall," the guy yelled out, over the squeal of a few prepubescent girls. The blond turned, a big, confident smile on his face. And the reporter struck, a viper, a piranha; lightning quick and devastating, "Word's just come in that there was a prison riot in a high security prison in Nevada. Do you have anything to say about that?"

"Dude," Carlos leaned in towards the tape recorder, "Why would he have anything to say about it?"

"Seriously," Logan agreed, sarcastically continuing, "Do they want us to write a song? We're not exactly Johnny Cash."

Both of them kept moving towards the solid studio doors, not even noticing the way Kendall had gone paler than the white washed walls of the building they stood next to. He mouthed the word 'riot' and the tabloid reporter nodded fervently, scenting fear in the air. Without knowing what was wrong, James's fingers came up to grasp the crook of Kendall's arm.

He felt like a lifesaver in the midst of a stormy sea, and all he wanted to do was keep Kendall afloat. He'd never seen his best friend look so scared.

"Three dead," the douchebag added, and then he said a name. James had never heard it before, but it obviously have meant something to Kendall. He'd completely blanched, gone stock still, like he couldn't even see the crowd of girls still waving 'I heart BTR' signs behind them. For just a second, James was worried he might actually faint.

"I-" Kendall stuttered, and then stopped. His face closed off. He didn't bother extricating his elbow from James's grip, instead pulling the taller boy along behind him as he turned to go.

It was a well known fact that in Hollywood, you didn't just let a story slip between your fingers.

The reporter yelled in a voice so loud that at least half the screaming girls were drowned out by his proclamation, "How's it feel to be related to a murderer?"

Things snowballed from there.

Kendall couldn't do the show. It was the first time in the band's history that he'd faltered, and no one knew what to do. When they got back to the Palmwoods, he locked himself in his room and wouldn't emerge, no matter how much his friends pleaded.

By the evening, the riot was all over E! and Access Hollywood, and everyone and their mother was claiming that one of the deceased was Kendall Knight's father. By the following morning, the man James had never heard of was famous, and he'd been regaled with at least four different versions of what nefarious means had lead to his incarceration.

Some of the news was elaborate hearsay and obviously exaggerated fiction, but the basic layout was this:

The man alleged to be Kendall's father had been a small time crook, a petty conman with a charismatic smile and way of making things happen. Mrs. Knight had immediately fallen for his bad boy charm, and within a few months of their meeting, they'd gotten hitched.

Things started to escalate right after Katie was conceived. The man with the pleasant smile had a few active warrants out for fraud and forgery, but nothing so huge that the law was actively pursuing him. He went down to Vegas once a month, to con the casinos out of some fast cash. This was back before the days of facial recognition, when it was harder to get caught running a scam.

Somehow, somewhere, he stumbled upon a drunk college girl in a back alley.

He'd been discovered looming over her an hour later with a bloody knife. James didn't like to think about what they said he'd actually done to the girl's body.

The official report read that her lack of defensive wounds and the precision of the cuts were indicative of premeditated murder. He'd left forensic evidence all over the crime scene, so there was little to no chance he'd been framed. Despite a plea of innocent, he was convicted of murder in the first degree.

It rated the death sentence in Nevada.

All James could think was that if the stories were true, Kendall had been five and a half, barely old enough to understand what was happening.

Miraculously, the man managed to argue his way into two consecutive life terms with a sentence of manslaughter one- the voluntary kind- at an appeal hearing. He wouldn't die by lethal injection, but he wouldn't ever see the sky outside the prison walls, either. The rumor was that Mrs. Knight divorced him a year into his sentence.

His identity had been uncovered by one of the wardens whose daughter was a BTR super-fan. He'd bonded with the man who was 'proud of his son' and 'glad he'd made something of himself', listening to his story.

When the riot had occurred, it had been a high profile headline on all the news stations from CCN to Fox. The warden had figured that in the confusion, it wouldn't be a big deal to leak the tale to a single tabloid for a big paycheck.

James didn't want to believe any of it.

Then they started flashing pictures of a handsome blond man with big gray eyes and a self-assured smile all over the TV. He was gorgeous, which wasn't a huge surprise. The scariest monsters are beautiful. They hide their teeth and claws.

What was unexpected was his eerie resemblance to a certain boy band leader.

