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The sky above them was painted a gentle shade of deep blue. Late-night clouds listed lazily overhead, too few in number to blot out the view, but enough to frame the picture-perfect night in shades of purple.
Roman lay back against the grass, head cushioned in his crisscrossed hands as he gazed above him. A soft smile had floated to his features when Logan had first suggested this, it stayed there even now. It had been an arduously long week for the both of them and their schedules only promised to grow more hectic as the month crawled on but here, in this moment, none of that seemed to matter.
His smile only widened as he thought back to approximately an hour ago. Roman had just collapsed into his bed, tired and frustrated at his inability to shut off for just one moment when his phone vibrated on his nightstand. The action caused his phone to fall from the stand, bouncing on the floor and settling under his bed. With an exaggerated groan, he shuffled so he could peer over the edge, fishing for his phone and unlocking it with a few swipes. The face unlock feature never worked whenever his sleep-deprived self was blinking blearily at the screen and he considered it a personal attack. As the screen lit up to reveal Logan's name on his texting app, Roman promptly fell the rest of the way off the bed. He sat up, tangled in a trapeze swing of blankets. Logan. Asking if he was awake. Logan, asking if he was home. Logan, asking him to come outside.
It was unprompted, spontaneous, and unexpected. Roman battled to his feet and torpedoed through his room, throwing on the red hoodie from his dad’s clothing line that he cherished and leaning into a mirror to tame the late-night mess of his hair. He shot back a text of several emoji’s, followed by a text explaining that the emoji’s meant yes he was awake, followed by another text apologising for the first two texts and confirming he would be down in a moment. He knew it wasn’t an emergency, they had a rule for that. An emergency of any kind would be transmitted over a phone call and as much as Roman loved talking on the phone (as it gave him more of a chance to be expressive in the moment) he conceded the point to Logan. Logan never phoned unless it was necessary. Though whatever seemingly unnecessary reason had brought Logan to his apartment, he wasn’t quite sure.
He was out the door five minutes later, forgoing the lift in favour of sliding down the stair bannisters. He paused at the main doors to collect his breath and recentre himself. With a deep breath, he pushed them open, squinting into the darkness. It did not take long to find him, illuminated in the soft, earthly glow of a streetlight. His smile tight, hands in his pockets, cheeks tinted pink in a subtle blush that rose to his ears and ghosted the back of his neck.
He had mentioned an inability to sleep, a hypothesis that Roman, who often would work into the night was the same. He mumbled about the clarity of the sky, about the constellations that would be in view tonight from the outskirts of the city and before he could say anything else Roman had fished his keys from his jeans and pushed Logan towards the car park.
And now here they were, side by side under a skyful of dreams. Logan pointed upwards, his mumblings were forgotten as he spoke bright and loud about how you could see Perseus if you turned your head, how it lived just under Cassiopeia which seemed to shine impossibly bright. Roman hmm’d and ah'd, squinting at the stars and only seeing about half of what Logan was pointing out. A canopy of names and histories they were only scratching the surface of. Roman wondered how many people were staring up at this same sky, where they were, what they were thinking. He glanced sideways at Logan, his eyes alight with the very specks that twinkled above them. He doubted any of the others were as lucky as he was right here.
He must have stared too long because suddenly Logan’s face was tilted towards him, mouth hanging half-open in question. Roman quickly sat up, looking ahead at the constellation he had given up trying to find. “What’s that one?” he stuttered, gesturing vaguely at another collection of stars he couldn’t see the pattern in.
Logan sat up next to him, bathed for but a moment in gentle silence. When he spoke, he was softer somehow. “That’s Auriga,” he said, “The charioteer. It houses Capella, one of the brightest multiple star systems in the sky.”
Roman nodded, tilting his head and catching a glimpse of a helmet pattern. “It’s pretty breathtaking.”
“Indeed.” Logan hummed. “I must thank you, by the way, for coming out here.”
“Don’t mention it Specs.” Roman grinned, fingers absently curling in the grass. “Thank you for bringing me.”
