#stuart trio

The bus parked as close as it possibly could to the cover, but when those doors opened, wind and rain came in, causing the boys at the front to howl. Logan just rolled his eyes as he got up, pulling with him his umbrella and his duffel bag emblazoned with Dalton’s crest. He’d already had a long shower following the fencing meet, but it seems the world was determined to give him another one before he made it back to the warm confines of Stuart House.

In front of him, preparing to step out of the bus, he could see Blaine make a grimace before he stuck his own umbrella outside, the friendly fwop! of it opening sounding a moment later. “Where’d this rain even come from…?” he heard him say before the roar of the downpour drowned him out.

Logan eyed the outside, how everything was filtered gray through the rain, misty droplets blowing in the wind. He tucked his things a little closer to him before he made it to the steps, already mentally calculating how long he’d have to endure this rain in the walk to Stuart.

I’d have to take the long way, he thought grimly, stepping out. The shortcut would be all muddy. Just...perfect.

Thunder sang overhead, and a few of the boys flinched under their umbrellas. The coach was yelling something--commands, instructions maybe. But Logan didn’t hear them and had no intention of doing so. He was exhausted, his shoes and the bottom of his pants were soaked, and the wind was blowing the wet onto him in spite of his umbrella. He wanted to be back in Stuart House.

Like the other boys already starting to disperse (whatever the coach said must’ve meant nothing to them too, or the Windsors in the club were just too willing to pretend they didn’t hear), he started to break away from the pack, trying to keep umbrellas from bumping into each other.

There was a ruckus as boarders from the dormitories came running up to the team through the downpour--they had heard they’d won, and had come to greet the victors through the rain, bearing umbrellas and ponchos thrown over them to protect their things from the wet. The cacophony was loud, even with the backdrop of rain, and Logan moved away from it purposefully, wondering if there were Stuarts in the group. He couldn’t tell--the rain was getting heavier.

In the ensuing chaos of boys fighting to cover each other and starting to scatter off towards their respective dormitories, Logan was alone.

That is, until he raised his umbrella slightly, trying to see his way, and found someone without an umbrella standing before him.

Drenched to the bone, white school shirt soaked and dripping, tie loose and wearing a Cheshire smile bright as the sun, was Julian. And he stood under the complete mercy of the rain that beat down upon him unhindered.

“Hey!” Julian yelled over the roar, a laugh tailing the word. “I heard you guys won! Congratulations!”

A little appalled, Logan stared. At the look on his face, Julian dissolved to a laugh that sounded as though this was the happiest day in the world to him. He pushed his streaming dark hair away from his face and grinned. “Come on!” he called to him. “Let’s take you back to the dorm!”

“What are you doing out here?!” Logan shouted back, even though he was perfectly aware of the answer. He gripped his umbrella tight to keep it from sailing away as the wind blew afresh, throwing the rain into them and causing the crowd of boys to cry out in the cold. “Are you crazy?!”

His only answer was another laugh. Julian reached out and grabbed his sleeve, towing him away. “Come on already! Don’t just stand there!”

Logan shook his head, stifling a groan of annoyance, and his feet could do nothing but get wetter by the moment and follow after Julian’s lead, the other boy pulling him along down the pavement.

“Where’s Derek?!” Logan demanded, staring at the drenched figure in front of him.

“Oh, you know him!” Julian replied cheerily. “Not rain or wind will stop his practice! Okay, maybe even Murdoch’s called this one on account of rain, but he’s stuck in the field.”

“This rain is too much, even for you,” Logan eyed him doubtfully. He made to draw him under the umbrella but Julian broke away, knowing what he was up to.

The actor turned gracefully on one heel, flinging water droplets as he did, and bestowed another grin at him. “Are you kidding? This is amazing!!” The last word was a scream, and Julian dissolved to manic laughter as the lightning and thunder sang out in answer to him.

“God, you’re like a three-year-old,” Logan grumbled as Julian trotted ahead of him, and he followed.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Julian teased, his shoes squelching and running over already.

“Right where it should be along with my sense of self-preservation,” Logan retorted, clutching his duffel a little closer.

Julian was taking off his shoes now, going barefoot on the wet walk. “I’m going over the lawn,” he declared.

“You are not going running into the mud!” Logan grabbed his hand but the rain made the overly-excited actor too slippery--Julian merely sprung away from reach. “Jules! For goodnessake, get it together!”

“Nope!” Julian replied, already barefoot on the grass and twirling as thunder echoed overhead.

Logan stopped, sighing and watched as Julian did as he always does: running in the rain, whirling in it like a dervish and laughing.

“Jules,” he began.

