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Mar. 23rd, 2009 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyThe boy was leaning against the side of the stage, making a mockery of the sort of slouch that Arthur had spent time perfecting with his sheer gangling awkwardness. He looked like a tangled washing line or a collapsed clothes horse, like the victim of some hideous sartorial mishap which'd left him in clothes both too wide and almost comically short, his wrists and ankles bony and starkly pale against the shadows. It was hard to focus on those things, though, when set against the intense stare he had focused on the cards in his hands, the way the pack was moving in ways that seemed to thumb its nose at the basic laws of physics.
Arthur squinted, trying to focus on one card in particular, to follow its path. There seemed to be some bizarre combination of riffle and faro shuffles going on, but in such a way that it looked like at least one of the cards had passed right through another. Arthur snorted softly; he'd spent too bloody long in this place, clearly.
"You're good," he said, after a minute more spent watching, oddly captivated.
When he looked up, the boy's eyes seemed to catch and hold the footlights for a second, which really ought to have been impossible from this angle. He fumbled the cards in his hands, catching the pack awkwardly between long fingers before grinning at Arthur.
"Me? Nah," he said, swiftly setting the pack back to rights. "Can't you tell I'm just the glamorous assistant?"
Arthur squinted, trying to focus on one card in particular, to follow its path. There seemed to be some bizarre combination of riffle and faro shuffles going on, but in such a way that it looked like at least one of the cards had passed right through another. Arthur snorted softly; he'd spent too bloody long in this place, clearly.
"You're good," he said, after a minute more spent watching, oddly captivated.
When he looked up, the boy's eyes seemed to catch and hold the footlights for a second, which really ought to have been impossible from this angle. He fumbled the cards in his hands, catching the pack awkwardly between long fingers before grinning at Arthur.
"Me? Nah," he said, swiftly setting the pack back to rights. "Can't you tell I'm just the glamorous assistant?"
