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If only the rose petals would stop coming up. It was getting difficult enough to breathe with the smoke growing denser every second without this most recent bout of sickness. Adam at least had the decency to step back as he choked on the bloody petals, but Julian was still angry with himself. Reed was laying there, seemingly on death’s door, Kurt didn’t deserve to be trapped here either, and yet his disease had made him too weak to help get them out of there. He felt terribly useless, and it didn’t help that he felt that it was all his fault other people got dragged into this mess in the first place.
Of course, that was when Blaine burst through the door, with none other than the person who had caused him this affliction. Seeing Logan enter this hellish scene felt as if Adam had driven the knife through his heart.
“ Oh , this certainly makes things interesting, doesn’t it?”
As Kurt cried out for Blaine, Julian could only stare in horror at Logan, who stared back at him in surprise. Adam moved protectively toward Julian again, swiping away some coughed-up blood from the corner of his mouth. Julian winced.
“It was you? You did all this?” Logan yelled at Adam.
“You shouldn’t be so angry with me, I did this to help him! Your so called ‘friend’ is quite sick, so really you’re the one to blame here!” Adam screamed back.
As if on cue, Julian felt his chest tighten as Logan kept glancing worriedly at Kurt, and he coughed up more of the red petals. They were all over the place now. After hiding it for so long, after leaving every time he got too sick, he wished so badly that this wasn’t how Logan had to find out. It was too late to worry about that, however. There were more pressing matters.
Once he was able to breathe again, he cried weakly, “Logan, get out of here!”
“Shut up , Julian,” Logan growled. “Why didn’t you say anything to us? About any of this! Derek and I could have helped you.”
“He knew, but I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell you about the disease without you knowing.”
Logan’s face fell from anger to bewilderment. “Knowing what?”
Julian squeezed his eyes shut, tears falling.
“Tell him. Or I might have to kill him, my love.” Adam pressed the knife to Julian’s throat.
“No. Please, no,” Julian pleaded. He coughed up a few petals weakly, which only drove the blade further into his skin.
“Tell him, or I will!”
He faintly heard Kurt whisper to him not to do it, but Julian felt he was out of options. “It’s you, Logan. He’s right. You’re why I’m sick.”
Logan’s face paled. “No, that can’t be right. You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying.”
Julian shut his eyes, unable to say it looking at the desperation in those green eyes. “I’m in love with you, Logan. I have been for three years.”
A repressed sob was Logan’s only response as he stood there, processing everything he had learned in a matter of minutes.
“Do you understand now? It’s your fault he’s like this,” Adam preened. “But the good news is, I can fix him! We could be so happy together, Julian, you’d no longer be sick once you learned that you’re actually in love with me.”
It was impossible not to notice that Adam wasn’t sick. He had never shown any symptoms. And since Julian didn’t reciprocate, whatever this was, it wasn’t actually love.
“You don’t love me, Adam. Maybe you think you do, but you don’t. I’m not going to make it that much longer as it is. You deserve better. With help, I think you can be much happier, but you don’t need me for that.”
“We need do each other. They’ll never see you again, but they wouldn’t have noticed you gone anyway. You’re mine now!”
Before Julian knew it, Blaine had tackled Adam. As the two wrestled on the floor, as Blaine was stabbed, Julian could only slump against the wall, no longer trusting his balance. It was all too much all at once, and he felt increasingly light-headed. At last, through blurred vision, he saw Logan make the blows that saved Blaine and knocked Adam unconscious, and they were free.
But as Julian stood there with the other four, blinking away the smoke, everything still felt so weak, and he could feel the blooms inside of him blocking his airways more completely every moment. Coupled with the blood loss and other injuries he sustained throughout the night, Julian knew he wasn’t making it out of here alive. The explosions barely registered, all of his focus was on carrying Reed to that staircase. He needed to at least ensure that everyone else could survive this terrible night. Then, Blaine and Logan made it to safety with Reed, but that ceiling was going to cave in before he and Kurt could make it past.
Julian knew what choice to make.
Whatever happens to me next couldn’t be worse than knowing you died . And with his last ounce of strength, he pushed Kurt. The last thing he registered was the boy he loved safely catching Kurt. His final thoughts were simply, They will all be okay now. Logan is safe .