Chapter Text
"Knock knock," Lia says in lieu of a greeting and of actual knocking. She saunters into Dean's room without waiting for a reply.
"No, Lia, I'm not playing one of your party games," Dean automatically replies, preempting the question. He knows her too well to recognise the up-to-no-good tone present in her voice. Plus, Briggs is out on a case, while Judd is doing grocery shopping. There's only so much Lia would call him down for.
"What a shame." She twirls her hair around her finger, a glint in her eyes. "Because it seems like you don't have a choice." She smirks. "Be down in five!" Then she's gone.
He groans into his pillow.
~
"Here's the rules: For every 'I have' answer, you take a shot," Lia explains, pouring the vodka into all five of their shot glasses. Dean finds that he does not want to know where she got the vodka from and how. "The person who drinks the most shots by the end of the game loses, while the least wins. Any questions and/or objections?" Dean starts raising his hand, but Lia cuts him off before he actually says anything. "Objections are only valid if you don't want to object."
Sloane raises a finger. Lia nods at her to talk. "Do we get anything if we win?" Sloane asks.
Lia considers the question for a few seconds. "You get to smack Michael if you win."
Michael quirks a brow. "And if I win?"
Lia turns to look at him. She flashes him a Cheshire cat grin. "You won't have to worry about that. There's no probability of you winning."
"Actually—" Sloane starts, but is cut off by Michael before she can actually state the probability of him winning.
"I volunteer that I get to smack Redding if I win," he says, making Dean jolt out of his trance.
"Townsend—" Dean only gets that much out before he's interrupted.
Lia gives a single loud clap of her hands. "Shall we begin?" She looks around at the rest of them. "Who'd like to start the game? None of you? Fine, I'll start." She only uses a second to ponder about it. "Never Have I Ever gotten shot in the leg by a serial killer."
Michael shoots her a dirty look before taking a shot. The rest of them stay still. "Never Have I Ever..." he pauses, thinking, "changed my birth name."
Lia, to her credit, doesn't bat an eye, instead shooting Michael a middle finger and throwing a shot back.
Michael, seemingly satisfied, nods at Cassie. "Do your worst, Colorado."
Dean has been avoiding even glancing at Cassie this whole time, but now he doesn't have an excuse not to. They haven't talked much since Locke's revelation as a serial killer, but Dean finds himself thinking about Cassie almost every other hour of every day.
The garage hasn't given him any luck of taking his mind off her either.
He pushes those thoughts aside and focuses on the here and now. Cassie looks up in contemplation. "Never Have I Ever changed up my style every other hour of the day to avoid being profiled by the newly arrived profiler."
Dean has to withhold a smile at her choice of prompt. Lia rolls her eyes and gracefully tosses a shot back, followed by Michael, who winks at Cassie.
"You call it avoiding being profiled," Lia says, examining her fingernails, "I call it experimenting with my clothes."
Cassie gives her an incredulous look. "I'm sure you do." She looks at Dean next. "Your turn."
He glances at Sloane.
"There is a 93 percent chance that you are going to try and make me take a shot," Sloane says before Dean can actually say anything.
The corners of his mouth tick up. "Never Have I Ever stolen a dress from a store."
Lia groans and takes a shot with Sloane, then refills both of their shot glasses.
Michael raises a finger. "What does the loser have to do when they lose?"
"I say winner gets to dictate their punishment," Cassie suggests.
"Sounds good," Dean agrees, almost too quickly.
"As long as the winner isn't Michael," Lia says, her voice strained after a coughing fit.
"Lemon water helps with preventing cough caused by alcoholic drinks," Sloane says. Then, after a moment, "It's my turn. Never Have I Ever not known the meaning of the word 'floccinaucinihilipilification'."
All of them, except Sloane, take a shot.
"Floccinaucinihilipilification is a noun indicating the action or habit of estimating something as worthless." Sloane beams. "It's your turn again, Lia."
Lia glances at Michael, then at Cassie, then at Dean. Suddenly, Dean is afraid of what she might say. "Never Have I Ever," she starts, a smirk on her face, "kissed Dean Redding."
Only one person in this room has ever kissed him.
Dean silently curses Lia as Cassie slowly picks up the shot glass and gulps it down, then emerges into a coughing fit. Lia, sitting beside her, pats her back none too gently. "Townsend, you're up."
"I think you're making me cough more," Cassie mutters to Lia in between coughs.
Lia smiles ever-so-innocently. "Poor baby."
Michael sits up in his spot on the couch. "Never Have I Ever fainted because a serial killer hit my head with a gun."
Dean lets out a small, resigned sigh before taking his shot. Shockingly, he doesn't start coughing from the vodka.
"Never Have I Ever eaten a whole tub of ice cream all by myself," Cassie says, no doubt taking a jab at Lia. The latter shamelessly takes a shot, then refills the glasses.
"Careful, Lia," Michael quips. "Seems like you're losing."
She gives him a lazy grin. "So long as you're not winning."
"Right now, I'm winning with only one shot taken," Sloane puts in. "And Lia has five. Shots taken, I mean."
"Who needs a notebook when we have a number genius to keep track?" Michael says, clinking his glass against Sloane's that's still on the table. "Come on, Redding."
Dean feels bad about targeting Sloane yet again, but she does need to have more shots taken. "Never Have I Ever hacked into the FBI's files."
Sloane's brows furrow slightly as she drinks her shot. "Never Have I Ever not known that Japan has one vending machine for every forty people."
Michael and Lia groan in perfect synchronisation as all of them but Sloane down a shot.
"When does the game end?" Sloane asks Lia.
She clamps her mouth shut, probably because she's most likely going to be the loser if she does say when the game ends.
"When at least one person has ten shots," Michael answers helpfully.
"Thanks a lot," Lia murmurs under her breath. As though flipping a switch, she raises her voice and says, "Never Have I Ever bribed a Porsche out of a federal agent."
Michael's mouth tilts upwards as he picks up his glass. "I do like to cause Monsieur Briggs some money trouble."
Sloane frowns. "To my knowledge, Agent Briggs has no ties to France via his parentage or even fluency of the language."
"He's joking," Dean clarifies, giving Michael a look, to which he returns with a grin.
"Never Have I Ever been bilingual," Michael says, earning yet another dirty look from Lia. She's losing by a landslide. All it'll take now is for Cassie, Dean, and Sloane to get her to drink three more and the game will be over.
Thankfully.
Unfortunately, Cassie doesn't seem to share Dean's desire to end the game. "Never Have I Ever read a Jane Austen book."
"What can I say?" Michael holds up his glass. "Jane Austen is a woman of many talents."
"Never Have I Ever..." Dean trails off, spotting the familiar headlights outside the window. "Judd's back."
"That doesn't seem like a prompt anyone can relate to," Sloane tells him.
"He is going to kill us for all this alcohol." Lia twirls her ponytail around her finger, not inclined to do anything to hide the glasses or the vodka. She gets up from her spot on the couch. "Good luck, Michael!"
Then she goes upstairs with an impressive speed despite the seven shots of vodka.
Michael, painfully aware of the fact that Judd will never believe that Dean, Sloane, or Cassie put them up to this, gulps down all the remaining glasses and hides the vodka between the couch cushion and pillow.
Judd enters the room. He takes one look at the four of them and raises a singular eyebrow. "Where's the alcohol?"
Despite Sloane's immediate jaw drop, Michael replies, "I'm afraid we don't know what you're talking about."
Judd's other eyebrow goes up in response.
Michael sighs. "It's under the pillow."
Judd places the grocery bags down. "Mind helping an old man out with the groceries? I have some damage control to do."