A/N: AHH. People read the third part before I could upload this one and the first one. xDD My fault for doing it backwards, but see, this was uploaded on tumblr and so I posted the third part so my followers could read it here. BUT OH WELL. People seemed to like it, even if they didn't know what was going on. This is OFFICIALLY PART TWO THOUGH. I'm uploading PART ONE next. So if you want to get the full fic experience, hold off and read it in the proper order. Or...don't. xD My bad, my bad.

Disclaimer: Julian and Logan are not my characters. They are not even close to being my characters. They are CP Coulter's characters and she is the supreme overlord of amazing. Go read 'Dalton.' :D

His cellphone vibrates on the bedside table, as he tastes the remnants of scotch on Lucy the Waitress's tongue. She's a good one, this perky, petite blonde; she straddles him and runs her hands up and down the right places, her hands so tiny, like feathers or flower petals. He wants more. He's all kinds of wonderful drunk, and she's all kinds of easy, so they make for a perfect match. He runs his hands across her back and then tugs her down, bodies pressing blissfully close—and his cellphone vibrates again.

"Someone's pretty desperate to talk to you," Lucy the Waitress whispers, their lips still touching as she murmurs these words.

"Everyone's desperate to talk to me," he smirks, grabs her and rolls her so he's on top and in control, plunging his tongue into her mouth so she can't speak anymore. He doesn't like talk in the bedroom—unless it's dirty, of course.

The cellphone. Again. Lucy the Waitress resists, pushing him up. "Turn it off, won't you? Or bring it to bed. I'm not opposed to threesomes."

"Just ignore it," he hisses, starting to get annoyed with the pixie underneath him. He covers her mouth again with his own, and as she sighs and groans, he moves down to her tiny little twig-neck, teasing the skin there with just his teeth and breath—

"Logan?" she asks breathlessly, panting from all his kisses.

His heart stops.

"Who the hell is Logan?" she says his name again, as if it is a disease.

He pulls away from her. Lucy the Waitress has his cellphone clutched in her hand, flipped open, reading his goddamn text from an arm's length away.

"What the hell are you doing reading my texts?" he responds.

She doesn't answer. Her eyes widen as the words on the screen (whatever they are) seemingly shock or upset her. "Oh my god, is this your boyfriend?"

He doesn't know what's worse—that the answer is no, or the fact that Logan wrote something that suggests that.

Well, whatever, it doesn't matter. What he does know is that this bitch is out of here.

Pissed off, he grabs the cellphone from Lucy the Waitress and yanks her from the bed, ignoring her sudden squeal. He pushes her out the door and slams it as hard as he can in her astonished face, only opening it again to throw the whore her shirt and purse.

What kind of person grabs someone else's phone and reads their texts during foreplay? The thought of it riles his insides and before he can get a handle on his rage, Julian throws his cellphone at the wall as hard as he can, getting immense delight when he sees it break into pieces. There! Let's see Logan text and call him now!

He almost laughs, but the taste of it turns sour in his mouth as he realizes— fuck, he just ruined his phone.

Logan, for a moment, kisses back.

Logan tastes of everything he smells—the pencil shavings and books and cappuccino, but also of something more, something Julian's never tasted in any of the mouths he's visited: music.

God, he tastes of music. Beautiful, slow, aching notes. And though he has indeed sung with Logan before—many times—it is only now they sing together, even if it is only for eleven painful seconds.

But for eleven seconds, Julian is actually where he wants to be. He has eleven seconds of honesty. Eleven seconds of unbridled desire. After three years of longing looks and forced smiles, of running away only to return again, of sleepless nights and dreamful sleeps, these eleven seconds is their crescendo.

But those eleven seconds, despite all the songs that seem to sing otherwise, do not last a lifetime. Logan comes to his senses and pushes Julian away with all his strength, his previous anger nearly completely swallowed by shock.

"What the HELL, Julian?"

He meets Clark Sawyer in the weirdest of ways—a car accident. It's all over the news and tabloids and for a whole day it's rumored that he, Julian Larson, has been run over by Clark Sawyer, in a tragic accident in the dead of night. Of course, that's not what happens at all. For one thing, it's all his fault, not Clark's.

It's eight in the morning, he's late to the shoot, and he's very much hung over. It's a recipe for a disaster for sure, but luckily he doesn't actually die as he swings into the parking lot dangerously fast, straight into Clark Sawyer pulling out.

The crash finally fucking wakes him up, now that's for sure.

His heart is jolted near clean out of his chest at the impact, as is the remainder of last night's liquor binge. But more embarrassing then puking all over his new car is the fact he just fucking hit Clark Sawyer, goddamnit.

He takes off his jacket and uses it to sort of clean up his steering wheel and dash, throwing it in the back and evacuating his vehicle shortly after, head spinning in all sorts of directions. Clark Sawyer is already walking toward him and he looks kinda agitated (well he just got run into so duh).

