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chockfullofsecrets · 9 months
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Spiderverse: Smile Log
(Read on AO3)
Rating: Gen
Summary: “Okay, we got the time your baby kicked you in the face and you thought you’d broken your nose. Nice, classic slapstick.” “Lyla-” “And then that time an anomaly accidentally tickled him-” “Lyla, no-”
Peter B. asks an unexpected question and gets some information he really shouldn't have.
Wordcount: 1478
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Oh, Miguel is fully aware of what the other Spiders think of him. Feral this, stick in the mud cabrón that - but for putting up with extended exposure to the Earth-616 version of Spider-Man for the six months that his little experimental society has existed? They should be calling him a shocking saint.
The Peter in question continues to hang off his shoulder, where he’s been since he swanned into the monitoring room ten whole minutes ago without an invitation. “-stay with me on this, I’m building to a point here - hello? Earth to Miguel?”
“What,” he snaps.
Peter pouts, an expression that he honestly didn’t think grown men were capable of until meeting this guy. “Did you hear anything I said?”
Easy. “No.”
And anyone who was, you know, sane, might take that as the insult he means it to be, but Peter just laughs and jostles his shoulder companionably. “You really are a grump sometimes, you know that? You gotta lighten up, you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack one of these days.”
“Tell me about it,” Lyla says from his other shoulder. She likes Peter, talks to him directly more than any of the other Spiders, and she’s programmed to gather information that she thinks he wants, which means - yeah, he’s going to go ahead and ignore the implications of that one.
Peter makes a thoughtful noise. Concerning. “Hey, Lyla, you’re around this guy twenty-four-seven, right - does he ever relax? When’s the last time he, I don’t know, smiled?”
Miguel expects a snarky reply, not Lyla’s glasses flashing opaque the way they do when she’s looking something up. “Hm, let me check. Pulling up a smile log…”
He’s focused on the latest multiverse model, like everyone else should be, so it takes him just a bit too long to realize that they’re ganging up on him. “Wait. Lyla, belay that-”
“Okay, we got the time your baby kicked you in the face and you thought you’d broken your nose. Nice, classic slapstick.”
“Lyla-”
“And then that time an anomaly accidentally tickled him-”
“Lyla, no-”
“And - aw, this one’s cute! - after a mission he helped a girl get her runaway balloon and she hugged him-”
“Lyla!” he snaps, slamming a fist onto his desk, and she finally stops. “Por dios, would you quit that? Why do you even remember that stuff, it’s a waste of storage space!”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “My data, my business.”
“Yeah, yeah, can’t you just run the scans like I asked you to and stop causing trouble?”
They keep bickering over the new extrapolation methods, and Peter -
Okay, look. Miguel doesn’t have a “spider sense” or whatever seems to warn the rest of the Spiders before anything happens, so he has to rely on his own judgment. And with Peter being around all the time, Miguel’s learned to more or less tune him out, figures it’s the only way he’s ever going to get any work done.
Which is more or less why he doesn’t notice that Peter’s still there until someone’s hands shove their way under Miguel’s arms and start tickling, because that’s when his brain decides to turn on the instant reactions. “Jammit - hAh-”
He clamps his arms down automatically, reeling backwards into Peter’s chest just in time for the attack to stop. “Wait - did you just laugh?” Peter demands. “Shit, I didn’t think that was actually going to work, do it again!”
Peter’s fingers start wriggling back into hypersensitive flesh, trapped in his armpits, and Miguel barely manages to keep his mouth shut as more embarrassing sounds start knocking loose inside his chest. Get away, he yells to himself, hit him, move, just fucking move - he can’t remember the last time his reflexes have been anything but overprotective, but right now every fiber of his body insists he has to stay exactly where his is because granting Peter’s hands even a millimetre more of freedom is going to be the death of him.
He refuses to think about the way his mouth is spasming at the corners entirely without his permission even as the rest of him locks in place. Lyla can record that one, if she wants. See if he cares, it doesn’t count. This is fine. All he has to do is stand here until Peter gets bored - the way he acts, the other man might not even know what an attention span is.
Peter sighs, proving his point. “I’m not asking for much, just one laugh,” he laments dramatically, though Miguel can hear the stupid big grin he gets in his voice. “Do I need to be more annoying? I can be more annoying.”
Miguel sincerely doubts it - at least, until Peter flips one hand around from where it’s pressed up against the top of his ribcage, locks onto his elbow, and starts trying to lever his right arm away from his body. “Geez, would you lay off with the triceps? I’m gonna give myself carpal tunnel over here.”
If Peter would just stop tickling for one shocking second, he’d tell him that he sincerely hopes his stupid fingers break off and die. Instead, he wraps his arms around himself in a motion that’s definitely defiant and not at all panicked, getting as far as opening his mouth before the part of his brain that’s being lit up by every twitch of sensation decides to take over. “Nngh - no, nohoho, mierda!”
His entire face burns red as strangled snorts of laughter keep leaking out of him, has to fold over and brace one of his hands against his jaw to regain any kind of dignity - not that it helps, with Peter changing his hold to adapt to even that small bit of movement and using it to finally pry his arm up.
It’s really, really not fair that the most irritating Spider-Man is one of the most competent ones too. Miguel’s pretty sure luck hates Spiders in general, but it seems to love messing with him in particular.
“You know,” Peter starts conversationally, like he’s not wrapped around Miguel and taking half his weight because he’s shaking too hard to do it himself. “I think this is gonna be a good experience for us. Like, ah, coworker bonding. What’d you say we do this every week until you figure out how to loosen up like a normal person?”
Miguel’s going to kick his ass. He’s going to take his watch and ban him from Nueva York in perpetuity, as soon as he can stand up again. Earth-616 has other superheroes, they’ll survive their Spider-Man losing an arm or two.
Peter dodges the frantic headbutts and kicks he attempts and laughs, light and easy - it makes Miguel feel even stupider, twisted up on himself in desperation to avoid just that. “Hey, if it doesn’t work with your schedule you could just say so! I’ll pencil you in for biweekly, then.”
Idiota. Culero. Miguel doesn’t know if he’s cursing himself or Peter out anymore. He’s properly trapped now, sandwiched up against his own desk with one of Peter’s hands keeping his arm pinned and the other wiggling threateningly over a defenseless armpit. “Well? You gonna say something, or do I have to go full supervillain? I do a great Doc Ock impression, let me tell you.”
Miguel painstakingly loosens his death grip on his own jaw and opens his mouth just enough to wheeze out a heartfelt declaration of his undying hatred. Coughs before he can start, his throat raw from attempting to keep his laughter contained. There’s a movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turns his head to find Peter looking down at him with something between amusement and genuine concern.
Fine. Fine. “Can you just. Stop. Before I pass out?”
Peter laughs again, landing firmly in amusement and on Miguel’s list of dimensional threats. “Yeah. Yeah, fine, I’ll let you off easy this time.” He lets go, hovering for a moment and then swooping back in to pull Miguel upright when he can’t quite manage it himself. “Okay, super ticklish and super repressed. I can work with that.”
“Don’t,” Miguel growls, leaning on Peter’s shoulder entirely against his own will as he starts to walk both of them out of the office. Where are they even going? The cafeteria? It’s only been-
Oh. He hasn’t eaten in twelve hours. No wonder Lyla had decided to mess with him. But Peter wouldn’t have known that.
“Nope, too late, I’m invested now. Wasn’t kidding about the biweekly thing, by the way.”
Lyla perks up from behind a screen. “I’ll put it on his calendar.”
“Oye, I’m locking you both out of the monitor room.”
The two of them start talking over his head, planning some kind of break in. Miguel turns his head away so Lyla won’t see him smile.
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chockfullofsecrets · 5 months
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...so it's happening again
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chockfullofsecrets · 8 months
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Top Gun Maverick: Kid Shit
(Read on AO3)
Rating: Gen
Summary: He scoffs. “I’m not ticklish anymore, Mav. That’s kid shit.”
Mav uncrosses his arms. “Yeah? Wanna bet?”
In the aftermath of the mission, Bradley and Maverick revisit some old traditions.
Wordcount: 1769
A/N: Yeah, this was just about the stage of the [watch the new Mission Impossible > start catching up on Tom Cruise movies > start looking for fic > read everything @ticklish-academic has ever written for this fandom > get ideas] pipeline I expected I'd get to. Feel free to hit me up if there's anything else you want to see for M:I/TGM while the hyperfixation lasts :P
--
After the crush of people on the deck breaks up, handshakes and hugs and general oh-shit-we’re-alive energy starting to fade back into the normal schedule of things, he and Mav get shuttled off to sickbay and told in no uncertain terms to stay put until the adrenaline wears off enough for them to tell exactly how bad they’re hurting. Mav puts up a fight, of course, but Bradley knows better - every aviator’s heard the horror stories, herniated discs and torn muscles from the force of ejection, and he’s got one that’s more personal than most.
