Lightning Dance! - a Verso and Lune tickle fic
This is a fic set in the game Clair Obscur, and it contains major spoilers for the included characters. You also might just not understand parts of it if you haven’t played.
This was originally a fic for the awesome @dot-the-switch for Squealing Santa- which was almost six months ago. I feel awful for never finishing it but I still want to get it in! If you’re them and you can read this I’m SO sorry 😔🙏
Lune sat next to the fire, engrossed in a drawing she scribbled into her journal. Surely, the metal framing of an Abbest had to make it top-heavy, but it was able to stand up after falling without use of arms. The weight distribution had to come from somewhere, but it-
“You.”
Lune looked up. “Excuse me?”
Verso had appeared without Lune’s noticing— when had she let herself get so sloppy?— and he looked angry. Or grumpy, at least. “Where’d the wine go?”
“The wine?”
“Yes, the wine. We had leftovers from Esquie’s… you know, the other day. It’s gone.”
“Why do you want it so bad?”
“I got…” Verso growled, but it made him look altogether sad, rather than intimidating. In a wet cat sort of way. “I got killed by a Petank today. I was hoping to drink that embarrassment off.”
Professionalism abandoned, Lune burst out laughing. “A Petank? The little ball things? How did you manage that?”
“I was— helping Sciel!”
“We both know Sciel doesn’t need your help.”
“…I tripped.”
“You tripped!”
Verso scowled, but it was playful now. “It’s not that ridiculous. It’s just never a problem for you because you’re always a foot off the ground.”
Lune wasn’t completely lacking in sympathy. She didn’t know herself what it was like to die. But, she also couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease the man, especially since he’d been especially boastful in combat recently. “Consider getting the tattoos and you can fly around too. I’m sure you’d look very dainty. Like a little bird.”
“Like an eagle, I’m sure.”
Lune held up her journal to show a hastily scribbled drawing of Verso’s scowling face on a tiny dove. It was petty, maybe. But this was more relaxing and… fun, she supposed, than anything else had in the past several weeks. “Little bird.”
Verso laughed in mock-offense, and in incredulity that she had even taken the time to draw the insult out. “Excuse me!?” He reached for the journal. “Give me that.”
“Wh- no, hey, that’s mine!”
He continued trying to grab it out of her hands, the play-fight becoming increasingly chaotic. “C’mon! I’ll draw you as a bug or something.”
“Verso—“
Lune grabbed Verso’s wrist as he reached for it and channeled her electrical magic into his arm. The intention was for it to be a very mildly painful shock, akin to flicking his ear in annoyance. He reacted differently.
Verso jolted and recoiled. “Ah- HAHA!”
There was a silence as Lune studied him quizzically. “Laughter?”
Verso pouted to the best of his ability with a smile on his face. “You tickled me.”
“Tickled!”
“You know. The thing that-“ Verso knew a good amount about tickling, he realized, but it was hazy. Like music from another room. Or crackling from his. He wiggled his fingers demonstratively. “This.”
Lune laughed in disbelief. “I know what it is, Verso. I’m more surprised it tickled when I shocked you. It’s supposed to hurt, you know.”
“Well, I’m very durable.”
“More so than us?”
“I can’t die, Lune.”
“I thought that was the only relevant difference.”
“Perhaps you pass away enough times, you build up a resistance to it.”
Lune’s feet left the ground, just an inch, her heels barely touching the grass. Verso wasn’t the only one who had a training day, and she had an idea for some much-needed stress relief. “This I have to study.”
“Study? Need I remind you, my plans for this evening involved a lot of wine and little other company.”
“Are you ticklish, Verso?”
Verso said the answer before he knew it. “Yes.” A weakness. “No.” A lie. “Yes?”
”Hm, and to things that aren’t supposed to be. Get up here, will you?”
“In the air?”
“Yes.”
Verso’s feet left the ground, very suddenly and far less gracefully than Lune’s. “Hey! You- what? Put me down!! How?”
“I’m just adding Chroma to you. Have you never seen another Expedition do this?”
“The others usually let me enjoy my wine!” Verso flailed a bit in the air. He wasn’t restrained, but he also wasn’t attached to anything, and therefore couldn’t exactly move himself anywhere at all.
“You’ll get your wine after. Now I’ll test the first reaction again.” Lune touched Verso’s arm again, and with a slight tense of the fingers, a shock shot through his arm and all the way through the side of his torso.
“AHA-AH, SHIT!” Verso yelped, immediately trying to pull away— an action that wasn’t possible to do, without feet on the ground. “Lune, you-“
“Same location, same voltage, similar reaction. You aren’t grounded, so where is it going?” The question was rhetorical. Lune wasn’t talking to him.
“Will you put me down now?”
Without an ounce of acknowledgement, Lune zapped his other arm. The shock was more forceful now, but still painless. It felt like an intense and extremely brief vibration, one that sent Verso into a fit of cackles immediately. “AHAHA- AGH! LUNE!”
