My mom was Mexican...

After the younger girls had gone to bed, Chase, Nico, Karolina, Victor and Olive moved into the living room for some slightly more grown-up fun. Victor had dared Karolina to fly around the beach house and over the ocean, and was passing the time until she got back talking to Chase and Nico about the Sons of the Serpent.

"So wait," Chase asked, "Do these guys have anything to do with Cobra? As in 'commander'?"

"No," Victor explained. Again. With a slight glance and shrug in Olive's direction. "Totally different serpent commandos."

Edited Date: 2013-01-04 03:34 pm (UTC)

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"Oh, sure, everyone knows that serpent commandos are like their own entire sub-genre," Olive said knowledgably, nodding like she had any idea what she was talking about.

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"These guys are real," Nico explained -- mostly to Olive, because she'd decided Chase was being dumb on purpose again, and Olive at least had an excuse for not knowing this stuff. "~~Meta~~ GI Joe is not. The ones we're talking about are white supremacists."

"So they dress up like snakes?" Chase asked, and ... okay, maybe he was being dumb on purpose a little bit. Just because it was fun to exasperate Nico and Victor and their smarter-than-him stuff. "How does that make their point? Are these guys complete morons or something?"

"They're white supremacists, Chase," Nico repeated. "So .... yes."

Before anybody could get any more exasperated, a rainbow-colored Karolina crashed back through the open window, startling the sleeping Old Lace as she passed just over her head. She giggled as she knocked Chase over, too entertained by her own daring to apologize.

Nico's "LOOK OUT!" was more than a little tardy.

Edited Date: 2013-01-07 07:27 pm (UTC)

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Olive also lunged to the side, just...in case. She at least had good reflexes, even if they weren't necessarily applicable in this case. And thankfully, she'd seen Tie-Dye Karolina before, or this would be the part where she had a lot of questions.

"That's one way to make an entrance," she noted dryly, wondering if her own Karolina was going to start doing that. She'd have to be on her guard.

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"I know," Karolina giggled as she caught her breath. Normally she was a little shy about flying in front of a new person, but she'd got caught up in the moment. "That was ... really ... fun."

Victor went to offer Karolina a hand to help her up. "Nice!" he said. "No offense, but I wasn't sure you'd really do it."

"Well, I'm not surprised," Nico put in, and was it Victor's imagination or was his ex flirting with her lesbian teammate? "You pretty much always amaze me."

Chase cleared his throat. "All right, that makes it Karolina's turn," he pointed out.

"Okay, okay," Karolina said, and almost asked Nico something before losing her nerve. "Olive? Truth or dare."

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"Um, truth," Olive said, almost immediately. Not because she thought Karolina -- any incarnation of her -- would come up with anything particularly scary as a dare, but because there was no way she could follow that act. "Give me your worst."

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"If you're sure," Karolina said -- even though she also knew even her worst wouldn't be all that bad. "Um ... what was the last, you know, hot dream you had?"

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For all that Olive didn't embarrass easily, it sure was easy to get her to blush by asking the right questions. She debated making something up, but her stupid conscience and sense of good sportsmanship argued against that. Besides, it wasn't anything too bad, just...potentially embarrassing for more than just her.

"Um," she began eloquently. "Okay, it was a couple of weeks ago, over our Christmas break. And um, in Ojai, there's all these orchards with these secluded little areas in the trees, but there's this one particular orchard where the air's really warm and everything smells like citrus and...it's just really nice. And so anyway I had a dream about, um, hooking up there. I'll spare you the dirty details and blame my own ladylike sensibilities, but um, a member of present company was involved."

Olive was pretty sure it was obvious which member of present company she meant, given how she'd shot a sort of embarrassed smile and shrug over to Victor. The whole thing was made a little easier by how she could see herself telling her Karolina this pretty comfortably, but she was still looking anywhere but at Nico -- she didn't want to make things weird after they'd gotten off to such a good start.

"So hey, my turn to ask now, right?" she added, eager to get the spotlight off herself.

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"Your turn," Victor agreed. He looked both embarrassed and totally proud, and not a little like he was wondering if stopping in Ojai on the way back to Fandom was an option. "Pick your target."

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"Chase," Olive decided, grateful for the opportunity to deflect. "Pick your poison -- truth or dare?"

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Chase grinned lazily at her from his spot on the floor, where he leaned back against Old Lace. "I always have to go for dare," he said. "Just make it something fun."

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"You guys have cinnamon?" Olive wondered after a moment. "'Cause I dare you to get a tablespoon and some cinnamon and take the cinnamon challenge. We're not putting it on the internet, obviously, but still."

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"We have cinnamon," Nico said, and nodded to Victor. "It's on the shelf with your weird condiment collection."