Mav does too, to be fair, but it’s not like anything short of a direct chewing out from the Almighty himself would keep him from being stupid about his health. And even then, it’d be a toss up.
A week ago, he’d have pulled one of the staff aside and asked to be as far away from Mav as he could possibly get. The urge isn’t completely gone. Mav promised him they’d talk it out, when they got back, but after the mission - Mav saving his life and him saving Mav right back and sitting there in the backseat of that old as shit plane with nothing to do but trust him and try not to pass out - maybe they’ve bonded, okay? Maybe talking’s just going to make it worse. He’d rather wait until he has the option to walk away, if he needs to.
Really earning that Rooster callsign, huh. He’d be angrier at himself if he had the energy for it.
As things are, they’re pointed to adjacent cots and left to stew. Five minutes pass. Fifteen. He avoids looking at Mav like it’s his new vocation in life and starts counting wall rivets.
Half an hour in, he groans for the fifth time in as many minutes and slides down until he’s laid out flat enough to adequately convey his despair. “Come on.”
There’s a shuffle from the cot next to him. “I hope that’s not you realizing you broke something,” Mav says dryly.
He groans again. “I’m bored, Mav. Where the hell are the rest of the Daggers? You’d think they’d at least bring us a deck of cards or something.”
Mav makes a noncommittal noise. Emboldened, he props himself up on an elbow and dares to look over. “How are you okay with this, anyways? You hate sitting still.”
Mav’s reclining into the curve of his rickety half-raised bed, arms folded neatly over his chest like he hasn’t got a care in the world. Bradley’s struck by an intense, childish urge to get up and flip the whole thing. “Believe me, I’m not thrilled either. Not my first time playing the waiting game, though.”
Of course it isn’t. Come to think of it, he’d be surprised if a mission for Mav didn’t end in medical intervention.
He says as much, a little more snidely than he means to, and Mav turns his head with glacial indolence to raise an eyebrow in his direction. “Bad mood, huh.”
And doesn’t that just - it makes him feel like he’s a teenager again, gangly and sweaty and more upset about everything than he should be. Not the tone, even, just that Mav hasn’t been around to look at him like that in so long - and the words come out almost without his permission. “Yeah - well, I’m stuck in here with you, aren’t I?”
Mav’s bland expression flickers, just for a moment, and he instantly feels like the worst person on earth. The man saved his life less than twenty four hours ago, and here he is mouthing off like he’d used to when they’d known each other well enough not to take it seriously.
He lays himself back down, too much of a coward to see whatever else Mav’s face is broadcasting at him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Mav’s still looking at him, he can feel it. The silence stretches out before them like a ship’s runway, pitching and yawing like he’ll launch straight off it and into the water if he’s not careful.
And then, like he always does, Mav takes the challenge and starts taxiing. “Lighten up, kid, or I’m going to have to cheer you up the way your dad used to.”
Bradley’s surprised enough to look back at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mav cocks his head, mouth twitching. “What, you don’t remember?”
Something about the tilt of Mav’s smile, the not-entirely-begrudging amusement in his eyes, registers somewhere in the back of his brain - and he does remember, then, though it’s not his dad he’s thinking of.
It’s Mav - Mav sneaking behind him and sweeping him up before he can run, Mav reaching over to him in the passenger seat where he’s buckled in and can only move so far before the seat belt catches him, Mav dumping him onto the couch and grabbing one of his legs before he can start kicking and-
He scoffs. “I’m not ticklish anymore, Mav. That’s kid shit.”
Mav uncrosses his arms. “Yeah? Wanna bet?”
He tells himself firmly that the reflexive flinch when Mav starts getting up is fear for the old man’s spine and absolutely nothing else. “Mav, come on, you’re not supposed to be moving around - Mav!”
He scrambles back the singular inch that his cot allows, barely managing to sit up before Mav’s perching on the edge of it and smirking at him. “Hey, you don’t look bored anymore.”
Well, Mav’s got one thing right. His entire brain’s diverted from boredom to run a diagnostic on what feels like every single one of his nerve endings, and he’s more than a little suspicious of the results. “You’re - I’m being threatened here, that’s not-”
Mav shakes his head disbelievingly, still grinning like the devil himself. “Threatened? What happened to ‘kid shit’?”
“I’m not ticklish,” he insists. He can almost make himself believe it, too, that his body’s just operating on decade-old instinct, responding disproportionately to a memory meant to stay in the past. “Try me, it’s just going to be awkward for both of us. You probably pulled something just coming over here, old man.”
It’s not a go fuck off and die, and Mav knows it - Bradley watches him pause for a moment and mull it over, grin softening into something warmer and less provocative, and has to consciously pull the corners of his mouth back into the stern line he wants them in to prevent himself from smiling back. “Bold words, kid.”
“True words,” he fires back, just before Mav’s wriggling fingers hit his stomach and prove him very definitively wrong.
He’s laughing before he can even try to stop himself, doubled over and curling up like he can somehow still manage to keep Mav’s hands away from the spot they’re already attacking. “Shihihit! Mav!”
“That’s me,” Mav says flippantly, sliding close enough to get an arm around him when his body makes a commendable attempt to escape by rolling off the far side of the bed. “Not ticklish, huh? Pretty sure things went in the other direction.”
Mav’s obviously messing with him, but he’s not wrong - Bradley doesn’t remember anything tickling as badly as Mav’s fingertips kneading into the bend of his waist do. “No!” he yelps anyways, smashing one arm over his mouth in a desperate attempt to stay quiet and throwing the other out frantically to get Mav the hell off him.
Mav’s arm tightens across his chest. He’s being reeled back in, forced out of the fetal position he’s locked himself into and giving Mav even more room to wreak havoc - it’s too much, all at once, and he squeals. Squeals, like he’s a teenage girl at a concert and not a naval aviator in his thirties. He has the sudden, paranoid thought that Hangman might hear him through the vents.
The thought of it makes him laugh even harder, frantic - smothering himself in his elbow is keeping him quiet enough for now, but if Mav keeps tickling him like this it’s only going to last so long. “Ha - ahaHA - quit it,” he pleads, sacrificing his assault on Mav’s iron band of a grip to wrap an extra arm around his face. “Ihihi - I can’t-”
Mav releases him almost instantly, letting him flop onto his side and curl back up until he can stop wheezing out giggles into his kneecaps. “Well, that’s different,” he offers - Bradley can hear him grinning, the bastard. “You never used to ask me to stop.”
Just the thought of being tickled more nearly sets him off again. Thankfully, Mav decides to shut up and wait for him to catch his breath before he coughs himself to death on Navy property.
He calms down. It’s easier, now, less charged, to roll over onto his back with his hip mashed up against Mav’s thigh and reach up to smack him in the shoulder. “Well, yeah. We’re in public, Mav,” he says defensively. “You can’t just go around doing that to people.”
Mav catches his hand before it can drop back down to his chest, squeezes it playfully with his eyes lit up like fireworks. “Hey, you asked for it!”
Bradley hasn’t seen him this happy in - well. That’s kind of his fault, isn’t it. He wrestles his hand free for a moment before thinking better of it, relenting and letting it fall somewhere in the vicinity of Mav’s legs. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
Mav laughs to himself, then, just long enough that it’s worth Bradley cracking an eye open to glare at him. “What.”
“Nothing,” Mav says quickly.
Bradley glares harder.
“Nothing!” he promises, then just as quickly retracts it. Typical Mav. “It’s just - my hangar, I’m working on a P-51 Mustang out there. You could come out and see it sometime, if you wanted to.”
He’s not sure what’s so funny about it, but he lets himself grin anyway. “As long as we don’t have to dogfight in it - that sounds good, Mav.”
“It’s about as far as you can get from public, though,” Mav adds, teasing, “so I can go around tickling anyone I want. Fair warning.”
Oh, there’s the joke. He can’t even bring himself to pretend he doesn’t want to go, though, just scoffs and shoves at Mav’s arm again before letting his eyes fall shut. “Go lie down before I change my mind, Mav, I saw that wince.”
“Yeah, yeah.” A hand ruffles through his hair. It’s nice. “You look tired, kid, knock it off.”
Mav doesn’t move until he falls asleep. Maybe it’s not so bad being someone’s kid again after all.
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chockfullofsecrets · 3 months
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happy birthday @tickle-bugs! i hope another 4k of these fools is an acceptable birthday present 💛
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
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Hi! For the "worst" prompts, 8 & Essek?👀💜
8. What’s your worst ticklish doctor’s exam experience?
Caduceus finds him, eventually. Essek was under no impression that he wouldn't, but - for it to happen this quickly, Caleb must have Sent to him. Unfortunate.
He fakes a cough, throwing a considerably more realistic wince behind it. "You did say that I was always welcome at the Grove."