He watched as dark lashes rested on Julian’s cheeks when he closed his eyes, before standing with his arms spread and palms to the heavens, in a manner he thought people only ever did in movies. Assailed by the cold rain, he stood perfectly at peace, as though this was his benediction, a supplication to the lightning and thunder, and the endless rain that he loved so much.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there watching him. There were so few times that he saw Julian so relaxed outside of him being asleep. And all because of the rain.

Logan wished it were just as easy for him too.

“Hey!”

Julian was grinning at him again. He was walking up to him, pants stained and muddied. Logan raised an eyebrow. “Had enough?”

Without warning, Julian’s eyes glinted. He grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him forward, knocking his umbrella away. Logan was met with the full force of the rain, the roar of the wind, and Julian’s laughter dancing around him.

“Jules!!” Logan howled as Julian dragged him onto the grass, and in the ensuing struggle, the two of them were hurled onto the mud and the grass, screaming.

“Stop being such a wet blanket, for heavenssake!!” Julian yelled to him somewhere in the tangle.

“I can’t get any wetter now, obviously!” Logan snapped back, completely drenched and mud all over his clothes, but even then, he couldn’t bring himself to really be angry. It was too cold and wet to be that angry. Julian’s mood was too infectious right now, and he hated it. He hated how he felt the smile crawl onto his face.

As though it was just that easy.

Logan leapt onto him and tackled him into the grass, Julian screaming in laughter as he got pushed into the mud. The smell of ichor was everywhere, heady and fresh, and under such rain, it was like there was nothing in the world but this.

Breathless as he scrambled back upright, Julian smirked at him, lashes heavy with water drops. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“You’re a head case,” Logan snorted, brushing bits of grass off himself. “You ought to be in Windsor.”

“Ah, but then who’d be here to drag you out into the rain?” Julian replied easily.

It felt easy.

Logan let out his breath and squinted up at the sky that bombarded his face with raindrops. “Well...I guess this is sort of celebrating the win.”

“The sky is cheering for you,” Julian grinned as another thunderclap sounded. “It sounds just like this when I’m standing in front of a crowd and they cheer my name.”

Logan smirked. “So that’s why you like it here. You live on the attention and the cheering.”

“Eh,” Julian shrugged, turning his face to the sky. “Nothing like mother nature at full force to remind you that you’re small, really.”

“You feel small?” Logan raised an eyebrow. “You? You don’t even flinch when you get grilled on talk shows for being a brat. Like there’s anything in this world that will ever make you think you’re inadequate.”

Julian sighed and smiled at him, warmly in spite of this cold. “You’d be surprised.”

Puzzled, Logan stared at him, not sure how to respond to such a strange revelation. Julian sitting there easily, as though nothing in the world mattered but this moment, completely soaked in the middle of school grounds and relishing the torrent, Logan couldn’t imagine what in the world could make someone like his friend feel as though he wasn’t enough. He couldn’t think of anything that ever would.

The noise started to die. It was still raining and hard, but not quite the roar it had been. Logan glanced at the sky, and picked his umbrella up from where it lay on the grass. Julian groaned and threw a handful of grass at his face.

“Don’t be like that,” Logan scolded him as he reached for the duffel too. “We have to get back inside. You know what Derek’ll do to us if he find we’ve been out in this mess.”

“Derek doesn’t care, he lets me sit outside Stuart in the rain as long as I like,” Julian replied smugly, stubbornly still sitting.

Logan rolled his eyes. “That’s because he can keep an eye on you like the clucking mother hen that he is. He’ll call you in any time he feels like it. But out here? You’ll catch it.”

“No.” Julian stubbornly flopped onto the grass like a toddler.

Opening the umbrella, Logan groaned and grabbed him by the wrist, hoisting him up. “Come on, get up, you spoiled brat. Time to head in. I want to get warmed up with some coffee and food and I refuse to be subjected to being your nurse if you get a cold.”

Julian stood with a sigh of disappointment, looking up at the weakening rain. His gaze was disappointed and a little contemplative. “...I guess it couldn’t last forever.”

Water struck his cheeks, everything about him was shining in the wet. Logan reached out and pulled him under the umbrella with him, and this time Julian didn’t fight him away, looking up at him questioningly. Logan gazed down at him and smiled. “Maybe next time.”

Julian smiled again. Neither of them trembled even though it was so cold.

“Are you two serious right now?!”

The two of them looked up to see Derek, positively livid, under a gigantic umbrella, gaping at the two of them. “What are you doing standing in the rain like--WHY ARE THE TWO OF YOU DRENCHED?! DO YOU REALIZE HOW COLD IT IS OUT HERE?!”

The laugh that burst out of Logan was one of disbelief. “Staying in here. Again. Julian—” he spread his arms to the bomb site of a room covered in coffee cups and papers that were a quarter academic, a quarter full of fan mail and presents, and an entire half of scripts. “You haven’t left this room since you arrived here!”

