"Uh-huh, like you've ever done anything valuable."
"And which one of you two has any incredible accomplishments to their name? Don't tell me the old fart over there is king of the fairy tale clubhouse or something ."
"Don't aim your underhanded snark at Diane just because she's right, Ban."
"Hey Kiiing, I've told you where to stuff it before, haaven't I?"
Meliodas sighed internally. And externally, too.
King, Grizzly's Sin of Sloth, and Ban, Fox's Sin of Greed, glared at one another viciously from their positions nose-to-nose with one another. King's fat and stubbly face was scrunched into a scowl and flushed with irritation. By contrast, Ban seemed perfectly calm with a sardonic leer spread across his lips. Standing over them but bent in half to make sure Ban heard her insults was Diane, the 30-foot-tall Serpent's Sin of Envy. And then, sitting further down the table silently watching the whole thing, sat their Captain: Dragon's Sin of Wrath, Meliodas.
"You need to be leashed or something so you'll sit and stay where you darn well belong."
"Hey, Diane, careful what you say to me. If you go too far I'll haaave to respond, and if I do that, King here might just exploooode."
Another evening, another barb-tongued, hot-headed, spite-filled verbal sparring match.
That was to be expected, of course: their group included some drastically different personalities who were bound to butt heads. Still, if they were supposed to be a team, he couldn't let them continue like this indefinitely.
"Okay you three, knock it off."
Meliodas pressed his hands into each of their shoulders and shoved them apart. Ban resisted the push, and neither of them went so far as to wipe the scowl from his face or tone down the glaring. Still, once the pair were separated, they didn't try to close the space between again.
Satisfied with that much, Meliodas swiveled on his heel to walk away. He came back what seemed like only a moment later, arms filled with beer steins. Without a word, but with plenty of dramatized enthusiasm, he dumped all seven of them on the table in between Ban and King. This at last broke the heated staring contest between the two of them as they both looked down at their captain in confusion.
"Booze?" King mused absently.
Diane was more precise. "Meliodas? What are all these for?"
Somehow Meliodas had already left again and acquired a full keg of ale. He hefted its weight easily, encumbered only by the sheer size of the thing relative to his childlike body – it was about as big as he was! He peeked around the side to answer Diane's question, wide-eyed and smiling just a bit.
"Oh! It's pretty simple, really. Most of the time you guys are fighting, it's probably because we don't know anything about each other. That's my fault – I should have done this a lot sooner." He situated the barrel at one end of the long table as he continued to speak, chipper and apparently oblivious to the confusion of his comrades. "So, we're gonna play a drinking game."
"A drinking game?" came a voice from the door. Meliodas turned his head toward the speaker with a grin.
"Merlin! Perfect timing. Can you get Gowther and Escanor up here for a little while? We need all Seven Deadly Sins here for this."
One of the sorceress' eyebrows lifted, as did the corresponding corner of her mouth. It was a terribly condescending expression – and the one she wore most often. The smug little smile released into a soft peal of laughter, and she folded her arms.
"Sure, 'Captain'. Give us a couple of minutes."
In no time at all, all seven of the Seven Deadly Sins were assembled around the long table. Diane and Gowther – their two members of abnormally large sizes – sat side-by-side at the table's end where there were no benches. The giantess looked decidedly uncomfortable next to Gowther despite having scooted as far away from him as she could without leaving the table. Meliodas finished filling the last mug with ale just as Ban finally got impatient.
"Alright Cap'n, enough fooling arouuund. What exactly is this game we're supposed to be playing?"
"I'm glad you asked! We're going to play Never Have I Ever. You guys heard of it?" The question was met by a chorus of shrugs, shaken heads, and expressions of confusion.
"It is a conversation game wherein each participant says 'Never have I ever,' and then states something they have done in the past," Merlin explained. Meliodas fell silent and sat back, deferring to the sorceress' description. "Anyone else who has also done the action in question takes a drink. One of those who drank asks the next question, and so on."
"Exactly. So maybe I'd say something like 'Never have I ever gotten a tattoo', and all you guys would have to drink." He snickered slightly.
Gowther raised a hand.
"I see. I believe I understand the structure of the game now. May I have a turn?" Meliodas gestured wordlessly in assent. After a brief pause, Gowther went on. "Never have I ever initiated or otherwise caused the demise of another sentient being."
Five other cups left their positions on the table.
"That's a little dark just to start wiiiith," Ban muttered into his stein. The glint of white tooth bared by his smirk as he tipped the ale back, however, gave away the insincerity of his grumbling.
He took a quick swallow – when the cup came down, he was grinning outright, practically on the edge of laughter. "Alright, my turn. Never have I ever gotten too drunk to walk."
