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[wontturntofoam]

Who: Shrieky, Ki, and Alan
What: ~Karaoke Riot Baby!~
Where: A modestly popular, painfully ironic Karaoke Bar in Howl Barrow
When: Approaching midnight on Givdi
Notes: n/a
Warnings: Mind Control, Violence, Inevitable Shrieking

Shrieky veers back across from the Bar, towards where Alan and Ki are sitting, he's holding three drinks, none of which are what either Ki or Alan actually asked him to get them. He'd just seen a lady with a narrow glass full of something blue that had looked nice, and she'd let him try some, and it had been nice, so now that's what they're going to be drinking. It'll probably be fine. Alan and Ki both probably love things that taste of blueness, because really, who wouldn't?

"Here! I brought you these!"

He sludges himself into the booth next to Alan, and sets the drinks down on the table lightly, before glancing up toward Ki for approval. He doesn't really know her, so the process of deciding whether they're going to be friends, or whether they're going to fight, is still ongoing right now. Her response to mystery drinks may impact on this process significantly.

Once the drinks are down, he sets a hand on Alans arm, and turns to look at him seriously.

"And I signed us up to sing a song together. When this lady is finished it's us, so drink fast."

Comments

[alan_shore]

Alan's fingertips have settled, instinctively, around the rim of his glass, proceeding to twist it—with that certain abstracted sensitivity—as they would a radio dial. As if there might exist some less violently colorful setting, an angle at which the scotch he requested will emerge. (Toying, as he does so, with asking Shrieky if perhaps the fluid currently blaring in their glasses had, in a prior life, induced a sparkle in many a toilet bowl.)

“I'm sorry? No,” he says—not balking, not refusing, simply stating a fact. “I'm afraid that isn't possible. Besides, Ki is my designated singer for the evening. I've instructed her to consume double the alcohol--speaking of which.” With a smile, he nudges his glass toward her.

[aldabeyoun]

Njoki looks down at her drink and then over to Alan's and chuffs in annoyance. She's fairly sure that whatever it is, it's alcoholic and that means she ought to find a polite way to tip it into a plant.

"Alan, I loathe you and everything you stand for." Still, she accepts her drink and takes a wary sip before wrinkling up her nose and delicately putting the glass back on the table.

[wontturntofoam]

"No." Shrieky corrects tersely, reaching across to push Alan's drink back towards Alan, "It is your birthday, and your name to which the song we will sing has been assigned, and so it is you who must sing it with me!"

He pauses, and glances to Ki, "No offense."

He shall sing with her later. An apology song. The song of being Shrieky's second favorite at this particular table.

Then he's sliding the glass right into Alan's hand, as if putting it there will mean that Alan is legally obligated to actually drink it.

[alan_shore]

Alan's still smiling, still basking in the warmth kindled by Ki's avowal of hate, when Shrieky brandishes his own blunt and emphatic species of logic.

"Mermaid," he says, not unkindly, a reasoned appeal made in reasonable tones, "you are generous to a fault--truly--and were I to embark on an enterprise as peril-fraught and uncertain as karaoke I would without question want you at my side. However, in the wilds of Massachusetts, where I was raised, custom dictates that the birthday boy (or girl, as the case may be) be serenaded by others. So, you see, my participation this evening simply wouldn't be proper."

He caps that off with a dainty sip of his drink and garnishes it with a smirk, naturally.

[aldabeyoun]

"Alan's right. We should do this for him and I'm sure that he'll repay me." Njoki, that is neither a comforting nor a friendly smile. "It's not the most lavish birthday present, but it's the best I can do, my gift is my song and this one's for you. After all, it may be quite simple but now that it's done. Mermaid, I hope you don't mind? I hope you don't mind?"

It is the end times.

[wontturntofoam]

"I completely mind." Shrieky interjects sharply, "You can give him the next song! The first one he has to sing. " He rounds on Alan again then, and... at some point his hand has made the perilous journey onto your elbow, and he's giving an insistent little tug.

"And you're not in Massachusetts anymore. In Baedal you have to sing on your birthday. Or on any other celebration which you agree to spend at a karaoke bar."

[alan_shore]

Sensing he'll be yanked to them otherwise, Alan gets to his feet. "Easy now," he cautions Shrieky, the skeleton of a not-quite-laugh rattling its bones from wherever he's stashed it away. He buttons his jacket, a maneuver that, conveniently enough, frees him from the hand at his elbow. "I value this suit more--than my dignity, it seems."

He casts a glance to the stage, then to Ki, smiling in a way that serves as a kind of wordless plea. "Ki, it's been a pleasure. I'm sorry it has to end this way."

[aldabeyoun]

"What price dignity?" There may not be much she can do to save him, but she came prepared with at least a little something to ease his ways. Before he's hauled off, Njoki presses a small, fabric bag into the palm of his hand.

For luck? Or maybe to cause anyone foolish enough to take a picture to have a bit of technical difficulty?