#i started these projects my first year ive ever done civil engineering

[terrorbirb]

I want to SCREAM about local politics because I'M now involved in politics (as a completely neutral party just providing engineering advice) about secret (controversial) private money projects that I can't even yell at friends about.

[imnotcameraready]

What’s the viscosity of blood?

i did the actual prompt this time! this is how Logan, a serial killer, and Roman, an actor and author, met.

Warnings: mentions of blood, suggested violence, suggested death, mention of a possible car accident, mentions of a bad break up, panic attacks/anxiety. on one hand, this is basically Fluff but on the other hand, Logan’s a serial killer. if i forgot anything, please let me know!!!

Words: 3,208

Pairings: Logince, former Analogical

read on AO3!

enjoy!!!

It wasn’t like Logan to join a dating app. He had never done that before, and to be honest, he wasn’t much of a romantic. He’d only ever had one relationship and, well…. And he definitely hadn’t spent over 50 hours awake in the lab after the break up, running on nothing but coffee and suppression. Definitely hadn’t cried into the empty right half of his bed, lamenting how large it was, how much more spacious it was. No, no, Logan wasn’t sentimental.

He wasn’t still upset over the break up, despite it being over a year ago. He hadn’t signed up willingly, sought out a mobile application that was as different from Tinder or, God forbid, “Grindr,” which was what one of his teaching assistants suggested. One of the graduate students he oversaw definitely hadn’t suggest he get back into dating.

He hadn’t handpicked this particular site out of an actual pool of possible matchmaking services, hadn’t weighed the pro’s and con’s of each site before electing to sign up for one that would match him with someone with similar Google searches. He hadn’t been hoping that the “similar searches” would be related to work — he hadn’t been quietly hoping to talk with a fellow chemical engineer, maybe even discuss astrophysics with someone.

He had been a little surprised to be matched based on the searches “20 pack 20 mL syringes,” “buy hydrogen peroxide near me,” and “viscosity of blood.”

Now, these weren’t necessarily work-related searches, but the person who had matched with him based on those searches had already swiped right on his profile. Logan recalled being a little confused, a little more curious, to see what this “Roman del Sol” might be doing with that sort of information. Logan himself had a solid alibi, what with his position at the university. No one could disprove that one of his pet-projects wasn’t about how blood reacted to certain chemical agents, and that would explain all three of the searches. And it wasn’t too far from the truth.

No, he hadn’t rehearsed the story in his head over and over while driving to the planetarium. It’d been his idea but Roman had accepted wholeheartedly, granted that they start at the cafe inside. “i wanna get to now you first ;P” was how he justified it, and in hindsight, Logan couldn’t believe he’d accepted a date with someone who typed like that.

Their conversations over the app were quite something. According to Roman’s profile, he was an actor, writer, and loved Disney. Upon first contact, Logan had to clarify what “loving Disney” entailed, which led them to a surprisingly heated but good-natured discussion about the ethics behind the Walt Disney Corporation becoming a monopoly of entertainment and media. Something about that led Roman to asking “r u doin anythin on friday, teach? ive got rehearsal until 6 but after that we could meet up somewhere and continue this delightful debate in person ;)” and something — Logan still couldn’t put his finger on what — but SOMETHING moved him to respond with “That would be lovely.”

So now here he was, parking in the planetarium’s lot. Logan looked at himself in his rearview mirror and straightened his tie with one hand, smoothing it down his chest slowly with his eyes trained on his own face. Dark bags had begun forming beneath his eyes, darker than a few years ago. He would have to make a larger effort to maintain his work schedule. And his skin had grown pale.

No. He shouldn’t waste time scrutinizing his own reflection like this, because he could spend hours doing so and he had to meet his date on time.

Logan held the edges of his sports coat as he exited the car, pulling his briefcase out with him. He slung the strap over his shoulder and brushed himself down once more. It didn’t hurt to want to impress, no. He just had to remember that he looked, what did Roman say, “dashing?” He looked dashing.

He checked his watch as he walked up the short path to the planetarium. He had arrived five minutes early, despite the traffic. Splendid. He could order and secure a table.

