A/N: Only one of them lives. I refuse to deus ex machina okay thanks.

New drinking game: every time you see parentheses, bottoms up.

Edited as of 9/4/12

Sup, fuckers. I'm Gilbert 'The Awesome' Beilschmidt, born 18 years ago, at which point the world exploded with awesomeness. I like all sports, especially yo-yoing, which I do indeed consider a sport. My favourite kitchen utensil is the potato masher, I know Esperanto, Mars Bars are my drugs, I once crashed a hangglider and wasn't even bruised, I turned our student body president gay – you get the idea; I'm awesome.

Naturally, in addition to being amazingly gorgeous, an astonishing athlete, and my high school's resident bamf, I have a razor-sharp intellect and a sparkling wit. (I am awesome, after all.) Gilbert ideas are the best ideas ever. EVER. I am so awesome that I'm fully capable of coercing the German government into allowing me to be legally Prussian. Hell, I'm so awesome I can kill three birds with one stone. And my awesome best friends, Francis Bonnefoy and Antonio Carriedo, have always been part of that. They've always helped the execution of my plans, and it's always been AWESOME.

Which is why I CAN'T understand WHY they won't agree to this.

(See? I'm using caps ALREADY. That means I'm ANGRY.)

"Guyyyys," I groan in a tone disturbingly close to a whine, "what's wrong with you?" I plant a hand on my hip and treat the other two-thirds of the Bad Touch Trio to a put-out glare. "This'll be AWESOME! We never fail, remember? Remember Soap Hour last year? And no-pants May? And the horse from Ag?"

Francis coughs. Antonio stares determinedly off to my left.

I stomp my foot, unbelievably frustrated. "Come on! We're graduating, remember? This is the last chance we have to solidify our legacy. Remember our fan club? Are we going to let them down?! It's all about the fans, remember? So why the fuck not?"

We've taken my car – a gorgeous black Mercedes-Benz with a sloppy yellow Batman emblem spray-painted on the hood – out for a joyride, and pulled it over on the side of the road (coincidentally, at what one refers to as an 'airy spot' in the White Mountains) to watch a rather lovely sunset. (Okay, that sounds pretty, well, homosexual. But everyone knows Tonio's in love with Lovino Vargas, and Franny goes for anything with a pulse, and I guess I'm biswekshual or whatever cause there have been several fantasies about Orlando Bloom and Ryan Gosling and one rather disturbing one involving a lightsaber and Robert Downey, Jr., so I figure we all have some sort of gay pass. Damn, I should print some of those out. 'THIS PERSON IS ALLOWED TO BE GAY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. VALID THROUGH DECEMBER 31ST OR UNTIL CONFIRMED STRAIGHT. RAINBOWED ATTIRE, GLITTER, AND BEST FRIENDS NAMED JANIS ARE ENCOURAGED.') I think we're silhouetted in a really awesome way thanks to aforementioned sunset, but even that can't distract me from how stubborn my previously-deemed-awesome friends are being.

"Gilbert," Francis says patiently, "say it again, and listen to yourself."

I huff and start retelling my Idea.

(There was a capital letter there. Did you see it? It was Capitalized. That means it's important. Use them shift keys, kids!)

"Okay, so I got the idea when we were at the Vargas place…"

FLASHBACK!

Roma Vargas grins across the table at my little brother Ludwig and I. (Despite our age difference, Luddy and I are both seniors. I was too awesome for my kindergarten teacher, so she made up some excuse that sounded a bit like 'he needed to mature' or something. She also had bad breath, though, so I just put her in the Burn Book and moved along.) Roma's sons, Feliciano (who is chattering away to Ludwig) and Lovino, are happily digging into the mysterious Italian food. Ludwig (who is pretending to be an awkward grizzly bear with Feli) and I poke uncertainly at it – give us potatoes and beer any day. Our dad, Alistair Beilschmidt, is eating with his usual clinical apathy – I guess being friends with a Vargas your whole life gets you used to weird Italian stuff.

See, Little Bro and I are pretty close with the Vargas twins, but we probably wouldn't have been been if we'd just met them. They're like our cousins, which makes sense, because our fathers are pretty much brothers. Roma and Alistair have been best friends since kindergarten – proving that opposites really do attract, because Vati is your typical deadpanning, sarcastic, apathetic loner, and Roma is expressive and cheerful and loves pretty much everyone and everything. They've stayed close this whole time, moving back to their hometown when their respective wives died and pretty much raising their kids side by side.

The four of us have bets on how long it'll take them to get married.

