In Vino Veritas

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Juliette was distracted enough by Marco's spiraling and increasingly-prurient narrative that she almost drank to Emmett's challenge even though it had absolutely no applicability to her whatsoever. Fortunately, she caught herself before she did more than raise her cup a fraction of an inch; she salvaged the movement by raising an eyebrow and giving a little shake of her head to indicate, no, she'd never fallen asleep mid-coitus. Good. Implying otherwise would've been a step or two further down the path of bad decisions, and she doubted she'd've been able to get out of it cleanly; all the denying in the world would've just convinced the others more and more that it had happened. She actually was ready to be surprised if anyone drank here. Sex seemed like an odd time to fall asleep, especially explicitly from boredom.

She was glad at least that Emmett hadn't been sent packing in shame. His fortitude in keeping the game moving was admirable. Andy seemed to be taking it alright, too. Nobody else was dumb or shameless enough to spout their secrets, unless Ariana's fairly innocuous one counted. Juliette actually felt a little prickle of irritation at the girl's response at first, like she was bragging about her happy perfect sexually-exclusive clean uncomplicated relationship, but that wasn't being fair to her and this wasn't the time or place to get sour. So Ariana was happy coupled. Good for her. Ross seemed like a good guy, too, somewhat lacking class presidential campaign aside.

And Marco, of course, was just being gratuitous. He might not even be telling the truth. Juliette wasn't going to blanch and clutch her pearls. She didn't know if this was for her benefit or not—probably not, really—but she was going to play it safe regardless. For whatever reason, her classmates enjoyed trying to get a rise out of her from time to time. She, in turn, appreciated the practice in keeping level that afforded her. Hecklers and critics were a political inevitability, and it was important to be able to play their interruptions off with dignity and grace. Nobody looked good dodging a shoe, but there was a real scale of just how bad you came across. Juliette was still a few drinks away from major threats to her composure.

[Maraoone]

Yuka Hayashibara - START

Yuka stood at the front door, facing a sea of high schoolers and Solo cups.

She wasn't one to let a third shift job at the mall stop her from having a good time, but the party was well in progress already. And there was not one friendly face to hold onto, one friendly face to anchor her, give her stability, familiarity, somewhere to settle down and ease into things. Wasn't Myles supposed to be here? Mercy? Dolly? She stood alone with her chartreuse hair and felt like a sore thumb sticking out, all of a sudden. She stood and looked at the crowd for five, ten seconds, and began to envision a night spent alone in a corner, sullenly sipping the last remnants of lukewarm beer next to someone knocked out, and then going home an hour or two before everyone else. And what was the point in coming here if it didn't make her happy?

And then the words 'suffocate in dick', said with much enthusiasm, drifted across the house, and Yuka finally knew where she wanted to start the night.

Marco was a friend. An odd one, yes, but a friend. Someone who could give her bearing, perhaps. Once he finished talking about... someone ramming things in him?

???

Tanisha was a friend also. She would do.

Yuka grabbed a red cup from a nearby stack and made a beeline towards the assortment of classmates, stopping next to Tanisha. She could somewhat gather what was going on, given Emmett's expression of regret and the fact they were all holding drinks, but it never hurt to ask, anyways.

She leaned towards her and said, in a quiet voice as to not interrupt Marco's story, "Heyyyy, what's going on here right now?"

[backslash]

"Bruh."

Andy couldn't think of anything else to say. He wasn't even sure who he was saying it to, but both Emmett and Marco were good targets. Luckily he was still faded; there was too much good buzz in his head to get thrown too off-balance for long. He still needed to shake some of the fuzz from it before he could properly respond.

"No. No, never had that happen to me. And I mean, you've got one up on Marco, since apparently he only gets laid when he's asleep."

He shuffled one half-step to the side so that the spaces between him and the people flanking him were more even. "But man, I gotta ask- you had somebody fall asleep on you, to give you that idea?"

[Yugikun]

Yo. You know this shit?

You know this shit?