Silence drifted around them again, paired in solace with a whisper of wind carrying the chill of night. Roman, wrapped in his hoodie paid it no heed, but he did not miss Logan's shiver through his sweatshirt. He felt his eyebrow raise, it was unlike him to not come out prepared for the weather.
The annoyed huff that escaped Logan's lips confirmed his frustration at this fact, and wordlessly Roman shuffled closer towards him. He pressed himself to Logan's side. He may not be very good at connecting the dots with the stars, but he did an excellent job of being a human radiator, or so he had been told.
Patton had always said he loved Romans hugs best of all, and after Virgil had calmed himself down he would sit with Roman on the couch in their shared apartment. He had mentioned once whilst drunk that it was comforting and safe, a constant in a world of chaos. Roman had never let him forget that.
With Logan, it was different. It was always different. Their hugs were rare and short and Logan would often sit on the other side of the couch or in another chair entirely. With Logan, the moments were stolen. Knees knocking under tables, elbows catching in the hallways. Roman loved it. Roman hated it. Tiny moments of nothing special that set of fireworks in his chest. It was stupid, irrational and surely one-sided. And yet.
And yet here, under the glow of thousands of tiny moments that somehow were special, maybe he could allow himself to dream. If these stars, these far away collisions of beauty were cause for wonder, then surely they were too. Surely he was allowed to see the beauty in the seconds. In the spaces between the seconds.
Logan was looking at him again.
Logan was looking at him as if he were made up out of the stars above. As if he were something worth gazing at. Roman looked back as if he never had the strength to look away. They were close, When did they get closer? Close enough to see the specks of green in Logan’s eyes, the dusting of freckles across Roman’s cheeks. The stained glass moment stretched between them a moment longer before Roman could finally speak.
“I’d like to kiss you.” He said, swallowing.
They breathed. Roman watched as Logan filtered from surprise to confusion to a lopsided grin.
“I dare you to,” he said, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
Roman couldn’t help the grin that easily lifted his features. He leant forwards, cupping Logan's cold face in his warm hands. Their lips met, soft and sure and as the world around them dimmed they grew in dazzling intensity. Logan took over and Roman had to cling to him so as not to get lost in the spinning dizziness of the field and the stars and the places they had come from, the people that they once were and the choices that led them here. When they parted the infinite skies seemed to pale in comparison to the symphony of colours that played across their faces.
Logan opened his mouth to speak, interrupted by a heavy boom of thunder that most definitely did not come from him.
And then, as if the skies had grown jealous, the heavens opened. Thick, heavy rain splattered against them and bulleted towards the ground. Logan's open mouth immediately filled with water and he spluttered, coughing and spitting.
Roman laughed, bright and loud and real. His wet hair falling into his eyes as he watched Logan struggle with his glasses in the rain, earning a swat to his arm.
“We should find shelter,” Logan grumbled.
“We should-” Roman nodded.
Neither moved.
“- Or,” he drawled, levelling Logan with a sly look.
“Roman we’ll get ill if w-”
Roman pounced at him, pinning him to the ground with a satisfied grin. “Or we stay here,” he whispered, leaning down to capture Logan in another kiss. Gentle and strong and full of contradictions that didn’t matter, for all that truly mattered was Logan was kissing him back, and in the next moment he had been flipped over, Logan now sat astride him with his glasses askew and lips parted like a question. Roman grinned, blinking away the rain that was falling into his eyes and laughing at the sheer realisation of their situation. They were both soaked through and would likely catch an infuriating cold, but none of that fazed him. Not when Logan, in his sopping wet glory, was looking down at him as if he had just plucked Capella from the sky and handed it to him in a bouquet. He reached up, clasping his fingers around Logan's tie and pulling him down towards him, and just like that, all other thoughts melted away.
----
When they did inevitably catch an awful cold, Patton fretted between both their apartments with hot soup. Virgil had texted Roman a series of exclamation marks before concluding they would just have to quarantine together so nobody else would get ill and no I’m sorry but that’s the way it has to be Roman and you’ll probably have to share a room too, them's the breaks dude. He shut the door on them with a grin, Patton owed him twenty bucks.