The prices were relatively understandable and the service fairly fast. Logan’s americano was sitting before him in ten minutes — meaning Roman del Sol was five minutes late. The thought ground Logan’s gears just a little, and he indulged in the meaningless frustration as he took his first sip, eyes glazed over while staring at the parking lot. Perhaps Roman had been caught up in the traffic? Or the rehearsal was running later than anticipated. Maybe he had stood Logan up. Or he’d gotten into a horrible car accident on the highway, resulting in fifteen dead and six wounded.

Reel it in. You’re turning into Virgil.

At that thought, Logan scoffed. He could never rile himself up as much as his livewire ex. Still, as his thoughts drifted back and forth between worrying about his new potential beau and anger towards his former flame, Logan couldn’t help himself in combining the two and worrying about Virgil. If Logan was taking the break up this hard, it was unlikely that Virgil was put together at all.

Now, now, Logan. Dr. Picani had said you shouldn’t decipher your past until you were ready and in a good location to do so. Maybe you are ready, but this certainly isn’t the stage, and this definitely isn’t the audience.

Speaking of theatrical metaphors, where the fuck was—

“Hello! Are you Logan?” speak of the devil.

Logan blinked, adjusting his glasses and sitting up slowly. “I, um. Yes,” he cleared his throat, a stern tone overtaking his voice as he was reminded that he’d been waiting for — he glanced at the clock on the wall — 23 minutes. “You must be Roman.”

His eyes trailed up and he had to mentally withhold from a verbal exclamation. Before him was, well, the most stunningly beautiful man he’d ever seen. Roman’s profile photos were true to life, hair swept lazily to the side, a dazzling playful smirk on his face as his slender fingers curled around the empty chair at Logan’s table. He was wearing a dark brown coat with a vibrant red scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, coat unbuttoned just enough to reveal a white and gold prince’s outfit beneath.

“Sorry I’m so late, rehearsal ran late and then the traffic was unbearable! I didn’t want to be too late, though, so I didn’t change out of my costume,” Roman slid into the empty seat, leaning forwards with his arms on the table, “It’s a pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Specs.”

He reached a hand out to Logan’s, which he assumed was to shake. Roman had a fairly firm grip and his hand was warm, warmer than Logan’s surely. Once they let go, Roman leaned forward on both of his elbows, smiling cheekily.

“I know we disagreed on a lot regarding Disney, but you must admit I was right about one thing,” his voice had a purr in it, almost like a cat.

Roman’s tone didn’t change the fact that Logan was definitely not giving up ground on their Disney argument. “Oh?” he raised an eyebrow, picking up his mug slowly, “About what?”

“You do look handsome. As dashing a prince as I’ve ever seen.”

Logan straightened up, a bright red flush overtaking his face. Oh. He cleared his throat and reached down for his coffee. “High praise coming from the man actually dressed as a prince,” two could play the flirtation game.

“A Scottish nobleman, thank you very much!” However, it seemed that Roman was more well-versed. “First, though, I would love to know when your birthday is.”

Their conversation bounced around, from astrology to astronomy, to the possible colonization of Mars, to civilization, and Logan was honestly refreshed by how quickly Roman was able to keep up with him regarding depth of knowledge. They did seem to disagree on a lot, such as how accurate astrology charts were, though Logan was as willing to overlook Roman’s acute knowledge of astrology as Roman was to overlook the apparently blasphemous fact that Logan was a Capricorn.

An hour or two of conversation had passed before Roman swept his hand through his hair, laughing heartily at something Logan must have said. They were on the topic of plays, since Roman’s current role was Macduff in Macbeth for the fall Shakespeare festival, and Logan had made an offhand comment about washing the theater blood from Roman’s pristine white outfit. Really, Logan knew nothing about theater. He considered it “professional make believe,” though the nature of poetic verse did intrigue him enough to actually read a few Shakespeare plays.

“What’s so comedic?” Logan asked, hand tracing around the rim of his empty mug.

“Oh, well, you know. You mentioning blood reminded me of the searches that crossed our paths,” Roman’s hand ran back, cupping the back of his neck as he chuckled a little more, looking not at Logan but out the window to his left.

Logan had almost forgotten that that was what they were meeting over. His back straightened, sitting upright.