Caduceus settles beside him, the both of them gazing over a lively patch of roses. "Of course you are."
He blinks, offers a wry smile that rests like a warm hand on Essek's shoulder. "Should probably come say hi first before wandering out here, though, Calliope's been practicing with her sword on anything that moves lately."
"Attacking a sick man," Essek deadpans, and Caduceus' smile splits into a genuine laugh. "The Wildmother would be thrilled, I'm sure."
"Yeah, Caleb said you stood him up because you weren't feeling well. Here, let me take a look."
"I didn't stand him up," Essek repeats, scandalized, "I just - I couldn't-" He cuts himself off. "And besides, I'm told clerical magic is unhelpful for the more common illnesses."
"Tea works on most of the other ones, once we figure out what's wrong with you." Caduceus says, unruffled. "C'mon, lie down, it'll only take a minute."
Essek lies down. There's sweat collecting in the small of his back - is that enough to fake an illness?
He remembers to cough again at the last second, earning a sympathetic hum. Perfect.
"Good. Hold still now."
Essek braces himself, not sure what's about to happen, but even that can't prepare him for the feeling as Caduceus starts massaging gently at the sides of his stomach. "Wait," he yelps, shooting upright.
Caduceus blinks. "Huh?"
Essek sputters. "What - what was that-"
The firbolg shrugs. "First step's making sure all the stuff in there is as squishy as it's supposed to be. I know it tickles, but it'll only take a bit."
Entirely without his permission, his arms wrap around himself protectively at the mere mention of tickles. Caduceus reaches for him again, and he curls up even further. "You're doing this on purpose."
The large, fuzzy hands reaching for him pause, and Essek has to hold himself back from collapsing in on himself in relief. "Why do you think I'd do that?"
Because you can tell I'm not sick, Essek thinks wretchedly. Because the Mighty Nein do the most inconvenient things at every possible turn, and I am terribly unsuited to it, and I think I might be in love with one of them and I don't know what to do about it-
"I don't know," he says instead. "Maybe I'm simply suspicious of potential abuse of power."
Caduceus tilts his head. Essek, sensing an opening, grabs the unraveling thread of the conversation and lets it pull an easy recrimination from his throat. "I do have some familiarity with the matter. It would not be undeserved, I suppose."
He thinks he's won, for a moment.
Then Caduceus laughs again, slow and warm like air rising in a pond, and - Lolth's tits, the thread was a spiderweb all along. "Is it really an abuse of power if I tickle you into telling me what you came all the way here to talk to me about in the first place? Works pretty well on Caleb, and he hasn't complained yet."
His cheeks burn. "You wouldn't!"
He would. Any member of the Nein would, most likely, and Caduceus doesn't even dignify his logic with a response as he tugs Essek backwards by the collar of his robe like an unruly kitten.
And - Luxon help him, he doesn't mind it.
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
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14 & essek 👀
14. Worst “tickling casually comes up in conversation and you want to dig a hole and hide” experience?
It's a useless endeavor to make slipping a ring onto Caleb Widogast's finger look anywhere near casual, particularly with the off-key wedding march that Jester, Beau, and Veth are howling out behind them, but Essek is nothing if not dedicated to his facades.
"The ring is platinum, which aids in the storage and transfer of energy," he narrates. Caleb is looking at him quite oddly - is his face usually so red? perhaps it's the light - but he nods along as Essek withdraws his hand and taps the matching ring on his own finger. "And although the connection is usually initiated by a cleric of some sort, I've found that this particular combination of runes serves as a suitable anchor for a thread of dunamis. Now, to finish the casting, and-"
The circle of platinum grows unnaturally cool on his finger. Caleb makes a face down at his hand as his must do the same.
"-and now we are bound," he finishes. "For about an hour, within a boundary of sixty feet you will be shielded and take less damage. Which, as any arcane caster knows, is paramount for maintaining concentration. Just as you asked."
It's only natural for Caleb to move away and test the boundary, of course. Essek doesn't mourn the tie of their gaze matching the one on their hands, and his heart certainly doesn't jump in his chest as Caleb turns back in his direction with blinding enthusiasm.
"Wunderbar," he marvels, holding his hand up. "The anchoring of dunamis in the place of a deific element, particularly - imagine what else we could adapt!"
Essek opens his mouth to detail his findings on the translation between clerical and arcane Sending spells, but Fjord steps between them first. "Hate to interrupt," he says, waving a hand in Caleb's direction to draw him closer, "but do we know that this actually, you know, works?"
He'd be more annoyed if this wasn't half the reason he'd given up such precious spellwork to the Nein in the first place. "I didn't want to be the one to suggest you take a blade to your own party member," he plies, "but if you care to stage a practical demonstration, so be it."
"Ach, well," Caleb shrugs. "As long as we have healing spells on hand, I am sure I have faced worse. And in the meantime-" He sketches a somatic component in the air, and a spectral cat's paw springs to life behind him. "I might as well practice a few tricks of my own, hm?"
There's a pause. Essek turns to regard the rest of the Nein, resplendent with tapping feet and raised eyebrows. "Ah..."
"Seriously, man?" Beau grinds out. "You think we're going to hurt you just to test a fucking spell?"
Caleb blinks. "I'm not aware of any other way to test concentration, Beauregard."
Essek's floated off to the side, clearly not a party in this conflict, which affords him a perfect view of the Nein starting to spread out and circle their wizard.
"Oh, Cay-leb," Jester calls, ducking behind a bush. "You remember that one time we tickled you really bad and it got super dark because you couldn't keep your lights up?"
"Or the time we made you come to dinner and you got all grumpy because that flying spell you were practicing didn't work anymore?" Veth adds from... underneath a flowerbed? How-
"Or that time we got Essek's feet in the hot tub and he could barely even remember how to float," Yasha says from right behind him. He and Caleb jump in startled unison, and the startled mortification on his fellow wizard's face turns to outright horror as the Nein start to converge on him. "I think we know exactly how to test your concentration, Caleb."
Essek floats back a foot or so and offers Caleb a somewhat sympathetic shrug. It'll be nice watching someone else get embarrassed by the Nein, for a change.
Until, that is, Caleb yelps and Essek feels the pinch of questing fingers on his sides just as surely as if Jester was shoving her hands up under his shirt.
...maybe he should have looked into that footnote mentioning shared damage.
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
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Whoops I meant 16! 16, orym or essek for lee. Dealer's choice on the rest. 💕
POE AGAIN
16. Worst “NOT MY ________ [insert spot here]!!!” experience?
Orym wakes up with the dawn, ready to slip out of bed and greet it with some sword drills. Or he would be ready, if his entire torso wasn't locked in the sleep-heavy grip of a snoring faun.
He wriggles around to face her as best he can. "Fearne?" he calls softly. "Fearnie, wake up for a second."
She smacks her lips. Cute. He sighs through a reluctant smile, reaches up to wriggle a fingertip against the soft skin under her arm in the hopes it'll loosen her grip a bit.
Instead, the whole bed shifts with the movement of a previously still body stirring. "Mmm, morning." Fearne hums. "Oh, are we having a tickle fight?"
There's a little kick of adrenaline in his chest as her arms shift around him, one warm hand big enough to fit around his entire hipbone latching on and starting to knead. He chokes on a laugh. "Ha - Fearnie, no, I'm just getting up for my drills."
"Oh, okay," she says, and proceeds to not let go.
Orym yelps out another series of laughs - he's not awake enough to worry, but he's getting there as he starts to squirm despite himself. "Uh - hhah, hhh - Fehearne?"
He's trying in earnest to work his way out of her reach, now, but she snuggles her chin down on top of his head and pulls her legs up to lock him in place and he's getting nowhere fast. "Well," she says in that lyrically insistent way of hers, "I can't just let you go without tickling your worst spot first, since you started it."
"Not my armpits-" Oyrm blurts - a bad decision, as Fearne's fingers start tracking their way up his sides, but it's not like she doesn't already know, and it's going to tickle so much, and - "Whyhyhy?"
"'Cause you're my little tickle toy~," she cooes - like everything else she says, it makes absolutely no sense but it feels like it should, especially as the teasing and her questing fingertips work their way past his defenses at the same time. "I'm gonna get you!"
Next time, he thinks, he should really push to be the big spoon.
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
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Worst, prompt 22 please, any characters you like!
22. A time you or someone you know described tickling or a specific tickling scenario as “your worst nightmare” (and of course, what it was).
"I'm not going under there."
The two sets of little tiefling claws clinging to his left and right biceps tighten pleadingly. "But Fjooooord," Jester wheedles, "it'll just take a second, and Molly really needs his cards back-"
"I really do," Molly adds glibly from his other side. "And since you're the one who interrupted us and made me drop my tarot deck, technically this is your fault."
He's not going to open his eyes and look down at them. All that awaits are puppy eyes. "This is basically my worst nightmare. You wouldn't make me face my worst nightmare, would you?"
