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[reehobbs.insanejournal.com]

Who: Regan Hobbs and Dominic Tremblay
What: A random run-in, Ree getting her way.
Where: Rattlesnake Trail and beyond
When: September 22nd
Rating/Status: PG-13 for makeouts / Complete



Gooseberry High was not the sort of place where anyone could get away with being “indoorsy” for long. Getting anywhere at all involved a lot of walking out in the elements as a matter of necessity, and that was just the beginning of the outdoor exposure. Fortunately, Regan wasn’t really the type to mind having to hike to get anywhere; even more fortunately, it was still that time of year when it was nice out, rather than freezing and miserable. And hey, either way, you sometimes ran into interesting people on the trails.

Like now. She rounded a corner, and nearly bumped smack into five-foot-ten of her very favourite Coppertale (not that there was a whole lot of competition at the end of the day.)

“Quebec!” she greeted happily once she’d made sure neither of them was actually going to fall down, though she didn’t actually back up at all. Regan was not the sort of girl to intentionally put distance between herself and someone as attractive as Dominic Tremblay, not unless asked, anyway. “Fancy meeting you, or whatever the cool kids are saying these days.”

Dominic was on one of his infamous rambling walks around campus, having looped up towards Rattlesnake from Gila Monster on his way to the school building, when his idle imagination was interrupted. Instead of vague musings on Coppertale’s chances in the Quidditch and what the hell one might have to do if asked to join a Cheer squad, a vision in Azurcrest blue was forefront in his mind. Regan Hobbs, Sophomore, pretty girl who he'd flirted a little with on the journals. Well, there have been worse ways to collide with someone in the grounds, he thought.

“Raven Queen” he replied teasingly, matching her tone for his. “Still no cape of feathers, I see?”

Tremblay was in the mood to flirt. Good. Regan beamed at him, though it pained her to admit: still no cape of feathers.

“Working on it,” she assured him, shrugging. “In the meantime-” and she twirled around so that her skirt flared around her, swooshing her arms out as if she was wearing a cape, “-queenliness is a state of mind.”

Dropping the pose, she grinned again. “Where’re you off to, then? Super secret Coppertale business?”

“Not too sure Queens would dance around like that, though” he grinned, making a twirling gesture with his finger in her general direction. “Unless you’re planning on starting a new trend, of course.”

That said, he kind of liked her openness. Good job, really.

“Nah” he replied, pulling at his shirt to make a point as he looked at her. “The not so secret need to return to Coppertale for a shower. I just went up to school to talk to Vector about the Cheer thing, and in this fucking weather I think I’m melting.”

“Queens,” Regan replied with very great dignity, “can do whatever we like. We make the trends.” She twirled again, just to prove a point of her own.

She leaned close to inspect the shirt Dominic was pulling at, and nodded. “Yeah, you do kind of look like you’re melting. Sorry to say. I guess you Canucks just can’t take the heat.”

He snorted at that. “You’ve clearly never been to Calgary during stampede season” he quipped, lifting up the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Jogging in this is a piece of cake compared to that.”

Dominic eyed her quizzically, then, realising he’d never asked her in return where she’d been going to. “So, where’ve you been headed?” he enquired, straightening his clothes.

Regan wasn’t ashamed to say that she watched the older boy lift his shirt. Anyone would have enjoyed the sight, she reasoned. And if he were modest, he wouldn’t be going around doing things like that.

“Having a wander,” she explained with a shrug. “Seeing who I run into. Lucky me!”

It was true - Dominic wasn't modest. However, in this instance, he hadn't thought until after the act how it may have seemed. Oh well, it wasn't as though he minded Regan looking. In fact, he quite enjoyed the notion of being looked at. Ogled, even.

“So, if not for a quirk of fate, someone else would be getting the attention? What a sad thought” he quipped, grinning wickedly.

“I guess,” Regan agreed, smirking. “And what a tragedy that would be for both of us. I’m tagging along, by the way. Not into your shower, because that would be a little pushy even for me, but a girl can dream.”

She didn’t have anywhere else more interesting to be at this exact moment, after all. Any vague notions she’d had of meandering around until she found Calvin could wait.

Dominic pursed his lips into an amused, but not repelled smirk. He was a teenage boy who liked girls, after all. If one was willing to put the image of a shared shower into his mind, he felt he could risk getting a little heavier where the flirting came. Easy steps, though. He wasn’t known for being one of the few subtle folks in Coppertale for nothing.

“You’d make a prettier sight hanging around the guys’ bathrooms than their usual occupants” Dom quipped, winking. One teenage boy alone was one thing, but a group together at early morning or evening was quite another. Good job their female counterparts didn’t scare easy. “You can come hang out, if you want.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ree replied, faux-thoughtful. “Some of you guys are very pretty yourselves. Maybe I should tag along and be the judge of that.”

Dominic may have been subtle, but Regan certainly wasn’t. The invitation was enough for her to loop an arm through his and start down the path, cheerfully willing to let the flirtation get as heavy as he wanted. “Just a warning, if you don’t know this about me, but I don’t go in much for double speak and I take what people say at face value, so if you don’t actually want me hanging around, don’t tell me you do. Got it?”

