By Chance

Thirty Four

Ari and the guys had attempted to build their tolerance over the next few days, resulting in a decent loss of memory of what happened the night before and severe hangovers the following mornings. Bin made a traditional soup meant to help with the headache and nausea, but it barely broke the surface of it all. After a second round of laying in bed all day for fear of vomiting, Cal decided to do some research before they tried again.

"Alright," he said to the others as they all sat around the kitchen table, "There is no feasible way to build a tolerance in time that would keep us completely in our faculties. But we are going to have to partake to blend in, it seems." He gestured to the various bottles, baggies, and packages on the table between them, "We know our hard limits, so we don't have to take anything we're absolutely against, but the expectation is that we are there to party because we party, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ari agreed, looking at him with concern. She had been quite the party girl off and on through the years, and Bin was a self-admitted festival kid. Cal was the only one who hadn't experimented in his youth. Oddly enough, he had the highest tolerance and self-control, from what Ari could remember of the last attempts.

"My proposal," Cal continued, "Is that we pick one to take each night. We can measure it and layer until we feel beyond the point of limit, and then know later that we can only do so much of whatever," he steepled his fingers in front of him, "Then, right before the party, we can layer different things, measuring again, so we know how the combos work and what our limits will be. We can record audio or video on our phones so we can look back to see how we were affected and in case we mis-measure." He leaned back with a proud look on his face as Ari and Bin smiled at him.

"This is so weird!" Ari exclaimed, laughing, "You're the most studious drug user I've ever met!"

"Not everyone has, how did you say it? 'Popped E and got stuffed in a bouncy house, My Love," Cal chuckled looking directly at Ari.

"I have," Bin said plainly, taking a drink of his beer.

"This isn't Never Have I Ever," Cal laughed, taking Bin's beer and stealing a drink of it before returning it.

"Okay, so let's do something easy tonight, then," Bin stated with a worried look on his face, "We have to go visit my parents tomorrow."

"Shrooms, then?" Ari asked, holding up a baggy of dried blue and gray caps with stems.

"Shrooms, then," Cal agreed.

Cal got up and put the rest of the containers in a drawer in the kitchen while Ari grabbed three caps of similar size out of the baggy she held. Passing one to each of the guys, they all ate quickly while trying to not gag over the taste. Ari grabbed a blanket and a DVD of Yellow Submarine for them to watch as they tested their theory throughout the night.

___

Ari took off her sunglasses, hissing at the sunlight that glared at her through the windshield. She wanted to be presentable for meeting Bin's mother for the first time. and they hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. They had learned, however, that none of them had much of a hard limit when it came to psychedelic mushrooms, as well as some...interesting effects and side-effects. She reached past Cal, who was driving, to grab her makeup bag from beside Bin the back seat.

"Wake up," she slapped at a snoozing Bin, "If I'm looking haggard, you're looking haggard, Bunny. These are your parents and I'm not going to be the only one who looks like shit."

Bin barely cracked an eye, but his smile loosely crept over his soft lips, "Jagiya, you're beautiful," he winked with as little as he had of his sleepy eyes, "Besides, I'm not the one that couldn't go to sleep without a vigorous round of sex-capades." His grin widened, remembering the early hours of the morning, and what he and Cal did to her lush body in order to bring her down enough for everyone to sleep.