Julian Larson stood alone in the wings, staring at the woman on stage in awe and…fear.
Ellen Degeneres.
Julian was going to be on the Ellen Degeneres Show.
He still couldn't believe it although it had been over a month since he had been alerted to this fact; and he was freaking out.
Julian never freaked out, so this was something new to him; and he didn't like it.
Carmen stood by his side, babbling to him, completely oblivious to his disinterest and to the fact that he was not listening at all.
Julian really wished that his boyfriend could be standing by his side right now; he'd know how to calm him down. But as it was, Logan had remained at Dalton with the promise he would be watching the show no matter what.
Somehow that did nothing to calm Julian's nerves…it increased them, now he knew that Logan would be watching him he was highly aware of himself; his hair, his smile, his clothes which—for the first time in a while—he had asked someone to pick out for him just to still his anxiety. If Logan was watching, the actor wanted everything to be perfect—he wanted to make his love proud.
Suddenly, Julian's phone buzzed in his back pocket and he plucked it out with shaking fingers which stilled slightly when he saw the caller ID labelled with the name that made his heart race and a stupid grin spread across his handsome face, a grin that no one aside from Logan ever got to see.
He pressed the answer button and raised the phone to his ear.
"Hi." He spoke shyly, ducking away from the surrounding crew members and—mainly—from Carmen who hardly noticed his departure, making the actor roll his eyes.
He barely heard the chuckle and a sigh from the other end of the line due to the huge din in the background.
"You sound petrified." Logan said bluntly making Julian laugh once without humour.
"Always so kind to me Lo." He said sarcastically but with an underlying soft tender tone reserved only for the blond warbler, holding a hand to his heart in mock hurt before realising that Logan couldn't see him and dropping his arm to his side again.
"No seriously Jules are you…" Logan gasped theatrically with a grin, "nervous?"
Julian raised his eyes to the heaven and scratched his forehead with his free hand then inspected his fingers closely.
"…maybe." He said nonchalantly, sniffing once.
Before, Julian would have expected Logan to laugh at him and to mock him, tell him to man up and untwist his panties; but now, Logan frowned slightly before taking a deep breath;
"Jules…I am so proud of you; you are going to be amazing, you will charm her blazers off so much that by the end of the interview she will be reconsidering her sexuality." His words were laced with humour yet there were the obvious traces of worry and reassurance which had seeped into his tone, washing over Julian like a cool breeze, reawakening him and comforting him.
"I love you so much." Julian whispered tenderly across the phone line and he heard Logan sigh in pleasure, the same way he did every time the actor uttered those words.
"I love you too Jules."
Julian barely heard the words over the talking, screaming and singing in the background of wherever Logan was.
"Lo—where the hell are you?" The brunette asked amusedly, switching the phone to his other ear.
There was a momentary silence before Logan spoke again.
"Uh—Warbler practise, Harvey and Medel are gone already and the Tweedles are running amuck, I'm just leaving as we speak, on my way to watch you." At first Logan had been speaking rapidly, almost breathlessly but towards the end the unmistakable tone of pride was there, lacing every word and making Julian's heart swell in happiness.
"Well then, I wish you luck getting away from those lunatics, I hope you survive," Julian chuckled absently, but he was quickly silenced as Carmen beckoned him over hastily and he sighed, "…but, I have to go, it appears it's my time to shine." He smirked lightly as he made his way back over towards his agent and a man from the crew pinned his microphone to his crisp, white shirt.
"Good luck Jules, I love you." Logan whispered gently and Julian closed his eyes and let those words wash over him and caress his ears before he returned the same sentiments, never tiring of exchanging them. As the line went dead, the bubble of comfort Julian had immersed himself in instantly popped as he surrendered his phone to Carmen.
He was led to where he was going to enter by a young woman who smiled encouragingly at him before trotting off and disappearing, leaving him alone to try and repeat the words Logan had spoken to him in his mind.
Suddenly, the crowd stood and roared into applause as the cameras began to roll and the lights flashed on, all focus on Ellen who smiled cheekily at the crowd, waiting for them to calm down.
When there was relative silence, Ellen spoke with a wide grin on her face.
"Our next guest needs no introduction but his name and even then I think you already know who I am talking about. So, without any more hesitation I want you to meet the one and only," she paused dramatically, watching the crowd with wide excited eyes looking as if she was holding her breath before releasing it quickly, "Julian Larson!" She shouted and the already hyperventilating crowd sprung into action, fangirls screaming and flailing their arms frantically as Julian took a deep breath and walked onto the stage, almost flinching at how much the screaming grew in volume, but bravely plastering on a wide grin worthy of its name, Cheshire Cat Grin, and waved at the girls who were screaming about their undying love for him and some were even too hysterical to say anything and so just screamed in disbelief that Julian Larson was standing in front of them.
