wherever we go we are heroes [dom]

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Today was the day. Shay was going to ask Dom if she would be his tutor. It had taken far too long for him to work up his courage, but now that he was set, Séamus wasn't going to back down. He was planning when, exactly, he was going to ask her while he made his way through the greenhouse. Normally he would have tried to do something productive, but he had so much nervous energy coursing through him that Shay thought he'd probably end up doing more harm then good if he tried to tend to plants at the moment. Séamus was pacing and wringing his hands. Oddly, knowing that he could back down was just making him more nervous, because he didn't want to be a quitter. It sounded so simple in theory: find Dominique and ask her. But in practice...ugh. Shay let out a soft breath of frustration, and was so caught up in his pacing that he didn't even notice that the door to the greenhouse had opened.

@dominique

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Dom loved being outdoors, that much was true, but right now she was trying to escape. Trying to escape thoughts and memories that were following her around as of late. Thoughts of Ethan. Most of the time, she did fairly good at holding those thoughts in the back of her mind, at focusing on other things, but that was hard right now. Ever since Vic pulled her out of school for their sisterly chat, memories of Ethan were flooding her conscious and Dom couldn't seem to push them back. Today she was trying to use the cold to push them away. She'd been outside (without a cloak, as always) for about half an hour, walking around in the snow. It wasn't working! She decided to take a small break and go in the greenhouse, where hopefully no one would find her. She walked in, surprised but not really when she ran into Séamus. "Oh, hi," she said, pasting on a smile. She liked Séamus, she just didn't like it when people could see through her facade. Hopefully he wouldn't be able to.

@seamus

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If Dominique hadn’t said hi to him, Shay probably wouldn’t have even noticed that she was there, because he was so focused on thinking. It was just coincidence that he was thinking about her and she happened to show up, Séamus told himself. He was about to launch himself into his question when he realized that Dom looked a little…off. Nothing was obviously wrong, but the general air around her just seemed very…un-Dom-ish. Séamus wasn’t sure if they were good enough friends for him to make that sort of call, but he figured he would be amiss if he didn’t at least try to figure out if something was up. “Is e-everything okay?” Shay asked, blinking a few times at Dom. “D-do you w-want m-my cl-cloak?” He asked, even though, due to their previous conversation, he knew the answer was probably going to be no. “You l-look c-cold.” Séamus added in a last-ditch effort to try to make her consider his offer.

@dominique

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He kinew. At least, he knew something was off. Which was annoying. Dom didn't know what to do to make herself go back to normal, but she was going to have to figure something out. If she didn't, she was definitely going to have struggles around the people that actually knew her well. She giggled a little, trying to distract from her apparently obvious discomfort. "It's fine." Then she gave a real laugh, remembering back when he offered her his coat another time. "No, I don't need it, thanks. I want to be cold right now." Which wouldn't make sense to anyone logically, but hopefully he would just accept it as one of her eccentricities. Her refusing his cloak had nothing to do with the fact that Ethan had offered his (and forced her to take it) many, many times in the past. At least when she was cold she had something to focus on other than Ethan. Ugh, she had to get him out of her head.

@seamus

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Dominique giggled, which made Shay feel even more like something was wrong. Sure, she giggled a lot, but normally he could find some semblance of a reason for one, and now…there wasn’t. Séamus was beginning to think that he was reading too much into this, and Dominique obviously wasn’t in the mood to talk about what was bothering her, so it was probably for the better that he drop the subject. She denied his cloak, too, which he was expecting but still didn’t like. “If y-you s-say s-so.” Séamus said, trying to hide his disappointment so that Dom wouldn’t feel bad about denying him. If she wanted to be cold, so be it. Since he had something to ask her already, it wasn’t difficult for Shay to change the subject. “I h-have a qu-question f-for you, actually, if th-that’s okay?” Shay asked, not wanting to attack Dom with asking her to be his tutor if she wasn’t prepared for a question at all.

@dominique

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He looked disappointed and Dom felt a little guilty. She knew it would be polite to accept the cloak, but it really defeated the whole purpose of her coming outside at the moment. She came out in the cold to numb her body and mind, which worked ... sometimes. She smiled, "Really, thanks for offering. If I ever do need to borrow one, I'll come to you first," Dom committed with a nod. She could do that, if she ever wanted a cloak. Then he said he had a question and Dom smiled again, "Of course! What do you need?" Dom was excited. If he needed her to do something, maybe it would be able to distract her from the pain in her heart. Maybe he could help her hide it again, put it back to the back of her mind. 