So Roma – he's never let us call him Mr. Vargas – grins his huge grin and opens his mouth to say something with his insane Italian accent. If we hadn't known him our entire life, he probably would've scared the shit out of us…aw, shit, I'll say it, he terrifies me. So damn cheerful. Jesus Christ, he has the laugh of a lunatic. "So-a how-a is-a your-a senior year-a going so-a far-a?" Phew, it's a normal question. One of the stock ones that parents always ask. I've gotten 'how-a is-a your-a nose-a feeling today-a?' and worse before.

"It's good," I mumble into my fork, wishing heartily that the meal could be over. It's not weird like this around the twins – usually the four of us play COD or MW2 or (laugh and I'll kill you) hide and seek ~EXTREME~ after dinner, but we have to wait for everybody to be done before we can get up, and, uh, have you ever tried to eat a meal where this insanely scary Italian guy is blatantly flirting with your vati and then your vati flirts BACK and then occasionally he starts interrogating YOU about something and and and…oh, fuck, it's AWKWARD.

"That's-a good-a," he smiles. "Ah, Ali!" he booms at my dad, who replies with a surprisingly expressive grunt. "Do-a you-a remember our-a senior year-a? Do-a you-a remember-a–"

"Ve are not telling zem about zat," Vati deadpans, lining tomatoes up in rows on his plate before systematically stabbing and eating them. I swear, you think Luddy's OCD…

My head snaps up. Whispers attract more attention than screaming around here, if you know what I mean. "About what?" I ask, but of course they ignore me.

Roma gets this creepy suggestive face on. "Well-a, do-a you-a remember-a that-a night-a when-a we–"

"Ve are not telling zem about zat eizzer," Alistair snaps, a hint of colour in the pale cheeks I inherited.

…pass the brain bleach?

Roma laughs his huge belly laugh and (thankfully) lets the matter drop, but my curiosity has been piqued. After dinner, I let the others head down to the basement to play hide and seek ~EXTREME~ without me and corner the brunette Italian in the kitchen, where he's doing the dishes. "Roma, what were you trying to tell us about your senior year?"

Roma freezes and shoots a nervous look towards the living room. Seeing that Vati isn't listening, he relaxes, but keeps his voice low. "Ah, no-a sense-a in-a not-a passing the torch-a."

He hands me a towel. "Dry," he instructs, and normally I would make a timely exit at this point, but I want to hear him out. So I oblige, and Roma begins his story.

"Have-a you-a ever been-a an assassin?"

I shake my head. He snorts. "Our-a old-a principal is-a gone now, there's-a no-a reason you-a shouldn't." He hands me a plate. "Assassins…it's a game-a of elimination. The way-a that-a it-a works–"

"–is that everyone in the grade puts in five bucks, that's the pot. Each person is assigned to one other person, so… Say I assigned Lovino to Toni and Ludwig to Lovino. Toni would be chasing Lovi, trying to shoot him and take a picture to prove it. Lovi would be trying to avoid Toni and, meanwhile, trying to shoot Ludwig and get a picture of HIM to prove it. The last one alive takes three-quarters of the pot, and the other quarter goes to the organizers." My eyes grow dollar signs. "There's six hundred people in our grade. That's two hundred and fifty dollars for each of us. Think of how many Mars Bars that is."

Antonio shifts uncomfortably.

"WHAT?!" This sounds like mad fun. I just don't get why they won't do it.

"Um, Gil…" he coughs, "I don't really want to go to jail for Mars Bars…"

I stare at him for a moment.

"Antonio, I love you to pieces but you really are a dummkopf sometimes. You shoot them with squirt guns."

"Oh…OHHHH! Okay, that's fine." Antonio relaxes and smiles happily. Francis hides a chuckle behind his hand. Oh, Toni.

"Now that that's settled," I move on with more than a hint of impatience (I'm using italics now, caps lock is so last year), "are you in?"

"Of course! It sounds fun!" Toni beams. That's my boy.

Francis grins. "Oh, yes," he winks. That's a loaded wink, and I abruptly decide that I Do Not Want To Know. I change the subject.

"Well, let's get this thing started, then!"

If only we knew.

Ugh, the first chapter always sucks.

Yes, we do actually play this at my school. The story is vaguely based off last year's game (except the Important Thing That Happens Later On (see, I'm back to capital letters now) was only a rumor (and also there was no gay secks (THAT I KNOW OF (BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT'S ALWAYS THERE (SECRETLY (WHEN NOBODY'S WATCHING (holy crap this is a lot of parentheses (you should be completely drunk by now)))))))), but I'm also interspersing stories from my older brothers' games because they had the best principal for it ever. He absolutely hated the game and tried to get it banned like a million times, and now he's our superintendent and whenever he's at the high school someone brings it up and he's just like *steaming in corner* and and and

this is what I do for fun, guys.

Review and you get a free gay pass :D