Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
“I don’t know what we’re going to do here,” Julian said, his face buried in his pillow.
“We’re going to have fun!”
“I don’t want to have fun.”
Julian was in a bad mood. It was 2am, they’d just gotten in, and he wanted to go to sleep, but Logan, who had been to New Orleans a few times before, insisted that they go out.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning,” Derek said from his own bed, where he was sprawled out on his back, glaring at the ceiling.
“I know! But if we go during the day it’ll be all crowded and shit. Stupid tourist attractions, always gathering,” he threw a pillow at Julian, “so many tourists,” he threw a pillow at Derek, “and making everything annoying and crowded during the daytime.” He stepped closer to Julian and took Julian’s hands. He pulled him up and Julian was forced to stand. Then Logan dropped his hands, only half a second too late, his timing was almost perfect.
Derek had launched himself up, and now they were all standing, Julian and Derek slumped and annoyed, Logan bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, more excited than Julian had ever really seen him.
It was new and it was good.
“Where are we going, though?” Julian asked, crossing the room to his suitcase and fishing out a dark blue sweatshirt. He grabbed his hat and sunglasses off the bureau, but then put them down again, deciding that at night time, he probably didn’t need them.
“Café du Monde,” Logan said, picking up his own sweatshirt from the floor and leading the way out the door.
Julian cast a long-suffering glance at Derek, and Derek sighed, shaking his head.
“We’re going out…to eat?” Julian asked, quirking an eyebrow as he stepped out into the hall behind Logan.
“These,” Julian motioned to his beignet, “are kind of completely delicious.”
“Best thing ever,” Derek agreed, licking powdered sugar off his lips and eyeing a girl talking on her cell phone at the next table.
“Do you ever stop ogling girls?” Logan asked, picking up another beignet and stuffing it into his mouth.
“Do you ever stop criticizing me for appreciating hot women?” Derek shot back.
Logan glared at him, and Derek glared back.
“WELL!” Julian said loudly, sipping from his hot chocolate and looking around. “This is nice, it’s not crowded and it’s not too hot. You were right.” He locked eyes with Logan. “This is really good.”
Logan smiled into his beignet and finished it off. He reached for another one, but his hand froze when he heard a squeal coming from behind him.
Julian and Derek had frozen too, a look of complete horror spreading across Julian’s face and being wiped off immediately, replaced by a very calculated look of happiness.
“Julian Larson?” the fangirl asked.
“Up. We’re leaving.” Logan grabbed Julian’s arm and Julian’s beignet, and started to lead Julian out of the restaurant.
“But-” Julian protested as Derek appeared on his other side, holding a beignet in each hand. “We have to pay, you idiot!”
Derek just shot him a quick glare and then turned around and went to the back to pay.
“Come on,” Logan was murmuring, sliding his hand down Julian’s arm, so that he was holding Julian’s hand. He pulled, because Julian had glanced back to where the fangirl was standing, looking disappointed.
“No.” Julian pulled his hand away. “I want to say hi.”
“But Jules, it’s rude of her to-”
“Hi,” Julian said, walking over to her. She looked about 12 or 13. She grinned when he arrived in front of her.
“Hi! I just absolutely adore you, you’re such a good actor, really fantastic. You aren’t as good as some of the other guys on Something Damaged but you’re still pretty good.” She was gushing and beaming, her mother coming up behind her looking pleased.
“Oh.” Julian was a bit taken aback. “Yeah, um, the show has a lot of talent.”
“Will you sign something for me?” she asked, looking up at him expectantly.
“Um, sure. What do you want me to sign?”
“I don’t know, don’t you have something? You should carry around pictures of you so you can sign them for me!” She had her hands crossed over her chest and Julian took a step back in surprise.
“He’s on vacation,” Logan said, stepping up behind Julian, pressing his hand to the small of Julian’s back in a possessive way that made no sense to Julian. “He doesn’t have to carry around pictures of himself so you can have them! You’re rude and ignorant and stupid and we’re leaving now.” He turned around and Julian did the same, slower and more uncertain than Logan, but when Logan cast a glance back Julian snapped into place and followed Logan out of Café du Monde.
On the street, Julian and Logan just stood there, Julian looking up at the sky and wondering why it was so black, and Logan looking at Julian, trying to figure out if he was genuinely upset.
