geulp ...

It had started off unintentionally, perhaps innocent even. It was a few songs to remind you of home, and the fun times that you’d all shared in the compound before the Hail Mary had taken off. 

Ryland, Rocky, and you always listened to music in the lab. Stratt had outdone herself in terms of how much media had been sent with the four of you. The catalogue went back as far as the 1860’s, and up until the very day that the ship had taken off. If you were to play through all of it, you would probably never hear the same song twice for the entire journey from Tauceti to Erid. If you combined that with Rocky’s ability to literally create notes that your and Ryland’s human ears couldn’t hear, then you truly had nearly endless possibilities. 

That morning, when you and Ryland had woken up, you were the first in the lab, so you were the one who got to pick the music for the day. By the time that Ryland climbed the ladder after you, the classic tunes of Johnny Cash filled his ears. 

He looked up at you with his brows raised. 

You held his stare across the stark white lab. “What?”

“Country music?” he asked, looking tired. 

You shrugged. You hadn’t even realized that you’d never played any songs in that genre before, and you couldn’t tell if Ryland was just confused or annoyed. Once you all had gotten into the habit of listening to stuff while you worked, the three of you established the rule that none of you could complain about what music was picked. You were a perfectly good spacemate, never saying anything, even when Ryland played all sorts of questionable things. You’d even let it slide when he’d played baby shark once when he was drunk, saying it was because his kids would make him listen to it ‘ironically.’ 

“It’s my turn for controls, is it not?” you said, arching a brow. 

“My students would’ve called this old people music,” he said with a chortle, almost in disbelief. 

“That's because we’re,” you gestured between the two of you, “old to them.”

He shrugged and moved out of the doorway and Rocky came rolling up after him. “No. Humans very young. Eridians grow old, humans are babies.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Ryland shrugged him off, heading to his work station. “Hopefully, you have better music tastes than us to show for it.”

You narrowed your eyes, catching his not so subtle insult. “Ryland, are you complaining about my music choices?”  

He held one of his hands up in mock surrender, the other one still holding his coffee. “Of course not, I know the classroom rules,” he said, leaving you to continue fidgeting with your devices, but your mind was elsewhere now, a sneaky smile beginning to play on your lips. You had been working on a gadget, it was a special musical device that would allow you to press the buttons like a piano in order to make Eridian noises and communicate in their language. Since you were now bounding through the depths of space towards Erid instead of Earth, you figured it was probably best to start working on your communication skills, however, it seemed that perhaps the tool could wait a little while for you to try a different sort of experiment. 

Rocky rolled by you, heading for the station that was on your right side, and you took that moment to hiss at him. “Rock-” you whispered. 

Sensing that you needed him for something more urgent than usual, he rolled over quickly towards your side. “Friend whispering, why? Question?”

“I have a joke we can play on Ryland.”

“Tell Rocky. Rocky will determine if idea is good.”

You fondly rolled your eyes. Of course the engineer was going to want to inspect your plan first.  “Well, you know how our music rule works, right?”

Rocky’s carapace shifted up and down like he was nodding at you. “Yes. You are in control. Grace is not. Rocky does not understand why any of this is important so assume is human thing.” 

You clucked your tongue, forgetting that Rocky focused so much on what he was doing in the lab that he often zoned all other noise out. You supposed it made sense. Their language was basically composed of melodies and vibrations, so human music probably just sounded like weird overlapping conversations to him. “Right, so, if Ryland complains about the music then he’s in violation of the rule.” 

Rocky spoke softer, as if Ryland was suddenly listening in. “What happen if rule broken? Question?” 

You frowned, considering his words. “We actually didn’t decide.” You looked over at Ryland, who was now immersed in what he was doing. “I guess that means that I get to decide what sort of prize I want, right?”

“This makes sense to Rocky,” he agreed, tapping his foot on the floor. “But how does friend get Grace to break?”