This girl right here knew that this shit was the kinda thing she fuckin’ lived for. Like, seriously. She heard the hype — sorta hard not to fuckin’ feel it, given how dedicated her Mikki girl got in throwin’ her flyers everywhere — but wow, this was fuckin’ goin’ beyond delivering. Like, hey, sorta hard to compare anythin’ to those first parties she went at since, y’know, different time new experience, but maybe once this girl put on the rose glasses and started puttin' everything in perspective she’d put this partay right up there by the top. People said that high school was supposed to be the time of her life, and while the school part itself was more fuckin’ lethargic than anythin’, the side shit? Stuff like this?

Yeah.

She knew what kinda shit they were talkin’ about right now.

Whole thing this was supposed to lead to was that she’d been goin’ at it alllllllllllllllllllll night. Y’know, enjoying the lights, enjoying the music, doin’ as much fun shit with the party people as she possibly could, but even though this party was an overwhelming twenty-nine outta ten things always still ended up where she needed to flop on a couch all out in the wilderness. She still had to y’know, chill out, do that important stuff at the end of the party that’d cinch it. There were a couple things she’d been thinkin’ of doin’ (that Andy guy, Mikki’s dude, he’d been lookin’ fine all night) but y’know, she could settle for anything so long as it gave the cinch. The candle right on top.

And that was when she stumbled (like goddamn, she must’ve had a full-on lapse because she’d drank way more than she thought) on into the room, cup in hand. No clue what was goin’ on but people were full shoutin’ at one another, so…

She gave 'em a little smile.

Maybe this could be what gave it that extra point five.

“Yo. Guys,” she said, movin’ right on to where the hart of this mini-partay was. “What’d I miss? What… kinda thing are we doin’?”

[Cactus]

Mouth firmly slackened with jaw dropped, Ariana held her beer up, balancing her elbow on her knee, and continued to glance from Marco to Emmett, not sure what to be more surprised by. Marco had swung and missed at picking up any of the cues to stop his rather detailed sex dream, and the clearly-flustered Emmett had gone and asked a rather bizarre question. Ariana wasn't sure what to be more perplexed by. Slowly shaking her head at Marco, she turned her attention momentarily back to the rest of the circle, and at Emmett, she shook her head as well.

"What? Who does that?"

Ariana wasn't sure if she were referring to the story, or the question, or both. No, wait. She was sure. It was definitely both.

Thankfully, a few newcomers wandered in the room and asked what was going down, and Ariana was glad to enlighten them, if nothing else than to break the sway that Marco's gratuitous story had on her mind. It was like a car wreck. She could barely turn away, but she managed to look up at Yuka and Teresa.

"Hey ladies. It's Never Have I Ever, featuring," she waved an arm out at the circle, "this motley crew. Join at your own peril!" Pause. "Seriously."

She knew both girls - mostly by reputation or from classes than by direct friendships, but she gathered that the more relatively ordinary folks with interesting secrets there were, the less that Marco and his surprise locker-room penis attack dreams could go on and on without interruption, and that? That was a good thing.

[Primrosette]

Emmett didn't know whether to feel relieved or annoyed that his question hadn't happened to the others and he felt himself not feeling that effected by it. He had read some stories online when it had actually happened to some people and he thought it was crazy as fuck. So he thought it would be a good, bizarre question for him to ask and he wondered why he even remembered it in the first place. Who the fuck knows why he did remember that bullshit?

Emmett's eyes widened in surprise at Andy's question and he didn't feel like he was going to yell at him. All he did was let out a small chuckle and he was looking right at Andy, waving his free hand at him in a 'Get out of here!' friendly manner. He didn't know why he fricking laughed. Maybe because he liked having the guy he liked embarrass him. "Nah, nah. Never had Adonis fall asleep on me, Andy." He was now feeling butterflies in his stomach and he couldn't believe that he was talking about things so casually. He didn't even care that he was doing it in front of Yuka and Teresa. "It would have been so awkward as fuck."

Speaking of talking about things casually....

