#and by ‘free’ I mean ‘free to do a frankly ridiculous amount of schoolwork for my actual classes’ 🥲

[e77y]

All these performances are killing meeee omg. At least my parents are coming to the one today :) and then I just have one more and then I’m FREE 🙏

[cpcoulter-official]

Power Struggle

(I wanna say for the record I didn't wanna post this initially here because of all the -bad words- in it, but apparently it's quite popular among Stuart Trio stans. XD)

“No.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed. And while that was usually something that warned everyone that the territory is getting dangerous, Julian remained unmoved. “No?” Logan repeated.

“No,” Julian replied, flipping the page of the script. “You and Derek can go have dinner. I’m staying here. Slackers don’t get Oscars.”

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.”

:)