"What the hell, man? Ever try stopping and looking before—" Clark's little rant stops short. Julian swallows as Clark Sawyer takes in the whole scene—his car and his mouth and his sunglasses and the smell of alchohol-scented vomit in the air. Clark Sawyer stops dead and laughs.

Laughs.

"Oh wow. Okay, let's go get some coffee. You need it," the star says and with several calls and texts to different people, Clark Sawyer leads him away from the wreckage, into a taxi and toward a little privately-owned coffee shop. It only takes about twenty minutes before Julian is gulping down black coffee, its bitterness a welcome change from the taste of cheap beer and slutty waitresses.

"This place makes killer pastries too, along with coffee," Clark says as they sit down, "Seriously, everything is homemade or something. It's so much better than Starbucks. I've actually ordered a cherry strudel, y'know, so you're welcome to try it—" Clark reconsiders for a moment, grins and leans forward, "but you're actually looking a little green..."

Julian grunts. "Shut up Sawyer. I just had a rough night."

"Hm, well the tabloids didn't see you at any clubs or bars, so I guess the party was an indoor event then?" Clark raises his eyebrows.

"Are you stalking me now too?" Julian glares. "Look, I'll pay for your car, okay—"

"Cut the crap, I don't care about my car. I know you can pay, no one was hurt. I'm more scared of what's gonna happen to you."

This stops Julian. He opens his mouth to make some sort of insult or prissy comment, but his mind has temporarily stopped working. He just grunts again, glares again and shoves his sunglasses back on his face, crossing his arms.

After a moment or two of silence, in which the cherry strudel was delivered, Clark speaks up again. "You know, this place is famous for being a celebrity hideaway. It's so close to the studios that not a lot of normal folk show up. And the ones that do leave us alone. It's kind of a secret club," Clark sips his coffee, pauses and then, "Rule one: Do NOT talk about coffee shop."

Julian snorts. "And so I guess Rule two is—"

"DO NOT TALK about coffeeshop?" Clark grins. "Rule Three—"

"Do not take dorks who quote Fight Club into coffee shops?" Julian mocks.

"Ha ha. Right. No, Rule three is 'What happens in coffee shop, stays in coffee shop,'" Clark's goofy grin fades into a sincere smile. "Secrets stay secret."

It's an invitation. An invitation to talk it out. Julian hesitates, biting his lip.

Julian doesn't know what type of person Clark Sawyer is, though he's seen enough interviews and TV segments to know that he's famous for his "boy-next-door" charm and good-natured humor. But even if that's an act (probably is, what isn't in Hollywood?), Julian feels the overwhelming sense that he can trust Clark. That perhaps the TV persona Clark was a little bit of the real Clark too, and that his fellow actor would not mouth off about his pathetic problems. It's weird, too—for all his pride, Julian wants to tell him—or at least, god, someone. The answers to Clark's unsaid questions are on the very tip of his tongue. They taste as bitter as the coffee, but it's there. All he has to do is open his mouth and say it.

Oh yeah. Just spill to an almost-complete stranger that you're in love with Logan Wright. That'll go over well, Julian thinks. What good will it do? You'll just look like a loser and he'll just pity you.

"Come on Julian," Clark says softly and everything about him seems so honest and sincere and simple, "Even a Larson doesn't get drunk on a school night before a big day of filming for no reason."

Julian takes a breath and it feels like the first breath he has taken in days. And then, even though half of him is screaming not to, he takes a chance. He'll explode if he doesn't.

"What the HELL, Julian?"

Julian is quickly regaining his senses as well, (his head is still singing though, his body burning) and as Logan waits for his answer, Julian realizes he has two choices:

1. He could tell the truth. He could tell Logan everything. He could kiss him again and taste him, experience him, love him—he could get rejected.

2. He could lie his ass off.

Either way, he's practically screwed.

There is a glimmer of hope in the latter though—the possibility that this will blow over, that Logan will buy his lie, and though there will be no more music for Julian, he will be able to escape Dalton with as little drama as possible. He will leave and never come back. All he has to do is lie and lie convincingly. This will be the most important performance of his entire life—it has to be flawless.

He stands up, yanking Logan up with him by the arm, ignoring the attraction, forcing any real feeling down, down, down, down. Logan, immediately, rips his arm away.

"What the hell?" he repeats, "Why the fuck did you—"

"I had to shut you up somehow," Julian shoots back, smirking like nothing is wrong, like he isn't ready to just die there and then. At this, Logan's eyes grow wide and even more angry and even more green (even more beautiful). "What?" Julian shrugs, "If you had yelled any louder, a teacher could have come in and then we'd be expelled—well YOU'D be expelled."

