xp_logs | The Junior Trenchcoats

The Junior Trenchcoats have a bonding ritual of their own - they get drunk and play Truth or Dare. With various results.

"This almost reminds me of Christmas with my family," said Mark. "Everyone is drunk and alternating between foul moods and affection. Pass the rum." His gaze traveled over the almost dozen people in the room, all of whom appeared to be in various stages of inebriation. "It's like a bonding ritual here. We're all going to learn a lot about each other by week's end. Maybe without killing each other. Emphasis on the 'maybe.' Also almost like my family."

Amanda handed over the bottle, wrinkling her nose. "See, the last family Christmas I did was with Pete's dad and Rom," she said. "Mad old bastard, but not a bad bloke, under the whole conspiracy theory stuff. But not exactly your Hallmark greeting card Christmas thing." She raised an eyebrow questioningly at Mark. "Bonding ritual, huh? That gives me an idea. How about we grab the rest of the Junior Trenchcoats and a few 'supplies' and leave this lot to it? There's a whole other common room at the other end of the building..."

"I don't think I brought my supplies for bond . . . Oh, I see." Mark grinned and raised his cup to Amanda in mock-salute. "You know, you're a very bad influence on me. I was never this much of a perv before I met you. Really. Why are you looking at me like that?"

~*~

"I feel like I'm back in high school." Mark threw his legs over the armrest of the big comfy chair he was sitting in, like a divan. He wanted a divan. He made a note to talk to Frost to replace all the comfy chairs in the brownstone with divans. If he could remember in the morning, which wasn't looking too likely as the night wore on. Mark shook his head to bring himself back to the here and now. "Okay, we all know the rules, right? So, since I'm teh n00b, I get to go first. Angie, truth or dare?"

Marie-Ange looked up from the orange she'd been peeling, and raised an eyebrow. "Truth, unless you have melted chocolate for me to dip my orange in. I want chocolate covered orange slices." She continued to section the orange, leaving an unnaturally tidy pile of peel on the paper plate in her lap. "If you have chocolate, I will take a dare."

"Alas, I have none." Mark sighed heavily. "Easy one for you, because I'm still sober. If your only choices are granny panties or nothing, which would you wear?" He glanced at Doug out the corner of his eye and grinned. "And elaborate. Why?"

"Those are my only choices? At all?" Marie-Ange asked, shaking her head. "I am not allowed horrible underwear and a pair of scissors?" Mark shaking his head made her roll her eyes, and she threw a piece of orange peel at him. "None at all. The granny panties, as you say, are ... no. They should not even be allowed. Not even if I were to ever be a grandmother would I -ever- wear them. No. Not at all comfortable or flattering and you cannot get them in nice colours or materials." She bit into a piece of orange and chewed. "I choose.... oh.. Amanda." Because she would have asked Mark but he had asked her. And ask-backs were just not on.

Amanda was still giggling over Marie-Ange's answer. "Wha--- oh, me. Right." She thought for a minute. "Dare."

She'd been hoping for truth. There were all kinds of questions Marie-Ange could ask Amanda that would have been easier to think of then something to dare her to do. She made a thoughtful hrming sound, and then looked up, remembering the plushie Santa hat that had been perched atop the tree in lieu of an angel or star. "I.. dare you to go play Santa's Helper and deliver those fruitcakes that we got sent to Pete." She dug around in her jeans pockets, finding a sketched-on index card and then popping a gaily-clad and antelered imp into existance. "You have to wear the hat. And have one tiny ... rein... imp." Obviously the eggnog had just started to kick in.

Amanda gave her a long-suffering look. "What is it with you lot and making me dress up like a lunatic?" she asked rhetorically, grabbing the rum bottle off Mark and taking a healthy swig before getting up. "No having orgies while I'm gone," she warned, waggling her finger at the group. "C'mon, Blotto." She beckoned the rein-imp to follow her as she snagged the hat from the tree with a couple of jumps. Shoving it on her head slightly askew, she did a little turn for the benefit of her friends. "How's that?"

"Festive!" Marie-Ange said, giggling over her mug of eggnog. Addictive stuff, it was. She waved a hand towards the index card, and another pair of imps sprang up, one with a brightly glowing red nose. "Twas the Night before Christmas..."

