Yeah, fine. Like you can stop whatever this is, anyway.

Scott is frowning slightly, but doesn't answer this demand, so you shrug in irritable acquiescence and say, "Sure. Better make it me. Since you guys are determined to keep being so fucking weird at each other. Good luck, I guess, thinking of something you don't already know the answer to. No way in hell I'm taking a dare off you in this state."

Dex flashes you a tight smile, then turns to Scott and asks, "Truth? Or truth?"

For the first time today, Scott shows some irritation in response to Dex's baiting. It surprises you a little when instead of laughing it off like he always does, he presses his lips together into an annoyed line and glares balefully at him.

But you're even more distracted by two other things. The first is, you've just realized that despite what he said, Dex doesn't need any catching up. It might not be obvious to Scott, but he's a little wobbly right now. He's possibly, no, definitely, already quite a lot drunker than either you or Scott. You do some quick mental math and realize he probably started drinking hard when you first went outside, and never slowed down. That's... really unlike him.

The second thing you notice, after processing the rest of that stuff, is that the thing Dex just said isn't the right question for this game. Truth or truth—he's just going out of his way to bait Scott again. It's sort of hard to blame Scott, for getting sick of that after a point.

"I know, Birdie," Dex says wearily, when he sees you looking at him with beleaguered disappointment. "I know how much you want us all to get along like we used to. But I don't think it's going to work out how you hoped. I'm really sorry, I am," he adds, and it's the most genuine-sounding thing he's said all day to either of you.

"Jesus," Scott says, sounding actually angry for once. "Just say what you came out here to say, you possessive asshole. Unlike you I've been trying, for Bridge's sake, but believe it or not there's actually a limit to the amount of petty shit I can stand to take off you in a day."

This is such a dramatic shift from Scott's normally easygoing vibe, and he sounds so annoyed so fast, that you can't help being a little startled to realize maybe that stuff wasn't just rolling off his back. But before you can work out how to react, Dex stands up and reaches into his pocket, then throws something on the table.

It takes you a protracted moment of confusion before you realize the thing is: a string of condoms. You look from one of them to the other, in total bewilderment, trying to get some clue as to what this new piece of information means. Scott is staring at them just as blankly as you must be. Dex just looks disgusted.

"Did you come here intending to fuck Bridget?" he demands, to your shock. You open your mouth, then close it again, because you genuinely don't know what's happening anymore.

Scott glances once at you, then back at Dex. "Jesus, of course not," he says in an insulted tone, playing it much cooler than you feel capable of right now. "But congratulations on finding such an incredibly constructive way to approach that accusation."

Dex dissolves into laughter. "Sorry, sorry," he says, sounding patently unsorry, when he manages to get his snorting, **** hilarity back under control. "I should have been more up front. I didn't come out here to approach things civilly. I came out here to make an ugly scene and generally call you out for being such a shitty, manipulative, prick."

Scott just stares at him, with an expression that clearly says he has no idea what he did to earn such mistreatment. He gives you a look as if appealing to you as mediator, but you're too stunned at the extent of Dex's meltdown to process Scott's thing right now. You've known him over a decade now and in that time you've witnessed your friend's full range of highs and lows—but you've never seen him act anything remotely like this. Which means this outburst warrants being taken seriously, whether Scott understands that or not.

Scott, no longer looking so pissed, flashes you a quick, concerned, is-he-okay-I-don't-think-he's-okay kind of look, which echoes your own unease but also annoys you a little for some reason. Maybe because worrying about each other in certain ways is a relationship privilege that feels reserved for you and Dex, not for Scott and Dex.

Scott looks up at him and says in a careful, placating tone, "Look, I'm not sure what exactly you think is going on, but—"

"—please, oh King of the Gaslighters," Dex interrupts him, "do share some more disingenuous bullshit engineered to make me look like a jealous, maladjusted lunatic senselessly attacking a nice reasonable guy for no good fucking reason whatsoever," he finishes nastily, and Scott recoils from him.

"Dex, man..." Scott glances at you again, looking really quite worried now, and says, "I think you need some help. We should all sober up and then we can—" He leaves off mid-sentence, when Dex rolls his eyes at this and makes a lazily gratuitous wanking motion that would be pretty funny in some other context where their confrontation wasn't real and starting to scare you a little.

Dex abruptly drops the wanking gag and fixes Scott in his gaze. "Are you even capable of anything approaching sincerity?" he says, and there's so much resentment packed into that sentence that you rise involuntarily to your feet, meaning to go hug him, except that now Scott is angry enough that he beats you to it and stands there kind of looming over Dex and it's all you can do not to start crying. It feels like their cold truce and half-assed sniping changed to open warfare in about two seconds flat and now there are sides and you have no idea what to do.

"Bridget trusts you," Dex says, with such overpoweringly scornful contempt that you don't know how Scott manages not to flinch away from it. "And you're just... letting her, and going on with your fake-harmless charming guy thing. I mean, what the actual fuck." He gestures angrily at the condoms, then makes such furiously intense eye contact with Scott that you halfway expect smoke to start rising between them.