Everyone gets together at the library to study for finals even though almost no one shares any classes. One of the chairs at the table is heaping with winter jackets, hats, and scarves, and Gar takes the time to prop his hat up on top and position two sleeves akimbo so that the pile looks like a sad, deformed (perpetually cold) student who has melted under the pressure.
Raven's the last to arrive, carrying a tray of paper cups sporting the logo of the coffee shop she works at, using her free hand to sip from a cup of her own. She sets the tray on the table and distributes the drinks between them, Gar smirking to find the name Garfunkel on his. Dick takes his own coffee across from him and smiles tiredly at Raven, leaning back in his chair for the first time since he sat down. "Thanks again for offering to bring us drinks, Raven."
"And for taking my unusual request into consideration," Kori adds, which stacks up. From what Gar's seen, and heard, Kori's diet consists of ingredient pairings he'd never consider. That anyone would consider, frankly. Then it occurs to him that in order to take a request into consideration, Raven would had to have asked what everyone wanted. She had extended no such question towards him.
Wondering if she really does hate him and so, not wanting to give him anything special, brought him a plain coffee, he takes a small sip. Then another. Soy milk, espresso, white chocolate syrup because he's an absolute child. The familiar flavor of his go-to order gives him pause, and he stares at Raven until she shifts uncomfortably and glances up at him. Granted, he goes to the shop and orders almost every other day, and at least half the time he orders this very same mix, but still. She remembers his order.
She brought him his order.
He beams at her, to which she sneers a little before focusing again on situating her work station next to him. His eyes drop to her hands, meticulously squaring her notebook, pen, and textbook. A textbook that makes him straighten up in his chair. "Biology?"
A tortured sigh escapes her as she flips open her notebook. "Gen ed. Why a literature major needs to know anything about mitochondria is beyond me."
"The powerhouse of the cell," he nods sagely. She spares him a tired glare, which he ignores in favor of waving his book of smarty-pants essays in front of him. "That's okay, I'm taking a writing gen ed. It's my worst grade this semester."
"Shocker."
Gar opens his mouth again when Dick shushes them from across the table. Pursing his lips in annoyance, he decides not to irk him any further and returns to an essay about the importance of citations. Thrilling. It only takes a few minutes for him to glance at what Raven's doing again. His eyebrows come together, and he squints at her diagram. Then he glances past her notebook at the diagram in the textbook.
Leaning into her personal bubble, Gar taps a finger on the open page of her textbook. "That line's pointing to that green thing there." He moves his point to the neat labels and terrible drawing of an animal cell that she's copied. Raven is not an artist. "Those circles are lysosomes, and the space inside the membrane that all the other stuff floats in is the cytoplasm."
After a moment of silence, he glances up at her, meeting wide eyes that are alarmingly close to his own. Even from a distance he's known that her eyes are unlike any he's seen before, but up close? Man. He could wax poetry if he knew how. Gar pulls in a slow breath, then leans back into his chair. Raven probably knows how to write poetry. What would she want an illiterate like him for?
Flipping her pen around, Raven begins to erase her mislabeling. "Thank you," she murmurs, but he's entirely too entranced by her pen.
"Woah, you have erasable pens?"
She pauses in sweeping her paper flat. "Um. Yes."
"That's so coo-"
"Garfield!"
He blinks up at Dick, who has a pencil clenched threateningly in his direction. "Yes?"
"Shut up."
Properly chastised, Gar sinks into a slouch. Obediently silent for the next half hour, he finally reaches the end of his assigned chapters and gets to move on to editing his final paper and fixing up the citations. The brightness of his laptop screen takes a bit of adjusting to after studying the print of his book, and honestly he'd rather just read more books than have to hand in an essay. Writing's a lot of work. Especially when it's about something he doesn't care about.
Just when he thinks his citations look perfect, or as good as they're going to get, he feels someone edging close to his shoulder. He glances at Raven out of the corner of his eye. "'Is' is a verb," she informs him quietly, gesturing towards the third citation in the list at the very end of his paper. "It should be capitalized there."
"Thanks," he whispers, fixing the error with two clicks and a couple keys. He quirks the corner of his lip up into a half-grin, delighted to see her own frown melt into a softer curve.
Much to Richard's dismay, the two continue to eyeball the other's work and offer tips, to the point that their very good friend actually kicks them out of the library. Raven's notably more disgruntled about that than Gar is. Being a book nerd, he's sure this is the first time she's ever been ousted from a library. He really doesn't mind, though, since the result of the exile is walking side by side with her in the soft blanket of evening.
Gar glances at Raven, her stoic features dipping into darkness when they step out of the cast of one of the lamps lining the sidewalk from the library to the parking lot. Her attention is on the moon, either waxing or waning; he's not entirely sure. "Coke or Pepsi?"
The question is sudden, and her eyebrows twitch closer together. "...I'm not fond of soda."
Humming like he's just glimpsed into the deepest recesses of her psyche, Gar stuffs his hands into his pockets. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't hesitate in sharing his own preference. He's a sharer. Now, though, he wants her to be curious enough to ask. He's sure she doesn't care, though, so even though the silence stretches between them, he's not too disappointed.
Raven's hands catch on her elbows, hugging herself in a way. "How about you?"
A pleased grin blooms across his lips, and he turns his head to face her. She's still staring off into the distance. "Coke."
"Don't let Dick hear you say that," she drawls, fingers now working and smoothing the fabric of her jacket sleeve.
Gar gasps theatrically. "I'm friends with a Pepsi Perp!"
Much to his surprise, and apparently hers, that earns him an amused snort. He stares at her, and finally, she releases her hold on the horizon and stares back. His grin widens until it feels like it's going to permanently contort his face, and her lips curl into a small, horrified sneer. "That was a stupid joke," she hurries to say, eager to contradict the small noise of amusement she'd let slip.
"You thought it was funny."
"I most certainly did not."
Gar laughs, loud and unapologetic in the silence of the night. "Denial's comfortable, huh?"
Dropping her arms, Raven stops by a sleek black sedan and shoves a hand into her bag, withdrawing her keys. "Goodnight, Gertrude."
Her tone is brusque and dismissive, but he smiles softly anyway. "Goodnight. Raven."
Eyes like the inky skies above blink back at him, and he realizes with a pang of panic that his voice had gotten soft as well. Raven never says anything though, just glances again at the moon, then opens the car door and ducks into the driver's seat.