Hi, I'm Ro! :) Just here to publish and read some fluff and tickling stuff. Prompts: closed! I try to keep my blog SFW, but I am an adult, so if that bothers you, move right along; I won't be offended. DMs open for chat; be nice, I'm weird and awkward myself, but I'm not down for creepy. I don’t do teases; I don’t rp; I don’t send pics ~*~ switch; 25, they/them she/her, ace, wildly in love Support me on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/rosileeduckie About: https://rosileeduckie.tumblr.com/about You can also read my work on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosileeduckie
A Squealing Santa gift for @bow-of-aros! Hope it brings you lots of joy 😁 Big thanks to @cantsaythetword for doing such a great job hosting us for 2025, and cheers to all my fellow participants and everyone who just had fun reading 😋 Hope everyone has an excellent new year ♥❄
Word count: 4,946
~*~
“Is it Christmas?!”
Owen’s head thumped against the back of the chair he was cuffed to. Of all the characters to enter the room in the past half hour–spies from a rival agency threatening him harm for information, grunts cracking their knuckles and snickering about him in a language they thought he didn’t understand, one fellow with a coat too small for his body and a mustache too big for his face pushing a cart laden with needles and scalpels and hammers rusted with dried blood–Owen thought the worst entrance came in the form of his longtime partner, Curt Mega, standing in the doorway with a grin on his face and his hands on his hips.
“It must be,” Curt insisted, glee plain on his face as he began toward where Owen sat.
“If you say so,” Owen said, not lifting his head. “Personally, I don’t find a floor littered with unconscious bodies to be all that festive.”
Curt scoffed, stepping over one of said bodies. “It’s gotta be my birthday, then.”
Owen looked at him then, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. “What are you on about?”
“There’s a handsome man in a chair waiting for me,” Curt said with a shrug. “I assumed it was a gift-giving occasion.”
“Haha, so funny,” Owen sneered, hoping sarcasm would distract from the warmth suddenly in his cheeks, embarrassed and annoyingly flattered. “Can you let me out of here already?”
Curt pretended to ponder Owen’s request for a moment, then sighed exaggeratedly. “Fine, I guess I can bail you out, this time.”
Owen crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair as though his arms weren’t bound behind it, ever cool under pressure. With a wink, Curt turned to begin frisking the guards for a key or anything shiny. None of the bodies stirred as Curt searched them in turn. They’d been thoroughly incapacitated by the stun grenade Curt had thrown into the room moments prior. If he didn’t know Barb’s technical genius and foresight as well as he did, Owen would have been nervous or affronted at Curt’s readiness to use the device in a room his own partner occupied. The tool had worked flawlessly as anything she designed, taking down the eight unfriendlies in the room and leaving Owen unaffected. Somehow due to his DNA or a specific article of clothing he’d been instructed to wear on the mission? He couldn’t recall, and Curt definitely hadn’t offered much in the way of detail when he’d explained it secondhand.
With a small hoot of victory, Curt rose from the last guard he’d checked, a ring of keys dangling from his finger. At Owen’s lack of encouragement or praise (because when wasn’t an eye roll the pinnacle of enthusiasm?), Curt sauntered back to Owen, arms behind his back. He stood straddling Owen’s knee, gazing down at him with a tilt to his head and a warmth in his eyes. The look was so suddenly and markedly tender from Curt’s previous teasing that Owen almost expected him to say something romantic. But Curt was nowhere in place to unlock Owen’s hands, and that–and the terror and thrill at the prospect of being anything other than professional in the field–made him bristle. “What?” Owen said. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh, just enjoying the moment,” Curt hummed, his smile widening. “Because, you know, usually I’m the one who gets caught and beat up while waiting to be saved damsel-in-distress style. It’s a new perspective, to be on this side of things.”
Tempted to drive his knee upward, Owen only scowled. “So funny, so funny. You’ve had your moment; can you let me out now? We still have work to do here.”
Curt took a step back to open his jacket. “Oh, you mean finding those super important top secret files?” He produced said files from an inside pocket with a flourish. “No, yeah, I found them while you were getting slammed around, so thank you for being such a great distraction.”
Owen could take a few hits no problem, but Curt’s jabs to his ego were starting to smart. That, and his arms were beginning to ache. “Great. Well, we still need to get out of here without being shot, yeah?”
“Preferably.”
“So, can we speed this along then?” Owen shook his wrists for emphasis, making the cuff chains jangle.
“So impatient,” Curt shook his head. “I know you must be uncomfortable, not experienced having to sit there and be treated like an information piñata, but you don’t have to be so grumpy.”
“I wouldn’t even BE in this position if you’d kept watch like I TOLD you to.”
“I wouldn’t have needed to keep watch if SOMEONE hadn’t run off by himself like I said not to do,” Curt all but sang, unbothered by Owen’s sharp tone. “So, I know you’re mad about being in this situation, but–” and Curt spread his hands, stammering momentarily around a laugh, “–my hands are clean in this. Your bullheaded American compatriot wasn’t the one to screw this up.”
“For once,” replied Owen, rolling his eyes at Curt’s impression of him. Agent Mega has always been, frankly, horrendous at languages and accents, even one he heard so frequently.
Dismissing Owen’s comment with a wave of the file in his hand, Curt leaned forward until they were nearly nose-to-nose. Over Curt’s shoulder, Owen could see the file poking up like a sail where Curt held his arms behind him. Not a sail, no, Owen corrected himself; a sharklike fin, with all the confidence of a predator smelling blood in the water, or heat rising embarrassedly up to Owen’s ears.
“Maybe try a ‘please’? Since I’m so not the one at fault here.” Curt drew back with a giggle, admiring the sight of Owen, blushing and bound in front of him, once more. “This is a new feeling for me; this is a feeling I don’t usually get to enjoy.”
“And it’s one you’re never going to get again,” Owen decided, “because you are far too smug about it. Can we please just get–”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Curt teased with another terrible attempt at an English accent. He took a knee, tugging open the front of Owen’s jacket and tucking the file safely into his pocket there. “Be a dear and hold this for me while I get you out.” Curt moved like he was going to stand up, but didn’t get farther than a squat. Before Owen could so much as scoff impatiently, Curt hummed. “You know what else I’m usually on the other side of?”
Owen was suddenly all too aware of Curt’s hand, between his jacket and shirt, fingers splaying to gently touch his side. “Curt,” Owen said through his teeth, cursing the anticipatory tingling feeling crawling up his ribcage, cursing his captors for binding him in a way that left him so defenseless, cursing Curt for being so easily distractible and vengeful, “don’t you dare.”
Curt’s lower lip puffed out and his brow furrowed. “Aw, come on,” he whined, resting his elbow on Owen’s knee and cradling his own stubbled chin with his free hand, his other hand still hovering at Owen’s side, fingertips ghosting over the fabric of his undershirt. “You would do it if our positions were reversed.”
That, Owen couldn’t debate, but that certainly didn’t mean he was going to condone his own comeuppance. “I swear–”
“And you’re right there.”
“Curt– Curt–!” Owen would deny to his grave the yelp he let slip when Curt’s fingers curled against his lower ribs. “Can we– can we please have this conversation another time?”
Continuing to pout, Curt cast his gaze upward at Owen, all big brown pleading eyes. “But if you were me–”
“I know, but you’re so much kinder, more handsome, a better spy–” Owen’s rambling ceased as he bit down on a laugh. Curt’s fingers were beginning to wiggle now. “Please, please– not here–”
“Not here?” Curt repeated, pinching his way down from Owen’s side to his hip. “How about here then?”
The smug delight was audible in Curt’s voice even as Owen scrunched his eyes closed and pressed his lips together hard. He grunted offendedly in protest, but he didn’t trust any other embarrassing noises to stay underground if he dared to open his mouth.
The sound of approaching enemies proved to be Owen’s saving grace. Even Curt couldn’t deny that this wasn’t the place or the time for silliness if danger became imminent. He stood, withdrawing his teasing hands, and circled around to the back of the chair to undo Owen’s cuffs and bindings. Owen, meanwhile, loosed a mighty exhale, slumping back into his seat, suddenly exhausted. How could his own partner put him through worse resistance training than the operatives they’d been hired to steal from? Thank goodness, the adorable oaf had some common sense, even if he was lacking in mercy.
The chain of the cuffs hit the floor with a clink clank, and Owen got to his feet, rubbing his wrists. Curt was at his side in an instant, offering him a grin, and pistol, and the goods that had been removed from his jacket and belt when he’d been captured. Owen accepted the effects but met the jovial expression with a glare. Only smiling all the wider, Curt readied his own weapon and adjusted his stance, strong and ready to spring, shoulder to shoulder with the spy who’d cover his six.
“Ready?” said Curt. “Or did that little bit of fun take too much out of you?”
Owen butted his shoulder against Curt’s, brushed his hair back from his forehead, and mirrored Curt’s stance. “I think you’ve played the hero enough for today. Reckon I can take out more of them than you, now that my hands aren’t tied behind my back.”
“That’s not usually how the saying goes.”
The footfalls faded to be replaced with the pounding of fists upon the door and shouting through the walls. Owen set his sights on the small window in the door, eye-level and four inches across. His first shot went through cleanly, shattering the glass and splattering the back wall with whatever grunt the bullet had caught the scent of. “I know,” said Owen, aiming once again after throwing a wink at Curt. “But I wouldn’t want to embarrass you by beating you with my hands behind my back, darling.”
~*~
Escaping with the files in hand had been the easiest part of the rest of the day. Then came the less fun part of the job. Shuttling back into the city to a secure location to rendezvous with their respective nation’s headquarters, reporting their success and receiving a tongue-lashing for not maintaining a stealthy end to an otherwise silent and shadowy mission. They each faxed a copy of the documents to their superiors and destroyed the evidence. Then they retired to the hotel they’d been put up in, sharing dinner from opposite ends of the lobby bar to avoid correlation from outside eyes, and then went upstairs to their bedroom, staggering departures from the common area to keep from arousing suspicion.
And it was, in fact, a bedroom, singular, because their two countries could be as tumultuous as divorced spouses but could reach an agreement on their best spies bunking together if it meant saving a few coins. Owen accepted this small unintentional blessing on their part.
When he followed Curt upstairs after a few minutes, the American had been so excited that he’d forgone removing his jacket or shoes in favor of shoving the two twin beds together into the center of the suite. Subtle, Owen wanted to admonish, they definitely wouldn’t have to separate the beds before the cleaning crew came the next day. But Curt turned to beam at him as he entered the room, and Owen could find no malice with which to utter the words, so he only scoffed and shook his head, a soft smile fondly and irresistibly spreading across his cheeks.
“Well, I’d say, despite a few hiccups,” Owen said, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it by the door, “that that mission did go off relatively well.” He and Curt had gotten so proficient at reading one another’s wordless signals that Curt’s jacket was tossed and hung up by Owen’s and Owen’s shoes were slid over and tucked under the bed beside Curt’s with just a discussion of a glance. Curt sat down on the end of the two beds, and Owen went for the cabinet by the mini-fridge. “And the day will even end well if we were sent a bottle of good-job whiskey before they knew we cocked up our mission. Aha!” Owen proudly held up a bottle glittering with amber liquor in one hand and two glasses in the other.
Curt clapped. “The day couldn’t end better.”
Owen turned from him, setting the glasses atop the cabinet and unstoppering the bottle. “Well, I could think of a few more things that could improve it.” He looked over his shoulder, smirking expectantly at how his comment would affect Curt, preferably fluster him or fuel his competitive flirtation--or both. It seemed, though, that Curt hadn't heard him at all, his gaze toward Owen but thoughtful and distant. Trying again to lighten the mood, Owen said, “What's the matter? Are you trying to find a nice way to tell me that they knocked my jaw sideways before you could rescue me?”
Curt blinked, his focus returning to the present. “No, no,” he said with a crooked smile, “handsome as ever.”
“You sure?” Owen poured the two drinks, handing one to Curt before sitting on the bed beside him. “You can tell me--you better tell me--if anything’s out of place. You'd know better than anyone if my jaw was crooked one way before the mission and the other way after.”
He'd expected that to get a chuckle out of Curt, but, just the opposite, his smile seemed to clench. He took a sip of his drink, then another, and the tension in his forehead smoothed somewhat. “I guess that's true. But… I guess I don't really want to be in that position again.”
Owen sipped his drink and waited for Curt to continue.
“Don't get me wrong, it was fun, getting to be the one to swoop in and save you and be smug about it, but I don't want to get used to it.” Curt leaned his shoulder against Owen’s and chuckled, but the sound was forced and soured with poorly hidden sentiment. “I wear bruised and battered better than you do. I didn't like seeing you like that at all.”
“No?” said Owen, slipping an arm around Curt’s back and resting his hand on the bedspread, holding him as his tone grew teasing. “You didn't like the feeling of having to chase after your partner who did something stupid and had to face the consequences of his actions? You didn't like feeling helpless and desperate to fix the situation?”
“No,” Curt sighed, downing his drink and setting the glass on the floor. “Because you’re supposed to be the responsible one. Like, I know how to look good fucking up, and I know I don't have to worry because you'll just come and save and berate me.” Curt swayed, his head falling gently upon Owen’s shoulder. If Owen didn't know how well Curt could hold his liquor, he might have thought the move was unintentional or clumsy, but there was a clarity in Curt’s eyes, a steadiness in his hands as he reached to rest his hand on Owen’s knee. His voice grew soft. “I'm not used to that. So… you better not make a habit of it.” Curt tilted his head to look up at Owen, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Owen’s heartbeat kicked up to a canter. Somehow, this little cuddle felt more scandalous than when Curt on been on his leg in the torture chamber. The curtains were drawn, the door was locked, the hallway was quiet. It was just them, and they were safe. Well. A good spy knew to keep his guard up, and Owen was only a great spy. That was why his arm around Curt wasn’t tight, but ready to flee if the need arose. Owen didn't want it to, but he knew the time would come. This, them, it couldn't be but a fleeting moment, no matter how sweet. So Owen memorized it, tucked it away in his mind with the safety on. He hated how cautious he’d come to be, how he could settle for moments so few and far between. But that only encouraged him to treasure each one all the more, and to not let his own thoughts spoil the mood. They could exist together tonight, without fear and full of gaiety.
“I think,” Owen said, pursing his lips and swirling the whiskey in his glass before casting a sidelong glance at Curt, “you’re just mad that I branched out into being not only the cleverer spy, but the bolder one as well. I think you’re just jealous.” Owen finished his drink and set it down beside Curt’s. The liquor blazed a trail through his veins, burning away melancholy and inhibition to leave giddiness and mischief smoking in its wake. “I think you missed the chair,” Owen carried on. “Maybe I’ll keep the chair. Maybe I should be the one playing the distraction damsel more often.”
He nearly felt more than heard Curt’s growling reply. “You better not.”
“You going to stop me?” Owen replied, unfazed. “I actually rather like the idea of switching up our roles a bit in the future, since, as you say, I did such a good job with yours.”
“You did,” Curt nodded, lifting his head and turning in Owen’s arm to face him. Something dangerous as a speeding bullet glinted in his warm eyes as he grinned. “But you didn’t get the full experience, remember? We were interrupted.”
Alarm bells sounded in Owen’s mind, ringing with an undercurrent of excitement. This was all the thrill he loved of espionage with none of the stakes, the adrenaline of clashing wills and a chase. Owen intended a chase, anyway, when he snatched his arm away from Curt, but the other spy had already braced an arm on the bed across Owen’s legs, keeping Owen from properly going anywhere. “Curt-- just hold on--”
Curt didn’t let him stumble further, having teased him enough on their earlier mission. But his ego necessitated he got the last word. “I think I’d like to resume that conversation now.”
Between the two of them, the spies had decades of experience, of honing skills of combat and charm to wield as well as any weapon. All such prowess vanished in the wrestling match that ensued. Curt was the stronger of the two, and Owen soon found himself with his back to the bedspread, grunting and giggling. With a forearm to Owen’s chest, Curt had him pinned, and Owen’s deft and dangerous hands slapped uselessly against him. Curt’s own hands had a clearer mission, and his wiggling fingers dug into and crawled down Owen’s side. Before, when Curt had threatened to undo him with something so silly as tickling, Owen had had his walls high for them being on a job. He could offer no such resistance now, exhausted from the day and warm from the alcohol and soft from the affectionate play. Once Curt’s fingers began to dance down his side, Owen bared his teeth on a grin and snickered. And when those wicked digits circled back up toward his ribs, Owen let his head fall back to the pillows, smile open to accommodate the high-pitched cackling that spilled from his lips.
Perhaps such a goofy evening was unbefitting of such worldly gentlemen. But Owen couldn’t deny (not to say that he would ever verbally admit such a thing) that it was exhilarating and just fun to release himself from his professional persona, ever suave and in-control, and just be. To exist in the present, in such a sensation that relieved the mind of effort or coherence. Ecstatic electricity coursing through the bloodstream of joy and spirits, the warmth of Curt’s body on his, the administrator of his torture and the shield from any of the world that wanted to touch and tear him to pieces. Only Curt’s hands had that privilege, and he did it in such a lovely way. He knew the power trip Curt would be on, it was addictive to make a strong man crumble and a dear man smile with such abandon. Between that and his earlier smug attitude, Curt was in danger of getting too big a head to fit into his dashing suit if Owen didn’t remind him how easily the tide could shift.
Owen made the tactical decision to leave himself open to be able to wriggle his fingers up Curt’s neck and behind his ears. Curt jolted like he’d been struck by lightning, wild laughter startled from him that Owen had come to know so well. Even with his worst spot attacked, Curt chortled but didn’t relent, fortifying himself enough to deploy his hands beneath Owen’s arms and scribble his fingers there. A tactical retreat, Owen assured himself as his arms rocketed to his sides to protect himself from Curt’s villainous fingers and his head fell back with the strength of his open-mouthed cackling.
It was perhaps embarrassingly easy for Curt to twist his hands free. Owen gave him more trouble when Curt tried to grab his hands to keep them out of his way. So Curt dropped Owen’s hands and spidered his fingers upon Owen’s stomach instead. Instinctively and with a squawk, Owen’s hand jumped down to try and block Curt’s newest barrage. Which made for a very short distance for Curt to capture Owen’s hands and trap them under his knees. Owen might have appreciated such a dirty trick, if he weren’t otherwise distracted.
Curt’s agent persona wasn’t as proper and neat as Owen’s, complimentarily handsome and daredevillish, but still quite polished and put-together. Kneeling over Owen’s thighs, hair mussed and collar unbuttoned and smile so wide on his face that his dimples beamed like they’d been etched there--Curt looked so incredibly different and still so damn pretty. At such a sight, Owen would have even forgiven Curt for taking another moment to enjoy the sight of him in return, of decidedly having the upper hand. Maybe even forgiven him for digging his thumbs into Owen’s hips and making him chortle.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Curt chuckled, leaning in to behold and be heard, “we’re gonna have to work on your tolerance before we let you get captured and interrogated again. If you’re laughing this hard already, you’ll spill anything they ask when they go a little longer.”
“You--!” Owen stammered, trying to weave a retort through his happy howling. “You’re one to talk! Mister Oh please not the feather--!”
Holding a hand offendedly to his chest, Curt reeled back, jaw slack. “Oh, now you’re in for it…” His hands were only shocked to stillness for a beat before they got back to work, yanking the hem of Owen’s shirt from his waistband to reveal a strip of bare stomach.
Owen couldn’t begin to form a protest or a plea before new peals of laughter burst from him, mighty in cartoonish juxtaposition to the gentle kisses Curt peppered along his heaving abdomen. Since Curt had insisted on trying to grow out his facial hair earlier that year, Owen was under the assault of both featherlight kisses and brutal whiskers scratching his sensitive skin; the reaction was dramatic but appropriate. There was minute relief as Curt moved upward, his stubble having less effect through rucked fabric, but Curt made up for that by turning his kisses to nibbling and his hands into claws that scratched between Owen’s ribs. While he wailed merrily, Owen tried to feel affronted; sure, he’d made Curt’s ticklishness an adorable spectacle for enemy spies once or twice, but he’d always killed any witnesses after blessing them with such a sight. Where did Curt get off using Owen’s sensitivity against him and then also killing him with it?
Curt’s nails lingered rudely in Owen’s ribcage, but his lips continued their upward trek, hopscotching from Owen’s stomach to chest to collarbone to jaw. “You know, you’re right,” Curt said, the hum of his voice vibrating straight through Owen’s nerves and causing him to keen. “I think they did knock you a little off kilter. Let me just kiss that better.”
“That’s not-- fuck--!” Owen laughed, weak but wrenching his hands free. He didn’t counterattack again, instead just holding onto Curt for dear life, one hand clinging to the back of his shirt and the other gripping his hair. “I’m sohohorry! Please--!”
Possibly sympathetic, Curt pulled back from Owen’s neck, brushing the tip of his nose against Owen’s cheek. “I might accept that apology, if you also promise not to act stupid and get caught. Otherwise, I’m out of a job.”
Owen snorted, but that could have been at Curt’s words or his hands still skimming up and down his ribcage. “Curt--” Owen tried and failed to send any more words through his croaking cackling. Curt’s hands grew slower and kinder, rubbing steadying circles up and down Owen’s sides. The fond smile he looked at Owen with was enough to make Owen’s mind short-circuit for a moment and forget what he was agreeing to. Curt gave an encouraging pinch to Owen’s flank, and Owen yelped, raising his hands partly in surrender and partly to push against Curt’s chest. “I- I promise!” said Owen, gulping air through the giggles still on his lips. “I promise, I’ll leave the being stupid and getting captured to the expert.”
Curt scoffed but accepted the admission of defeat, falling to one side to lay next to Owen. One eye half-open in self-preservation, Owen melted into the mattress, breathing deeply and gradually slower. So suddenly and thoroughly spent, he didn’t even jump when he felt Curt’s touch, brushing a stray lock of dark hair from his forehead behind his ear. Owen turned onto his side, facing Curt and catching his hand before it could fully depart.
“Thank you,” Curt said, giving Owen’s hand a squeeze. There was something unsaid but ready in his gaze. Words were hard enough without being a spy, who had to be painfully aware of how many ears could be hidden and listening. Owen could see, though, what Curt wanted to say without words, in the warm brown of Curt’s eyes, the soft crinkles at their corners, the dimple still adorning his cheek. I can take a lot; you don’t have to get hurt for me, because I can’t take that. His chest constricting with a feeling as deep and bright as when he’d been laughing with Curt’s body pressed to his, Owen understood. It was encompassing, naive, sweet, and beautiful. He couldn’t give voice to any of those things either, but he hoped that, even if he had to admit it upon pain of tickling that he won’t do it, that his willingness to be hurt for Curt--hell, even by Curt, if need be--was enough to show the mirrored strength of his own feelings.
