Ritchie had accepted a lot of things over the last few days, but a 7ft blue talking dragon was definitely enough to make him stare, mouth hanging slightly open, frozen to the spot, and completely speechless for longer than was probably socially acceptable to stare.
“Uh... thanks?” he stuttered a little, and then tried to regain composure by actually digging himself a much bigger hole with his endless nervous chatter.
“Sorry. I grew up on the Isle of Wight,” he said, then realised this guy had no idea what that meant. “It’s a tiny place, and there was like one Indian family on the whole island, so I’ve never seen anyone like...” he gestured quite calmly up and down Dean’s body. “If it helps, I did an equal amount of staring when I first met Ash. I mean, he’s Indian, and he’s... well, maybe not my boyfriend, but... anyway, I thought he was really exotic when I first met him, and did an equal amount of... uh... not that I fancy you?”
Oh, this was going well.
“Um. Dean, hi. Young Singing Man is Ritchie. Do you do the hand shaking in your culture?”