Easy Being Green

THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS Raven wishes she can get under her control. The way she says something that accidentally cuts Garfield down being one of them. His sincere apologetic look deepens her frown line, although it is short-lived. The shift into the emerald feline is a sight she can't never help but find endearing. The dark intensity in her eyes soften for a second.

"You shouldn't make promises you know you can't keep," she replies, "I won't be the one to hold you to it anyway." Her eyes turn back down to the page she's on. She doesn't read on from where she last left off, although she does keep up the ruse that she's still reading. If today is like any other day, he will likely want to talk. Maybe not about his nightmares if they strip his upbeat nature into a bundle of nerves, but usually there's always something on his mind.

"So," Raven breaks the silence again. "Are you still staring or did you already close your eyes?"

SILENCES WERE ONE THING that barely lasted around Gar, usually due to his inability to control how active his mouth gets. Talking a lot, throwing out random half-funny jokes, or the customary sighs of boredom were all things that usually cut through a silence like a knife. Each and every one of those things, he was trying his hardest to keep at bay because he'd promised to let her read. How could she focus when the changeling was filling the necessary quiet with all manner of random noise?

Since she'd broken it first ... "I wasn't staring, I was half hoping that you'd start reading your book out loud because a good story always puts me to sleep," he mumbled. Covering part of his face with blankets so she wouldn't see his bashful expression, but his green eyes still watched. She hadn't turned her page in a while, and he knew she read faster than this. "What are you reading about, anyway?"

It always failed. Someone always called her out on trying too hard not caring when clearly it often frustrated her when some of their foes couldn't find any sort of path toward redemption.

She was soft like that, at times, so how much more so would she be to someone as stupidly sweet as Garfield?

But... what if this effort to push away her bad mood (brought on by something she had yet to even name to him or anyone else) wasn't that serious? He had said she was being far too serious to start.

Darcy slid an arm up from where it had been tucked and cradled between them and set her warm palm against his cheek. This didn't have to be serious, it could be fun.

"Okay," she whispered, finally settling into the idea that they could come away from this unscathed, that this was just something friends could do sometimes and why not?

He'd been expecting her to laugh it off and accept his equally honest offer to just snuggle instead. When she kissed him, it took him off guard, and he needed the moment she granted for his mind to catch up with what had happened. Garfield smiles when she comes in for another. Shifting to press his body closer to hers.

This wasn't anything serious. They were making out because it was fun. Doing something fun and sensual was the perfect way to make someone forget they were in a bad mood.

She does have one more, more scandalous than the other two that she wasn't even planning on sending to Gwen, but now shes debating it. On one hand, she didn't really know what they were, what it said about her sending nudes to someone when they hadn't ever classified anything. On the other hand, bantering with Gar was quickly becoming one of her favorite pastimes.

Garfield had to almost slam his phone down when someone started to walk up from behind him to ask him a question. He sheepishly squeaked out a few answers to a fairly important question, cleared his throat, and repeated himself with a more confident voice. Scratched the back of his neck when they pointed out he was being a little weird and joked about how he was always weird. Then was able to get back to his conversation.

Intercepting a distress call this far out was always a bit of a gamble. Space was massive and for all either of them knew it was sent weeks, months, maybe even years ago before she picked it up but this whole thing sent alarm bells off in her head. Garfield was saying something to her left but it wasn't registering.

Gwen was always too focused on the mission.

And something didn't feel right. She combed the entire ship twelve times over and there wasn't a trace of anybody ever being on board. No clothes, no left over meal packets, no lingering signs of life ever existing that she could pick up. Either this was an old ship that got spaced from a larger station by accident and some signals got crossed or something very sinister was going on here.

Gwen's sits in the captains chair, boots lift onto the main console, fingers steepled and brows knitted together in concentration. It was easier to do a final sweep to locate even the faintest of energy signatures if she remains still and focused. She only takes one moment to throw a look over at Gar and back again to the deep void of space.

❝ Please don't touch anything. ❞

Having acted in a space opera until making his iconic exit to return to life as a superhero, Garfield had the horrible habit of thinking he knew more about space than he actually did. Sure, he'd actually been out in space on occasion. He recalled a particular time when the Titans had swiped a ship from the Justice League so they could venture into the vast expanse to save Starfire from another of her sister's plans to destroy her. The thing about controls on a Justice League ship? Intuitive, very not alien in design.

Unlike this ship. Nah, this place was different. Every square foot of this ship was filled with curios that were stoking his desire to learn. And like a toddler, his immediate method for learning something was to touch everything. This ship wasn't fully powered, so touching one or two things wouldn't hurt anything, right? Very sound and reasoned hypothesis.

❝ Please don't touch anything. ❞

Those humorless words struck him like a bad musical note that caused him to flinch away from the switch he was literally millimeters away from touching with an outstretched finger. Party pooper party pooper party pooper.