Homing Missile
Notes: For the anon request [prompt for day 14]. I love the idea of Caleb’s ability being used in conjunction with tickling, and then the idea for this fic hit me like a train, so here you go~ Thanks for sending something in!
Summary: Caleb’s abilities add a whole new element when it comes to bringing Adam to hysterics.
It was an unspoken rule that they didn’t talk about it. Even if Caleb wanted to. Even if Caleb found himself glancing over at the other from time to time, watching the slow curl of his lips, the way his fingers twitched against the couch as though yearning to reach up and pull him away.
One of Adam’s arms rested in Caleb’s lap, his gaze trained with almost ferocious intensity on the screen across from him as if he was trying to convince himself to pay attention. It had started with his hands. Lazily messing with his fingers, intertwining Adam’s hands with his, soft touches against his palm. Then one of Caleb’s thumbs had started rubbing against his wrist, the nail just barely grazing the skin. Adam had inhaled unsteadily and shifted, but noticeably hadn’t moved.
“You okay?”
A shaky nod. “Cold. Heater’s broken.”
Hot flushes of nervous embarrassment. Caleb snapped his head up to look at him, taking a moment to put two and two together. Carefully, he moved the touch higher, scratching against his forearm instead. On anyone else, the touch would’ve been soothing. On Adam, it was unbearable. He wasn’t squirming but he wasn’t not squirming. Caleb tried again, dragging his touch down his arm. A shy grin broke the surface of Adam’s face before quickly going into hiding once more.
Caleb could’ve stopped there.
He didn’t.
It had been fifteen minutes now and Caleb had grown bolder as time went on. He traced intricate shapes across the trembling skin that climbed up his veins and stopped just shy of his underarms. Adam seemed to almost climb the couch at that, his whole body shuddering upwards as if to get away before sinking back down in embarrassment.
Adam’s mouth had been caught in a perpetual smile for ages now, but he had yet to laugh and Caleb was getting antsy. His fingers itched to trace over different areas, to dig into the spots that he knew would prompt a glorious fit of un-Adam-like giggles. He probably would have done so by now if it weren’t for the gentle happiness emanating off of Adam, the butterflies flurrying in quiet storms. It was a vulnerable feeling, but nice, and Caleb was content enough to simply bask in it—at least for now.
Adam gripped the couch when Caleb scratched at the bundle of nerves on his inner elbow, eyes crinkling shut for a moment. In front of them, voices blared and blood splattered almost comically on the ground. It had been Adam’s turn to pick the movie for that night—something equally gory and cheesy that they both had tuned out the plot to after the first couple minutes had gone by. Adam tried to play his reactions off as though it were caused by the movie—waiting until a jump scare to let out a shuddery breath and flinch away from swooping nails.
“I have an idea,” Caleb said softly, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough for Adam to pretend ignorance. Caleb shifted into a better position, taking the whole of Adam’s arm into his lap. Adam glanced quizzically over at him but didn’t pull away.
Good. He didn’t want his plan to end before he’d even had a chance to put it in motion.
He started with Adam’s hands, and those annoyingly poignant, elegant fingers that had started all this. Caleb traced almost haphazardly over his palms, closing his eyes and focusing on feeling the shifting, nervous emotions emanating off of Adam. It was like an odd game of hot and cold. He waited until Adam’s feelings flickered into a burst of happiness and paused there, brushing over the spot—that sliver of skin right before the wrist, vulnerable nerve endings and veins clustered together. Adam tensed, his grin widening. Caleb didn’t move for several minutes, both of them melting into Adam’s feelings. He could still sense the edges of curiosity, but it was drowned out by simple, unmuddied joy.
After a while he moved up, allowing his ability to guide him as he went. Whenever that happiness came back, he would pause, taking his time to carefully explore the area. Adam’s face had erupted into a blotchy red and he squirmed back into the couch, fighting the urge to do something about this.