“Not a typical ticklish spot, and still elicits laughter. I wonder, is it more effective when applied to the usual areas one would tickle?”
Verso started to protest and was met with a brief touch to his stomach, followed near-instantly with the shock of lightning into his overly-sensitive skin. He yelped loudly, an embarrassingly high-pitched noise, before devolving into panicked laughter as he realized Lune hadn’t pulled her hand away, and was keeping the current running. The initial surprise of the sensation now gave way to absolutely unbearable tickling, as if a monster with a hundred arms was attacking his belly. “GAHAHAHA- FUCK- AHAHA! I know you can- AGH! AHAHA I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!”
Verso thought he saw a smile play at the corners of Lune’s mouth. “Obviously I can hear you, Verso, but it’s not often I’m given the privilege of getting to ignore you. I’ll take my chance while I have it.”
Lune’s hands- both were on him, when did that happen?- slid up from his stomach, where they both simply rested there. The electric, horribly ticklish sensation moved within him to follow the motion. Verso’s laughed boomed, a few small tears flying from the corners of his eyes at just the force of the sound. He’d give anything to have Lune’s fingers just actually tickle him like a normal person, god’s sake, anything but this. “HAHAHA- AHAHA NO! NO NO FUCK I HATE YOU! PUT ME BACK DOWN! I- AHAHA I NEED FEET ON THE GROUND!”
“Oh, feet. Yes, that’s a good idea.”
“NO!”
“You’re fine.” Lune pushed a hand to Verso’s chest and pushed gently, rotating the gravity-less Verso until he was upside down, legs in the air. She frowned disapprovingly when her eyes landed on his boots, already working to yank them off. “These are so inconvenient. I haven’t worn shoes in years.”
Verso flailed around, trying to reach for the grass beneath him. “Which is frightfully ODD, Lune!”
“It’s frightfully odd you all need ‘the most powerful being in the world’ to avoid getting your shoes muddy.” She tossed his second boot to the ground beneath. “Anyhow.” Her hands wrapped around his ankles, and BZZAP! The electricity returned with a vengeance.
Verso shrieked- god, he hoped Monoco was miles away from ever seeing this. His feet and calves, now the favorite target for Lune’s ticklish current, were so unbearably sensitive that it interfered with most aspects of his thought. He knew they were before all of this, but a memory like that was many steps removed from actually experiencing it. It tickled. It REALLY tickled. Surely Lune would have a better word for it than that, but Verso definitely didn’t. It just tickled.
“This is good evidence.”
“AHAHA- AHAW, AHAHA! YOU’RE NOT EVEN- YOU’RE NOHOHOT EVEN TAHAHAKING NOTES!”
“I’m taking mental notes.”
“YOUHUHUHU’VE NEVER DONE THAT!”
Lune, unable to admit she was just tickling him for fun, doubled down on shocking. Verso wisely (and involuntarily) stopped talking, opting to howl with laughter instead.
Eventually, finally, Verso’s fingers found purchase in the grass, and he hauled himself to the ground, the shocking sensation fading. The poor man climbed half-up onto a log near the campfire, before collapsing in a fit of giggles. He tried to get up a few times, but each time collapsed into uncontrollable mirth. It was an uncharacteristically delighted sound.
Then, suddenly, he felt something cold touch his face. A glass. A glass of wine.
Verso looked up at Lune with bleary eyes. “H… ah… you got me wine?”
“I did tell you I would.”
“Where…” Verso tried not to laugh again. The tickling sensation had faded, but for some reason, he felt wobbly, giggly, like a small child. How odd. Was it anything like this for him? For that Verso?
“Where’d you find this?”
Lune smiled. “Mm. I can’t tell you.”
“Someone’s hiding the leftovers from me?”
“Hey, I didn’t say that.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say that.”
Verso sat up on the log, taking a sip from the glass. He almost laughed again at the thought that he and the wine were probably aged about the same. “Who is it? I’m gonna find them.”
“Enjoy the wine, Verso. Thanks for the study.”
Verso grumbled and took another sip.
“This is really fucking good.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
First of all, I want to apologize again for not even remotely meeting the deadline. My life got pretty crazy and I mostly abandoned this blog, but that was a bad time to do it. I hope this fic is still enjoyed by its intended recipient, maybe as some sort of start-of-summer present. Second of all, I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to write for Expedition 33! Verso was by far my best damage dealer in my playthrough (free aim build baby) and I had to humble him here. Lune is also my second favorite character, just under Sciel! I jumped at the chance.
OH MY GOODNESS ME!! This is amazing!!! Forget the fact that it’s late, that’s unimportant! Fact IS that this is an absolute MASTERPIECE!! It feels so in character! Especially since Verso was one of my two heavy DPS dealers too! Him and Virtuose Stendhal Maelle…
Regardless! Thank you so so much, you did absolutely fantastic work~!