Logan and Derek had decided to stage an intervention. Julian had been back at school all of five days and spent four of it holed up in his room alternating between memorizing scripts, drinking frankly illegal amounts of coffee, doing about six video auditions a day, yelling at his people over the phone, answering fan mail, and then the immense schoolwork. They weren’t sure when he actually slept when he ever left the room, and it was getting ridiculous, even for them.

“That’s not true,” Julian replied breezily. “I went out to get coffee, I go to class.”

“And you go right back in here, and you bitch, and you have your theatrics—”

“You are the last person I want to hear about theatrics from.”

Derek responded this time. “And you stress. You’re sitting there stressing about your next movie, your next award show—”

“It’s awards season!” Julian widened his eyes at them like this wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. “You guys know that, the nominations from SAG, Golden Globes, Oscars—”

“You say Oscar one more time, I’m going to explode,” Logan rubbed his temples and pushed a stack of papers off a chair so he could sit. “It’s ceased to become a word.”

“Don’t touch that, that’s for a superhero movie!” Julian screeched, diving for it. “I’ve had everything here stacked according to priority, okay?”

“And chair means what?” Derek asked incredulously.

“The ones on the chair are “Definitely Consider”,” Julian replied as he cheerfully dusted off the superhero script, looking at it as though it were a baby, “the ones next to you are, “You’re an Idiot if You Don’t Take It”.”

Logan eyed him distrustfully and picked up the top one off the stack next to Derek. It had confidential watermarked all over it. He flipped through it. “...oh geez, is this a Tarantino?”

“Well…” Julian awkwardly shifted back to his spot on the bay window.

“You’re going to take a Tarantino?” Derek burst out, aghast. “Do you know what he does to his actors?!”

“Do you know how many Oscars—”

“That’s it!” Logan exploded, getting up, storming straight up to Julian, who flattened like a cat against the windowpane.

“What, I—LOGAN!!” Julian screamed when the prefect bodily picked him up.

“I’m pulling rank! I’m the prefect and you’re going to get out of this room like a real person and eat some fucking dinner!” Logan retorted, slinging Julian over his shoulder like a hunter carrying a dead deer.

“Logan what the hell?!” Julian kicked and shoved at him even as Logan now strode across the room with him. “Put me down!! Put me down right now, you ass—”

By this time, Stuarts were poking their heads out of their rooms to wonder what the screaming was all about and they watched in wonder as their prefect literally carried the school movie star out of his room, Derek trailing and looking vastly amused.

“Logan!!” Julian yelled, punching his shoulder and nothing was working. “Logan, you can’t just carry me off like I’m some stupid princess—”

“You are a fucking princess and you know it!” Logan shot back, heading for the stairs.

“PUT ME DOWN!!”

“NO.”

“You’re also not taking the Tarantino,” Derek replied calmly, following and gesturing for the others to move along.

“You can’t tell me what to—” Julian yelled upstairs, “Nobody is allowed into my room, all of you leave my fanmail alone!!” He resumed punching Logan.

“Going out?” Bailey asked, part baffled, partly amused, as he held open the front door.

“We’re going to make a real boy out of Pinnochio over here,” Logan grumbled, carrying a still yelling Julian out of the house. “Derek, get the car!!”

“By all means, Your Highness,” Derek rolled his eyes but pulled his keys out.

Panting, Julian glared at Logan, “I will get you for this, Logan, I have an audition in an hour and a half, I better be back by then—LOGAN!” He tried to grab back the phone that the prefect fished out of his pocket with his free hand.

“Thad, catch!”

Thaddeus barely managed it, the phone bouncing like a hot potato in his hands. “What?!”

“If that phone so much as comes within six feet of him, I’m holding you personally responsible,” Logan warned.

“Thad,” Julian warned with the promise of death in his tone, “If you don’t put that phone in my room right now…!”

“I can’t carry this level of responsibility!!” Thad yelled in panic.

The car pulled up while Julian was trying to strangle Logan with his school tie and failing. Logan stuffed the diva into the backseat and slammed the door shut, Derek locking it. “Shut up and be good.”

“I hate you two so much,” Julian grumbled mutinously from the back as Logan climbed shotgun.

“Yes, and you’ll be livid by night's end,” Derek replied cheerfully, eyeing him from the rearview.

Logan turned around and smirked at him in triumph as they pulled away from Stuart. “Mexican?”

Julian glared balefully at him, arms crossed. “...Chinese.”

“Chinese it is.”

