Hollaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Here's a chapter! ENJOY IT!

Please note: The following includes quite a bit of swearing and some drinking, including drinking games. If that offends you, don't read it. :) It involves a real drinking game, though I've chosen which rules go where so it may not be accurate to any version that you know yourself. I'll supply the rules at the end of the next chapter!

Chapter Twenty

The music was so loud in John's ears that he could barely hear whatever it was that Mike was shouting at him, in fact it was a testament to how much of an effort he was trying to make for his friend that he stayed and nodded intently at whatever he was saying rather than striding over to the iPod dock to turn down the pounding beats floating from the speakers. He sipped his drink – pick and mix punch, every time – and let his eyes wander as Mike shouted in his ear, taking in the room and the mass of people within it. Many of them were dancing, girls and guys alike, all of them with some sort of alcoholic beverage in their hands and at least seventy percent of them with the endgame clearly being to find someone to take back to their student room and never see again after the next morning. John had personally never seen the draw, unless you counted Sally Donovan, but he tended not to count her as she was a reaction-shag, a shag to get the girl he had once loved out of his system.

It wasn't really about desire at all.

He caught the sound of raucous laughter from the kitchen, Greg clearly having a great time with what John (correctly) assumed to be a group of mostly drunken girls; the man definitely had some sort of something which appealed to girls, most likely his cheeky grin and undeniable good looks, though that wasn't to say he didn't have a decent personality. The truth was that Greg was surprisingly selfless, incredibly accepting and horizontally laid-back, three things that made him charming as fuck and always guaranteed to take a girl home (or keep her there as the case would be tonight). Poor Sherlock. The walls weren't too bad but they definitely weren't quite thick enough to keep the girls from making their presence known during sex. Sherlock had already inferred to John that he spent the times when Greg had a girl in his room downstairs instead in order to avoid having to listen to it, distracting himself with experiments and research.

~Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz~

Speaking of Sherlock...

John pulled his phone from his pocket, raising a finger to the still-shouting Mike and reading the text quickly:

William:

On a scale of one to ten, how inebriated are you at this moment in time?

Sherlock, not one for the masses of people at parties, had struck a deal with both John and Greg: in exchange for one hour of his time being spent at the party he was allowed to spend the rest of it upstairs in his room, during which time he was not to be disturbed by anybody. He was also allowed to choose which hour he would spend downstairs. So far he had spent two and a half hours hiding and no time whatsoever within the company of other people.

That depends... what's a 10?

Mike grabbed his arm as he sent the text, pointing eagerly at someone over by the doorway. John followed his finger and saw a girl standing there clutching a plastic cup and looking nervous; she had mousey-blonde hair and was rather thin, carrying a subtle sort of prettiness that John could appreciate. She actually looked a little like Sarah. He nodded his appreciation to Mike.

"SHE'S THE ONE WHO GAVE ME HER NUMBER AT THE FIRST PARTY!" Mike had leaned in closer as if to whisper a secret, yet his yelled just as loud as he had been yelling before... still, at least John could hear him now. "WE'VE BEEN TEXTING LOADS AND SHE PROMISED SHE'D COME TONIGHT!"

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" John shouted back, trying for an encouraging smile. "GO DANCE WITH HER OR SOMETHING BEFORE SHE FINDS SOMEONE BETTER!"

~Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz~

Mike punched him on the shoulder a little too hard, grinning wildly at him. "I'LL SEE YOU LATER, THEN! OR MAYBE NOT!" He crossed his fingers, John laughing for his benefit and watching as his best friend made his way over to the girl; as soon as she spotted Mike her face lit up, a pleased smile filling her face and making her suddenly ten times more attractive – yes, Mike had found himself a decent one there. Lucky git. John was about as far away from getting close to a girl as... well. Maybe not Sherlock. That was a bit of an exaggeration.

Remembering the text message, he unlocked his screen:

William:

Well, as you've managed to respond you're definitely not a ten just yet. I'm going to assume that after two and a half hours, one round of the Deadly Three and perhaps three cups of punch you're currently a... five. Possibly a six.

John rolled his eyes. Trust him to know exactly what he had consumed.

I'm not even a 4. All right, maybe a 4. But not a 5, and definitely nowhere near a 6.

William's response was ridiculously quick:

William:

We'll see about that.

Instantly John shoved his phone into his jeans pocket and began to weave his way around the dancing bodies, dodging the hands which tried to grab him and encourage him to join the masses, cheers and whoops of the friends he only seemed to have when they were drunk following him as he slipped past Mike (rather feverishly kissing the blonde girl in the doorway) and managed to manoeuvre himself into the hallway. He felt a small glimmer of triumph in his chest as he watched a very bored-looking Sherlock thank the people sitting on the stairs rather sarcastically for moving out of his way, the tall genius sighing quietly to himself before turning to face the living room and therefore John; their eyes met and John felt the alcohol force his lips into a genuine smile.

