She wasn't usually one to sneak out after hours, but it was the weekend and Brett didn't have insane amounts of homework. That and she really hadn't had much fun lately with Dax, with NEWTs just around the corner she had been studying and busting her butt to make sure her grades were good. But now she could take a breather she intended to take full advantage of it.

Brett had told Dax earlier to meet her at the kitchens around eleven. She knew that the house elves were always super accommodating, and a late night picnic at the kitchens would be fun. (Not romantic- just fun.) Still clad in pajamas, Brett carefully made her way out of her common room- hopefully not seen by any classmates. (She was fairly certain she had managed to get away without notice.)

Once she was in the hallway, Brett quickly made her way down the stairs and found herself ducking behind more than one suit of armor to avoid being seen by a ghost. (Most especially peeves.) Agonizing minutes later Brett was standing in front of the large bowl of fruit. She reached up, tickled  the pear, and then turned the knob that appeared, slipping into the kitchen. Immediately Brett was accosted by house elves offering her food and drink, and she grinned. "I've got a friend coming," she said. "Let's wait on him and see what he wants, yeah?"

The elves showed her to one of the preparation tables, and she sat down, accepting the juice that was offered to her, wondering where in the hell Dax was. The kitchen entrance was down the same stairs as his common room. Maybe Dion held him up? Brett wouldn't put it past the sour twin.

Dax meandered in a few minutes after Brett had arrived, apparently unaware, or simply not worried about the fact he was somewhat late. Likely, he was going to argue he was justfashionably late. He was distracted, as he seemed to be fussing with his shirt, which was decidedly odd for him to be wearing at this hour.

This was largely because it obviously wasn't his. The gleam if the yellow Prefect badge gave that away right off, as was the fact it was clearly ironed and well taken care of compared to the wrinkled and slightly tattered uniform Dax owned. He pulled the sweater and button-up over his head, dumping them on the table with satisfaction. He sat down across from Brett so hard the table's far legs jumped off the floor.

"The Friar was chatting up the Grey Lady right outside the door," he explained, sitting down. "He tries and tries, but...anyway. So I stole Dion's shirt and pretended to be him. Don't let him know. Anyway..." He paused as a house elf approached. "Whatever that meat thing you served at dinner was, it tasted like awesome. What's up, Brett?"

Brett was concerned for a moment when she saw the prefect badge on the shirt. She would kill Dion if he had found out and decided to come and ruin the fun. She opened her mouth to let him know as much when the shirt was immediately pulled up and over the boy's head- obviously Dax. Dion didn't make it a habit of getting half naked as soon as he walked into a room.

"Why do I always have that effect on a man?" Brett asked when he dropped the shirt on the table. "And that's gross. Ghosts shouldn't be chatting each other up. They're dead and it's not like they can do anything about it. They know that. Yuck. I don't wanna think about that." Brett made an awful face as she imagined exactly how a ghost might go about... well... dating and all the things that came along with it. "Can you imagine making out with Nearly Headless Nick?" she asked. "His head would keep coming off!" Brett snickered when she finished her sentence, but really there was no way to say it without it sounding a little off.

"Stealing Dion's shirt was smart," she added. "Having a responsible twin must be pretty convenient sometimes, yeah?"

After Dax was settled the house elf approached, and asked was Dax wanted. Brett also requested sweets. She intended to basically have dessert for her midnight snack. "Just glad not to be up late doing homework again," Brett stated. "Pretty light weekend in comparison. Guess I'll spend it studying. NEWTs are right around the corner and all." She shrugged. "But I'm sick of school."

"Which is why I thought this would be a good idea. Gotta get used to having servants while they're still around. Cause as soon as we're out of this place it's time to grow up." Brett made a sound of disgust. "So what'd you do tonight? How'd you manage to get Dion's shirt without him noticing?"

"Dunno," Dax told her, with an ear-to-ear grin. "You should teach me how you do it, I can try to do it on girls. Merlin knows it'd make classes more interestin'. Think it'd work on Vaillancourt?"

The elves returned with food and drink. He took the glass of pumpkin juice and threw it back, letting out a satisfied sigh when it was empty.

"Who knows?" He said. "Maybe they just kind of drift into each other or...something. Or that doesn't factor into it and it's s totally emotional affair." He smirked, wiggling his fingers playfully. "How romantic, eh?"