Drink and laughter were making his thoughts wonderfully fuzzy. He and Curt were supposed to be celebrating another (mostly) successful mission, the greatest spy team in the world doing what they did best (pending approval). Sentimentality could wait for the small hours of the night, curled up and warm between them when neither could sleep. When they would just hold one another, wishing for those tiny moments to stay safe and dark and endless. In the depths of his heart, Owen longed for those moments to expand until they filled his days, but he was not an idealist. He could accept the pockets of peace with his partner as they were, knowing they were sweet and sacred and all the more special for their impermanence, with the two of them surely being flown to different countries in the coming days for their next assignments, apart. They were together in the now, and Owen would keep the now with happiness at the forefront.
Using the softness of the moment to catch Curt off guard, Owen used his hold on Curt’s hand to swing over and on top of him, straddling his hips. “I ought to see the master at work, hm?” Owen said, raising his eyebrows at a suddenly pink and tittering Curt Mega. Owen rested the heels of his hands on Curt’s shoulders, ghosting his fingertips along the shells of Curt’s ears and making him scrunch up like a turtle. “You can give me some tips, since you’re so good at lasting longer than I under such…” he wiggled a single finger behind each of Curt’s ears, making him squeal, “…torture.”
Curt shrieked with laughter, instinctively throwing his head back and forth but finding no relief from Owen’s featherlight touch for more than a second, one ear seeming to suffer enough for both. “Owen--! Ah-!” Curt didn’t use his free hands to fight back, only holding onto Owen’s waist and keeping him near. Owen’s grin widened.
“While I appreciate the opportunity to try both sides, I think I have decided.” Owen laid himself down on Curt’s chest, cuddled up and close enough to gently kiss his neck and relish in his elated screams. “You’re much better in this position than I am.”
But, when you really think about it, is it the winner or loser who laughs last?
Pomni’s been the target of one too many pranks to let Jax slide this time. But he's not going down without a fight
Potential warnings: cartoon violence. The Amazing Digital Circus tickle fic.
Word count: 10,765
~*~
There were a few ways in the digital circus to effectively make the entire cast convene to one location. Food was a relatively good method, though virtual and without substance; it could eventually draw most of the colorful characters from sleep or solidarity in their bedrooms. Much faster was when the ai ringleader, Caine, snapped his fingers and summoned the group, physically floating them into his presence. Fastest, though, was a way just discovered. Not technically the most completely effective, as it only successfully summoned four of the six troupe members, but one was the cause and one had been awaiting such sounds of chaos and felt no need to seek them, when they would surely find him soon enough.
If you weren't expecting it, a terrified genuine scream was enough to get anyone moving.
Just minutes earlier, the circus denizens had trudged to their rooms, ready to recover from an exhausting day of ai generated adventuring. You wouldn't know it, at the speed with which the four carnies flung open their doors and flooded the dormitory corridor, bolting toward the still-shut entrance of their newest member’s door.
Ever concerned and the nearest caring neighbor, Ragatha made it there first, rapping rapidly on the door. “Pomni! Pomni, are you okay?” Kinger, Zooble, and Gangle caught up with her quickly after, waiting anxiously for a response.
After a moment, the jester’s door opened, scant enough for only Pomni’s voice to pass through. “Ragatha, don't look.”
A collective sigh of relief passed through the group upon hearing Pomni’s voice, reassuring them that she hadn't been eaten or abstracted or fallen to any other manner of twisted fate that could be dreamt up in their little world. Their concern turned to confusion at her words, though. Ragatha furrowed her brow but didn't ask any further questions, moving to stand behind Kinger and covering her eyes. “Okay…”
Pomni emerged slowly, gently butting the door open with her shoulder due to her hands being engaged in cradling a pencil-sized centipede. The carefulness of her gait clashed harshly with the clench of her jaw and the angry cherry color of her cheeks. She took several measured, but not completely calming, deep breaths. “Kinger? Do you have an extra place in your terrarium for this?”
Kinger’s eyes lit up, and he gasped so excitedly that they seemed to glow. “Oh, Pomni, thank you!” His floating hands manifested from his royal purple robe and cupped together, eager but delicate as he held them out to accept the little creature. He watched in awe at its magnificent multitude of legs scuttling upon his fingers. “What a thoughtful gift! I can't remember the last time someone gave me so many legs!”
“You're… welcome,” Pomni replied, her temper visibly cooling at such sweet silly sentiment. She sighed, wiping her hands on the front of her red and blue costume. “I'm glad someone can get some joy out of this.”
“Oh, do you not like centipedes, Pomni? I know I myself didn't used to be a fan of bugs either,” said Kinger. Behind him, Ragatha scooted away until she was safely hiding behind Gangle, eyes still shut even with considerable distance between her and the creepy crawler.
“I don't not like them, but I definitely don't like them as much as you. And this one and I definitely didn't get off on the right foot, so.” Pomni pulled her door shut but didn't lock it. “So you are welcome to keep any bugs you find in my room from here on out.”
“Wow.” Kinger’s eyes narrowed happily, and he turned, practically skipping back to his room as he chatted with his new buggy friend. “Now, don't worry, little fella. I know meeting new folks can be scary, especially when you have a lot of left feet. But Pomni’s very nice when you get to know her. Oh! You didn't see any more bugs while you were in her room, did you?”
Once Kinger’s voice had faded down the hall and behind his own bedroom door, Ragatha dared to peek out between her hands, then dropped them with a relieved exhale. “Thanks for the heads up, there. You okay?”
Pomni nodded. “I'll be okay, thank you.” Her bicolor eyes glanced from Ragatha’s face to just past her shoulder, and the sight of the grinning purple face that marked the door across the way reignited her smoldering temper. Before she'd regifted it to Kinger, the centipede had surely been a gift from her leporine neighbor. He was infamous for leaving undesirable favors in the cast members’ rooms, and he was the only one wicked enough to rig Pomni’s door to drop something on her head and scare her eyeballs from her skull. Reliving the event--going from spent and sleepy to terrified and totally awake, letting out such an embarrassing scream, realizing who the culprit must have been and picturing his smug face laughing at her plight--made actual smoke begin to billow from beneath Pomni’s hat and a sharp smile stretch across her gritted teeth. “But I'll be better once I kill or seriously main that rabbit. Excuse me.”
Zooble chuckled. “I'll get the popcorn.”
*
For the second time that night, Pomni proceeded her own entrance with a yell.
“JaaaAAAAAX!”
The rabbitoid prankster was seated on a sofa in the main area of the circus tent, lazily flipping through a gobbledegook magazine. He pretended not to notice Pomni’s approach until she was standing behind him. “Oh, hey Pompom!” said Jax as he turned his head to her, his smug grin betraying his phony innocent act. “Not too tired from the adventure after all?”
Pomni balled her fists at her sides, resisting the urge to jump over the back of the couch and throttle him. “What is your problem?”
“In general? Or right now?” Jax snickered, dropping the magazine on the cushions. He kicked his legs up and swung them over the back of the couch before pushing himself up with his arms so he could face Pomni and grin down at her. “Because, if it's the former, we’re gonna be here a while.”
“When did you even have the time to--?!”
“Time to what, exactly? Whatever it was, it must've been pretty good to get your collar THAT ruffled.”
“You KNOW what; it was obviously you!” Pomni retorted, rising up into her tiptoes and glaring at him. “Nobody else is gonna rig a centipede on my door to land on me when I close it!”
“Oh no,” Jax said, holding a hand in front of his mouth in a way that might have looked sympathetic if not for the corners of his grin stretching unabashedly out from behind his yellow glove. “Don't tell me you're afraid of centipedes, too, Pomni.”
“I'm NOT--” Pomni took a deep but not exactly calming breath. “I'm not. What I'm scared of, and what you know perfectly well that I'm scared of, is things JUMPING at me.”
“Well, now, that's just a hurtful stereotype to put on a rabbit, and a lazy way to accuse me of something objectively hilarious.” Jax’s hands fell to his hips, and he leaned forward to loom over Pomni. “You even got any proof it was me? Huh? Like you said, when would I have had the time? We were having so much fun together on that adventure today, remember?”
Refusing to be cowed by his approach, Pomni stood her ground and crossed her arms. “It's certainly no one else’s MO.”
Jax waved a hand dismissively at that rebuttal. “Circumstantial. Your blame is both baseless and hurtful.” When Pomni tried to take a confronting step toward him, Jax bapped a palm against her forehead and maintained distance between them, stopping her in her tracks and easily holding her at bay with his long reach. “Hey, for all you know, that centipede could have wandered over from Kinger’s room just looking for a new warm friend to snuggle with.”
Pomni shoved his hand away with a huff. “You won't even pretend to be sorry.”
“What, and lie to your face like that?” Jax batted his eyelashes at her, and Pomni felt a twitch in her own eye. “Would I do that to you, Pomni?”
Certainly, she would have made a good centipede snuggle buddy, what with how steamed she felt. She was currently of two very disparate and very loud minds. On one hand, she could practically hear the voices of the other circus members advising her not to engage with Jax (whenever possible, but especially when he was in an instigating mood). His antics were only to garner attention and a reaction, so walking away was both the high road and the far less bumpy road. On the other hand, (and she realized she could actually hear their voices because the other circus members had followed her on her warpath but stayed a safe distance back and half hidden in the hall) she could feel their rapt gazes on her, hear their hushed bets on whether or not blood would be shed. Jax wasn't likely to take responsibility for the stupid prank he'd played on Pomni, and he definitely wasn't going to apologize. Quite the opposite; he was relishing any upset from her and would only get a bigger laugh the angrier she got. Pomni would have loved to do something to wipe that smug smile off his face, make him feel humbled or thrown off his rhythm. But. But… She took another deep breath, a begrudging sigh. She supposed she would have to be the bigger person.
“Aw, turning in after all?” Jax said when Pomni turned to march back toward the dormitory without another word. “Fine. Hey, tell your new roommates I said goodnight.”
Her trek stopped after only three steps. Roommates, plural. He'd hidden more than one. Or he was messing with her, trying to get into her head or under her skin. She no longer had the energy or patience to figure it out.
[BOING] it. Why should she be the bigger person? Jax would be the first to point out, tauntingly, that she wasn’t. The high road would take her nowhere, so Pomni could see no reason not to stoop to Jax’s level. His tall, tall level. He had to be taken down a peg.
Pomni may have been the smallest member of the circus, but her cartoon body was as agile and spry as anyone else’s. And she was easily able to use it to pivot on her heel, sprint the three steps back, and launch herself at Jax with a screech. The loud noise and sudden movement surprised Jax and prompted him to turn tail to run, but he wasn't quick enough to avoid Pomni’s flying leap. She landed squarely on his back, catching his long ears in her fists and yanking them to keep her balance. With a grunt, he pulled against her, but Pomni shifted her grip and held firm, the opposing forces making Jax’s ears and forehead stretch backward like they were made of rubber. Both snapped back into place when he gave up on pulling away, and Pomni wrestled his head closer with just one vice-like grasp so she could use her right hand to land blow upon thunking blow atop his head. She wasn’t the strongest, and her fist colliding with his skull made disappointing cartoonish bounces and squeaks, but she still found some catharsis in the attack. If his irritated grunts and censored curses were anything to go by, not only could Pomni get the upper hand, but she had it, and she was not planning to let go any time soon.
It was a shorter-lived victory than she would have liked. Jax had realized trying to pull forward had gotten him nowhere, so he opted instead to go rigid and fall backward. Pomni was having too much fun smacking him in the head to react in time and move, so he dropped atop her like a felled tree and knocked the wind out of her. Squished but not ready to surrender, Pomni continued to grapple viciously with his head and ears. When that didn’t work to budge him, she wriggled her legs out from beneath him so as to drive her heels repeatedly into his sides, like urging a stubborn horse. Jax did rear up into a sitting position with a growl, dismayed when she clung to and followed him easily. He flung an elbow backward at her, and, when that attack didn’t uproot her, he reached over his shoulder to grab at one peak of her jester hat. Part of her avatar, it moved and stretched with the same unnatural give that Jax’s ears had when their positions had been reversed. Pomni gritted her teeth on a pained holler and instead cried out vengefully, finally releasing his ears so she could scrabble at his face, finding purchase on the edges of his ever-present (albeit currently grimacing) grin and pulling his cheeks. Jax grabbed her wrists first, and then shot his hands back further, hooking them under her arms to try and detach her from her perch.
Something unexpected happened then, amid what had seemed a lawless anything-goes brawl. After the grunting and hissing and cursing and punching and pulling, when Jax’s hands squeezed her sides to try and wrench her off him, Pomni let out a startled high-pitched squeal and relented immediately, releasing her hold on Jax in order to instinctively clamp her arms to her sides and her hands over her mouth. All movement seemed to freeze, all air seemed sucked from the room, and even the peanut gallery was hushed. Jax’s hands, still clasped around her ribcage, squeezed again, curious, deliberate, and Pomni tried to smother a yelp in her red and blue gloves.
No, of course not, her digital body couldn't be especially strong or tall or fast, and it didn't look or sound anything like the physical body she’d spent twenty-five years trying to get used to. But of course, of course, her avatar would be ridiculously ticklish. The notion, even the possibility, hadn't occurred to her, had slipped her mind in the midst of circus chaos and asinine adventuring and not losing her mind. But the realization shocked through her system, this truth shot through her. This very silly, very familiar, and very human sensation.
For how much force she'd exerted trying to rend his cheeks moments earlier, Pomni imagined Jax’s grin was nearly splitting his face as he, too, realized why she’d made such a squeaky sound. With his hands in such a convenient spot and Pomni’s fists no longer choking his ears or clobbering his head, Jax could easily pluck her from his back and flip her over his head to hit the ground in front of him. The arcing toss she’d been thrown in and subsequent slam to the floor knocked the air from Pomni's lungs with an oomph, and her pupils spiraled dizzily. She shook her head, blinked, focused, and immediately wished she hadn't.
Jax’s face, his massively smug grin, loomed over her. Pomni glared up at him in return, hoping to appear more menacing than the petrified she actually felt at the tables’ sudden turning. His hands moved, one just enough to press down on her shoulder and chest to keep her pinned, and the other to rest complacently on his hip. “So,” he said, tipping his head to one side, “centipedes don't bother ya?”
Pomni didn't bother wasting time on confusion at the question Jax already knew the answer to. She put her focus instead on gripping his wrist and trying to free herself from under him.
Jax didn't appreciate her lack of a reply and demanded her attention by pushing her a little harder into the checkerboard floor and brandishing his free hand in a claw above her. “How about spiders?”
For just a moment, Pomni froze, eyes growing wide at the implicating inquiry that was confirming what was about to happen. Her attempts at escape redoubled, her body thrashing and feet scrabbling and hands shoving and mind wailing at the floor to glitch beneath them and swallow her up. Or launch Jax through the top of the big top. Pomni tried to glare up at Jax, but she couldn't help her gaze flitting betrayingly to his descending, wiggling fingers. “[HONK] you,” she tried to hiss, only to groan at how her censored cursing only made the situation sound all the sillier. “How can we even be--?! Why is this even a thing?!”
“Who knows?” Jax replied with a shrug. “Seems like the sort of thing Caine would be inspired to zap us with, so maybe it's a feature. Or maybe it's a bug.” His arachnid hand crept closer, hovering inches above Pomni’s torso. “Either way, if I can use it against you, that's fine by me.”
Pomni came to the begrudging conclusion that she wasn't avoiding her imminent fate. Jax was too stubborn, his hold too strong, and his fire for revenge too stoked. Even so, she refused to go down silently. Forcing herself to take a deep inhale through where her nose used to be, she let the struggle ebb from her limbs, crossed her arms, and scoffed. “If you need a glitch to make me laugh, maybe you should try pulling pranks that are actually funny.”
Jax’s smile widened further fiendishly, making his eyes narrow and his pupils shrink. Touched nerve for touched nerve, it seemed. His hovering hand dive-bombed to finally connect with Pomni’s side, squeezing and spidering up and down the blue side of her torso.
Pomni bit her lip hard enough to taste static. He may have surprised her before, but she could see her doom coming now; if she was ready for it, maybe she could withstand it. Her arms still somewhat crossed, she clamped them tight to her sides, hugging herself in defense against his attack. Even as his hand skittered up and down her right side where she couldn't easily block, Pomni held back the rising tide of hilarity she could feel bubbling in her throat, holding her breath and hopefully withholding any satisfaction for Jax in cracking her.
“Ooh, you gonna try to hold out?” Jax teased with a sneer. “You think that will work? Like I'll get bored if you don't laugh again? Joke’s on you; I'm actually very patient. Especially if I get the entertainment of what your face is about to do.”
Despite her cheeks being puffed out like a hamster’s and her face beginning its “entertaining” shift of rainbow hues, Pomni tried to glower at Jax. If her face hadn't naturally been shifting from blue to magenta, it would have definitely gone red when Jax laughed at her.
“Aww, is that the best you can do? I've seen you make scarier faces than that. Or, is that why you had to attack me from the back? So I wouldn't see how you just can't stay mad me~”
Censored by a loud car horn, Pomni hurled a curse through gritted teeth and a punch through her instincts of self-preservation, both aimed at Jax. Both equally ineffective.
Pomni’s arm was too short for her swing to connect when Jax leaned back, but it did reach far enough to open a new place for him to target. His assailing hand jumped from her side to her opposite exposed underarm, fingers dancing beneath her striped poofy sleeve.
Her face shifted sharply from green to white as a shriek barreled its way out from Pomni’s chest. Where last such noise had been followed by breathtaking silence, this one preceded an avalanche of merry mad cackling. Her arm rocketed down to try and defend the apparently very weak spot, but it was no use. Jax had gotten a reaction from her; no way was he going to quit when he'd just gotten started.
“Boom, THERE’S the fireworks!” Jax cheered, positively beaming.
For as insufferable as his verbal teasing was, Jax’s tickle attack wasn't as malicious as Pomni would have expected of him. Maybe it was because the movement of his hands was somewhat limited with Pomni trying to crush them like a rat in a snap trap. Not limited enough though, if her squealing was anything to go by. Were his hands glitched into her avatar or something?
Whatever the case, the pair became all the closer when Jax hauled Pomni up into his lap, still tickling under her arm and using his own arm to pin her to his chest. “Now, what were we talking about?” said Jax, rubbing his chin in mock thoughtfulness before sending the fingers of that hand to flutter by Pomni’s neck. “Oh, right! You were accusing me of some awful clever prank. Rudely, but. I SUPPOSE I could hear you out. Floor’s yours. Do you have any evidence that this surely dashing prankster was me?”
The hug Pomni currently found herself trapped in was unyielding, Jax’s arm like a seatbelt securing her to her doom. Any answer she could have given was swallowed up by guffaws as Jax bullied her further, forgoing his fluttering attack on her neck in favor of scribbling his fingers into her stomach.
“Fair point,” Jax said, considering her cackling as though it were a profound, let alone coherent, response. “I can see how you'd jump to that conclusion. But I think I have a pretty good counter point.”
His hands vacated her body so suddenly that Pomni slumped to the floor, limbs weak like jelly and chest heaving. Jax shifted from sitting on his tail to his knees. Pomni had been about to summon any strength into crawling out of his reach, but now she just blinked in confusion. No way he was actually letting her go all of a sudden, right?
(In retrospect, Pomni thought she heard the sound of a slap coming from her colorful creeping peers in the hall. Whether it was someone face-palming at her foolishness for not trying to run when she had the chance or someone clapping their hands over their eyes to avoid watching what came next, Pomni couldn’t say.)
Jax grabbed Pomni’s limp forearms and easily wrangled them under his knees, pinning her to the floor. Fighting instinct flooded Pomni’s body seconds too late, and she writhed fruitlessly under his hold. Her human body might have been injured being restrained under an unforgiving attacker and to an unforgiving hard floor, but her cartoon body wouldn’t so much as bruise--a fact she used to her advantage first when twisting her arms to claw at Jax’s legs and then at the floor itself. Caine could restore the floor with a simple snap if her attempts to dig herself free left trenches in her wake.
“[POP] you,” Pomni growled, the sound a mix of a hiss and a whine through her gritted teeth. She kept her eyes on her thrashing arms, pointedly not looking at Jax’s hands as they came to hover by her sides. “Don’t you [SPLAT]ing dare, don’t you-- [BOI-OI-OING!]”
Undeterred by her swearing or squirming, Jax unleashed both hands upon her torso, fingers spidering up and down her sides, pinching her hips, and knuckling into her stomach. No matter how hard she tried to focus to fight against his hold on her, she couldn't, no more than she could fight her body’s reactions to the giddy elation sparkling under her skin. Under Jax’s conducting hands, Pomni’s symphony of mirth marched on. To the raucous melody of squeaky cachinnation, Pomni danced, her heels scrabbling against the floor and her head thrown back and her eyes scrunched tight and her big sharp-toothed smile stuck to her flushing cheeks. In the beats of silence when she heaved in air, Pomni could hear that Jax was laughing, too. Definitely at her, but somehow not fully derisive. Maybe it was the lack of air going to her lack of lungs and brain, but she almost thought they even sounded fond.
“Hey, your face changes color when you laugh really hard, too!” Jax snickered. “Ain't that funny?”
That WAS due to the lack of oxygen. Her eyes were shut, so she couldn't confirm, but she doubted her face was turning anything but red. Especially once, to her horror and despite not having a nose, she snorted through her squealing. That HAD been a tic of her old body, and, [SHLOOMF], how long had it been since someone had made her laugh hard enough to trigger it? She couldn't quite recall, but she did remember being mercilessly teased about it afterwards. Jax, of all people, didn't immediately taunt her about it. Though, more likely than him being nice, it was probably because any snorts entered the litany of silly sounds so seamlessly that they could be missed, overshadowed by peals of squealing laughter and expletives that would be more colorful than her face if they weren’t censored.
“Speaking of colors, which one is worse, red or blue?” As Jax asked, he drew back his hands until only his fingertips tapped against Pomni’s sides.
Pomni heaved in deep breaths while she could, bracing for another trick. “Red or bluAHAHA--?!”
Jax clarified by unleashing his hands once more, first scribbling his fingers beneath her left arm, and then switching to under her right arm, her costume’s red side and then blue one. He repeated the cycle of swapping sides, hopping from one to the other and pointedly never targeting both simultaneously. Even so, he jumped between the two spots so fast that Pomni couldn’t even begin to decipher her nervous system’s reactions, untangle them and determine which side of her brain wanted her to howl and which wanted her to shriek.