“Trust me, most don’t look too pretty first thing in the morning before any kind of grooming takes place” Dominic snickered in reply. He tucked his hand back in his pocket once Regan linked arms with him, meaning their arms were held together gently as they accompanied each other down the path that led from the higher ground of Azurcrest and the school building, out towards the meadows of Coppertale.

He looked at her quizzically, though, when she went on to speak further. “Why would I ask if you wanted to hang out if I didn’t want that? It’d be wasting my time as well as yours.”

“Dunno,” Regan said with a shrug. “Some people are afraid of being impolite. Not me, obviously, but some people. Though, you’re not a Ribbonfin, so I guess you’re not one of those people.”

She grinned at him, thoroughly pleased with how her day was going.

“So,” she continued, after a few moments, “cheer? This a new thing for you?”

“I may not be a Ribbonfin, but I am Canadian” he laughed, carefully taking a sidestep to avoid leading them through uneven ground. “Can you imagine the stereotypes colliding if Canadians started getting sorted there on the regular?”

Dominic was equally content. Walking through the grounds, arm in arm with a girl who was cute and funny was not a bad way to spend one’s day.

He chuckled, a little self consciously as she brought up his Cheer tryout. “Eh, you know, tried on a whim. Thought it might be fun. Wasn’t bad, actually” he admitted. “Prefect rounds have been my only chance to be athletic of late.”

Regan tilted her head to the side, considering. “What, do you run the grounds on your rounds? That could be fun, actually. I’m not sure my partner would be into it, though.”

Not that Regan minded much; she was a go-your-own-way kind of girl. Still, she was trying to follow the rules when it came to Prefecthood, and she wasn’t sure that jogging on rounds counted.

Dominic shook his head. “Nah” he replied, his arm still linked in Regan’s. “I do those properly. But you know, it’s an extra hike and all. I do take the long route back to Coppertale after, though. Different route every time.”

Of course, people sometimes made jokes about how it would be easy to go hide with one’s significant other while doing that, but Dom didn’t have one of those.

“So mostly stomping through the woods, then?” Regan teased. There weren’t that many paths, after all. “Try not to get poison ivy, it’s the total worst. And Mufferaw totally won’t do anything for it, except maybe this horrifying Muggle pink stuff if it’s really bad, but that stuff does not work, so just trust me on this and don’t get poison ivy.”

“Sure, stomping through the woods, but you can get a good run on some of the trails” he replied. He liked to run, or at the very least, take long walks. “And I managed to avoid poison ivy so far, I think. There was a Coppertale prefect when I was a freshman who ended up coming back to the cabins shirtless because he’d been brushed by something that gave him a bright blue rash, though. That would’ve been embarrassing.”

He thought for a moment, wanting to ask Regan about herself. “So, do you do much out of doors? Apart from Quidditch, that is.”

“Boating, obviously,” Regan said, the latter bit because Dominic was in it with her. That was how he’d caught her admittedly-wandering eye. Maybe he hadn’t noticed her there, and that was okay: she was in the process of making sure she didn’t go unnoticed by him any longer. “And Equestrian, though I am not really all that great with horses. I just want to be great with horses, it’s a leftover dream from my seven-year-old self.”

She sighed theatrically and pressed the back of her free hand to her forehead, as if this was all a very great tragedy.

“Ah, but those are all sanctioned activities” Dom teased, wiggling his eyebrows at her as the path began to descend further downhill. “I mean, your head of house in particular thinks I'm nuts for going off on random routes, but it makes your walks pretty private…”

There was, of course, an unspoken innuendo there. He would let Regan decide how far to take it.

“Private, eh?” Regan asked, obviously taking it and running with it. That was sort of her thing in life, after all. “How private are we talking, Quebec? Please, tell me what you do on your oh-so-private forest walks.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, and then dropped the expression to laugh at herself.

Dominic guffawed at at facial expression, slipping his arm from hers and slinging it loosely around her shoulder, patting her other side affectionately. “Haven't you heard? I've had half the girls in school around here” he quipped dryly, so seriously sounding now that he was clearly not serious, as much as he was continuing the innuendo.

He hadn't dated at all his freshman year at Gooseberry, and only a little casual dating in sophomore. Not much of his personal life was on public record, so to speak, much of his experience being with girls back home.

“If that’s true, I’m going to be honest, I’m a little hurt that you didn’t see fit to include me in the line-up,” Ree replied, nose wrinkling. “I mean, come on. I’m pretty cute, and half is a pretty big percentage. You coulda thrown me a quick make-out sesh somewhere in there.”

Not that she really thought Dom was being serious. Teasing him, though, was fun.

Dominic laughed again, a hearty, good natured laugh that meant his shoulders shook, skin brushing on skin as a result. “Just a quick make out session? I save that for when I'm just a bit bored”, he teased back, coming to a stop on the path. Dom turned a little, his body at an angle to hers, and tilted his head lower so that he could kiss her without either of them having to move, accommodating the height difference.

