Arthur sometimes forgot that Frances existed, so he supposed that he could not blame Freddie for his choice.

The dare was interesting. Arthur raised his eyebrows at the lewd message on Freddie's note, and took the folded bird in his hand. He didn't have enough shame left to lose a sickle over this, so he took the paper bird in hand and glanced around the room until he spotted a non-Prewett married lady. Carefully, Art spelled it to levitate it and lobbed it at her hair.

He turned before looking to see the reaction; better to have some level of plausible deniability. "Good one, Prewett," Art said brightly.

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Freddie's eyes widened as Pettigrew sent the paper bird into the air without hesitation. "You really do have no shame," he said, his cheeks tinted pink as he passed Art a sideways glance. "The next one's a truth for me." Again.

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Art grinned cheekily. "Well, you know what they say about shame," he said, with no actual saying in mind. "Truth - you have to kiss anyone at this party, who is it?"

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Freddie laughed, but it faded as he was forced to think back to which young ladies he'd seen in attendance that evening. Plenty of family, he knew, plus other ladies his mother had thought would be good fillers (also known as: possible wives for her sons). There was really only one girl that Freddie could think of that he wanted to kiss, but she wasn't even in attendance. Rude.

"Bellona Zabini or Rommy," he answered with a shrug. "Miss Zabini is... well, look at her," he explained, nodding in the direction of the woman who was off on the other side of the room with a champagne flute in hand. "And Rommy is - nice. I don't think she'd be horrible to kiss, just for a second." He and Rommy were cousins, but it wasn't any weirder than Arthur sexting his cousin, albeit in a dare.

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"Bellona Zabini is," Art agreed, allowing his is to do the weight of how attractive Miss Zabini was. He wasn't sure he had any thoughts on Rosamund Bones, who was surely nice enough but whose looks did not necessarily make her stand out in a crowd. He did not spend most of his time looking at random women to gauge attractiveness now that he was married, anyways.

"All right, I'll do a truth next," Art said, lest Freddie come up with something weirder for him to do than send a sex note.

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Freddie grinned and began thinking through truths that could be far more difficult to answer than who would you kiss?

"Which of the ladies here would you dread to be trapped in a room alone with the most?" he emphasized, knowing Art would probably hate to be trapped with any number of the women in attendance.

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Arthur frowned and glanced around, trying to calculate which of the women was most related to him - or who was the most purist and constipated, or the least attractive. Finally he settled on: "Mrs. Mulciber, the elder one, not Mrs. Rufina." Rufina was hot. The elder Mrs. Mulciber was terrifying. It was simple.

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Freddie's nose wrinkled immediately. Some men had a preference for older women, but he couldn't imagine how anyone could have a preference for women that old. He would rather be forced to kiss cousin Rufina than endure half an hour in the old hag's presence (mostly because his mother was the only "older" woman Freddie could tolerate to be around for more than a few minutes).

He nodded. "Gross," he agreed, "and this time's a dare for me." He didn't think Art could top his dare, anyways.

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Arthur frowned. He hadn't expected Freddie to nut up and take the dare, and so he had forgotten some of the dares he had prepared. "I dare you to send Miss Zabini a note about kissing her," he said, because weird sex note aside, he didn't think Freddie was prepared to actually admit romantic/sexual interest to an actual girl.

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Freddie was determined to complete his dare... but when he heard it, his face paled. "Anything but that," he whined in the same childish manner he always had, and forked over the coins he'd promised. He wouldn't mind doing it if it was some girl he wasn't afraid of, but Miss Bellona Zabini looked like a goddess straight from Mt. Olympus. (Not to mention he didn't want to get in trouble with his mother again.)

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Art took the coin from Freddie and smirked at him from his seat. He took a sip of brandy before responding by saying, "Truth."

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Freddie was almost as bad at coming up with truths as he was accepting dares, so it took him a moment to ponder it. "What's the worst thing you've done this month?" he asked, because that seemed like the sort of thing someone wouldn't want to admit.

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Art frowned. His mouth felt a little dry at the question. He had a lot of answers - several, really, more than usual - but none he wanted to give. He couldn't tell Freddie about the casino; not because Freddie had enough context to know why that was so terrible, really, but because Freddie might tell Fitz, who would probably know. And Art was remembering Fitz's hesitant voice: Is everything alright, Art?

He couldn't lie about it again, couldn't bear to tell the truth, had to find a different terrible thing to say.

"I lied to Ben Crouch when he was trying to help me with something," he said, because that was the most tangible, and the furthest from the danger of the casino. "Do you want to drink more, instead of this?"

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set by MJ <3

Freddie was perceptive enough to know he'd struck a cord, and the remorse was slowly creeping through him. He considered challenging Art, asking him to explain further because something about the way he'd answered made it sound like he was withholding details, but before he knew it he was nodding in response to his question. He'd figure out the whole of it—eventually.

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