Honey Drip // Danny Wagner

VI

The sunset had been sort of dismal--it was so grey and hazy that the magenta and gold sun hadn't gotten much of a chance to burst through past the mountaintops and the mist. The darkness that set in after was all-encompassing, dense and oppressive--it seemed to have quieted all of our surroundings to near-total silence. Only the crackling of the fire sounded through the air, cut by our echoing laughter.

Jake was strumming his guitar and Josh was singing a song he was calling "Flower Power"--Sam threw a fragment of charred wood at Jake, but he only kept strumming.

"I like this one," I said to Danny, who was sitting on a tree stump next to me. "I haven't heard it before."

"We wrote it a while ago," he told me. "We're gonna play it at our next show."

"Yeah, if Jake can get it together," Sam chimed in.

Jake leered at his brother but kept playing, the chiming of the guitar strings permeating the atmosphere. 

I took another sip of whiskey from the bottle and handed it to Danny. I didn't want to get too drunk, knowing myself and how even more irresistible Danny becomes particularly when I've had one too many--we still had another night to get through.

When the song ended Sam picked up the bottle of vodka that was situated on the ground next to him and took a swig, then he declared, "We should play truth or dare."

Jake and I both groaned while Sam's face lit up and Danny chuckled to himself, going for the whiskey again.

"What are we gonna dare?" I asked. "Go out to the woods and try not to die?"

"Come on, when's the last time any of us played this?" Sam replied.

"Sam, you just wanna mess with us," Danny said.

"You're not totally wrong," Sam replied and speared a marshmallow onto a stick before putting it in the flames. "But I still think it'd be fun."

"You brought it up, so you start," Jake told him.

Sam smirked, removing the marshmallow from the fire and holding the flaming blob in front of himself. "Okay," he started, then peered at Danny. "Daniel--truth or dare?"

Danny sighed. "Truth."

"How drunk would you have to be to run naked through the woods?"

"Pretty drunk," Danny answered, chuckling. "And now I have to worry if I choose dare, clearly."

"Your turn," Sam said to him.

"Josh," Danny said, turning his face to the flames to look across them. "Truth or dare?"

"Dare," Josh said, grinning.

"I dare you to try and blow a flame," Danny said. "Using the vodka."

"Jesus," I groaned.

Josh was grinning even wider and took the bottle to his mouth.

"That's literally not going to work," Jake argued, slumping in his chair.

"I just wanna see what'll happen," Danny replied, watching Josh intently.

I was more mesmerized by Josh holding the vodka in his mouth than by anything else that was about to happen. He leaned forward and a spray of liquid erupted from his lips, misting Sam and I, to which I exclaimed disgust while Sam kept looking on, mouth slightly agape. The flame of the fire spiked as the vodka burst through it--a brief, bright orange spike--but that was it.

Josh coughed, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "I just love fire."

"Such a pyro," I laughed, still wiping away the vodka spray from myself.