ooooh spooky

“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

———————————

…Oslo ‘Crypt-Mouse’ Ingellvar, or nowadays seemingly just ‘Rook,’ was a necromancer of the Mourn Watch. Not one of those four names had been given to him by birth- rather, ‘Oslo’ by himself, ‘Crypt-Mouse’ by his friends back in Nevarra, ‘Ingellvar’ by his adoptors, and ‘Rook’ by the marksman Varric Tethras. The final of those names had recently become the most important, because an information-gathering job he had taken had almost immediately become a divine crisis he didn’t particularly want to be at the center of. But he was ‘Rook’ on that job, and the job wasn’t over, so ‘Rook’ he remained.

The oncoming end of the world had its perks, though, silly as it seemed. Oslo hadn’t really had real friends since he left Nevarra, but now, he had a real group of people that were honestly like family to him. At least, more family than he had ever known. And he had Davrin. Wonderful, occasionally evil Davrin. One thing he didn’t expect to come out of this adventure was love, but he was happy to have found it.

As he exited the eluvian- an interplanar portal to the Lighthouse, he nearly stumbled over Bellara and Taash, who were working on a runic mechanism attached to the gate. (Well, Bellara was working. Taash was sitting on their haunches and eating some sort of juicy fruit.)

“Bah,” Oslo groaned as he shook bits of snow off his shoulders. “Remind me never to go back to the Anderfels.”

Bellara laughed without looking up. “Maybe wear something warmer. You know we have coats, right?”

Oslo flushed, clearing his throat quietly. “This is what I wear out.”

Taash spoke between mouthfuls of fruit. “Sure. Do the shoulder spikes make a good impression on the people you meet?”

“This is fashionable in Nevarra!”

“What, for a porcupine?”

Bellara chuckled, a spark of magic spritzing out from her workplace. “Stop fighting, guys. I’m trying to work.”

Oslo coughed at Taash’s chuckle. “I need to change into my normal coat anyway. Have you guys seen-“

Bellara and Taash answered simultaneously. “Davrin?” Bellara continued, still not looking up. “Last I saw he was chasing after Assan. Something about a carving.”

Oslo winced jokingly. “Argh, I should go find them. Thanks.”

Taash spit out a seed, then turned to Oslo as he walked out. “Have fun with your boyfriend, porcupine boy!”

“YOUR ARMOR IS A CROP TOP, ASSHOLE!”

———————————

Davrin was not a snoop. Well, it was his job to be, as a tracker, but not for his interpersonal relationships. He was very respectful in that sense.

That said, notebooks of Oslo’s had literally fallen open in front of him. He lacked the willpower not to look at at least the page they opened to.

Assan chirped from the corner. “I’ll get you food in a second,” Davrin replied. “Also, you just ate.”

He checked to make sure the shelf was stable, then scooted forward a few inches to where one notebook had fallen. It looked like anatomical sketches- not uncommon for the necromancer, who probably had books full of notes on just his nerd-outs with Emmrich.

Wait, no. There were multiple different figures on this page. One was grasping the other by the waist maybe, or the sides- the drawing was scratchy. Kind of an intimate-looking position, Davrin thought. He hoped that if this was something Oslo wanted to try with him, Oslo felt safe enough to just say so.

Davrin did a second double-take. It was made clearer by the other drawings on this page- one figure was tickling the other. The more he looked, and admittedly, flipped through the pages, the more apparent it became. There was much attention in the drawing of the fingers, of the motions they made, and just as much attention in the expressions- roughly drawn, but always containing laughter, sometimes loving, sometimes desperate, always happy. Why would his partner have drawn this, and pages of it? The more he read, the more clear it was that the person being tickled in each drawing was Oslo himself- he’d have added freckles on the shoulders or bits of shoulder length hair. Oslo had drawn himself being tickled. Frequently. Oslo had…

———————————

…just finished changing into his more comfortable outfit, which Harding had done the favor of washing for him. It was… well, it was a lab coat, which earned him frequent teasing from Davrin about his inability to shut his ‘wizard brain’ down, but it really was comfortable. The material was soft and flowy and easy to lay around in, even if it was stained with ash and bonedust.