The moment he stepped into the restaurant, the friendly hostess looked up and happily began to approach him. He nodded to her as he continued to say, “I know you two don’t even go! See? If you guys won’t even go, what makes you think I’ll take her? No, just--look, D, I’m not bait. Told you a zillion times. Now hurry up and tell Logan to get over here, I’ve got us a table.”

Putting the phone away, he smiled up at the hostess. “Hi, Rina.”

“Hello, Julian!” she replied cheerily. “The usual table?” She was already leading him towards it--it was the only table in the entire establishment was that ensconced from direct view. Julian always made sure to tip generously, and everyone understood.

“Yeah,” he sighed as he moved into the booth and sank gratefully into the couch seat. “Long day, just…” he rolled his eyes. “And don’t mean to be a trouble but could you call ahead for some of the usual stuff and I’ll just—”

“--tell your waiter the rest once your boyfriend gets here?” she finished for him happily. “Sure, no problem.” She was immediately distracted by a large party coming in. “Be right back, ok?”

Julian sat very still in shock--so bowled over, in fact, that he couldn’t even utter a word of response the second the word “boyfriend” escaped that woman’s lips. His brain couldn’t even form “excuse me” until after she was gone.

Alright, so maybe he came to this restaurant so many times with Logan already but that didn’t mean—

And some of those times were with Derek, for crying out loud, how would she—

Why would she—

He let out his breath, aghast because dear god, he sure hoped she wasn’t going to repeat that to anyone. He struggled to get his heart rate back under control and forced himself to open his bag and read a script, attempting to push any and all thoughts that tempted to wonder why she assumed that of them.

It probably wasn’t going to work, but he was a fan of trying really hard.

“Go park the car,” Logan’s tone was all-commanding as he stepped out in front of the restaurant. “We’re already late by half an hour.”

“Oh yes, I’d be more than happy to be your valet, your highness,” Derek made a face at him. “Maybe you’d like to hang back and wait until I can open the door for you, too?”

“Shut up,” Logan rolled his eyes and kicked the door shut. He ignored Derek’s howling and threats to scratch his Jaguar as he headed into the restaurant, trying to look presentable. Or as much as anyone can be when one had to stop yet another incident regarding Windsor and Stuart and those stupid magnolias.

He almost immediately ran into the hostess. “Oh, hi, Rina.”

“Hi, Logan!” she replied cheerily. “Come with me, Julian’s been waiting for you.” She did a double take at his blazer. “Aww, how sweet. You got your boyfriend flowers to apologize for being late?”

Full stop.

There were so many things wrong with that sentence that Logan had to stop all movement just to even recover from receiving it. “...what?”

But she wasn’t listening, Rina had already moved towards the usual booth, where he could just see Julian who seemed to be hiding behind a menu.

What the hell even? Logan looked down at himself and realized, inwardly growling, that the stupid Tweedles had shoved flowers into one of his front pockets during the mayhem and he didn’t even realize they were there. Bright magnolias peeped merrily out of the pocket, downright mocking him.

Which led to the next part that he had to overcome: boyfriend?

“Please shut up,” Julian told him immediately before he could even sit down.

“Why does she think that we—?!” Logan began, annoyed.

“I don’t know, why are you asking me, she hit me with it too!” Julian furiously hissed behind the menu. “Shut up and sit at the other end.”

“Why does she think that—?!”

“How should I know?! Haven’t you ever brought Anderson or Tipton in here or something?!” Julian finally glared at him from behind the menu and his sunglasses. He managed a weak laugh as Rina handed Logan his menu. “Rina, sweetie, I think you’ve got it all wrong, he and I are not a thing.”

“Really?” she blinked, adorably confused. “Huh. ...I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“What does that mean?” Logan asked, feeling color soaring into his face.

“You brought him flowers.”

“I did not bring him flowers,” Logan shot back just as Julian asked, “You brought me flowers?”

Flustered, Logan threw the stupid magnolias onto the table, fighting off the embarrassment and failing. “The Tweedles. They’re demented. You know this.”

“Oh, and is that why you and Derek took so long?” Julian grinned.

“And you guys just…” Rina shrugged, looking a little abashed herself, “...well, we all thought you were, I’m sorry. I’ll bring in the rest of your food, ok?” And she left, leaving both boys sitting flabbergasted at the table.

“We?” Julian managed to mouth the word but no sound came out.

“Shhh,” Logan waved him away and hid behind the menu as well. “Don’t say another word, you’ll make it worse.”

“Me?” Julian snipped back. “You’re the one who brought flowers!”

The bickering was incomprehensible from the distance, but Derek smiled tiredly at Rina, having just come in. “At it already, are they?”

“Are you sure they’re not…?” she trailed away, watching the two at the table who have now regressed to flicking water at each other while fighting laughter. “Because…”