Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Natalie let Landon pull her up and hopped onto his back when he told her to. She supposed the others around the lake would think nothing of it, since they were frequently seen walking this way. She didn't bother to ask where they were going; it didn't really matter to her. Her heart was already inflated that he might be trying to make an effort to make her happy.

She slid off his back when they reached their destination. She could think of a ton of things that they could do, but the urge to do one particular thing eclipsed all the others, especially since there was no one around, no one to run into. "Spin," she said simply.

Landon looked at her with a confused look on his face. "You know, spin," she spun around in a circle to illustrate her point. "You just keep spinning until you get so dizzy that you can't stand up anymore. You're always so worried about looking silly, but there's nothing wrong with looking silly sometimes. Plus, I'm the only one here, so you have no reason to be embarrassed."

She smiled and kissed him lightly, then backed up and started to spin around and around until she lost her footing and fell down, laughing the whole way.

It took a few tries for Natalie to get back up onto her feet because her head was spinning, but she managed to get up again. She had another go, spinning around and around, picking up speed as she went. She quickly lost control of her feet again and, as she stumbled around trying to keep her balance, she crashed into Landon.

Natalie fell with Landon, landing on top of him. She kissed him gently, then rolled off and lay beside him, closing her eyes as well. "Maybe the ground just likes us so it uses extra gravity to bring us closer to it," she laughed. Her head was still spinning like one of those muggle teacup rides at Disney World.

"Maybe we should just try things your way and just lay here for a while," she said turning her head to the side to look at him. "Are you okay?" she hoped she hadn't hurt him when they fell.

Natalie scooted closer to Landon, tucking herself against his side. "I meant from the spinning," she said. "You look like you're going to be sick. I'm sorry," she felt bad, since it was her fault.

"I'll try to make friends with the gravity so it will be nicer to us," she promised. Whenever he fell down, it was usually her fault, erring more on the side of always.

Natalie laughed with Landon. She had to hand it to him, it was kind of nice to just lay around out here in the sun. "Is this what you do when I'm not with you and dragging you off on adventures? Just lay around in the sun?" she asked, taking his hand in hers.

Natalie listened quietly; these were things that she didn't know about Landon. She was hardly aware of the fact that they even had a library, let alone that Landon went there. "Doing nothing is kind of nice," she said. "It's peaceful."

She closed her eyes and just lay there for a while, happy to feel the sun on her face. Another glance over at Landon gave her the impulse to kiss him again; he just looked so cute laying there. It was an impulse that she fought for all of ten seconds before she gave in and stretched over to kiss him again, more like the kisses they'd had in the Shrieking Shack than any of their other kisses.

Natalie hesitated for the slightest moment before deciding to just go for it. There were no other students around to see them, no teachers to scold them, it was just them. Their kiss in the Shrieking Shack had ended oddly and she was determined to do it properly this time, even if she didn't have the slightest clue what to do. She thought back to what he had done that she'd liked and decided to use it on him. She bit his lower lip gently, teasingly, and wondered if it had the same affect on him that it had on her.

Landon's return bite was enough of a hint to Natalie that she could keep going. She highly doubted that anything she would do would make him uncomfortable (they were only 13, after all, so she wasn't going to be doing a whole lot). She stopped thinking about the kiss and started acting completely on impulse, since trying would be the only way to find out if they liked something or not. She ran her tongue lightly across the lip she had just bitten. She had to give Landon credit for tasting good, just like he said he did.

Natalie was surprised to feel her tongue brush against his, but she still wasn't complaining. Far from it, actually. She felt his mouth open a bit and couldn't help but giggle slightly. She took the opportunity to use her tongue to try to coax his out a bit further. That was something that people did, right? She had no clue where she was getting her ideas from, but she was just sort of going with it since it seemed to be working so far.

Natalie giggled again. She was starting to get the impression that this was a little bit more like how their kiss in the Shrieking Shack should have gone. She had to think of what she'd seen in movies that her sister had taken her to so she could figure out what to do next. For some reason, nothing was resurfacing, but a tiny little voice in the back of her mind was telling her to touch him. She placed one hand lightly on his chest and opened her mouth a tiny bit more as she continued to kiss him. He was a lot more... muscley than she remembered him being as an 11 year old.

Natalie was starting to feel a little awkward since she was running out of ideas. Still, it wasn't going to deter her and the kiss was already more of a success than their last kiss like it. She didn't know if other people in their year did things like this, but she liked it, and she wasn't one to pay much attention to what other people in their year were doing anyway. She did her best to copy what Landon was doing since she had no clue what else to do. She had to admit that this was just as enjoyable if not more so than running around and going squid hunting and things like that.

Natalie was a little sad when Landon pulled away, but when he spoke, she agreed with him. She didn't want to go too far when they were so young. "Yeah, you're probably right," she whispered back. She rested her head on his chest since it was easily the most comfortable pillow she'd ever used. "It was... nice, though," she mumbled, closing her eyes once more to fully enjoy the warmth of the sun.