Emmett turned to look at Marco. He noticed that he was getting more graphic about his sex-in-a-locker-room sex dream with a guy and Emmett felt some heat rushing through his body. Marco was making him feel weird and he knew that he had to stop it before he would get an unexpected bulge downstairs. He would even kiss the guy to shut him up if he had to. But no, he had to do it in a peaceful way. Even if he sucked at being a peaceful person.

"Hey, Marco. I think this is a wonderful story about you getting fucked by a guy in a locker room and all. But...." Emmett moved closer to him and placed a hand on Marco's shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. God, Emmett wanted him to shut the fuck up. "....It's your turn for a question, buddy."

[ItzToxie]

"It was at the point he started choking me I knew this would be a good one..." Marco continued.

This was funny. He could tell he was making everyone in the room uncomfortable, but he didn't care. That was the point. The fact that they all let him get this far was astounding, and honestly, it was really their own faults. They could've told him to stop, and not to this wishy washy 'umm maybe it would be nice if umm y'know crap, but they didn't. Then again even if they told him to, he'd keep going, at least until the point where he absolutely most positively should probably stop due to it destroying any amicable relations with anyone in the room, but until then, he'd keep annoying the shit out of them with it because it was funny.

"So anyways, I finally get my ankles out from above my head and wrap them around his waist whe-" Emmett told him it was his turn, but he was the one. He was the one that tried. He did not know what Chernobyl tier madness he would have just unleashed, but it was about to happen.

Oh. OOOOOOOOOOOH! NOW YOU FUCKED UP!

NOW YOU FUCKED UP!

NOW YOU HAVE FUCKED UP!

YOU HAVE FUCKED UP NOW!

NOW YOU FUCKED UP, NOW YOU FUCKED UP, NOW YOU FU-

"Oh, okay, thanks Emmett!"


I'll get you later.


"Alrighty, so uhhh, Shit, lemme think for a second." Damnit, he was not ready for making up his question. He needed something that'd fuck with people pretty bad. He wanted to ask a question that could cause a damned if you do, damned if you don't, but he wasn't sure which question that'd be. Hmm, shit, this was hard.


"Ummmm, Never Have I Ever... thought about someone else while sleeping with somebody!"

This would either work really well, or not at all, but it was a worthy risk so fuck it, witness.

“ Yeah, we'll go with that! So anyways, as I was saying, I wrap my legs around his waist, and now he's on his back, and I'm on top of him..."

[Grand Moff Hissa]

This was just a sexy game they had going, wasn't it? Juliette swished her cup around, watching the liquid within make a circle for a moment before returning her attention to the others. At this rate, she might well be the only sober one standing before long, but that suited her just fine. And, okay, she had to admit it was actually a little interesting to learn a bit about what her classmates did behind closed doors and under the sheets. She knew of course that those her age had a lot more experience than many expected, and suspected that George Hunter's population was on the freakier end of the bell curve, but the potential for confirmation, even of the anecdotal sort, was intriguing.

She'd probably set their expectations of her in that respect too high with that first round, but that could ultimately be to her advantage. She didn't think herself a total prude, and maybe some of what she'd done would surprise some of those present, but what she hadn't might catch others equally off guard.

Regardless, it was time to at least start musing on what she would ask when her turn came. She needed something that fit with the vibe, that would be fun and in keeping with the tone of the game thus far without singling anyone out or making anyone too uncomfortable. It was a tough enough task to require some actual contemplation.

And, of course, Marco was going on and on with the sordid specifics of his dream. He was so far over the line by now, though, that Juliette couldn't view it as anything but an exercise in humorous transgression and exaggeration. She was curious just how far he'd carry it. Not curious enough to pay active, full attention to it though, of course.

[backslash]

Oh, no, no, no. No. Four nos. That was as many as four ones. And that's terrible.

Andy ought to dunk Marco in the trash for that one. They were on the road to getting people in trouble now. He wasn't here for trouble at Mikki's party.

Andy let out a weird half-chuckle, and the hand holding his cup twitched, but he didn't drink. Kind of felt like the beginnings of a comedown were breaking through. He should track Erika down after this and see if she had any more of what she'd brought.