"You're a goddamn liar," snarls Logan. "You don't kiss someone just to shut them up. You could have smacked me or punched me in the mouth—"

"Both very tempting options, but my other hands were busy pinning you to the tile. Now let's clean this place up before Medel or whatever comes in here." Julian turns away from Logan and begins to walk away, but Logan grabs his arm, and yanks him back too close, so close that Julian's breath hitches and his heart stutters.

"I'm not dropping this. Tell me the truth, Julian. Do you…"

Logan falters, as does his anger. Hesitance, disbelief—doubt—swims in Logan's eyes and Julian's heart splinters. God, how he hates Logan, but more than that, he hates himself. Who is he kidding? Logan would never look at him, because to Logan, it's just so goddamn unbelievable (so goddamn laughable) that he, Julian Larson, could possibly—

"…like me?"

Julian pushes Logan away from him and bites his tongue to stop the tears. He composes himself in a second, scoffing and uttering a disgusted noise.

"Like you? No fucking way."

"So you walked away," says Clark, stirring his coffee aimlessly, almost like he's bored. But Julian can tell that he's not—the actor's eyes are contemplative, like two deep oceans. "Just like that? And haven't talked to him since?"

"Yeah, but I just can't—I—I just [i ]can't,[/i] okay?"

Clark simply nods and sips his coffee. "So how long has it been?"

Julian shrugs, like he hasn't been religiously counting the hours. "About five weeks now. Maybe." Actually six weeks, six days and a couple of hours now. Each one more painful than the last.

Clark laughs again, when Julian least expects it. He doesn't even know what's so funny. "Hey, you wanna get outta here? Let's go do something."

"What? I love a movie to shoot," Julian reminds him. "I'm sure the director is already pissed off and I really don't want to confirm those diva rumors—even if they are true—"

Clark grins and leans forward, "I've already got that covered. You're excused for the rest of the day. Made some calls."

"You can't just MAKE some calls, you don't have that sort of power."

"I'm Clark Sawyer. You're not the only diva in this town, you're just the biggest," Clark takes out his wallet and starts to wave the waiter over. "So c'mon, let's go do something awesome. Let's have fun!"

Julians raises his eyebrow and deadpans, "Fun? What, like go to an arcade or toss the ball around? Please."

Clark eyes widen at his comment. "You obviously don't know what fun is. I love arcades! We're so going to one."

"Sorry, I'm not 12 anymore," he insults viciously. It doesn't faze Clark in the slightest, making him smile wider.

"We'll see about that."

"DIE, SAWYER, DIE!" Julian brandishes his paint gun and presses hard on the trigger. Clark expertly rolls behind yet another wall, escaping his fire for what had to be the fifteenth time of the hour. He almost has him—just one more shot and he would win. All he had to do was catch him…which was way, way harder than it first appeared.

Who knew that paintball could be so fun? At the idea, he had, of course, shot it down and made a million blistering comments. He didn't want it all over his hair, for one. And two, it was what blockheads did—blockheads like those stupid Brightman twins back at Dalton. But it was either that or go-cart racing and the last thing Julian wanted to do was get behind a car again so soon after his little accident. Especially since a tabloid had spun out a new issue proclaiming his death, which had the whole world tweeting about him. Being a trending topic was cool and all, but Julian was more annoyed with it and—okay—there was something appealing about shooting balls of paint at people for a while.

Losing sucked though. He had lost every game so far. He is so not going to lose this one.

Julian creeps out from behind his own wall, slowly heading down the hall, toward the place he had last seen Clark go. His eyes dart around, just in case. He had to be extremely careful.

He hears a noise on his left and he turns and automatically shoots, but nothing's there. Where the hell…?

"GOTCHA LARSON!"

Julian is hit by a paintball to his shoulder and he shouts out at the sudden, surprising impact. He whirls around and sees Clark leaning against one of the walls, gun swung on his shoulder. He grins. "Five to zero. Man, Larson, you are really bad at this."

"Then why? Why kiss me?" Logan demands. "Why fucking do it? I'm not stupid, Julian. I may be batshit crazy—hell I'm a lot of things—but I am no idiot, so please stop insulting my intelligence—"

"Maybe I just wanted to experiment!" The lie is out of his mouth before his brain catches up with the conversation. The words keep pouring out. "Maybe I'm not 100% straight and maybe I wanted to try it out, okay? And your ugly mug was the only thing I could stand kissing without throwing up."

This stops Logan. For the first time, Logan is speechless, confused and the silence stretches on to thirty seconds, a minute.

"…why didn't you just talk to me then? If anyone would understand, I would."

"That's implying we're friends, Logan," Julian sneers. "Which we're not."

Three hours later, Julian sits in the taxi with Clark outside his hotel. It's time to go. But he doesn't want to.

"Thanks," he says quietly. "For…y'know…everything. I swear, I'll fix your car."

