Chapter Text
“The Plan,” Paul begins, “is a five step process that will allow the ‘Other Reindeer’ to take back the party for ourselves.”
“Take back the party?” Michael echoes, thoroughly confused.
Paul smirks like a shitty anime villain. “Precisely. I’ve never understood the hedonistic tendencies of the popular students whenever they have a night sans parental units.”
Jery cuts in. He’s lying on the floor, both of his feet resting on top of a nearby storage box. “Dude, you just don’t know how to get lit. Also, stop taking like a fucking Knight of the Round Table.”
“I know very well how to enjoy the pleasures of life, I just choose not to. And my speaking is perfectly normal for those with high intelligence.” Like a jackass, the teen stands over Jery, his hands on his hips.
But Jery isn’t intimidated in the slightest. “Jesus Christ. Get laid. Not even, like, physically. I mean in your mind. You cognitively need to get laid.”
Paul’s face flushes a bright shade of red, and he crosses his arms. “I’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to tell me how to live my life, Jery. Now, back to the Plan.” Paul pulls out a notebook from seemingly nowhere and flips to a page somewhere in the middle. Notes are neatly printed, along with a few labeled diagrams.
“Basically, we’re going to create several diversions around the house while one of us cuts the electricity and another will find a way to get rid of a majority of the alcohol here. Of course, I’ll be disposing of the alcohol. Rachel will take the electricity, since Jery is too drunk and Suzie isn’t willing.”
“I don’t want to get shocked, so I’ll be distracting people. Jery is also supposed to, but he’s kinda fucked up right now.” Suzie says, fiddling with her horns. Michael is about to ask what those are all about when Jery cuts him off.
“Hey, we could also get rid of the booze by getting wasteeeeed.” Jery raises one hand in the air. He’s holding a flask that’s shaped like one of those squeaky rubber chickens.
Michael isn’t convinced this will work. Mostly because the team seems too incompetent to function as one unit. “Are you sure you have the coordination for all this?”
“Positive. Everything has gone according to Plan so far. Nothing can stop us,” Paul says.
Yikes. This might get in the way of Jeremy’s sweater contest. Sure, he doesn’t have much of a chance of winning, but ruining the entire party wouldn’t be a good way to end the night. “Well, I kind of need the party to carry on normally for the next half-hour or so, so…”
Paul’s eyes darken. “If you’re thinking about informing anyone of our Plan, you will deeply regret it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Surely Paul isn’t thinking of fighting him, right? He looks to scrawny to put up much of a fight, anyway.
“I have my ways of making sure nobody does anything traitorous,” He says, with the confidence of a Reddit-user talking about a culture they aren’t a part of.
Suzie jumps in. “He’s gonna tell Jake you puked on the rug to get you thrown out. That’s all.” She snickers and puts a small bucket over one of her horns. Where did she even get that from?
Rachel cries out, squeezing the hell out of Michael’s arm. “No, no, no! You can’t threaten my little Mikey!” She sniffles, trying to induce Ghibli-esque tears.
“Don’t call me that,” Michael says, thoroughly unimpressed.
But Rachel continues on as if she never heard him. “He would never do anything naughty, unless it’s with me~!”
“H3h3h3h3h3h3! Is this a new OTP I’m smelling?” Suzie giggles covering her mouth with her hands. “You can’t tell from my speaking, but the ‘e’’s in my laughter are 3’s.”
Michael ignores Suzie. “Seriously, don’t talk to me like that. I don’t even know you.” He pushes Rachel away, frowning.
“Not yet, maybe, but soon!” She says, a glimmer in her eyes. Michael then realizes that she’s wearing contacts that make her eyes look entirely white. Jesus. “Maybe you should come with me to disable the electricity! Then after we’re done, I can initiate you!”
That sounds honestly fucking terrible, but it might allow Michael to prevent her from wrecking the party. Maybe if he promises to hold her hand or something, she’ll decide not to kill the lights. “Fine. Sure. Just tell me what I need to do.”
Jeremy gulps as the microphone grows closer and closer to his spot in line.
Within seconds, the microphone reaches the person before Jeremy; a muscular teen wearing nothing but a Santa hat and jean shorts. He grabs the microphone, his eyes wide with excitement. “I’m Robert Price and my fav-”
But Jake grabs the microphone before he can finish. “Aaaaand the one requirement for entering was that you had to wear a sweater. I’m not even sure how you got this far, to be honest. Who let him up here? Just step off the stage, please. Thaaaank you. Moving on…”
Jake holds the microphone out to Jeremy. Trembling slightly, he takes it, surveying the crowd. A majority of the people watching are from Jeremy’s high school, so any slip up with undoubtedly spread like wildfire throughout the school once they all go back.
Taking a deep breath, Jeremy says, “I’m Jeremy Heere, and, um, my favorite Christmas movie is… ‘Die Hard’?”
A few people in the crowd cheer. Thank God Michael decided to geek out on him earlier.
Jake takes the microphone back. “Good choice! Up next…”
The rest of the boys introduce themselves without a hitch. Most of them give ‘Home Alone’ as their favorite Christmas movie, with a few choosing ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and one choosing ‘The Santa Clause.’
“Now that introductions are out of the way, we can move on to the first challenge. Oh, for those who came in late, I’m Jake Dillinger, by the way. ‘Elf’ is my favorite movie. But back to the contest. Bring ‘em in, Jason!”
Jason emerges from stage right with a bunch of small red and green boxes, with numbers printed on each side. In total, there are about twenty, one for each participant. The boxes are pooled on a table in the center of the stage.
Jake turns to the line of teens, explaining the rules. “I hope you boys are ready for a bit of Russian roulette. Now, nobody is going to die tonight—this isn’t that kind of story—but you all will be drinking a mystery liquid contained in whichever box you end up with. There’s nothing poisonous or inhumane, but it may not exactly be pleasant, either.”
Rich calls out, raising his hand to get Jake’s attention. “So, like, we’re not going to end up with period blood or anything, right?”
“Jesus, dude, I’m not a monster. I can’t guarantee that you’ll love whatever you end up with, but I’m not trying to ruin your life, here. Now, onto the rules of this game.” Jake walks to downstage center, the lights dimming around him until only the stage is lit. “This is going to be kind of like a white elephant swap. We’ll start with on the leftmost side of the line, by which I mean stage right, and that person will have to take a gift from the pile and open it. After him, the next person will have the choice to either steal a previous player’s gift, or take one from the pool to open. This continues until the end of the line. If a player’s gift is stolen, they can either take a new one from the pool or steal a gift, but they cannot take back what was just stolen from them. At the end of the game, everybody will take their drink. If you refuse or spit it out, you’re out of the contest.”
This has the potential to be pretty bad, but Jeremy is sure he can stomach whatever he ends up with.
Jake dramatically spins around, pointing to the first person in line. “Now, Rich, you’re up first! Choose a box and open it up.”
The blonde teen walks up to the table, and after some deliberation, chooses box #7. He heads back to his place in line and opens it, revealing a shotglass full of some sort of strange, yellowish cloudy liquid. The glass has plastic wrap covering the top, along with a rubber band, to prevent it from spilling.
“What even is this? It smells disgusting.” He lifts the plastic wrap and takes a whiff of the liquid, nearly gagging from the smell.
With a mischievous grin, Jake deflects the question. “That would ruin the fun, wouldn’t it? You’ll just have to find out once the game is over.”
The next few boxes opened contain something that looks like tomato juice, something with the smell of vinegar, what appears to be pure maple syrup, and a strange, thick black liquid. So far, nobody wants to steal anything.
Maybe this isn’t going to be as easy as Jeremy thought.