Carlos, Logan, and James had successfully managed to keep their mouths shut until then, but after the picture made its first rounds, they had to ask. Since Kendall was still locked away like a princess in a castle dungeon, they turned to Mrs. Knight. She'd been coping by bustling around the kitchen, banging pots and pans with as much frequency and volume as she could muster, all in the name of 'baking cookies'.

No cookies had made an appearance, so nobody was fooled.

"Is it true?" Carlos asked, and his voice sounded so hesitant that any ire he'd inspired with the question vanished. Her face softened.

She nodded.

James found Kendall in his room, haphazardly stuffing a duffel bag full of clothes. He'd waited until Carlos and Logan couldn't take the gossip on screen any longer and had fled to the Palmwoods park to toss around a Frisbee. Then he'd knocked so persistently it had to have driven Kendall insane.

When the door finally opened, he looked…wrecked. James took in the duffel and asked, "Where are you going?"

"Uh…funeral. I guess. The warden said they'd hold his body until tomorrow so I can, uh…go to the ceremony, if you can call it that."

James took a deep breath, "So that guy really is your dad?"

Kendall smiled weakly, "Now you know."

"You could have told me."

"I just- wanted to forget about it."

"You never visited him? In prison?"

"At first mom wouldn't let me. Once I got old enough…I just couldn't. He wasn't like they're saying, on TV. He wasn't bad. At least, not to me. I didn't want to find out if that had changed."

James frowned, glancing sharply at the mini TV on Kendall's night stand, "You were watching?"

"How could I not? It's like a car crash in slow motion," Kendall said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked incredulously, because as far as he could see, there was nothing to apologize for. The skeleton in his closet was catching fire on every blog, talk show, and tabloid in America. If anything, they were the ones who should have been ashamed.

"This isn't going to look good. For the band."

"Fuck the band," James said, and he'd never thought those words would spill from his mouth, "We're worried about you."

"What do you mean?"

"Your dad's dead, dude."

Kendall did this awkward shrug thing, his eyes staring at some distant point out the window, "He's been dead to me for a long time now."

"So why go to the funeral?"

"Because nobody else will."

He was right.

Mrs. Knight and Katie weren't planning on going out to Nevada; as far as they were concerned the man who had died wasn't their problem anymore. Katie had never known him, and Mama Knight had made her peace years before.

Carlos and Logan offered to come, but Kendall wouldn't let them. He told James no, as well, but in their many years of friendship James had come to consider himself an expert at reading his best friend. He packed a bag full of hair product and black clothes and proceeded to stalk Kendall to the bus depot near one in the morning. The blond didn't even realize he had company until they were half an hour outside of the greater Los Angeles area.

The ceremony on the prison grounds was less a funeral and more a cremation with a priest residing. Kendall and James stood side by side, quiet and uncomfortable, until the wardens handed over a simple black urn that seemed too tiny to hold the legacy this man had left on Earth.

They booked a taxi back to LA, and somewhere along a dusty road lined with cacti and tumbleweeds, Kendall made them stop so he could dump the ashes. They landed black and lumpy on the ground before the wind stirred up, flaking pieces away. Kendall and James watched for a long while, until all that was left were bits of bone.

It felt more like a ceremony than the actual cremation.

Once they returned to the Palmwoods, life became a steady routine of Business As Usual. Or, well, attempting to go about it. Logan delicately avoided the issue of Kendall's paternity, but Carlos had no such tact and loudly asserted that they were all behind Kendall one hundred percent. Which seemed to make him feel a little better, at least.

The reporters were the problem. Everywhere Kendall went, they were there, vultures. He couldn't even walk around the block without them waving microphones in his face. James, Carlos, and Logan could see how much it bothered him from the rigidity of his spine to the way his shoulders were wound tight, like he was ready to snap. But Kendall was strong; he always had been. He did his best to grin, wordless, and bear it.

Things were spiraling out of control.

Magazine interviewers were lauding Kendall for overcoming adversity or slamming him for hiding his origins. Somehow, someone had snapped a picture of James and Kendall at his dad's cremation, and certain blogs were touting Kendall as some kind of saint for being able to forgive while others were decrying his relationship with his father, saying that any bond between them was indicative that he approved of what had happened.

Suddenly there was a whole movement on the internet that analyzed Kendall's interactions with girls in picture-form and tried to give his every action a despicable meaning. People were sending Jo, Kendall's ex, obscene letters with pictures of the dead girl and the words "watch out, or you'll be next."

In big bold headlines all across the World Wide Web, it read, "Like Father, Like Son."