Clark shrugs lazily and grins, "Who gives a crap about my car? I can just buy another one. Sides, me kicking your ass at paintball eleven times in a row was better than any money you could give me."

"Urgh, don't remind me," Julian groans, "I'm going to be so sore tomorrow."

"Eh, payback's a bitch."

"You're a bitch," Julian retorts and picks at the paint underneath his fingernails. It gets quiet. He really does not want to leave, go back to his apartment where he will have to delete the emails, texts, messages, tweets that Logan will have sent, where he will be alone and cold and silent and tempted to drink until his brain shuts up. He briefly wonders if he has a drinking problem. Probably.

"You gonna be okay?" Clark murmurs, reading his mind.

"…I have to be," Julian replies, rubbing his eyes. God, he's tired. "I have a movie to shoot in the morning, after all."

"Hey," Clark claps his hand on Julian's shoulder in a reassuring way—but it only makes Julian wince. "If you need anything, just call me. And we should hang again. You're actually pretty cool, for a complete and total diva."

Julian smiles at him weakly. "Why the hell are you being so nice to be? I fucking ruined your car."

Clark shrugs. "I dunno. I thought at first it was cuz you come from Dalton. Thought you might know Reed. But, actually, I think it's because you remind me of me…when I first got famous?"

"Oh? Were you hopelessly in love with a guy and starring in some shitty romance flick while getting stalked by a psychotic fan?"

"No, no and no," Clark replies, "But I was a mess. Only reason I came through it is 'cuz I had friends out here, and my mom…and you don't really have either of those things. Which reminds me…" Clark pauses, takes a breath, "…I think you should talk to that guy. Because you can't afford to lose the people who mean something—anything—to you, or else Hollywood will tear you apart. This…this Logan guy, he might actually listen and you never know, he could return—"

"No," Julian immediately interrupts. He didn't want to hear it. "No. You don't get it, Clark. You don't…know him." He opens the taxi car door and climbs out, head aching. Before he shuts the door, he turns to Clark one last time. "Thanks for letting me play pretend for the day, Sawyer. But don't try to give me any false hope here—I'm not 12 anymore, remember?"

He slams the door and walks back into his hotel.

"Oh come on Jules, we're friends," Logan says.

The answer to this problem appears before him suddenly and instantly. Julian can see it. The road to his salvation is before his feet. He knows how to end this and god he needs to. He needs to burn the bridge between him and Logan forever, even if it meant going up in flames himself. No matter the price, or the size of the lie. He would go for it.

Julian rolls his eyes, "Oh some fucking friends, we are. If we're not yelling at each other, we're insulting each other. Honestly, we barely put up with each other. I wouldn't call that friendship and I don't want to deal with it anymore!"

"Well—well I do. So stop being a jackass and just talk to me!"

"There's nothing to talk about!"

"How about the fact that you're suddenly gay!"

"What the—I'm not! I experimented, and guess what—experiment failed. I don't like cock. Sorry to disappoint you, Logan, I know how much you want to make me your next boy toy."

"You realize that you're pretty much denying who are you like all those dumb-ass homophobic self-haters out there, don't you? Do you really want to be one of those guys, because you're doing a helluva good job!"

"I'm done talking about this and I'm DONE with you," Julian shouts and heads toward the door. "You're not me. And I'm not gay." He whirls around to face Logan, "Why the hell would I want to be a disgusting gay loser like you?"

Logan's face goes white.

There. Bridge burned.

Julian doesn't ride the elevator. He takes the stairs.

It's a long way up, being in Room 1217 on the twelfth floor, and with each winding step, he can feel his sore muscles groan and gasp. It hurts, but he wants to put off his lonely night for as long as possible. Climbing stairs is methodical, and physical enough to erase all thoughts in his mind, so only the pain was left.

By the time he reaches the twelfth floor, he's nearly ready to collapse. It's been a really, fucking long day and the high he achieved during paintball has all but disappeared. He wants to call Clark and beg him to take him away from himself, but hell, that would sound stupid and desperate, and his last words are still throbbing in his head, like a thorn lodged deep into his frontal lobe.

Julian trudges down the hallway to his room and slips in the card key. The little green light blinks at him, welcomes him with a beep.

"Hello to you too," he murmurs and pushes the door open. He resists the urge to just collapse on the tiled floor then, carrying his body into the shower. He strips down, gets in, runs the water, and watches as the paint crawls down his skin, leaving tracks of color in its wake—like his entire body is crying.

After the water runs cold, Julian gets out and wraps a towel around his waist and stumbles out of the bathroom, rubbing his eyes, yearning for his bed–

"You take ridiculously long showers," a figure, blonde, tall, leaning against his door, says.

No. No no no no no NO NO.

Logan only smiles. "Miss me, you miserable, self-loathing son of a bitch? I think it's time you spare me a few minutes of your precious time. We need to talk, Julian. And there's no way in hell I'm letting you run away."