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A dreadful beat of silence passes. Then, just before the panic can set in, a cough punches from the drow’s throat, hoarse and raspy, sending a swell of relief washing over everyone. Essek is alive: wounded, half-buried beneath an ass-load of rubble. But alive. 

“Light above,” the Shadowhand groans, gingerly wriggling an arm free to press two fingers to the deep scrape on his forehead. “I was…not expecting that. Ugh.”

The strongest of the group immediately get to work trying to clear the remaining debris from his body. “Are you alright?” Caleb asks, brushing bits of rock and dust off his face. “Can you move?”

Features scrunched in pain, Essek shifts a little beneath the chunks of building stacked on top of his lithe form. “I don’t think so,” he wheezes. “S-something has my legs pinned.” 

“Here,” Caduceus’ warm voice chimes in. He places a large hand in the center of Essek’s chest as the magic of the Wildmother flows through him, seeping into the drow’s lacerated flesh and stitching up all his injuries. A soft sigh leaves his lips.

“Thank you,” he breathes, the color gradually returning to his face. He’s looking and sounding much better now, much to the Nein’s relief—other than the mass of rock still covering half his body.

Veth staggers over to Caleb’s side and slumps to the ground, gripping her bleeding shoulder. “That was awful,” she moans. 

“This whole day has been awful,” Jester whines. “I’m completely tapped.”

“I’ll get a Prayer of Healing started for everyone. I think we all could use a minute.”

Fjord raps his fist against the particularly massive stone sitting on top of Essek’s abdomen. “Does anything hurt? Is this crushing you at all?”

Essek looks down at his torso and shakes his head. “Not presently. The surrounding debris must be bearing its weight.” He squirms again, freeing his other arm, but the rest of him doesn’t budge. “Unfortunately, the angle it is resting at seems to be obstructing me from moving.” 

“Could you try teleporting yourself out?” Beau suggests. 

The drow thinks on it for a moment, then sighs. “I have used up nearly every spell in my arsenal today. I’m afraid I do not have enough left in me to pull that off.” He looks to the other spell-casters looming above his prone figure, feeling a little undignified and silly in his current position. “Would, um—would any of you happen to have something that might help me escape from under this?”

The magic-users exchange weary looks between them that all share the same dismal sentiment.

“Nope.”

“Sorry.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“I’m afraid not, friend.”

A frustrated huff flits from the elf. “Well. As Caleb would say, Scheiße. ”

The wizard gives him a sympathetic smile, which sends a little thrill swooping through Essek’s stomach. He promptly punts the feeling to the distant abscesses of his mind to unpack at a later time—a reflex he’s grown quite accustomed to by now. 

“This rock is too big for any of us to move or break,” Yasha relents with a scowl. 

“Should we just try pulling him free?” Jester proposes. 

Wordlessly, Yasha marches to stand behind Essek’s head and grabs hold of his arms, yanking and tugging with all her barbarian strength. The Shadowhand lets out a fearful squawk, pinching his eyes closed with a grimace.

“Ah! H-hold on, Yasha, please. I—I don’t think that is going to—agh!”

When stretching the drow’s limbs to the point of near-quartering also yields zero results, she releases his wrists with a bitter grunt, then leans down to give his glistening forehead an awkward pat. “Sorry, Essek,” she says sheepishly.

Essek lays with his aching arms sprawled above his head. “S’fine,” he rasps, gazing up at the cavernous ceiling, wide-eyed and rattled. He runs the back of his sleeve across his face. “But I fear you will tear me in half trying to free me that way.”

“There has to be a way to get you out of here in one piece,” Caleb muses. He scratches at the scruff outlining his jaw, numbers and calculations cycling feverishly behind his eyes.

Caduceus strokes the tuft of pink hair on the end of his chin. “If we take an hour, maybe you could recover the spell you need to teleport out of the rubble.”

“We can’t leave him trapped under there for a whole hour!” Veth scoffs. “What if he gets claustrophobic?”

Jester bends at the waist and pokes the tip of Essek’s nose. “Do you get claustrophobic, Essek?”

Essek swallows. “I—”

She pokes it again. “Are you going to start hyperventilating and freaking the fuck out?”

“Jester,” Caleb admonishes her. 

Beau snorts. “That’d be kinda funny.”