“Come ooooon~ Better tell me, or I'll have to keep going until I figure it out for myself. Oh, I see, you're having trouble talking! That's okay; you can just snort when I find the worst side.”
Both sides of Pomni’s mind were in agreement, though, about wanting to try again to yank Jax's ears off once her arms were free.
The back-and-forth brutality went on, Jax digging his wiggling fingers beneath her arms and adding rapid rib squeezes for good measure. Left and right and left again. Delirious, Pomni pondered, did she even have ribs? Did she have bones? Her lungs ached from laughing--did she have lungs? Only if it was funny, apparently. Then all of it, bones and breath and nerves became as real as real could be.
Unsatisfied with Pomni's completely unreasonable indecisiveness (as snorts were now present throughout her guffawing gaiety the harder he tickled her), Jax huffed and rolled his eyes. “Well, you're no help. But I guess if you're as stupid ticklish as you, it doesn't really matter which side is worse, huh? 100% on either side is 200% if I get both sides at once, and that's just arbitrary.” He grinned, wide and villainous. “But I bet it still feels pretty bad anyway.”
If Pomni’s scream from earlier had brought her friends running, she wouldn’t have blamed them if this one sent them running away. Jax abandoned his playful experiment in favor of combining his forces against both red and blue. His fingers skittered spirals around her armpits, then (perhaps in mercy, but, more likely, in self-preservation of his own ears at being so close to her sustained banshee laughter) hopscotched with vibrating steps between her ribs before landing at her belly and squeezing her until she squealed like a stress toy he had vengeance against.
Red or blue, who could say which was worse? Coincidentally, Pomni’s face briefly turned purple between gales of full-body chortles.
“That bad, huh? Bad enough for you to, I don’t know, say you’re sorry for accusing me? Hm? I miiiiight stop if I feel like you mean it.”
Her hilarity had just tipped toward wheezing, and, actually goading an answer from her, Jax begrudgingly stilled his hands. It took Pomni a moment before her breathing was steady enough to speak, but she could feel her answer at the ready. Would she apologize for calling out his stupid prank? [DOINK] no. She may not have had much in the way of poise, but she still had SOME dignity. No way could she tap out now. Yeah, it was more than she could remember ever being tickled in her old life, but it wasn’t as though her new body could die of oxygen deprivation or exhaustion. She could laugh her Schrodinger's lungs out and still be fit as a fiddle for tomorrow’s adventure. And, on that note, getting to roughhouse and being made to laugh with a friend (?) was painless and even pretty fun compared to just her last twelve hours in the circus. Pomni could bear the shame of losing, but--Jax’s own words, advice from Pomni’s early days in the digital circus, echoed in her mind: you could toughen up--no, she wouldn’t settle for the embarrassment of simply letting him win so easily.
Pomni averted her gaze and knit her eyebrows together, appearing like she was considering the harrowing option of surrender. Jax leaned in, preemptively gleeful and ready to gloat. Giving Pomni a perfect opening to aim a kick at his head.
Surely, the audience was cringing at how close Pomni had come to a successful counterattack. Alas, the mother[SQUEAK]er dodged at the last second. He added insult to injury by catching the assailing limb by the ankle, forgoing any previous mercies and spidering his fingers behind her knee. Squeaky cackles leapt from Pomni’s lips, and her shoulders scrunched up to her jaw, both in attempt to twist herself free or hide her noises in Jax’s leg.
“Careful,” Jax snickered, “keep acting cute like that and I might feel sorry for this.”
“You! Should!” Pomni retorted with a squeal of a roar before sending a second leg attack right to his noggin. There was a loud [BONK] as her foot connected (which could have been the sound of the impact or Zooble swearing in excitement and vicarious victory). Jax fell, hitting the floor and rolling so that his back was toward Pomni. The freed jester, elated and exhausted, didn’t move right away, her muscles like molasses and her body finally out of reach from a certain pair of yellow-gloved hands. Jax was all the way over there, sprawled on the floor and… shaking. Clutching his head.
Pomni pouted, peeling herself from the floor. What a spoilsport Jax was, going and getting hurt to sour her victory. Her mind’s halves began to struggle, one panicked and guilty while the other was unrepentant and smug. The latter lost, and Pomni shuffled on her knees toward Jax. As it turned out, she was going to be the bigger person today. Prepared to apologize, she opened her mouth, only to get close enough to see that Jax was unharmed and trembling with stifled laughter. Pomni glowered, falling back onto her seat and crossing her arms. “[BLEEP] you.”
“HA!” Jax crowed as he sat up, holding a palm to his forehead. “You beaned me in the head! Oh my god, that was hilarious! You are so never living this down. Poor Pomni is so ticklish, she has to resort to bloodshed!”
“Oh, you're fine!” Pomni retorted, repeatedly whacking at Jax’s arm. “ You still have both your braincells, don't you?”
Jax let himself be pushed like a bobble toy but sat back on his hands before he could fall down. “That was awesome,” he said with a sigh. “I am definitely putting more bugs in your room if that's the show I get afterward.”
Pomni pointed furiously at him, vindicated. “I KNEW IT!”
“Yeah,” Jax scoffed, boredly waving at her hand like it was a mosquito, “your two braincells really eclipsed together to figure that one out, huh?”
With one last smack to Jax’s hand, Pomni swiveled how she sat so as not to face him (not fully turning away though; she did not want him in arm’s reach AND in her blind spot), crossing her arms atop her knees and grumbling about how he couldn’t even come up with his own insults, let alone a funny one. She didn’t think he’d heard her, so she narrowed her eyes at him when he suddenly chuckled. “What?”
“It’s not your fault,” he shrugged, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. “Your avatar is just too cute to take seriously when you pretend to be mad.”
“I’m not pretending--!” Pomni sputtered before giving up on arguing with him any more, the roll of her eyes shifting her gaze from his teasing grin. “You’re impossible.”
“You’re trying to keep me from seeing your not-scary face again. Like I didn’t already see you smiling two minutes ago.”
Pomni whirled around with the intent to show him just how scary she could look when her nervous system wasn’t being taken advantage of. Intent only, because, before she could don her angry eyes or sharp teeth, Jax had reached across the distance between them to jab her in the ribs. She wasn’t quick enough to muffle the squeak that jumped from or wrangle the wobbly smile that spread across her lips. So she hid them and the suddenly-too-familiar red heat in her cheeks behind her hat, pulling the peaks down as a flimsy shield. Unsurprisingly, Jax laughed at her reaction, but, more surprisingly (and Pomni chided herself, her ears must have been ringing and mishearing things from her own shrieking), the sound was, once again, warm--at least, not unkind.
“See? You're smiling, so you can't be THAT mad. Otherwise, you woulda kicked me way sooner. Welp!” Jax groaned as he pushed himself up to his feet. He tapped Pomni twice on the head and, when she looked up, offered a hand to help her stand. And then promptly pulled it away when Pomni reached for it, making her growl and him snicker. The second time he held his hand to her, Jax didn't psych her out but helped her to her feet. “That was fun and all, but I gotta go nurse my concussion.” He pressed the back of his hand melodramatically to his forehead, and Pomni had to pinch her lips tight to keep from chuckling. “Oh, and, I may have been merciful this time after you played dirty, but, just know, I get the last laugh around here.” Jax knocked Pomni’s hat askew as he walked past her, headed for the dormitory hallway. “I'm not going so easy on you next time.”
Pomni straightened her cap with a huff. The prospect of a ‘next time’ didn't scare her as much as it maybe should have, albeit she would take a less heart-stopping catalyst. Speaking of. “Wait.”
Jax stopped, looking back over his shoulder at her expectantly.
“Did you actually hide more than one centipede in my room?”
His grin grew all the wider, eyes narrowing and pupils shrinking in diabolical delight. “Nighty night, squeaky~”
The fire in Pomni’s body that had smoldered to just heating her face caught a second wind and raged into an inferno. But it wasn't burning and angry, no, it was bright and warm and stoked. Fighting and playing and feeding into and off of each other’s energy--that had been fun. Could it really be done so quickly, so abruptly? Torrents of adrenaline ran through Pomni’s veins, and she knew there was no way she could go to sleep now. How could Jax? How could he actually be so smug and composed when Pomni felt like a soda fizzing and ready to pop. After all the chaos and excitement, he had to be buzzing, too. He hadn't closed the book neatly; he'd left the ball in her court, given her the challenge to meet or ignore. It was her move, and he didn't even look back at her. But the peanut gallery was still watching. Pomni felt a brief flash of embarrassment, then indignation, that they'd just been watching the silly showdown. But the feelings faded to something calculating. Gangle, Zooble, and even Ragatha hadn't stepped in to help. Maybe it was because it was hazing for the new kid on the block, but Pomni didn't think so. They believed in her, trusted her to be strong enough to hold her own. They'd stayed back and watched her get the wind tickled out of her, maybe because it was adorable, but perhaps because... they knew she wouldn't need the help. They knew she could get the upper hand.
Pomni recalled with a smirk the way Jax had ferally unleashed himself on his doppelganger after the softball game. She felt what she could only imagine was a similar surge of predatory energy, and thought a fittingly childish thought after a childish war of pranks and tickle fights: my turn.
Just as before, Pomni raced across the short distance between Jax and her, hurling herself at his back and latching on like a koala. Still somehow surprised by Pomni’s audacity, Jax staggered but didn't lose his balance. “You up for another round already?” he scoffed, trying to untangle her legs from around his waist with one hand and using the other to reach behind him and try to grab at her side and replicate the way he'd defeated her before. “Or are you trying to pat me down for bugs?”
Pomni resisted his attempts to dislodge her, throwing one arm his neck like she meant to throttle him in retaliation. Jax reacted in understandable self-preseveration, his hands retreating from Pomni’s body to try and pry her chokehold from his throat.
“You said you wanted the last laugh,” Pomni said, smirking at how flawlessly Jax had fallen into her trap. Her unoccupied hand met no obstacles as it snuck under Jax’s arm. “Far be it from me not to let you have it.”
Jax froze, locked up like a startled goat the moment Pomni’s fingers began to wiggle. Fruitlessly, he cinched his arms to his sides, if not to squish her already breached hand then to prevent the other one from joining in the attack. Pomni didn't hear any laughter from him--last or otherwise--so she hooked her chin over his shoulder to see where his volume and bravado had gone. His usual, near-constant, smile seemed so easily donned, but, now, Jax’s jaw was clenched and eyes were pinched shut with the effort to keep the smile in place. A grin like gridiron, no stretching any wider and no letting anything pass, save for a few uncharacteristically quiet and quick exhales. He tried to reach back again to shove Pomni off of him, but, as soon as his arms had become unglued from his sides, her other hand sought pinching purchase under them, and he had to retreat with a hissing grunt of a snicker.
Okay, Pomni could understand now how Jax could take such pleasure in her reactions when their positions had been reversed; Jax’s reactions and attempts to hide them were too adorable and endearing not to tease about. “You better laugh, Jax, or everyone’s gonna finally see what happens when you try to hold your breath.”
Remembering the rapt audience, Jax’s eyes popped open buggishly, and he stumbled around to place Pomni as an offensive defense between them and him.
“Coward!” jeered Zooble.
When Jax was safely faced away from the viewers, only Pomni could see his eyes close once more, his lips wobbling around the edges of his grin, his cheeks growing magenta. Whatever he was hiding--whether it was his character model’s unique quirk from a lack of air or how his laugh sounded when it wasn’t at someone else’s misery--he wasn’t giving it up easily. That was fine; Pomni had plenty of patience and vengeance to spare. She finally wormed her other hand under Jax’s arm and wasted no time digging for ticklish treasure.
A strangled chortle escaped through Jax’s teeth before he could bite it back, and the cracks in the dam only broadened. An actual giggle slipped next, high pitched and wheezy, followed by another, and another. Jax’s brow was furrowed in embarrassment, but Pomni was beaming. So the mystery of his breathing tic would remain, but Pomni felt no loss. This was better. And, for how hard he was holding back just from her current--frankly, nice--efforts, it could only get better. She reserved the right to comment on the irony of him definitely being just as ticklish as she was and wriggled her hands free from the press of his triceps, scribbling lower to where his ribs might have been.
Jax crumpled, cackles escaping his widely grinning mouth and strength vacating his legs. He fell to the floor, with none of the grace or malice with which he’d done so to crush Pomni earlier. She didn’t even end up underneath him this time; Jax had been courteous enough to collapse on his front, so Pomni was still comfortably straddling his back when they landed. She could practically feel the peaks of her jester cap curl upward like devil horns.
“Now then!” Pomni all but sang, her fingers plucking a tune of hilarity from Jax’s ribcage. “What were we talking about? Oh right! You were just telling me how many centipedes you had stashed in my room.”
Futile but admirable, Jax gulped down his guffaws to reply, “That's for me to know and you to-- nohohoHOHO!”
Pomni knew better than to expect Jax to take the easy route. So she was ready, before he finished speaking, to dig her fingers more firmly between his ribs and drill her thumbs into his back.
Jax’s laugh shot to a squawk and then tumbled once again into booming cachinnation. Pomni realized suddenly that she couldn’t recall ever hearing Jax laugh for longer than a scoffing second. Definitely ironic, considering his massive constant smile, that Jax didn’t laugh all that much. Until that day, she hadn’t wondered what he sounded like halfway to hysterical, but she decided the humorous sound, loud and bright and raspy, suited him well. His love to talk didn’t leave him either, despite his airways being occupied. Best he could, he rambled and bartered and threatened, even when gales of laughter stirred his words to gibberish and swept them away. Pomni couldn’t relate; the idea of trying to talk and talk her way out of being made to laugh so hard made her tired to even imagine.
Her imagination did wander a bit while her hands stayed busy, clawing into his lower ribs with one hand and his hip with the other. Pomni wondered how this situation would have transpired differently if she and Jax were in their old bodies, in the real world. Would she still have been able to pin him? She hadn’t had a labor intensive job, but she didn’t know if Jax had either, if he would have been particularly strong or similarly tall to how he was in the digital world that would have given him an advantage. Furthermore, he would have lacked his cartoon physics tricks to wield against her. Not that said tricks were doing him much good at present. Did the others in the circus know Jax was so shockingly easy to take down? She didn’t spare a glance in the direction of her audience to see if they were surprised; if they didn’t know before, they did now. Pomni might not have been the only character spared from Jax’s pranks in the future, for having a viable option of retribution to threaten his nonsense with. Pomni’s train of thought diverted fully to her friends. Surely, she and Jax weren’t the only ones affected by this sensitivity-- this “glitch”. How would they react? It was pointless to be logical, but Pomni mused anyway. How would being ticklish work for Gangle, who didn’t have a human body? Or Zooble, with their interchangeable limbs? Or Ragatha, who was made of fabric? Could Kinger laugh with no mouth? Most of all, was Pomni brave enough to test it out on all of them and find out? She considered enlisting or goading Jax into helping her do so, if he didn’t kill her first after today.
Though, Pomni doubted Jax would seek revenge of a painful or malicious kind; for all his joyful jabbering, he hadn’t once asked her to stop. Their bodies may be changed or glitched, but their minds were free from Caine’s influence. Pomni’s body may have been about as ticklish as her old one, but her mind still enjoyed the sensation and laughter-high of it the same. So if Jax was having fun, it was all him. Even if there was variance between their bodies, at least some of Jax’s happiness wasn’t programming. Grinning, Pomni reserved that revelation to be another theory tested on another day. For now, she had a game to make the most of, and she probably should have kept some amount of focus on her motivation so both she and Jax could pretend their squabbling hadn’t settled into something just plain fun. No no, of course not, this was serious vengeance.
Recalling the way her soul had been momentarily terrified from her body when that centipede had fallen onto her head, Pomni actually slowed her attack, lightening her touch and redjusting her targets until she was spidering her fingers up and down Jax’s sides and poking at the edges of his stomach that weren’t protected by being pressed to the floor. His cackling softened to a sweeter sound, breathy hee-hees of tongue-bitten laughter. Pomni let herself be distracted by the adorable sound rather than delve for the soft spot he was blatantly trying to keep her from. “Come on, I’m not even asking you to say you’re sorry. It’s gotta be easier to just say a number, right? Just spit it out, or… I’ll have to get reinforcements.”
Jax snorted at that. “Aw, can’t finish the job yourself?”
“Don’t have to,” Pomni said, granting him momentary mercy when she cupped her hands around her mouth and looked to the hall. “Hey, guys! Quit being wall ornaments and help me out! I need someone to hold him so I can get his stomach!”
Despite his best efforts to shove his still-smiling face into the floor, Pomni heard Jax grumble, and she grinned all the wider. Her bystanding friends were not so immediately enthusiastic, as Ragatha and Gangle both looked tempted but hesitant while Zooble looked amenable to approach but unwilling to leave the other two behind. Pomni couldn’t hear Zooble’s encouragement from that distance, but she saw Ragatha brighten, smiling and standing a little taller. Gangle visibly needed more convincing from them, but soon her wringing ribbon hands began to rub together impishly.
“Last chance, last laugh. How many bugs do I need to find?” said Pomni, trying to wriggle her fingers underneath Jax but being thwarted as he subtly rocked from side to side. “I’d hurry. After today’s adventure, they don’t look like they’ll be all that nice to you.”
Jax didn’t lift his head to watch his doom approach. For a moment, Pomni wondered if he was faking another injury to garner mercy. But then, he’d turned his face away, too, when he’d realized the other circus members could see him laughing before. Was he hiding now? Pomni leaned to one side to get a better look at Jax’s face. Of course, he was still smiling, but it was a far gentler thing than the mask he usually wore. Relaxed, almost, and accompanied by a fuschia blush on his cheeks and wrinkles at the corners of his closed eyes. Pomni’s hands stilled and smile softened at how unabashedly happy he looked. And, how could he not? Jax’s pranks, his instigating behaviors, were all to get a reaction and attention out of people. Between his and Pomni’s fights and the giggly retribution, Jax had to be on cloud nine.
Happy, but aware that the vengeance wasn’t over, that it was about to get a whole lot worse before he was off the hook. And this was evident by how he, still beaming, tried to replicate Pomni’s earlier method of escape, attempting to swing his heel at the back of her head.
“Jax!” The awkward angle at which the rabbit had had to kick meant Pomni sat safely out of reach, only feeling the wind from the attack. Regardless, she kept her tone playfully indignant. “Oh, NOW who’s resorting to bloodshed?”
He didn’t reply, and Pomni looked over her shoulder to see him winding up for another kick. Quick to abandon her once-safe perch, Pomni jumped from Jax’s back to wrangle his rascally leg. Sitting on his calf, she could easily pin the offensive limb to the floor, and she ended up facing another prime spot to tickle. No way was he getting away with all his pranking and trying to punt her like a football. Her cartoon gloves didn’t have fingernails, but Pomni made up for that with the ferocity she unleashed upon the bottom of Jax’s foot, madly scrabbling her fingers across every inch of his sole.
Beneath her, Jax jolted, but, instead of his laughter resuming, there was only silence. Pomni wondered if she’d just been unlucky in choosing a spot not as sensitive as ones she’d already tried, but, just then, Jax’s other leg began to shake, fluttering kicks against the floor. His lungs caught up with the propulsion and volume his laughter tried to leave him with, and he was bellowing once more, wheezy and croaking.
Pomni grinned. That was a much more fun reaction, even if it meant she had to almost shout to tease Jax. “I guess I should feel lucky that I got an avatar with shoes, huh? Don’t have to slog barefoot through sticky kingdoms or stomp through haunted graveyards or… well, be in your position right now.”
Through his howling, Jax sputtered, trying to retort, but all he could end up getting out was her name. “PomneeheeheehahaHA!”
Jax’s free foot switched from swinging uselessly to scrabbling for purchase on the floor below. It didn’t look to Pomni like he was making any headway, but then, just as fast as he’d flipped the script on her earlier, he managed to push himself enough to turn over onto his back and subsequently unseat Pomni yet again. She, too, hit the floor and looked up to meet the suddenly too familiar sight of Jax’s face hovering above hers. But where before his eyes had been narrow and smug, now they were wide and bright, joyfully sparkling like stars in a black sky. His smile was no longer tightly stretched either, effortlessly worn albeit stubbornly twitching when he tried to sober his expression to something less elated.
“Quit smiling.”
Not realizing until he’d said something how infectious his genuine grin was and how naturally her face had mirrored it, Pomni snorted. “You first.”
Before Jax had the chance, he was yanked sharply backwards, his arms pulled wide by a ribbon on his left wrist and a crab claw on his right.
“Hey, thanks, guys!” Pomni rose to her feet and crossed over to the group, who offered her various nods or thumbs-up if they had a hand free.
On her approach, Jax began twisting his arms to break free of his captors’ grip, but it was no use. With one arm held by Zooble’s massive pincer, one lassoed in Gangle’s loops, and any backward retreat blocked by Ragatha standing immediately behind him, Jax was going nowhere. “Wait! Wait wait wait, we-- we can talk about this--!”
“Can we now?” Pomni replied, kneeling down in front of the vulnerable and vociferous rabbit and cracking her knuckles. “Because I think you’ve made it clear you’re not answering my questions. So all I can really do is try to dissuade you from pulling any more pranks on me for a while by showing you what’s waiting for you on the other end.”
Pomni afforded him no more time to fill with pointless chatter. Her teeth and claws were bared, and could no longer deny her hunger for justice the final course of its meal. With the speed and chaos of a tickly typhoon, Pomni’s hands dove for Jax’s stomach, fingers scribbling patterns that swirled up to his ribs and down to his hips and back again. She didn’t even have to try to really dig in or find an extra bad spot; no matter where her fingers flew, Jax’s torso jumped beneath her touch, trembling and then bouncing between instinctive fight and relenting to raucous laughter.
An idea flashed across her mind, and Pomni wondered if she had been momentarily possessed by the spirit of her evil doppelganger. Before she acted on it, she grinned up at her helpful friends. Their expressions were a sliding scale but all delighted. Gangle was pink-cheeked and smiling, one hand pressed to her face. (She might have been trying to hide how amusing she found Jax’s torture for the habitual fear of him getting her back, or trying to still her excitedly looping ribbon appendage which longed to recreate this scenario later in a sketchbook or add to its drama at present.) Ragatha, too, was stifling her satisfaction a bit, biting her lip but offering no help to poor Jax other than letting him smack the back of his flailing head into her plush hand. And then Zoobe was unapologetically smug, free hand on their hip as they watched Jax writhe. It was funny; no one disagreed that Jax deserved this, and no one either could take their eyes off his uncharacteristically adorable and silly and genuine reactions. On one hand, Pomni didn’t want to hog all the fun of destroying Jax, and, on the other hand, she might have actually felt a little bad for Jax if she was the only one being as mean as that fleeting idea prompted her to be. “You guys all have at least one hand free, right?” Pomni said, watching the three characters’ eyes light up in turn. “And I’m sure you have some payback for him, too. If not from today, then…?”
