[AU][C] Try Outs

Lyo laughed.

"Serves you fucking right." He deserved a cracked rib after that. Lyo wasn't going to deny himself a good laugh at Rich's expense.

It didn't take long to get to the shed and stack everything inside again.

"I'm Aleksey, if you didn't catch my name." He spoke, only after he was sure Rich was looking.

He stacked his boxes and looked back up at the boy, his brows furrowing.

Names were always difficult, he could only lip-read words he was extremely familiar with, slang and names always were a struggle.

"I don't know what you said." He replied, signing the words along with his slow speech.

"Names are too hard... you can spell it for me when we get back to the common room."

That was about the only way he was going to get it, even then he couldn't guarantee he would be able to pronounce it right.

"You got fuck, but not my name."

Lyo snorted, and shook his head, but let it drop as the two made their way back to the common room.

He hung back a little, watching Rich curiously. How did he get around speaking the password to get into the rooms?

He wanted to know.

"Of course, fuck is one of my favourite words."
He replied with a laugh, that was a word he used quite often.

The portrait had been a tricky one when he had started at Hogwarts, though he had managed to teach the painting the alphabet so when it came to the password he spelled it out in signs.

S.E.R.P.E.N.T

He spelled out, the portrait nodded to him and swung open.

He watched Rich's hands fly through the letters.

It was like a whole other language. He wondered if he could pick it up if he paid attention.

He'd managed to learn English (what a fucker of a language that was) so if he applied himself he'd probably be able to learn that, too.

When they got into the common room, he made his way straight to the boys dorms. He wanted pain killers, and a quill and parchment.

When they entered the common room Rich found a spot on one of the chairs, he wasn't keen enough to be following Lyo to his room.

Instead he pulled his chair over to the window, looking out into the water.

His gaze scanned it's depths as he searched for something in particular.

Lyo returned about ten minutes later.

He'd pulled off his quidditch robes and donned a cream henley and a pair of jeans. He'd taken his hair from its bun and let that flow down over his shoulders and chest, too.

He carried a sketchbook, pencil, and a stanley knife under one arm.

He kicked a chair over to sit next to Rich, looking back and forth between him and the dark water outside their window in confusion.

What was he looking for?

Rich perked up as his keen eyes saw what they were looking for in the depth of the lake.

"Want to see something cool?"

He asked, tilting his head, it wasn't often that he had too much company around here to share in this experience.

Rich's knuckles tapped against the glass firmly before he sat back and waited.

"Da, okay."

He relaxed back in his chair, flicking his sketchbook to the back pages.

He wrote out his name in neat cyrillic, then in cursive cyrillic, then in the roman alphabet.

His eyes flickered up when Rich tapped on the glass.

Rich wasn't quite sure what 'da' meant but he understood 'okay'

Sitting back he smiled at the window, his smile widening as a mermaid pressed her hand against the glass.

"Hello Maya." He muttered and signed at the same time.

The woman behind the glass gave her own signed greeting, her eyes flicking to the other boy perched in a chair, signing to him as well.

"She says hello to you."

Lyo perked up in interest when the mermaid appeared before them. He'd seen shadows of them swimming by the windows before, and sketches in textbooks, but never one so close in the flesh.

And she knew sign language.

When she signed to him, and Rich translated, he gave a limp wave back, not knowing what else to do.

Rich barked a laugh as her fist hit the glass, hard, before signing more words at Lyo, the woman shooting Rich a peevish glare.

"She's mad that you don't know how to sign."

He translated between laughing.

Not many students could be bothered, or had to time to learn to sign so Rich had taken it upon himself to teach the mermaids, it was nice being able to speak to someone in a language he could understand.

His expression soured when her fist hit the glass in front of them, and he turned a scowl to Rich.

"I barely speak English, how am I supposed to know that?"

He gestured to the mermaid's quick signs.

Rich signed back to try and calm her temper but she swam off after making a show of pointing at the two of them accusingly.

He rolled his eyes and sat back with a chuckle.

"She's such a drama queen."

Naturally a drama queen would have a tantrum because he didn't know her language.

Lyo rolled his eyes, but held out his sketchbook, tapping the area his name was rewritten in different ways.

"My name. Aleksey."

Rich looked up, leaning forward to take the sketchbook.

He studied the word for a moment trying to break down the sounds and how to form those sounds with is mouth.

"A...lek...si?"

He asked, figuring out how to sign his name, much more quickly then it had taken him to say it.

Lyo nodded as he sounded out the name.

"Da. Aleksey."

He watched the signs curiously, his hands twitching to try it out, but not wanting to fumble over it.

Richmond smiled as Aleksey stared at his hands as he signed his name.

"This is your name."

He did the sign for Aleksey again, slowly this time. At least he would be able to understand his own name.

He raised his hands and attempted to run through his name, seriously fucking up after the second letter.

A scowl formed on his face.

"Show me again," he ordered. He was going to get this right.

Richmond gave a chuckle as Aleksey tried to stumbled through the signs.

Getting up he moved to sit next to the other boy, it would be easier seeing it from his prospective.

"Like this."

He said, slowly showing him each individual letter.

"A.L.E.K.S.E.Y."

It was much easier to follow like that.

He watched Rich run through them, then mimicked, managing some semblance of his name.

It wasn't perfect, but Lyo had always been a good imitator. It was how he had managed to learn English through cartoons and any shitty English movie he could get his hands on.

Teaching someone else sign language, even a small fraction of it always made him happy.

He felt like he didn't need to work so hard in order to communicate with someone.

Despite how well he did it, reading lips was not easy and he often translated things wrong. Especially in a school like this where there were so many didn't accents and dialects.

"Very good."

He turned a disbelieving look to Rich as he was praised, muttering something in Russian.

"It looks nothing like what you did."

He tried to run through it again, still fumbling.

True, Aleksey's signs were clumsy but at least the man was actually trying.

"Maybe shorten your name?" He very rarely signed his full name.

Richmond signed his full name, "See?" Then he simply signed Rich. It was much less confusing.

He shook his head. "Not how it is done in Russia."

He copied Rich's name, and grinned when he didn't mess it up too bad.

"I have nickname. It is Alyosha." He picked up his pencil and scratched it down on the page, like he had done his real name.

A-L-Y-O-S-H-A

It was the same length as his given name.