Sherlock did not smile back as he walked to meet him. "An entire hour?"

"Yes, that was the deal," John said firmly, jerking his head towards the kitchen and indicating that Sherlock should follow him. "And you have to drink something alcoholic."

Sherlock stopped dead, narrowing his eyes at the back of John's head. "No. That was not part of the deal."

John turned. "Look at it this way, okay? You're about to spend an hour with people you care nothing about and you have to at least look vaguely interested in whatever they're saying -"

"That wasn't part of the deal either."

Sighing, John shrugged. "If you're not going to even act like you want to be here you might as well have stayed upstairs!"

Triumph flitted across Sherlock's face. "Ah, how right you are. Well, I'll just head back up -" He turned to leave but John had already anticipated his move, reaching out and grabbing Sherlock by the arm.

"Not so fast, Sherlock McSpeedy – we agreed an hour and you're going to give us an hour, all right?" He let go of Sherlock's arm as his friend turned back around and revealed a sulky expression so familiar that John couldn't help but have to suppress a grin. "We're going to go in there, have a few drinks and you're going to get buzzed enough that you might even enjoy yourself. Agreed?"

"Hmmph. Let's not exaggerate."

"Come on," he said encouragingly, indicating that now Sherlock had to go ahead of him, "you can try a cup of pick and mix punch and chat to me and Greg. It doesn't have to be as painful as you're expecting it to be."

- X -

Ten minutes later he realised his mistake: it was always going to be painful. Now Sherlock was giving him sidelong glances so murderous that he was genuinely surprised he hadn't been stabbed in the hip.

There were nine of them in all, nine young adults crammed around the kitchen table like sardines, each of them staring at the currently empty pint glass in the middle of the table as Greg spread out not one but two packs of cards around it with a massive grin on his face; he'd been grinning like that since Sherlock had walked into the room. It was now obvious to John that this had been his plan all along: no matter what time Sherlock had descended the stairs, Greg would have initiated a drinking game and Sherlock would have to join it. Greg's plan was clearly to get Sherlock absolutely wankered.

"You swore, John," Sherlock muttered, the arm pressed up against John (they were sitting side-by-side, though with the amount of people trying to fit around the table they might as well have been sharing the same chair) tensing visibly beneath his deep purple shirt, "you swore we would never play drinking games together."

"I'm sorry, all right?" John wasn't sorry. He was tipsy enough that he actually found it all rather amusing. "It's Greg's fault, not mine, so stop glaring at me like that. It's only for another fifty minutes, then you can bugger off back upstairs and sulk some more."

Sherlock balked as someone placed an empty pint glass in front of him. "What's this for?"

"Well. It's a drinking game. You have to drink. What do you want?"

"Red wine."

"No," John said without hesitation, shaking his head. "No, if you drink wine you'll end up throwing up within half an hour."

"Ugh." Sherlock wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Water, then."

"Sherlock. You have to drink alcohol."

"Brandy?"

"Oh god," John moaned, grabbing Sherlock's glass for him and gesturing to the girl opposite him. "Could you pass me the vodka? And some lemonade?"

"I don't like vod-"

"You've never bloody had it," Greg intercepted as he passed John the spirit himself, grinning gleefully down at the curly-haired man, "so just give it a go, all right? You can barely taste it, you'll be fine."

Sherlock glanced from the glass that John was filling up for him to John's own cup. "What about him? He's only got a tiny cup, that's not fair."

"Calm down, he's getting a glass just as big as yours." As if to prove it, Greg slammed a glass full of something clear in front of John. "Sambuca and lemonade. Enjoy."

It was John's turn to shoot a murderous glance, this one aimed directly at Sherlock's smug-looking housemate. "How much sambuca did you put in this, Greg? I thought I said last time that under no circumstances are you to pour my drinks for me ever again."

"Chill out, mate, it's all good!"

"Doesn't answer my question..." John muttered, lifting the glass to his nose and giving it a sniff; good god, it was definitely at least a quarter full of alcohol. There was quarter of a pint of sambuca in this glass. Greg was trying to kill him. "Sherlock, I apologise in advance because I'm going to be absolutely hamm-" He turned, words trailing as he watched Sherlock drain his entire glass. "Sherlock, what the hell are you doing?!"

Sherlock looked at him as if he were stupid, his arm rubbing awkwardly against John's as he put the glass back down on the table, licking his lips. "There are a lot of people in the room, John, it's very warm in here. I was thirsty."