He was, however, completely unable to find Davrin. He was much warmer than he had been in the mountains just a bit ago, but he knew he’d certainly feel even better if he had a hug. And a kiss or several hundred. Having exhausted most of the rooms in the Lighthouse (and having recieved several very different accounts of Assan’s romp earlier), he decided to go to his own. It couldn’t hurt to check. He strolled down the hall to the Meditation Chamber, and upon opening the door, he found-

Davrin bolted up to his feet, still holding the journal, jostling Assan who immediately ran up to Oslo and started rubbing up against his leg.

“G’morning. Er, evening,” Davrin said, fumbling.

“Is that my journal?”

Davrin looked sheepish. “…yes?”

“Sh-shit! You-“

“I didn’t- not on purpose! Assan crashed into it and it fell and I picked it up but it was open.”

Oslo was blushing furiously now. “Which journal was it?”

“The tickling one.”

Okay, NOW Oslo was blushing furiously. “Wh- But you- That one is-“

Davrin set the book back on the shelf and took a step towards his partner. “I’m not judging, Oz.”

That stupid flustering nickname. “You weren’t supposed to see that!”

“Why?”

Oslo paused. “What do you mean?”

Davrin took another step forward, his hands settling on the mage’s waist. Oslo didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry for seeing this without your permission. Genuinely. But also, why hide it? You seem pretty interested in it.”

Oslo looked down at the ground, blushing. “It’s embarrassing.”

Davrin laughed, that deep, knowing chuckle that always got Oslo going. “All respect, Oz, we’ve done pretty much everything together. This isn’t more vulnerable than sex.”

“I-It’s more embarrassing than sex.”

“Why?”

“Cause everyone- not everyone. Most people like sex! It’s a normal thing to like! Not that this is a sex thing, cause it’s not really, but very few people like tickling so this is- is- it’s more awkward.”

Davrin smiled, waiting for Oslo to look back up before continuing. “I want to know about you, Oz. If it’s awkward for a bit, that’s okay. But I’m not in the slightest turned away by this. I just want you to know that this is the kind of thing I want you to share with me.”

“…yeah.”

“Also, it’s the kind of thing I can help you with. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into being tickled without ever actually getting it to happen.”

“Shut up!”

“I’m not teasing. I’m dead serious. You want to be tickled, right? By me?”

It was such a direct question. Davrin had been a blunt communicator since they first got together (perhaps to make a change from the months of incredibly unsubtle flirting that preceded it), but it never got to Oslo quite like this. He didn’t know how to respond to it, other than with bluntness of his own.

“…yes.”

“And you want to be tickled in the ways that you drew?”

Oslo’s head was buried in Davrin’s chest now. “Yes.”

“And you’re free right now?”

“What?”

“No urgent missions or anything?”

Oslo flushed red, then pulled away. “E-Er, I actually have an experiment with some, um, bones, and stuff-“

Davrin kept looking at him with that gentle smile. “Or you could lay down.”

He looked to the bed.

He looked back at Oslo.

Oslo was on the bed in seconds.

Davrin smiled, then retrieved the journal from the nearby shelf with an infuriating calmness that godDAMMIT made all of this worse. He flipped it open. “Some of these drawings involve restraints, in some you’re just being pinned down. Do you have a preference?”

Oslo was so flustered he was basically just squeaking out words by now. “Pinning to- to start. At least. So I can stop it if I need.”

Davrin smiled warmly. “Of course. You can stop it anytime even with restraints, though. You tell me to stop, I stop.”

“…okay.”

The warden climbed up onto the bed, situating himself on his partner’s legs. “Give me your wrists.”

“W-Willingly?”

Davrin grinned. “Not what you imagined? Sure then.” He swiftly grabbed Oslo’s wrists, pinning them down above the man’s head in the blink of an eye. “That what you wanted?”

“Fuck you!”

“Wasn’t a ‘stop.’ Guess I’m good to go.” He shifted so he was holding both of Oslo’s hands in just one of his own, and hovered his free hand just over his partner’s ribs. Oslo flinched. “Gods, I haven’t even touched you yet.”

“You made it seem like you were!”

“Mhm. Barely moved my hand.”

“You’re an asshole, Davrin.”

“And you’re not in a position to say that.”

“I’ll say whatever I want to hear.”

“You’ve become so confident suddenly. No, you’ll say whatever I want to hear.” He leaned down until his breath tickled the mage’s ear. “Which is screaming.”

That would’ve been a lot more flustering if Oslo got the chance to process it. Instead, he felt Davrin’s strong fingers wiggling into his ribs. Not enough to hurt- never enough to hurt, not from Davrin.