"And all through the brownstone..." Amanda grinned impishly as the imps collected said fruitcake. "Come Blotto and Surly, come Trolleyed and Stupid, come Vomit and Baileys and..." Her powers of invention failed her, and she continued, with a helpless hand gesture: "Jack, Johnny and Jose?"

A chorus of groans, giggles and various thrown snackfoods followed her as she left, imps bearing fruitcake in her wake.

Mark was having a hard time staying on his chair. He had one hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter, but was rocking and threatened to fall off. "You should've given her a Mrs. Clause costume!" he suggested between giggles. "I need a picture of this when she gets back."

Sarah cradled her forehead in the palm of her hand, shaking her head slowly. "I was going to say we don't have enough alcohol for this. Obviously I was wrong."

"I think that the problem is that we have too much alcohol," Doug corrected. Because really, things could only go in a more raunchy direction as the group got more drunk. For himself, he was still trying to figure out which possibility frightened him more, truth or dare. He suspected each one presented its own minefield. He also suspected he was probably worrying too much about it when the game had only started.

Further conjecture was interrupted by Amanda's reappearance, the rein-imps trooping around her. "Mission accomplished," she announced, flopping back down between Mark and Doug. forgetting to take off the hat. "Uncle Pete's been reminded of just how insane I am, the dare is done and it's my turn, isn't it?" She grinned wickedly at Doug. "So let's put you out of your misery, mate. Truth or dare?"

It wasn't that Doug was miserable, so much as nervous about potentially embarassing truths or dares, and the fallout of them. And Amanda had a distinctly mischievous glint in her eye that wasn't helping. "Tr...dare," he said, his eyes flicking minutely at where Marie-Ange sat.

"I'll be nicer than last time," she told him, still grinning. "But I still owe you for the karaoke. So, you get to give us a show - and I get to pick the song."

Doug brightened at that. No matter what horrendously embarassing song she might have picked, Amanda hadn't come even close to the vague worries that Doug had been fretting over. Which made him feel just a bit silly, honestly. "Fair enough," he told the Brit with a grin. "Barry Manilow? Celine Dion?"

She wrinkled her nose. "That'd need me to know actual songs of theirs. Nah, something a bit less hard on the ears. Queen." The evil grin widened as she pulled a feather duster and a long pink boa out from behind her back - she'd nabbed them on the way back from Pete's delivery. "'I Want To Break Free'. You're just lucky I don't make you go put on the dress."

"And what would you have done if I'd picked truth?" Doug asked goodnaturedly. "And you've been snooping in my music collection, haven't you?" He didn't precisely go out of his way to hide his extreme appreciation of Queen's music, but he certainly didn't advertise it either.

Gravely and slightly overdramatically, he draped the boa over his shoulders and launched into his best (and rather astonishingly accurate) Freddie Mercury impression.

The sound of choking from Marie-Ange's corner of the room was followed just as quickly by her blindly reaching for a napkin to cover her nose. "One of you owes me an eggnog. I just snorted mine through my nose." She said, after coughing a little.

Laughing and applauding, Amanda looked unrepentant. "Good thing is, there's always more nog. Or rum. Or vodka. Or... well, you get the picture." As Doug came and sat back down, boa still in place, she patted him on the shoulder. "Well done, you. Now, your turn to pick someone."

Doug looked around the circle and decided to involve the only person who had yet to give or receive a challenge. "Sarah, truth or dare?"

"Truth. I'm feeling masochistic tonight." Sarah grabbed the bottle of vodka behind her, and poured herself another half-glass. And then chugged it. "Okay, now I'm ready."

Doug thought for a moment and took a swig of his own eggnog. "Okay. If you could have sex with any celebrity you wanted, who would it be and why?"

Sarah gave him a slightly annoyed look, and muttered something about a waste of a good vodka buzz. "Any celebrity? Brad Pitt, but only as Tyler Durden. And if you need to ask why, you've obviously not been paying attention." Pouring herself another glass, she added, "Or Britney Spears. I could slit her throat and leave her in a ditch afterwards. I'd be a hero. Volunteers for next?"

"Ooh ooh, pick me!" Mark waved his arm frantically. "Um, dare." Truths were wimpy, and he was drunk. Very drunk. The time to do something outrageous with a flawless excuse.