He quickly rushed over with a genuine grin on his face to hug the host; he truly did adore Ellen, there was no question about it. He gave Ellen as twirl to the heavy beat of Cee Lo Green's 'Anyway', blaring out of the speakers and he laughed out loud, throwing his head back slightly as Ellen stood on her chair to be able to give him a twirl in return, with a grin he helped her return to the floor and hugged her once again as the music stopped before plopping into his seat in exact synchronisation with Ellen, making them laugh together as she leant forward to squeeze his knee. The crowd still screaming wildly making Julian grin, this actually made them scream even louder and flail even more.
Deciding that to more or less ignore them he turned to the wonderful woman sitting opposite him.
"How're you doin' kiddo?" She asked gleefully, leaning in towards him with a grin.
"I'm being deafened!" He said loudly raising his eyebrows but his grin firmly in place making her chuckle and bend over slightly as she laughed.
They exchanged pleasantries until the swarm calmed themselves down and he saw them sit down in their seats.
That was one thing he loved about having an interview with Ellen, in ever other interview there were always blinding lights shining in his face and for the life of you, you could not see the faces of the audience, but here on The Ellen Show Julian could see every single beaming face, even those in the very back row.
As silence finally came Ellen looked around herself with a comically surprised look.
"Silence." She said quietly, making everyone laugh out loud and Julian mentally hit himself, how could he have been nervous about this? He felt so at ease, lounging in the comfy chair with an easy smile on his face.
"So Julian!" She said as she too lounged backwards in her chair.
"Ellen!" He said equally as excitedly as he grinned at her.
"You've been a busy boy lately Mr Larson!" She rolled her eyes, "You've done two major films this year, both in which you were the main character correct?" Julian nodded his confirmation with an almost bashful smile on his face, "and you've released a hit-single that to this day, two months after its release is still No.1!" She shook her head in wonderment as Julian blushed ever so slightly; that last one had been due to the convincing of a certain Warbler who insisted that he had to show the world just how good a singer he truly was, instead of hiding it behind closed doors. At first he had been hesitant because him singing had been something he shared only with Logan…but the truth was, it was Logan who had asked him to do it, and he could not say no to him. Logan had complete power over the brunette in every way, but Logan never took advantage of that fact.
Julian was snapped back to reality with a dreamy sort of look on his face when he realised that Ellen had asked him a question he had completely missed.
"Umm, sorry what was that?" He asked after shaking his head quickly.
"Gosh, you're off in your own little world aren't you?" She said almost berating him but her smile and the light in her eyes never left and he gave her a small apologetic smile.
"Sorry, I guess I was." He felt himself blush and looked down in embarrassment, the crowd 'Aww'-ing as his untamed hair flopped in front of his face, curling slightly against his forehead.
"Who was in that little world may I ask?" Ellen leant back, arms on the armrests and giving him a look with one eyebrow raised and a knowing smirk.
He just lifted his head, flicking his hair back and grinning disarmingly.
"You of course."
At this, everyone in the room made an adoring noise as Ellen leant forwards to hit him lightly on the knee.
Julian just looked around him with a look of total innocence before breaking down into a chuckle and backing away from Ellen's playful smacks.
All of a sudden, Julian felt the world halt before his eyes; he however kept his grin firmly in place, not letting anyone know that his heart had suddenly sped up at what he had seen.
Because, sitting amongst the audience, in an aisle seat, four rows from the front…
Was Logan.
Logan with a soft smile on his face, a dreamy look on his face as he watched Julian being…well, not Julian…not his Julian at least—here, he was the worlds' Julian, the boy everyone saw him as. This boy could not have been further from the Julian that Logan knew and loved, but there was a reason this Julian was so universally loved, he was also very enchanting, and, watching the brunette on the stage, Logan fell over and over again in love with the actor.
Julian suddenly rolled back to an upright position; he knew that no one would be able to see the sudden alteration in his mood.
No one could have seen his eyes widen fractionally as he took in the sight of Logan sitting there despite the fact that he had told Julian that he was staying at Dalton.
No. No one could have seen the look of complete shock and…adoration that had flicked across his features. He knew he was a good enough actor to cover up his true emotions; despite the fact that all he wanted to do at this very moment was to launch himself at Logan and kiss him silly.
