[a/n: this was absolutely inspired by @ticklystuff's tags on my corbeau hcs so v big thank you for the inspo!!!! i am still completely plza brainrotted so who knows what's gonna be next. more corbeau probably]
word count: 1340
Corbeau obviously knew what tickling was. He’d seen it happen—siblings play-fighting, friends jabbing at each other, laughter exploding out of nowhere. But it had never happened to him. No childhood roughhousing, no fingers weaving into vulnerable places, no giggles bubbling over until they spilled. Somewhere along the way, he’d filed it away as not applicable.
So, when it finally happened, he didn’t know how to react.
It happened in his office, on the top floor of the Rust Syndicate building in the Bleu District. He was sat beside Philippe on one of his black leather sofas, analysing the latest data on Mega Power from Quasartico. The Holo-Tech cast a faint blue glow across their faces as they scanned through the information.
A couple of hours had passed, and as important as the analysis was, it was becoming, frankly, boring. Corbeau couldn’t hide his impatience as well as Philippe could; he grumbled under his breath every so often and his knee bounced in agitation.
“Mr Corbeau, sir, I apologise but this is incredibly distracting.” Philippe reached a hand over to steady Corbeau’s leg. “Please stop.”
The second fingers met knee, Corbeau felt as though he had been jolted with electricity. A flutter erupted in his chest and his leg jerked away with force. Both of them looked at each other, tension in the air.
“Are you okay, sir?” Philippe asked, genuinely concerned that Corbeau was hurt, or something else was amiss.
“Yes,” Corbeau said immediately, then paused. “…I think so. That was odd.”
Philippe’s eyebrow raised. “Odd how?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.”
Unconvinced, Philippe turned his attention back to the data in front of him, but his mind was elsewhere.
It had only been ten minutes before Corbeau lost his patience again.
“Did some intern put this together? This is the most useless heap of garbage I’ve ever read! There has been absolutely nothing of value for the past three pages!” he snapped. “Look, I bet we can skip all these pages too!”
Arm outstretched, he began swiping up on the screen, sending the information flying upwards in a blur, too fast for either of them to read. “Intern is probably too generous, this was written by one of the damn kids from the Aca—hah!”
In what was meant as a joking nudge, Philippe had jabbed his elbow into Corbeau’s side where his arm was raised. What he wasn’t expecting was for Corbeau to slam his arm down and curl in on himself, as if instinctively. Philippe straightened, turning his body fully to face Corbeau, the pieces clicking into place in his head.
Corbeau’s face warmed, his ears pink, his heart racing. “I apologise. My nervous system seems to be… on edge.”
“Did I just… tickle you?”
The answer was too fast, but not out of denial. That wasn’t tickling. Tickling was laughter, something people chose to provoke. This was… strange.
Philippe studied him for a moment, then, very purposefully, scratched at his side.
Corbeau laughed, a breathless, startled noise that seemed to burst from him against his will. He tried to grab at Philippe’s wrists, but his body seemed to act against his will, drawing into a ball in the corner of the sofa, his arms glued to his sides to try and guard from the feeling.
“Whahat the hell are you doihing?!” His sentences were broken up by giggles, choked out in surprise as Philippe continued, gentle but persistent.
“What am I doing? Tickling you,” Philippe said, clearly amused. “Gotta say, boss, I didn’t expect you to be ticklish.”
“Mehee neither! Hnngh—stahahap!”
That gave Philippe pause, and he drew back his hands. Him neither? “You… didn’t know?”
Heat rose to Corbeau’s face. He wasn’t sure what he found more embarrassing: the fact he was ticklish, or the fact he didn’t know he was ticklish, as a fully grown adult.
“Never too late to find out!”
Corbeau didn’t have time to prepare himself before Philippe loomed over him, twice his size, blocking him into the corner of the sofa where he’d curled up. “Nononohoho, wait—”
“Boss, I haven’t even started.”
Philippe’s other hand joined the first at Corbeau’s sides and scribbled at his ribs. His back arched and an undignified noise, somewhere between a laugh and a shout, escaped him. He had no idea what to do, or how to react—not that he seemed to have much say in the matter anyway, since his body jerked in every direction to try and escape Philippe.
“Whahat the hell?! Philippe—”
Philippe’s hands moved from his ribs to his stomach, spidering his fingers across the delicate fabric of his shirt.
“Nohoho—oh my go—Philippe!”
Corbeau’s laughter kicked up a notch, desperately flailing his arms to bat at Philippe’s hands to no avail. “This is unprofehehesional!!!”
Philippe grinned, delighted with his new discovery. “I can’t believe you’ve gone your whole life without someone doing this. You know, most people learn this sort of thing as kids, learn how to defend themselves.”
“Well,” Corbeau choked out between giggles as Philippe’s fingers skirted across his lower stomach, “I was busy.”
That got a laugh from Philippe, who sat back on his heels, still looming but giving Corbeau a chance to catch his breath. “See, now I’m curious.”
Corbeau’s gaze was ice cold, though his cheeks were still tinted pink. “Don’t be. I’m your employer.”
“Yes,” Philippe agreed. “And you’re insanely ticklish.”
“How is that even relevant—do not.”
Hands came slowly to hover over Corbeau’s sides again. He tried to wriggle backwards, away from Philippe’s grasp, but only found himself backed into the corner of the sofa.
“So we know you’re ticklish here…” His hands moved to float over Corbeau’s stomach again. “…and here. Where else?”
Corbeau could have died. He couldn’t stop the nervous, anticipatory giggles from spilling from him, which only fuelled Philippe more.
“And you’re so ticklish that you laugh before I touch you. How on earth have I never noticed this?” He eyed him carefully, as if he was observing a science experiment.
Then, in one movement, he caught Corbeau’s wrists and lifted them up, pinning them behind his head on the arm of the sofa.
“Let me go now.” Corbeau’s voice was low, dangerous. It would’ve been threatening in any other situation.
“I will,” Philippe promised. “In about ten seconds.”
His fingers slipped under Corbeau’s arm and all hell immediately broke loose.
Corbeau let out a shriek that immediately dissolved into frantic laughter. His entire body arched and jerked, as if his skeleton was trying to escape his skin. “PHILIPPE!”
His head fell back as he thrashed uselessly against Philippe’s grip. Every breath turned into laughter, every attempt at speech dissolved into strangled noises. Philippe’s fingers barely moved, just light, relentless scratches in the hollows of Corbeau’s armpits. “STAHAHAP!!!”
Philippe released him immediately. “Found it. Definitely the worst one.”
Corbeau flopped into the corner of the sofa as if he were fluid, arms clamped back down over his sides. His chest heaved and residual laughter spilled from him.
“I can’t believe you got this far in life without anyone discovering that. Pretty impressive, boss,” Philippe said, sensing Corbeau’s embarrassment from his crimson ears. “That said, I do think you’re the most ticklish person I’ve ever seen in my life. That was… wow.”
Corbeau shot him a glare that would’ve frozen most men solid, but it wavered halfway through as a laugh escaped him as he tried to speak. Mortified, he swallowed it down.
“If a single word of this,” he said hoarsely, “leaves your mouth, I swear—”
They both turned back to the Holo-Tech screen, though Corbeau noticeably shifted so there was a careful, deliberate space between them. He reoriented himself within the data in front of him.
Philippe leant back against the sofa, thoroughly amused, and secretly delighted to be the only one in Lumiose to know that the untouchable boss of the Rust Syndicate had a very human weakness.