John did not miss the demonic bark of laughter from Greg – god, it was all planned. The man was insane. "You do realise there was alcohol in that glass?"

"You should be more concerned with the 35:65 ratio of sambuca to lemonade in your glass rather than worrying about the 20:80 vodka to lemonade in mine, John."

John eyed his glass suspiciously. "35:65?"

"Almost definitely." Sherlock began refilling his own glass, sighing as he poured in the vodka. "This really is a complete waste of my time, you know."

"Just try and have a good time."

"Very unlikely."

"RIGHT THEN!" Greg bellowed, extending his arms wide and grinning like a maniac down at the little crowd around the table. "I know for a fact we have some newbies at the table who've never played Ring of Fire before, so we may have to be a little patient with some people and a bit pushy with others." He flashed a pointed look in Sherlock's direction. "If you've played before, great, just announce what your card means as you pick it up so that our newbies can start learning and... well, no, that's about it! Can't be arsed to be picky about who goes first so I'll just go..."

The table watched as he wedged himself between the two girls sitting opposite Sherlock and John and leaned forward, sliding a card out from the fan around the pint glass. He pulled it out with a flourish, turning it slowly to face him.

His eyes sparkled.

"Well, whaddya know? Eight! Eight, as most of us know, is Mate, which means that I get to choose someone to take a drink. Hmmm." His index finger and thumb came to rest on his jaw, eyes swivelling around the circle as he pretended to think. "Whoooo shall I pick? Who shall I pick?"

John knew where this was going.

Poor Sherlock.

"Sherlock!" Greg held the card up so that it faced the unimpressed-looking genius. "You're new to this: take a drink!"

"I assume a 'drink' is equal to a sip?" Sherlock asked no one in particular, picking up his glass, looking infinitely bored. "Very well, if I must..." He took the tiniest sip, grimacing as he did so.

Greg wasn't having any of it. "It's not a bloody cocktail, Sherlock. You take a gulp, not a sip."

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock lifted the glass to his lips again. "Dear lord. This is fun, is it?"

John hid his grin behind his glass. "It will be if it carries on like this..."

"Hmm?" Sherlock finished his gulp, shuddering and putting the glass back on the table, turning his head slightly to the left to look at his friend. "What was that, John? You were mumbling, you know I can't stand it when you mumble."

"RIGHT!" Greg was clearly determined to keep things moving. "Lauren, you next." He grinned at the girl to his left, gesturing. "Go for it."

She slid a card out, looking at it before showing the rest of the table. "Ace. That's... the Dirty Pint, right?"

Greg nodded, the all-knowing drinking-game King. "For those who don't know, the Dirty Pint is the pint glass in the middle. Every time you pick up an Ace, you add some of your drink to the glass. The person who picks out the last Ace at the end has to drink it."

As Lauren added some of her pink drink to the glass, Sherlock sighed and began to mutter to John. "I'm not drinking that. If I get the Ace, you have to drink it for me."

"Like hell I am!"

The next card picked was a seven. The boy holding it quickly pointed to the ceiling. "Seven is Heaven!"

Everyone around the table quickly pointed their fingers to the ceiling, some laughter as the slightly more inebriated of the group took a little more time to realise what was going on; Sherlock's hands remained around his glass, brow furrowed, looking completely bemused.

Greg's grin grew so wide that John was moderately concerned it would fall off of his face. "Sherlock, you're the last one to point – take a drink!"

His frown deepened. "Excuse me?"

"Seven is Heaven - if you pull out a seven everyone has to point to the ceiling and the last one to do it has to take a drink."

The noise Sherlock made in the back of his throat was so full of derision that John had to replay Greg's words in his head just to make sure he hadn't suggested shooting a kitten; nope, totally legit. Sherlock did not pick up his glass. "That is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life, not owing just to the fact that Heaven is a construct-"

"Just take the drink, Sherlock," John interrupted, knowing that people would only put up with his smart-arse comments for so long, "the more you drink the less you'll care, trust me."

Sherlock's arm rubbed against his again as he lifted his glass. "I'm not sure I should be listening to you. You're already drunk."

"Take the bloody drink," Greg said impatiently, "and then you can be drunk together and save us a lot of hassle by looking after each other. Take the drink so we can get on with the game!"

Rolling his eyes in the most patronising way possible, Sherlock lifted the glass to his lips and took a few sips. Every pair of eyes watched closely, not looking away until they were each satisfied that they'd had enough to drink; Greg was the last to look away, motioning for the next person to go.

"All right, let's keep it going, yeah?"