He's got a fucking sea demon in his dreams, and that's not even a lie. Tieflings are terrifying.
"What?" Jester gasps, digging her sharp little chin into his chest. "Fjord, are you scared?"
"Yes," he says, firmly and bravely and absolutely not whining. "Because I'm going to crawl under that bed, and I'm going to get stuck, and if that happens while you two fuckers are out here you're going to - you'll-"
He can hear the devilish grins growing on their faces. "And what could we possibly do that's so scary, hm?" Molly hums. "Be specific, dear, or we'll have to start guessing."
His heartbeat spikes somewhere into the Celestial planes. "...if I say it, you're just going to tickle me anyways, aren't you."
Molly cackles. "Aw, Jester, the big bad sailor's worried we're going to tickle him. I think it'd be kinder to just get it over with, don't you?"
Jester pats his arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, Fjord, we'll be so nice!"
"I hate both of you," he groans, eyes still closed - if he doesn't open them, he doesn't have to accept that he's already trying not to laugh. "Is it too late to go get one of the others for you to torture instead?"
"Yep!" Jester says brightly, shifting her inescapable grip from his arm to his waist. He gulps. "Ready?"
"Nohohooo!"
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
Note
16 & 24 for a certain grave cleric firbolg
16. Worst “NOT MY ________ [insert spot here]!!!” experience?
24. A time you were cheered up with tickling after one of your worst days.
“Ca-du-ceus, are you moping over here?”
Caduceus hugs his knees a little closer to his chest, grimacing as his fur mushes together with a wet squelch. “Maybe.”
Jester plops down next to him. “Why don’t you come mope with us over by the fire, huh? It’s nice and toasty over there, you’re gonna get dry so fast!”
Well. That’s a good point. He’s not in the mood for good points, with wet fur and cold bones. “‘M fine.”
He can hear her pout. It’s a pretty nice trick. “Aw, Caduceus,” she wheedles, one horn pressing into his arm as she cuddles in, “but if you stay over here, you’re gonna get sick, and then I’m gonna have to use my super awesome healing spells to fix you instead of playing pranks and the Traveler’s gonna be all mopey about it!” 
He shrugs. Jester huffs. “Okay, then… I’m just gonna carry you over, come on, let’s go!”
One muscled arm snakes around his back, another slipping under his knees. It’s kind of nice, but he’s not sure he’s in the mood for that either. “Mmm-mm.””
“Huh.” A puff of warm breath ghosts right into his ear, making him twitch - and then Jester leans forward and starts to nibble at the shell of it, and he’s doing a lot more than twitching.
“Nohohooo,” he whines, trying to press his face further into his knees even as his whole body fills up with giggles. “T-tickles, that tickles-”
“I kno-ow,” Jester sing-songs, punctuating the sentence with a fanged nip that sends him jumping. “I think I’m gonna tick-le you until you’re not grumpy anymore!”
“No,” he whines again, tilting his head to the side as a meager defense. Jester just laughs and starts to tickle his shoulderblades instead, a series of fluttering tap-tap-taps that make him laugh hard enough that he flops over onto his stomach and tries to squirm away. “Hehehehe,” he snickers into the dirt - and aw, she’s flopping down too, right on top of him, like a blanket. It’s nice. 
He’s not so sure why he was upset in the first place, anymore. 
Weight settles onto his calves, just about then. “No,” he rushes out, suddenly, eyes springing wide, “wait, wait-”
Two sets of mischievous fingers start to scribble at the backs of his knees, and he squeals. “Not my kneeheeheees!”
“Grumpy Caduceus gets aaaaall the knee tickles he can take!” Jester proclaims. He swears there’s more than ten fingers now. Is the Traveler helping her? It tickles. “Cootchie cootchie co-ooo!”
She lets him wail in ticklish agony for what feels like an hour before moving on to pinch at the backs of his thighs - less paralyzing but almost worse in the way it makes him jump every single time. He’s grinning now, big enough that it hurts. “Ihihi-,” he tries, still squirming like a blade of grass blown by the wind, and can’t get a single sound further.
Maybe he’s just going to have to wait until she’s done with him. That’s not so bad. 
“Scheiße,” Caleb hisses suddenly from somewhere over his head. “Wait - Jester! The fire-”
“Oh!” She stops tickling him. Caduceus pries open an eyelid to find the edge of their campfire less than a foot from his nose.
“Huh. Thanks, Caleb.” He sits up, looking over at Jester and responding to her searching smile with a raised arm for her to scurry under. 
She nearly tackles him into a hug, scrubbing her face into his shirt. “Aw, I’m really glad you’re not mad anymore!”
He laughs. “Thanks for the lift.”
“No problem,” she purrs - it is toasty, over here, especially with someone cuddling into his side, and he basks in the warmth. She shifts a little, pointing one blue finger accusingly out. “You’re next, Caleb!”
“Wh-what?”
They’re going to have to put out the fire, at this rate.
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
Note
Fjord and 17 for the writing prompt? No pressure tho :)
17. Worst “someone finding out you’re ticklish” experience?
“You okay, man?”
Everything hurts. Fjord doesn’t even bother keeping the whine from his voice. “I think this is it for me, first mate… it’s getting dark…”
“That was, like, seventy sit-ups, come on - I’ve literally seen Jes feeling up your abs, so I know you have them-”
“Tell the others to remember me kindly,” he groans, hiding a grin as Beau scoffs at him. “And tell Veth if she touches my stuff I’ll haunt her from the afterlife.”
That earns him another laugh, this one a little louder as his impromptu drill sergeant stalks over. “Up and at ‘em, sailor, you’ve gotta give me fifty more pushups before breakfast!”
With one arm flung lazily across his face to block the first searching rays of dawn, he’s caught completely off guard as Beau digs her bare toes into his side. “Nnh! - hey -”
He flings his arm down to protect himself, already squirming away from the prodding sensation before he catches the look on Beau’s face. “Ouch,” he rushes out, trying to distract her, “gods, did your teachers kick you like that?”
“Yep.” She somehow manages to pop the last letter while maintaining the biggest leer he’s ever seen. It’s terrifying. “How the fuck have you kept that a secret for so long?”
Fjord eyes her warily. “Somehow, it never came up.” Somehow being a lot of held breaths and stifled coughing while various clerics poke at him. He’s not half as bad as some of the others, anyways, as far as he knows - and maybe he wishes it would come up, sometimes, sitting at the edge of piles of tangled limbs and easy laughter and muffled squeals of protest that never seem to be serious enough to take notice of, but - well. That’s a can of worms he’s not really sure how to start opening.
Beau’s still grinning. “So… pushups or I tell Jester?”
He gapes. “You wouldn’t.”
Beau shrugs. “Don’t have to, if you’re laughing your ass off loud enough to wake her up.” 
She levels ten wriggling fingertips in his direction. Fjord shudders, an involuntary motion starting somewhere around his tailbone and shooting up to prickle at the back of his teeth. “And if I’m not going to get those pushups without some encouragement, then-”
Fuck it, he’s never been good at waiting for things to happen to him. “Yeah?” he jabs, rolling to snatch Beau’s calves and bring her down on top of him before she can retort.
“Fuck,” she yelps. And then, more desperate, as he wriggles a hand into the soft part of her side - “Fuhuhuck!”
He laughs and levers himself up on an elbow, just about ready to declare his victory - and then Beau clamps an arm around him, pushing him down flat as insistent fingers worm between them and onto his stomach, and he can’t stop laughing. 
“Hhhah - ahahha - shit, shit, help-” He wasn’t joking about everything hurting, and even as he does his best to wrestle her off he’s finding his muscles don’t want to help with much except curling up into the fetal position and letting the writhing, helpless feeling dancing under his skin squeeze every last bit of breath out of his lungs. 
“Oh, now you want help? Didn’t seem like you wanted my help with training, asshole,” Beau threatens - but she’s laughing too, almost childish giggles leaking out of her as she crushes him into a bear hug and tickles at his sides.
“Pleheheeese,” Fjord wheezes. “Ow, shit, my face hurts.”
“Fiiine,” Beau complains,finally, a little breathless herself as she rolls off him. Not that it stops her from digging her knuckles painfully into his shoulder. “The pushups aren’t going away, though, we’re just gonna do them tomorrow.”
It’s objectively a bad idea to try and tickle her again in revenge, Fjord thinks. He does it anyway. 
33 notes · View notes
chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
Note
19 Dorian Storm maybe? 👀💕
19. A time you actually said “you’re the WORST” to someone after they tickled you.
Oyrm is probably asleep. Definitely asleep. Dorian’s a terrible person. “Orym?”
The pillow down by his chest snuffles. “Mmhm?”
“You remember Dariax and Opal and Fy’ra, right?”