"Man, that could mean anything. I've thought about math homework while having sex, but it doesn't mean I'm horny for the quadratic equation."

Actually true. Technically speaking, he'd thought about a lot of stuff while having sex. Sometimes something totally random and that you didn't even want to think about came up, because brains were stupid. So technically yes, but saying yes and then trying to explain would just make him look guilty of things that he wasn't really guilty of.

A little white lie never hurt anybody.

[Laurels]

Oh good, more people were making their way into the game. Tanisha had to look over Yuka and Teresa and feel a slight bit of pity for them. They were entering a really fucked up fray, and their first idea of what was going on was Marco's increasingly profane story. But then again, these bitches got away without having to admit if they had sex dreams about classmates or fell asleep while boning, so Tanisha figured that whatever they were subject to was payment enough. They were all clearly selling enough of their dignity, shame, pride, and souls playing Never Have I Ever, and they could use the company.

Marco took a break from his story to declare he's never thought about anyone else while fucking. Tanisha rolled her eyes at this statement. Marco seemed like the kind of manwhore who would be guilty of that. Not that she would say that to his face. It was clear he was more concerned with telling his presumably fake story, so he probably wouldn't acknowledge it.

"Wait, let's get some things clear first," Tanisha said. "If you're doing it with more than one person, does it count if you're fucking one person and not the other and you think about the one you're not deep in? What if you're in a group sex situation and you're thinking of someone who's not in the room yet but will be momentarily? Or does it count if you're boning one person, and right when they finish, you're thinking of the next person about to nail you. I think this situation's a lot more nuanced than you think and I think we need some clarification."

Tanisha paused. She then covered her cup.

"But I haven't done that either way."

[Maraoone]

Right, she was right. Never Have I Ever. That's what was going on.

Ariana's warning was meant to be a joke, but it held some weight. It was a risk being here, to be honest. In hindsight, he probably should've warmed up, sipped beer at the front door for a few minutes before coming here, rather than leaping directly into the fire. Parties in general were always an unpredictable affair, but Never Have I Ever was, like, Maury or the Jerry Springer Show. Fun to watch, but not fun to be a part of. And given they were already talking about sex, they must have been well into the game, well into the juicy questions.

What was fun without a little danger, though?

Marco's story continued and she started to blush, a little. She hadn't even had a sip yet. Marco didn't look the type to have a life as... adventurous as this story made it seem, but she wasn't in a position to judge. She had started to giggle a bit when Marco asked the next question. And then he wiped the smile off her face.

Well then.

She got the bottle of peach vodka, poured it up to the halfway line of her cup, and then downed it all. She wasn't drunk enough to forget this yet.

Looking at the circle, Yuka shrugged. "My mind wanders sometimes."

She felt heat rise to her cheeks, and she couldn't tell if it was the game or the alcohol. She looked at Teresa, Ariana, and Emmett, at their cups. She couldn't be the only one, right?

[Cactus]

"Marco!"

Ariana Moretti's had a voice that carried, which often announced her presence before she'd entered a room. It was something that she couldn't control - she was loud, so what? But at this particular moment, she'd had enough of the gratuitous sex story, and projected in his direction. She held up a hand in his direction at the same time, palm out.

"That's enough. You had a sex dream, we get it. Gory details, you fucked a guy, yadda-yadda, congratulations. Most of us here have done that, too. We get it. Let's move on."

The tone of her voice was firm, with only the slightest bit of annoyance creeping in. He was obviously doing it to get a rise out of someone, and bam - he'd succeeded. The annoyance directed inward at herself now. She was mildly disappointed that she'd allowed herself to walk right into that trap, but she'd had more than her fill of Marco Volker and his ridiculous story. She should have been better at not reacting, but... someone needed to shut him up.

Glancing back at the rest of the circle and the question, Ariana held her beer up shook her head, simultaneously cocking an eyebrow at Yuka taking a lengthy drink. That was interesting. Ariana had never quite understood the tendency some people had to think of other people during sex. For her, sex was a very present thing. She liked it involved, very physical and very focused on the person she was with at the time. It didn't leave much room for anyone else in her mind, and as such she'd never done it.