He didn't deserve how amazing Logan was.
But his thoughts were stopped as the crowd stopped laughing and he tried to keep his mind on Ellen and the interview.
Not Logan.
"Are you sure there is not someone else, someone special running around your mind right now?" Ellen raised an eyebrow and Julian desperately tried not to smile and failed miserably, grinning guiltily and he knew that he was blushing furiously from the shrill screams of the girls in the audience.
"Now, Julian, we all know that you are bi-sexual, I mean if someone doesn't then I believe that they live under a rock, in a cave at the bottom of the Ocean on Mars," She paused as everyone, including Julian, laughed, "I believe the world had accepted that fact by now," Ellen finished in all seriousness, and Julian nodded, thinking back to his coming out announcement…at the Oscars…during his acceptance speech…
Julian felt a giggle bubble up in his chest and didn't have time to withhold it as he nearly doubled over from the outburst before he slightly covered his mouth, trying to calm himself down as he sat up and righted himself and nodded again.
"Yeah that wasn't exactly subtle was it?" He said slightly, scratching behind his ear as he grimaced slightly making the audience laugh.
"Umm, let's go with no." Ellen looked at him with raised eyebrows and squinted as she shook her head. "Okay, so there were speculations about how you came to the conclusion that you are indeed bi, or why you felt the need to come out." She looked at him pointedly as he tried to keep his expression neutral as he nodded again, suddenly feeling ridiculously like a bobble-head. "But, naturally you have silenced the whole world and regrettably broken many young girls' poor hearts when you announced that you have a…boyfriend, and that he was the reason behind the announcement?" Ellen twisted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows suggestively at him.
But he only grinned as big as he could manage as the crowd went wild, which wasn't a lot, because, although the mention of Logan, no matter how abstract, made him smile like a teenage girl, the reporters were never endingly trying to unearth Logan's identity, and, as much as they wanted to tell the world, there had never been a right time, they didn't feel right with just wandering around holding hands and hoping a reporter might catch them, nor did Julian want to do it alone; and besides that, there was never the right time, or enough of it in fact. So still, the identity of his boyfriend was a mystery to the world, and it more or less broke Julian's heart, knowing that no one knew that Logan was his.
Now still didn't feel like the right time, even if Logan was sitting in the very same room, he just wouldn't know how to get around to it.
So he just rolled his eyes and nodded again.
"I'm not going to ask you who he is," the crowd made sounds of objection but nothing else as Ellen continued to speak, "but what's he like?" She asked excitedly. "We don't know a lot about him, because all everybody ever wants to know is who he is. So, tell us, how long have you been together?" She wiggled her eyebrows again and Julian felt relief wash over him.
He really did love Ellen.
He took a deep breath and tried to get words out past his grin, he was now hyper aware of Logan's presence, "Well," He began, "He's…a moron" He chuckled and Logan softly rolled his eyes but he knew there was no anger behind it, it was just teasing it. "…Most of the time." Despite the sentence he couldn't help but grin fondly, a look of love shifting into his eyes as the smile became genuine.
The audience were watching him with wide, anticipated eyes and as Logan looked around him surreptitiously, he could not help but realise that, no matter whether Julian was with a guy, a girl, or an 80 year old transgendered man, they would love him even then. They just wanted him to be happy, and that truly warmed Logan's heart through and through.
"He can be a complete idiot, moron and so many other expletives I was given a list of not to say on this show. But, despite how much I love him, he is them all."
The viewers were all smiling slightly and chuckling as he said this but they were also frowning slightly.
"What?" Ellen said in confusion drawing out the vowel, "How so?"
Julian smiled softly and sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
"Have you ever heard of Kelly Clarkson's song 'Beautiful Disaster'?" He asked Ellen gently and she nodded slowly, an understanding smile creeping onto her face. "Well, that title describes him utterly, to the finest point. Ever since I met him, we did nothing but fight; we were always at each other's throats. Don't get me wrong, we were friends, best friends in fact, there were three of us, and we never went a week without fighting, it was just how it was. But I reached a point when I realised that past all of the fighting and insults, I felt something deeper than friendship towards him…but he never looked my way once, in the three years I was in love with him, he never even considered me, it was like he looked right through me. It was—possibly—the most painful 3 years of my life…but also the best." He shook his head and dragged his hands down his face, by now all of the people in the room were captivated by this story, even Logan who had leant forwards almost without his own knowledge. "I know it sounds so messed up, but fighting with him was the only way I could get him to even look at me, but he fell in and out of love with other boys and—although I can't, for the life of me remember why—I helped him get them, I helped him gain their attention, I did what I could, and then I would leave, I would do another film, a photo shoot…anything really. But when he would break up with whoever he had been with this time, I would go back and comfort him."