Sarah eyed him from where she sat, considering which route she wanted to take. Things had been tame so far, and might stay that way if somebody didn't break the ice. "Mark, I think Amanda needs a lap dance."

Amanda nearly spit out the mouthful of rum she had at that pronouncement, though more from laughter than shock. "I think someone's just upped the stakes a bit," she said, winking at Sarah. She agreed that things had been a bit tame so far, although she also was making sure Doug and Angie didn't end up feeling uncomfortable. That wasn't what Junior Trenchcoat Bonding Time was about, after all.

They'd just have to get more drinks in. That way they wouldn't care what they were being dared to do.

"Bee are bee," said Mark, swinging his legs over the seat so he could get up. He ran off to his room and returned a minute later with a dock for his iPod. "Can't really do this without music, can I? Ah, this works." He winked at Amanda and strutted across the room to her as the high pitched moaning of Madonna's "Erotic" started playing. And the way he danced on her, ever so close to touching but not actually doing it, seemed to suggest that he'd done this once or twice before.

Amanda's face was a little flushed when he was done, not so much from embarrassment as booze and certain paths her thoughts were taking. "Well, you're just a man of many talents, aren't you?" she teased him. "Almost makes me forgive the Madonna obsession."

"Not obsession," Mark corrected as he finished and returned to his seat calmly as if he hadn't just performed lasciviously for a friend in front of other friends. "Worship. There's a clear and distinct difference. Anyway, my turn again. Uh, Doug! Truth or dare?"

~*~

Several more rounds (and quite a few drinks) later, things had gotten decidedly more mellow. The dares had gotten sillier, usually involving acts of insanity performed in front of the older members of the Snow Valley crew. Amanda, now sprawled on one of the couches with her head pillowed on Marie-Ange's leg, twisted a little to peer at her next victim. "Um... Sarah! Truth or dare?"

Sarah looked up from her bottle of vodka, (she'd stopped pouring it into a separate cup a few hours ago and just stuck with the bottle, and now the bottom was in sight) glancing around the room. How the hell had she gotten talked into this game anyway? "Aw, fuck it. Dare."

"Hmm." Looking rather blearily around the circle, the witch tried to think of a good dare. "All right. Go find Sofia, and sing 'Mary had A Little Lamb' to her." There was a pause and then she added. "Or you could just snog her."

"Yeah, because making out with my shrink is the best way to keep myself not crazy. I think I have to take the serenade. Not like she doesn't already think I'm crazy." Sarah pushed herself up from the chair, amid the disappointed responses from the other players. "I'll be back after I've earned myself extra hours on the couch."

"There hasn't been enough snogging in this game," Amanda proclaimed. "What's truth or dare without snogging?"

"What are you, thirteen?" chided Mark. "Oh my God, so, like, who do you like like? Like, really," he said, as if he were a character ripped straight from Laguna Beach. Which he didn't watch. Like, really."

Amanda gave him the middle finger, or at least, made the gesture in his general direction. "Well, next time when it's your turn to ask, you can show us how it's done," she told him without rancour. "And I need more booze. Where's the rum gone?"

"Children, children. Please." Sarah came back into the room, headed straight for her chair and the remainder of the vodka bottle. "I need something to get my mind off of the fact that I'll probably be on double sessions for a month. Doug, truth or dare?"

"Dare." The dares had been getting more and more risque, but Doug was still refusing to pick Truth. If he didn't pick Truth, he wouldn't have to answer embarassing questions.

"Oh good. I was hoping you'd say that." Sarah grinned, and downed the rest of the bottle. "Get naked Doug. You're going to sing 'I'm a little teapot' for us."

Doug blinked. Then he scowled. "Fuck. Not again," he grumbled, turning a baleful glance at Amanda.

The witch, now sitting up in her quest to find the rum bottle, gave him a sweet smile. "I did warn you not to use all my shampoo," she told him.

Doug's scowl deepened. "But I -didn't- use all your shampoo!" he protested. The real problem was the naked clause. But he supposed that was the point.