At this, your brows furrowed. It would be difficult, but you were sure you could push his buttons far enough for this to work. “Even a teacher’s patience can only go so far, right?” 

Rocky rolled away slightly, even his computer voice sounding slightly shaky. “Friend is evil. Rocky see now why they put humans to sleep for journey.”

You brushed off his concerns with a short huff of air through your nose. “Relax, he’s not going to kill me.”

Rocky was already moving away, back towards his station, like he didn’t want to be infected by the energy in yours. “Rocky will watch. Rocky will see.” 

His words almost made you reconsider your plan, but then you looked over at Ryland peacefully putting the Taumoeba boxes away and decided you simply couldn’t allow him any peace. Later, you could blame it on the boredom of space, or how you had hit a wall with your language device, but for now all of your attention turned towards irritating your friend. 

You switched from Johnny Cash to Tim McGraw, another American country classic, and nothing that would throw Ryland off too much. You saw him bite his lip for a second as you made the switch, but he made no other movements, not even so much as an ill contented sigh. It was odd, how Ryland knew this was out of character for you, but he was still choosing not to comment on it. You gnawed on your lip, wondering how long it could truly take to irritate him. It was no doubt that he was the most patient one on the Hail Mary but his inaction was making you question how far he would go.

You pulled out a drawer in your station and grabbed a notebook and a pen. You flipped it open and scribbled at the top, “Ryland’s annoyance capacity, Test One.” You wrote about your first change in music and his barely visible reaction and then went back to sort of paying attention to your actual project. You needed to wait a little bit in order to up the ante. Ryland was patient, but he wasn’t an idiot. If you kept changing the song every five minutes, he would start to grow suspicious and then your experiment would be rendered null and void. 

You waited a solid ten minutes to walk back to the main computer in your setup, adjusting the music to that of Florida Georgia Line, a more modern country group with funny nods to their redneck roots but nothing too obscure. You picked one of their more popular songs to start with and cued up a few more before going back to your ‘work’. 

You quietly uncapped your blue pen and tucked your hair behind your ear. Ryland stopped his work for a moment when the song came on. You couldn’t see his face, but he went completely still, just staring at the wall in front of him. It took everything in you to push your laugh down, picturing him with his face screwed up in confusion. Then, as if the matter were settled, he went back to his work. You waited a minute to see if he would do anything else, but after another five more minutes, the boredom started to gnaw at you and you wanted to work on something. You wrote down his reactions in your notes, then turned towards Rocky, giving him one of your keys to test out. The Eridian piano would only prove to be useful if the Eridians could understand it so you ran everything by Rocky before it was implemented. You began to become so engaged in the work, that you almost didn’t notice Ryland calling your name. 

“What?” you said, breaking your intense gaze away from Rocky’s fidgeting with your other experiment and turned back towards your human subject. 

“I asked who made this song,” he said with a warm smile and a look in his eyes that felt almost too knowing.

“Oh,” you said, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks. You rolled towards your computer in order to have time to recover. “The music station says this is Florida Georgia Line.”

“Oh, okay,” Ryland said with a shrug. 

Ryland quickly turned back around, getting back to his work like he had never even asked the question in the first place. You couldn’t help but pester him a little more, just to see if you could get to him. “Is that all you wanted?”

“Yep!” he said cheerily, even popping the P emphatically. 

You spun around on your stool to widen your eyes at Rocky and he just shook his head at you. He was becoming more accustomed to human tendencies by the day, and you were pretty sure that you had just been given the disapproving stare of a parent without him having eyes. 

Still, you wouldn’t be deterred so easily. Ryland had to have a breaking point, you and Rocky did, so he had to have one too. You just needed to find it. You marked his question in your notebook as well as the time and then set to finding more impossibly silly country music in the database. 

You quickly switched to one of Luke Bryan’s earlier albums, moving further into the newer and more unhinged country songs. In your defense, the songs were catchy, and they had a good beat, even if they were mostly about trucks, beer, and women in jean shorts. 

