Everybody was drunk. Marie had thought that she was drunk, but she had underestimated the fabled 'teenage party atmosphere.' She couldn't get her words straight, but that was partially the caffeine rifling through her bloodstream at top speed, not just the alcohol. Not to mention english wasn't even her first language. you could hardly blame her.

Not only that, she had also underestimated the scandal factor of certain people in the circle. Marie had her ups and downs, but was it actually unusual to have never had sex in a public place or steal things? Maybe she was just jumping to conclusions. Plenty of people still had more than a hand's worth of fingers up, Marie included (she'd had to knock her count down to seven due to Laney's jab at the sports teams. At least, if track was a sport.)

Brooke's suggestion made her think, probably for longer than was appropriate, given the flow of the game. Obviously she'd never had sex with anybody in the room, but had she never had a crush on anybody? There were plenty of people she really enjoyed hanging out with, but was there ever more to it? It was probably the Jager talking, but she'd sort of feel bad if she managed to leave her finger up in this case. Like an admission that she, too, hated everybody. But what if she put her finger down and it was a lie? Would anybody know? If somebody knew, would somebody call her out on it? She felt her eyes turn into spirals as smoke poured out of her ears. At least, if this was a cartoon that would have happened.

Was it Hal? Did she maybe have a crush on Hal? It was the obvious choice, the two got along like PB&J, but was that actually any different from how she thought of all of her friends? Connor? She liked his energy and bravado, but even she knew they couldn't spend that much time together without tearing down a building or two. Was that a crush? Amanda-san? Obviously Marie liked her a lot, but no, she didn't get that impression from herself. She had a lot of respect for the Hancocks, but probably didn't know them well enough to say much... Who do I choose? Wait, why am I choosing anything? Why is there a choice? The whole thing was stupid, like Brooke implied. The strength of alcohol's hold on her wavered for a split second, but it was enough to see that the only reason she was thinking stuff like this was because she was drunk. No, she probably didn't have a crush on anybody at this point. The year was still young, but Marie was non-committal even at the best of times. She liked all of her friends, and it didn't have to be any more complicated than that.

It wasn't her turn in the circle yet, but she was proud of her finger count, at least for the moment. Still, it was easy to see who was going down soon. She had a pretty firm notion that she wasn't going to lose this particular game.

Well of course, nobody likes the idea of death and your affinity for it will just lessen your complete understanding towards that concept, little Brookie.

Such mockery never did become a deliberate sentiment for a point he'd make. Spencer has no nagging doubt projecting his cocky judgement against an interest deluded by naivety, but from knowing Brooke as a person who was easily fueled by a peculiar kind of hatred, it was a wise decision to have left those words unspoken.

"Death?" How he asked sounded a bit pretentious, given that he wasn't particularly willing to open a topic he had no interests with. Spencer lifted an eyebrow, then leaned his attention more to Brooke with a skeptic glance.

"That's ... something I haven't heard in a while." A sheepish shudder slipped in-between words.

One thing Spencer could've easily considered was the fact that he's bad at forcing emotions foreign from his recurring perception. He was an individual who was blunt to the core, consistently direct on delivering things to the main point. Neither did he fancy over a frantic nor bashful path of communication as he believed such things would only lessen his firm stand as an outspoken individual. However at this point, he felt something was holding him back, as if he's not being his usual self. Normally he'd hop around groups of people, conversing about the most exaggerated of topics revolving around scandalous facts on teachers and the like. This night was a bit different but there wasn't anything he'd be illustrious about. Not even a single story he could proudly share with anyone.

Spencer pulled his gaze away from Brooke and back to the view of people enjoying themselves. How he pictured it made him wonder if he was there as well. Perhaps he could but the uncertainty of what might happen bugged him to an extent.

"Yeah, I believe so." Calmly, he spoke despite his voice being drowned by the blaring sounds of music. "They're having too much fun, it's making me gag. How about we just shoot everyone with this handgun I've brought so that we can have our own fun, hm?"

For the next few seconds or so, there was silence in-between them. Not a single spoken word slipped out from their lips. Spencer's mischievous chuckle broke the abrupt silence then prodded Brooke at her shoulder.

"I kid."

He rested himself back in stillness, knowing Brooke may not respond to his ridiculous suggestion despite being an obscure comic relief. Perhaps it'd best to just sit back until the party was over and carry the burden of his drunken friends thereafter. For the next few minutes, he enjoyed the comfort of his seat, prying over the subtle oddities of his imagination.

No Lord of the Rings daydreaming.

He'd recalled. Though in some way, he might find his fascination by replacing everyone with the visage of orcs. A faint laughter escaped his lips, for once being concerned of his own sanity and how Brooke would've grimaced from his sudden behavioral shift.

That was when Korrie ― his ever marvelous roommate ― took away his grip of silence.

One couldn't help but wonder how much the boy displayed such an aggravating disposition, of which left Spencer glowering with his mouth partly agape. He was intoxicated, simple as that and how he instantly dragged Spencer to the gathered group wasn't quite the advocating move.