“Mm-whuh?” There’s a soft scuffle as Orym wriggles himself around to face him, and - it’s uncomfortable, bothering him like this, butting up against layers of propriety like the cold wooden wall shoving up against the backs of his shoulders.
Uncomfortable, but he can’t stand not doing it either.
“Be hard to forget,” Orym murmurs, low and soft in the dark. “Why, what’s up?”
Nothing, he almost says, and then remembers that Orym was sleeping until he’d opened his stupid mouth. “Oh! I was just - just thinking about them, that’s all. Sleeping back to back with Dariax, you know?”
Another scuffle, and then there’s a small knee nudging his own. Dorian huffs out an exhale he hadn’t realized he’d been holding - embarrassing, for a bard. “Yeah.”
“I kind of miss it, a bit,” he admits. “The road, and the camping, and everything. I mean, it wasn’t great all the time - listen, I’m an air genasi and I couldn’t tell you how so many farts fit inside one tiny dwarf-”
“Dorian,” Orym interrupts, cracking the last syllable with a heavy yawn. “Listen-”
It’s not irritation, he knows it’s not -
Or maybe it is, and he’s just too tired and heartsore to read it true. “Sorry, sorry, I know,” he rushes - his head thunks against the wall painfully as he tries to back off, but it’s all right, Orym will want the space.
“Dorian,” Orym says again-
And then he laughs, low and warm, and Dorian’s laughing along with him before he knows it.
“So many farts,” he snickers, and - it’s a little less uncomfortable now. He nudges his own knee forward, tentatively, knocking it back against Orym’s. “I do miss it, though.”
Orym’s voice comes from somewhere above the bed - he must be sitting up. “Huh, I think there’s a cricket or something back there.”
“A - what?” Dorian twists, trying to find it, but before he can roll more than halfway over there’s a weight pressing him facefirst into the bed. “Oof - hey-”
“Hold on, hold on, I got it,” Orym says, sounding significantly more awake. Dorian sags into the mattress with relief. Of course Orym found it, he’s so quick-
Something dances over the shell of his ear. He shrieks.
“Ope, there it goes.” Fingertips goose the side of his neck, worming their way under his chin - they send his skin crackling like the air before a storm, quick and electric, and he tumbles into frantic gasps of laughter with all the grace of a thunderclap. “Stay still, I think it’s just under here-”
No, no, under his chin is unfair - Dorian manages to eke out a single affronted squeak to express the sentiment, not that it makes any of it tickle less. “Nhhh-eheheee - hhah - hehee! N-nonono-it-”
“Hold on, other ear-”
Another army of light, teasing touches spring up on the far side of his head, and Dorian laughs so suddenly that his next desperate attempt to breathe breaks free as a mangled snort.“Oryhihim!”
He flops frantically to one side, trying to toss Orym off his back - he’s got no hope of fighting back, but he has to - not get away, really, just - anything-
Dorian’s down to desperate, giggly wheezing when Orym’s slight weight finally rolls off him - hurls his newly functioning arms around his head for protection and worms his way back to safety, toes curling in the sheets, until he can feel his back pressed against something - not cold?
“Mmph.”
There’s a very confused minute of flailing, and then - huh.
He and Orym have, in fact, swapped places - Orym squashed between him and the wall and him flat on his back and staring blankly up at the ceiling. “I - what-”
Orym chuckles into his ribcage. Wound up as he is, it’s enough to make him shiver. “Comfy?”
“You,” Dorian stresses, breathing out one last wave of laughter, “are the worst.”
“Sure,” Orym says easily, the end of the word already trailing off into a sleepy lull. “Back to back, huh? S’nice.”
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
Text
Arcane: Coffee Is A First Aid Tool
(Read on AO3)
Rating: Gen
Summary: Jayce doesn’t even bother lifting his head off his desk as he hears the telltale clack of Viktor’s cane accompanying him through their lab doors. If he plays dead, maybe his nerve endings won’t be able to see him.
But Viktor’s going to - well, not worry, but make that slanty face he makes at failed experiments that makes Jayce want to apologize on behalf of the entire universe - if he’s dead. He can be alive for five seconds. C’mon, Talis, nice and easy-
“Nghhh,” he says eloquently. Fuck.
Jayce is suffering. Viktor helps, for a certain definition of help.
Wordcount: 1.1k
A/N: apparently the wizard scientist obsession is transmissible between fandoms? help
---
Being a Man Of Progress (motivational posters pending) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on some days. Most days. Today, to be perfectly specific.
Jayce doesn’t even bother lifting his head off his desk as he hears the telltale clack of Viktor’s cane accompanying him through their lab doors. If he plays dead, maybe his nerve endings won’t be able to see him.
But Viktor’s going to - well, not worry, but make that slanty face he makes at failed experiments that makes Jayce want to apologize on behalf of the entire universe - if he’s dead. He can be alive for five seconds. C’mon, Talis, nice and easy-
“Nghhh,” he says eloquently. Fuck.
“Jayce?” Viktor says, and then stops clacking entirely. Presumably he’s caught sight of the lightly smoldering mass of circuits that’s still ventilating on the other side of the room. “Ah. Didn’t I say that I was going to finish those?”
He did, in fact, and Jayce had wholeheartedly agreed. In defiance of God and man and several physical laws, Viktor can solder at unnatural speeds that make Jayce wonder if he’s put any of his late-night ramblings about mechanical augmentation into practice. But Viktor’s been out doing something for Heimerdinger all day, and Jayce is a Man Of Progress (coffee mugs? They should have coffee mugs) and a perfectly respectable engineer in his own right - and now, the regretful owner of about fourteen different hand cramps.
He can tell exactly when Viktor spots the transistor he’d tried to solder in place about twenty times before his fingers gave up on being functional limbs, because he hums consideringly and then asks, “What hurts more right now, your hands or your ego?”
Well. Now it’s the second one. “Shut up,” Jayce groans.
Victor wanders over and - hmmmm, shoulder pats. “There, there. Listen to me next time and maybe you will lose your hands in a very exciting explosion instead, hm?”
Jayce would protest that if he wasn’t too busy mashing the side of his face into Viktor’s forearm, intent on leeching as much human contact as he can without moving his arms. His sleeve is soft and smells vaguely like the sugar water that his partner insists on calling coffee. Much better than burnt solder. Clearly the only logical choice is to claim it as his pillow for the foreseeable future.
“Jayce,” Viktor chides. “Come on, sit up and tell me where it hurts.”
He’s running his hand down the side of Jayce’s arm and then back up, now, like he’ll be able to feel out the soreness from touch alone. On a better day, Jayce might be able to suppress his involuntary shiver as thin fingers skim a little too close to the underside of his bicep - he has an image to maintain, after all.
He nudges into Viktor’s hand before he even realizes it. “Mmmnn…that tickles.”
The hand stops. “Oh? It tickles?”
Jayce’s brain kicks clumsily back into gear. “Oh - uh-”
“What, here?” A fingertip pokes lightly under his arm. Jayce refuses to lean into it this time.
Instead, he very manfully starts giggling into his desk. There’s a subtle clack-scrape-thunk as something warm nudges up against his elbow, and then there’s a second fingertip tickling under his other arm, and he’s pretty sure his muscles have just given up at this point.
“Hm,” Viktor hums after a minute. “This is not quite the effect I was looking for. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were enjoying yourself.”
He can’t possibly be expected to respond to that, so Jayce settles for wriggling in a way that he hopes clearly conveys his disapproval even as he curls his fingers over a lip of polished wood and holds himself in place.
Viktor makes an amused noise over his head. Maybe he was supposed to answer. “Sh - ah, heh - shuddup-”
“Maybe I should try somewhere else,” he muses. “Do you have a - eh, what’s the word - death spot?”
Jayce is pretty sure that death and tickling are mutually exclusive - at least, until Victor’s fingers start wriggling into the sides of his neck. “N-noO, nahaha - ‘m up, I’m uhuhup-”
He’s yelping between outraged squawks of laughter, scrambling upright to get sensitive skin out of reach of pure evil - and then he’s blinking up at Viktor, perched smugly on the edge of his desk with his good leg curled up under him for support.
There’s a glint in his eyes. Jayce shivers again.
Viktor fishes out a packet of pills and taps them brusquely on the desk between them. “Eat.”
Because he’s an idiot, Jayce asks, “Where - you just carry medicine around with you?”
Viktor stuffs one of them into his mouth instead of dignifying that with a response.
He levers himself back up onto his cane as Jayce gags on the chalky aftertaste. “You’re going to want some coffee with that.”
Jayce has a sudden prophetic vision of himself, vibrating out of his skin with ten cups’ worth of sugar in his system and zero hand dexterity to work any of it off. “Hey - wait, I can make my own-”
“Of course you can,” Viktor tosses back. “Why don’t you get started with that, and I’ll find the sugar cup.”
Cup - Viktor’s doing this on purpose, the bastard. Jayce drags himself into their tiny lab kitchen and wedges himself in front of the coffee machine. “Spoon, Vik,” he stresses.
