And so begins the rivision of the second chapter. As you may see, I've deleted all the following chapters. I decided that, should any new readers tune into this story before I've rewritten it completely, I'd hate for them to read only a few revised chapters, and then be disappointed by the original ones.
In the previous author's note I mentioned still including games like 'Truth or Dare', 'Never Have I Ever', "Would You Rather" and 'Spin the Bottle'. I will probably, however, not follow the storyline I originally set out, because if we're honest, it was pretty dull, and I'd like to include some excitement, other than some (not so) friendly games.
Without further ado: Enjoy.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the world this story is set in, the characters this story revolves around and original scenes from the Divergent series. Those belong to Veronica Roth.
Without giving anyone the time to come up with a witty response to embarrass me even further, I call out the first person to catch my eye: Uriah. After a few seconds it hits me that he's had a turn before, while others haven't but it's too late now to change anything about it.
"Truth or dare?" A grin like a cheshire cat splits his face in half.
"Dare, I'm no pansycake like…" Uriah doubles over and groans in pain. A sham e for him that he didn't see the equally wide smirk on Marlene's face. His voice sounds squeeky as he ask Marlene if that was really necessary. She nods vigorously.
"You didn't forget about the dare Shauna gave me just a few minutes ago, did you?" She holds up her hands and shrugs, as though saying she had no choice in the matter.
"She told you to punch me," he whines, "not to make me feel like someone tried to chisel away my boxers with a dagger and a slegde hammer!" We all try to keep a straight face, but Uriah's moaning makes that an impossible feat. "If you didn't want me to contribute to the gene pool, you could've just given me a condom!" At that remark we all burst out laughing. Tears of laughter roll down Marlene's cheeks as she takes a bow, and then cocks her head towards me.
"A dare?" Of course. I'd gotten so caught up in the moment that I'd forgotten all about that.
"Yes, right. I dare you to…" I really – really – have to start thinking of dare and questions in advance. As hard as I try to come up with a clever dare, I've got nothing. Christina does, however, so I repeat the dare she whispers in my ear. "I dare you to let Christina give you a make-over."
"I'm SO gonna get you back for this." He groans as he removes his shirt, as awkwardly as those things go when you are doubled over in pain. I smile innocently.
"Get me back? For this dare or the last one?"
"Both!" he spits out, trying to cast a threatening glance at me, but the painful grimace on his face doesn't allow his to actually come across as angry or dangerous.
"Four, you know the question. Cissy or dare?" With all of my heart I hope he won't do anything to embarrass me by making Four do something… Inappropriate. Uri's suspiciously wiggling eyebrows tell me my hope is in vain.
Luckily, Four sees it too. He picks truth. Whether it's because he doesn't want to see me humiliated of because he simply doesn't want to be forced to do anything with me, I'm in the dark.
"PANSYCA… err… coward?" He looks at Marlene fearfully, but once he's established that she does think it qualifies for a nutcracker, he continues, looking overly smug at his own remark. "PANSYCOWARD!" He looks around, waiting for anyone to laugh.
No one does.
"Well, I, err," he scratches his neck, "What faction are you from?" Without a word, a flinch, even without blinking a single time, Four raises his arms, grabs the upper backside of his navy blue T-shirt with his right hand and pulls it over his head.
Being originally from Abnegation, I can't help but looking away, to Shauna, Zeke, the door, the wall, Al, Christina, Will, Marlene, Uriah, the now vacant chair…
I rest my chin on my left shoulder, plant my left elbow on my legs, and the right side of my face in my left hand, trying desperately to look as though I'm scratching my nose or something. I know I'm failing miserably, for Christina chuckles to my left.
I decide I can steal a glance. After all: yes, I was from Abnegation. And no, I have never really looked at a guy's - or a anyone's, for that matter - bared torso before. True, to my left, Uriah sat in the same slight state of undress, but he had Marlene pulled against him, and even if he hadn't, I'd have to see around Christina to actually see him. And yes, I was going somewhere with this.
Right, that specific Abnegation trait, the modesty to the extreme, I (think I) left at my old home. In the grey outskirts of the city. I'm Dauntless now. I can look at anyone I want.
I try to casually glide my glance over Four.
And fail.
Much to my unwanted surprise, I find it hard to peel my eyes away again. Admitted, as stated before, I don't exactly have any material of comparison, but I think the combination of Four's stomach and his chest is an amazing specimen. His muscles are prominently present, but subtle enough not to look like they're about to burst through his skin. I can see them ripple underneath it as he shifts on the couch.
STOP! That's enough! I mentally slap myself, and force myself to glue my gaze to the floor right in front of me. I feel a red colour rising in my cheeks.