Well. That had been a lot easier than Regan had expected it to be, and she couldn’t say she was sad about that. She made a little noise of surprised against Dominic’s mouth, but she reached up to lay a hand on the nape of his neck and kissed him back happily. She was trying not to get too ahead of herself here, so she didn’t try to deepen it or make it last too long, and when she pulled back a little she was beaming at the older boy.

“Wow, my secret plan to seduce you is going swimmingly,” she informed him. “We should probably keep doing that.”

Dominic chuckled again, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “Well, I AM kind of easy” he grinned, lowering his hand to sit on her waist.

“And seducing me, huh? I feel so thoroughly used. Not” he rolled his eyes in amusement. “How about I kiss you again and you tell me more about this plan?”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Regan agreed enthusiastically, stretching up to kiss him again quickly, before he could do something silly like change his mind. “Though I have to admit, it wasn’t a very developed plan. Mostly, it was ‘see Dominic, be adorably cute and flirtatious, talk him into kissing, go from there.’ But like I said, it’s going very well.”

The kisses, while fairly short and definitely not too deep, were nonetheless a fun distraction in the afternoon late sun. That said, they were still out on the path…

“Let's head further towards the meadow” he suggested, slinging his arm around her shoulder again, his fingers brushing along her collarbones. “And we can talk nefarious ideas.”

Regan grinned, clearly thrilled with plan. “You have all the best ideas,” she agreed. “And I hear you know all about the private spots around here, so lucky us.”

She slid her own arm around Dominic’s waist, happy to walk so that their legs brushed and hips bumped a little. Any contact was good contact, in Regan’s book.

The path leading down to Coppertale was surprisingly quiet, Dominic noted. Aside from a pair of their Freshmen passing, books in hand on the way to the library, they had the route nearly all to themselves. As they approached the dorms, the area almost glowing softly in the Autumn light, Dom gestured to an area between the sets of girls’ and boys’ cabins, in the shade of the walkways, where a few squashy leather beanbag chairs had been casually tossed into the area. “Not hard to hide those away” he grinned.

Laughing, Regan let go of Dominic to go throw herself onto a beanbag, arms spread as if she owned the place, and wiggled around until she was comfortable. “Nice,” she approved. “This is a very Azurcrest touch you guys have here, I like it.”

Dom stood with his hands in his pockets, grinning down at her as he stood at her feet. “They’re not a permanent touch, I might add. Someone transfigured their couch cushions to have ‘em while the weather’s still nice out.”

He planted himself in the beanbag next to hers, stretching out his long legs before lying back.

“Boo,” Regan replied, making a face. “Make ‘em permanent, I say. Charm that walkway to be like a big umbrella,” and she gestured upward at the area in question, “so that they don’t rot or whatever in the rain, and maybe a heating charm in the winter so that you can chill- ha, pun totally not intended but totally awesome anyway- out here in comfort and watch the snow fall. Every house’ll be copying it before too long.”

Dominic’s eyes followed her pointing as she talked out her idea. To be fair, it did sound pretty decent. Maybe he’d mention it, the next time Coppertale hung out en masse.

“Well, in the meantime, it makes a pretty quiet place to talk and stuff” Dom mused, running a hand through his hair and glancing around. “You know Coppertales, usually off causing chaos somewhere instead.”

“Azurcrest camp is never this quiet,” Regan agreed, flopping backward on the beanbag so that she could look up at the sky. Or, well, the walkway and the cabins. It wasn’t actually that fascinating a sight, in the end, and she shifted around again, long limbs a little unwieldy on the unstable beanbag. “Oops. Anyway. Are we talking, or are we ‘and stuff’ing?”

“Don't think I've ever been up there much” Dominic mused, considering if he ever had been up there apart from on patrols. “You guys seem to take over enough of the rest of the grounds to find you if we need you.”

He laughed at her next response, patting the beanbag next to him. It would involve her practically being in his lap, of course, but he wouldn't complain about that. “Cmon over” he grinned, moving his hand into his lap.

“That we do!” Regan said, “ And so now I am taking over your beanbag.” Of course, she’d been invited, but it was more fun to phrase it like that. She didn’t wait to be asked twice; instead, she moved over, sitting next to Dominic on the bit of the chair she could fit onto and then laughing as the beanbag practically slid her on top of him.

“Hey, handsome,” she said when she was settled and smiling down at him.

“Hey yourself” he grinned at the look on her face, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her up so she sat upright, her legs across his lap. This kind of closeness wouldn't look overly suspicious if anyone passed, he thought, and was still pretty fun to pass the time with.

“Now, where were we?” he enquired, a mock serious look on his face.

They went to a boarding school full of teenagers and relatively few responsible adults; if anyone walked by and saw her sitting half-across his lap, it would probably be one of the tamer things that person saw today. Regan wasn’t concerned either way.

“Oh, I think I was doing a pretty good job of seducing you,” she said cheerfully. “What do you think?”

Dominic’s grin spread slowly across his face, putting his finger under her chin and tilting it up to meet her face. “I think maybe you should carry on trying, don't you?” he asked, leaning down to kiss her again.