“Mhm,” Viktor replies, rummaging through a cabinet. “Cup is faster.”
“Precision?” Jayce tries hopefully, already reaching for the coffee grounds - if he hurries, maybe it’ll cool enough for the sugar to precipitate out.
Viktor comes back over with a coffee cup and a balance beam scale that he really shouldn’t be dangling in one hand. “Yes, precision,” he says smugly.
Jayce clutches the coffee scoop like the final bastion of sanity it is, and wow his cramped hands don’t like that at all. “Ow - fuck-”
A warm weight nudges his chest. Jayce leans into it as far as he can without falling over, eyes squeezed shut as he tries to take deep breaths and flex his fingers slowly. Viktor smells like sugar and paper and ink, thin but solid where he’s pressed up against him, and slowly, slowly, the engine that’s been thundering along inside him all day starts to wind down. “Okay, maybe I can’t make my own coffee.”
“Neither can I, if I’m holding you up,” Viktor points out dryly, and then - “Eh, I’ll just get your neck again when I need you to move. Pass the grounds.”
Jayce doesn’t quite manage to contain his groan, but he doesn’t move away either.
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
Note
“Worst” prompts: 5 & Fjord
Tumblr media
5. What’s the worst tickling you’ve ever dished out?
It's kind of silly, Fjord thinks - that even after everything Caleb's been through, all it takes to make him scream is sitting on his back.
Well, that's not quite true. He's pretty sure the quick, nibbling pinches he's lavishing upon their resident wizard's bony sides have something to do with it.
Caleb's nearly redder than his hair, hands slapping frantically at the bedsheets - with Fjord's knees planted up high enough under his armpits that he can’t get his arms down, there's not much else he can do.
"Wait," he pleads. "W-wahahait, Fjord, bitte, not again, I can't, I can't-"
Huh. Fjord had thought he'd given up on pleading after the second long stretch of kneading at a particularly sensitive rib. He prods at it again, building up a nice rhythm as he attacks Caleb's left side and then his right, and earns himself a pathetic little wail in response amongst a new peal of laughter.
"Oh, no, I think you can," he hums, playing up honey-sweet sympathy that makes Caleb squirm more than any of the more physical torment. "After all, you've got quite the repertoire of talents."
Caleb lifts his head just far enough to let out an audible sob. "Verdammt - ha-ahhh! - I am sorry, pleeheehaa-hhh-"
"Hm?" Fjord raises his fingertips the barest inch from flushed skin. "Say it again, maybe this'll be the one that convinces me."
"Götter-" Caleb gasps, and then, "listen, I am not Veth, and I am not a tiefling, and if you - if -"
"If I tickle you until I feel sufficiently compensated for you making me wear a bathrobe while we traipsed through the streets of Rosohna?" Fjord offers, grinning as the mere mention of having his fingers anywhere near Caleb makes him bury his face back in the mattress.
"I'll die," Caleb groans. "Just tell me what to say, arschloch, and I will say it."
"How generous of you," Fjord deadpans, but he's feeling merciful enough to give Caleb's back a soothing scratch that has him stiffening for a moment before he melts into it - for all his complaints, Caleb's a sucker for being manhandled.
He drags his hand up the fine bumps of his spine, pressing the heel of his palm in to add some weight to it, before tangling his fingers in Caleb's hair and pulling his head gently to the side - just enough to catch the widening of one teary blue eye.
"Can't say it'll help, though. Maybe I just want to be very, very sure that I can drive you out of your mind any time I want to. Especially if you try to mess with me. How do you feel about that?"
Fjord's not sure what sound Caleb makes at that, but he definitely catches the nervy, stubborn grin that slips out as Caleb whines and tries to hide his face again. Accomplished liar as he is, he can sure as hell spot a genuine emotion when he sees one.
"Mmm," he chuckles, spidering his way down the back of Caleb's neck with one hand and diving back under his arm with the other. "That's exactly what I thought you'd say."
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
Text
tickletober day 31/nope: tickle monster
this one's a birthday gift for @wordstrings and also a long overdue fill for this prompt! it's as much of a guess at characterization as i could cobble together from a supercut and a few clips, but i hope you enjoy, you wonderful person 💛
---
Something’s wrong with his face.
Well, not really - Percy has it on good authority that his face is quite fetching, in certain circumstances, even with the nearsightedness-
The point being. Vex’s hand is on his cheek, and lovely as she is, it's also quite distracting.
“You’re not listening at all, are you?”
He blinks. Something about it is unpleasantly sticky. “What?”
“Percy, darling.” She’s leaning between him and his soldering iron now - bad, very bad, these people know nothing about tool safety - with her eyebrows raised in a way that never signals well for his dignity in the following minutes. “You’ve been down here for far too long - why don’t you come take a walk with me? Trinket misses you terribly, you know.”
He makes an attempt at nudging her out of his field of vision with his shoulder, spine twitching in sharp disapproval after a few hours of piecing together the minute details of his current project. “Does he?”
Vex grins, just visible in the blurry corner of his vision where his glasses don’t quite reach. It’s almost worth the terrible burns he’s certainly going to get from not being able to see what he’s doing. “I’m sure he’s going to give you a big wet kiss the moment he sees you.”
He heaves a put-upon sigh just to stretch her smile an inch wider, and - oh, she’s got him thoroughly distracted now, hasn’t she. Clever. And annoying.
Luckily, he’s not entirely unarmed at the moment. “Vex,” he starts. “You like it when I make you things, don’t you?”
The entire line of her body shifts - lovely, he can see his hands again. “This is for me?”
Ha. “Yes, so for the love of gods don’t make me fuck it up, all right?” He can’t quite help smirking as he pushes a little further. “Especially at this stage, which will be quite expensive to redo if something goes wrong.”
A complete lie, but not one she’ll know to spot - worth it, for some peace and quiet to finish the blasted thing. He’s fairly sure his aching spine will survive the night.
“Oh.” Vex’s fingers twitch, light and lithe against his jawbone. She’s contemplating. Good. “That’s - well, that’s not fair, now I hardly want to drag you out of here.”
He twitches a somewhat conciliatory grin in her direction. “Don’t worry, your greed is very endearing.”
He can’t see her face anymore, but he can feel the wince even as she laughs. “Oh, fuck off - you need rest, Percy. I’m supposed to look out for you, aren’t I?”
“Well, seeing as I’m not currently possessed-”
Vex sniffs pointedly. “There is a lot of smoke in here.”
He huffs. “I’ll find a good stopping point in an hour or two… maybe...”
There’s a frustrated sound from somewhere above his head, and Vex’s hand drops to the back of his neck. “Bad luck for you that I’ve brought help, then.”
Percy barely hears it, already half sunk back into the repetitive process of melting solder and pressing metal into place - but she pulls his head up, just a little, and-
“Hello, Percival.”
He freezes, a sharp reprimand on his lips, just in time to watch Vax melt from the shadows with a grin entirely too chilling to be pointed at anyone he isn’t trying to kill.
Though, judging from the way he’s flipping a dagger lazily in one hand, maybe death isn’t out of the question. It’s - it’s a lot, now that he’s distracted enough to feel every single ache of a day and a half of tinkering, but he makes the attempt to match that sharpness with some of his own. “Do the two of you really not have anything better to be doing?”
Vax shrugs, smooth and utterly unhurried, and advances. “Oh, normally I’d be quite happy to let you two handle yourselves, but you’re being a dick to my sister and today-”
His eyes gleam with a distinctly predatory look that Percy can’t quite keep himself from twitching away from. “Oh, today - today, I know a secret.”
He and Vex recoil in shocked unison - and oh, if she doesn’t know, that’s so much worse. “A-” Percy hedges, wondering if he can perhaps make a break for the door. “A secret?”
Vax reaches the other side of his workbench, reaching out to pluck the soldering iron from Percy’s hand as he leans in - thankfully he’s got enough sense not to grab it by the smoking end. “Would you like to know what it is?”
Percy’s shoulder hit the back of his chair. His chair hits Vex, boxing him in from behind. Fuck. “Will it matter if I say no?”
Vax - chuckles, low and throaty, his fingers on Percy’s wrist. He feels like a prey animal.
Vex clears her throat overhead. “Come on, Scrawny, please don’t make me watch you flirt.”
Her twin’s grin doesn’t waver one bit. Percy’s running out of danger signals for this situation. “I ran into Pike on my way down here,” Vax starts casually. His middle finger pokes out past his others, another swinging out in front to take a few mincing steps up Percy’s arm. “And, when I told her where I was headed-”
He leans impossibly closer, beaming up for the barest instant over Percy’s head before bearing back down on him. “She told me that, on the very predictable occasion of you being difficult-”
The combination of Pike and difficult and Vax’s extremely poor attempt at capturing their cleric’s saintly brand of frustration triggers a very unfortunate memory. Percy’s eyes widen. “Oh, no.”