Four addresses Will, Will picks dare, and Four dares Will to kiss Christina for thirty seconds. Will all too eagerly accepts, and I make a mental note to ask him about that later. Knowing me and my upbringing, I've missed something obvious.
He leans into Christina, and I keep my eyes glued to that same spot on the floor. Call me a prude, but I truly think those kinds of public displays of affections belong behind closed doors.
I can feel the two of them shift, and I'm getting more uncomfortable with every second that ticks by ever so slowly. When Will asking Al the infamous question alerts me that the final second had finally passed, I look up again.
To find out Will has pulled Christina in his lap, and that she is none too reluctant to remain seated just there.
For a second, Al just sits there with his mouth hanging slightly open, wondering whether he was really the person to be asked the question. When he realizes he is, he picks dare.
" I dare you to tell why you look so upset." Despite the apparant easiness of the dare, Al takes off his shirt. When he's done so, he tries to shrink back into the wall as much as humanly possible - which is not so much, given his enourmous build.
"I choose... Zeke."
"You choose me for what, my darling initiate?" Al blushes furiously.
"Truth or dare, you..." Zeke looks amused at Al's unintelligible mutterings, and then picks dare. "I dare you to... to..." Al seems to be dealing with the same problem I've been dealing with: the lack of preparation for games like this. Then he suddenly veers up. "Oh, I know, I dare you to take your shirt off!" He is obviously astonished by his own wit. That is, until Zeke strips himself of his pants, leaving him in his shirt and his boxers. Al's smirk freezes on his face, and for a second I laugh, until I realize that I'm sitting in one room with a guy who isn't currently wearing pants. Who is winking at me. And blowing me air kisses. And laugh deviously when I look away once again.
Knowing, however, that he intends to ask me, I answer him before those three words have left his lips.
"Dare." I have said it before I have fully thought it through. And, boy, do I regret it immediatly afterwards. I mean, this guy is related to URIAH. Bad choice. VERY bad choice.
"You," he dramatically points a finger at me, "have to sit in Four's lap, "his finger moves until it points to the guy in question, "for the rest. Of. The. Game." Uriah cheers for his brother, thanking him for avenging me, but Zeke never once takes his eyes off of me. And I'm uncomfortable. Badly.
Because I can't, right? I mean, as far as I know, Four doesn't even want me to sit anywhere near him. "Err..." It wouldn't just be uncomfortable for me, but possibly, scratch that, probably for him too, and...
"Are you gonna do it or not?" Christina disturbs my train of thoughts. "This isn't even such a bad one, Tris. You've just got to sit in the guys lap, for Pete's sake, it's not like you're being asked to have sex with him on the spot, right?" Her blunt way of phrasing has my blood rising to my face faster than ever before, and dumbstruck (not to mention shoved by my so-called best friend) I walk over and awkwardly try to find a subtle way to sit down.
After a few seconds of my fidgeting, Four just pulls me by the elbow and I trip into his lap.
My back falls agains his chest, and I sit up straight quickly, not daring to lean back against him. I look around in total humiliation, until it strikes me that it is my turn. Again.
"Marlene?" Calm as ever, she chooses dare, as ever. "I dare you to go to the Pit, and kiss the first person you come across." She gets up, dragging the half-naked Uriah along, presumably as her witness.
Several silent, very, véry awkward minutes pass, as both Zeke and Shauna and Will and Christina start to... Well, not kiss, but the least word it deserves is cuddle, and whisper things to each other, while I'm still painfully aware of where I'm sitting, as well as how Al is staring at me. I can't quite pinpoint why he'd look at me like that, but what I do know is that it doesn't exactly makes the minutes of Marlene and Uriah's absence any more bearable.
When they finally return, both of them look suspiciously ruffled.
"What happened?" Before I even stop to think about it, I've said it.
"Well..." Uriah explains, "you dared her to kiss the first person she saw in the Pit. So we went to the Pit, and before entering, she closed her eyes, and when we'd stepped in, she opened them. I just so happened to be the first person she saw, then. So, yeah..." He looks around smugly. "As her witness to this dare, I testify that she completed it. Thorougly." Well, at least that explains their equally messy hair.
As Uriah drops back into his original spot, Marlene willingly sinks down in his lap, not looking uncomfortable at all. I stare at them for several heartbeats, until I realize that they are probably unofficially dating now, and there is nothing weird about a girl sitting in the lap of her boyfriend. It would only be weird if she sat in his lap while he wasn't yet her boyfriend. Which is exactly my situation with Four right now.
Anyway, Marlene picks Shauna, and first the first time in a while, truth is picked.