He knew exactly why he’d been searching about syringes, hydrogen peroxide, and blood. He was more interested to hear why Roman was. And while he wasn’t nervous in the slightest (had Roman been a threat, Logan would have no trouble in alerting the authorities), Roman grew more jittery at the topic.

“....It’s always a little difficult to explain, but, well. I always end up searching the weirdest of things,” Roman shot him a tiny, lips pulled tight smile, “Usually it’s for reference, as an author. I’m working on a murder mystery novel.”

Ah. Logan nodded. “That would explain the blood viscosity search,” he said.

“Mhm. And you hit the nail on the head with the white outfit, actually,” Roman grabbed his costume’s sleeve and rolled it over, showing Logan the back part of his right arm.

There were a multitude of tiny light brown dots, barely visible on the white fabric. Logan raised his eyebrows.

“The information’ll definitely come in handy regarding my book, but what happened here was that I was stitching on new trimmings and kept poking myself in the hand. Eventually, well….I’m not the best tailor and I had to figure out a way to clean the fabric. The searches before that were probably ‘how to get blood off of clothes’ and ‘what’s hydrogen peroxide,” Logan snorted at the second search, to which Roman grinned, “Hey! Not all of us are chemists.”

“Chemical engineer,” Roman rolled his eyes and, despite the small flare of annoyance at the fairly common mistake, Logan felt something warmer well up at the sight of his small smile. He wanted to see more. “And you added the trimmings yourself? I thought there was a costuming department or such.”

“No, well, this is actually one of my personal costumes. It’s from when I played Cinderella’s prince in a production of Into the Woods a few years ago. The director for that is the same director working with us for the Scottish play, and to cut costs he asked if I could reuse the costume. With a few modifications, of course,” Roman smoothed out his outfit once more, smiling lopsidedly at Logan now.

“Of course,” Logan felt himself smile back, fondly watching Roman fiddle with the costume. He wanted him to keep talking.... “And you mentioned a book, correct?”

A spark jumped through Roman’s eyes and his face lit up. He clasped his hands on the tabletop, leaning forward as he did so. “My book! I don’t, oh, I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s a murder mystery novel! I’m just working on the first draft and research right now but once it’s out, oh once it’s out!”

Logan didn’t want to press Roman for details but....a murder mystery novel? That was his one of his favorite genres. And, well. Was his life. “A murder mystery? I won’t ask you to spoil it, but I am excited to read it,” he pushed his glasses up, watching Roman’s face glow brighter.

“Oh, maybe I’ll tell you a little! There’s definitely romance involved, but the beautiful beau at the center of it all has no clue who to trust. Does he trust the dashing but stoic doctor, or the charmingly focused detective, or maybe the righteous journalist following him around? Oh, it’s the mystery of the century!” Roman laughed, excitement laced through his voice, and Logan found the laughter to be contagious. 

“I’m excited for it,” he reiterated, unsure of what else to say.

Roman nodded energetically, now sliding his coat off. Something about the motions must have reminded him of the other pressing question in his mind, though, because his grin faltered for a second. It was up as quick as it went, however, and Roman asked “But what on earth were you doing searching about blood?”

The moment of truth. But Logan had long since become an expert at explaining that part of his life. He didn’t even have to draw in a breath, he just let his own giddiness ride itself out before answering. “It’s quite boring, compared to your story. All three of the searches were about work. I’m running a study on blood clotting agents at my lab. While I was the one bulk buying hydrogen peroxide and syringes, for the study, one of my graduate students was doing background research on, well. Blood.”

There was a bead of pause. Logan wasn’t nervous, no, but he could hear his own blood pumping. A quickened pulse meant nervousness. But he wasn’t nervous.

Roman was still looking out the window. For someone exuberantly animated, Logan thought, Roman was being very quiet at these revelations. He had an eyebrow quirked up as he seemed to watch the outside world. Logan couldn’t help but worry that Roman didn’t believe his story, but what wasn’t there to believe? It wasn’t an entire falsehood, only a few omitted details and one large fabrication. Did Logan not look like he’d run studies on blood?

“See, Professor Plum, you say that’s boring, but that honestly sounds quite fascinating.”