He relaxed along the bench, one elbow and hand holding his head up. "He's asleep," he said simply. "He was doing homework all day and fell asleep on top of it. So I sent him to bed, and grabbed his shirt out of his laundry. Simple." He shrugged - well, as much of a shrug as he could manage in the position he was in.

"School's gotten petty heavy lately, yeah. I'll be glad when it's over."

Brett snorted. "Dunno, but I think a lot of boys would love you for that one. They're all gaga over Vaillancourt. Guess I can see why, just you know... Not my type. Wrong plumbing and all," she added with a shrug. "And there aren't any male teachers I'd want it to work on. If O Morain was about a foot taller he wouldn't be bad looking..." she trailed off. "But, you know, if it works on the aurors I won't complain much. There's plenty of them that I wouldn't mind see strutting around half naked. Bet they're built like a brick house, too." Especially Auror Pratt. She had noticed when they had the career fair that he had a nice backside. But she had kept this realization to herself. Brett didn't want her friends mouthing it off when they started auror training.

"Gross, Dax," she kicked his bench from under the table. "I don't want to think about how ghosts do it." Especially ghosts like the Grey Lady and the Friar. They weren't even good looking- if a ghost could be good looking. She supposed if you died young enough you'd still be a hot ghost. She had heard about that one girl- the welcome witch dying- and that she haunted Calaveras now. If you looked like that as a ghost it might not be too bad.

Brett was glad when the house elves returned, placing a large platter of pastries and sweets in front of her. Along with a pitcher of milk. "Awesome!" Brett picked up a brownie and dipped it in a glass of milk. Delicious. She really shouldn't be indulging like this- but it had been a while since she had treated herself, and she just wasn't craving real food.

"We won't have a break for long though," she reminded Dax. "Auror training and all that. I have to admit it's going to suck that I won't have you around to bother whenever the hell I feel like it. I've become rather accustomed to having you around." And not in a romantic sense. Sure- he was a great snogging buddy, but they had fun other than that. He liked adventures and they had fun together no strings attached. It was a pretty nice arrangement. And Dax- like Auror Pratt- had a really nice bum.

"Everything's gonna change when we start training," she added. "Have to grow up and everything, act professional. Don't think you can roll around the auror office half naked. They might not appreciate it."

"Why not? It's probably really tame anyway, like watching..." Dax trailed off and finally found the creature he was thinking of. "Limpets or something."

She turned the conversation serious, though, and he settled for laying on his back on the bench, feet crossed at the ankle. "Yeah." His reply was a grunt. He reached over the table, walked his fingers to her plate and grabbed - a brownie, it felt like. He snapped it back to his mouth and ate it.

"Says who? I'm going to Auror training too," he said, around the dough. "You can bother me all you, mm, all you want. I mean it'd probably get us both fired or something, but."

He grinned from ear to ear. "Aw, you don't think they'd like my bod? There goes my shot at an early promotion, huh? I was hoping I could just saunter around naked and they'd keep me on as a mascot or something." His grin faded, though, and he sat with his hands behind his head. He sighed.

"Yeah," he grunted again. "I know. It's gonna be interesting, though. Seeing how everything turns out. Dion might actually have to calm down. That'll be a sight." His soft chuckle was oddly toned. "Wonder what's gonna happen to everyone, you know? Like maybe you'll turn out to be a real hardass drill sergeant or Fauna'll turn into one."

"It will be different then," Brett told him. "Cause we'll have to be professional and stuff. I mean auror training isn't the time to goof off, you know? Here we have time to do stupid stuff and to have a lot of fun. But we aren't going to have that luxury forever. I mean- I guess we have to grow up sometime, ya know?" she said with a sigh. The idea of being an adult really sucked. She didn't want to think about it. Because she was having fun at Hogwarts. Classes were fun, quidditch games were fun, snogging Dax (or other cute seventh years) in broom closets was fun- not having to pay bills or worry about anyone other than herself- that was all fun.

But having to do training wasn't going to be all fun. It was going to be serious business, and it was going to require a lot of time and dedication on her part. And she was going to have to worry about the entire wizarding populace and the rest of her peers and the older aurors as well. That was something she was ready for- something she was excited to do- but still at little scary. Even though Brett Jane Abraham would never admit to anyone- least of all Dax Fayette- that she was afraid of anything.