There were some eye rolls and shudders as each of them recalled one of innumerable times Jax had messed with them. If Pomni had to guess, Zooble definitely had recourse for Jax stealing their spare limbs and coating the sockets with itching powder, Ragatha had grievances times a hundred and one in centipede pranks, and Gangle was sore from having been used as a climbing rope on that day’s adventure. Oh yeah, now that they were all up close to the action, it would take very little egging for them to get all their hands dirty. Ragatha struck first, grabbing Jax’s ears and holding his head still so her other hand could scritch beneath his chin. Gangle and Zooble were no less brutal for still being on capture duty and down a limb each; Zooble’s plastic claw hand scribbled beneath Jax’s arm closest to them, and Gangle made use of Ragatha’s grip to flutter her ribbon up and down Jax’s ears.
What a maestro of chaos Pomni felt like, encouraging the offensive orchestra to play Jax like a fiddle. He was a proper mess now, gayly shrieking with such fervor that he’d lost any strength to fight or flee. Wiggling weakly but laughing enough for them all, Jax hung like a hilarious piñata from their hands, never once offering an answer to earn his freedom. Fine, if he was still having fun, then Pomni actually didn’t feel all that bad about enlisting the help of their friends, nor for using their combo attack as a prelude to that inspired idea.
(Her friends might have wondered, as did she, if it had actually been Evil Pomni to accompany them back to the circus. An identity question for another day.) Pomni let her grin grow feral and wide, teeth sharpening and pupils dilating, before chomping down on Jax’s side. It was a a mischievous mauling; though her teeth looked sharklike and scary, Pomni was actually being quite gentle. She didn’t want to hurt him--anymore. Today.--so she made her attack sound more aggressive than it was by uttering exaggerated nom nom noises. If the sound added to the sensation, she couldn’t tell, with how hard Jax was already laughing, but it did make their other friends snicker. Their other friends, who hadn't let up on the back end of the onslaught, compounding with Pomni's newest addition to the sensations. Just to see if she could push him that much farther, Pomni didn't even slow her fingers as she unveiled her biting move. Her fingers were still going, wiggling into the pocket of Jax’s overalls to get all the closer to the extra sensitive spot on his avatar. It was layer upon layer of sensation stacked upon one another, intensity exponential, all topped with the cherry of Pomni’s pointed teeth nibbling along his ribs and practically tasting the thunder of his hammering happy heartbeat.
Jax held his own for a pretty impressive thirty seconds. “Three!” he wheezed through wailing laughter. “Three! Threeheeheehee!”
All actions slowed to a halt at Jax waving his white flag. Primed to expect a trick though, Pomni kept her hands threateningly near his stomach, even as she sat back and ran her tongue across her jagged teeth. “What was that?”
Heaving in air with a ragged cough, Jax sagged in the arms of his captors, pointedly looking at none of them or the jester who'd questioned him. Even as his gaze darted away, his grin was still present on his face, albeit dazed with the echo of hysteria. “Three, okay?”
“You--” Pomni started, then sighed, shoving him in the stomach before withdrawing her hands. “Three centipedes in one room is just overkill, you know that, right?”
“Well,” and Jax’s grin took on its usual mischievous sparkle as his eyes lifted, “technically, there are only two in your room.”
All other gazes in the room followed his, looking up at Ragatha. Herself, Ragatha had sent her eyes heavenward with a long, exasperated exhale. Practiced with a new response, she forwent her usual admonishments and shoved her hands under Jax’s arms, digging her fabric fingers mercilessly between his ribs. Zooble and Gangle had loosened their grips on him enough that, when laughter burst once more from his lips, Jax collapsed backward against Ragatha’s legs, unable to hold himself up and finding no escape as Ragatha followed him to the floor.
“There you all are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”
Kinger’s appearance drew the attention of the group members who weren’t otherwise occupied. He emerged from the hallway, waving excitedly and eyes shining. Ignoring or unbothered by the chaos of Ragatha and Jax’s one-sided scuffle, Kinger went to Pomni, offering a hand to help her to her feet.
“I have to thank you, Pomni--and you, too, Ragatha!--for all these beautiful additions to my collection!” Kinger tugged open the collar of his robe to reveal three centipedes, strokes of red, green, and blue snuggled in the white fur. “I hope you don’t mind that I went and got them myself from your rooms; this first little devil let it slip that he was expected to be surprised by his friends.”
Ragatha moved so fast to keep from looking at the leggy creatures that she seemed to glitch, just suddenly standing facing away from the group and leaving Jax to slump to the floor with cartoon stars circling over his head. “Not at all, Kinger. I’m glad you found them,” said Ragatha without turning around. She leaned over Jax, crossing her arms. “And you can be glad, too; you get to live another day.”
“Joy,” Jax coughed.
Zooble shifted subtly to stand between Ragatha and her little phobias, watching as Gangle began the walk with Kinger back to the dormitory.
“So, do they have names?” Gangle asked, tentatively holding her ribbon hand out to one curious crawler.
Kinger gasped. “Jax! You’re on the floor!”
“Kinger?” Gangle prompted, only jumping a little when he shrieked at her tapping him on the shoulder. “Do all of the bugs in your collection have names?”
The two disappeared in the shadow of the hallway. “Oh, thank you for asking! You know, they don’t, but I’d bet they would love some.”
“I could help you brainstorm some ideas, if you wanted.”
“Oh! Wouldn’t that just be dandy of you!”
Their conversation faded from intelligible to just excited tones in the distance. Zooble touched Ragatha’s arm, and she turned around with a grateful, tired smile.
“At least, we’ll all sleep easy,” Zooble said, nudging Jax with their pincer as they stepped around him. “So, you’re welcome, bunny boy.”
Jax lifted a hand to flash them a middle finger, but the motion was so heavy and uncoordinated that it didn’t warrant a censor bar.
“Good night, guys,” Ragatha said, following Zooble but trailing a bit, looking at Pomni with a questioning eyebrow. Pomni gave her a little wave and a thumbs-up, and Ragatha chuckled, reassured. She mirrored Pomni’s gesture before walking after Zooble.
Once again, it was just Pomni and Jax in the room. Though she was feeling the day finally beginning to weigh on her, Pomni didn’t go with the others and crash on her bed as she had been so ready to do a half-hour earlier. No, she had put Jax through the wringer (rightfully), and she would have felt bad leaving him alone to recover. She did feel awkward just standing there in the meanwhile, after all the chaos of the evening. Her hands felt itchy with inactivity, so she rubbed her palms together and clasped and unclasped her fingers.
After a few minutes, Jax’s breathing had evened out, and he pushed himself up to a sitting position, shaking out the wiggly shape his ears had taken on. He noticed Pomni’s presence and scoffed, tipping his head toward her. “I'm too beat to get you back; you don't have to pretend to be nice and wait around to placate me.”
Pomni mimicked his movement, tilting her head to one side. “I'm not pretending.”
“You should be,” he tried to threaten, rubbing away the phantom tickles under his arms. “After that, I'm not taking it easy on you next time.”
“Fair enough,” Pomni said with a smirk and a roll of her eyes. “But I won't either.”
Jax shook his head, looking away from her, and the smile that spread upon his face was warmer than the digital sun, softer and more sincere than any that Pomni had been basking in that night. “I knew you were gonna be trouble.”
Somehow, that was the nicest thing Jax had ever said to her. Pomni ignored her rosy cheeks and snickered at that thought. She gave her hands something else to do by holding them out to Jax. When he reached out to take them, Pomni pulled them back, grinning. Jax didn't let her revel in the moment, using his long reach to grab her hands anyway. Pomni pulled against his hold to keep from being brought back to the floor, leaning backward and digging her heels into the floor. Giggles, contagious and easy, overtook both of them and their tug-of-war. Apparently done with being bested for one evening, Jax slackened his grip, causing Pomni to stumble, and shot to his feet, swinging her up onto his back. Pomni squeaked in preemptive terror, but she slowly relaxed as Jax wrapped his arms around her back, holding her securely to her perch with, incredibly, no funny business. His hands were dangerously close to where he'd learned and promised to attack without mercy, but his fingers were safe and still. “You really trust me back here?” Pomni asked, crossing her arms and resting him on his shoulders.
“I trust that you know I'll drop you if you try anything,” Jax replied, grinning back at her. “This is a free ride. How about you try being grateful? Even if the altitude change makes you wanna hurl.”
He jostled her but didn't let her fall, and she flicked the back of his head. Unbothered, Jax only snickered, and Pomni rested her chin on her arms. Tiredness sank into her body all the faster in such a comfortable spot, warm and with a gentle rhythm of Jax’s breathing and bobbing sway of his gait. “But how do I know you won't drop me just because it's funny?” Pomni asked, her eyelids drooping closed.
🕸 As much as I appreciate you helping out by holding the measuring tape, Nico
🕸 ... you do still have to hold still.
👅 I'm trying! But I got stuck!! And it tickles!!!
~*~
I have seen these two together in one scene, and, if you can't tell, I adore them. Gotta love an ambitious cosplayer and their mischievous costume designer 😈♥
Summary: While hunting Lucien through the labyrinthian ruins of Aeor, a surprise cave-in leaves Essek Thelyss trapped beneath a pile of rubble. As the battle-worn, spell-depleted Mighty Nein search for a means of freeing him, Jester can't help but exploit the situation for her own mischievous purposes, which leads to some surprising and endearing revelations about their resident Kryn friend.
Disclaimer: this is a tickle fic so if you don't like, please don't read :)
word count: 10,533
AO3 story link
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“Essek!”
As soon as the last Reverser falls to Yasha’s blade, the Holy Avenger cleaving the creature’s bulbous body in two, Caleb sprints past the mangled beast towards the back of the tunnel, fear pounding through his bloodstream. A massive section of the ceiling caved in after two hidden glyphs were activated by their approach, sending tremors rumbling throughout the ruins and Aeorian monsters descending upon them. The last thing Caleb saw before he was snatched by the jaws of an Absorber was Essek disappearing behind a wall of falling rock, his shout of pain echoing down the tunnel before the throes of battle drowned him out.
The deadly monsters materialized between the Mighty Nein and their trapped Kryn friend, blocking the path to aid him until all were slain. Now that the threat has finally been nullified, the bloodied group rushes forward to find the unseen drow, hauling away stones and digging through rubble and yelling his name. Caleb prays they aren’t too late.
“Essek! Can you hear us? Where are you?”
“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Jester whimpers to herself, rolling a large chunk of debris to the side.
“Does anyone have eyes on him? Did anyone see him before the ceiling fell?”
“Over here!” Yasha calls.
The Nein clamber frantically through the wreckage towards the aasimar, who’s knelt beside a clump of jagged rocks near the left side of the cavern. She lugs a sheet of stone to the side, unearthing a familiar head of short white hair and lavender skin, coated in a thick layer of dust. A trickle of blood runs down his temple from a gash above his brow. Caleb drops to his knees next to the elf and holds a shivering hand to the side of his face.
“Essek! Hey! Can you hear me?”
A dreadful beat of silence passes. Then, just before the panic can set in, a cough punches from the drow’s throat, hoarse and raspy, sending a swell of relief washing over everyone. Essek is alive: wounded, half-buried beneath an ass-load of rubble. But alive.
“Light above,” the Shadowhand groans, gingerly wriggling an arm free to press two fingers to the deep scrape on his forehead. “I was…not expecting that. Ugh.”
The strongest of the group immediately get to work trying to clear the remaining debris from his body. “Are you alright?” Caleb asks, brushing bits of rock and dust off his face. “Can you move?”
Features scrunched in pain, Essek shifts a little beneath the chunks of building stacked on top of his lithe form. “I don’t think so,” he wheezes. “S-something has my legs pinned.”
“Here,” Caduceus’ warm voice chimes in. He places a large hand in the center of Essek’s chest as the magic of the Wildmother flows through him, seeping into the drow’s lacerated flesh and stitching up all his injuries. A soft sigh leaves his lips.
“Thank you,” he breathes, the color gradually returning to his face. He’s looking and sounding much better now, much to the Nein’s relief—other than the mass of rock still covering half his body.
Veth staggers over to Caleb’s side and slumps to the ground, gripping her bleeding shoulder. “That was awful,” she moans.
“This whole day has been awful,” Jester whines. “I’m completely tapped.”
“I’ll get a Prayer of Healing started for everyone. I think we all could use a minute.”
Fjord raps his fist against the particularly massive stone sitting on top of Essek’s abdomen. “Does anything hurt? Is this crushing you at all?”
Essek looks down at his torso and shakes his head. “Not presently. The surrounding debris must be bearing its weight.” He squirms again, freeing his other arm, but the rest of him doesn’t budge. “Unfortunately, the angle it is resting at seems to be obstructing me from moving.”
“Could you try teleporting yourself out?” Beau suggests.
The drow thinks on it for a moment, then sighs. “I have used up nearly every spell in my arsenal today. I’m afraid I do not have enough left in me to pull that off.” He looks to the other spell-casters looming above his prone figure, feeling a little undignified and silly in his current position. “Would, um—would any of you happen to have something that might help me escape from under this?”
The magic-users exchange weary looks between them that all share the same dismal sentiment.
“Nope.”
“Sorry.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“I’m afraid not, friend.”
A frustrated huff flits from the elf. “Well. As Caleb would say, Scheiße. ”
The wizard gives him a sympathetic smile, which sends a little thrill swooping through Essek’s stomach. He promptly punts the feeling to the distant abscesses of his mind to unpack at a later time—a reflex he’s grown quite accustomed to by now.
“This rock is too big for any of us to move or break,” Yasha relents with a scowl.
“Should we just try pulling him free?” Jester proposes.
Wordlessly, Yasha marches to stand behind Essek’s head and grabs hold of his arms, yanking and tugging with all her barbarian strength. The Shadowhand lets out a fearful squawk, pinching his eyes closed with a grimace.
“Ah! H-hold on, Yasha, please. I—I don’t think that is going to—agh!”
When stretching the drow’s limbs to the point of near-quartering also yields zero results, she releases his wrists with a bitter grunt, then leans down to give his glistening forehead an awkward pat. “Sorry, Essek,” she says sheepishly.
Essek lays with his aching arms sprawled above his head. “S’fine,” he rasps, gazing up at the cavernous ceiling, wide-eyed and rattled. He runs the back of his sleeve across his face. “But I fear you will tear me in half trying to free me that way.”
“There has to be a way to get you out of here in one piece,” Caleb muses. He scratches at the scruff outlining his jaw, numbers and calculations cycling feverishly behind his eyes.
Caduceus strokes the tuft of pink hair on the end of his chin. “If we take an hour, maybe you could recover the spell you need to teleport out of the rubble.”
“We can’t leave him trapped under there for a whole hour!” Veth scoffs. “What if he gets claustrophobic?”
Jester bends at the waist and pokes the tip of Essek’s nose. “Do you get claustrophobic, Essek?”
Essek swallows. “I—”
She pokes it again. “Are you going to start hyperventilating and freaking the fuck out?”
“Jester,” Caleb admonishes her.
Beau snorts. “That’d be kinda funny.”
Essek winces from the tiefling’s touch with a scowl. “I will be fine, Jester. Though, if possible, I would prefer to get out of here sooner than that.”
“Here,” Caleb says, nudging past Jester and unfastening the front of his mantle. The ornate cloak slips off his shoulders and splays across the ground beneath the drow, spread between his arms like a pair of dark bat wings. “To, uh…make you more comfortable,” he clarifies shyly.
Essek looks to the human then back down at himself, dusting some debris off his chest and clearing his throat. “Right. Yes. Thank you, Caleb.”
“You should take his shirt off, too.” The tiefling waggles her eyebrows between the two of them. “You know—make sure he’s extra comfortable.”
Beau snickers. Fjord rolls his eyes. The wizards ignore her to the best of their ability.
“Perhaps you could walk around to the other side of this large stone and assess the situation from that end,” Essek suggests, writhing in place as much as he’s able. “Maybe if my legs were freed from whatever is trapping them, I would have enough leverage to crawl out the opposite way.”
“I’ll go look!” Jester exclaims, throwing her hand in the air. She’s hopping over rubble and disappearing behind the giant slab of rock before anyone has a chance to protest.
“Be careful!” Fjord calls after her.
“Holler if you need us!” Beau adds.
“I will!” Jester’s receding voice assures them. The others continue brainstorming ways to free their elven friend from this side.
On the other end of the cave-in, Jester begins digging through the boulders in search of a way to reach Essek’s lower half. Some of the chunks of rock she happens across have intricate patterns and textures carved into them, like they once made up the wall of some grand castle or archway, or perhaps were inlaid along an ancient cobblestone street. There is a strange and unsettling beauty to these ruins that makes the hairs on Jester’s arms stand on end and the magic coursing through her veins taste wrong. The sunny shores of Nicodranas feel like a long-forgotten dream after all the time they’ve spent down here, fighting for the chance to live another day and save the outside world from its undoing.
After a few minutes of rolling and shunting various layers of debris from her path, Jester finds a small opening that leads underneath the enormous boulder holding Essek hostage. She dusts off her hands and crawls inside, blinking her eyes as they adjust to the inky darkness.
“I’m under the big stone, Essek!” Jester shouts as she shimmies her way forward. “Can you hear me?”
No answer comes. She shoulders her way a little deeper inside until the walls begin to open up a bit. In the heart of the cave-in, Jester enters what appears to be the top half of a domed ceiling. It looks like it could’ve been a piece of a once towering, elegant ballroom from an era long past.
“Whoa,” Jester whispers. “This is so fucking cool.”
A glint of light catches the tiefling’s eye. Ahead of her, in the center of the rounded cavern, the mangled remains of a massive chandelier lie twisted and shattered in a precarious heap, shimmering jewels still dangling like frozen droplets. On the far right side of the chandelier, a shaft of light cuts through the darkness, illuminating the crystals scattered across the floor and the shape of a boot poking out of the rubble. Jester scrambles to her feet and rushes over.
“Essek!” she cries, dropping down beside his leg. She recognizes the deep purple clothing as the Shadowhand’s. Only a section of his calf is visible to her; everything above that is trapped beneath the massive swathe of stone. “I’m here! I found your legs!” She gives his shin a crisp slap. “Can you feel that?”
“Ack!” a very muffled voice exclaims from the other side of the boulder, making the cleric giggle. “Yes, I can feel that!”
“Perfect! I’m going to try to start getting your legs free, okay? Just hang tight.”
Jester appraises the situation before her. Other than the giant rock on his midsection, which is a whole separate problem, jagged sections of the fallen chandelier have embedded themselves deep into the ground on top of Essek’s legs and ankles. His left leg is so deeply obscured by the twisted coils of metal, she doubts she could even reach it. The right one is at least a little more accessible, though equally trapped and restrained. Despite the unsavory circumstances, the drow should count himself remarkably lucky: in at least five different places, he avoided having his legs skewered like shish kebabs by a matter of inches.
For the leg she can reach, Jester stalks forward and grabs hold of his ankle, heaving and straining with all her might. The cage of mangled metal over top of it doesn’t budge, but she feels something start to give the harder and harder she tugs. With one more yank, something finally pulls free in her grasp. The tiefling stumbles backwards onto the floor with a squeak of surprise. When she looks down at her hands, one of Essek’s black boots is clutched in her grip.
“Oh,” she says. Her eyes flit back up. Beneath the maw of crushed chandelier bits, a single purple foot pokes out of the ruins, pinned at the ankle by criss-crossing shafts of metal.
A quiet falls over the dark, domed space. Jester pauses, glancing between the boot in her hand and the curious visual before her. She sets the shoe aside and crawls a little closer to get a better look at the scenario she’s been presented with. The opportunity she’s been presented with. She considers for a moment doing the right thing—the polite thing, and taking mercy on their already very chagrined and grumpy Kryn friend. That’s probably what any other member of the Mighty Nein would do if they found themselves in her current position.
But Jester isn’t like the others. She is, at her core, a trickster. And it would be remiss of her to shy away from embodying that title now. If she denied herself and her patron a prospective mischief this tantalizing, then she wasn’t Genevieve “Jester” Lavorre.
Grinning from ear to ear, the tiefling reaches into the collar of her coat and gives Sprinkle a scratch under the chin. “What do you think, Artie?” she giggles fiendishly. “Should I do it?”
The crimson weasel’s beady eyes flash green for a moment, and a slippery voice chuckles inside her head. “The haughty drow could certainly do without that enormous stick shoved up his ass all the time,” Artagan tuts. “I mean, honestly. So uptight and pretentious. Maybe you should teach him how to…lighten up a little.” His laugh curls like tendrils of smoke through her mind. “ Wouldn’t you agree?”
“You’re the best, Artie,” Jester snickers.
“And you’re diabolical.” The weasel slips back into her hood, blinking the fey magic from its eyes. “Have fun, darling! Make me proud!”
Jester pumps her fist in the air. “You know I always do!” she cheers. Tapping into her devilish heritage, the tiefling reaches into her bright pink haversack and pulls out one of her paintbrushes. She scoots up beside the little purple foot, unsuspecting and immobile, and in one long, leisurely stroke, drags the bristles of the brush up the length of Essek’s arch.
A dull yelp from the other side of the massive stone graces her ear, stretching the nefarious grin slashed across her face even wider. Oh, this was going to be delightful.
On her end, all Jester sees is Essek’s foot twitch sharply from the contact. On everyone else’s end, the group startles when the elf practically jumps out of his skin—as much as his current state of physical confinement allows. All eyes turn to him in unison.
“Whoa,” Beau deadpans. “You alright there, Hot Boi?”
“What happened?” Caleb asks, a wrinkle of concern forming between his eyes.
Essek sits very still, muscles taut, jaw clenched, fingers digging into the dirt, blindsided by the sensation still tingling across the bottom of his sole. A kind of sensation he hasn’t experienced since he was small, on days his brother was feeling particularly cruel and mischievous. A type of behavior only babies and children partake in—certainly not grown-up heroes of both the Empire and the Dynasty, respected across the lands by kings and queens alike, saviors of Wildemount and the world at large. And certainly not against someone like him: Essek Thelyss of Den Thelyss, Shadowhand to the Bright Queen, prodigy of the dunamantic arts and esteemed expert of political subterfuge. She wouldn’t dare.