The grin turned wicked. "No, but you still did the naked teapot dance. What's that say, hmm?" Drunkenly, she waved a hand at him. "Go on, off you go. Strip. Serves you right for being a big girl's blouse and choosing 'Dare' instead of 'Truth' every time."

"Dammit." There was a -reason- he was staying away from Truth, and he would have thought Amanda of all people would have figured it out. Still, he'd been dared. He skimmed his sweater up and over his head, followed quickly by his long-sleeved shirt. Bare to the waist, he
stood slowly. Toeing his shoes and socks off, he unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down and off. Then, after a deep breath and before he could reconsider, he jerked his boxers down his legs, leaving himself completely nude.

At the word 'naked', Marie-Ange had put down her eggnog and pushed it far away from arm's reach. She was taking exactly no more chances. Especally since she's been spiking it with the good rum. Doug was still in shape, she hadn't expected any different, and if she was right, he'd put on a little more muscle since they'd broken up. More time to work out, she supposed. "

Mark sat up, unabashedly and openly leering at Doug. "Dear Sarah, you are my favorite person. Love, me," he said, clearly enjoying the game. "I only hope I remember this in the morning."

"That's what phone cameras are for, aren't they?" Amanda suggested, but took pity on the panicked look from Doug. She was drunk and thus a bit on the thoughtless side, but she wasn't cruel. "No cameras, I promise." She grinned at Doug, leering almost as openly as Mark. "Pity, tho'. We could make a fortune out of the Doug Ramsey Nude Calendar."

A dark red blush started at Doug's hairline and crept down his face and neck, all the way to his upper torso. His hands were crossed in front of his groin, and the other players hand only caught a brief glance when he'd been taking his boxers off.

And now Doug had...a growing problem. (He groaned internally at the mental pun.) The admiring stares and leers of the others (but most especially Angie and Amanda) weren't just embarassing him, they also had him more than a little turned on. And once he started the song, he wouldn't be able to hide the evidence.

But still, he'd gotten that far, so he swallowed heavily and unclasped his hands, hurrying through "I'm a little teapot" with his erection in plain view. When he finished, he bent down and quickly put boxers and jeans back on with short, jerky movements.

"Mark, you're next," he said, just a small bit of anger in his voice as he grabbed his shirt.

"I can take it," Mark scoffed, still smiling brightly. "Hey, want me to join you?" His belt was already unbuckled by the time he finished the question. "I think there was a musical like this off Broadway. Naked Boys Singing?"

Doug waved a hand. "Keep your clothes on, Mark, I have something else in mind," he said with a slightly vindictive grin. "Time to see how hot you like it," he said wickedly. "I dare you to eat three big mouthfuls of -my- salsa." It might have seemed a bit tamer than naked singing, but Doug was looking forward to seeing Mark's reaction. "I'll be right back with chips and salsa," he said, standing up with a grin and leaving the room.

And with that, any and all excitement evident in Mark's expression up and disappeared. "Fuck. You," he called at the receding figure. "With all the alcohol in my blood, I'm going to go up in flames."

Watching Mark squirm in discomfort was funny, but Marie-Ange had eaten Doug's salsa exactly once. It was painful. She couldn't even taste the salsa itself, it had hurt her mouth that much. She hadn't even wanted to smell it, it was that hot. And she wasn't sure why he even liked it. She had sympathy for Mark, and unfolded from the sofa, putting a pillow down where she'd been lying, so that Amanda wouldn't lose her headrest. "I will be right back." She said, with the careful words of the cheerfully drunk. "I have ice cream. It is the only thing that will help after you eat that." She pointed at Mark and shook her finger. "And you will eat it until it stops hurting and then you will buy me more because it is the Godiva ice cream and it is very good and I only have the one pint."

Doug hummed the "Heat Miser" song to himself as he came back to where everyone else was, a bag of tortilla chips under his arm and his "Habañero death salsa" in one hand. "Some like it hot, but I like it -really- hot, mwahahahaha..." he giggled to himself as he came back into the room.

...only to run smack into Marie-Ange leaving the room. "Whoops," he said, the bag of chips hitting the ground and the glass salsa jar nearly following it.

"That ain't the half of it." From her prone position, Amanda looked at them upside down, by virtue of tilting her head back. "Look up." Her weaving finger pointed in the direction of the doorway, and the decoration suspended over it.