"God," He laughed once and rolled his eyes, "I sound so whipped!" He exclaimed, breaking everyone out of their trance as they chuckled lightly too.
He sighed slightly, smiling gently, there was no anger in his voice, but Logan felt ashamed, he knew all of it, but it didn't make him feel any better hearing it again, "It's in the past Logan, I don't care about any of that anymore, I care about you. I finally have you." Julian had told him gently all that time ago when they had started dating, and it had done little to lift his guilt over his idiocy, but he was slowly making up for all of the time he had wasted with his blindness.
"But yeah, that was long enough ago, things are finally how they should be and I couldn't be happier." As he said this, the people in the audience made a noise of adoration and Julian smiled out at them, his eyes flickered over Logan slightly, their eyes connecting for a fraction of a second and his smile gentled all the more for it. Logan smiled lovingly down at his feet, trying not to make it too obvious that he was the one Julian was talking about.
"You sound really happy Julian. " Ellen said gently, a fond smile on her face but something was hidden in her eyes, and Julian waved it off, thinking he was simply inventing it.
"I am, truly." He said as earnestly as he could.
Ellen however, bounced back from the tender moment with a wicked grin.
"Is he cute?" She asked conspiratorially making Julian throw his head back slightly as he laughed, sliding down in his seat as he blushed furiously, but even as he spoke the microphone picked his words up.
"More than cute." He mumbled and was rewarded with yet again another sigh of adoration from the crowd assembled.
"More than cute? Oh you lucky man! Tell us more! What does he look like?"
Julian sat upright slowly, coughing slightly though his chuckles.
"I suddenly feel like I've stepped into 'Grease'." He said with a teasing grin but carried on; in all honesty he loved bragging about Logan, it was his guilty pleasure. "Well, he's tall, ever so slightly taller than me," He made a gesture with his hand to indicate Logan's height. "Umm, he's blond," He chuckled as Ellen nodded appreciatively running a hand dramatically through her hair.
"You have good taste! Does he have blue eyes? That would just be the icing on the cake."
"Uh no, he had green eyes." Julian said with a pout. "Sorry."
Ellen pretended to surreptitiously wipe a tear from her eye and sniffed.
"It's fine. No problem." But, being Ellen she could not stay serious for too long and broke into a wide grin that made her eyes sparkle. "So…"
There was a pause as Ellen looked at Julian, the something he had seen in her eyes had returned but this time Julian knew that he was not inventing it.
"So…you go to school together, I'm assuming?"
Julian mentally cursed himself; he had almost definitely made that obvious so he nodded once, a short, sharp movement, but his mask as always still stayed firmly in place.
"I know I agreed not to talk about this, but have you ever thought about revealing who he is?" She asked him curiously, cocking her head to the side.
Julian sighed heavily and grimaced slightly.
"I have, I mean, we've talked about it so much, but there's never been the opportunity and we want to make it definite, we don't want to have a paparazzi catch us, we want to tell everyone that he and I are together, but I don't want to do it alone, so interviews are a sort of no-no…it's just…yeah." He paused for a moment, frowning and pursing his lips contemplatively. "It's hard." He summed up with a nod.
Ellen looked at him softly for a moment before she sat upright and turned to the audience, a positively mischievous look in her eyes and Julian was instantly wary.
"Okay, that makes sense. Right, I believe that this subject is in need of a bit of summing up don't you think?" She asked the audience, and they cheered and screamed in response. Julian just frowned in confusion.
"Now, not moments ago I happened to be observing the audience and I believe that we have someone very special amongst us. May I have a microphone please?"
To almost everyone's confusion, she stood from her seat and walked off the stage, receiving a microphone from a member of the crew and she began making her way into the star-struck audience, the camera's moved hastily to follow her, the man controlling it frowned in confusion, but still followed Ellen's movements with the hulking contraption.
Julian however, was having trouble breathing, because Ellen had stepped off the stage and had headed straight up the stairs that lead to the area where Logan was sitting…this was despite the fact that there were 3 sets of steps to choose from and 3 different areas of seats.
It was as if every one of her steps was in slow motion, one step-the first row, second step-the second row, third step- third row and Julian swallowed hard, his mask never faltering despite the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest and his mind was screaming out in panic.
Fourth step-fourth row.
She stopped.