He tries to tug his arm away, but it remains pinned with a grip of steel as Vax’s spidering fingers and betrayal press mercilessly on. “Oh, yes. Our dear Pickle told me that someone might be susceptible to a little convincing from the tickle monster-”
He’s not quite sure what happens next, really.
There’s a shout that’s certainly too high pitched to be coming from him, and - he’s trapped in his chair in one moment, and in the next he’s across his workspace, panting as his head whips frantically between a deviously smirking Vex and her evil, terrible brother collapsed into near hysterics on a nearby chair.
“Oh,” Vax squeaks out, “oh, your face, Freddy - Vex, get on his other side, now we have to tickle him-”
Percy looks despairingly at the jars of acids and many, many gently steaming pieces of metal currently strewn across the room. “No,” he insists. “Someone’s going to get hurt, this is undignified - Vax, I can see you, don’t you dare -”
His heart skips a beat as Vax regains his composure and rolls upright with that same teasing grin, starting to round the tables towards him. “You’d better run, Freddy,” he sings. “The tickle monster’s coming!”
He doesn’t have it in him at the moment to be embarrassed of the giddy terror that springs into being high in his chest. “Vex - Vex, darling,” he pleads, backing up until he can keep them both in eyesight, “let’s be reasonable here-”
She’s grinning too, rounding the room in the opposite direction. He sprints for the door.
Two figures lunge in his periphery. He yelps, grabbing blindly for the door handle, as two thin arms wrap around his shoulders - a feather tickles his neck, coaxing a frantic giggling hiccup from his throat - it’s Vex, he’s stronger than Vex, he can get free of her as long as-
Cold hands claw at the back of his shirt, prying their way underneath and around to his sides. “No,” he gasps, fighting back the laughter bubbling in his lungs - it squirms into his muscles instead, turning his arms to jelly. “No, no!-”
A roguish grin weasels its way against his ear. “Got you~”
He makes one last desperate attempt at escape, but the first ghosting touch against the edge of his belly has him thrashing so badly that it’s hardly a struggle for Vex to wrestle him prone on his own workbench. “Hhh - ha! - this - ahhh, hnn - is a violation- oh gohohods-”
“Oh, darling,” Vex purrs, Vax smirking to match beside her, and he thinks he might have to make another deal with a demon to gain any sort of mercy. “You’re listening now, aren’t you?”
“Haahh - yes, yes, just - ahhh!”
Monsters, indeed.
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chockfullofsecrets · 2 years
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More “worsts” with 13 & Caleb!
behold my humble offering to strings <3
13. Worst “tickled in front of people you know” experience?
“And you guys would not be-lieve - wait, wait, Caleb, show them!”
The Clays’ dinner table is not exactly spacious - with the nine of them and two extra ex-Vollstruckers crowded around, it seems impossible that Jester can get closer to him. But she manages, somehow, elbowing him excitedly as she regales Astrid and Eadwulf with the details of their time on Rumblecusp.
Caleb really hopes that she is not talking about his dick crafting skills. “Ah - show them what, Jester?”
“All those illusions that you made - the moon, and the gateway - they were so cool - I mean, all of you wizards are pret-ty cool, but this was the coolest thing ever!”
Years and years ago, Astrid and Wulf had found him sobbing in a barn after he’d picked a handful of flowers for one of the village girls and she’d given them away to all her friends. They’re giving him the exact same look now. He doesn’t dare look over at Essek.
He contemplates shoving a handful of tubers into his mouth and pretending to choke, but he would not put it past the excitable tiefling at his side to Heimlich it right out of him.“That is - oof, that is a tough one - and really, I would not be surprised if all of our arcanist friends already know it - Essek?"
Essek shakes his head and - oh, Caleb can tell that he is trying to hide a smile, the traitor.
He could swear that Wulf smirks at him before adopting his usual stoic demeanor. “Well, I would certainly like a demonstration of something that Bren worked so hard on.”
“Oh, yes,” Astrid seconds. “If it is the spell I’m thinking of, he must have spent hours preparing it - hm, Bren?”
Ah, he’s turning red. He should have skipped pretending to choke and gone for the real thing. “I - I cannot say that I even remember the design, really, it was nothing!”
“Aw, Cay-leb, come on!” Jester wraps herself around one of his arms, pouting playfully in the face of his harassed grimace.
And then she smiles, and - oh, Scheiße-
Caleb is far too aware of the exact moment that a sly thumb and forefinger sneak ever-so-gently around his lowest rib, worrying at the vulnerable bit of skin with a nibbling pinch. “Ah-hhh - I - Jester, I - I am eating-”
“And?” Jester prompts, diving in with her other hand to deliver a flurry of subtle pokes to his side. “I’m not stopping you from eating, Cay-leb, am I?”
Everyone is looking at him, Astrid and Wulf and Essek are looking at him, and - and Jester is teasing, and he cannot help but think that they might too-
He starts to squirm in earnest even before Jester worms her way under his shirt for a second go. “Ha - no pinching, no pinching, Jester, bitte - !”
There is a bit of movement on Jester’s other side - Essek, drawing slowly back as if Jester is about to start tickling spells out of every wizard in her vicinity. He has his hand poised for a Counterspell in Caleb’s direction, the bastard. Caleb has half a mind to fill his room in the tower with feathers tonight. Or he would, if Jester wasn’t swooping in to nuzzle at a spot behind his ear that he did not even know was ticklish, the little devil.
“Aw, are you too ti-ck-lish?” she preens, giggling into unfairly sensitive skin. “You can’t get away, I’m not gonna let you!”
“N-nahahhah!” She’s really digging in, now - he makes a pathetic attempt to push her away and recoils instantly as fingernails start to dance up the underside of his bicep. “Pffff - no - ah, ha!”
“I bet I can make you cast whatever I want if I find the right spot!”
Everywhere will be the right spot, if she doesn’t stop right now and let him hide under the table from the collection of amused looks on the faces of his friends. “Nein!” He presses his lips together, trying desperately to swallow the easy laughter back down his throat. “I - I am not even - that, don’t you - mmph! - dare - Jester-”
“Try under his arms, a bit further down,” Astrid tosses casually across the table. “You, Thelyss - you can keep him in place, yes?”
“Ah - yes?”
Jester freezes, still grappling his arm like Frumpkin in his octopus form. “Oh?”
Caleb gapes, whipping around to glare at his terrible, betraying friends. “Halt deinen Mund!-”
She’s smiling - not in a superior way, but with the lopsided, uncertain cockiness of a genuine thrill. His heart flips disobediently in his chest. “You know, Wulf and I could never convince him to do anything like that - I wonder if it was because there were only two of us?”
And, well, if it is to be like that-
He sticks his tongue out at her. It’s almost worth it.
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chockfullofsecrets · 3 years
Note
"If I'm not careful I'm gonna end up writing content for a character who literally never appears in 141 episodes"
I mean, you are more than welcome to. In fact, we will gratefully encourage this.
you encourage chock? you encourage chock like the author? oh! oh! tk fic for anon! tk fic for anon for Two Thousand Words!
(also, heads up that i am moving next week! have been working on Importance of Timing when i can, but the first chapter probably won't be here for another two weeks at least.)
---
Verin Thelyss, Essek knows, is a seasoned battle commander and strategist.
He’s also in possession of the instinct to tackle people when he’s excited, so Essek is well aware that it’s only those decades of training and experience that have his little brother pausing for the briefest instant as Caleb and Jester teleport him into the hold of the Nein Heroez before he launches himself at Essek in a dead run.
Veth and Caduceus are at their respective homes, Kingsley watching over the ship, but he is far from alone - Yasha and Fjord each have a supportive hand on his shoulder, a silent assurance from the tense minutes waiting for their friends to return from Bazzoxan. They swear in unison and scramble for their weapons as Verin screeches to a halt just shy of shunting Essek straight though the hull and yanks him into a rib-crushing hug.
He burrows into the junction of Essek’s neck and shoulder, made possible only by virtue of the activated floating spell that puts the coiffed swoop of his hair a full inch above Verin’s. “Thank the fucking Light, you’re not actually dead.”
“What the fuck, he’s like a swearing puppy,” Beau hisses. There’s a soft thwap as Fjord gently smacks her across the back of the head.
Essek is feeling out the edges of friendly intimacy, still, stumbling through every brush of fingers and shared look of exasperation, but even he does not need Jester’s frantic gesturing to prompt him to lift his arms and awkwardly wrap them around Verin’s shoulders.
It’s like wrapping a single thread of silk around one of Yasha’s biceps. Clearly he is not built for comforting.
Verin stiffens with a single sharp twitch of his ear against Essek’s collarbone . Essek’s thoughts flail wildly between an expectation of tears or a dagger to his ribs, but his brother just laughs, loud and hearty, and snuggles even further into his personal space. “I see someone’s finally taught you how to hug back - you should have written and told me, this is better news than any number of pages on den politics.”