You played the album out of order, starting Ryland off a little lighter and then progressively seeing how much he would take. The first song he had no reaction to, you weren’t even sure he’d noticed if you’d switched artists, the second and third song he continued working through, and by the fourth you knew you needed to pull out the lead single. 

You pressed play on the opening track, and watched as Ryland furrowed his brows. He placed his hands down on the counter, abandoning the test tube that had been in his hand in the sink. You saw him look up at the speakers then look over at you. 

“Isn’t this heavily sexualizing women?”

“Huh?” you asked, looking up from your notebook like you hadn’t just been staring at him just a second ago. 

Ryland waved his hands around. “This song and the way he talks about women, I mean I know it’s probably at least a decade old, but isn’t it all a bit misogynistic?”

“Oh,” you said, looking up at the speakers as if you’d just noticed they were playing. “I guess I hadn’t really been listening to the lyrics, I just like the beat,” you lied, knowing that this particular song would set Ryland off. He wasn’t wrong, most country songs were that way when you’d left Earth, but at least they were giving you something to annoy him with. You bit your pen, sensing your opening. “Do you want me to change it?”

Ryland was already turning back towards his vile in the sink. “Nope, was just asking,” he said calmly, but you could see the tightness in his shoulders. You were starting to get to him. 

You pivoted slightly, shifting back to the classics and putting on Margaritaville, and watched as Ryland slumped as if he had gotten hit by a middle school insult. You laughed to yourself at the sight of Ryland putting his head in his hands, very clearly fighting to keep his thoughts to himself. 

You decided to up your game, adding any songs that included anything close to the words honky tonk or used tractor and sexy in the same metaphor. It was at this point that Ryland fully abandoned his work, instead just sitting on his stool, looking completely dumbfounded. Luckily for you, he seemed to be refusing to look up at you, making it much easier to cover the way you were snickering at him. 

With him already down, you decided to go for the kill and you put on Parked Out By The Lake, and waited for Ryland to realize what you’d done. For a moment, he seemed to almost recover what you’d put him through. At first, it seemed to him like the song wasn’t that bad, but by the fourth or fifth line he started to catch on. The song was repeating the same five words over and over again, just in slightly different ways. 

You watched as the usually fidgety man grew more and more still, and you furiously scribbled in your notebook, looking over at your stopwatch every few seconds. Halfway through the song, Ryland finally looked up at you. 

“This is the worst song I have ever heard,” he said, deadpanning.

Your jaw dropped far more dramatically than what was necessary. “Did you just insult my music?”

You managed to hold back your laughter but Ryland’s eyes narrowed on you. The lab suddenly felt hotter than it had a minute ago and you felt yourself flush at his intense eye contact. It felt as though he was looking right through you, like he could see to the very deepest point of your soul, and knew exactly what you were doing. You jerked your head away and slowly inhaled through your nose, willing your face to cool.  

“What?” you asked, praying to any nearby stars that you were keeping your face intact. 

He held a finger up. “Wait a second.”

He stood up from his stool and began to walk through his station. Your breath caught in your throat as he drew closer to you, stopping just at the edge of your table and placing his hands on his hips.

He leaned in towards you. “You’re trying to do this.”

You shrugged, your heart hammering in your chest. “Do what?”

Suddenly Ryland was moving towards you, hands reaching out to grab, and you no longer cared for keeping your little act in play. You didn’t know what he was planning on doing when he caught you, but you weren’t going to stick around to find out. 

You scrambled to somehow move away, scurrying towards Rocky’s station as if he would protect you. Unfortunately, with you out of the way, Ryland reached out and grabbed your notebook instead of grabbing you.  

“Shit,” you muttered under your breath. His eyes flicked down to the notepad and you stood frozen as he silently read the words that would no doubt seal your doomed fate. He looked over the top of his glasses at you as he dropped the paper back on the table and you instinctively took a step back. 

“I was your science experiment?” He asked, and if the look he was giving you wasn’t scaring you then the way that he sounded nearly amused certainly was.

