Jumping the Fence

[Trent Frey]

It had taken Lyric forever to get into the tree. Admittedly he'd never climbed one before, so that was likely most of the reason, but he'd been determined. It was nothing like jumping a fence, but somehow he'd gotten hold of the right branch and been able to haul himself up. How he was going to get back down without breaking Melody was another story.

With the quiet of summertime, he'd gotten to know Hogwarts itself, without the constant worry about other people. He still wasn't ready to put his hair up yet, but he was close. Especially since he'd seen that guy with the crazy colors walking through Hogsmeade.

He hadn't made any friends, but that suited him well. There was no one telling him what to do, no one directly criticizing him, and he could choose where he went and what he wanted to do. Mostly it was taking pictures. He'd sent tons of them back to his mother, images of the Gryffindor Common Room and his poster-and-photo-plastered space in the dormitory.

He sat leaning back against the trunk, legs dangling off either side of the branch. His camera bag was on the grass at the base of the tree, but he wasn't worried about anyone coming along to take it. He hadn't seen anyone in this particular spot since he'd gotten here.

[Jory Addison]

Jory was attempting to learn his way around the school before classes had the chance to start up and he had finally found the way out of the school. This was more like home, more open and spacey. He couldn't decide which he would like better, though, he couldn't help but wish he could stay in London for a little while and experience the city life. His thoughts were moving from Lyric to Layne to Lyric again as he made his way down to the lake, and so he didn't notice the bag at the base of the tree.

He still wasn't paying attention when he leaned back against the tree to look out over the lake. It was easy to get lost in his thoughts, especially when so little had happened between him and Lyric. It meant that he had a lot of leeway in what he could imagine happening. He could imagine everything from strictly friends to staying together forever and everything in between.

[Trent Frey]

It had been easy to hear someone coming in the relative quiet, and so Lyric had immediately lifted his camera, peering through the lens to see who it was. His eyes caught immediately and followed, even as his mind took off, trying to make sure it was who he thought it was. Over the past months, Jory had become a two-dimensional photograph.

Had he been that good-looking the last time they'd met? Had they really gone out together? Had they really had those moments of connection that attracted as much as frightened him? And should he really be sitting here looking down at Jory through the lens of a camera when he could be talking to him?

Lyric's lips curved softly, and for a moment, he couldn't help himself. He leaned just a bit further, focused, set his camera to take rapid-fire shots, and pressed the button, knowing Jory would hear it.

[Jory Addison]

Jory did hear it, and he jumped at the sound away from the tree. He looked up and immediately recognized Lyric, even with the hair down. Well...that wasn't really surprising, for half the time they had known each other the hair had been down. His lips curved broadly. "Hey," he said, coming back to the tree trunk to look up at Lyric. "I definitely didn't see you up there." Though as he thought about it he realized he probably should have.

[Trent Frey]

"You weren't supposed to see me," Lyric claimed, though the slight smile on his lips said clearly that he didn't mind having been found. He had a moment's thought for the very guilty pleasure of the picture tucked in his wallet, but it didn't stand a chance of holding his attention with Jory standing... below him. "Do you know how to get out of a tree?" he asked. It might seem like a non sequitur, but it was an honest question, too. Unless Jory wanted to climb up, which Lyric wouldn't even begin to suggest.

[Jory Addison]

Jory grinned, "Well yeah, I did grow up in the country. Want me to tell you or show you?" He could easily do either, but it might just be easier to show so that Lyric could follow his movements. Or maybe he was just thinking that so that he would be up on a branch with Lyric alone, where no one would see unless they looked up at them. He rather liked that idea.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric's heart started pounding at the question, as innocent as it might have been. But was it innocent? Did he want it to be? What if it wasn't? He hoped that Jory couldn't see his indecision from the ground. Don't bother, there's no reason for you to climb up just to show me down. No! Come up! We can look at the water... And Jory was smiling at him. "Um, whatever you want," Lyric found himself saying.

[Jory Addison]

Jory debated for a moment before he reached out to pull himself up. Within a couple of minutes he had slung his leg up and over the large branch Lyric was on. It looked more than sturdy enough to hold them both, especially when he was sitting closer to Lyric rather than farther away further down the branch. "So how hard was it for you to get up here?" he teased. He knew Lyric was from the city, but he didn't know if that meant he couldn't climb.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric gave a slightly sheepish smile, helped along by nerves from Jory being this close. No one had really been near him in forever, and it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. "It was easy," he claimed, turning his thoughts forcibly back to what Jory had said. It hadn't been easy, and it had taken him far longer than it had taken Jory, but he'd managed it somehow. "I used to climb trees all the time in New York," he added with a straight face.

[Jory Addison]

Jory grinned and eyed Lyric, "Yeah, I believe that." He didn't think he could see many people in New York period climbing trees, much less doing it all the time. He watched Lyric for another moment before he shifted and slung one leg over to join his other so he was sitting sideways on the branch. Maybe he felt like showing off a little bit, why else would he grip the branch with his hands and let himself slip backwards to hang by his knees?

[Trent Frey]

Lyric's eyes widened as Jory fell, then caught himself upside-down. He leaned over the edge of the branch to look down. A mistake, he realized—or maybe not—when he saw that Jory's navel had been left exposed. He blinked and dragged his gaze away, down, or up, whichever it was, to Jory's face. He wasn't at all sure what you were supposed to say someone who'd just done half a backflip off a branch.

[Jory Addison]

Jory couldn't help but smile when he realized where Lyric must have been looking any more than he could help the heat that spread over his ears as he let go of the branch to let his arms stretch out below him. His necklace, the very one he had worn the day they had come out to each other, slipped out from under his shirt and hung by his head. "It's good to stretch out," he claimed, though it gave him a bit of a thrill to know that it gave Lyric a view.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric couldn't help the smile on his lips, nor the heat in his neck and cheeks as he watched. His eyes wanted to flicker in a certain direction, but he wouldn't let himself look again, and he ended up deciding that watching wasn't doing him any good. He shifted, drawing one leg over the branch to sit sideways, and moments later, he was hanging precariously—or so it felt—upside-down. His long hair hung around his head, and his slight smile widened into a grin at the immediate adrenaline rush of the motion, and he looked aside at Jory almost breathlessly. And was reminded just how blue his eyes were.

[Jory Addison]

Jory grinned over at Lyric and couldn't help the sweep of his eyes over the newly found jawline and down to the skin revealed by the grace of gravity. He pulled his hands up to grip the branch again, or maybe it was purely to keep himself from giving in to the impulse to reach out and touch the star he saw at Lyric's hip. "I like you tattoo," he said. "I wanted to get mine there." He forced his eyes to Lyric's to keep himself from staring.

[Trent Frey]

"Thanks," Lyric said, completely stricken for the moment by the amount of tension in his body. There was no mistaking the path Jory's eyes had taken or the feeling behind them, and as much as it warmed him, it froze him as well. It took him some moments—or minutes, he wasn't even sure—to be able to say anything intelligible. "Did you get one somewhere else?" he asked. He forced his mind to wait for a response, not allowing himself even a moment's guess as to where or what kind of tattoo Jory might have.