A horrible, humbling realization suddenly dawns on him. This was Jester Lavorre he was talking about. Of course she would dare. All she ever did was dare to do things that thwarted expectations and ruffled feathers. And now she was doing exactly that, with unfettered access to totally humiliate him in front of everyone. He should’ve known better than to send her off unsupervised while in his defenseless state.
“Is something hurting you?” Veth asks. Essek continues to lay there, stiff as a board. Maybe it was only a one-time thing, just to keep him on his toes. Maybe she won’t do it anymore. Maybe she knows better than to subject someone of his age and standing to something as demeaning as this. She has to know better.
Right?
“I would like to get out of this now,” Essek announces meekly.
Beau cracks a grin. “Uh-oh. Are you, like, actually about to start freaking out on us?”
Caleb lays a comforting hand on his arm. “We’re working on it. Just try to relax as much as you’re able. Okay?”
Right as he’s beginning to believe the tiefling might be exercising restraint for a change, the brush of soft bristles against Essek’s bare sole assails his senses a second time, now traveling from the base of his toes to tip of his heel. A choked sound escapes him as his leg tries to jerk away on instinct. It doesn’t move an inch.
“Jester!” Essek shouts, voice shrill with anxious energy. “I d-do not appreciate this!”
“Jester?” Beau parrots him.
“Oh gods,” Fjord scoffs incredulously. “What is she up to this time?”
The brush’s third pass across the bottom of his foot has the elf clapping a hand over his mouth to smother the idiotic smile twitching at the corners of his lips, bubbly panic squiggling through his insides. “S-stop!” he squeaks between his fingers, voice cracking in the most egregious way. “I’m serious!I know you can hear me!”
“Is she doing something to you?” Caleb asks.
By the fourth deplorable lap of the bristles, Essek is ready to crawl out of his own flesh to escape this torment. She’s toying with me! he realizes. Letting his dread and anticipation build in the long pauses between each deliberately unhurried brushstroke. She knows what she’s putting him through right now. And, like any effective steward of torture, he’s certain she’s relishing every second of his misery.
“She’s—she’s—” he stutters out. The bristles zing up his arch once again, drawing a trail of static across the unbearably sensitive skin. As the intervals between each onslaught grow shorter and shorter, Essek can feel his hardened resolve starting to crack. Another stroke of the brush, this one lingering far too long on the ball of his foot, and the drow is fighting back laughter like bile. He grips his face in his hands while his flustered brain spins and reels. “ Straj dos jal, m-make her stohop!”
An odd string of funny little sounds start spilling out of their Kryn friend, muffled by the palm clamped over his mouth. Beau and Caleb exchange a glance, confusion and bewilderment pitching into curiosity and amusement.
“What exactly is she doing to you?” Caleb inquires, noticing the bright magenta color the elf’s complexion is adopting. He’s never seen Essek turn this shade of purple before.
It’s at this point the tiefling abandons any semblance of pity and decency she has left and starts gliding the instrument of Essek’s destruction all across the bottom of his foot, weaving patterns and swirling circles and painting elaborate compositions, this time without breaking stride or granting him moments to breathe. No matter how hard he bites his tongue and struggles against it, the Shadowhand cannot keep the mortifying floodgates from breaking loose. He holds out for about three more seconds before noises he hasn’t heard himself make in decades start bubbling up his throat.
“Ehaha!” Essek giggles, prickling heat crawling across his neck and ears. He throws both arms over his face, trying to stem the inelegant flow of laughter and hide his unending shame. But it just keeps pouring out of him, louder and shriller and more hysterical with every silken stroke Jester sweeps across his sole. “Thihis—is—ahaheehee! D-debahasing!”
Suddenly, being crushed to death by a two-ton boulder sounds rather lovely.
The group takes a moment to drink in the scene of the once stoic and unflappable mage now squirming on the ground before them, high-pitched giggles streaming from his lips. Yasha kneels down by the massive rock sitting on Essek’s torso. “Jester, what are you doing to him?” she asks through the narrow gap in the stone.
“I’m not doing anything!” the tiefling’s muffled voice snickers back. “I’m just trying to get his foot out of this thing!”
As she’s saying this, Jester starts sweeping her brush in star-shaped patterns in the very center of the drow’s arch.
Essek pulls at his hair, which is still varnished in a thick layer of dust and dirt, his laughter growing panicked and desperate. “She’s—she’s bruhushing sohomething across my—I c-cahan’t move, and sheehee’s just—she wohon’t stahap—!”
Cute little hiccups begin punching between his words and giggles, cutting off whatever else the sputtering elf was attempting to convey. Caleb’s heart starts doing a complicated acrobatics performance inside his chest.
“Are you laughing right now?” Beau scoffs, placing a hand on her hip. “Is that the sound your mouth is making?”
“Why would he be laughing?” Veth muses. “Did Jester cast Hideous Laughter on him or something?”
As Caduceus assembles his tokens to the Wildmother, he looks between the large rock blocking the tiefling from view and the giggling drow at his feet, a smile lifting his lips as he connects two and two together. “Ah, man,” he chuckles softly. “Now that’s just mean.”
Yasha frowns at him. “What’s mean?” she asks.
The firbolg gestures between Essek and the direction he assumes Jester is in. “Well,” he says. “I mean. The guy barely uses his feet to begin with. You know—the whole floating and gliding shtick. I feel like that would wind up making them extra sensitive to this sort of thing. Tickling and such. That is, if what I’m assuming is happening right now is correct.” He shrugs. “So. Y’know. Mean.”
Simultaneously, five faces brighten with surprise and delight. Yasha looks down at the floundering drow, the aasimar’s hard shell melting in an instant.
“She’s tickling you?” she asks him, crinkling her nose as she smiles. “Are you ticklish, Essek?”
“Oh no!” Beau laughs at the realization, grasping her face in her hands. “Not his feet! They’re so dainty and delicate!”
Fjord pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “You’re a fucking menace, Jester,” he chuckles.
Caduceus raises his pointer finger in the air. “To be fair, he does seem like the kind of guy who could do with a little more laughter in his life. Still pretty mean, though.”
“We’ve finally done it!” Veth cackles maniacally. “We’ve found his weakness!”
Caleb watches their purple friend blush and laugh to an extent he’s never borne witness to until now, warmth tingling inside his belly. Essek lays against the floor of the cave, the heel of his palm pressed to his temple while his other arm hugs his rib cage, shoulders bouncing with devastatingly cute giggles. Caleb doesn’t believe he’s ever heard the Shadowhand giggle before, and now he wants to sear the sound of it into his brain forever. The drow’s eyes are pinched shut with tears shining in the corners. His pointed ears are so pink, they’re practically glowing; it’s a wonder the silver cuffs adorning the tips of each haven’t melted off by now. His features are stretched into the broadest, happiest smile in the whole world. Essek smiles pretty often; it’s an integral part of his standard visage. But not like this. His usual smile is quiet and calculated, projecting a sense of unshakable confidence and shrewd charm. His smile now is like staring directly into the sun: blindingly mirthful and bright, staggering in its authenticity, radiating warmth and contagious energy that those in its proximity can’t help but mirror.
With just a few tickling strokes of her paintbrush, Jester has transformed Shadowhand Essek Thelyss into the giggling puddle of pinkish-purple pudding before them, while also rendering Caleb Widogast a starry-eyed idiot with a crush the size of a dragon turtle.
“I hahate you all,” Essek curses them between hiccups. Heart beaming in his chest, Caleb places a hand on his bouncing shoulder, the elf’s bubbly laughter scattering his senses across the continent. He tries his best to look unfazed by the debilitating fondness blazing through him.
“This is a rather impolite thing to subject our Kryn friend to, Jester,” Caleb declares. The amused smile on his lips betrays his words, but someone has to vouch for the poor drow’s dwindling sanity. “It’s not very kind to take advantage of his misfortunate circumstances like this.”
“But listen to how happy he sounds!” Jester retorts. “I mean—could his laugh be any cuter?”
“It’s so much shriller and squeakier than I expected!” Yasha agrees.
Beau gently taps the end of her staff on the elf’s flushed forehead. “It’s a crime, honestly, that you’ve kept your real laugh hidden from us for this long, Essek. It’s adorable as fuck.”
Essek bats the staff away and buries his face in his hands. “Iblihith,” he giggles scathingly. “I swehear, once I’m freeheed from under this, I will mahake you regret ever daharing to—AHAGH!”
A bolt of electricity shoots up Essek’s spine as the paintbrush begins swirling between his toes. “You know, you’re in a pretty hairy spot right now, Essek,” the trickster cleric reminds him in a sing-song voice. “Maybe you should be a little nicer to the people trying to help you get out of this! Especially your favorite blue tiefling friend, who could be a lot less forgiving with these cute little piggies trapped here with her!”
To punctuate her point, Jester takes the hard end of the brush and starts scribbling it just beneath the drow’s curled toes. Essek’s laughter kicks into a whole new gear as he wrenches and flails in place.
“GAHA! S-stahahap! You cahan’t—!” His words prattle off into inexplicable nonsense intermixed with hiccup-filled cackling. Even though Essek is clearly having a terrible time right now, Caleb can’t help but appreciate how beautiful unbridled joy looks on the young drow. It’s a shame this is the only way to coax it out of him.
“Oh dear! That was a big reaction! These tiny purple toes of yours must be really ticklish!” She skims the pokey end of the brush down the center of his foot, making the Shadowhand squeal involuntarily. “Oh man! I wish I could see your face right now! I bet your smile is as cute as your laugh!”
“It is pretty cute,” Beau admits with a smirk. “His face is turning the same color as your haversack.”
“It’s so cute,” Yasha exclaims, plopping down beside his squirmy shape. While he’s busy laughing into the crook of his arm, the aasimar leans forward and spiders her fingers against his tummy, cooing at the elf like a puppy asking for belly rubs. “Who’s got a case of the giggles? Who’s got dainty little feet? Oh, I could just eat you up!”
Essek is at his wit’s end with these people. Leaving him buried alive and bleeding out would’ve been a mercy compared to this. He knows the Mighty Nein have always had a tenuous relationship with the Dynasty’s expectations around respect and decorum—or anyone’s expectations, for that matter. But this is outrageous. He’ll be lucky if he has an ounce of dignity left by the time they’re through with him.
Gasping with laughter, Essek slams his arms down to his sides, a whole new flavor of ticklish sensations grating against his frayed nerves. “Yahasha! Wahahait!” He claws fruitlessly at the large fingers skittering against his midsection, tossing his head back with breathless giggles. “Thahahat is—T-TOO MUHUCH!”
“We were able to get one ally to agree to charge headfirst towards certain death with us,” Fjord scoffs, gesturing towards poor Essek, “and this is how you guys treat him the second he’s incapacitated. It’s no wonder we have so few friends.”
“You’re going to turn him against us,” Caleb warns her, chuckling nervously. He tugs at Yasha’s shoulder. “Please. Let the man breathe.”
Begrudgingly, Yasha backs off, watching the magenta-flushed drow deflate just slightly as he fights to catch his breath. Essek has to wonder if these conniving young ladies have ever tortured the other males of this group in a similar capacity, since they’re the only ones showing a hint of remorse for his plight. Even without the hands on his torso, the ruthless assault on his foot is still doing a marvelous job of driving the Shadowhand up the wall.
“Oho gods,” Essek whimpers. “Thihis is mahaddening...”
Caleb turns towards the massive stone looming over their purple friend. “Now you, Jester.”
Jester hums in thought from behind the rock. “I’ll stop if he asks really nicely,” she decides, setting the paintbrush aside and flexing her hands eagerly. “And after I’ve discovered all the best techniques for making you laugh the hardest!”
She holds his twitchy foot still with one hand and starts fluttering her fingers against his sole with the other, barring him from squirming away in any capacity while she glides the soft pads of her fingertips up and down. Essek’s laughter mellows into light, airy giggles that flit from his chest and enamor every heart in the cavern.
“Don’t get me wrong: your loud laughs are super cute,” Jester assures him, wiggling gentle, feathery patterns across the bottom of his foot. “But your little giggles are downright adorable. Has the Bright Queen ever heard you giggle before? Has anyone?”
Essek just lays there, forearm thrown across his eyes, dizzy giggles streaming from his lips, resigned to his miserable fate.
“I think you broke him,” Veth snickers.
“I think this is good for him,” Caduceus offers, eyes shut mid-prayer. “Cleansing, even. It’s amazing what a little laughter can do for the soul.”
“I think we should refocus our efforts on, I don’t know.” Fjord shrugs. “Freeing him, perhaps?”
“I agree,” Caleb says, blush creeping into his cheeks as the drow’s adorable giggles echo throughout the ruins. He’s not sure how much more of this the flustered elf or his somersaulting heart can tolerate.
Essek lets out a sharp yelp as Jester begins skating her nails over the dip of his arch. “Cool! You guys can work on that, and I’ll keep working on my equally important thing.”
“No, noho, nohohaha!” the drow whines, goosebumps flaring across his flesh as the tiefling scratches tingling shapes into his bare foot. He knows escape is futile, but he thrashes about anyway, because what else is he supposed to do in his situation? He wants to claw out his eyeballs from how terribly it tickles. “Jehehester, plehease!” he squeaks.
“Your feet are really soft, Essek!” Jester observes as she dismantles him, scuttling her nails up to that hypersensitive spot just beneath his toes. As if that wasn’t excruciating enough, Essek feels the tiefling’s tail curl around his foot, the pointed tip needling deadly little figure-eights into his heel. “Do you moisturize a lot? Or is it just ‘cuz you never actually walk on them?”
The drow grips both sides of his head, pinching his ears between his fingers until they ache. The fact that she’s speaking to him so casually while torturing him out of his mind is absolutely heinous. The fact that his iron will is dissolving at the hands of such a childish ploy is an extra grisly blow to his already wounded pride. “I ahasked nihihicely!” he deigns to remind her. “You sahaid you wohould stahahap!”
“But this is so much fun!” Jester shoots back, her devilish fingers and pointy tail working in tandem to explore every fold and wrinkle in his foot, honing in on his most ticklish areas with unwavering, hellish veracity. “This is probably the only chance I’ll ever have to make you laugh like this! I gotta take advantage while I can.” While one hand continues scribbling all over his sole, the other starts digging around in her haversack. “Maybe if you tell me a real juicy secret in exchange for my mercy, I’ll consider stopping.”
“Ooh, yeah,” Beau eggs her on, rubbing her palms together. “We can make him tell us anything we want right now.” She looks between the others as she drapes her staff across her shoulders. “Alright. Who’s got a good question?”
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Caduceus asks the cackling drow. The ladies of the group immediately start booing him.
“No.”
“Caduceus!”
“That’s so lame! It needs to be something shocking and scandalous!”
“I’ve got one!” Veth pipes up, placing her hands on her hips. “Since you didn’t answer when we asked you before, it’s time for you to finally set the record straight: which one of us do you think is the hottest?”
While the others cheer and hoot with excitement, Fjord and Caleb groan.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the half-orc deadpans.
“Hell yeah,” Beau chuckles, ignoring him.
“Tell us, Essek!” Yasha says with a grin. “Who’s the hottest?”
“And you can’t say all of us. You can only pick one.”
“If you don’t tell us now, Jester will just keep tickling you until you do!”
The magenta-colored elf has his arms wrapped tightly around his sides, which are beginning to ache from how long and hard he’s been laughing. He shakes his head, incredulous and loopy, hiccups interjecting between every other word.
“Whyhy—do youhou—cahahare?” he giggles piteously, angling his foot away from Jester’s wiggly digits as much as possible.
“Because!” Yasha insists. “It’s important!”
“We have to know who Hot Boi thinks is the hottest!”
“Yeah! Come on! Tell us!”
Jester fishes a small item out of one of the deep pockets of her haversack. “You better start talking, Essek,” she teases him threateningly, spinning the little keepsake around her fingers. She leans down towards the narrow opening between the ground and the massive rock. “Hey, Fjord! I’m going to borrow your comb for a bit, okay?”
Fjord scowls. “My beard comb? What for?”
Every nerve ending in Essek’s body erupts simultaneously as a new sensation drags along the bottom of his foot. Like a hundred tiny teeth scraping across his sole, injecting his skin with a cataclysm of electric shocks that tickle more than his mortal mind can comprehend. The shriek that escapes him the moment the feeling reaches his brain stem is not a sound he recalls ever making before.
“Holy fuck,” Beau snorts. “What’d you just do to him, Jes?”
“I don’t think he liked that,” Yasha giggles.
Veth clenches her fists in front of her face. “Whatever it was, do it again!”
“Noho!” Essek cries frantically. “Do not!” If he couldn’t stand what she was doing to him before, enduring the sensation he just experienced any longer than a brief instant would surely be the end of him. If the embarrassment of this whole ordeal doesn’t wind up killing him, the feeling of dozens of tiny, needle-like points skimming across his bare foot most certainly will.
“Do what again?” Jester asks innocently. She gives an exaggerated gasp. “Oh—you mean this?”
The teeth rake across his sole once more, this time from left to right, and Essek’s nervous system is on the verge of implosion. He considers for a moment which sounds less torturous: chewing his own leg off, or more of this. Having feet in Jester’s presence just feels like a liability at this point.
“Jehester, plehehease! Ehenough of these childish games!”
“Are you putting my comb on his foot right now?” Fjord splutters, sticking his tongue out. “Yeah. That’s going straight in the garbage after this.”
“Answer the question, Essek!” the tiefling presses him playfully, seizing the back of his foot. A panicked flood of sputtering laughter pours out of the elf as Jester brushes the comb across his sole in a back and forth motion, carving a line of mind-numbing sensations deeper and deeper into his skin. “Who’s the hottest member of the Mighty Nein?”
“N-nohoHAHAHOMYGAHAHADS!” the drow babbles, his laughter hitting a brand new octave and decibel. He thrashes and squeals and digs his knuckles into his eye sockets, muscles spasming with every voltaic whisk of the comb. He’s grateful he’s not consecuted so he won’t have to remember the mortifying circumstances surrounding his previous life’s death.
“Holy shitballs!” Jester cackles. “This thing is really making you crazy, huh?” She wiggles the comb up towards the ball of his foot, the elf’s hiccuping and laughter rising with it, all while the tip of her tail continues assailing his arch and heel.
Frenzied and fraught, Essek’s hand shoots out and grabs hold of Caleb’s sleeve, startling him a bit. “PLEHEHEASE!” he implores him, flushed magenta from head to toe, tears welling in his eyes. “M-MAHAKE HER—I CAHAN’T—HEHEHELP!”
A riptide of sympathy and endearment sucks Caleb’s heart out to sea. “I’ll go rescue your poor feet from her evil clutches,” he assures his giggly friend, feeling a little guilty for taking so much delight in his torment. It’s quite adorable how much this is affecting the esteemed Shadowhand of Den Thelyss, but he can tell the hapless drow is reaching his limits. “In the meantime, maybe toss a random name out to see if that will satisfy her cruelty for the evening.”
Caleb gives his arm a squeeze as he stands, then looks to Fjord and Caduceus. “Stay here and make sure they don’t start messing with him on this end. I’ll be back in a bit.”
The half-orc and the firbolg nod in unison. With that, the wizard begins picking his way through the rubble as quickly as he can, trying not to laugh at the elf’s frantic giggling as it carries throughout the cave.
By this point, Essek is laughing so hard, he’s stopped making noise altogether. What sounds do manage to escape him are either hiccups, squeaks, or blasphemous Undercommon expletives that only he and Beau can understand. Caleb is taking too long, the tickling sensation scraping across his foot is beyond intolerable, and it’s not like he has a leg of pride left to stand on, anyway. At this point, he’ll do pretty much anything to make this ignominy end.
“J-JEHESTER!” the drow forces from his throat. “THEHERE! THAHAHAT’S MY AHANSWER!”
“Me?” Jester gasps, giggling bashfully. “Oh wow, wow, wow, Essek! I mean—obviously I’m the hottest. Just look at me! But I’m very flattered nonetheless.”
“He’s lying,” Beau scoffs. “He’s just saying that to butter you up so you’ll stop.”
“Hey!” Jester’s muffled voice huffs. “Don’t spoil this for me, Beau!”
“I think we all know who he actually finds the hottest,” Veth says with a wily grin. “‘It’s who we all find the hottest!”
The group pauses. “You?” Yasha says bemusedly.
“No! Caleb!”
Somewhere inside his oxygen-deprived brain, a horrendous dread spears through Essek. Beau raises her fist in the air.
“Should I punch him in the neck so he’s forced to tell the truth?”
Fjord grabs her by the wrist. “Fucking—no!” He shoves her arm to the side. “Beau! Come on! No.”
“I’m casting Zone of Truth!”
Fjord whips back towards the massive rock in disbelief. “Jester! What the hell? You had a 2nd-level spell left this whole time?”
“Not anymore!” she cackles, gliding the comb down the full length of his foot. “Now, then—let’s hear your real answer, Essek! Who, pray tell, is the hottest among us?”
The sharp tang of magic washes over his tongue and throat as Essek feels the spell overtake him. The cackling mage wants to disintegrate from existence. As if things weren’t terrible enough for him already.
“ AHAHAWHYHY?” Essek weeps. “Y-YOHOU’RE—VIHILE! AHALL OF YOU!”
The ladies giggle maliciously at his despair. “Oh gods,” Yasha says, clutching her hands over her heart. “This is really mean, isn’t it?”
“We’ll make it up to him,” Beau assures her, squatting by the drow’s head as he wriggles and squirms. “That is, if we all don’t die in the next few days.” She casts a smirk in Essek’s direction, tilting her head to one side. “But first, l wanna hear who Hot Boi deems the hottest of the Nein.”
All of their lives and the fate of the world at stake, and this is where their minds are at. There are some things about the Mighty Nein Essek is doomed to never understand.
I just have to hold out until Caleb reaches Jester and snatches that infernal tool away from her, he tries to remind himself. But that could take at least a couple minutes, maybe even more, and every second that comb is in contact with his foot feels like an eternity spent in the darkest pits of Hell. It is unendurable. He cannot withstand it. The truth spell sizzles in the back of his throat, burning every name from his tongue but one. It doesn’t surprise him, but it’s no less devastating. Out of all the ways he feared his friends might discover his moronic attraction to their resident human wizard, this was not an option he anticipated.
“I DOHOHON’T—WAHANNA!” Essek wails in a last-ditch effort to win their mercy. The words flow freely from his enchanted lips, for no greater truth has ever been spoken. Behind the wall of stone, Jester sighs in disappointment.