Feeling bold, Caleb crawled his fingers up higher, ascending onto one trembling shoulder that ducked up at his advance. It was getting harder for Adam to reasonably ignore this; his grin was so wide it looked as though it might break out of his face, and one of his hands was hovering hesitantly near his chest, ready to shove Caleb off if needed. Which he nearly did when Caleb skittered nails lightly over the back of his neck.
“C-Caleb!” Adam gasped, smushing back into the couch in a not-quite effort to get away. “What are you—?”
“I know you like it,” Caleb interrupted softly, partly to see the flush spread even further over Adam’s face and partly because he needed to share this new discovery of his. “I know you like it here.”
“Well y-yeah,” Adam said through gritted teeth, laughter trapped somewhere in his throat with no real plan of escape. “We’ve established that—”
“No, I mean—” Caleb stopped, giving Adam a chance to actually concentrate on his words— “I know you like it here. On your neck. And before, on your wrist. And that one spot, right where your elbow connects.”
A smile still lingered lazily over his features, but it was starting to dip down into puzzlement. “I—I mean yeah, I know that, but how…?”
“Your feelings.” Caleb quickly picked up his hand, Adam watching him with clear concern in his eyes. Caleb brushed over his wrists in a manner that made Adam’s arm jerk back, a spluttered laugh slipping out despite himself at the sudden attack. “That makes you happy. More than like, just your arm or something. I started noticing that certain places prompted more intense spikes of joy than others and wanted to test it out.”
“Oh.” Adam’s feelings wavered in uncertainty, though Caleb thought it was leaning more towards a pleased awkwardness than anything genuinely negative. “That’s kind of embarrassing. I didn’t even realize you could pick up on that stuff.”
“Sorry,” Caleb apologized off instinct. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything—”
“No, no, it’s a good embarrassing,” Adam rushed in quickly, gripping Caleb’s arm in reassurance. He laughed a little, a self-conscious gesture he couldn’t help. “I’m just still getting used to this.”
“To my powers?”
“Yeah. Well. Kind of. Mostly now just you knowing about… well.” Adam waved his hand vaguely for lack of a better answer. “This thing that I have.”
Caleb wrinkled his brow in amusement. “This thing being how you like to get tickle—”
“Okay, okay!” Panic and mortification flared out from Adam as he reached over to cover Caleb’s mouth before he could finish. “No need to shout it to the whole world, god.”
Caleb slowly removed his hand, raising an eyebrow. “We’re the only ones here, and both of us already know about it.”
“Exactly! So there’s no need to say it out loud! Anyway,” he continued, brushing past the subject before Caleb could tease him about it any further. “You’re good. For feeling that. It’s kind of nice that you’re like a homing missile for where it... ah, feels the nicest?”
Adam’s gaze seemed to land on almost every part of the room but on Caleb as he talked. It had been months since Adam had confessed this particular interest of his to Caleb (though admittedly, Caleb’s ability has sussed it out and prompted the conversation in the first place), and he still had trouble openly talking about it now. Caleb had suggested discussing the subject with someone once, like his therapist, to help with the aversion he had to the subject, but Adam had immediately shut that idea down with the claim that he would never be able to face his therapist again after the conversation.
Caleb patiently waited until Adam’s feelings had settled somewhat before scooching closer, picking up his hands to toy with his fingers again. “You know,” he said slowly, trying to keep his tone casual for Adam’s sake. “If you do like this new strategy, I could do it again. You don’t even have to say anything, you could just nod or... I don’t know, give me a signal or something.”
Adam was silent for a moment, hesitance and longing radiating off of him in conflicting waves. He waited almost a full minute before slightly moving his head in what someone could vaguely observe as a nod.
Resisting the urge to grin, or call him cute, or anything else that would surely make Adam shut this whole idea down, Caleb instead pulled Adam into his lap, slipping his hands subtly under his shirt. Adam shuddered in his arms, hissing out something about cold fingers, before Caleb set those same fingers into motion, and any snarky comments of his were soon lost to a fit of shaky giggles and vague protests.
They didn’t talk about it afterwards either, but there were some things that didn’t need to be said out loud, Caleb decided.