"Why do I have to get it?" he grumbled, already on his feet.

"'Cause she thinks you're going to laugh the hardest if I can't do it," Chase explained. "Which means you won't laugh at all, because I am the cinnamon master."

"There's like fifteen hours worth of videos of people messing this up on YouTube," Victor called in response from the kitchen. "No way are you the cinnamon master. You're gonna cough your lungs out."

But a moment later, he was offering Chase a spice bottle and spoon. Even if he was right, he wanted to see the attempt.

"Observe," Chase said, taking the proffered tablespoon and dumping a healthy pile of cinnamon onto it. He winked at Olive as he said, "Start timing."

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Olive just shook her head disparagingly and held up her phone, where she'd started the stopwatch function. "I preemptively feel so bad for you."

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Chase swished his cheeks back and forth, seeming to gather some saliva, and then tilted the spoon carefully into his mouth.

He turned red with the effort not to cough almost immediately. This was more ... intense than he'd expected, that was for sure. Old Lace wriggled with shared discomfort, and let out a sneeze in sympathy.

"Do you need water?" Karolina offered, holding up her bottle.

Chase shook his head, swallowed, and coughed with his hand over his mouth. He made a second attempt at swallowing before spitting a sodden, pasty mass of cinnamon back onto his spoon.

"Asqueroso," Victor observed softly.

Chase just had time to try to get the paste back in his mouth before the timer beeped. He grabbed for Karolina's water and poured about half of it down his throat the second he was allowed to.

In between giggles, Nico asked, "Are you okay?"

Chase waved a hand, indicating he was fine but couldn't talk yet. He wiped his damp and cinnamony lips on his sleeve. "That shit burns the inside of your nose," he said a moment later, still red around the mouth but otherwise back to normal. "Never trying it again."

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"I would say I'm sorry but that was way too funny," Olive said, giggling. "But, you know, glad you survived."

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"Having to call 911 for some cinnamon would be the lamest way to go out ever," Chase said, amiably enough. "So ... okay, Nico. You're up."

"I hate this game," she whined. "Geez. Um ... truth, I guess."

Chase grinned at her, seeing a chance to inflate his ego and embarrass at least three people in the room. "So between me, the toaster, Kar, and I guess Alex, who's the best kisser?" he asked. "You're the one who would know."

"No way!" Nico shouted. "Dare. I pick dare."

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"...there's lots more cinnamon!" Olive offered loudly. "Who wants to see Nico shoot it out her nose?"

Though the question had pinged her kind of interestingly -- Nico'd kissed Karolina, too? And she vaguely wondered who Alex was, to get that offhand mention.

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"She can't switch," Chase put in, as Karolina agreed. "It's too late, Nico! You can't take it back."

Victor was quiet for the moment. On the one hand, he figured there was no good way for Nico to answer the question in front of Olive. On the other, he leaned with Karolina and Chase on the 'rules are rules' thing.

The argument was interrupted when Klara wandered out, rubbing her eyes. "Why are you being loud?" she asked. "And why is everyone else awake? Can I be awake?"

"Oh, Klara," Nico said gratefully. "We just got too excited playing a big-kids game."

"I want to play!" Klara put in, seeming to wake up fast.

Nico went to hug her. "No, you don't. Anyhow, the game just ended."

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"It's a dumb game," Olive contributed for Klara's sake. "And I'm sorry we woke you up, hon. Is Molly still out?"

Maybe the younger two would save them from having to go through a super-uncomfortable question! Olive was suddenly grateful for the fact that as weird as it had been to answer Karolina, it could've been a lot worse.

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Klara nodded. "She's talking in her sleep about the Wolverine again," she said, but got cut off.

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"Like hell it ended," Chase said. "Sorry, Olive, but Minoru is not getting out of this one. Nobody forced her to make out with everybody in the house."

"It's not like Olive's never kissed anybody. And when we met Klara, she was already married," Victor added in agreement. (He really hated it when he agreed with Chase, but sometimes the guy was just right.)

"Right!" Chase nodded. "To a creepy old guy."

"So I think everybody here is grown-up enough for you to just answer the question and get it over with," Victor finished.

"Besides," Chase said, making a face, "It's an easy one. Obviously I was the best kisser, since Alex, our deviously departed leader, probably tasted evil, and Small Wonder here probably kisses in binary."

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"Fine," Nico exclaimed. "Karolina, okay? Karolina is a better kisser than either of you, so shut up. Happy now?"

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Olive had a binary-related defense for Victor's abilities on the tip of her tongue, but stopped short at Nico's answer. "...huh."

She was going to have so many questions for her roommate when she got back. As it was, she was now peering curiously from Nico to Karolina.

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