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Generally, when Henrique had a good idea , it involved one of two things. One was murder (usually by means of arson). The other was copious quantities of alcohol. Both of these were things that the Phœnix had in great quantity, and although murder tended to be unadvisable when there were no expendable bodies (and arson even less so), alcohol was freely available. Not to mention they had plenty of good company, one very sizable and comfortable mess hall to gather in, and many, many tankards.
“Your turn, Henrique.”
Henrique laughed, leaning back in zir chair. Ze was already quite a few drinks deeper than most of the others, both having started drinking sooner and having done a considerable amount of- well, everything. The game had been zir suggestion in the first place, after all. “Aw, hell. Uh… never have I ever sent someone into the Lonely.”
“That’s not fair,” Micah protested, picking up his mug.
“Neither was you asking if anyone’d ever set a city on fire.”
“Anyone could have done that! Clarence took a drink that time.”
“Only on a technicality,” Clarence remarked from the other side of the table. “Apparently setting a small part of a city on fire still counts.”
“Any percentage of a city that’s more than one house set on fire counts.”
“Who’s making these rules?”
“I’m making these rules.” Henrique took another sip for the heck of it. “Drink, Mic. Who’s next?”
Jack raised her tankard on Henri’s right. “Never have I ever buried someone alive.”
“Come on,” Clarence complained, but took his drink. So did Kai, interestingly, and Jack’s eyes lit up. “I want that story.”
“It’s a long one. Maybe another time. Next?”
Cook tilted their head, thinking. “Uh… never have I ever read the newspaper.” A chorus of groans went up as about half the crew drank.
“I feel like we shouldn’t be letting Cook play,” Augustin said grumpily, as Joshua keeled over sobbing about illiteracy and poor children into his chest. “They haven’t done… well, anything normal. Ever.”
Yeah, but that makes them easy to target , Eli reminded them, signing. And at least you aren’t playing ‘Never Have I Ever’ with a mug of blood.
“A WHAT!?”
Regardless. Never have I ever played ‘Never Have I Ever’ with a mug of blood.
Cook drank without complaint, while Auggie looked aghast and tried to get a good view into their mug. Kai tried her very best to take a drink of her own subtly, while everyone stared at her.
“Now I really want that story,” Jack said eagerly.
“Later in the night, when I’m drunker, we’ll see.”
“It takes you forever to get drunk, though!”
“Better keep up, then, sweetheart.”
“Done flirting?” Clarence asked smugly, as Jack turned pink. “You skipped Joshua’s turn, let him have a go.”
Hez raised his eyebrows. “Does he really look like he wants to have a go?” Joshua was still crying about the poor illiterate children, so they let it drop, and moved on. Hez’s own turn was next.
“Never have I ever… ah… intentionally eaten a live insect.”
“You haven’t?” Jack asked, only half-jokingly, as she drank, as did Henrique, Cook, and Gall.
Hez looked mildly nauseated. “Of course I haven’t. Why have you?”
“For fun,” Cook said, at the same time as Henrique and Jack both said “For a bet.” Gall just shrugged cheerfully and resumed looking in awestruck admiration at Cook. Joshua burst into fresh tears and started telling everybody about how ants could get lonely.
The game continued. Clarence’s turn. “Never have I ever gone ballroom dancing.” Dorian, already mostly passed out on the table, started protesting that actually, he’d done it once because Dorian himself had taught him, and Clarence attempted to argue that that hadn’t been ballroom dancing since it was more of a badly performed tango as neither of them knew how to dance, and their debate eventually all sort of devolved into Dorian drunkenly dragging Clarence off somewhere else for a while to teach him how to do it properly, while Hez took a sip from his mug and giggled about it.
Clancy’s. “Never have I ever BEEN A FLESH AVATAR WHO CUT OFF MY HEAD.” Cook drank proudly, while Auggie loudly reprimanded Clancy for asking something targeted at the one person in their group who was getting drunk off human blood that had clearly come out of one of them. Cook mentioned something about a blood type, and the ensuing chaos ended with Auggie shouting “SO WHAT, WANT TO KISS ABOUT IT!?” and both Clancy and Micah turning violently red and muttering something about continuing the game.
Gall’s “never have I ever-” was cut off rather suddenly and nobody ended up actually hearing what he was going to say, as Auggie immediately ‘happened to remember’ that Gall couldn’t actually get drunk and therefore shouldn’t even be playing in the first place, and Gall explaining cheerfully that he just liked the experience!, and both Jack and Eli having to take a moment to physically restrain the Beholding avatar until he had had a few deep breaths and calmed down.
Alexander’s. “Never have I ever been taller than five foot five.” Nobody had ever seen Micah look smugger than in that moment.
Augustin’s. “Never have I ever been keelhauled.” Kai drank, again, remarking on how it wasn’t really very interesting to target her and rather more interesting to target other people and see how much she still ended up drinking.
Micah’s. “Never have I ever gouged someone’s eyes out.” Augustin drank. So did Kai. Micah looked reluctant to have asked.
Kai’s. “Never have I ever made out with Clarence.” Quite a few people drank. Auggie, who was steadily getting drunker, tried to make a case about how Clarence was technically making out with himself whenever his mouth was shut because his lips were touching, which everyone else immediately vetoed, very loudly, all at once.
“All right,” Hez said eventually, when everyone was falling over themselves near the end of the night. Hez himself wasn’t exactly sober, to put it lightly, but his generally considered ‘good behaviour’ (and what everyone else called ‘fun-sponginess’) had gotten him out of quite a few drinks, so he was kind of winning, maybe. Nobody had told anybody else what the rules were. “I think… I think that’s quite enough for one night.”
Auggie slurred something about feeling fine, seconds before slurring something else about how comfortable Clarence’s lap was, and immediately passing out there. The rest of the crew got the example and moped themselves off to their own rooms, or to other people’s rooms, whichever was closest or most convenient.
As Henrique left, ze took a moment to reflect.
It had been a damn great idea.