The source of his amusement quickly became apparent as Diane wrinkled her nose and hmphed disdainfully. That alone made the Fox's Sin chuckle – his smile just about split his face open when King shot him a dirty glare and drank again. From the corner of his eye, Meliodas noted Escanor taking a second drink as well.
King shot back quickly, throwing Ban a smug, pointed look. "Never have I ever… sacrificed myself for the greater good."
Although the Captain and Merlin drank theirs in unison, Ban merely stared straight back at King with a lazy smile plastered over his features. He didn't make any move to pick up his ale.
"Faaaancy ."
Meliodas stole a glance at Merlin mid-sip – by coincidence, she happened to be looking back at just that moment. Their eye contact didn't last for more than an instant before Meliodas turned his gaze away. Yet much was communicated.
Merlin chuckled softly when she set her drink back on to the table. She didn't let go of it to tip her head back and speak.
"Never have I ever sacrificed someone else for a greater good."
The prickle of half-friendly teasing in the atmosphere suddenly evaporated at her proposal. There was a moment of stillness. Meliodas let it lie for a few heartbeats. Just as he opened his mouth to tell Merlin to go again, King abruptly picked up his stein. Only the sound of his hurried swallow broke the silence, and by the time he lowered the cup back down to the table, almost every eye was focused on the liquid left in their own mugs. Diane shifted awkwardly. Even Gowther read the mood and maintained a contemplative silence.
Escanor cleared his throat gently, breaking the extended pause. "Ne- Never have I ever gone more than a day without food to eat." His voice was soft and hesitant, but it did the trick. All six other Sins drank. Merlin, with another chuckle to herself at whatever was passing through her mind.
"Never have I ever been in love," Diane asked.
With a twinge of discomfort, Meliodas realized that her amethyst eyes were fixed directly on him. He forced a small smile past the twinge of guilt – and the sudden crush of a couple other emotions he wasn't interested in dealing with – and drank deep.
Every reaction was different. King's fleshy face colored, while Ban's fell into an expression that could only be described as closed. Escanor curled in on himself bashfully as he raised his drink to his mouth.
Merlin pursed her lips in what Meliodas supposed was a bit of irritation but went ahead and drank nonetheless.
"Gowther, have you never found yourself in love before?" Escanor sounded… well, he honestly sounded a little bit distraught on his comrade's behalf. Meliodas only now realized that he hadn't seen Gowther move an inch in response to the prompt. Huh. "Have you never felt that fluttering heart in your chest rustle like a set of young birds learning to fly, or known sweet ambrosia of affection hurrying to leap from the tongue?"
"I do not believe so." His response from within the massive armor was mechanical, as ever. "The sensations you describe are foreign to me – if they characterize the feeling of 'love' then I cannot say that I have experienced this emotion."
"Ah, that is a genuine pity. Love counts itself securely among, if not at the peak of the richest sentiments that can be impressed upon a human heart. Although the poets may try, they can never manage to capture the true essence of love in its full breadth and passion, least of all my own lackluster attempts to describe it. It is truly a wonder to emote in such—"
Meliodas tuned Escanor out temporarily as his attention fell on Merlin once again. While everyone else was absorbed in the Lion Sin's soliloquy, or else fully invested in ignoring it, their resident sorceress was looking at Gowther.
The way she did it brought Meliodas up short; was that pity he glimpsed on her face?
Merlin wasn't the only one. In fact, aside from Escanor and Gowther, no one was taking the prompt very well.
Diane had stopped looking at Meliodas and retreated into shyness, inspecting the floor between her thighs from inside parallel walls of hair. The fact that she was so massive made it all the more clear how hard she was trying to be small. King seemed pleasantly dazed by the idea of romance, but Meliodas did not overlook how his body was filled with tension and strain, or the suppressed tremble in his mouth as he struggled to remain impassive.
And Ban… Ban seemed wont to turn into an emotional black hole. Something dark and crazed and brooding fell like a veil over his features. It was a look that Meliodas was not unfamiliar with – the look of a man who'd had a very deep part of him unwillingly sloughed away, and who was too consumed by grief to give a damn if the universe decided to take a little more.
Maybe team bonding wasn't the best idea, after all.
He couldn't do this. Meliodas had no intention of this leading him to deal with the sharp-edged questions and consuming, destructive emotions that any mention of love or romance dredged from his hearts. Not today.
Time for a redirect.
"Never have I ever cross-dressed!"
"What?!"
"Meliodas!"
"DAAMN, CAP'N !"
"Of course you have."
That did the trick.
Meliodas never had to confront the specter of a goddess that haunted him for the rest of the night. Good. He wanted to avoid it. If he could just take care of the tiny silver Princess he'd carried out of Danafor, if he could just focus on what he had to do right now… If he could avoid processing, he always would.