Essek winces from the tiefling’s touch with a scowl. “I will be fine, Jester. Though, if possible, I would prefer to get out of here sooner than that.” 

“Here,” Caleb says, nudging past Jester and unfastening the front of his mantle. The ornate cloak slips off his shoulders and splays across the ground beneath the drow, spread between his arms like a pair of dark bat wings. “To, uh…make you more comfortable,” he clarifies shyly. 

Essek looks to the human then back down at himself, dusting some debris off his chest and clearing his throat. “Right. Yes. Thank you, Caleb.”

“You should take his shirt off, too.” The tiefling waggles her eyebrows between the two of them. “You know—make sure he’s extra comfortable.”

Beau snickers. Fjord rolls his eyes. The wizards ignore her to the best of their ability.

“Perhaps you could walk around to the other side of this large stone and assess the situation from that end,” Essek suggests, writhing in place as much as he’s able. “Maybe if my legs were freed from whatever is trapping them, I would have enough leverage to crawl out the opposite way.”

“I’ll go look!” Jester exclaims, throwing her hand in the air. She’s hopping over rubble and disappearing behind the giant slab of rock before anyone has a chance to protest. 

“Be careful!” Fjord calls after her.

“Holler if you need us!” Beau adds.

“I will!” Jester’s receding voice assures them. The others continue brainstorming ways to free their elven friend from this side. 

On the other end of the cave-in, Jester begins digging through the boulders in search of a way to reach Essek’s lower half. Some of the chunks of rock she happens across have intricate patterns and textures carved into them, like they once made up the wall of some grand castle or archway, or perhaps were inlaid along an ancient cobblestone street. There is a strange and unsettling beauty to these ruins that makes the hairs on Jester’s arms stand on end and the magic coursing through her veins taste wrong. The sunny shores of Nicodranas feel like a long-forgotten dream after all the time they’ve spent down here, fighting for the chance to live another day and save the outside world from its undoing. 

After a few minutes of rolling and shunting various layers of debris from her path, Jester finds a small opening that leads underneath the enormous boulder holding Essek hostage. She dusts off her hands and crawls inside, blinking her eyes as they adjust to the inky darkness.

“I’m under the big stone, Essek!” Jester shouts as she shimmies her way forward. “Can you hear me?”

No answer comes. She shoulders her way a little deeper inside until the walls begin to open up a bit. In the heart of the cave-in, Jester enters what appears to be the top half of a domed ceiling. It looks like it could’ve been a piece of a once towering, elegant ballroom from an era long past. 

“Whoa,” Jester whispers. “This is so fucking cool.”

A glint of light catches the tiefling’s eye. Ahead of her, in the center of the rounded cavern, the mangled remains of a massive chandelier lie twisted and shattered in a precarious heap, shimmering jewels still dangling like frozen droplets. On the far right side of the chandelier, a shaft of light cuts through the darkness, illuminating the crystals scattered across the floor and the shape of a boot poking out of the rubble. Jester scrambles to her feet and rushes over.

“Essek!” she cries, dropping down beside his leg. She recognizes the deep purple clothing as the Shadowhand’s. Only a section of his calf is visible to her; everything above that is trapped beneath the massive swathe of stone. “I’m here! I found your legs!” She gives his shin a crisp slap. “Can you feel that?”

“Ack!” a very muffled voice exclaims from the other side of the boulder, making the cleric giggle. “Yes, I can feel that!” 

“Perfect! I’m going to try to start getting your legs free, okay? Just hang tight.” 

Jester appraises the situation before her. Other than the giant rock on his midsection, which is a whole separate problem, jagged sections of the fallen chandelier have embedded themselves deep into the ground on top of Essek’s legs and ankles. His left leg is so deeply obscured by the twisted coils of metal, she doubts she could even reach it. The right one is at least a little more accessible, though equally trapped and restrained. Despite the unsavory circumstances, the drow should count himself remarkably lucky: in at least five different places, he avoided having his legs skewered like shish kebabs by a matter of inches.

For the leg she can reach, Jester stalks forward and grabs hold of his ankle, heaving and straining with all her might. The cage of mangled metal over top of it doesn’t budge, but she feels something start to give the harder and harder she tugs. With one more yank, something finally pulls free in her grasp. The tiefling stumbles backwards onto the floor with a squeak of surprise. When she looks down at her hands, one of Essek’s black boots is clutched in her grip.