People wanted to make this scandal last, to rile Kendall into doing something stupid. From the strain in the lines and dark circles around his friend's eyes, James could see that it was working. He was buying into this idea that he was- some kind of animal. Like he might stumble into some bar one night and go Jack the Ripper on an unassuming girl in the bathroom.

What worried James most was that Kendall's confidence had always been unshakable. If he was seriously considering what complete strangers were gossiping about, it meant it probably wasn't the first time he'd thought about it.

All that anger Kendall had when he was younger was starting to make too much sense.

Logan and Carlos were the same steadfast, amazing friends they'd always been, but when they tried to talk to Kendall about what he was feeling, he shut them out. And James knew it was because they couldn't understand, not really. They hadn't been there for the fights in elementary school, the hard times where Kendall was better known for being vicious than fearless and brave. They'd never seen him smile with blood smeared on his upper lip.

They'd also never been particularly violent themselves; Logan liked to settle arguments with words, well thought out reasoning, and Carlos's idea of a good fight involved wrestling, and maybe lassoes. They'd never been in the midst of an adrenaline charged brawl outside of the hockey rink, never felt the way your heart speeds up and you feel invincible, the satisfying slap of skin or the crack bones make on impact.

James knew that feeling.

He remembered loving it, before he discovered that the high singing provided was so much better. Oh, and that it was hard to stay pretty when you had ugly scars.

The final straw was their first concert after the fact.

Gustavo and Kelly had been remarkably good at keeping it all professional. The record producer had even contained himself from commenting on the debacle, only going so far as to mention that, "Any kind of press is good press, and with you monkey-dogs, we need a whole lot of good press."

It was as supportive as he knew how to be.

At the concert, their fans were out in full force. Kendall had worried that the numbers would drop. If anything, they rose. There had to be a couple thousand people waiting to hear them sing. For a split second, obvious relief flickered over his face.

That's when he spotted the first protestor.

There were only a handful; three or four in a milling crowd of too many to count. But they had big signs and sharp eyes, and they were chanting things that made it obvious they didn't exactly consider Kendall a role model.

It shouldn't have mattered.

But it did.

Kendall did the show, and by the end he looked weary, ruined. The whole ride home, James saw him staring into the window of the limo like maybe he really was starting to feel like a monster.

Around two in the morning, James woke up to a soft murmuring in the living room. He spied on Mrs. Knight, speaking softly into Kendall's hair while he stared blankly at the television set, at a thousand lies and truths. James waited, patiently, until she retired to bed, and then he emerged from the hall. There was a gossip show on mute and a tabloid in the blond's lap, bearing the image of a dead man's charismatic grin and Kendall, singing, happy, before this disaster hit home.

"Knock, knock," James hit the wall lightly, watching Kendall's gray-green eyes snap up towards him. Carefully, like he was trying not to spook a doe in the woods, James moved forward until he could plop down on the couch beside his friend.

Kendall offered a weak grin and threw the magazine on the hotel's coffee table, "I never thought I'd hate my own face so much."

"Don't say that," James grabbed his chin, knocked their foreheads together lightly. He could feel Kendall's breath on his lips. In all the hoopla this media circus had rounded up, Kendall had been guarded, distant. They hadn't sat this close together since their last night in Tokyo, when their mouths had nearly touched in a hotel that loomed over a thriving, neon city. James had nearly forgotten.

Not really.

Like he could ever forget that.

He exhaled, "Your face is amazing."

"And it's spread out in every single tabloid from here to Timbuktu."

"The price of fame."

Kendall's eyes bored steadily into James's, "I never wanted to be famous."

"You wanted to be a big time hockey player," James objected, but he already knew that argument would be shot down.

"Hidden behind a mask."

Yeah. This was par for the course, lately.

Sometimes, before all this, he'd wanted to ask if Kendall resented the decisions he'd made. If he resented James.

Most of the time, he was too afraid to get the words out.

"Quit."

"What?"

"If you hate all of this," James gestured around the room, the move encompassing the swirly slide, the plush couches, the poster of them, "Then why don't you just quit?"

"I can't do that to you."

Frustrated, he said, "You shouldn't be doing anything for me. You're supposed to be living for yourself."

It made James so mad, because in some things he and Kendall were so alike they could have been twins, but his friend's selfless disregard for his own wellbeing had never been one of them. Maybe if Kendall could be more narcissistic, more attitudinally challenged, more dysfunctional- more like James- he'd be able to shake this.