You held your hands up in surrender. “Observation is the sincerest form of flattery?”

Ryland dropped the notebook and took after you. You yelped and jumped over Rocky. “Ryland wahahahait!” you laughed, nervous laughter being pulled from you as you realized he was just behind you. You didn’t even know where you were headed. You were technically going in the direction of the bedroom, though you truthfully had no idea how this was going to help you. 

Your feet pounded across the ship, and you willed your socked feet not to slip against the ground. A bubbly feeling of anxious tension was rising in your stomach, making you feel as though you were already caught despite the fact that you were still running away from him. 

You grabbed a hold of the bedroom door just as Ryland’s arms snaked around your middle. “No!!” you yelled, smacking at his arms, a random assortment of words tumbling out of your lips. “You are the one in violation of the music rules! I should not be the one in trouble here!”

Ryland clucked his tongue. “Oh, you negated your music rule the moment you started using me as a little experiment.” 

Ryan gently threw you onto the small makeshift couch that the three of you had set up for when one of you got too tired to climb down from the lab to the bedroom. You squeaked with surprise as you bounced on top of the plush pillows, surprised with the ease that he tossed you with. 

“Now,” he said, standing over top of you and essentially cornering you in with his body. “What are we going to do with you?” 

You pushed yourself backwards as if you could fade into the wall. “Nothing,” you pleaded, your voice wobbling with uncontained giggles. You weren’t used to seeing him like this and the smarmy way he was looking down at you was making you all too nervous. “You’re gonna let me go.”

Rocky rolled over with a speed that you’d never seen him use outside of dire situations. He pulled at Ryland’s shirt. “𝀌᭴᭵♮᭢᭨᭫᭮” 

“Ohhhhhhh,” Ryland said, and then looked at you with the biggest smirk. You looked between him and Rocky trying to determine what was going on. The translator hadn’t turned on, but Ryland clearly knew what Rocky was saying. You started to feel more nervous laughter bubbling up in your throat. 

 “Will it work on them?” he asked, holding his hand over his mouth as if you couldn’t hear what he was saying. 

Rocky nodded his head. “It worked day before last. Rocky tried just like Grace asked. Friend made big noise. Was very cute. Statement.” 

You frowned, trying to figure out what Rocky was talking about, but coming up blank. The days on the Hail Mary started to blend together at certain points, but this seemed big enough to Rocky that you felt like you should be able to recall it too. Then, all of sudden you remembered when Rocky had accidentally jabbed you in the side as you had just barely been waking up. You had screeched and giggled as he continued digging his claw into your side for a few more moments, your mind not even awake enough to try fighting him. 

Now, however, you were awake and suddenly aware that that moment had been significantly less spontaneous than you’d realized. As you looked up at Ryland leering above you with a smile, you realized that you hadn’t needed to push his buttons to provide yourself with entertainment. He was bored too, and now you’d just given him the perfect excuse to screw with you. 

Ryland already knew you were ticklish, thanks to Rocky the traitor, but you couldn’t just let him win.

 You sprung from your position against the wall, and slipped around Ryland’s legs, attempting to crawl towards the edge of the makeshift couch. Already giggling furiously, you managed to place a steady foot back on the ground before two hands jabbed your sides, just above your hip bones, and your legs involuntarily gave out. 

You fell backwards onto the plush pillows, and looked up to find Ryland who was smiling down at you like he’d just discovered a new star. As you scrambled towards the wall a second time, it started to dawn on you that you might’ve finally found the point that your mild mannered friend turned into a mischievous planner, and your heart started to hammer in your chest.

“No, no,” you said, as Ryland came to sit down beside you. “Hold on, we can talk about this. We’re all very reasonable people.”

“Correct. We’re all scientists, and now I want to run an experiment of my own.”

You swallowed hard, wrapping your arms around your middle and pulling your knees up. This didn’t seem like this could possibly end well for you or your overly sensitive skin. “Which is?”