“Oh,” she says. Her eyes flit back up. Beneath the maw of crushed chandelier bits, a single purple foot pokes out of the ruins, pinned at the ankle by criss-crossing shafts of metal. 

A quiet falls over the dark, domed space. Jester pauses, glancing between the boot in her hand and the curious visual before her. She sets the shoe aside and crawls a little closer to get a better look at the scenario she’s been presented with. The opportunity she’s been presented with. She considers for a moment doing the right thing—the polite thing, and taking mercy on their already very chagrined and grumpy Kryn friend. That’s probably what any other member of the Mighty Nein would do if they found themselves in her current position.

But Jester isn’t like the others. She is, at her core, a trickster. And it would be remiss of her to shy away from embodying that title now. If she denied herself and her patron a prospective mischief this tantalizing, then she wasn’t Genevieve “Jester” Lavorre. 

Grinning from ear to ear, the tiefling reaches into the collar of her coat and gives Sprinkle a scratch under the chin. “What do you think, Artie?” she giggles fiendishly. “Should I do it?”

The crimson weasel’s beady eyes flash green for a moment, and a slippery voice chuckles inside her head. “The haughty drow could certainly do without that enormous stick shoved up his ass all the time,” Artagan tuts. “I mean, honestly. So uptight and pretentious. Maybe you should teach him how to…lighten up a little.” His laugh curls like tendrils of smoke through her mind. “ Wouldn’t you agree?”

“You’re the best, Artie,” Jester snickers.

“And you’re diabolical.” The weasel slips back into her hood, blinking the fey magic from its eyes. “Have fun, darling! Make me proud!”

Jester pumps her fist in the air. “You know I always do!” she cheers. Tapping into her devilish heritage, the tiefling reaches into her bright pink haversack and pulls out one of her paintbrushes. She scoots up beside the little purple foot, unsuspecting and immobile, and in one long, leisurely stroke, drags the bristles of the brush up the length of Essek’s arch. 

A dull yelp from the other side of the massive stone graces her ear, stretching the nefarious grin slashed across her face even wider. Oh, this was going to be delightful.

On her end, all Jester sees is Essek’s foot twitch sharply from the contact. On everyone else’s end, the group startles when the elf practically jumps out of his skin—as much as his current state of physical confinement allows. All eyes turn to him in unison.

“Whoa,” Beau deadpans. “You alright there, Hot Boi?”

“What happened?” Caleb asks, a wrinkle of concern forming between his eyes. 

Essek sits very still, muscles taut, jaw clenched, fingers digging into the dirt, blindsided by the sensation still tingling across the bottom of his sole. A kind of sensation he hasn’t experienced since he was small, on days his brother was feeling particularly cruel and mischievous. A type of behavior only babies and children partake in—certainly not grown-up heroes of both the Empire and the Dynasty, respected across the lands by kings and queens alike, saviors of Wildemount and the world at large. And certainly not against someone like him: Essek Thelyss of Den Thelyss, Shadowhand to the Bright Queen, prodigy of the dunamantic arts and esteemed expert of political subterfuge. She wouldn’t dare. 

A horrible, humbling realization suddenly dawns on him. This was Jester Lavorre he was talking about. Of course she would dare. All she ever did was dare to do things that thwarted expectations and ruffled feathers. And now she was doing exactly that, with unfettered access to totally humiliate him in front of everyone. He should’ve known better than to send her off unsupervised while in his defenseless state.

“Is something hurting you?” Veth asks. Essek continues to lay there, stiff as a board. Maybe it was only a one-time thing, just to keep him on his toes. Maybe she won’t do it anymore. Maybe she knows better than to subject someone of his age and standing to something as demeaning as this. She has to know better. 

Right?

“I would like to get out of this now,” Essek announces meekly. 

Beau cracks a grin. “Uh-oh. Are you, like, actually about to start freaking out on us?” 

Caleb lays a comforting hand on his arm. “We’re working on it. Just try to relax as much as you’re able. Okay?”

Right as he’s beginning to believe the tiefling might be exercising restraint for a change, the brush of soft bristles against Essek’s bare sole assails his senses a second time, now traveling from the base of his toes to tip of his heel. A choked sound escapes him as his leg tries to jerk away on instinct. It doesn’t move an inch. 

“Jester!” Essek shouts, voice shrill with anxious energy. “I d-do not appreciate this!”