Still- no reason to ruin their picnic by letting things get too heavy. "Like your bod?" she asked with a grin. "They'd have to be half blind to not like that bod. What's not to like? You've got the best backside I've ever seen- and the front ain't too bad, either. Even if they don't like it, you can run around shirtless to entertain me and make Fauna blush!"

Brett took a long drink from her cup and selected an apple filled pastry from the plate. "I would make an excellent drill sergeant! I'm great at bossing people around and yelling."

"You let me tell you what to do already," she laughed. "Don't even try to deny it- because you know better."

He grunted in response. She was right, of course, but still. "Yeah," he said. "Doesn't mean we have to get all adult at once, though. We can do it slow-like, you know? Ease into it. We don't have to wake up on June 17th and be insanely responsible tightasses." Thank Merlin for that!

He snorted happily at her comments - all true, of course - about his body. "Thanks, babe," he said, grinning lopsidedly. "You always make me feel good about myself." Because his ego needed stroking, of course. Though, technically, it did - just not in regards to the niceness of his hindquarters.

"Hm, don't I know it. Sadly, you don't use me to my full extent. You'd be amazed the crazy shit I'll do on orders. Unless they're Dion's." The crazy tit actually thought ordering him to do homework would work. Right.

"I'm not riding brooms naked though. I tried once. The Nutcracker suite should have played, man. Yeowch."

Brett grinned. "If I was going to get you naked, Dax, it's not the broom you'd be riding." But she was full of it- and both of them knew that fact. They were good friends, they liked to make out, sometimes they toed the line of appropriate friend-to-friend behavior, but they hadn't yet crossed that line. Regardless of the things she said and the game that Brett liked to talk, she'd never crossed that line at all. That was something she just wasn't ready for- regardless of how much fun everything else she had done with Dax might have been. (Besides, Dax wasn't her boyfriend. She wanted to do that with a boyfriend, not her best friend who just happened to be excellent with snogging.)

"Crazy shit, yeah?" she repeated. "I'd like to see that some time. Guess I'll be thinking up something crazy to order you about, then. But you'll probably chicken out," Brett teased. "Be too afraid to do it or worried 'bout your reputation..." But at the moment, the Gryffindor had no clue what sort of thing she could dare Dax to do that he would refuse to take part in or would embarrass him. He didn't seen to have any shame- which was part of why the two got along so well.

Brett chugged the last of her milk and belched loudly, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "I guess you're right though. I don't suppose I'll ever really grow up, though. Won't be much fun being mature. Couldn't do things like this-" she said, sliding down in her seat and pressing her feet firmly against the bench he was laying on- tipping it over with a cackle.

"Rawr," Dax echoed, with a laugh. "I'm not sure if that should scare me or turn me on. Or maybe both. That's an odd feeling."

He sounded indignant as he replied to her teasing, though; had he not been all put invisible on the other bench she'd have seen him puff his chest up in his usual over dramatic fashion. "Me, chicken out? You're mistaking me for some one with shame, Brettles. I won't do anything that'll get me expelled, though, cause yeah. I ain't having worked all year just to get kicked out 2 weeks before it ends. The Aurors would never take me then." Unless he slept with Tamis or something. He was clever, thinking of how to get promoted already.

Was Raynor a cougar? She didn't seem it, to his  disappointment. Dax had been about to voice this when he met the stone floor, splaying out on it face down.

"Ow, Merlin! I could have hurt something important," He told her fussily, standing up and brushing off his bare chest. "Like my face. What would I do without it?" he fluttered his eyelashes at her oh so innocently as he righted the bench, sitting upright this time. "Or a nipple. I'd never be able to go shirtless again."

Brett was still laughing when he stood up from the ground, brushing himself off. "Oh, come off it, you're not hurt," at least he didn't look hurt. And he was pouting- so she doubted that he was in any real pain. But he set the bench upright again and sat back down, talking about what would happen if she had hurt his face or... a nipple? Brett coughed mid laugh, spluttering.

"Your nipple?" she asked. "I don't think that would rip your nipple off. Besides, if you went shirtless without it then it would be a great conversation piece. Just imagine! You'd find a beautiful girl, and be like 'I've only got one nipple you know' and she would be like 'Really?' and you could be like 'Want to see?' And then you could peel off your shirt to show glistening muscles and she'd be yours, like that," she snapped her fingers. "Am I going to have to give all your lines, Dax?"