Julian nearly groaned as she turned directly to Logan who looked up at her with confused green eyes, Julian had clearly rubbed off on him, because he didn't look guilty or panicked…just confused, like very other person in the room.
Nor did the blond's façade change as she smiled directly at him; he just looked shocked, in a good way, as if he had won something special.
"Hi there!" She said enthusiastically, reaching to shake Logan's hand, and the Warbler took it, shaking it slightly, still acting amazingly well which made Julian feel a strange swell of pride for his other half.
"What's your name?" She moved her microphone forwards into Logan's face and Julian could see a rare blush creep up Logan's cheeks as he shifted uncomfortably, a small shy smile playing at the edges of lips, he honestly looked as innocent as any other person in the room as he cleared his throat.
"Logan." He said firmly into the microphone and Ellen grinned.
"Well, Logan! Come on up and meet Julian Larson! Let's have a round of applause for Logan everybody!" She made a wide sweeping gesture with her arms and tugged Logan to his feet as everyone burst into rounds of confused yet enthusiastic applause.
By now, one by one people's eyes were widening as they took in this tall, blond man Ellen had randomly taken a shine to, the cogs slowly starting to mesh together in their brains as Logan was hauled down the steps.
Julian jumped as someone tapped his shoulder and he turned around to see a crew member leaning over the back of Julian's seat.
Behind him were two men carrying a couch to seat more than one person and Julian nodded nonchalantly as he stood and his seat was taken away to be replaced with the two-seater; room enough for him and Logan.
Julian sighed as the reality set upon him.
Ellen knew.
Julian waited for the now wide eyed Logan and a beaming Ellen came onto the stage, he nodded at Logan politely, before sitting down again onto the new seat and lounging back slightly as Logan sat beside him, with a little gap between them, enough not to raise suspicion.
But, unfortunately, suspicion had already been raised.
Big time.
Silence set upon the room and Ellen grinned at the two of them.
Awkward barely came close to describing it.
Naturally Ellen broke the silence as the audience looked on in shock and anticipation.
Naturally, Ellen had to break the silence in some dramatic way.
Naturally.
"So you're Julian's boyfriend!" She beamed.
Mouths all around the room dropped open, people squealed in scepticism but quietly as Julian raised his eyebrows in disbelief and Logan frowned, looking utterly perplexed.
It was, to universal surprise, Logan this time that broke the silence.
"Come again?" His voice sounded so sure and confused Julian almost believed that he was indeed confused beyond belief.
"Oh please, don't give me that!" Ellen made a face that suggested the fact that Logan was objecting was indeed preposterous yet she was grinning good naturedly.
Julian's mind was buzzing.
This could be it. It could be the time when they finally tell the world the truth.
But, naturally, Julian's instinct was to deny it.
Fiercely.
With every fibre of his being.
But if you knew Julian Larson, you would know that he gets the giggles easily…very easily.
It's his worst characteristic, especially as he is an actor.
But that doesn't stop the fact that if he gets too nervous, shocked or even sometimes, turned on—which is especially awkward—he starts to laugh.
And the worst part?
One thing Logan loves about Julian?
Something that is so not convenient at this moment in time?
His contagious laughter never fails to make him smile.
Julian could have killed himself at that moment. That one moment when his mask dropped and his open mouth snapped shut and turned into a barely contained laugh within a second, he felt himself let out a sort of high pitched giggle which he desperately tried to swallow and failed miserably, leaving himself with almost a grimace as he shook with barely disclosed laughter.
Logan heard this and felt the couch shake slightly and turned slowly to face his boyfriend with a look that screamed 'really?' But Julian, upon seeing Logan move, knew that the game was up and gave in.
He collapsed to the side, falling into Logan who had finally let a wide grin take over his face as he put his face in his hands and he too began to let his shoulders shake as he laughed.
The crowd, who had been holding their breath in anticipation, began to scream madly, jumping about as Ellen stood on her chair and screamed "I knew it!" as she pointed at the couple on the couch who were still incapacitated with hysterics aside from Logan's broken yet amused exclamations of "JULIAN! You're a—an actor for crying out loud! Why can't—you stop—yourself—laughing?" to which Julian would just start laughing even more, gripping Logan's shirt whilst exclaiming through his sniggers "I'm sorry! I couldn't—h—help it!"
To this day, Julian will say without a trace of uncertainty that the one interview with Ellen where Logan had been by his side, when the weight had lifted off his shoulders for good…that interview, was the best of his entire life.
And do you know why?
They didn't have to hide anymore.