“I didn’t want it to have to come to this, Essek,” she laments, curling her fingers around the top of his foot and peeling back his toes. The comb’s teeth bite into the soft skin underneath, sending a shudder through Essek’s entire skeleton. “Just kidding!” she laughs. “I was totally hoping it would!”
When the tiefling sweeps the comb across that killer spot beneath his toes, ruthlessly raking it from side to side, Essek swears he hears the voice of the Luxon speak to him for the first time in his life. The dunamantic god looks him dead in his mind’s eye, laughs at him, then flips him the bird before skipping away with a resounding: “Fuck you, Essek Thelyss.”
Just as he’s convinced his torment has reached its maximum threshold, Jester starts sawing that godforsaken comb between his fucking toes, and the drow’s sorry state of tickle-induced madness finds a way to devolve ever deeper. As each ticklish gap gets its turn getting demolished, every shred of his diminishing willpower shatters like glass against cobblestone.
Yep. That’s it. He’s done for.
An embarrassingly brief amount of time transpires between the start of Jester’s toe-tickling attack and the moment Essek rallies the last bit of oxygen in his lungs to finally concede to their diabolical demands. He arcs his spine, smothers his heat-flushed, tear-stained face in his hands, then feels his heart shrivel up and die as his own cracked voice cries out between hiccups:
“C-CAHAHAHALEHEB!”
“I’m here!” a familiar Zemnian accent responds almost instantly, muffled but close by. The nightmarish sensation scraping between his toes suddenly lifts away, and the relief that follows is astronomical. “For gods’ sakes, Jester. Give the man a break!”
“Ha! I knew it! I told you he—!” Veth starts to exclaim, but Yasha claps a hand over the halfling’s mouth, stopping her from continuing.
“Oh hi, Caleb!” Jester greets the human cheerfully. “We were just talking about you.”
Caleb ducks as he approaches to avoid bonking his head on the curved ceiling, Dancing Lights illuminating his path while his eyes absorb the novel sight before him: a light blue tiefling waving a comb at him, sitting on the floor of a domed cavern next to a massive, mangled chandelier. Beneath the tangle of metal, a little purple foot pokes out, swirls and streaks of magenta carved in flushed paths across the bottom of it: evidence of Jester’s merciless tickling crusade. He kneels down next to her to examine the bindings encased around the drow’s ankle, tugging at them experimentally.
“The ground is soft here. If we dig down far enough, he might be able to wiggle himself free.”
Jester stares at him with her mouth slightly agape, like she’s about to tell him something important. She glances in Essek’s direction for a moment, then turns back to Caleb, an unreadable twinkle in her eye. “Alright. Let’s do it. I suppose he’s been trapped under here long enough.”
Caleb gives her a grateful nod. The tiefling leans down and cups a hand around her mouth.
“We’re going to try to get you out, Essek! For real this time!”
The drow in question lays sprawled across the floor, vision blurred with tears, skin singed with embarrassment, gulping down air as his heartbeat thuds through his rib cage, the damning truth just ripped from his lips slowly eclipsing every fragment of his soul. He buries his face in his hands to avoid the gazes of all the people standing above him, boiling from the inside out.
“Okay…” he answers feebly, too exhausted and mortified to say anything else.
It takes about ten minutes of digging and maneuvering to free Essek’s legs from their precarious, intricate prisons, then another five to liberate him completely. The foot Jester was tickling is released rather easily; it’s the other one that gives them trouble. They have to crawl on their bellies between spikes of twisted metal to reach it, then dig his leg out all the way up to his knee. The elf doesn’t dare move his palms from his eyes until he feels the shackles around his limb go lax, and suddenly, the possibility of escape is tangible. After removing some of the excess debris surrounding his thighs and hips, Essek finds he can wriggle a few inches out from under the boulder. With a look and a nod, Fjord and Yasha grab hold of his arms and give their Kryn friend one final heave. Thanks to extra space Caleb and Jester dug out around his body, the combined strength of the pair manages to pop him free and drag his exhausted form to safety.
“You did it!” Veth cheers.
“He’s out, guys!” Beau hollers at the others.
“Hey, that’s great. Nice job, everyone.”
Fjord and Yasha hoist him off the ground to his feet—one of which is still missing a boot. Essek staggers a little once he’s standing upright: dirty, disheveled, unbelievably humbled. But freed from the cave-in at last.
Jester crawls out from under the giant stone with Essek’s shoe in her grip, then helps pull Caleb through after her. “Well, would yah look at that! You’re free!” The tiefling’s eyes sparkle with amusement. “Oh, wow—you were right, Beau! His face is super pink.” She pats the haversack dangling by her hip. “See? You two match!”
Bristling, Essek snatches his boot from her hands and glides far away from the group, wrestling it back over his foot with his back facing them. Jester flinches a little, smile fading.
“Oh, man. Are you mad at me, Essek?”
The drow says nothing, cinching the leather threads as tight as possible around his shin. Jester worries her hands in front of her chest, stomach twisting with guilt.
“Please don’t be mad, Essek. I wasn’t trying to make you upset. Your laugh is just so cute! I never would’ve expected someone as cool and serious as you to laugh like that or have such ticklish feet.”
When the elf still doesn’t reply, Jester rushes forward and wraps him into a bone-crushing hug, tears slipping down her cheeks as her voice wobbles with dismay. “I’m so sorry if you’re mad! I can’t stand the thought of you mad at me, Essek! How can I make it up to you? I’ll do anything you ask! I can modify everyone’s memories so we all forget everything that just happened! I can let you tickle me until I pee myself! I can give you a tattoo of anything you want, totally free of charge! What can I do?” She squeezes him until he grimaces and buries her face into his back. “Please tell me what to do! I don’t want to die with you mad at me!”
At that, Essek can’t help but wince. An exasperated sigh eases from the Shadowhand’s chest. Clearing his throat, he casts a few Prestidigitations cantrips over himself to shed the grime off his dusty form, then does the same to the tiefling.
“I am not mad, Jester,” he says reluctantly, ears and neck still burning with warmth. “I am no stranger to your benign, playful trickery; it is something I have actually grown quite fond of, and I understand that this was intended as such.” The drow pauses to swallow. “But…I cannot say I particularly enjoy being patronized and humiliated within an inch of my life for the amusement of others.”
“Being ticklish isn’t humiliating!” Jester insists, keeping the Shadowhand ensnared in her arms. “It’s the cutest thing ever! Knowing that about you only makes us love you even more than we did before.”
Essek huffs sorely. “Yes, well. Be that as it may, there is also the matter of you…” His voice trails off as he eyes the rest of the group, then returns a moment later, much quieter and more jagged than before. “Forcing me to say things I intended to keep private. Now everyone here knows what a doltish, senseless fool I am.” Despite his efforts to keep it at bay, blush burns across his skin like red-hot embers crawling through his veins. His head droops just slightly, shame knotting in his chest. “I doubt I can bring myself to look Caleb in the eye ever again.”
Jester’s hands move up to his shoulders to spin the drow to face her—which is pretty easy to do, given that he’s floating a couple inches off the ground. She cups his cheeks in her palms and forces him to meet her gaze, which is surprisingly soft and sympathetic.
“That was really uncool of me,” she admits. “I figured you’d just say me again ‘cuz I’m so hot and irresistible and stuff, and then we’d all laugh about it afterwards.” She drops her voice even lower, lips curving into a smile. “But I should’ve known you’d say Caleb. We’ve all seen the way you look at him when you think no one’s watching.”
Essek’s heart leaps into his throat. “You—what?”
The tiefling giggles brightly, tail swishing back and forth. “Don’t worry. Caleb looks at you the exact same way. Neither of you are as subtle as you think.”
A thousand warring thoughts and feelings spiral around the drow’s head at her words, clashing and melding and colliding together like remnants of dying stars. The connection between his mouth and brain seems temporarily inoperable for the moment. Jester drops her hands back onto his shoulders.
“For what it's worth, Caleb didn’t hear what you said. And I’ll make sure no one tells him. At least, not until you’re ready for him to know how you feel.”
A partial comfort from an otherwise violently disconcerting revelation. Everyone knows about his fondness for Caleb? Everyone? Are the Shadowhand’s inclinations really that transparent? He’s still only beginning to come to terms with and understand those inclinations himself, yet in the meantime, his new friends have already thrown back all the curtains and pierced through every veil. The Mighty Nein are unnervingly keen at unearthing truths about Essek Thelyss even he isn’t fully aware of himself; not to mention, embarrassing the absolute shit out of him. It is both a gift and a curse to be seen so openly by others.
“I bet he likes you even more now after hearing how cute your laugh is,” Jester whispers, elongated canines poking out from behind her grin. The tiefling brightens suddenly, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder. “Oh! Maybe that’s how I can make all this up to you!” She turns back to the drow, eyes glittering with mischief and excitement. “How about this: if we all manage to stop the end of the world and not die gruesome, tragic deaths, I’ll get Caleb next.”
Essek blinks at her. “‘Get’ Caleb?” he repeats back, puzzled.
“Yeah! You know—tickle him just like I tickled you today! That way you won’t be the only grumpy wizard in the group who got tickled out of your mind in front of everyone!” She pauses, cocking her head to the left and frowning up at the ceiling. “Now that I think about it, I don’t know if I’ve heard Caleb really laugh before, either. What is with you stuffy mages and never letting yourselves laugh? We need to fix that as soon as possible.” She beams at him expectantly. “What do you think? Would that make you less angry with me?”
Essek considers her proposal bemusedly. “I…hesitate at the thought of subjecting Caleb to any variation of the torture you just put me through. You have a deftness for dismantling wills and unmasking weaknesses that even Lolth would shudder at.”
Jester curtsies proudly. “Thank you. I am very talented.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of the elf’s mouth. “That being said, I am…curious. I can hardly picture what that would sound like or look like on him. He is not one for large displays of emotion—especially the positive sort.” He scratches the heated column of his throat. “It would certainly be…enlightening.”
“Yeah. And cute as fuck.”
Essek gives an awkward chuckle. “Perhaps.”
Seeing the tension leave the drow’s features, Caleb chooses now to approach the pair, dusting dirt off the bundle of fabric in his arms. “Have you apologized to our friend for your needless cruelty?” he asks Jester. “It will be a miracle if we reach Cognouza without you driving him off first.”
Still sheepish from the past thirty minutes of indignity, Essek fiddles with the silver jewelry adorning his ears without meeting the handsome wizard’s gaze. “Fortunately for you all, my means of absconding this mortification are, at present, painfully limited.”
“Do not be too chastened,” Caleb insists with an affectionate smile. “Being thoroughly embarrassed by Jester Lavorre is one of the quintessential rites of passage for Mighty Nein membership.”
“It’s true,” the tiefling agrees, petting the crimson weasel inside her hood. Essek shifts his gaze between the three of them, then combs a bashful hand through his hair, erecting his spine and rolling his shoulders back.
“Well. On the bright side, should all of us perish tomorrow, then there will be no one left alive to remember this all-encompassing humiliation.”
Jester cackles boisterously at that, which drowns out the near-inaudible chuckle from Caleb. Essek levies all his attention on the human’s face in that moment, trying to envision him with his head tossed back and his expression flayed open in an unbridled smile, ivory skin tinged scarlet as he peals into explosive laughter. As acute as his mind may be, the elf cannot conjure the image of the man in such a state. So odd to think that not even Jester has borne witness to it. If none of the Mighty Nein have ever heard Caleb’s real laugh before, is it possible that no one has?
Yes, Essek decides, renouncing his previous hesitancy. He would very much like to see the wizard’s reaction to enduring a bout of Jester’s giggle-inducing, devilish trickery. Now, he supposes, as a potential spectator rather than the quarry, he can acknowledge the appeal.
Caleb unravels the thick fabric in his arms, which Essek now recognizes as his mantle, and gives it a few quick fluffs. “Here you are,” he says, holding up the cloak for him. At Essek’s timid bow of consent, Caleb maneuvers around the floating drow to drape the shroud back over both shoulders, returning the Shadowhand to his standard ornate visage. The elf raises his hands to clip the front of the cloak together, but Caleb’s are already there, fastening the clasp for him. In that brief moment of miscommunication, Essek’s fingers brush over the human’s before dropping briskly to his sides. His cheeks ignite, and both mages avoid each others’ gazes like the plague. It takes Caleb a bit longer than anticipated, an odd stint of clumsiness momentarily impeding his abilities. But eventually, he finishes re-hooking the mantle for him, then takes a step back to admire his work.
“Good as new,” he states in a level voice. But the pink flush dusted across his complexion betrays his veneer of composure. Essek smiles softly at him, wondering if the others can plainly see the indomitable affection radiating from it, but also not really caring that much if they do. Someone ought to know a semblance of what the Shadowhand feels for Caleb Widogast before they all die tomorrow.
Jester sidles up beside Caleb and elbows him in the ribs. “Essek’s laugh is pretty cute, don’t you think?” she snickers teasingly. Caleb’s ears turn a shade darker in tandem with the drow’s.
“I…” the human stammers, caught off guard by the question. An uncomfortable sound punches out of him. “I think your methods of eliciting it from him are rather…uncouth.” His eyes flick up to Essek’s, a coltish yet apologetic smile on his face. “But yes. It is very cute.”
Before Essek has time to digest that, Jester jabs Caleb in the ribs again, this time with her finger. The human jumps from her touch with a small yelp of surprise. “Don’t worry,” she assures him with a grin. “I’m making it up to him by getting you next.”
Caleb guards his midsection with a befuddled look on his face. “What do you—what does that mean?” he asks warily.
“Well, now that we’ve heard Essek’s real laugh, I want to hear yours! You’re the only person left in our group who I’ve never heard, like, full-on belly laugh before, so now it’s my mission to make it happen!”
Caleb’s wide eyes slide between the two of them. “I have…laughed before,” he protests gingerly. “I’ve probably laughed more in my time spent with all of you than I have in my entire life.”
Jester crosses her arm and shakes her head, her mind made up. “That’s even worse! If this is the most you’ve ever laughed in your life, which is barely at all, then now I’m even more determined to make you laugh super hard for real!”
Essek lifts his chin and hints a playful smirk. “I must admit, I am also quite interested in hearing what that would sound like.”
Caleb turns to the floating drow, gawking. “I’m the one who helped you escape this one’s wrath!” he reminds him. “Now you want to turn that wrath back on me? If there’s anyone here you should be seeking revenge on, it’s her!”
“But I have already heard her laugh,” he points out innocuously. “I have not heard yours.”
If possible, the human’s face reddens deeper. It’s a refreshing change of pace: causing somebody else to blush and squirm, rather than having it inflicted upon himself. Essek quite enjoys the dynamic when he’s on this side of it.
Mastering himself, Caleb sighs. “I’m going to temporarily compartmentalize the abject horror of you two conspiring against me until after we stop the apocalypse, and go ahead and start setting up the dome.” He retrieves his spellbook from the leather holster at his side and plops to the ground in front of them, thumbing through the worn, delicate pages. “I don’t know about you, but I’m erschöpft.”
“Ooh. Trapping yourself in a tiny bubble with us that you’re not allowed to leave, right after what we just told you?” Jester wiggles her fingers at him with a dastardly grin. “That is a pretty bold move, Caleb.”
Caleb doesn’t even look up. “If you’d like to spend the evening shivering alongside our charming Aeorian monster friends, then please, go right ahead.”
Jester considers this for a moment, then huffs, pouting her lip and slumping her shoulders. “You’re no fun,” she grumbles. She bumps Essek’s shoulder as she skips back towards the others. “I’ll start devising our plan to tickle him to death ASAP. I have a feeling his ribs are gonna be his worst spot!”
With that, the tiefling trots away, joining the huddle around Caduceus, who’s started brewing a pot of tea for the group. Caleb continues ritually casting Leodmund’s Tiny Hut without raising his head, but the small twitch in his expression and momentary fault in his concentration doesn’t escape the Shadowhand’s canny eye. Essek hovers beside him, hesitating for a second, then carefully lowers himself to the ground, levitating hardly an inch off the floor with his legs in a criss-cross position.
“May I sit here with you?” he asks quietly. “I…do not feel ready to face the others just yet.” He lowers his gaze and spins a silver band around his thumb, a cross between a smile and self-conscious grimace on his face. “I’m not sure I will ever recover from the mockery that one has made of me.”
Caleb’s cobalt eyes lift to meet his before dropping back down to his book, a playful curl to his lips. “Everyone in this group has made a mockery of themselves in some form or another,” he assures him, pulling spell components from his bag and arranging them in neat little rows. “I doubt they’ve lost any respect for you just because you sound like a hyena when you laugh.”
Essek’s jaw falls open. “A—a hyena?” he scoffs incredulously, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Now you understand why I must hear what your laugh sounds like, so that I may slight you with an equally scathing comparison.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Caleb chuckles with a shrug. “Hyena laughter is quite endearing.”
Essek’s belly warms at the backhanded compliment. Caleb rolls a crystal bead in his hand as he flips to the next page of the tome. “Now I suppose either outcome of the battle ahead will be in our favor,” he adds. “If we win, we save the world and possibly get to live another day. If we lose, and all of us die, all of our mockery dies with us, along with my mounting concerns for you and Jester’s nefarious schemes.”
The drow laughs lightly. “How fortuitous. A win-win scenario.” He hazards a glance at the rest of the Mighty Nein, twirling his ring in the opposite direction. “But I believe we will win.”
Following Essek's gaze, a low breath looses from the young wizard’s lips. “Then I suppose I’ll need to stay on my toes.” His attention returns to the spell book as he drags a finger beneath a dark line of text, the corner of his mouth ticking upwards. “And you’ll need to guard yours. You’re fooling yourself if you think Jester’s appetite for trickery has been sated by today’s wiles. Now that she knows your weakness, she’s going to be watching you like a fucking hawk, waiting for her next chance to strike.” He reaches out and flicks the tip of Essek’s boot. “Best be vigilant.”
Essek suppresses a shudder, flexing his foot inside his shoe, phantom sensations still tingling across his sole. “Trust me: I most certainly will be.”
The pair sits in comfortable silence until Caleb finishes the spell, and the dome expands around them like a giant, magical balloon. When the others eventually join them inside, they possess enough courtesy not to divulge Essek’s embarrassing confession to Caleb, for which the drow is grateful—although they don’t hold back on any of the smug looks or smirks they send his way. He settles into a trance as quickly as he can to stave off the worst of it, letting thoughts of the future dance and drift through his mind. Now, it seems, he has a couple more things to look forward to, should they survive the fateful encounter awaiting them at the heart of Aeor.
It's very rare, but sometimes TurbOkarun will run slow. We are beholding such an instance 😋 Some lee!Momo, as requested 😘😁 Hope you all enjoy! 💕 Love yas!
Curt couldn't have at least waited a little longer before getting captured? At least Owen could show him this cool feather he found :)
I went into this wanting to practice writing with a bit more detail and I think I got more than I bargained for. No I wasn't blushing writing this shut the fuck up. ANYWAYS I hope that you enjoy these silly gay spies and their stupid adventures and Owen getting to be evil in a fun silly sexy way because I sure did <333
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
The click of the safety disengaging echoed through the room, swiftly followed by the cold barrel of a gun being pressed against the back of Owen’s head. Honestly, the fact that someone had managed to sneak up on him disturbed him more than the actual firearm did.
Nobody should’ve been able to get the drop on him. Curt was on this mission with Owen and he’d agreed (after far too much coercion) to stand watch while Owen cracked the safe as he had more expertise in this particular model.
But, this man was here, and Curt wasn’t, which likely meant—
“We have your partner.” Yeah, that.
Owen heaved a long-suffering sigh, “Already? We just bloody got here, for Christ’s sake!”
Sure, Curt had a tendency to make stupid decisions on missions. But did it really have to be so soon? He knew that he should’ve kept an ear out, just in case.
The gun nudged against the back of Owen’s head, reminding him of its presence, “We’ve got you too,” the voice said, “So don’t get all uppity about it. We’re going to take you back to your friend, tie you nice and snug so you can’t move when we torture you, and then he’s going to tell us everything he knows.”
At some point, Owen needed to have a conversation with the first person to monologue their so-called “evil plan.” He’s not sure whether it would be to scold or thank them, but he’d probably figure it out.
“So you don’t plan on starting on him until I’m there? That’s good to know. Now, just give me one moment if you wouldn’t mind—”
It was almost embarrassing how easy it was to disarm the man. By the time he pulled the trigger, Owen had already redirected his aim and the bullet whizzed harmlessly past his ear. The crunch of his fingers as Owen twisted the gun out of his grasp was nearly drowned out by the bullet firing up through his jaw.
As the man fell to the ground, Owen spotted another in the doorway who reacted just a second too slow, clearly not having expected his colleague’s death, and he hit the floor just moments after the first.
Owen took a brief moment to disarm them both, listening for footsteps that didn’t come, muttering to himself all the while.
He went back to the safe, making quick work of it. “Oooo look at me! I’m Curt Mega! I tell my partner that I’m going to keep watch and then immediately leave him to be shot because I probably saw something shiny on the ground!”
The door swings open and Owen swiftly tucked the blueprints that they’d been sent to find into an interior pocket in his jacket. He was just about to close the door when he noticed a set of quills carefully tucked along the side.
One of the more pompous ones found a home alongside the blueprints, if only to make Curt laugh with its reveal. He’d probably make some jab about Owen finally being a ‘proper Englishman’ or some other inane claim.
Speaking of Curt, he probably shouldn’t be kept waiting any longer than necessary. They may have wanted Owen to aid with questioning, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t get started without him.
Owen slipped out of the room, moving through the shadows and bringing the knife he always keeps, quite literally, up his sleeve into his palm. Just because nobody had come running at the two gunshots didn’t give Owen any room to get sloppy.
Shadows are his best friend and he makes sure to stick close, slitting the throat of any unfortunate soul who crossed his path before they could make enough noise to alert anyone else to his presence. All the while, he kept a keen ear out for Curt’s voice. Knowing him, that would be what Owen heard before anything else.
And, of course, Owen was proven right mere moments later when he heard “You call that a punch?! My grandma can hit harder than that and she’s been dead since I was two—OW! What the fuck was that for?”
“Your friend will be here any moment,” A man with a thick Russian accent spoke, which was odd considering they weren’t in Russia last time Owen checked. He was big and burly and certainly someone that he was going to have to look into after they were finished. “I’m sure that when you hear his pretty little cries, you will be more inclined to speak. Or perhaps we will try it the other way around? That way I can have some real fun with you, da?”
That was…not exactly reassuring.
“You’re a fucking creep, did you know that?” Oh Curt, always so eloquent.