@seamus

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Dominique thanked him for offering his cloak, and Séamus just nodded, still wondering what it was that was causing her to act so strangely…though she did seem to be returning closer to normal now that they weren’t talking about the cold. “I w-was w-wondering if you c-could b-be m-my t-tutor.” Shay said. Surprisingly, it all came out audible, and understandable. He would have thought that on his first attempt he would have been too quiet to hear. Now that the idea was in the open, Séamus felt the need to explain himself. “W-when you h-helped m-me in the l-library I r-really g-got w-what you w-were saying.” Maybe ‘really got’ was an overstatement, but he understood everything better than he did when he was own, and that was the purpose of having a tutor, wasn’t it? “If you d-don’t h-have t-time, that’s f-fine t-too.” Shay added. He didn’t want to be adding to Dom’s workload if it was already too large to handle.

@dominique

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Dom's eyes widened slightly when Séamus asked her to be his tutor. That was definitely not something she expected, but in a good way. "Of course! Do you just want me to tutor you in general things, or in something specific?" she asked with a smile. She didn't want to make him feel awkward or self-conscious for asking. She laughed when he started talking about her not having time. "I have time to help out. Maybe not a lot of time, but I can definitely work with you when you need it." Dom loved helping other people. Besides, it would be a nice distraction from ... things. "Is there a specific time you want to start?"

@seamus

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Dom didn’t deny his proposition, which was one hurdle over with. Shay took a deep breath to try to calm some of his nerves before answering the plethora of questions Dom was asking him about the logistics of the tutoring. “G-general st-stuff is f-fine w-with m-me.” Séamus said eagerly. He needed all the help he could get in virtually everything, so asking for something specific didn’t seem very time-efficient to me. Dom said she didn’t have a lot of time, and Shay hesitated for a moment. He had a feeling that tutoring him was going to be a big time commitment, maybe bigger than Dom realized at the moment. They’d cross that bridge when they got to it – if they got to it. “As s-soon as p-possible w-would b-be g-good.” Séamus said. That was the one answer that he was absolutely sure of. He needed help, and he needed it sooner rather than later.

@dominique

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Dom smiled. She knew by now that Séamus' stutter didn't necessarily have anything to do with being nervous, but she couldn't help but wonder if he was nervous to ask her this. Probably. But she wasn't going to make a big deal out of it. She didn't want to make him feel self-conscious. "I can definitely help you out," she promised. "Alright, does sometime this week sound good to you? I can send you and owl and tell you when I'm available." Dom paused a moment, thinking. "Unless you wanted to start now ... I mean, no pressure, but if you want to we certainly can." She smiled and waited, not babbling on purpose so he could make up his mind.

@seamus

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Shay beamed at Dom when she said that she could help him out. He wanted to hug her, but decided that probably would be…weird or something. “Th-this w-week is g-good.” Shay confirmed. “B-but I th-think l-later w-would b-be b-better.” Séamus said sheepishly. “I w-want to kn-know at l-least a l-little b-before w-we start.” That way Dom wouldn’t think he was as pathetic. Besides, it was always easier to build when you had a foundation. “S-sorry.” Shay apologized sheepishly. He felt bad asking Dom to be his tutor as soon as possible and then immediately refusing when she asked to start immediately. “I c-can s-send you an owl?” He suggested. That way they could work their schedules out easier, being able to view them side-by-side and all of that.

@dominique

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Séamus seemed so happy that Dom agreed to help, she couldn't help but wonder how nervous he'd been to ask. Not that he had to be nervous, but the way he asked ... she was assuming. She smiled and nodded when he said later would probably work better for him. "That's fine with me," she answered easily. "No problem. And I think sending an owl would be great. I'll put your schedule against mine and let you know what I think would work best, if you want?"

@seamus (you want to finish??)

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Dominique seemed very agreeable to this whole idea, which was a relief, considering all the ways Shay had thought about this going wrong. She agreed to the idea of the owl, too, and Shay nodded for probably the billionth time that conversation. “Y-yeah. Th-thanks again, D-Dom.” Séamus checked the watch on his wrist. He had intended to stay in the greenhouse for a while longer, but now that he was thinking about it, he had a lot of homework to do… He sighed. “I’m h-headed b-back to the c-castle. S-see you s-soon.” Shay said, smiling before he departed the greenhouse.

@dominique