#my 16 yo son actually advised me to write this fic

[jomiddlemarch]

Bingo!

“Sex pollen, Nina? Seriously? Isn’t that like ancient? Like from Kirk/Spock-slash-in-mimeographed-zines era old?” Alina asked, holding the bingo card in a pincer grasp to indicate her general skeeved-out-ness. Nina gave her a grin that was usually reserved for waffles and post-ski-post-sauna-Matthias, which Alina unfortunately knew after agreeing to share a ski-in-ski-out house when they were college sophomores because they were friends and roommates and Nina offered to pay Alina’s share of the rent in exchange for Alina making a double-batch of snickerdoodles. Inej took a big gulp of her White Russian and Zoya laughed.

“There’s a lot to be said for a classic, baby girl,” Zoya said, tapping her own card. “I’m personally more offended by the utter disrespect for Dune and the Bene Gesserit with the gom jabbar reference and also because the potential need for a tetanus shot is just not doing it for me.”

“I don’t even know what A/B/O is. It’s not blood types and vampires, is it?” Inej asked. “It doesn’t seem like a good idea to ask the interwebs. There might be stuff I couldn’t even unsee.”

“Yeah, it’s not blood types,” Nina said. “And you would probably need a dose of Versed if you Googled—”

“This is your weirdest bingo game ever, Nina,” Alina said. “Honeymooners is right on the same card as breathplay and tentacles—”

“Sun or shadow tentacles,” Nina interrupted.

“Tentacles are tentacles, Nina,” Zoya said.

“I thought we were going to play fuck-marry-kill for a while and then watch something terrible and delicious from the 80s like Lace,” Alina said. “I cannot even imagine what you told Matthias about tonight.”

“I didn’t tell him anything, just that you were all coming over and we were hanging out,” Nina said. “He might have maybe seen an open tab or two on my phone while I was making the bingo cards and turned a little green around the gills…”

“That’s why he agreed to work a double, isn’t it?” Inej said. “I could have swapped with Tamar, you know.”

“My advice is, never explain what Dead dove: do not eat means to him, especially the way you probably would, with a million examples,” Gen said. “He’ll go back to divinity school in a heartbeat and then where will you be?”

“I knew I left off priest!sex!” Nina exclaimed. “Fleabag really put that one back on the map, bless Phoebe Waller-Bridge.”

“Amen,” Zoya said, joined by Alina and Gen, Inej nodding along. Whatever they might disagree about, the glory that was Andrew Scott united them all in a moment of lustful appreciation. Then Alina’s phone buzzed and she looked down at it.

“C’mon, you said, you promised you weren’t going to be all lovey-dovey, joined-at-the-hip about Sasha tonight, not that it isn’t sweet, but I didn’t pick up a case of insulin with the vodka,” Nina complained mildly. Alina made a big show of turning off the phone and jamming it into her purse.

“Fine, fine. He was just telling me he won his Ebay auction, for those vintage amplifiers,” Alina said.

“That means you got the townhouse downcity, with the extra bedroom,” Inej said. “If you have space for those—"

“Yeah,” Alina smiled. “I wasn’t going to talk about it tonight because real estate gets so boring, but yeah. We got it, we close in six weeks.”

“That’s better than winning any sex-positive fanfic bingo card in the world, no offense, Nina,” Gen said.

“None taken,” Nina said. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I managed to get Lace and Lace II on Blu-ray, so we can ditch the bingo cards and settle in for some peak trashy TV.”