"How do you feel about Zeke?" I hadn't expected that question from Marlene, mostly because even I, the Stiff, already know the answer to that. Kind of, at least. ' Shauna doesn't even pause to think.
"I'm quite into him, but I thougt everyone already knew that? I mean, I'm sorry, but one'd have to be really oblivious to have missed that." She turns around and kisses him squarely on his lips. Again. For a long time. Like, ten seconds.
My brilliant brain decides these ten seconds are the greatest of times to reflect. So far, six out of nine people in this room have kissed someone else in this room tonight. I am not one of them. Don't understand me wrong, I'm glad about that. I wouldn't want my first real kiss to be a dare. Or want it to happen where other people were watching.
I'm just saying, I'm still sitting in the lap of one of the two others who haven't kissed anyone tonight, and the other one is still giving me ominous glares.
Now part of me is disappointed, sort of. I don't know for sure about Al, but I am pretty certain we are the only people in this room who haven't kissed anyone, period. End of that sentence. I can't imagine Four never has yet. And that disappointed part of me does kind of wonder what it would be like. To have someone kiss you. To have him stroke your cheek with his thumb. To have his hands slowly descend down your arm, until it reaches your waist, and from there slides to your lower back, to have that hand press you firmly against...
"Christina, what's your biggest fear?" I flinch slightly as Shauna's voice pulls me back to reality. I don't know why I got so carried away.
"No fair!" Christina pouts. "You're supposed to let me choose between the two. How come I'm the one who does not get to choose?"
"You want me to ask you?" Shauna concedes. "That's fine. Truth or dare?"
"Well, I choose dare. Ha." Shauna stares at Christina coolly.
"I dare you to answer my question. What's your biggest fear?"
"Dang it. Well, I'm definitely not going to strip for that one, so here goes nothing." She sighs. "Remember, I have yet to enter my own fear landscape for the first time, so I know nothing for certain yet. I can, however, guess, of course. If I'm honest, I think that my worst fear would be bugs." We're all silent, still trying to figure out whether Christina is being serious or not.
That is, until Uriah moderately succesfully imitates the chirping sound of crickets. We all lose our cool then, and burst out laughing.
"What?" Christina whines. "Don't you guys hate is when those pesky little pest swarm all around you and fly into your mouth and your ears and you nose and your eyes and climb up your arms and legs, and I haven't even mentioned the itchy bites and stings some of those things have and the diseases they could be carrying and..." Will interrupts her by kissing her, shutting her up quite effectively. At first she seems to melt away entirely in his arms, but after a moment or so, she seems to remember that she's in company and playing a game.
When she's pulled herself apart from her (I assume unofficial, but maybe it's official, because what do I know about these kind of things? Only that my experience is disturbingly lacking) boyfriend, she hunts the room for a new victim.
That new victim being me.
"Tris, my dear, I ask you, would you rather say something embarrassing or do something embarrassing?"
"I'd rather do something that's not quite so humiliating." I say, only half joking.
"So you'd rather do something than say something, huh?" Dang it. I guess you could read that into the way I'd pronounced my response. Regret washes over me, but repentence always comes after the sins, when it's too late to undo any damage done, and all one can do is let the disaster unfold. Her eyes start to display a mischievous glint that I'm none to happy about. "And about the humiliation part, I'd say this one isn't, but, of course, that really depends on what your definition of humiliating is." I most certainly do not like where she is going.
"I've come up with the perfect dare for you, Tris, and you probably won't talk to me for a week, but I'm sure you'll be grateful for it after that week. I dare you," she has a look on her face that others might describe as playful, but I interpreted is as a confession to being the Devil's spawn, thrown out of Heaven alongside her father, even too evil to be welcome in Hell, so shot up throught the crust of the earth, "To kiss Four.
So obviously, I'm wondering what you all think. If it's not too much trouble, do leave a comment with remarks, comments, CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Really, as long as someone isn't dragging down my work just to drrag it down, I'm open for anything.
I've downloaded all the chapters this story originally contained, and saved them on my laptop. Right now I'm editing them all one by one, and I hope I'll be able to upload a new revised chapter every week. I do, however, have a fulltime job, aside from that I tutor high school kids, I sport, try to find out what I'd like to study next year and try to get myself started in a Spanish course. It's safe to say that my schedule is full as it is already, but seeing as writing is one of my more relaxing hobbies, I can see myself doing it regularly.
Long story short, all the original chapters will come back (unless I decide to completely rewrite them, but at least I will write at least up until those twenty-three chapters again, hopefully more), shough it might take a while. Please be patient, and I'll try to upload as frequently as I possibly can.
And since it's now 0:42 in my country, and I have to get up at 6:30 to go to work, I'm gonna leave it at this, and hopefully see you next time around.