#(you would not believe the tomfoolery surrounding stigmas on non-stem majors i've heard like yeesh calm down ya enginerds)

[erlenmeyertrash]

Oil on Canvas, June 1889

me?? write something??? how dare

words: 1238 | pairings: logicality if you squint | warnings: none, but just lmk if you need something tagged

“It’s chilly out here.”

There’s a shifting of fabric and the slight scrape of clothes on concrete as he settles down beside Logan.

“I suppose it is.”

“Are you cold?”

Logan shrugs. “Not particularly.”

Patton peers through the slats of their balcony railing. The apartment complex’s perimeter fence and the houses beyond don’t make for particularly beautiful scenery, but as he sneaks a glance at Logan and sees that his dark eyes are staring skyward, he supposes it doesn’t matter. Logan opens his mouth ever so slightly and Patton watches his foggy breath drift and dissipate into the air.

“What’cha thinkin’ ‘bout?”

A pause. “Astronomy… and English,” Logan adds, his eyes still transfixed on the twilight sky.

Patton follows his gaze to the heavens. “What specifically?”

Logan takes a breath. Lets out a small puff of trailing white. And then- “...I took an astronomy course freshman year. Observational Astronomy. Every Wednesday night, we would go out with all these telescopes onto one of the fields by of the observatory. We would sit there for hours, just cataloging all the major constellations. We learned how to determine which one was Polaris, the North Star, using other constellations. We learned how the ancient Polynesians used their hands and specific star clusters as guides on the sea. I… I wrote an essay on the constellation Cassiopeia for extra credit. I aced every quiz. I didn’t even have to take the final.”

“That’s really impressive.”

“Is it?” Logan squints, scrutinizing the stars. “I suppose so. I felt very accomplished after that semester. Considered myself a true modern Renaissance man.” His sigh reveals itself in a tiny white cloud.

“...What about English?” Patton prods after a few beats of silence, but Logan doesn’t respond. Patton leans forward until his forehead touches the cold wrought iron railing. It makes his glasses go askew- the starry night blurs into blackness- but he makes no move to change that. If he concentrates, Patton can hear the low roar of car tires on the main roads. The air is still. Undisturbed. He huffs out a long breath and his eyes nearly cross as he tries to watch it disappear.

“...Right now there’s not a cloud in the sky, but I can’t name a single star.”

Logan’s voice is barely above a whisper. Patton whips his head around, one hand straightening his glasses on his nose. Logan’s eyes still haven’t shifted from the starlight, but his gaze is… sharper. Harsh. Instead of another cloud of warm breath, Patton sees his jaw clench.

Patton could comfort him. That’s all right. People forget knowledge they don’t use often to make room for new information. It’s been years since you took that class, and you probably haven’t looked at the stars that much since then. He could change the subject. He could ask about English again. But he doesn’t. He looks back up at the sky, eyes narrowed, tongue sticking out slightly between his teeth.

“...Well, there’s the Big Dipper.” He points up, glancing over at Logan, who is now staring right back at him with owlish eyes.

“See?” He leans over, making their lines of sight as close as possible so his finger is pointing in the right direction. “Those three right there? They make up the handle thing. That bottom one is the top left corner of the four that make up the, uh… the pot thingy. That part.”

“I see it.” Logan’s breath appears in his peripheral vision, and Patton’s gaze slides to it, his outstretched hand wavering. He looks at Logan, whose eyes are suddenly distant, his mouth sliding silent words over his teeth. Patton lowers his arm and waits for the great revelation Logan is uncovering in his head.

“There.” Logan’s hand shoots out, pointing upwards. “That one’s Polaris.”

Patton squints. “That really bright one?”

“No, down and to the right a little.” Logan’s finger mirrors the motion.

“Oh, I see it! How’d you know that?”

Another puff of breath. Patton loses Polaris. “Imagine a line between those two stars of Urs- the Big Dipper. Then take the length of that line, multiply it by five, and add it to that star along the line. Polaris is there.”

“That’s so cool,” Patton whispers, trying to find Polaris again. He thinks he’s found it. “Does that trick always work?”

“....As far as I’m aware, yes.”

“Math and stars.” Patton beams. “That’s awesome. I love that.”

“Do you now?” Something in Logan’s voice tells Patton the question isn’t rhetorical.

“Well- yeah. It’s so interesting. I love it. Just like how I love cool facts about biology. And how Roman loves theatre, and how Virgil loves psychology. And how I love them, and you.”

Patton sits back on his hands, sparing a glance at Logan, who is once again transfixed on the night sky. Patton shivers. He finds the Big Dipper again. Finds the bottom two stars. The distance between them. One, two, three, four,-

“I don’t love people,” Logan blurts out. Patton jumps.

“I- I don’t. I’ve never loved a person. And- even if I did, I wouldn’t know how. I love- I love subjects.” Logan forces a shaky inhale. “And I know how I love them- by studying them, by learning them forwards and backwards and inside out even though facts are intangible and do not have visible figures and therefore cannot be inside out. I know I love them when I learn all this and still think of new questions for which I can or even cannot discover an answer. I can discover new facts, new knowledge, if I can just connect enough dots. And you can’t- do that to people.

People are…”

Logan looks like he’s on a quest to battle the alphabet. Patton is barely moving. His breath is weak puffs of white.

“...not like physics. Not like math. The laws that define one person don’t apply to the rest,- or even to themselves all the time. Just look at psychology, and sociology, and how… finicky everything is. That’s how people are. All the facts- they’re not constant. They all jumble up and confuse m- each other. There is no right answer. It’s… puzzling.”

Patton’s grasping at straws and his hands are coming up empty. “...And here I thought you liked solving puzzles.” A light tease. A gentle prodding.

But Logan soberly replies, “people are not just puzzles, Patton.”

Patton is silent. There is an image in his head of Logan hovering in a doorway, cradling a pristinely folded shirt Patton had lost in the laundry a week ago like it is made of glass; then there’s Logan standing frozen, hands twitching, before raising one and knocking one, two, three times ever so gently on Virgil’s bedroom door; then there’s Logan, bathed in yellow lamplight, hunched over the coffee table- Roman asleep on the couch beside him- and Logan is copying down Roman’s tilted, jumbled handwriting in his own perfect typewriter script, swapping his pencil for one of many colorful glitter pens Logan would never use for his own notes every so often.

Patton looks up at the sky again.

One, two, three, four, five.

Finds Polaris.

Feels Logan’s stare. He knows Logan is waiting for something but he doesn’t know what.

Patton could search for a poetic, intellectual response; he could dig deeper and try to give Logan some lost key to the universe, to understanding people. Instead, he smiles.

“...No, I guess they’re not, huh?”