The game 'Never have I ever' wasn't entirely unfamiliar to him. In fact, in some free time spent with his club's meetings, some members occasionally circled themselves with that said activity. However Spencer never laid his hands towards it. He's more of a spoilsport rather than being a socially enthusiastic person. Being put in an unlikely situation wasn't something Spencer would be happy about but often did he improvise on similar places of activity and things such as social gatherings wouldn't be of any difference.

He ignored Korrie for a moment as he was brought to the circle. Perhaps dealing with him later would be a better solution. He slyly rolled his eyes as he realized Brooke took the moment ahead of him. Not really expected but he wouldn't care less.

"So, am I supposed to confess something embarrassing now? I thought this is a party, not a church." He glanced around, eyeing most of the people surrounding the circle. "Fine then."

He crunched his knuckles as he stood idly, dawdling over a quick twitch of his head while biting his lip.

"Never have I ever ..." This is ridiculous. He paused, feeling yet another slump weighing above his shoulders before continuing. While trying to spew out some words he could say, Spencer continued glancing around until he spotted a bottle full of booze huddled around a girl's arms. He stepped aside a moment after noticing it and immediately snatched the bottle away. The girl was left with her mouth open and a confusion following it.

"Hey!" She exclaimed.

Spencer gave no response as he went back to the circle. He chuffed a heavy ounce of breath that he held inside as he grabbed the bottle and popped it open.

"Never have I ever done something like this." as he drawled, he lifted the bottle, pressing it to his mouth as he guzzled up every ounce of liquid contained in the bottle. He continued, ignoring his bodily reactions up until slurping the last drop. As he removed the bottle, he felt a blur in his vision. A dizzy motion swirling around what was left of his senses. Once the bottle was dropped freely, Spencer's body went along and hit the floor. He laughed while he lied down, covering his eyes with his hands.

"My mother taught me how to butcher children!" He shouted with soft chuckles inserted in-between. Slowly he realized how much he was drifting from his own grip.

At some point, somehow, Connor had lost his shirt and acquired the hat component of one of the bear costumes.He had also somehow done that while not missing any of the game. He was down to three fingers; after the first two from Nate and Hal, he lost a third to Maie for his stint stealing street signs one summer. Another went down to Emilie’s impossibly naive question; he’d actually stopped and stared at her for a second. Never in a million years would Connor have guessed that someone with Emilie’s looks would still be a virgin this late into high school. “Gucci,” he said affirmingly, as a he took a drink.

Laney’s question was pretty loaded. “LAHNAY. Harsh bruh, so harsh,” he called out, putting down his fifth finger and finishing his drink. He’d barely finished refilling his cup before Aspen’s question had him drinking again. Connor noticed that Alyssa Boudreau across the circle was not drinking for that one, and she was pointedly avoiding making eye contact. Well, that was her perogative, but it it did make him chuckle. In a shower stall after swim practice counted as public right?

The new kid obviously couldn’t handle his liquor, and proceeded to make a total ass of himself. From the look of it, he’d be hugging toilets soon, but that fell squarely into the category ‘not mah prawblem’. It was a good question though, and gave Connor a chance to stop drinking for a second. He hadn’t properly met the new kid, but the red hair and weird contacts really bugged him. The kid thought he was so edgy, or cool, but really he looked like a shitty cosplay. Everything about him rubbed Connor the wrong way. “Arrested? 2Edgy4me!” he hollered out, eliciting some drunken laughter around the circle.

Brooke’s question dropped a wave of fingers all over the room, Connor’s included. There was much giggling involved too, and probably a lot of wild mass guessing. Connor didn’t pay any attention to it, enough people had put down a finger there was no point trying to figure out the connections.

And then Spencer barged into the circle and downed a whole bottle without even looking at it. A rhythmic chant of “chug, chug, chug!” built up around him. Connor looked at Spencer, bemused for a moment, then shrugged, clapped his hands, put down a finger, and took a drink. With that, he was down to two fingers.

Connor was a veteran drinker, and while many people here would be kissing porcelain soon, he had the distinction of being over a year puke free. He was quiet for a moment, then started touching his own face with open palms. Hmmmm, somewhere a little past ‘smashed’, but far off from ‘wasted’ or ‘gone’. He poured his next drink with only a splash of vodka, enough to sustain his current level of drunk without escalating any further, for the moment. After all, the night was still young.

Korrie merely chuckled at Brooke as she scolded him, the bear head having come off when he fell . . . as had one of his contacts, showing his true eye color to be a rather bright shade of ice blue. He looked over at everyone else, his hands still up to 7 fingers and the stupid smile never leaving his face. After a minute or so of getting himself into a sitting position, he merely continued to smile at Brooke, a more noticeable sway to his movements as he did so. "Anyone ever told you that you look cute when you're angry?" He spoke with a quarter second of focus before his eye shifted over to Spencer, breaking into a fit of stupid giggles as Spencer stole a girl's beer and leaped into the frey of teenage antics.

Korrie would get up and put an arm around Spencer, only to take a misstep and fall over again. Korrie went down and this time he wasn't coming back up. The alcohol had caught up with him and knocked him gold, with only the raging terror that is a hangover to look forward to.