INFO: IF YOU HAVE MY TUMBLR AND YOU FOLLOW ME, YOU'VE MOST LIKELY SEEN THIS ALREADY BECAUSE IT WAS ON THERE FIRST FOR A LONG TIME.
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If I'm honest, I particularly like this one. CP once mentioned how yes, Logan did find Julian attractive but that there was a certain 'wall' that prevented him from ever letting his thought go further than that. So this story is kind of symbolic and relating to that. :) The italics are always the dreams.
DISCLAIMER: GLEE BELONGS TO FOX AND RYAN MURPHY AND THOSE WRITERS, AND DALTON, JULIAN LARSON, AND LOGAN WRIGHT ALL BELONG TO CP COULTER.
Let The Wall Burn
A subconscious flicker of flames and ember with the sounds of static screams.
Julian twitches in his slumber.
The fire is a representation of drowning, it spreads — it edges closer to him. It suffocates, and like many things, they both take his breath away.
He shifts his body sideways, slightly curling into himself, trying to shrink away from his vivid mind.
The heat rises and black smoke distributes across his vision, stinging his eyes to become watery and make his vision blurred.
He hears a hacking cough.
The combustion suddenly becomes blocked by a glass wall, fire no longer near him but only on the other side.
It no longer haunts in front of him, but the warmth remains on his glowing and moist skin.
A voice shouts.
"Jules!"
Julian shuts his eyes tighter, lurching his body upward to the blankets. He whimpers for a slight second.
Blond hair is the first thing to come into sight between his watered eyes. Fire flickers between them. Suddenly, Julian rushes to the glass wall, banging against it with his fists as his tears become wasted.
"Logan!"
He flickers his eyes open — his heart pounding, but his motions calm. For a moment, he's met with black before his eyes and pupils adjust to the dark. A red glow from his alarm clock and the moonlight and street lamps from the window come into focus. He scrunches his eyes shut for a moment and inhales deeply. "It was just a dream."
In the Dalton hallway, Julian notices the patter of footsteps — really close footsteps. A strip of light pours onto his bed, and expands by width as the door opens wider. The actor reclines to the corner of his bed and wall, backing away from the intruder.
"Bad dream?" The silhouette asks sympathetically.
"Lo?" He whispers simply because his voice can't form a louder decibel at this time of night.
"Roses? Fire? Axes?" Logan questions softly, shutting the door behind him and making his way to Julian's bed through the dark.
"Fire," Julian answers suspiciously, not elucidating any further on the matter.
"Makes sense," Logan muses, mostly to himself as he stares at the floor. "They arecrueler. You hear more of catastrophic occurrences with flames and embers rather than you would with salt water."
The brunet relaxes and scoots to the side of his bed where Logan sat, feeling much more comfortable with the room. "Do you get nightmares with axes or something?" Julian asks, with a light tone of humor.
"Sometimes," the blond admits, forming a grimace. "Most of the time it's just —" Logan stops then, shaking his head to himself.
"It's what? Tell me, Lo. I'm still your best friend, aren't I?" Julian worried, pondering how much things had truly changed since the Art Hall.
"Of course you are," Logan reassures. "It's just… stupid, is all."
A deafening silence causes them both to pause and settle into the darkness.
Finally, the prefect speaks up, "Most of the time, it's just me in the Art Hall all alone, and there's this wall of wood in front of me that's caught on fire."
Julian shifts in his seat, turning his head back to Logan curiously, only briefly remembering flashes of his dream with the glass wall.
"And it's strange because it doesn't want to burn down. The wall won't show me what or who's on the other side, and I don't know what to do." The blond hindered passionate frustration in his description of these dreams, while whispering harshly.
Julian raises his eyebrows in surprise, almost wanting to comment on a possibility of himself but quickly bit his lip and hid the expression by humming in understanding. "Maybe you should just let the wall burn. Maybe it's you who's stopping it." He suggests, looking away and to the window's gleam.
He clears his throat, "But anyways… Did you need anything?" His mind becomes fully aware of being unsure of Logan's presence and purpose.
"I was in the hall walking back with water and heard something," He lets out a sigh of exhaustion and frowns. "Just wanted to see if you were alright."
The words remain unspoken, but they both know 'alright' was the exact opposite of everything what they are feeling.
"I'm fine," the actor says shakily scolding himself. It was as if everything that had changed had also prevented him from doing what he was meant to — acting.
Logan looks to his best friend, conflicted. He had felt relief at the least that Julian made it out of everything physically unharmed for the majority — but he couldn't deny that Parent's Night had scarred them both in way unimaginable. And in the far corner of his mind, he couldn't help but have a growing fear that he was going to lose him somehow.
"Why are you looking at my like that?" Julian whispers, not prepared mentally for the piercing stare that Logan's green eyes were giving him. He ducks his head away from eye contact, and looks to the floorboards.
The blond hesitates, his shoulders slumping as he sighed. "You know you're my best friend, right?"
The actor rolled his eyes defensively. "I'm aware, but you know something, Lo?"
"What?"
Julian stands on his feet abruptly, hurrying to the light switch. He turns it on, the dazzling lighting hurting their retinas for an instant. "We're not having this conversation." He smiles, and begins to feel himself regaining his abilities under the fluorescent lights instead of the darkness.
There's an stern edge in his chestnut eyes that Logan chooses to obey just this once. When the emerald-eyed boy reaches the doorway once again, he looks back to Julian's rigid straight form while standing. He smiles for a moment, amusement shining in his expression. "Maybe not now."
His breath pants, as he searches for anything around him in the heat.
A door appears to his left, completely brick and blocked in.
Beads of sweat begin to form on Logan's forehead as his body heats up under his covers.
A light, white and flashing appears within his view.
A wall of wood slides down before he catches a glimpse of a silhouette on the other side.
Fire catches onto the wooden wall, just ghosting on the thin layer of air above the timber.
Logan moans in his sleep, mumbling.
"Burn," he whispers to the wall. "Burn."
A top corner drops to cinder and ashes.
"B-burn," Logan mumbles, twisting to his side as a frown etches onto his face.
A hand slams against the wall of pent up anger and fury of being excluded for the person on the other side.
His hand fists up and slams against the wall again.
The wall shatters, like fragile glass.
The face on the other side becomes so clear, he almost forgets every detail.
Logan jerks into his sleep, wide awake and panting as his mind goes back to the dream and the burnt wall.
It may have been a dream, but there was a pound at the end — that he swore had literally hit his heart, and made it hard to breathe at the epiphany.
The face is recalled to him as he reaches for his water and unexpectedly stops. His jade eyes widen and he drops his jaw in amazement and deep thought.
"Jules?" He says to no one in particular, alone in a dark room.
The wall had burned.