He cocked his head. “We’re going to see how much of the tickle monster you can take till you apologize.” 

He started to wiggle his fingers towards your stomach and you jolted on instinct. “NO!” you yelled. 

“Ohhh, very interesting, a ticklish stomach it seems.” Ryland turned around. “Rocky, can you keep notes for me since my hands are a little busy right now?”

Rocky chirped and ran to grab your notebook and pen. “Of course. Friend very ticklish. Make very squeaky noise even when fake tickles.”

“Rocky! Be quiet!” you yelled, somehow feeling even warmer. 

“What?” Ryland said, cooing sweetly at you. “Are you feeling too perceived right now?”

“Shut up,” you whined, but then his hands were shooting towards your neck and you screeched without him even touching you. 

“Rocky, can you please add that our test subject seems to somehow get even more sensitive when teased?”

You covered your face with your hands in favor of protecting your middle. “I don’t know how to deal with you like this.”

Ryland laughed. “Like what?”

“Like,” you risked a glance outside of your hands, only to find him looking at you like he was prepared to lovingly destroy you within an inch of your life. “Like that!” you said, unable to find anything else. 

“Oh, can someone dish it out, but they can’t take it?” he asked, raising a brow. 

You frowned at this, sensing that he was very close to feeling like he was winning. “No, I’m just not used to it.” 

“Oh, well I suppose we better test that theory then, huh?” Ryland said, shooting a hand out to your side that you effectively blocked. 

“Uh uh, none of that.” He hooked his arms under your legs, and pulled them out, sending you sprawling across the cushions. 

“No, NO, give them back!” you yelled, trying to scurry back into your curled up position, but Ryland was already climbing on top of your hips, pinning you in place. 

“No.” Ryland gently trailed his hands across your arms, it didn’t tickle, but it was enough to send goosebumps across your skin. “We have to finish my experiment.” 

He leaned in close to you and whispered. “And the tickle monster can’t conclude his hypothesis without some giggles to prove it.” Ryland then began to wiggle his fingers into your neck and you screeched as your shoulders practically came up to your ears. 

“Ryland!” you yelled, squeezing your eyes shut against the horribly ticklish sensation. 

“Nope. Tickle monster needs laughter, not your friend's name.”

Indignation hit you like a ton of bricks despite the fact that your unpinned hands were doing very little to fight him off. “You are NOT the tickle monster. We are too old for this!” 

“Ooh, tickle monster did not like that answer,” Ryland reached down and squeezed your hips and a bright burst of laughter exploded through you. His thumbs found the divot point in the bone, and you threw yourself forward in shock, only to have Ryland gently push you back down. “Are you trying to invalidate my experiment?”

“Fuhuuhhuhuhuck yohohohohu!” you yelled, your body twisting around wildly in an attempt to dislodge that ticklish feeling from your skin. 

“You are so lucky that the tickle monster is here instead of your amazing friend Ryland because he’d probably do this for saying that word,” he said, before grabbing a hold of your wrists and pushing them up to leave your middle unprotected. Before you could process what he was doing or scream, he was bending down to blow a raspberry on your stomach. You screeched as the vibration travelled through you like magic. His scraggly beard was like tiny individual feathers across your sensitive skin and you swore he was moving it around as much as possible. 

He sat back up and swiped his fingers across your tummy. 

“Rocky, please note that our subject is especially susceptible to raspberries, though we’ll have to try it other places to confirm this theory.”

Rocky chirped and you heaved in enough of a breath to speak. “We are NOT doing that.”

Ryland looked down at you, looking as innocent as the devil. “Why not?”

Your jaw dropped at his audacity for even asking you that. “Because, because- YOU are the one who broke the music complaint rule.”

Ryland threw his hands up with a laugh. “You don’t care about the music rule.” 

“You don’t know that,” you breathed out heavily.

Ryland cocked his head. “I have a different hypothesis, do you want to hear it?”

