A Little Work (Lyric/Jory)

[Jory Addison]

Jory wiped the back of his hand across his forehead to brush away the drops of sweat that had formed there. His hand came back with smudged paint on it. The faded, holey old clothes he'd worn for painting the shop were spotted with white flecks. How the paint had managed to find its way, well, everywhere he wasn't entirely sure. “Lyric!” he called. “I got the wall done.” He stepped back, his bare feet barely making a sound on the floor, to eye the wall and make sure he hadn't missed any spots.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric glanced back over his shoulder, toward the doorway that had carried Jory's somewhat breathless voice. He looked up to where a paint roller was smoothing over spots that had been damaged from lack of care to the building, and after a moment, left it to do its job, booted feet stepping across the dropcloth. His boots were untouched by paint, as were his black jeans, the thin, clinging long-sleeved shirt he wore, and his hair, down and pushed back over his shoulders, for the most part. He expected to find Jory much the same. He stopped just in the next room and stared, eyes wide.

[Jory Addison]

Jory turned when he heard footsteps and raised his eyebrows at Lyric. Then he sighed and rolled his eyes. "You're doing it all boring, aren't you?" he asked. "It's so much more fun the muggle way." He held up his brush for a moment. "We redid my room at home once and mum said magic was banned while we did it, I swear it was so much fun." Besides, if he was really worried about the paint a simple spell would rid his clothes and skin of it...and any that may have splattered into his hair.

[Trent Frey]

Fun? Lyric eyed Jory with open skepticism. "What's fun about getting sore arms and messing up your clothes?" he asked. Jory looked happy and everything, but Jory was happy over a lot of things and he'd never understood it. They were just painting, and he wasn't even sure why, except Jory had suggested it.

[Jory Addison]

"Worry about getting sore arms and messing up your clothes and it won't be fun," Jory said. "You can always clean your clothes and use a pain potion or something. And it's so boring sitting and watching a brush paint a wall. Like, what's the point? It's kind of fun getting messy, like fingerpainting when you're little." He wanted to somehow get Lyric to have fun, but that was so hard to do sometimes.

[Trent Frey]

"I never did fingerpainting," Lyric said. He moved further into the room,looking over the wall Jory had painted by hand and wondering how watching your hand paint the wall was any better than watching the brush. He'd lived in an apartment most of his life. Getting messy hadn't really been an option in such tight quarters.

[Jory Addison]

Jory's eyes widened. "Seriously? Well, if you ever want to feel like you're five again, we'll do it." He didn't see anything wrong with doing it. Especially after the fiasco with Emilian Jory had wanted to do more things like that, to keep his mind off of it. When he wasn't doing something childish he felt older and he hated that.

[Trent Frey]

"Fingerpaint?" Lyric asked, clarifying. He tried to remember being five, but it felt like a different personlike some slideshow he'd seen or a story he'd been told too many times. He'd been happy then, hadn't he? His parents had been together....

Lyric shook his head. "I don't remember," he said, whether he did or not. "I was learning English then." And he hadn't known that his parents were already fighting.

[Jory Addison]

"Well, I'll give you being five again, then," Jory declared, then turned to the paint pan he had been using for the roller. He sat his brush to the side and pulled out his wand. A wave and the leftover paint in the pan turned a bright blue. "If you're gonna have a neat shop, might as well decorate it a little." Sure, it was juvenile, but it felt good to press his palms into the cool paint. A couple of handprints on the walls would be a little something.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric's eyes widened as he put together what Jory was doing. Or what it looked like he was doing. "But you just painted that wall..." Jory had spent forever with a paintbrush, doing it the Mugggle way, and his hands were painted. And he was about to make a mess.

[Jory Addison]

"So?" Jory asked, straightening and looking for the perfect spot on the wall. "The point of painting it was to give you a clean slate. Can always paint over the prints if you want to." Now that the wall was clean, it was like an open canvas, and he didn't see any reason not to press his palms against the wall where he knew the white paint was dry.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric watched with an open mouth, hardly able to believe Jory had done that. But he had, and he looked happy, and Lyric couldn't imagine painting over those vivid blue prints, no matter how lame having a handprint wall was. Somehow he found himself crouching, mimicking Jory however hesitantly, then reaching to press his own sticky hands a few inches higher than those already there. He stepped back and stared, a little embarrassed at how pleased with himself he felt. He almost smiled.

[Jory Addison]

Jory grinned when Lyric followed and wiped off his hands on his pants to pick up his wand and change the paint color. "See? It's fun." He stretched up to slap a red print above Lyric's blue ones. He knew Lyric would win in a battle for the highest one, but he could try, at least. He looked back at Lyric, as if daring him to go higher.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric's lips curved slightly, despite his best intentions, and he turned without a word to dip his messy hands in the now-red paint. His handprints this time were quite a bit higher than Jory's after showing off, but they were also a mixture of bold red, bright blue, and spots of deep, vivid purple. He grinned at the unintentional coolness of it.

[Jory Addison]

Jory chewed his lip and stared at Lyric's newest prints. "It's so not fair that you're like a head taller than me," he said. Lyric wasn't that much taller than him, but it was more than enough to count. He glanced over at Lyric, his eyes sparkling lightly before he dipped his hands in the mixed paint again. He jumped to get his prints as high as he could.