"What's the point?" Kendall asked mildly, "Everyone hates me. For something I didn't even do."

"That's not true," James's voice was razor-sharp, and his fingers on Kendall's chin moved to the back of his friend's neck, curling in his hair, "Our fans don't. Nobody at the Palmwoods does. Our friends back home would never…I don't hate you. I could never, even if you had killed somebody."

"Don't- say that," Kendall muttered, eyes darting away. James was so close to him that he could see the tiny green flecks like snake scales around his iris. He wanted to kiss him.

He sighed and let go, put a foot between them for distance. This wasn't the time to take risks.

That was something else Kendall always did that he'd never understood. He was always Go Big or Go Home, while James was more of a try-and-push-it-but-then-give-up-if-it-doesn't-work-out kind of guy.

"You don't think you actually could, do you?" he asked seriously, because Kendall might have had a nasty streak once upon a time, but it was never that terrible, just childish juvenile delinquency. And now he was reformed, all kind and sensitive and perfect.

Kendall worried at his lip and replied, "Does anybody really know what they're capable of?"

That was valid. Dangerously so. James knew perfectly well that if the situation was right, yeah, maybe Kendall would kill someone. If that someone threatened Katie, or his mom, or the band. If a person he loved was on the line.

But that was true of anyone, or at least James knew it to be true of himself. He would never let anyone hurt his family, or his friends, or Kendall. Not if he could help it.

"You need to get some sleep," he said, instead of admitting any of that. It wasn't what Kendall needed to hear, right now.

"I can't. I tried, but-" he shrugged helplessly.

James was a notorious bed hog, and he wasn't a fan of letting anyone see his rumpled morning hair, but this wouldn't be the first time, "Sleep with me."

"But-"

"I'm serious. Come on," he wouldn't broker any arguments. He dragged Kendall into the hallway, into his room, into the dark. Once he'd tucked them into his bed, he refused to shut his eyes; standing guardian in the night until his friend's breath tapered off, became steady and serene.

The next morning, they woke with their legs tangled and their arms in uncomfortable places, parts of their anatomy pressed up against each other that made the whole process of separating awkward. But it was worth it. Kendall looked better rested than he had in weeks.

It only lasted a few days.

Kendall was walking down Rodeo drive with Carlos, Logan, and James when they were spotted by a reporter. He hounded them for blocks. Even called in a few friends, all of them watching as he began to demand what Kendall thought of his new reputation as sexist, cruel, a monster.

James could see the way Kendall's fingers clenched into fists, the way the desire to punch this man in his snide face was ripping through his body. He could also see the deep seated fear that what the man said was true. If Kendall acted the way he wanted, he would prove himself to be a total beast in the eyes of the public.

Everything was on the line- his self-worth, his reputation, his image.

James didn't have anything to lose. He'd meant it when he'd said he wouldn't let anyone hurt his friends.

He hit the reporter square in the jaw, and the second the idiot went down, James kicked his camera hard against the wall of the nearest store. The glass of the lens shattered across the pavement, sparkling and deadly. Now everyone in the nearby vicinity was taking his picture, paps and bystanders alike, and nobody was looking at Kendall.

Which is why they all missed his tiny smile of thanks.

It was well worth the sore knuckles.

That night, Kendall's face was on the news half as much as it had been before. Everyone wanted to know what had made Big Time Rush's resident pretty boy go Rambo on the paparazzi, and if he'd go to jail on assault charges.

He wouldn't, of course. Gustavo had called him a string of extremely nasty names and then took care of it. All part of being in the RCM CBT Global Net Sanoid family.

Plus James suspected that Gustavo had kind of wanted to punch the dimwitted press in the face himself for close to a month, now.

For the first time in weeks, Kendall was the one who came knocking on his door. He had a wry smile on his lips as he said, "You didn't have to do that, you know."

"Whatever," James replied in his prissiest voice, "That dude had it coming. He was- getting spit in my hair."

Lies. Kendall knew it, but he seemed content to let it go.

"You don't think he was right?" the smaller boy settled on the desk next to where James had been working on his-ugh, homework. The world falls apart and he still has to learn about properly constructed sentences.

"Why would I ever think that? I know you."

Doubt crossed Kendall's face, "There's a lot you don't know."

"So tell me," James said simply, grabbing his hand, "I'm not going anywhere."

