hh_mirror | KARAOKE!

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KARAOKE!

((Sorry about the delay but it took me a while to decide how to play this. If you think it's unrealistic for your character to have been drunk enough/influenced by Ryuuji, you don't have to play along. Otherwise, pick any song you think your char would have sung, upload it to yousendit, then comment with a link. Easy way to share musical tastes! And if your char was drunk enough, pick a song they'd never normally sing and upload that. XD))

Over the course of the evening, everyone had been roped into trying out the karaoke machine at one point or another. Or trying it out several times, since Ryuuji hadn't been quite sure if he'd caught everyone and had compensated for that by pushing anyone he caught onto the stage and insisting that they serenade the pub.

For himself, he'd ended up performing once to break the ice, once for the hell of it and once near the end of the evening to prove he was still sober. And the fact that he thought that would prove he was sober probably testified to the fact that he was more than a little intoxicated by that point.

Songs were:

Every Me and Every You - Placebo.

The Calender Hung Itself - Bright Eyes.

Irresponsible - Voltaire.

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"That'sss rather persssonal," said Crowley, but he made no move to stop Ryuuji.

"Nobody's watching except me." Ryuuji took that for assent, carefully capturing the side legs of the frames between the index and thumb finger of each hand, then pressing up with the thumb to slide the sticks away from Crowley's ears. Slowly drawing them off, he tilted his head at the other, vivid green eyes intense with curiosity.

Crowley's yellow gold eyes shone, reflective even in the dim light of the bar, and his vertical slit pupils contracted to a thin black line. Despite the fact that he was drunk, they were focused intensely on Ryuuji.

"Ssso? What you expected?"

"Pretty!" Ryuuji sounded as delighted as a child with a new toy, a sudden, bright grin curving his lips upwards. Crowley's eyes reminded him of the dragons, especially a black one with eyes of the same gold as she had guarded (her wings were like the night when she soared into the summer sky, her breath held the same heat as the fires of Hell), and Ryuuji thought the only way that Crowley's eyes could have been cooler would have been if they'd been green instead.

Obviously thrilled, his own eyes still what passed for normal (the pupils were smaller than usual for most humans but Ryuuji's father always said that was a sign of rigid self-control), and Ryuuji didn't put the sunglasses back as he told Crowley, "Your eyes are cool. All golden and shiny and slit-pupilled, like my-"

He faltered for a moment, and then glanced around the pub before going on, "Like my kitten's." Pause. "Or like dragon eyes. Proper dragons, not the type they have here. The sentient kind."

"Or a sssnake's. Which is what they are. Can't sssay most people feel the sssame about them as you do. Gave me no end of trouble before sunglassses were invented. Alwaysss gave me headachesss to make them look normal and it never lasssted long."

Crowley gave a rare blink, feeling exposed without his glasses on.

"They were grey once. A very long time ago..."

"...Did they look like snake eyes then as well, or human eyes?" Ryuuji kept looking into the other's eyes, fascinated by the golden shine of them. The light seemed to slide off them, slipping off with sparks, and the slim black lines of Crowley's pupils were like prison bars to cage his thoughts.

"And the good thing about Hogwarts is that most people look different anyway, so I doubt anyone would care if your eyes are snake eyes or not. Especially not when they look so very awesome, all deadly and dangerous and treasure-golden."

"Human. Except for the colour."

Then Crowley raised an eyebrow. He couldn't handle so much hyperbole when he was drunk. Sobering up with a shudder, he willed the alcohol out of his system and sat up straighter.

"However 'awesome' they look, I think I'll stick with the glasses. There are enough snakes around here and I don't want to distract anyone in class."

He wasn't about to mention the other reason he wore sunglasses.

"...'kay." A tad reluctantly, because he liked Crowley's eyes, damnit, Ryuuji proferred the sunglasses to Crowley, folded up on the palm of his hand. "Plus, you look cool when you wear sunglasses - everyone wouldn't recognize you without them, just like people don't recognize Nightwing without his spandex and eye mask!"

"I always look cool. But they are distinctive. Especially when I wear them at night with a very good suit."

He took his glasses back, unfolded them, and slid them comfortably back onto his nose with no audible sound of relief.

"I'm sure I needn't remind you that discussing this with anyone would be a really bad idea..."

With a roll of his eyes, Ryuuji pouted at Crowley, narrowing his own eyes a little, "You don't. Nobody ever does. And everybody needs to learn that so that they'll stop telling me to keep stuff secret when I'd do that anyway."

Nod, nod and slight dizziness at nodding when having drunk quite a bit already.

"I did say that I knew that I didn't have to remind you."

Crowley rested his head on his hand and looked askance at Ryuuji, wondering how drunk the other was.

"So what's the deal with the dragons anyway?"

"Dragons. Right!" Ryuuji seemed to instantly perk up, gesturing excitedly with one hand for no reason in particular except it seemed the thing to do. Cheeks a little flushed (the problem with those refilling, changing drinks was that you couldn't tell how much you'd drunk), he caught Crowley's gaze as best as he could and told him solemnly, in a tone bordering on reverential, "Dragons are awesome. All beautiful and deadly and sleek and powerful. And they've got those tails, see, and when you're on the ground, you can whack people with those tails and then you breathe on them and then WHOOSH! They're ashes. So cool. I love it."