Logan blinked and watched Roman’s mouth curve into a small smile. He faced back towards Logan with a wide, supportive grin. “Blood clotting agents? For what, medical purposes? That sounds groundbreaking.”

Well — “Such a thing already exists, though in fairly unstable forms,” Logan adjusted his glasses, “We’re just working on, ah, making a less costly version.”

“Less costly? Like, the ingredients?”

“Precisely.”

Logan didn’t miss how Roman’s eyes widened, how they seemed to sparkle. Was that wonder? He hadn’t pegged Roman as the type to be so excited over scientific discoveries. “That sounds amazing! Really impressive, Logan,” his voice had a sort of breathlessness, was Roman really that impressed?

He seemed to catch himself, though. Roman leaned back and crossed his legs, the same Cheshire grin he’d been wearing all night returning to his face. “So you’re beautiful and a genius,” he hummed, voice as warm as his hands had been.

Logan couldn’t help but let out a breath as the rest of his face turned red at the praise. “I, well….thank you,” he also couldn’t help the little smile that grew on his face.

It fell in a second, though, when he realized Roman hadn’t disclosed all of his search reasons. “Wait. Why were you searching for syringes?”

And now it was Roman’s turn to turn red. A small laugh escaped his lips and his fingers drummed against his upper lip, a habit that did not escape Logan’s notice. “Well, it’s a long story. The summary is that I was trying to do that thing with flowers and food coloring, you know? I, ah….was trying to make a bouquet, and I needed a lot of syringes.”

Flowers and food coloring? “Can you elaborate? What do you mean, flowers and food coloring?”

Roman waved his hand now, a little dismissively. “Oh, t’was a bold dream. I’m not as good with precise measurements and such as you seem to be. There’s this thing you can do where, if you split the stem of a white rose, you can soak it in dyed water to change the color? You typically split up the stem and leave the different parts to soak in glasses with different colored water in them. I was trying to make a bouquet of rainbow flowers but, well….after a few days, it was clear that something had gone wrong. And after a week, I gave up on it.”

“You….you needed syringes. For that?”

Logan couldn’t help the incredulity that filled his tone. Roman gave him a tiny glare, shoulders hiking up — the way his brow furrowed, despite the evident frustration, was adorable. Logan didn’t expect this to be going so well, to be falling so hard for this dumbass, but it seemed he was still capable of being surprised. Roman…..wasn’t continuing, though. He just raised an eyebrow at Logan, face still stiff in a frown.

Was there some social cue Logan was missing? Was he supposed to know how to color roses? He shrugged. Surely he couldn’t expect that “I have never attempted to color roses, thus I am unaware.”

Roman kept watching him with a guarded expression, arms crossed around himself. Logan must have stepped out of line in some way. He had half a mind to apologize when Roman finally lowered his shoulders and cleared his throat. “No, no, you’re right. It….technically it wasn’t necessary.”

He’d bounced back fast. “But it was oh so fun. Almost like my own little experiment,” Roman smiled at him, “I like it when things are just perfect.”

“Of course, completely understandable,” Logan elected to not acknowledge Roman’s moment, “Did the roses turn out….okay?”

“They did! They were for Pride, of course, and they were beautiful!” Roman laughed.

And so they continued. Pride, homosexuality in the media, Star Wars movie theories, Star Wars versus Star Trek. Debates, bickering, insults with no bite behind them. It felt….

It felt like Logan was falling from a tall building. He’d never clicked so well with someone. And he certainly lost track of time.

“‘Scuse me, babes, but we’re closing!” Logan and Roman both turned towards the cafe’s desk, where the barista who had served the both of them was waving, “I’m gonna have to ask ya to leave!”

Logan checked his watch. Had they really talked for three hours? That must mean the planetarium was closed, too.

“Damn, well. We missed the planetarium,” Roman put his phone down and let out a breath, “I can’t say I’m too upset! It would have been lovely, of course, but I got to spend the night with an even more delightful star.”

He held out his phone towards Logan, whose ears were turning red with embarrassment. “I guess we’ll have to do this again sometime,” his voice was soft as Logan’s hand brushed over his to take the phone.

Logan felt himself smile downwards as he typed his information into Roman’s phone. “I would like that very much, Roman. Your company has been most enjoyable.”

“You, too, Spock.”