“What?” you said, raising your brows.

He poked your shoulder. “I think you would’ve picked this as your compensation for me breaking the rule.”

You weren’t aware that your face could get any warmer. “I would NOT” 

Ryland leaned back, looking smug. “Okay, then apologize for your experiment and I’ll let you go right now.” 

You glared at him. It wasn’t like you were craving the feeling of his fingers sending that zappy tingly feeling through your nerves, or the playful energy that was currently buzzing around the inside of the Hail Mary, but you simply couldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him win that easily. “I won’t apologize for being a thorough scientist.”

Ryland twisted around to yell over his shoulder. “Rocky, please note down that its possible our test subject likes being tickled but we need more proof before our conclusion.”

You would’ve pushed him if you still had your hands. “Ryland, stop teasing!” 

“Sorry, I can't help you. Ryland isn’t here, if you need something you’ll have to address the tickle monster,” he said, before clawing his fingers into your armpits. You yelped and kicked, and then descended back into laughter as your skin twitched underneath his careful hands. 

He was nearly methodical in his methods, alternating between softly stroking the skin, spidering his fingernails, and scratching at your hollows. “Subject seems to be more susceptible to lighter softer touches, but we will have to try elsewhere to be sure it isn’t a fluke,” he said, and you heard Rocky chirping behind him before his words started to make sense to you. 

“Try ribs, usually ticklish for humans,” Rocky suggested, and you tried to pull your arms down to no avail. 

“Good idea Rock, I almost forgot about those.”

“Bad idea, no bAD IDEA!” you tried to say, but then Ryland’s hands were softly scritching across your sides again, taking his sweet time in wiggling his fingers across each bone. He alternated between each side, making you lean into one of his hands, only to change which hand was doing the tickling. 

“Grace!” you pleaded, descending into the madness of your giggles. 

“I might listen if you call me by my real name, you know,” he said, letting his hands trail down to your stomach. You nearly shot up out of your skin, but all Ryland had to do was squeeze your sides again, and you went right back down. 

His hands went right back to your stomach and it felt like your nerves and your face was on fire. His hands twitched just above your belly button making your laughter turn deeper as you tried to suck your stomach in to no avail and you squeezed your eyes shut. The sensation ran deep, like the feeling of his hands was spreading hazy warm waves through your body and the laughter was all heading straight to your brain. 

“Switch spohohohohts!” you begged, needing him to be anywhere else other than your stomach. 

“Hey Rock, can you write down that it appears that our test subject would rather deal with what appears to be their worst spot being picked apart than say the word tickle?”

You opened your eyes to gape at him, but promptly wished you hadn’t as he looked down at you in mock sympathy. 

“Yes. Does appear to be stubborn when solution is so obvious. Rocky think friend too flustered to say word.”

“You bohohohohoth SUCK!” you yelled, wishing you could give both of your mischievous crewmates a withering glare, but laughing too much to even be able to speak properly. 

Ryland smiled down at you. “If you want me to switch spots then you’ll have to ask the tickle monster.” 

You were never going to live this down, but you were going to explode if he kept raking his fingers against the soft skin of your middle. “Tihihi- tihihih,” you started, then got too flustered to finish. Ryland squeezed your sides again and you yelped loudly. “Tihihihckle mohohohonster, please!”

“Interesting that you said that and not the words that stop this,” Ryland murmured plenty loud enough for you and Rocky to hear it as his hands fluttered at the sides of your neck once more. 

“Rocky, do you think we have enough information to present our conclusion?” 

“Not enough data. Friend is fine. Must keep going.” 

“Friend is NOT fine,” you yelped, as Ryland accidentally brushed his fingers across the shell of your ear. 

“Your ears are ticklish too?” Ryland all but yelled. 

“Yours are wOHOHOHORSE!” you laugh screeched as he swirled his fingers around your ear and his nails scuttled across your neck. You tried to push your ear into the pillows but that just left the other side exposed, leaving you in a never ending search for a place where Ryland’s tickles could not reach you. 