Green eyes glittering excitedly, he went on, "And the sight, man, the sight! You can see anything small and moving like crazy - I bet even birds don't have it that good, because you can see heat too, not just shapes and silhouettes. And when you're in the air, and flying, and you can see everything and you've got scales like armor, it's- it feels like being invincible. Like you're so high, nobody can ever bring you down, nobody can ever hurt you. That even if they clip your wings and burn you, you'll fall and crash-land in the way you want."

With a nod, Ryuuji went on firmly, "'s why I hate brooms. Brooms are tiny and flimsy and you feel like they'll crash because you're not really the one controlling them - you didn't make them, and anyone can sneak jinxes onto them. Dragons are so much cooler. Brooms are just brooms. Sticks. The most you could diguise one as would be a spear or something. Dragons can be human, and they can walk right in the middle of you, and they smell like smoke and ashes unless they wear perfume or cologne - which most of them are smart enough to do - and they fly against the moon like death descending and they walk on the earth as if they own it."

Apparently getting Ryuuji even a little drunk meant he'd be both talkative and inclined towards being poetic. Then again, Japanese people were genetically less able to handle alcohol, so it didn't really take much for him to get to the expansive stage of intoxication since that was close to his normal mood anyway.

Crowley smiled encouragingly. People were all the same. You just had to find the right lever. He already knew that Ryuuji had some kind of connection with dragons. The boy's scent was too similar to that of the dissected dragon's for it to be a coincidence, but he hadn't considered that he was a dragon or at least part of one. Maybe that explained his odd affinity for the boy. Reptilian sensibilities or something. He didn't think too much about it, but he did want to keep him talking, interested despite himself.

"I know how you feel about brooms. That's why you couldn't get me on the Quidditch team. My own wings are solid and I know they'll hold me up better than a twig. A dragon must be even more solid, though... Tell me, can they do anything besides fly around and burn things?"

"Yeah, of course! Dragons are really, really loyal to their kin and they make great guardians if you have something that needs to be protected." Ryuuji nodded, unconsciously reaching for the necklace he always wore, and the pendent that dangled from the black leather cord. "Plus, since they live for ages, they also talk to each other a lot and have tons of abstract discussions. They're smart like that, you know. You can talk to them for hours, because they'll take one concept, turn it upside down and inside out, then put it together so that there's nothing left over but it still looks totally different to how it was originally."

Eyes as green as emeralds, but lit with enthusiasm, stayed fixed on Crowley even as Ryuuji waved his hands around, apparently trying to pick words from thin air. "And they dance, in the air. It's gorgeous. They blow smoke and whirl and spin towards each other like they're going to crash but last second they twist instead to rub bellies, and their wings flare and it's gorgeous. Dragon dances are really hard to catch on tape or anything too, and no real dragon would stoop to selling their dances, so if you're lucky enough to witness one, you drop everything you're doing to watch 'cause it's not likely to get repeated."

His drink was completely forgotten by now. "And they groom, a lot. Dragons are very proud, you know, and that extends into vanity, so they spend quite a bit of time just flopped over each other, cleaning the scales and talons and making each other shine like the treasures they guard - all dragons collect treasures of different types, because they like shiny things. And people. That's why it used to be princesses, because they'd get lots of jewelry and 'pure' souls, untouched by the despair of scrubbing through much just to get enough to eat."

Quickly, almost apologetically, Ryuuji added, "But of course, they don't do that anymore. Can't, because if you take on human shape and live with them, then it's too weird to eat them. Like cannabalism. Or cannibalism. Or is that cannibis?"

Cue a confused blink at Crowley, the effects of the alcohol hitting Ryuuji harder as he relaxed into the topic instead of focusing on making Crowley feel better.

((I am a bad, bad girl and made Eros app instead of going to bed. @_@ At least I got off the comp in my room though, since I was keeping my roommate up there!))

Further amused by Ryuuji's enthusiasm, Crowley smiled.

"I can tell that you care about them a lot. Do you miss them?"

((No kidding! Did you get any sleep at all???))

"Yeah..." Ryuuji's voice trailed off for a moment as he looked down at the table, pouting a little. "Feels weird being here. All humans and mostly humans and dragons that aren't dragons because they don't think..."

Lost, he let himself go silent for a moment, but then apparently cheered up as quickly as he'd gotten depressed. "But that's okay! Dragons are everywhere. Much closer than you think. I don't need to miss them because they're not really gone."

((Nope. Been awake for 31+ hours and counting!))

"I know how you feel," said Crowley cryptically as he pushed back his chair to stand up.

"Well, it's been real, kid, but I think it's time I head back to the castle. You going to be able to make it back?"

((What the hell? Holy cow, girl, go to bed already!))

"...Yeah, being a demon here must be weird." Ryuuji agreed, picking up on what the other meant easily enough, then blinking at him with surprise.

Mock-pouting for a second, he laughed and then shook his head. "If you want to head back already, go ahead. I'm afraid that as the co-host of the evening,"

Cue a glance at the stage where a drunk Nightwing was singing "Livin' La Vida Loca" and shaking his leather-clad ass very enthusiastically, "I need to stay until everyone's gone to make sure everything goes fine."

((*dead* I did. I was trying to reset my system to stop me being nocturnal.))

"You could say that."

Crowley nodded and headed for the door, a smile playing on his lips as he looked up at Nightwing.

"Good luck, kid..."

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KARAOKE!

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