“Jester?” Beau parrots him.

“Oh gods,” Fjord scoffs incredulously. “What is she up to this time?”

The brush’s third pass across the bottom of his foot has the elf clapping a hand over his mouth to smother the idiotic smile twitching at the corners of his lips, bubbly panic squiggling through his insides. “S-stop!” he squeaks between his fingers, voice cracking in the most egregious way. “I’m serious!I know you can hear me!”

“Is she doing something to you?” Caleb asks. 

By the fourth deplorable lap of the bristles, Essek is ready to crawl out of his own flesh to escape this torment. She’s toying with me! he realizes. Letting his dread and anticipation build in the long pauses between each deliberately unhurried brushstroke. She knows what she’s putting him through right now. And, like any effective steward of torture, he’s certain she’s relishing every second of his misery. 

“She’s—she’s—” he stutters out. The bristles zing up his arch once again, drawing a trail of static across the unbearably sensitive skin. As the intervals between each onslaught grow shorter and shorter, Essek can feel his hardened resolve starting to crack. Another stroke of the brush, this one lingering far too long on the ball of his foot, and the drow is fighting back laughter like bile. He grips his face in his hands while his flustered brain spins and reels. “ Straj dos jal, m-make her stohop!”

An odd string of funny little sounds start spilling out of their Kryn friend, muffled by the palm clamped over his mouth. Beau and Caleb exchange a glance, confusion and bewilderment pitching into curiosity and amusement. 

“What exactly is she doing to you?” Caleb inquires, noticing the bright magenta color the elf’s complexion is adopting. He’s never seen Essek turn this shade of purple before. 

It’s at this point the tiefling abandons any semblance of pity and decency she has left and starts gliding the instrument of Essek’s destruction all across the bottom of his foot, weaving patterns and swirling circles and painting elaborate compositions, this time without breaking stride or granting him moments to breathe. No matter how hard he bites his tongue and struggles against it, the Shadowhand cannot keep the mortifying floodgates from breaking loose. He holds out for about three more seconds before noises he hasn’t heard himself make in decades start bubbling up his throat.

“Ehaha!” Essek giggles, prickling heat crawling across his neck and ears. He throws both arms over his face, trying to stem the inelegant flow of laughter and hide his unending shame. But it just keeps pouring out of him, louder and shriller and more hysterical with every silken stroke Jester sweeps across his sole. “Thihis—is—ahaheehee! D-debahasing!”

Suddenly, being crushed to death by a two-ton boulder sounds rather lovely. 

The group takes a moment to drink in the scene of the once stoic and unflappable mage now squirming on the ground before them, high-pitched giggles streaming from his lips. Yasha kneels down by the massive rock sitting on Essek’s torso. “Jester, what are you doing to him?” she asks through the narrow gap in the stone. 

“I’m not doing anything!” the tiefling’s muffled voice snickers back. “I’m just trying to get his foot out of this thing!”

As she’s saying this, Jester starts sweeping her brush in star-shaped patterns in the very center of the drow’s arch. 

Essek pulls at his hair, which is still varnished in a thick layer of dust and dirt, his laughter growing panicked and desperate. “She’s—she’s bruhushing sohomething across my—I c-cahan’t move, and sheehee’s just—she wohon’t stahap—!”

Cute little hiccups begin punching between his words and giggles, cutting off whatever else the sputtering elf was attempting to convey. Caleb’s heart starts doing a complicated acrobatics performance inside his chest. 

“Are you laughing right now?” Beau scoffs, placing a hand on her hip. “Is that the sound your mouth is making?”

“Why would he be laughing?” Veth muses. “Did Jester cast Hideous Laughter on him or something?”

As Caduceus assembles his tokens to the Wildmother, he looks between the large rock blocking the tiefling from view and the giggling drow at his feet, a smile lifting his lips as he connects two and two together. “Ah, man,” he chuckles softly. “Now that’s just mean.”

Yasha frowns at him. “What’s mean?” she asks. 

The firbolg gestures between Essek and the direction he assumes Jester is in. “Well,” he says. “I mean. The guy barely uses his feet to begin with. You know—the whole floating and gliding shtick. I feel like that would wind up making them extra sensitive to this sort of thing. Tickling and such. That is, if what I’m assuming is happening right now is correct.” He shrugs. “So. Y’know. Mean.”