Smirking slightly at the thought, she shrugged at everyone else.

"Can't say that I have. Sorry."

She glanced around at the circle to see what other truths would reveal themselves.

[Yugikun]

“A’ight.” Smile got kept and arms got raised as she hustled on over near the kitchen bench to fill up her red solo cup. She moved a little bit so that she weren’t blockin’ the way for anyone else, but kept her right arm parked on the bench, leant her body onto it as she let her lefty sift the cup in front of her. Wasn’t really sure ‘bout whether she could be the last one standin’ here — given how doin’ even that was a fuckin’ trip — but hey, whole point of the game was ta have fun, get the deetz on the saucy shit her classmates did. See who the biggest freak of ‘em all was.

‘Course, that’d probably be her, but she was willin’ to see how close Miss Starling over here got to her level. She was also willin’ to see Andy, but hey, with him she didn’t need a reason to do that. He was fine enough on his own.

She took a sip after Marky Mark asked his question. Didn’t bother goin’ on about the semantics or reasons or anythin’ like what the others were doin’ because them complaining was booooorrrrring. Weren’t sure whether she’d actually done what Marky Mark hadn’t since it was too much brainpower right now for her to remember her nights but hey, this alcohol felt great and it sounded like somethin' she'd done before, so she was just gonna watch. See how everyone else was respondin'.

...Tried ta make herself see single. Couldn’t let herself drop out this early.

[Primrosette]

Emmett was not going to play Marco's game with that question. Fuck no. He was being smarter this time by not taking a sip. He was flat out lying by not taking a sip but he didn't want to admit that truth because it would be so obvious who he would have been thinking about while he was having sex with Adonis and.... HOLY SHIT. He wanted Marco to shut his mouth already. He was getting a bit impatient and slightly embarrassed by how long Marco was continuing his story now. And Emmett thought that he would be the one that would be annoying the crap out of everyone.

"Yeah, I have never done that either." He lied in a casual manner and he wanted to put duct tape over Marco's mouth to make him more quieter. "Also I agree with Ariana. Shut the fuck up already. No one gives a shit about your dream anymore, Marco."

[ItzToxie]

“And it’s at that point that I-“

Rude.



Ruuuuuuude.


Girl didn’t nobody teach you not to interrupt people while they’re talking? Did your parents not raise you right or something? Wow...

Oh, oh oh Oh! Now you wanna grow a pair too Emmett? Don’t wanna say shit without stutterfucking it out, but then someone else speaks, and then you man up?


You know what though?

It’s okay.

It’s fine.


I’ll get mine.


No.

No I will.


I’ll get mine.

Okay so maybe Marco is mentally overreacting a little bit. This did throw him for a loop, especially with how sudden shit did a flip flop on him, but really, this was the reaction he was looking for. He got them mad, either by the story or by the question.

Ggez next time don’t get a tracer main involved against a reaper main and maybe you won’t lose as bad next time.

The surprise left Marco’s face as his grin reappeared. You know what? He was gonna continue his story anyways.

“Soooo I look down at him because he was pretty much finished at this point, and I say...”

Marco’s gap became incredibly visible now as he grinned and looked towards his target. His eyes blinking rapidly as he prepared the punch line.

“Thank you, Emmett.”

He slid his tongue across his teeth as he savored the reaction. It was a bit of a shame though, if only Emmett was half the man he was in real life as he was in the dream, maybe Marco’d think of stealing him. But sadly he’s not, Emmett was a pussy and to be honest, that sort of trait is kind of a bonerkiller.

Marco now regretted having the dream, mostly because it showed just how truly low his standards were. Really in the end the joke was on him, and as elaborate and supposedly well planned as it was, the risk was calculated, but Marco has a D- in math for a reason.

He turned over towards Ariana, still feeling rather petty, he spoke again.

“Well Mrs yippity yuppity I am so uppity, care to let us in on something you *didn’t* do?”