“Maybe so,” Ryland said, flushing a little red, but smirking too much for your liking. “But I’m not the one screaming.”

“I’m not screa-NO!” you had started to say into a pillow only to have a pair of lips press into the sensitive skin of your neck and blow as hard as possible. You shrieked loudly enough that it would’ve been embarrassing if you were with anyone else, but instead you just happily giggled yourself silly. 

Ryland pulled back and you heaved in air as he gently brushed your hair out of the way. “Anytime you want to admit that you shouldn’t have experimented on Ryland I’m happy to hear it.”

You did your best to glare up at him. “You are so mean!”  

Ryland shrugged and blew another raspberry on your neck, wiggling his face around and pressing that horribly ticklish stubble into your skin. “FINE!” you shrieked. “Ryland, I’m sohohohohry!”

He raised his head from your neck. “And what do you have to say to me?”

You inhaled a breath, willing yourself to be able to say the word again. You opened your mouth to say it right as Ryland bent down again, his lips connected with your neck and a gutteral scream came out instead. The vibrations were toying with your nerves and it broke down any walls you had left. 

“Tickle monster PLEASE! I give!” you yelled, and Ryland pulled back, 

“That’ll work,” he smiled, and you inhaled air like you chugged water on a hot day. 

“You’re evil,” you looked up at him through your eyelashes. “I always thought you were too nice, but underneath those sweaters and kindness is an evil, evil man.”

Rocky scittered towards you. “Ryland not evil. Friend is lying. Had fun. Statement.”

You looked at Rocky in horror but Ryland only laughed and got off of your legs. He curled his hand under your knee and you jolted, but he only moved you around so your back was against his chest, his arms pulling the two of you close. You settled into him easily and Rocky pressed in beside you, tucking into Ryland’s side, “Rocky has a point you know, you never told me to stop.” he whispered in your ear. 

“Shut up,” you hissed, resituating yourself overtop of his legs. 

He laughed good naturedly, but Rocky shifted beside him. “Grace also seems happier now. Less bored.”

At these words Grace actually blushed, and his reaction hit you like a ton of bricks. He had said all of those things about how easily you were teased and yet he was being just as bashful about what had just happened. You smiled, realizing you weren’t the only one who had fun but wouldn’t admit it.  

Rocky made a clicking noise. “We did two tests. What are conclusions? Question?”

You looked up at Ryland as he tilted his head side to side. “Subject is clearly unbearably ticklish-” you tried to reach your hand up to cover Ryland’s mouth, but he only grabbed a hold of your hands and held them to your chest like he was hugging you. 

“The tester had a little bit too much fun tormenting me I think!” you pointed out, and though Ryland’s blush deepened, he pressed on. 

“But between a combination of sheer obstinance and holding a secret enjoyment for the game, was able to hold out for a long time.” You wiggled around, trying to break out of Ryland’s hold but between his strength and your exhaustion you were stuck being forced to listen to his teasing words or come up with your own.

“You had more fun than me,” you said, your voice rising in pitch.

Ryland raised a brow, the look you were sure he’d given dozens of students before. “Is this you admitting you had fun?” 

You let your head slump forward. “Shush-” you groan. 

Ryland laughs and Rocky chirps. 

“You look sleepy,” Ryland coos, looking down at you. 

You nuzzle your head into Ryland’s side. “I’m gonna get you back so bad.”

Ryland begins to stroke your hair, and if it was possible, you can almost feel the heat of his smile on you. “I have no doubts.”

Your eyes began to flutter shut. “Rocky and I are gonna team up and it’ll be over for you.”

As if in response, Rocky curls around you, the warmth of his carapace making you feel so cozy and safe and Ryland murmurs contentedly.  “Mhmm, I’m sure.”

You yawn loudly and curl your fingers into Ryland’s soft sweater. 

“Friend sleep. I watch. We attack Grace later.”