Simultaneously, five faces brighten with surprise and delight. Yasha looks down at the floundering drow, the aasimar’s hard shell melting in an instant. 

“She’s tickling you?” she asks him, crinkling her nose as she smiles. “Are you ticklish, Essek?”

“Oh no!” Beau laughs at the realization, grasping her face in her hands. “Not his feet! They’re so dainty and delicate!”

Fjord pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “You’re a fucking menace, Jester,” he chuckles.

Caduceus raises his pointer finger in the air. “To be fair, he does seem like the kind of guy who could do with a little more laughter in his life. Still pretty mean, though.”

“We’ve finally done it!” Veth cackles maniacally. “We’ve found his weakness!” 

Caleb watches their purple friend blush and laugh to an extent he’s never borne witness to until now, warmth tingling inside his belly. Essek lays against the floor of the cave, the heel of his palm pressed to his temple while his other arm hugs his rib cage, shoulders bouncing with devastatingly cute giggles. Caleb doesn’t believe he’s ever heard the Shadowhand giggle before, and now he wants to sear the sound of it into his brain forever. The drow’s eyes are pinched shut with tears shining in the corners. His pointed ears are so pink, they’re practically glowing; it’s a wonder the silver cuffs adorning the tips of each haven’t melted off by now. His features are stretched into the broadest, happiest smile in the whole world. Essek smiles pretty often; it’s an integral part of his standard visage. But not like this. His usual smile is quiet and calculated, projecting a sense of unshakable confidence and shrewd charm. His smile now is like staring directly into the sun: blindingly mirthful and bright, staggering in its authenticity, radiating warmth and contagious energy that those in its proximity can’t help but mirror. 

With just a few tickling strokes of her paintbrush, Jester has transformed Shadowhand Essek Thelyss into the giggling puddle of pinkish-purple pudding before them, while also rendering Caleb Widogast a starry-eyed idiot with a crush the size of a dragon turtle. 

“I hahate you all,” Essek curses them between hiccups. Heart beaming in his chest, Caleb places a hand on his bouncing shoulder, the elf’s bubbly laughter scattering his senses across the continent. He tries his best to look unfazed by the debilitating fondness blazing through him. 

“This is a rather impolite thing to subject our Kryn friend to, Jester,” Caleb declares. The amused smile on his lips betrays his words, but someone has to vouch for the poor drow’s dwindling sanity. “It’s not very kind to take advantage of his misfortunate circumstances like this.”

“But listen to how happy he sounds!” Jester retorts. “I mean—could his laugh be any cuter?”

“It’s so much shriller and squeakier than I expected!” Yasha agrees. 

Beau gently taps the end of her staff on the elf’s flushed forehead. “It’s a crime, honestly, that you’ve kept your real laugh hidden from us for this long, Essek. It’s adorable as fuck.”

Essek bats the staff away and buries his face in his hands. “Iblihith,” he giggles scathingly. “I swehear, once I’m freeheed from under this, I will mahake you regret ever daharing to—AHAGH!”

A bolt of electricity shoots up Essek’s spine as the paintbrush begins swirling between his toes. “You know, you’re in a pretty hairy spot right now, Essek,” the trickster cleric reminds him in a sing-song voice. “Maybe you should be a little nicer to the people trying to help you get out of this! Especially your favorite blue tiefling friend, who could be a lot less forgiving with these cute little piggies trapped here with her!”

To punctuate her point, Jester takes the hard end of the brush and starts scribbling it just beneath the drow’s curled toes. Essek’s laughter kicks into a whole new gear as he wrenches and flails in place. 

“GAHA! S-stahahap! You cahan’t—!” His words prattle off into inexplicable nonsense intermixed with hiccup-filled cackling. Even though Essek is clearly having a terrible time right now, Caleb can’t help but appreciate how beautiful unbridled joy looks on the young drow. It’s a shame this is the only way to coax it out of him. 

“Oh dear! That was a big reaction! These tiny purple toes of yours must be really ticklish!” She skims the pokey end of the brush down the center of his foot, making the Shadowhand squeal involuntarily. “Oh man! I wish I could see your face right now! I bet your smile is as cute as your laugh!”

“It is pretty cute,” Beau admits with a smirk. “His face is turning the same color as your haversack.”