The next two people went, revealing a King (all the guys had to take a gulp) and a Nine (Rhyme, where the person who selected the card had to say a rhyming couplet and each person around the circle had to add a line until someone paused for too long, at which point they had to take a drink) – it was unsurprising to John and Greg (and probably the rest of the circle) that Sherlock was the one to drop the ball on Rhyme, again proclaiming the rule to be ridiculous though at least this time he picked up his glass without having to be asked. All of the cards selected so far other than the Ace had led to Sherlock having to take a drink and, as John knew from experience, the drunker an individual became the harder it became to avoid the consequences. If Sherlock continued down the road he was heading down... well. He'd be fucked by the time he crawled up to his bedroom.

"I assume it's my turn now?" Sherlock's fingers fluttered over the cards, resting on one directly in front of them. "Do I just choose any?"

John nodded. "Go for it."

The genius slid a card from the masses, dragging it with his fingertips to the edge of the table and flipping it over only as it threatened to fall into his lap. He stared at it for a moment before shrugging, turning it around so that the rest of the group could see. "Ten. What does that mean?"

The entire table groaned. The guy next to John uttered a very emphatic 'fuck'.

"Ten is Waterfall," Greg said, shaking his head back and forth regretfully. "Ten is the card we all love to hate."

"Which means...?"

John took the card from him, staring at it mournfully. "Everyone has to drink their drink non-stop until you stop drinking yours."

A look of interest flickered over Sherlock's impassive face. "So... I drink my drink for as long as I like... and you all have to drink until I stop? What if someone stops before I do?"

The girl opposite Sherlock, Lauren, answered. "They have to finish their drink entirely."

A thrill of apprehension wrapped itself around John's spine as he caught out of the corner of his eye the tiny grin that flitted over Sherlock's full lips; oh, christ. The last thing anyone should do during a drinking game is give Sherlock power – no, scratch that, you should never give him power of any kind. But during a drinking game?

Greg met his eyes from across the table. Clearly he was thinking the same thing.

"Well then." Sherlock lifted his glass as if toasting, his eyes drifting quickly around the table and lingering momentarily on a now nervous-looking John: that tiny grin again, the thrill of apprehension shooting down the shorter man's spine. "Bottoms up, everyone."

So, they drank. Every person around the table raised their glasses to their lips, swallowing the tiniest amounts possible and watching each other intently to be aware of cheaters, of losers, eyes constantly swerving back to rest on Sherlock who was clearly not an idiot and had every intention of dragging it out for as long as possible. There was an almost-moan from John's left as a girl stared in panic at her near-empty glass, knowing as she did that if she ran out of drink she would lose and would have to force down a whole pint of an entirely new drink afterwards, an idea that would be terrifying to anyone considering they had barely been playing for longer than fifteen minutes; John felt a burst of sympathy but an even stronger burst of hope, seeing his still half-full glass and thinking for the first time that he might just make it -

Warm fingertips brushed over his knee.

Half of his current mouthful sprayed out of his lips onto the cards and people in front of him before he could even process what had happened; he heard a vocalisation escape from his throat, something of a protest and a swearword, almost 'fuck, Sherlock' but closer to just wordless noise. The people in front of John shrieked and shielded themselves, shock and amusement travelling around the circle in a sort of Mexican wave as everyone started putting down their drinks and wiping their mouths, relief and mirth echoed in their laughter – John slammed the glass down on the table, hand flying up to cover his mouth as he started to cough, eyes watering as the sambuca lodged itself into every crevice in this throat and burning.

Beside him, Sherlock calmly put down his own drink and removed his hand from John's leg, placing it on the table in front of them.

Still coughing, John stared at the hand that had touched him.

"John, you absolute cockmonkey!" Greg cried, grabbing a bunch of napkins and rubbing them over his face to get rid of the lemonade-and-sambuca-mouthful that had been projected over him – funnily enough, it seemed that he had suffered the worst out of everyone. "Stop choking and finish your bloody drink, you absolute arse!"

Just about managing to control the coughing, John managed to croak out a series of words quietly to the man sitting beside him.

"You absolute fucking bastard, you did that so I would lose."

Sherlock's voice responded so quietly and in such a low voice that John had to strain to hear him. "If you insist on getting me drunk then I'm afraid that I have no choice but to exact revenge in whatever way I possibly can in such a limited situation. In this case it would appear I'm going to make you suffer via alcohol quite as much as I imagine I will."

John raised his eyes from the hand and found Sherlock's intense eyes fixed on him.

The tiny, dangerous grin flickered to life once more as Sherlock glanced away and to the cards in front of them, calm, serene even. When he spoke, it was in his normal voice once more, loud enough for everyone else to hear.

"Drink up, John. We've got a long game ahead of us."