But holy shit, it tickled.

Oslo arched off the bed, immediately launching into hysterical laughter. Davrin laughed in surprise from how immediate it was, from how little effort it took to get his boyfriend this bad. He thought for sure that he had lucked out and found the worst spot on the first try, but when he pulled the man’s coat up to get at his soft, freckled stomach, he proved himself immediately wrong.

“AHAHAHAAAAAA- NOHOHO, DAVRIN! AHAHAHA HAHAHA- HAHAHAHAHAVE- HAVE MERCY!”

Davrin paused. “Your word is ‘stop.’”

Oslo fell silent.

Davrin dug right back in.

Eager to please as ever, Davrin occasionally checked the journal his boyfriend had drawn in. It had drawings of lots of different tickle spots- rough tickles to the sides, which he gleefully tested, light tickles to the base of the neck, which earned a constant stream of giggles. “Ehehehe… Davrin, nohohoho…”

Davrin listened and listened for a ‘stop,’ but Oslo didn’t crack. At some point, the warden began to take it as a challenge. His boyfriend was, and he meant this lovingly, not that tough. If Davrin was a really good tickler, Oslo wouldn’t still he holding out. That meant he had to get better.

Oslo still didn’t call it off, even after Assan had left the room full of Oslo’s flustered laughter, even after Davrin had gotten his boyfriend’s shirt off and even tied up his hands after he recieved permission. At the moment, Davrin sat on the man’s legs, dragging his fingers up his bare feet before skittering them down and repeating the motion. Oslo was alternating between periods of thrashing and cackling and periods of flustered pleading that got him absolutely nowhere. He could end it if he wanted. They both knew that.

Davrin had to prop a pillow up under his boyfriend’s neck before going for the armpits, because Oslo was throwing his head back hard enough to hit something by accident. Once he ensured the mage’s safety, though, he was perfectly ready to go back to absolutely destroying him.

“HAHAHAHA- NO, FUCK-“ A few seconds of silent laughter, then screeching, then- “AAAAAAAHAHAHA- AHAHAHA! HAHAHA- MERCY, PLEASE- AHAHA I CAN’T TAKE IT! I CAN’T TAKE IT!”

Oslo couldn’t take it, that much was true. Davrin’s strong, confident fingers had plunged into the necromancer’s armpits, alternating between deeper attacks that wriggled into the flesh as if searching for something, and oscillating, spidery tickles that allowed the man time to plead.

“PLEHEHEASE-“ he’d beg between louder fits of laughter. “I’ll do- AHAHA- I’ll do ANYTHING!”

“Clearly you won’t,” Davrin murmured, “because you can stop this whenever you want.” Oslo wisely stopped using his words after that.

Davrin stopped tickling some time later, even before Oslo said the word. Despite the fact that the mage had held out (somehow), Davrin figured his increasing lack of struggling and of air meant he might wear him out too much if he kept going.

“D-didn’t… didn’t say stop…” Oslo mumbled, somehow indignant-sounding even through his residual laughter.

“I’m not looking to tickle you half to death, Oz. Here.” His hands returned to Oslo’s torso. The man almost immediately jumped and started laughing, horribly oversensitive from the previous assault, but Davrin wasn’t tickling anymore- instead, he ran his hands across all the places he was torturing before, palms flat, rubbing out the last of the tickling sensations. Oslo’s remaining laughter slowly subsided to smaller fits of giggles. Davrin moved down to Oslo’s feet, massaging where they were still sensitive, then moved up to the calves, the knees, anywhere he had tickled before. Between exhausted, sparse giggles, Oslo murmured out “thank you”s and far more pet names than he typically used. It was nice.

Davrin pressed a stiff kiss to the back of his partner’s limp, relaxed hand. “You doing okay, sweetheart?”

No response. Oslo was asleep. A rarity for the mage, who was so frequently an insomniac. Davrin decided to let him sleep, curling up next to the man protectively. Oslo had been working himself half to death most days. He needed the rest, even if it needed to be tickled into him.

Some time later, Oslo fast asleep in Davrin’s arms, with the covers pulled up, Davrin turned over to look at the carving Assan had stolen hours ago. It sat there on the nightstand, almost as if looking down at the two of them. It was a carving of Oslo, intricate and lovingly crafted. Davrin knew he’d appreciate the gift once he woke up. But that would be later.

At the moment, all was well.

AUTHOR’S NOTE