Derek joined them after a moment, but didn’t say anything, sensing the mood.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked quietly after a bit.
Julian looked back down slowly, taking in the buildings with all the wrought iron on their wrap-around porches, the light pinks and creams and all the other colors, dimmed by the darkness and then illuminated falsely by the streetlights. He came to Logan’s face and those green eyes and he said, “Maybe not.” Even trains stop sometimes, and now Julian had come to a standstill.
Derek and Logan looked at each other and then back at Julian. “C’mon.” Logan jerked his head to the side. “Let’s go get your mind off of that bitch.”
“Wait,” Derek said, and Logan and Julian turned toward him. “How long will we be here?”
“Not long. Maybe one more night? Why?” Logan glanced at Julian, who was looking at the sky again.
“Um, would it be okay if maybe I went to uh…”
“Bourbon Street’s that way.” Logan jerked his thumb behind him.
Derek grinned. “You two make sure to be safe, alright? I’ll see you at the hotel.” And he broke into a run in the direction Logan had pointed.
Julian laughed hollowly. “Glad I’m such a fun person to hang out with.”
Logan just looked at him. “You are a fun person to hang out with. Come on. Let’s go exploring.”
Street lights and people, back alleys and shortcuts, Julian and Logan explored the city together. They walked all through the French Quarter, full of artificial lighting and darkened stores. They walked through the Garden District, the tree-lined avenues and the houses, full of sleeping people. They walked along the river at Woldenberg Park, and they were the only ones there, due to its being 4am. They stopped back at Café Du Monde and ate more beignets and no one bothered Julian this time.
Street lights and people were nice and they both loved the city.
Back alleys and shortcuts were nice too, they both loved each other.
But the best was when Logan looked up at the sky and saw the lightened quality of the blackness just before the sunrise.
“Come on!” He grabbed Julian’s hand and started pulling him in the direction of the water, of the place he wanted to go, the place he wanted to show Julian.
Julian laughed as he was pulled along, all thoughts from earlier, about how he hated being recognized and he really wasn’t as talented as, say, Clark, or Cameron, or any of the other guys on Something Damaged, all those thoughts were gone, had faded completely with the street lights and the people and the back alleys and the shortcuts, and Logan.
The sun was peeking over the water, hesitantly, as if it didn’t really want to come up, as if it was afraid of this dark world. But what the sun didn’t know was that when it came up, the world would be alight, full of color and brightness, rich and wild, perfect for adventure and excitement, and all the sun had to do was take that leap of faith. Because where’s the proof? Where’s the proof that the world will ever light up? Where’s the proof that anything will be colorful?
Julian and Logan settled themselves on the levee, grass poking onto their legs, and normally it would have bothered them, but they were watching the world light up and it didn’t matter. They were watching as the sun took its leap of faith and lit the world, made the colors, created brightness out of darkness.
Rays of light shot across the sky, soaring over their heads, colors, starting soft and growing in vibrancy, a pale pink to a bright orange, light blue turning electric. A cloud appeared and it broke the up the brilliant sky. If Julian and Logan turned around to look behind them, they would see the growing darkness, gathering in the back of the world, or maybe it was the front, the frontier not yet explored.
Julian must have made some noise, a content sigh or something, because Logan looked over at him. Julian sensed this and tore his gaze away from the brilliant sky to look at those equally brilliant green eyes, the ones that had captivated him from day one.
“Do you like it?” Logan asked, meaning the sunset.
“Yeah,” Julian replied, breathing deeply and smelling the saltwater hanging thickly in the air. “It’s really pretty.”
“It’s for you,” Logan said softly, reaching over to take Julian’s hand. Though this was not the first time that night that Logan had held Julian’s hand, this time felt different. Julian’s heart began to race in a way he thought it never would.
“No,” Julian replied, his voice coasting out on a breath, “it’s for you.”
Logan leaned in closer, hesitantly, asking permission, and Julian granted it with a squeeze of his hand, and then he leaned in too.
The blond and the brunet, framed in the sunset, they had a gold lining as they kissed. Sunbeams shot out around them, they were glowing. The grass shifted slightly in the breeze, its dark green turning lighter as the sun ventured further into the sky.
The sun was discovering that there was nothing to be scared of in this world.
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