“It’s so cute,” Yasha exclaims, plopping down beside his squirmy shape. While he’s busy laughing into the crook of his arm, the aasimar leans forward and spiders her fingers against his tummy, cooing at the elf like a puppy asking for belly rubs. “Who’s got a case of the giggles? Who’s got dainty little feet? Oh, I could just eat you up!”

Essek is at his wit’s end with these people. Leaving him buried alive and bleeding out would’ve been a mercy compared to this. He knows the Mighty Nein have always had a tenuous relationship with the Dynasty’s expectations around respect and decorum—or anyone’s expectations, for that matter. But this is outrageous. He’ll be lucky if he has an ounce of dignity left by the time they’re through with him. 

Gasping with laughter, Essek slams his arms down to his sides, a whole new flavor of ticklish sensations grating against his frayed nerves. “Yahasha! Wahahait!” He claws fruitlessly at the large fingers skittering against his midsection, tossing his head back with breathless giggles. “Thahahat is—T-TOO MUHUCH!”

“We were able to get one ally to agree to charge headfirst towards certain death with us,” Fjord scoffs, gesturing towards poor Essek, “and this is how you guys treat him the second he’s incapacitated. It’s no wonder we have so few friends.”

“You’re going to turn him against us,” Caleb warns her, chuckling nervously. He tugs at Yasha’s shoulder. “Please. Let the man breathe.”

Begrudgingly, Yasha backs off, watching the magenta-flushed drow deflate just slightly as he fights to catch his breath. Essek has to wonder if these conniving young ladies have ever tortured the other males of this group in a similar capacity, since they’re the only ones showing a hint of remorse for his plight. Even without the hands on his torso, the ruthless assault on his foot is still doing a marvelous job of driving the Shadowhand up the wall. 

“Oho gods,” Essek whimpers. “Thihis is mahaddening...”

Caleb turns towards the massive stone looming over their purple friend. “Now you, Jester.”

Jester hums in thought from behind the rock. “I’ll stop if he asks really nicely,” she decides, setting the paintbrush aside and flexing her hands eagerly. “And after I’ve discovered all the best techniques for making you laugh the hardest!”

She holds his twitchy foot still with one hand and starts fluttering her fingers against his sole with the other, barring him from squirming away in any capacity while she glides the soft pads of her fingertips up and down. Essek’s laughter mellows into light, airy giggles that flit from his chest and enamor every heart in the cavern. 

“Don’t get me wrong: your loud laughs are super cute,” Jester assures him, wiggling gentle, feathery patterns across the bottom of his foot. “But your little giggles are downright adorable. Has the Bright Queen ever heard you giggle before? Has anyone?”

Essek just lays there, forearm thrown across his eyes, dizzy giggles streaming from his lips, resigned to his miserable fate. 

“I think you broke him,” Veth snickers.

“I think this is good for him,” Caduceus offers, eyes shut mid-prayer. “Cleansing, even. It’s amazing what a little laughter can do for the soul.”

“I think we should refocus our efforts on, I don’t know.” Fjord shrugs. “Freeing him, perhaps?”

“I agree,” Caleb says, blush creeping into his cheeks as the drow’s adorable giggles echo throughout the ruins. He’s not sure how much more of this the flustered elf or his somersaulting heart can tolerate.

Essek lets out a sharp yelp as Jester begins skating her nails over the dip of his arch. “Cool! You guys can work on that, and I’ll keep working on my equally important thing.” 

“No, noho, nohohaha!” the drow whines, goosebumps flaring across his flesh as the tiefling scratches tingling shapes into his bare foot. He knows escape is futile, but he thrashes about anyway, because what else is he supposed to do in his situation? He wants to claw out his eyeballs from how terribly it tickles. “Jehehester, plehease!” he squeaks.

“Your feet are really soft, Essek!” Jester observes as she dismantles him, scuttling her nails up to that hypersensitive spot just beneath his toes. As if that wasn’t excruciating enough, Essek feels the tiefling’s tail curl around his foot, the pointed tip needling deadly little figure-eights into his heel. “Do you moisturize a lot? Or is it just ‘cuz you never actually walk on them?”

The drow grips both sides of his head, pinching his ears between his fingers until they ache. The fact that she’s speaking to him so casually while torturing him out of his mind is absolutely heinous. The fact that his iron will is dissolving at the hands of such a childish ploy is an extra grisly blow to his already wounded pride. “I ahasked nihihicely!” he deigns to remind her. “You sahaid you wohould stahahap!”

