Sheraton Academy

Party Tricks

Rating: G. Warnings: None

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Josselin watched, mesmerized, as Stacey spun the pen through his fingers. It was a distracted motion: Stacey's eyes were on the book in front of him, his brow furrowed as he tried to untangle the letters on the pages. Josselin knew he shouldn't interrupt, knew how difficult reading was for Stacey, what with his dyslexia. And yet –

"Can you teach me how to do that?"

Stacey stilled. He frowned. Looked up from his book, glowering at Josselin. He put the pen down and signed, "You use BSL with me or you don't talk at all." It was different with Adam. Adam was learning, and he signed whenever he knew the words. Josselin was fluent. He had no excuse.

"Sorry," Josselin signed. "Can you teach me how to do that thing? With the pen?"

"What thing?"

"The twirly thing."

"This?" Stacey picked up the pen and spun it through his fingers again. Josselin grinned.

"Yeah!"

Stacey looked down at the pen, then up at Josselin again. He'd never been good at explaining things, and now he'd have to explain with one hand while the other was doing something that wasn't sign? This was going to be tricky.

"It's all in the movement of the knuckles," he started. He picked up the pen again. Josselin picked up his own, mirroring Stacey's hand. Stacey flipped it between his first two fingers, the next, the next. Back again. "Please tell me you got that. I don't know how to explain it in words."

Josselin squinted at Stacey's fingers and flipped the pen between his. The movement between the first two fingers was a little rough, but okay. The second was too soft and he had to repeat the movement twice. The third was much too hard to overcompensate and he flung the pen right at Stacey's face.

Stacey's hands shot up. He just avoided getting it in his eye, and it bounced harmlessly off his palm instead. He slammed his hands down on the table and glowered at Josselin. Josselin, to his credit, cringed.

"Sorry," he signed. "I can try again?"

But Stacey adamantly shook his head, gathered up both pens, shoved them in his bookbag, and threw it over his shoulder and stormed off, unable to hear Josselin's calls of "Aw, Stacey, come on!" behind him.