Owen peered into the room through the window in the door and was shocked to be presented with a clear line of sight. With all the effort he put into getting here, this was honestly quite disappointing.
Well, he’s not one to look a waste an opportunity such as this, so Owen wastes no time in lining up his shot and pulling the trigger. An arm flies up to his face to shield it from shards of glass and he opens his eyes once more to the Russian dead on the ground, blood pooling from a perfect shot to the head.
“My my, Agent Mega,” Owen swung the door open with a flourish because he had earned the right to be a little dramatic goddamnit, “We really have to stop meeting like this.”
Admittedly, a bit of his ire did melt away at the beaming smile Curt directed at him. Lucky for him, Owen had quite a bit of ire stored up, so it didn’t make much of a difference.
At Owen’s dry stare, Curt’s grin morphed into something a bit more sheepish as he said “It was an accident this time!”
Jesus Christ. “Are you implying that there were times that you were caught on purpose?”
Matters were not helped by Curt’s unapologetic shrug, “I get bored sometimes.”
A bruise was already blooming across Curt’s right cheekbone and Owen took a deep breath to restrain himself from making it symmetical.
Curt was bound securely to a chair, as these things typically went, and faced an identical chair with restraints that Owen assumed were meant for him. A brief survey of the situation led Owen to see that these ties would not be swiftly undone, or not swiftly enough, at least.
Or, that’s just what he told Curt, but who’s keeping track?
“I don’t want to take any risks, so I’m going to do a sweep of the building and dispose of any stragglers,” Owen said, smirking as Curt’s jaw dropped slightly, “I’ll return as soon as I’m able to free you. Maybe take this time to consider what landed you in this situation.”
He turned and walked back out the door to Curt’s “Owen? Owen don’t leave me here! I swear to God—Owen!”
It didn’t take long to finish his sweep, anyone Owen hadn’t originally found or had made their escape was dealt with. And then he did one more quick survey for anything he might’ve missed.
Just in case.
The view Owen was greeted with as he returned was certainly a gratifying one. Curt sat slumped in his seat, staring sullenly at the door as his bottom lip jutted out slightly. He looked like a kid put in the timeout corner, which is exactly what he was at the moment.
“So,” He said, walking forward and leaning down until he was inches away from Curt’s face, “What did we learn from this?”
Curt just rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath, so Owen leaned in a little closer. “What was that?”
“Don’t get distracted when I’m supposed to be watching your back.” At least he looked a little remorseful, so there was that as consolation.
Owen reached out to give him an approving, if slightly condescending scratch under his chin. “Good boy. Now—oh?”
Red began to seep into Curt’s features as Owen wrested his hand from where it had been trapped between Curt’s chin and his chest. His partner’s lips were sealed shut, likely to prevent any more sounds like that choked-off squeal from escaping.
But it was too late, and Owen longed to chase that noise.
“Ah yes, sorry, I must have forgotten about your little weakness.” Owen tucked his hands into his pockets as he circled Curt, surveying for weaknesses. He leaned in close from behind and whispered, “What a truly unfortunate position to be trapped in. If only someone had advised you against doing anything stupid before this mission began.”
As his breath ghosted against Curt’s neck, he took note of the violent shiver paired with the suppressed flinch at the sensation, and an idea began to form.
Of course, Curt did what he was so prone to doing, and started talking. “Look, Owen! Why don’t we just call this whole thing a mistake on my end and get going, huh? I’ll scan the blueprints and you can take the actual thing because I know how much you Brits love your filing. Whaddaya say to that, old boy?”
Oh, he was nervous. Risking Cynthia’s wrath in an attempt to appease Owen was a dangerous game, and he was almost tempted by the way his voice wavered near the end.
But… “We both know that you were going to let me take them anyway.” Owen unzipped his coat, “You know, I found something that I think you’ll enjoy with me being a proper Brit and all.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Thrown by the abrupt change in topic, Curt tried to crane his head to see what Owen was talking about, but Owen made sure to keep what he was doing firmly out of sight.
He withdrew the feather from his inner pocket, twirling it between his fingers before swiping it questioningly across the nape of Curt’s neck and oh, reaping the rewards of situations like these was a beautiful, wonderful thing.
A sound that was nothing short of a scream tore itself out of Curt’s throat and the chair that Owen would’ve sworn was bolted to the floor just shifted under the force of Curt trying to throw himself bodily away.
Silence echoed for a brief moment before Curt cracked. “Owen! You don’t have to do this! Look, I’ll do anything you want!”
Huh. “Anything?”
“Yes, you fucker!”
Owen wished that he could bottle up this moment and keep it forever. He’d never want for anything else.
“Well then,” He ran a soothing hand through Curt’s hair before gripping it tight and whispering in his ear, “Laugh for me, love.”
With Curt’s head near immobilized, Owen got to work. He was just as methodical and precise in this venture as he would be in any mission, cataloguing gasps and squeaks and squeals with a single-minded focus employed only in interrogation rooms.
To start, he slowly dragged the feather across the nape of Curt’s neck, waited a brief moment, then did it again. The fist in his hair kept him still enough and his pleading fell on deaf, uncaring ears.
It seemed as though his pitch jumped when the feather was centered, brushing over the top of his spine.
So, when Owen decided to focus his attention a bit more on that spot, “OWEN! Ohohohohohowen holyshit fuhuhucking PLEHEHEASE! Shitshitshit sohohohohohomewhere ehehelse!”
Taking careful note of the lack of the words no or stop, Owen decided to acquiesce and move so he was facing his partner. For the first time since this truly began, Owen was able to get a good, proper look at Curt’s face.
And he was glowing.
Owen nearly had the breath knocked out of him by the sheer beauty of the man in front of him. A wide smile was plastered across his face and his eyes were shining. However, some of that may be due to the few stray tears that had begun trickling out and that Owen tenderly wiped away with his thumb, smile softening when Curt leaned into the touch.
“You,” Curt huffed, “Are an evil man, Owen Carvour. Do you plan on letting me out any time soon?”
A hum reverberated through Owen’s chest as he contemplated before firmly grasping Curt’s chin, angling his head up to look him in the eye. “My fun’s only just started, love. But, I’m sure that I could be persuaded to show a little mercy. You did miss out on your interrogation, after all.”
Curt’s breaths were coming in sharp bursts, eyes glued to the feather inching ever closer, “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Well, I’m feeling rather generous so I’ll make this easy. Simply admit that I’m the better spy and we can be on our merry way.” Owen’s lips curled in a challenging grin, watching Curt’s eyes snap up to his, narrowed.
It was an out, simple as that. Owen was giving Curt the opportunity to ask for this to stop with minimal damage to his ego. He wasn’t a monster, the moment he sensed genuine discomfort was the moment he stopped.
Which is why, when Curt’s response was “Kiss my ass, Carvour,” Owen didn’t feel even a shred of remorse.
“It’s your funeral. Let me know when you change your mind, agent.” He angled Curt’s head a little higher and fluttered the feather under his chin, revelling in the frantic laughter that immediately spilled from his lips.
He stayed there for a while, exploring, learning that tracing his jaw elicited breathy giggles while dusting over his collarbones drew out little snorts in between. All the while, Curt tugged desperately at his bonds, cursed Owen out in several languages, and laughed.
But not once did he tell Owen to stop.
And then, Owen’s hand slipped, and the feather curled around Curt’s ear.
“SHIT!” Curt froze for a moment, shocked by his own reaction. He looked up at Owen and a spark of fear entered his eyes. “Now, baby, we can talk about this!”
“Talk all you want, Mega. There’s only one thing I want to hear.” Still, Owen waited a few moments for a concession that never came, just in case.
Nothing. “Suit yourself.”
His first attempt at threading his weapon of choice behind Curt’s ear was met with a jolt so fierce that Owen almost feared that he’d given himself whiplash. For his own safety, Owen pressed a firm hand against Curt’s cheek, holding it still so as to prevent any potential injuries.
Then, excruciatingly slowly, Owen dragged the feather along the shell of his ear, allowing some of the fronds to slip behind and dance across vulnerable skin.
Curt’s mouth dropped open in a soundless scream before words came rushing back to him. “NononononONONONO OHOHOHOHOWEN PLEASE! I CAHAHAHAN’T! SHITSHITSHIT NAHAHAHAH HAVE MEHEHERCY!”
And since none of those were the correct words, Owen switched over to his other ear, giving it the same treatment. For a few moments, he darted back and forth, occasionally swiping across his neck to keep him guessing.
Owen looked at the feather curiously. All this commotion over something so delicate, he truly would never understand this man he’d somehow fallen in love with. As an experiment, he stuck the feather into Curt’s ear and twisted it.
That’s when Curt went from cracked to shattered.
“OKAY! OKAHAHAHAY I GIVE! YOHOHOU’RE THE BEHEHEHETTER SPY!”
At that, Owen immediately withdrew, tucking the quill into his pocket for safekeeping as he worked to undo the binds.
They were expertly done, just as he’d suspected, and Curt certainly wasn’t helping matters slouched over the way he was. But Owen didn’t say anything and Curt was very nearly recovered by the time he was done.
“That wasn’t so hard now was it?” Owen crouched down between Curt’s legs to look up at him, placing gentle hands on his knees. “Do I need to carry you out of here or can you walk?”
Curt just flipped him off before standing, ignoring the slight wobble in his balance as he found his footing. “What, that? That was nothing!” Owen reached a hand threateningly towards his pocket, prompting a nervous step back, “Wait no I’m sorry! You win I lose and all that.”
A smug smile situated itself on Owen’s face. “Yes, well, let this be a lesson to you to try and avoid this situation in the future. Perhaps next time I will have to use the other side of the quill.”
“You don’t have to do that!” Curt quickly made his way out of the room.
Owen trailed after him, musing “I could write my name. Let everyone know exactly who it is that you belong to.” He smirked at the slight stumble in Curt’s step, “Or I could simply write Curt is ticklish over and over again. What do you think?”
“What I think,” Curt whirled around, blush high on his cheeks, “Is that I’m fucking exhausted and need some sleep. To make up for this, you better be in that fucking bed with me or so help me God I will—”
“Can’t make up for something that you so clearly enjoyed.” Owen cut him off, thoroughly enjoying the way Curt gaped as he stumbled over his words.
“I—I didn’t—You little.” He took a deep breath and composed himself, “I did not like it and you owe me.”
Owen heaved a put-upon sigh, as though sleeping while holding the love of his life in his arms was some sort of chore and not the one thing he would rather be doing for the rest of his natural life. “I suppose. It’s never good to leave a debt unpaid, you know.”
Seemingly satisfied, Curt continued leading them out of the building, leaving Owen to mutter to himself, “It seems as though making you admit it shall have to wait until next time.”
It was always good to have something to look forward to, after all.
Thanks for the support for my birthday writing excursion, everyone ❤️ A thousand words in, and I'm still going. I do apologize that I couldn't get it posted on my birthday, but this is more than I've written in a very long time, and I owe it all to you guys. I'm excited to share it with you later this week 💕
OMG happy almost birthday! I've always loved your writing so I'd love to see it if you write something – but please be easy on yourself on your birthday. :)
I have written, taken it easy, and by your power I will take it!! 😁 Thank you!! ❤️
This is very silly, but it's my birthday tomorrow, and I'm determined to finish writing and post something, but it's been a while 😅 If you would feel so inclined as to send me a little encouraging message to help spur me along, it would be the greatest gift to me 🥰 Thanks, loves
Oh god, watch it, please! This thins is like audio-visual antidepressants. it’s so innocent and joyful and uncomplicated, and just the right level of interesting to hold your attention and let you slip into a happy little place inside your brain. This video has stopped me from having panic attacks, I swear.
Panda’s Notes: It never ends. >w< This started out as a dumb story where Hobie actually doesn't know he changes color with his emotions. Now it's a hurt/comfort something or other that I hesitate to call a character study. Probably not. I hope you guys like it. I might adjust the ending; it was not really beta-read. >w<
[Ao3] || [Commissions!] || [Ko-fi]
Hobie Brown doesn’t believe in consistency. Hobie Brown doesn’t believe in labels.
So, if it came to light that there was a…little quirk about him that consistently labelled certain little “moods” he gets into, one could understand how he’d be hesitant to believe it.
Or maybe he’s just in denial.
“The fuck you mean I change colors?” He asked incredulously, his whole body shifting to a sort of greyscale before Miles’ eyes.
“That! You just did it!” Miles’ hands flailed a bit before he gripped his sleeves, and he laughed a bit at the look Hobie gave him. “When you get upset, you turn grey.”
“I can’t be grey already, mate, come off it.” Hobie chuckled, running his fingers along his hairline before returning his hand to the neck of his guitar. “Though, between the Spider thing and you lot on my arse all the time, the stress could be gettin’ me.”
Miles scoffed, offended. “You know that’s not what I meant! And since when do we stress you—” He paused, realization lighting his face as Hobie’s scheme turned to several tones of pink. “You’re messing with me!”
“Oh?” His voice remained steady, but his eyes were distinctly smug. “I felt like that was pretty serious just now. Full sincerity.”
“No, because you always turn pink when you’re being a goof.”
He froze, fingers catching a sour note on his guitar. Miles flinched a little when just his eyes moved to stare at him. That side-eye alone could level mountains.
…But he was still pink.
Miles eyed him warily, crossing his arms. “I know you’re just trying to get in my head.”
Hobie laughed quietly, and his color returned to…normal? Red Spider suit; black vest; and his skin was actually a human color. Yeah, this could be considered normal. “Hate to break it to you, mate; but it’s very easy to get into your head. You get in there so much on your own; you start leaving the door open.”
Miles pouted, but he inched closer to Hobie’s side and rested his head on his shoulder.
Hobie smiled a bit more, plucking a few notes. “Bit of a fuss-bucket, but we like that about you. ‘S cute.” He leaned in turn, letting his head rest on top of Miles’ as he hummed softly.
“Someone has to worry about you and Gwen, especially when you start scheming together. Or not checking in for days; remember the talk we had about that?”
“Gotta unplug sometimes, my guy.” His color shifted again, flipping between grey and another muted palette. “You…you worry about us?”
“Always. You guys both bottle everything up and then act like drinking from it will make it go away.”
Hobie winced, but he couldn’t help another little laugh. “That’s a half decent line, innit? I…You worry about me, huh?” He murmured, his hands going a little tense before he suddenly looked away and cursed under his breath.
Miles glanced at him curiously as he flickered again, between those muted tones and his bright pink. “Are you—”
“Shut up.” Hobie ran his thumb under his eye, a smile stuck on his face as his body settled into the pink palette.
“Hobie!” Miles said just a bit teasingly, hugging the taller boy’s arm and rocking against him. “You’re all pink~ You turn pink when you’re happy, is that it?”
“I don’t turn colors; what are you on about?!” He let himself rock with Miles, reaching to ruffle his hair with his free hand. “An’ I’m not happy; I’m miserable. You’re out here tormenting me.” He carried on dramatically, slipping his arms around Miles and pulling him into his side as he started to lean over. “Makin’ me cry and all. Terrible.”
“Aw, poor thing.” Miles snorted, trying to get his hands between them again. “Maybe I should cheer you up?” He got one hand just under Hobie’s vest, squeezing his side a few times.
“Oi, watch it!” Hobie yelped, giggles starting to slip out as he tried to lean into Miles. “You’re tickling!”
“You’re ticklish?! That’s crazy, man. Unbelievable.” Miles smirked, bringing both hands to scribble up his sides. “That sounds like a cute thing, and you hate being cute.”
“Miles, you—No!” Hobie let out a cackle as Miles grabbed his waist, electricity rushing through his midriff under his touch. Sparks of color flashed across his body, and he tried to shove Miles’ shoulder as his form settled back to pink.
Actually… Now that Miles really thought about it…
“Have you always turned pink when you get tickled?” He asked softly, letting his thumb press circles on Hobie’s hipbone and brushing stray tears off of his face with his free hand.
Hobie slapped lightly at Miles’ face as he giggled. “Stop saying that…” He half whined, lifting the neck of his guitar as he let his head fall onto Miles’ again.
“How do you keep denying it?!” He pulled his hands back, rummaging in his pockets for his cell phone. “Here, c’mere.” He giggled as Hobie slipped his arm around his waist and hooked his chin over his shoulder, and Miles snapped a picture of them without really looking.
“Okay, there, l—What. The. Fuck?!” Miles stared in disbelief at the photo.
Hobie snorted, laughing snidely as his body turned a few neon colors before going pink again. “Oi, that mouth, love.”
“There’s no way—Hobie!” Miles squeaked as Hobie suddenly pressed a flurry of kisses against his neck and cheek, his phone slipping out of his hand as he laughed.
Sure enough, the photo only showed the pair of them: with Hobie’s red Spider Suit, black vest, and dark brown skin.
-------------
Gwen had made the fatal mistake of letting Hobie bring her to a pub in his dimension. She had also made the mistake of letting him drag her to three more after that. They were cuddled up in the hammock Hobie had strung up on one side of his bedroom, rocking slowly as the canal shifted the boat.
“Not really sure why you thought you could beat Karl on that third one, lovey.” Hobie purred, fingers carding through Gwen’s hair as her head rested on his chest. “How many times have you told me you don’t even like whiskey?”
“Not my fault you keep shitty whiskey…” She murmured into his shirt. “’N I needed to shut him up.”
“Forgot the sauce makes you a rude li’l bitch, didn’t I?” Hobie smirked down at her as she set her chin on his chest and tried to glare at him.
“Why are you so okay anyway?” She griped. “You knocked back half a bottle of vodka right at the start.”
“Little lesson for the pub crawl: Ol’ Roy waters down the vodka bottles he serves out. Keeps the good shit for himself. Takes a bribe and a half to get so much as a shot out of him, but you need that buzz to choke down some of the food Mary’ll serve ya. Bet you didn’t even notice how fast we booked when they tried to give you those burger things; they’re awful, and you hadn’t even—Aw, love…”
Gwen’s eyes had fallen closed, and she smiled softly as she snoozed quietly against him. “’M listening… Promise.”
“Sure you are.” He pulled her head to rest against him again, tracing gently along the side of her face. “Kinda important, though, you do need to eat more if you’re gonna drink that much. The healing thing ’ll fix ya quicker, but still. That second place? We hit it just for those chicken strips, okay? The cheap wine was a bonus. And I’m still mad you let Riri take that root beer float from the Winchester, man; you’ve gotta try it.”
“I just try not to eat dairy when I have a stomachache…” She yawned for a moment, stretching her arms and hands like a kitten before loosely clutching at his shirt. “Bad things happen.”
“She said, shortly before getting into a drinking contest with a super soldier and keeling after three shots.”
“Hm? Oh, sorry; I got distracted by your cigarette breath. Run that by me again?”
Hobie barely stifled a laugh, ruffling her hair gently. “Okay. It was only, like, two.”
“Two per pub, more like.”
“Nah, it was not like—” He suddenly paused, thinking back to a few hours prior. “…Shite.”
Gwen chuckled sleepily, trailing off into a quiet snore.
Hobie huffed as he smirked, humming a tune and letting his fingers strum against her spine. He wasn’t entirely sure how long they stayed like that; the rocking of the hammock was good for melting away any semblance of focus. Suddenly, though, a thought jumped out of the remaining haze of alcohol to the front of his mind.
“Oi, Gwendy.” He murmured, dragging his nails more purposefully up and down her back.
She shifted slightly, a smile breaking her face as snickers slipped out. “Mmph… Not funny, Miles…” She grumbled, pushing softly at Hobie’s face.
“Ooh, I’ll try not to be offended at that one, love.” He sneered as she whined. He moved his hand to lightly tickle her ear as it turned bright red. “Remember you told me I could ask you one stupid question a day?”
“Seriously? Now?” She huffed, the pout audible in her voice.
“It’s still today, innit?” He kissed Gwen’s hand when it shoved the side of his face again. “Just the one, I promise.”
“Yeah, yeah…Go on.”
“So, um… Do I, like, change colors?”
Gwen was silent for a second before starting to giggle as she looked up at him. He could tell by her tone that she might still be a little buzzed. “What? Like a chameleon? Hell no!” She asked in disbelief.
“Heh, right?! God, I can’t believe I almost fell for that. Miles tried to get in my head that—”
“You change more like a fever dream.”
And, suddenly, his body flickered between normal and grey. “…What?”
“It’s like… Maybe a strobe light? No. It’s like flashing, but not quick, like…”
“I do not change colors!” He insisted, the greyscale settling in.
“Ack! Volume…”
“Sorry, just—” His palette was quickly muted, and he hugged Gwen close. “I’m pretty sure I would know if I was changing colors all the time, y’know? And you never said anything like that before.”
“I don’t go around questioning how people’s bodies work in other dimensions.” She shrugged, her head falling onto his chest again. “You want me to let you know every time I notice you breathing? I can hear your heartbeat; does that surprise—Oh, that’s really fast, actually.”
“Nah, nah, nah, don’t get distracted.” Hobie ruffled her hair again, his colors shifting brighter as she laughed softly. “Does—Does everyone do it? The gang and all?”
“Your gang here? I mean, yeah. I think it’s just your dimension’s thing. Changing colors with how you feel, I think.”
“Oh, you think now? Which is it?” He turned pink, unable to keep the smile off his face as she stretched groggily and let her hands fall onto his face again.
“Hey, you’re all different. I don’t keep track of all of you. I know most of your little patterns though, Cuddlebug.”
Hobie pouted, feeling his face heat up. “Don’t believe much in patterns…”
“Okay, but then how did I know you’d say that?” She cupped his face in her hands, thumbs drawing the smile along his cheekbones. “I can feel you blushing.”
“Pfft, yeah?” Hobie shifted between pinks and neons, taking hold of one of her wrists. “You wanna feel somethin’, eh?” He dragged the flat of his tongue up her palm, his piercing almost catching between her fingers when she shrieked and pulled away.
“Oh, my god, you fucking weirdo!” She accused, scrubbing her hand against his shirt as he laughed at her.
“I thought you’d see it coming, love~ I’m so easy to predict, apparently.” Hobie sneered, his colors still shifting despite lingering on pink.
“That’s not what I said, you big baby!” A few giggles snuck into her voice as she pushed herself up onto her knees, gripping her head for a moment and wincing.
“Easy there, Gwenny; watch your volume.” He taunted, lifting his hands and letting her brace herself against them. It quickly turned into her trying to shove his hands over his head, which he definitely didn’t just let her do without a fight. Definitely.
“You don’t believe in patterns; do you ever not speak bullshit?” She grumbled, letting go of his hands and crossing her arms.
