brewing trouble,

Well, no shit sherlock. Pants lie around his ankles, cheeks blaring a brighter red as the seconds tick by, the culprit of the prank running off to his forgotten physics class. What kind of friend pants you in public while speaking to a student? The son of a jedi, that’s who. 

He dusts himself off, walking away from the wreckage, trying to act as nonchalant as the day he was offered, and promptly declined, the opportunity to head the chemistry department at Cambridge. Ego was not a thing that Lucas knew, nor were compliments or anything other than being aggressively humble. He did not know how to react to her words. He tried to look elsewhere but she seemed to genuinely think he was brave–really, he was just being what he likes to describe as a normal human being.

He laughs. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to react, to deal, to do. “I mean… if you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate!” 

What does one say when one witnesses such a painful rejection. So public was the proposal, so public was her no, so public was the destruction of his ego. Poor guy, Lucas thinks, sipping from his coffee. He’s glad he’s single, at least for that moment, glad he doesn’t have to wade through that sea of emotions. She was right, though, it was awkward, painfully so, and the every person in the immediate vicinity knew it. 

“Talk about noble gases, amirite?” 

Awkward. What truly was awkward? Lucas knew awkward. He lived, breathed, studied it all throughout his life. Awkward would probably be the name of his movie biography if he ever achieved anything that could garner a movie. Maybe Johnny Depp could play him. Maybe he’ll off himself before he ever let’s the world see his life played across a hundred inch screen. Maybe he should answer her. 

“Awkward? That’s not even the half of it. I once had a chemist friend. Though he is no more. He thought H2O was H2SO4.”

As swift as the student calls out, Lucas reaches his arm behind him and grabs the vial of concentrated sulphuric acid before it can crash to the floor. Working in a lab trained him for situations as such, reflexes honed and perfected in a room full of clumsy thumbs and untrained fingers. Students never really know the level of danger that is present in a chemistry lab. Placing it delicately back into it’s place, as if it was a rose given on a first date, or returning a bottle of wine after stealing a sip or two, he smiles at Dallon. 

“The older the chemist gets, the less they react”