Original Fiction Drabble

Fandom:  Original Fiction
Prompt: From Pat Wrede's World Buidling Exhaustive Questionnaire: Gestures
Rating: General (though a few "f-bombs" are dropped.)
Warnings/Tags:  Weird, Nonsensical, Fluff, Drabble

*


Manny raised his hand and... well, he did something. I kind of thought maybe we'd all just been flipped off in Vesuvian or whatever the hell alien world he was from.

Apparently, it wasn’t just me that felt that way.

Robert, the, I don’t know what you’d call him, head jock, biggest jerk in our school maybe...? stood over where Manny had fallen in the dirt and shouted, “What the hell was that, man? Did you just tell me to fuck off?”

Manny pulled himself upright. He dusted off all three of his knees and blinked at us. “What?” he asked in that tone his people had that made it utterly impossible to tell if they were being sarcastic or serious, “You mean this?”

He did it again.

No denying it; it looked rude. There were fingers thrusting together and, well, if humans could do that with the number of digits we had–man, it would look sexual. Very in and out, if you know what I mean. And, then the whole complex thing ended in a kind of full handed ‘in your face’ I-throw-this-at-you kind of bang.

So, of course, Robert punched him.

Or tried, anyway.

The thing that Robert forgot, of course, was that Vesuvians had super-speed. Like, there was no winning against Manny at track. None. So, it was no surprise that Robert’s left hook never landed. He just kind of whiffed the whole thing. The momentum had Robert tripoing over his own feet to face-plant on the field.

That’s when I jumped in. “Hey, dude,” I said to Robert, when he lay, face down, just on the other side of Manny, “I can’t believe you don’t recognize the Vesuvian ward against the evil eye. Right, Manny?” 

I glanced over my shoulder and prayed to heck that Manny could read my ‘just go with it’ expression. Vesuvians sucked at reading people. I mean, d’uh, I suppose, given the kinds of faces they had, but anyway, Manny had been my friend since he first transferred here two years ago so I hoped he’d just roll with it.

Manny seemed to get it.

“Yes, of course,” he said, again sounding way too sarcastic for his own good, “Evil eye. That’s what I was doing.”

Robert decided to roll too, I guess, because he stomped off with a “Well, fine, but don’t fucking point that at me again.”

The two of us nodded solemnly.

Once Robert was some distance away, out of earshot, I asked Manny,  “You totally flipped him the bird, right?”

“Yep,” said Manny. “Totally.”