“But this is so much fun!” Jester shoots back, her devilish fingers and pointy tail working in tandem to explore every fold and wrinkle in his foot, honing in on his most ticklish areas with unwavering, hellish veracity. “This is probably the only chance I’ll ever have to make you laugh like this! I gotta take advantage while I can.” While one hand continues scribbling all over his sole, the other starts digging around in her haversack. “Maybe if you tell me a real juicy secret in exchange for my mercy, I’ll consider stopping.”

“Ooh, yeah,” Beau eggs her on, rubbing her palms together. “We can make him tell us anything we want right now.” She looks between the others as she drapes her staff across her shoulders. “Alright. Who’s got a good question?”

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Caduceus asks the cackling drow. The ladies of the group immediately start booing him.

“No.”

“Caduceus!”

“That’s so lame! It needs to be something shocking and scandalous!”

“I’ve got one!” Veth pipes up, placing her hands on her hips. “Since you didn’t answer when we asked you before, it’s time for you to finally set the record straight: which one of us do you think is the hottest?”

While the others cheer and hoot with excitement, Fjord and Caleb groan. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” the half-orc deadpans.

“Hell yeah,” Beau chuckles, ignoring him.

“Tell us, Essek!” Yasha says with a grin. “Who’s the hottest?”

“And you can’t say all of us. You can only pick one.”

“If you don’t tell us now, Jester will just keep tickling you until you do!”

The magenta-colored elf has his arms wrapped tightly around his sides, which are beginning to ache from how long and hard he’s been laughing. He shakes his head, incredulous and loopy, hiccups interjecting between every other word.

“Whyhy—do youhou—cahahare?” he giggles piteously, angling his foot away from Jester’s wiggly digits as much as possible. 

“Because!” Yasha insists. “It’s important!”

“We have to know who Hot Boi thinks is the hottest!”

“Yeah! Come on! Tell us!”

Jester fishes a small item out of one of the deep pockets of her haversack. “You better start talking, Essek,” she teases him threateningly, spinning the little keepsake around her fingers. She leans down towards the narrow opening between the ground and the massive rock. “Hey, Fjord! I’m going to borrow your comb for a bit, okay?”

Fjord scowls. “My beard comb? What for?”

Every nerve ending in Essek’s body erupts simultaneously as a new sensation drags along the bottom of his foot. Like a hundred tiny teeth scraping across his sole, injecting his skin with a cataclysm of electric shocks that tickle more than his mortal mind can comprehend. The shriek that escapes him the moment the feeling reaches his brain stem is not a sound he recalls ever making before. 

“Holy fuck,” Beau snorts. “What’d you just do to him, Jes?”

“I don’t think he liked that,” Yasha giggles. 

Veth clenches her fists in front of her face. “Whatever it was, do it again!”

“Noho!” Essek cries frantically. “Do not!” If he couldn’t stand what she was doing to him before, enduring the sensation he just experienced any longer than a brief instant would surely be the end of him. If the embarrassment of this whole ordeal doesn’t wind up killing him, the feeling of dozens of tiny, needle-like points skimming across his bare foot most certainly will. 

“Do what again?” Jester asks innocently. She gives an exaggerated gasp. “Oh—you mean this?”

The teeth rake across his sole once more, this time from left to right, and Essek’s nervous system is on the verge of implosion. He considers for a moment which sounds less torturous: chewing his own leg off, or more of this. Having feet in Jester’s presence just feels like a liability at this point.

“Jehester, plehehease! Ehenough of these childish games!”

“Are you putting my comb on his foot right now?” Fjord splutters, sticking his tongue out. “Yeah. That’s going straight in the garbage after this.”

“Answer the question, Essek!” the tiefling presses him playfully, seizing the back of his foot. A panicked flood of sputtering laughter pours out of the elf as Jester brushes the comb across his sole in a back and forth motion, carving a line of mind-numbing sensations deeper and deeper into his skin. “Who’s the hottest member of the Mighty Nein?”

“N-nohoHAHAHOMYGAHAHADS!” the drow babbles, his laughter hitting a brand new octave and decibel. He thrashes and squeals and digs his knuckles into his eye sockets, muscles spasming with every voltaic whisk of the comb. He’s grateful he’s not consecuted so he won’t have to remember the mortifying circumstances surrounding his previous life’s death.