Marie-Ange glanced up, and shook her head, laughing wryly. "Who put that there?" She ducked her head towards her chest, giggling a little. She had definitely had far more eggnog than strictly necessary. Looking at Doug, she smiled gently, and turned her cheek towards him. He looked.. conflicted, she thought, and she rightfully couldn't blame him. It was better to just let him out of this one safely.

Except that Doug wasn't feeling safe at that precise moment. He'd stayed away from truths for a reason, but the dares had gotten progressively racier, culminating in him standing nude in front of four people who had all looked at him with varying degrees of interest. He was still extremely buzzed from the alcohol, and extremely horny from his last dare. So instead of taking the safe "out" that Marie-Ange was offering him, he set the jar of salsa blindly aside. Then, he placed one hand at the small of her back and the other on her cheek to turn her face back toward him.

And then he leaned in and kissed her with the pent-up force of six months of repressed longing.

Doug had never kissed her quite like that. Not with that intensity, and certainly never with this unrepressed level of abandon. It felt like a kiss that lasted hours, even if she knew it only lasted a brief moment. It was Doug kissing her, she was intimately familiar with how he kissed and he had -never- kissed like this before.

The kiss broke, and she found herself wandering in a daze to the sofa, and sitting down, staring at the pint of ice cream still in her hands before silently handing it to Mark.

She hadn't realized before that you could miss something you'd never had.

Doug wasn't sure what had come over him. He certainly didn't want to talk about it, but the game was still going, so he picked up the salsa and chips and walked over to place them in front of Mark before sitting down again, not quite looking at anyone else.

"I don't think I can top that," sighed Mark. He reluctantly opened the jar, sniffed the salsa, and turned his head to the side to cough. "If I die, Doug, I'm so going to haunt you." He dipped a chip and picked up what he hoped was a sufficient quantity of fiery evil, offered a quick prayer of protection to the Madonna, and quickly ate it, barely allowing the salsa time to touch his tongue. Not like it helped much, because he had to quickly put down the jar and fan his mouth with his hand. "I hay oo," he said, or tried to say.

"That's what the ice-cream's for, mate," Amanda reminded him, sitting up from her sprawl and trying to focus. Whatever had happened with Doug and Marie-Ange, neither of them was in the mood to play any more. Perhaps it was time to wrap it up.

Mark scooped a large spoonful and stuffed in his mouth. He thought he could feel the ice cream melting the instant it came into contact with his tongue, but it did feel a little better. Catching a glance from Amanda, he nodded back at her. They'd had enough fun for now. But maybe one more, to end it on a high note. "Uh, Amanda. Truth or dare?"

"Um... truth?" She'd avoided that one most of the night herself, thinking it lame, but it was easy and honestly, who could top the last couple of dares without getting really raunchy? And she had a feeling that wouldn't go down too well right now.

"So, hypothetically speaking, if there were a boy-slash-girl-slash-other that you liked, would you A.) wait for hir to make a move, or B.) make the move yourself, or C.) require a yente for a matchmaker?" Mark grinned.

Amanda flushed, and took a sudden swig of her drink, involuntarily shooting a guilty glance at Sarah despite herself. Mark was so going to be dead for this. A) was gutless, B) was impossible, which left... "C," she said. "As long as this yente person doesn't go opening their big mouths and telling this hypothetical person what the situation was." Then movement caught her eye, and she said, with feeling: "Oh thank fuck for that."

Remy had just cleared the doorway when a chorus of laughter hit him. He looked up from the papers he was reading to see most of the junior contingent, at various levels of inebriation grinning hugely at him, and snickering at Mark. He looked around puzzled until his eyes track up to the mistletoe hanging above the door.

"Merry Christmas, Boss." Mark waggled his eyebrows at Remy and took a step forward. "See, I've got this bet going where I . . . well, I don't know what I win, but I'll win it anyway if I exchange traditional season's greetings with everyone. So."

Without changing his expression, Remy reached up and touched the sprig of mistletoe with the tip of his finger. The leaves glowed violet for a brief second before the whole thing disappeared with a little 'pop' sound. Without a word, Remy turned around and left.

"Party pooper," pouted Mark. "I'll get you one of these days when you're least suspecting it!"