Essek bristles. “Careful, or I will stop,” he huffs, somewhat more waspishly than he intends to.
Luckily, Verin has proven immune to his moods. “Oh, please don’t,” he insists, voice still crackling with glee. He grins, warm and wide enough that Essek can feel it against the side of his neck. “It just makes doing this that much easier.”
“Doing what,” Essek says reflexively, even as the tiny portion of his brain that he allows to remember his childhood starts to blare an alarm. “Verin-”
It’s far too late to realize that Verin’s hands have somehow been maliciously positioned just along the backs of his ribs.
Jester, standing with Caleb behind Verin, perks up in clear interest as the corners of his mouth start to twitch up. On second thought, Essek thinks he’d have preferred the dagger.
“Verin,” he hisses again, fighting back the anticipatory shiver crawling up his back. “Don’t - don’t you dare-”
It’s about then that Verin’s evil, evil fingers find the edges of his mantle’s arm slits and squeeze him even closer as they stretch to wriggle under his arms.
He snatches his arms back, but it’s too late - a dismayed giggle sneaks from his throat, then another, and then he’s beating helplessly at Verin’s shoulders as he dissolves into high, squeaking laughter.
Every single nerve between his armpits and his ribs squirms in unison - a bubbly, slippery sensation even more potent for how long it’s been since he last felt it. “No,” he shrieks. “I - ahaha! eeheee! - no tickling, no tickling, Verin-”
Jester looks thrilled - she’s bouncing on her toes, babbling something to Caleb that’s inaudible over the rush of his own laughter. Light, the Nein are going to tear him apart for this-
“Yes, tickling,” Verin protests, laughing right along with him. “All the tickling! You let me think you were dead! For months! I thought I was never going to get to watch my poor brother giggle himself to pieces ever again!”
He’s not, because Essek is going to kill him. “That - nahaha, hff, ahaaa! - that was - ha - it’s been decades - stop, stop, there’s people!”
“Yeah, people,” Beau says, loud and smug and far too close behind him. “Hey - Verin, was it? - does hotboi here have a worst spot?”
Oh no. Oh no. Essek squeezes his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to focus and does the only thing he can while laughing like an idiot.
With a shaky flick of his wrist, his floating dispels. Verin yelps in surprise as gravity takes Essek straight out of his grip.
The instant his boots hit the deck, Essek twists the rest of the way out of his grip and bolts.
There’s nowhere to go, really - the Nein have a room full of Counterspells, and Verin can run faster than he can, and he’s already tumbling halfway back into laughter in giddy anticipation of being caught. Still, it’s a surprise when he stumbles into a brick wall of leather and biceps that resolves itself into Yasha as she hoists him back into the air.
“Oh, where do you think you’re going?” She sounds admirably innocent given the soft, teasing smile she gives him.
“Noooo,” Essek giggles. Heat gathers in his cheeks as he tries to make himself stop - it doesn’t make sense, he’s not even being tickled anymore, but even the potential for it flutters light and fizzy at the bottom of his lungs. “I - I’m not ticklish anymore, I’m not-”
The Nein and Verin cluster around the two of them, bubbling with various levels of amusement. “Really?” Beau drawls. “It’s cute that you think denying it has a single fucking chance of working.”
The sarcasm helps him center himself, if only a little - he buries his face in Yasha’s arm and sucks in a deep breath that doesn’t do nearly enough to get rid of his blush.
He straightens as best he can while being bear hugged by a barbarian. “I am denying nothing,” he says carefully. Jester is still bouncing next to Beau, fingertips already twitching where they’re curled sweetly on her cheeks around a mischievous beaming smile, and Essek has to look away before the nervous snickers still wobbling on the back of his tongue can worm their way free. “I am well aware that Verin is - incorrigible-”
He hisses the last word in his brother’s direction - again, harsher than he intends, but he is so unused to being soft around him - and fails to contain a shy smile as Verin sticks his tongue out in retaliation.
Jester’s tail waves its way into the edge of his peripheral vision. He jumps and looks over at Fjord instead. “-but I, ah, I would ask for more respect from the rest of you-”
“You really shouldn’t,” Fjord says, grinning boyishly back at him. “I mean, you know us.”
And then, to Fjord’s right - “Essek?”
He’s been avoiding looking at Caleb. It is foolish, perhaps, to think that after all of the incredibly stupid things he knows Essek has done he will decide to judge him for this, but he cannot help the way his shoulders stiffen as he twists a little further to meet the gaze of the last link in their semicircle. “Yes?”
Caleb looks - focused, in an offhanded way, like he’s intent on something happening just slightly out of their current reality. Stunned might be a better word for it. He blinks for a moment before focusing those keen blue eyes somewhere near Essek’s eyebrows. “Ah - did you know that when you laugh, your ears -” He puts his hands up to his own ears and flaps them a little.
Drow do not run particularly warm, but that only makes it easier for Essek to feel the heat absolutely flood back into his face. “I-” he stammers. Nearly a century of politics is nowhere near enough to help him keep a straight face. “I - ah - eeh!-”
Caleb is close enough to reach out and run a questing fingertip over Essek’s left ear - it flicks wildly, trying to dislodge the unexpected tickle, but a surprised squeak still slips out.
There’s a moment of silence before Verin starts to snicker. “Oh, I like your friends,” he says merrily, beaming. “Go on, Light knows he doesn’t let himself laugh enough otherwise.”
“Don’t,” Essek gets out hastily, but Caleb is already reaching out for another go and Yasha’s grip is firm enough that all he can do is squeak again. “Wait - hm, hnn!”
Beau sidles up to Yasha’s side and gives him a self satisfied leer as she reaches out across their little group to pluck the feather from Fjord’s tricorn. “You got him, babe?”
“I do,” Yasha confirms and lets out a little squeak of her own as Beau reaches around her, no doubt squeezing something entirely inappropriate with company present.
“Hot,” Beau smirks, and reaches to flutter the feather over Essek’s right ear. “Aw, does that tickle? Thought you said you weren’t ticklish, man.”
Essek maintains some facsimile of composure for all of two seconds before his face crumples “Nnn - hehehe - eheehe - oh!”
His lungs are surely going to burst, with the way they’re shivering out desperate giggles as he shakes his head frantically between Caleb’s fingers and the teasing feather. He can’t move his arms, so he kicks his legs instead. “Please,” he begs, nearly incomprehensible even to his own ears. “Ah - aha, heeheehee! - tickles-”
Verin leans down and scoops his ankles up with one ridiculously sculpted arm. “Essek, you’re going to put a hole in someone with those boots.”
He looks up, raising his eyebrows teasingly, and Essek’s stomach drops like he’s cast something on it. “Here, I’ll fix that.”
Essek’s eyes, narrowed with laughter, shoot wide open. He doesn’t remember Verin being this evil - but then again, his brother’s never been egged on by five other people determined to render reports of his death more realistic.
“Verin, Verin, no-” he tries, but he’s giggling so hard that he can’t even get the words out. He twists as far away from Caleb and Beau as he can, flailing frantically, but Verin’s grip holds firm.
He pouts dramatically. “What? Is it my fault that my tiny, ticklish wizard brother insists on wearing metal-tipped boots that endanger everyone?”
Essek opens his mouth to reply and promptly dissolves into another frantic peal of laughter as Beau gets bored of his ears and shoves her feather in Caleb’s direction before jabbing a finger between his trapped arm and his chest to get at his armpit. “Your - shihihit, shit, ahahaaa, not there! - your arcanist brother is going to kill you just as soon as I can- hahaha!”
Verin just laughs, unlacing one of his boots and starting to slide it off. “Is that your attempt to convince me not to tickle your feet?”
Jester, practically vibrating, emits a sound that perhaps only weasels can hear. “Oh, that’s so cute! Can I have one of them?”
“One of his feet? Sure.” Verin hands over an ankle, grinning down at Jester. “You, I think you’re my favorite.”
As Essek gasps and struggles and falls further and further into a formless mirth that makes him feel so light he can hardly bear it, there’s a different sensation at his ear. A hazy portion of his brain identifies it as the rough bristle of chin scruff and an amused huff of breath.
“You don’t really want them to stop, do you,” Caleb murmurs. “I will help you, if you do.”
It’s quite unfair, Essek feels, to try and make him explain himself while he’s strung out and dizzy with laughter. He tries anyway, for a syllable or two, but Verin digs in between two of his toes and he ends up just tipping his cheek against Caleb’s and shaking, laughing too hard to make a single sound.
“Alright, then,” Caleb says. “In that case-”
He brandishes the feather with a flourish more suited to somatic casting, swooping it down the length of Essek’s nose before directing it back to his ear.
“Tickle, tickle...”
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