"But everything looks alright from here, so I guess I didn't hurt anything important. Besides- you asked for it," she told him. He hadn't really- but that didn't matter. They were always picking on each other. It was just how their friendship worked.

Getting up from her seat, she went to his side of the table and sat next to him, linking her arm with his. "But I would never break your face on purpose, Dax. I like it too much." She kissed him loudly on the cheek. "But I bet your face and your nipple get all kinds of scarred up in auror training. I hear they're pretty ruthless in dueling."

"Yeah, but I do that with Auror scars and those are, like, genuinely sexy," he said, grinning. "Be like 'hey babe, wanna see the scar I got when I kicked Tawse's unshaven hairy bum?' and she'd be like 'I don't need to, Hercules, you wanna see the inside of my knickers?'" His voice took on a falsetto as he imitated a woman's tones. "And I'd be like 'Hell yeah, baby' and then we'd get nasty." He grinned impishly. Not that he expected to have sexy scars right away, mind. But he expected a few by the ten year mark. It was only fair.

He returned the cheek kiss with one of his own, his applied to her temple. It was a casual gesture, one they'd developed over the years. It was play; nothing serious behind it. Dax, of course, was always open to such a possibility; but Brett wasn't, and so kisses were it. Oh well.

He smirked again. "Maybe I'll get a nice facial scar," he said, wistfully. "A big gash across my nose or something." He drew a line along the base of his eyes and over his nose. "Or an X on my cheek or something. Those are pretty hardcore."

Brett snorted when he started doing his impression of how being an auror would undoubtedly get him laid. "I don't think it'll be quite that easy- unless you actually do managed to take down Tawse or MacDuff. But I think they might be worried about it if you knew that Tawse's bum wasn't shaved. Might want to know what you were doing looking at it," she elbowed him in the side. "I think there are prettier bums to look at than Tawse's anyway." Like Dax's own bum, or Auror Pratt's.

She watched him as he started talking about facial scars. Grinning. "I got a feelin' that nobody would want to mess up that pretty face of yours. And asking for scars might not be a good idea. If you really want one, though, we could get some girls to claw your face. Or you could always give one to yourself if you don't get one fast enough."

"My goal is not to get any serious injuries right off the bat," Brett told him. "I want to show that I am competent and all." She reached across the table and picked up a cookie from her plate. Brett broke it in half, offering part of it to Dax while she ate the other. "I think it would be more badass if we kicked their arse right out the gate than if they kicked ours."

"But we gotta worry about NEWTs first, I guess," she sighed. "I hate tests. They're so awful. I always get stressed about 'em. And stress relief is hard to come by at Hogwarts."

Dax snorted. "Yeah, it is. Just be glad you don't have to live with Dion right now. He is stressed. I told him it's his fault for trying to get all of his NEWTs and that just made it worse. He's been studying for like 7 hours a day. Sometimes I wonder where he gets it from."

Dax himself was stressed, admittedly, but..."Personally, I just get outside. Run, punch things, make out. That kind of thing. Amazin' things, fights." He grinned. "They relax the hell outta me even if I lose teeth."

Mostly because Harper could actually keep up with him. That wasn't just fun, it was refreshingly different, as much as he didn't like the little tit.

"I dunno. How are you feeling about your exams?"

Brett grinned at Dax. "Well, I can help you with one of those things. But I'm not sure how you'd feel about it if I gave you a black eye that you'd have to wear all week. It's always bad for a guy when he gets beat up by a girl, ya' know. But then again, everyone knows I could kick your arse if I felt like it. I'm tougher than most." She swelled up with pride at the statement- and it was a true one. Brett was one tough chick- but that just came with the territory when you grew up with three brothers.

"I feel pretty awesome about them," she said honestly. "I think I'll get O's on most of 'em. Maybe land an E on a couple. I'll be disappointed if I get an A on anything. I've busted my butt studying and working hard since I was a first year so I could get to be an auror. The exams are gonna' be a breeze! Only part I'm worried about is passing all the tests through auror training."

"That should worry you and Dion, too. I mean you gotta' be sane after all, t'be an Auror. If you fail the mental tests they won't take you either. Gotta prove y'can handle the stress and all that. Not sure Dion will pass that one if he doesn't learn to calm down some. Maybe we ought to brew him some potions for that. Sneak 'em into his pumpkin juice when he's not lookin. What d'you think?"