“Gettin’ a little hostile, aren’t we?” He chuckled, crossing his own arms under his head as his colors flickered again. “I mean, here I am having an existential crisis, and you just want to leave me in the dark.”
“Yeah, you look so bothered by it.” She huffed and rested a hand under her chin. “You’re flipping between stuff, but…You light up when you’re happy; you start fading when you’re down; when you get upset, you turn grey. Actually, no, it’s like: You turn into some kind of newspaper collage. Like, literally, there are words on your face right now. I think they change depending on what’s bothering you…”
Hobie touched his face, finding himself distracted. “When do I turn pink?” He murmured, accidentally interrupting her going on about neon or something.
She snickered just a bit before she grinned brightly. “You turn pink when… God, it might be the best one. You turn pink when something makes you super happy. Happy like when cats purr; it’s your tail wag. You also turn pink when you’re planning pranks or goofing off with the band; it’s so great and—Wait. You said that Miles…” She paused suddenly, thinking for a second. “You do turn pink around Miles a lot, don’t you?! Hobie that’s so cute!”
Hobie groaned, letting his arm fall over his face.
“You turn pink when you blush sometimes too~” She poked his cheek, and a smile crept onto his face. “That’s the happy blush~!”
“Shut up…” He whined, a few giggles sneaking into his voice and getting amplified when Gwen’s fingers started crawling up his ribcage. “Gwen…”
“Is that my Gigglebug?” She asked teasingly, starting to scribble her fingers as her hands moved toward his armpits. “Oh, my god; did Miles find out you like getting tickled?! Is that what this is about?”
“Gwen, I do not—!” He started to insist, only to break into loud giggles when her hands shot up. “Gwendy, please!”
“Oh, yeah? Then why are you still pink?” She giggled a bit herself, bracing her knees around his legs as the hammock started to rock.
“I don’t change colors!”
“Okay, you’re just trying to do the contrarian thing. I love the commitment to the bit, but you are literally tickled pink right now.”
He lashed his hands out, hugging her tight and pulling her back down onto him. It didn’t help much; her fingers still found a bit of wiggle room against his upper ribs, but she rolled her eyes and chuckled.
“I hate you.” He murmured, the bright pink still lingering as he nuzzled into her shoulder.
“Hate you too, punk.” She teased, shifting slightly to kiss his mouth. “Ack! Yeah, that was definitely more than two cigarettes, Hobie.”
He snorted, his colors flickering for a moment as the hammock slowly stopped shaking, and Gwen chuckled and rested her head on his collarbone.
And then the hammock fell to the floor, and both of them laughed themselves hoarse.
------------
“What happened?” Miguel had asked worriedly when he first saw the look on Peter’s face. He had rushed Miguel across the facility and down to the infirmary before finally answering:
“There was an, uh, incident down in Equipment Development.” Peter explained a bit warily. “One of the kids got hurt. Kinda figured you’d want to make a proper report, and he’s not exactly being cooperative.”
Miguel had paused at that, realizing that there were very few Spiders in Spider Society that tended to be uncooperative. Definitely only one uncooperative kid. Sure enough, there was a single occupied bed in the infirmary, and Hobie sat as tense as if he were made of stone. His left forearm was wrapped tightly in bandages, his hand barely having the leeway to squeeze the grip strengthener in his hand.
“Hey, hey, Hobie Brown!” Peter called in a playful tone, clapping Hobie’s shoulder. “Lookin’, uh, a little blue there, eh?”
The muted blue shifted instantly to greyscale, and a distinctly not-human sounding hiss filled the air between them.
“Okay, not funny; got it!” Peter said quickly, stepping back and nudging Miguel forward. “Miguel, here, just needs t—”
“Fucking hell; what’d you bring him for, pops?!” He griped, flopping himself over onto his side and cringing as he adjusted his arm. His voice was groggy, still slightly affected by the heavy anesthetic that had been used on him.
Peter sighed softly, and Miguel rolled his eyes. “I brought him because your injury is, well, pretty bad. We need an incident report, y’know?”
“He said you were being obstinate about it.” Miguel chimed in, and Hobie’s color flickered as his head whipped around to glare at both of them. “He has half a point though. Tell me what happened.”
Hobie huffed, settling back to greyscale as he returned his focus to his hand exercise. “Ain’t nothin’ to write about.”
“Literally, the one thing I asked you for.” Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, if it were nothing, you wouldn’t be sulking in here.”
Instantly, Hobie put on his smirk, rolling onto his other side and looking at them with a shrug. “So, who’s sulking? I feel great.” His greyscale somehow grew cloudy, those dark blues melting in as if the newsprint had been dropped in paint. Neither Miguel nor Peter commented on it.
“I mean, Miguel definitely knows a thing or two about sulking; I’d tend to agree with him on this.” Peter tried another joke. Hobie chuckled, but he didn’t change.
“I don’t believe in agreements, then.” Hobie shrugged, smiling a bit tauntingly.
Miguel eyed him for a moment. “LYLA, pull up the footage from Equipment Development. And the medic’s record.”
Hobie’s face fell before he could catch it, and he sat up quick enough to make himself dizzy. “Oi, Tink—”
“You got it, boss!” LYLA’s voice was bright before she appeared on Miguel’s shoulder. “It is a little rough though.”
Miguel watched through a small holographic window as Hobie assisted Peni with repairing and recalibrating the blade weapons in her mech’s arms. He’d made some joke, and she laughed and punched his arm. They stepped back a bit—not nearly enough, and definitely not behind the designated safety glass—and she pressed a button on a remote. The saw blade spun, apparently picking up speed even after she pressed the button again. They moved warily, and Hobie’s eyes never leaving the mech as he put one arm in front of Peni, his color shifting to the harsh greyscale. It quickly turned into both arms snatching her off the floor when the saw shrieked and launched off of its gear. Miguel tore his eyes away before the impact, clamping his hand over his wrist before the scream could bury itself in his mind.
“Dios mio, kid…” He murmured, and Peter covered his mouth as he tried to find something to say.
Hobie stayed silent, wincing a little as he stared at his arm.
LYLA hummed sympathetically, petting the side of Miguel’s head. “Medics’ report says that the wound was pretty deep. Hobie’s one of the faster healers, but nerve damage is no joke. They want him on observation and physical therapy for a little while before he goes on another mission.”
“And why exactly did you need me to ‘get a report’, Blue?” Hobie asked gruffly. “Just rip me up and piss off, alright?”
“Excuse me?” Miguel might have stammered a bit.
Hobie’s hand clenched as his body stayed that dark grey, and he groaned irritably. “Just tell me how fucking stupid I am! How the irresponsible rebel let a poor li’l bird get hurt! I know what the others said!”
“Wait, wait; hold on.” Peter said slowly, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. “Who said that about you?”
“Oh, like I keep a fucking catalogue of which Red-Suit Peter Parker is which. Come off it.”
Miguel pulled up the video again. Peni got hurt? And if she had gotten hurt, why didn’t Peter mention it? He braced himself as he let it run this time, and he spotted it: The moment of impact, as Hobie held her tight, the very edge of the blade nicked her forehead. And even then, he only realized it had happened when she kept wiping a dribble of blood away from her eye. She was the one to activate her watch and send out an alert, but a few Spiders had already come running as Hobie screamed.
He looked up, watching Hobie bicker with Peter for a few seconds. “Why do you think I’d call you stupid for this?” He asked, and both of them balked at his tone of voice. His eyes were soft, concerned; and his tone seemed a bit shaky.
Hobie cringed, the look on his face incredulous as his colors flickered. “You’re asking me that after last year, huh? We’re only supposed to save some people sometimes, yeah?”
Miguel sighed. “I haven’t forgotten. But don’t try to put words in my mouth about this. I’m not going to scold you for probably saving your friend’s life.”
Hobie rolled his eyes, biting his lip on some comment, surely.
Peter’s hand returned to Hobie’s shoulder, squeezing firmly. “Hobie, no one—No one—should even have the nerve to tell you that you were wrong here. Lab accidents just happen. Peni is safe; no one’s dead; HQ isn’t on fire; I don’t see any sentient saw-based super villains, and you’re not even missing that hand.”
Hobie huffed softly toward the end, remaining mostly stone-faced despite his color shifting brighter.
“Just know you’re amazing, Spider-Man.” Peter said finally, patting Hobie’s back.
A shock of neon flickered through Hobie’s palette, and he let a soft chuckle slip out.
“Oh, that’s what gets a smile out of you, really?”
Hobie lightly shoved Peter’s arm with his good hand. “Yeah, right, pops. You know you ain’t that funny. Lemme go back to my sulking; I’m so good at it.” He let himself fall onto his back, draping his arm across his face and sighing sadly.
And flecks of pink bloomed across his normal colors. Peter gave a look of exaggerated offense, crossing his arms and looking back at Miguel.
Miguel let out a fraction of a chuckle. “Didn’t think you were the type to doubt yourself this much, Spider-Punk.”
“Sorry, Hook, I like to think I’m multifaceted. Full a’ surprises and all.”
He blinked at the nickname, letting a smirk creep onto his face and resting his hands on his hips. “Well, if you can’t pull yourself up out of this little rut, I suppose we’ll have to help you—” He gave a light tap to Peter’s shoulder and winked as they made eye contact. “—And the method might not be so delicate.
“Pfft… Don’t know what I believe less: You thinking I want your help or you thinking I’d need you to be delica—!” His voice was caught in a yelp as one of Miguel’s hands suddenly squeezed one side of his ribcage. As he started to flail, Peter fired a bit of webbing that stuck his bandaged arm to the wall.
“If you really want some commentary, you should probably keep that arm immobilized for a bit.” Peter taunted, leaning closer to scribble gently at Hobie’s other side.
“Oi, hey!” He griped, giggles starting to slip out of him as his free hand pawed Miguel’s arm. “Fuck off; that’s not funny!” He curled over onto his side, pinning Peter’s hand under his weight. It didn’t stop him scribbling his fingers at all, but Hobie seemed determined not to let him have that hand back.
“It’s a little funny.” Miguel shrugged as he sat on the bed as well. He set his left hand firmly on Hobie’s shoulder, flexing the fingers on his right to get them primed. “You called me Hook earlier, didn’t you? I wonder why.” He said it playfully, as if he didn’t actually know, and he dragged his claws gingerly against the back of Hobie’s t-shirt.
Hobie’s legs kicked out as a shriek escaped him, his laughter jumping quickly to cackles as bright pink tones covered his body.
Peter chuckled as he watched them, squeezing Hobie’s side softly until he got the opportunity to pull free when the kid suddenly writhed. “Must be really funny if you’re laughing this much.” He teased, sneaking a few pokes across his stomach. “Hobie ‘Spider-Punk’ Brown stuck in a giggle fit from the evil backscratcher~!”
“Pops!” He laughed, his free hand making a grab for Peter’s wrist again. Miguel, completely undeterred—and maybe a little shocked by it—pulled Hobie to lie flat on his back, and he let his claws scribble softly all across the kid’s stomach. Hobie covered his face, giggling brightly as he seemed to make an effort to keep still.
“Aw, the lone wolf still kicks for tummy scratches.” Peter smirked, leaning on Miguel’s arm and tickling along Hobie’s ribs. “Definitely something Miguel knows about.”
“You are terrible.” Miguel chuckled, shaking his head and sneaking scribbles toward Hobie’s sides.
“You’re both terrible!” Hobie barked out, twisting a bit harder than he meant to and shouting suddenly. “Ack, shit!” Bright red lightning-like bolts flashed along Hobie’s arm as his body flickered between the pink and newsprint palettes.
Peter flailed to remove the webbing from the injured arm, not that there was anything he could do beside watch Hobie ride out the sting of pain. “I am so sorry…” He stammered, suddenly panicked and rambling while Hobie’s voice came out a bit ragged:
“M’fine, m’fine, mate, really.” He insisted, flexing his fingers as best he could and letting out a sigh as the pink tones started to reappear. His eyes fell on Miguel, and when he smirked, Miguel realized he’d been holding his breath.
“You’re fine?” Miguel asked, pushing himself to stand back up.
“As I can be.” Hobie shrugged, grinning harder to cover the wince. “You two gonna stop bothering the invalids now?” His bright pink was muddied by the muted blue, though it flickered between the two.
Peter sighed and shook his head with a weary smile, patting Hobie’s knee as he got up.
Miguel crossed his arms. “Not just yet. Have you told your little crew about this?”
Realization flashed across Hobie’s face, and grey text etched itself into his skin as he tried to push himself up. “Shit, I need to get home, I—”
Miguel grabbed his shoulder before he could accidentally put his weight on the wrong arm. “We can arrange that. I meant: Have you told Gwen and Miles? Or Pavitr?”
For as tall as he was, Hobie seemed to shrink at the idea alone.
“Hobie…” Peter scolded without scolding him.
Hobie pulled a pillow over the side of his head, groaning in frustration. “Ugh, look, okay? I don’t want them worrying over me. I don’t de—” He bit his tongue and paused, the color draining away from him— “They’re busy and all, and I’ll be fine. I begged the doctor not to say anything to you, but Peni had already run off. Then Pops showed up, so, yeah, maybe I was a bit pissed off.”
Both men glanced at each other. Some parts of Spiderman really are always the same.
“They care about you, you know.” Miguel said softly, and Hobie cringed himself into a smaller form. “They love you.”
His hand clenched tighter on the pillow, and bits of the newsprint highlighted itself in pink while others crossed themselves out or tried to become more prominent.
It was sort of an unspoken rule in Spider Society not to read the words that would flash across Hobie’s body, or at the very least, not to comment or draw attention to them. He rarely got emotional enough for them to be legible anyway, but most Spiders could respect the idea of staying out of someone’s head.
But Hobie doesn’t change colors. So, if Miguel’s hand covered up the words “I don’t deserve them” when he pressed his palm to Hobie’s back, it was a coincidence.
“If you stay here to heal up, they’ll notice you missing.” Miguel caught a glimpse of something and glanced away. “If you try to sneak out before you’re healed up, they’ll notice when you can’t use your hand properly. Tell them.”
“…Fine.”
“Promise you’ll do it.”
His colors darkened a bit. “Promise…”
Miguel pat his shoulder firmly, finally stepping back. “And stay behind the safety glass next time. That’s why it’s there.”
Hobie chuckled softly, letting out a quiet sigh as Miguel and Peter made their way out of the infirmary.
“LYLA, let the medics know that Hobie might need another round of painkillers.” Miguel said once they were definitely out of earshot.
She appeared on his shoulder again, a clipboard in her hands. “Already done, boss!”
“By the way, give me an estimate on the kid’s recovery. What do you think?”
She flipped through papers on the board, kicking her feet casually. “Well, based on previous known injuries, and the medic’s report; adding in physical therapy time: I’d say he’ll be mission-ready by next Friday. Probably the Monday after to be 100% normal. Just estimating; you know he’d probably say otherwise.”
Miguel nodded. “Check in once in a while. If he hasn’t told anyone by Wednesday night, drop them a message first thing Thursday.”
Peter looked at him with a smirk, and Miguel rolled his eyes and chuckled.
---------------
“Hobart Brown!” That was Miles’ voice, and it was weighted by his Puerto Rican accent. He was pissed. His sneakers squeaked against the infirmary floor as he stomped up to Hobie’s bed.
Hobie nearly choked on the sip of water he’d taken, catching the grip strengthener when it slipped out of his hand and flickering through several different color palettes.
“Oi. We don’t pull the government names, you know that!” He had barely set his water bottle down when Miles cornered him against the headboard, eyes sharp with rage.
“Shut your punk ass up!” He barked suddenly, seeming to shock both of them for a second. Hobie rested his left hand on his chest, and he felt his face heating up.
“When the hell were you going to tell us that you got hurt?” He continued, crossing his arms as he glared.
Hobie winced, and dark blues settled in with flickers of pink. “I-I, well…When I stopped being hurt?”
“Hobie!” Miles ran his palms over his face, and absolutely none of the anger had drained from his eyes when he looked back up at him. “How could you do this?”
“I did check-ins; you can’t say I didn’t!”
“Yeah, and you lied to us!”
“I—I did not lie. I just…didn’t…”
“Lying by omission is lying, Hobie! And it’s a shitty thing to do to your partners!” His hands were moving a bit wildly before he clutched at his jacket sleeves for a moment. He sighed heavily and let them fall to his sides. Hesitating just a little, Hobie slowly took Miles’ hands into his own, and Miles stared at the remains of the newest scar on his forearm. Miles squeezed his hands tightly, closing his eyes and taking a breath.
“It’s just… After everything that happened, and out of everyone here…You were the one person I thought would never lie to me! Not about important stuff, at least...” He moved one hand to the side of Hobie’s face, brushing his thumb over the words he pretended not to see. “And you are so important! To me and Gwen and Pavitr and your band and so many people.”
In the midst of his speech, Hobie spotted Gwen creeping in with her hands behind her back, but that last part might have gotten to him a bit. The colors on his body fluctuated again, and he felt himself sinking into the hand cradling his face.
“Did you make him cry yet?” Gwen asked a bit playfully, approaching the bed and lightly nudging Miles with her elbow.
“Gwen…” Miles chided softly as brighter tones started to appear on Hobie’s body.
“He has such a way with words, Gwendy; I don’t know what to say.” Hobie leaned to rest his chin on Miles’ head, rubbing his thumbs across his knuckles.
“Yeah, yeah; I wasn’t done, by the way!” Miles pouted.
“I’m not stopping you; I just thought we should give our maybe still-injured partner his flowers.” As she spoke, she pulled a picture frame and a card from behind her back. Pressed inside of the frame was a bouquet of clearly handmade paper flowers wrapped around the neck of a familiar-looking paper guitar.
Hobie found himself staring, the breath stolen from his lungs as he took one corner of the frame in his hand. Gwen didn’t let go, and he was glad for it, because he felt like his hands would have been weak even without the injury.
“Miles made them for you last week—”
“Don’t tell him that!” Miles groaned, blushing as he tried to glare at her. He gestured to Hobie’s face and color with one hand while the other rested its palm on his own face. “See, he’s not going to listen now!”
Hobie had slipped his arm around Miles, pulling him in for a hug and kissing his wrist instead of trying to get him to move it. He had shifted almost completely to a bright pink, bits of text occasionally visible on him before shifting back to blurry lines.
Gwen snickered and sat on the bed, hugging Hobie’s arm. “You seemed pretty off in that first call. Guess we know why now, but he wanted to make you something to cheer you up.”
“I can admit it’s working.” Hobie nodded, smiling at Miles again. “It’s beautiful, love. You never stop amazin’, do ya?”
“Do not compliment me when I’m mad at you.” Miles huffed, his face softening as he looked up.
Hobie set the frame on the table beside the bed, holding the stand out with his pinkie and flexing his hand as he pulled it back. “’S the best time to compliment you though, innit? You care so much; feel so much; I admire that about you.”
Gwen nodded. “Plus, your accent slips out when you’re mad. It’s the cutest thing.”
“He sounds like his mom.”
Gwen slapped Hobie’s arm, barely stifling a snort. “Stop right now. You know his parents already don’t like me. Plus, don’t say that after I saw you blushing when he yelled at you.”
“I like a li’l double meaning, I’m afraid. And Man’s got a bark on him. Makes me weak.”
Miles looked between them, groaning. “Of course you would roll up like this. You two are practically the same.”
They glanced at each other; Hobie’s colors flickered darker, so Gwen was the one who said: “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a type.”
Miles glared at them, but the tiniest hint of a shy smile pulled his lips.
Hobie chuckled softly and shook his head. “Ey, come on, don’t lump her in with my bad decisions. If she had listened to me, she wouldn’t have told you about her broken arm from that Rhino mission.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot you were the one who said that first. Do you do this a lot?” She murmured, and suddenly both of them were eying Hobie with an edge of…judgment? Felt like judgment. Hobie cringed, looking away for a moment.
“I…” No, no, no. He’d jumped from the church wagon a long time ago; no need to start an impromptu confessional.
They love you.
Shit.
“Look, we’re Spiders, okay? We heal fast. I heal faster. When I get hurt, it’s nothing. Maybe I have to sit out for a while, but the crew can handle most work and shows.” The words were just falling out of him without much control, and he found himself squeezing Gwen’s sleeve when one of her hands traced lines on his arm. “My crew—My friends—I feel like they, uh… How the fuck…? T-There’s plenty of them. They go out, knock some heads and chill with each other. You two… You have whole cities to go home to; you’re flying solo when you’re on patrol. And I don’t want to be the one… distracting you?”
Somehow, stopping felt worse than the rambling. They were still staring at him, but their eyes were soft; both of them took hold of one of his hands.
“You wanna translate?” Miles asked, running the pads of his fingers along some older scars before pulling his hand up to kiss his knuckles.
Gwen shook her head, smiling. “Just means he loves us~” She said almost teasingly, lacing her fingers with his and hugging his arm again. “Loves us so much he thinks he’s not good enough.”
“Did I not just get through telling him how important he is to us?” Miles asked in disbelief. “Honestly, this guy.”
“Feelings are dumb like that.” Gwen shrugged, huddling closer to Hobie’s side. “That’s why I can’t stand them.”
“Tell me about it…” Hobie murmured, resting his head on top of hers. “I do care about you birds, though. Can’t really hide from that. Where’s Pavi, by the way?”
“He’s gonna call before he drops in; said he was making your favorite thing from his dimension, and he didn’t want to interrupt us.” Miles finally walked around the bed to properly cuddle up to Hobie’s other side.
“He also told us it was supposed to be a surprise,” Gwen giggled as Miles leered over at her, “but I think Miles was already raging.”
Hobie chuckled, grinning softly as he looked down at his hands. He flexed the fingers on his left hand; they felt a bit stiff, but they moved just fine. Well, fine enough for now; he needed to get his hands on his guitar.
“What are we thinking?” Gwen pressed a kiss just below Hobie’s shoulder.
“Oh, you can’t tell?” Hobie teased, his palette settling on the bright pink tones. “I thought you said I change colors.”
“Do you seriously still think we’re making that up?” Miles laughed lightly.
“Maybe~ What color do you see?”
“You’re pink, as usual, you dork.”
“Cool, so you probably know what I’m going to do next.” He slipped his arms around both of them, hugging them tight as he let his fingers scribble against their stomachs. “Or not? How were you both too slow?” He laughed, speaking over them as they fell into loud giggles and complaints.
And, okay, maybe he could admit that he would call this moment “pink”.
AHHH this one crossed my dash by chance, and I just I NEED it in reach to reread 😍😁 Panda you just always write the best interactions between characters, the relationships feel so warm and comfortable 💕💕💕
Read this if you want to feel like you're getting hugged through your screen 😋💖