"You remember Tokyo?" Kendall said instead, and it was obvious by the way he angled his body closer to James that he remembered for sure. James wondered if now was suddenly his chance, after days, weeks, months, years of thinking that it wasn't. He was so sick of waiting.

"Yeah," he choked out, abruptly, weirdly nervous. He wondered, if he closed the distance between their mouths, would it change everything?

James wasn't a gambling man, but Kendall always had been. He didn't wait for things like the right time or wonder if he was taking advantage of his best friend when he was emotionally fragile or think about things like consequences. He was the guy who got things done, no matter the cost.

Maybe because he knew life was too short to overthink things. One day you're at home with your parents, excited to meet your new baby sister and wondering if there's a way to make her come five months early.

The next your dad's in prison on murder charges and you're world's been turned upside down.

When Kendall kissed James, it wasn't some huge thing, like his entire life had been leading up to this moment. It was soft, warm, and even a little awkward. Neither boy was what you might call virginal, but they were both used to delicate girl's faces, with upturned noses and sticky-lipgloss-lips. Not strong jaws and scruffy five o' clock shadows.

It took some skill and maneuvering until Kendall was straddling James's lap, his not-so-sturdy office chair trembling beneath them. James lifted his hips into just the right position so that he could feel Kendall through his jeans, burning hot, electric. He wanted moreandmoreandmore. He kissed Kendall so hard their teeth clicked, working his hand down beneath the fabric of his shirt, fingering the waistline of his jeans.

And then Kendall pulled back.

"What if I'm- a monster?"

He was turned on enough that it was kind of hard to form cohesive thoughts, but of this, James was completely certain, "You're not."

"But what if I am? What if I get mad, one day, and try to take it out on some poor innocent bystander?"

"You won't," James leaned in, nipping at Kendall's earlobe.

"But James, you can't know that-"

"I can, actually," he gripped Kendall's wrist, pulled up so he could kiss a line down Kendall's knuckles, his palm, his love line, his wrists, "I'm never leaving your side, okay? If you get that angry, you take it out on me."

Kendall looked horrified and sickly fascinated when James sucked the tip of his finger into his mouth. He started to whisper, "What if-" and James bit down, making him hiss the rest, "-what if I hurt you?"

"Please," James mumbled around the digit, "I've been bigger and stronger since we were ten."

"I've-"

James sucked, making his friend cut off with a pleased noise, "The only fights you've won are the ones I've let you win."

"Is that so?" amusement flickered in Kendall's eyes, and like a huge tease he rolled his hips experimentally.

"Gospel truth," James gasped.

Kendall didn't answer, his pupils dilating with lust.

James had wanted this for years, since long before the first time they held hands in Mama Knight's bedroom, when Kendall's dad could just as well have been a god as a murderer, "But none of that even matters. You're not a monster. Know how I know?"

He shook his head, mute.

"I've let you win a whole bunch of times. Pissed you off a whole lot more," James stroked a line down Kendall's chest, gently kissed his nose, then his lips, and then his eyelashes.

"So?"

He hummed, "So you haven't stuck a knife in me yet."

Kendall recoiled, nearly falling off his lap, "Not funny."

"Not supposed to be. I'm still here. With you. I'm about to pin you to that bed," Kendall gulped, watching wide eyed as James pointed in the vicinity of his rumpled comforter, "And do really terrible things to you. And you're going to let me. A monster wouldn't allow that."

"How terrible?"

"Sinful."

A patented, one hundred percent Kendall smile spread across the blond's lips. It made James think maybe there would always be scary things under the bed, macabre animals out in the world wearing beautiful human faces to hide their pointy fangs, and tabloid reporters with sharpened beaks and taloned fingers, but there were also boys who felt like monsters; when really they were more human than they could stand. Boys who loved and hurt and could make an entire hall full of screaming girls stand still and just- feel.

And here he had one all to himself, a mischievous, amazing guy who maybe wasn't as fearless as James had always thought, but sure as hell knew how to hide it well. His best friend since forever, who felt too much, too hard, and never, ever enough.

Kendall clicked his tongue and said, "I think I'm okay with that."

Yeah. They were going to be just fine.

A/N: The end. I offer no excuses for this. I shall take my punishment like a man. Not being one, that might be difficult. Um...the name- I've never read Hitchhikers (I know, worst sci-fi geek EVER), so it's not from that for me- it's from the song by Oceanship. The Urban Dictionary quote is only partial- it actually has to do with video games and probably some kind of personal cliquey friend thing. I just thought it was funny and …please review?