dino

It's embarrassing really. Downright mortifying. You'd been fine taking a gamble, with the chance that you'd get just one more hour before campus security found you and kicked you out. But you're not quite prepared for anyone else to know that this finals season has you desperate enough to try and lock yourself in the library over night for more study time. You'd been sure that you would be alone. Alone and able to work undisturbed on your essay, with all of your sources on hand.

And yet, rounding the corner you'd almost run headlong into… closer examination reveals a very bedraggled Gale Dekarios, about as frantic as you are — which you suppose is fair, he's under the same deadline that's currently kicking your ass.

"What the hell are you doing here?" you question, a little sharper than you mean, but your pulse is still fast enough that it rushes in your ears. The only other person you'd expected to see here tonight is campus security, definitely not your sometimes friend — sometimes annoyance from the class whose final you're on the verge of failing. Gale looks just as flummoxed as you.

"I - er - I fell asleep." he manages, one hand carding through his hair, it sticks up at all angles escaping from the hair-tie at the nape of his neck. "Woke up and the library was closed."

His stomach growls audibly, and you laugh. Poor idiot, you've been sleep deprived too — probably are right now — but you've never been 'catastrophic nap in the library' levels of exhausted.

"There's a vending machine on this floor, I think?" you offer helpfully, Gale looks suddenly sheepish, like he's weighing his options. His hunger wins out, stomach growling again.

"I have sandwiches," he admits, you narrow your eyes at him.

"You went to the library to study in the evening, and you brought sandwiches?"

"Evening snack?" Gale offers, shrugging.

"Did you plan on spending the night here?" you accuse.

"I did not!" Gale defends.

"You're awfully prepared for someone who didn't plan on being stuck in a library after closing." you eye him suspiciously.

"Well," Gale sniffs, the very picture of affronted dignity. "I'm often prepared for the unexpected, it is a virtue after all." You level a look of sheer skepticism at him, watching with some satisfaction how his resolve crumbles under the weight of your stare.

"And I may have been planning on staying here fore, eh, longer than conventionally expected?" he admits, and you're forced to recon with two things at once. Firstly, the satisfaction that Gale Dekarios is exactly as large of a nerd as he looks, and secondly, the faint blush dusting his cheeks at the embarrassing admission is disarmingly sweet. The moment doesn't last long though, he recovers, turning your own scrutiny back onto you.

"That covers me, but why are you here?" he questions, his eyes taking in you in from your sweatpants, to your notebook, to your reading glasses perching awkwardly half on your nose half off. You'd aimed for comfort, not for style. But you'd also assumed you'd be alone. For a second he just stares at you, his grin widening under your non-answer. Under the implication that you are here for the same reason he is. You sigh.

"Share your sandwiches, you can have some of my coffee, deal?" you suggest, no sense in denying what you both already know. And hey, maybe it might actually be easier to stay awake if you have company. Gale, annoyingly so, looks victorious as he grins at you.

"Deal."