“Holy shitballs!” Jester cackles. “This thing is really making you crazy, huh?” She wiggles the comb up towards the ball of his foot, the elf’s hiccuping and laughter rising with it, all while the tip of her tail continues assailing his arch and heel.

Frenzied and fraught, Essek’s hand shoots out and grabs hold of Caleb’s sleeve, startling him a bit. “PLEHEHEASE!” he implores him, flushed magenta from head to toe, tears welling in his eyes. “M-MAHAKE HER—I CAHAN’T—HEHEHELP!”

A riptide of sympathy and endearment sucks Caleb’s heart out to sea. “I’ll go rescue your poor feet from her evil clutches,” he assures his giggly friend, feeling a little guilty for taking so much delight in his torment. It’s quite adorable how much this is affecting the esteemed Shadowhand of Den Thelyss, but he can tell the hapless drow is reaching his limits. “In the meantime, maybe toss a random name out to see if that will satisfy her cruelty for the evening.”

Caleb gives his arm a squeeze as he stands, then looks to Fjord and Caduceus. “Stay here and make sure they don’t start messing with him on this end. I’ll be back in a bit.”

The half-orc and the firbolg nod in unison. With that, the wizard begins picking his way through the rubble as quickly as he can, trying not to laugh at the elf’s frantic giggling as it carries throughout the cave.

By this point, Essek is laughing so hard, he’s stopped making noise altogether. What sounds do manage to escape him are either hiccups, squeaks, or blasphemous Undercommon expletives that only he and Beau can understand. Caleb is taking too long, the tickling sensation scraping across his foot is beyond intolerable, and it’s not like he has a leg of pride left to stand on, anyway. At this point, he’ll do pretty much anything to make this ignominy end. 

“J-JEHESTER!” the drow forces from his throat. “THEHERE! THAHAHAT’S MY AHANSWER!”

“Me?” Jester gasps, giggling bashfully. “Oh wow, wow, wow, Essek! I mean—obviously I’m the hottest. Just look at me! But I’m very flattered nonetheless.”

“He’s lying,” Beau scoffs. “He’s just saying that to butter you up so you’ll stop.”

“Hey!” Jester’s muffled voice huffs. “Don’t spoil this for me, Beau!”

“I think we all know who he actually finds the hottest,” Veth says with a wily grin. “‘It’s who we all find the hottest!”

The group pauses. “You?” Yasha says bemusedly.

“No! Caleb!”

Somewhere inside his oxygen-deprived brain, a horrendous dread spears through Essek. Beau raises her fist in the air. 

“Should I punch him in the neck so he’s forced to tell the truth?”

Fjord grabs her by the wrist. “Fucking—no!” He shoves her arm to the side. “Beau! Come on! No.”

“I’m casting Zone of Truth!”

Fjord whips back towards the massive rock in disbelief. “Jester! What the hell? You had a 2nd-level spell left this whole time?”

“Not anymore!” she cackles, gliding the comb down the full length of his foot. “Now, then—let’s hear your real answer, Essek! Who, pray tell, is the hottest among us?”

The sharp tang of magic washes over his tongue and throat as Essek feels the spell overtake him. The cackling mage wants to disintegrate from existence. As if things weren’t terrible enough for him already. 

“ AHAHAWHYHY?” Essek weeps. “Y-YOHOU’RE—VIHILE! AHALL OF YOU!”

The ladies giggle maliciously at his despair. “Oh gods,” Yasha says, clutching her hands over her heart. “This is really mean, isn’t it?”

“We’ll make it up to him,” Beau assures her, squatting by the drow’s head as he wriggles and squirms. “That is, if we all don’t die in the next few days.” She casts a smirk in Essek’s direction, tilting her head to one side. “But first, l wanna hear who Hot Boi deems the hottest of the Nein.”

All of their lives and the fate of the world at stake, and this is where their minds are at. There are some things about the Mighty Nein Essek is doomed to never understand. 

I just have to hold out until Caleb reaches Jester and snatches that infernal tool away from her, he tries to remind himself. But that could take at least a couple minutes, maybe even more, and every second that comb is in contact with his foot feels like an eternity spent in the darkest pits of Hell. It is unendurable. He cannot withstand it. The truth spell sizzles in the back of his throat, burning every name from his tongue but one. It doesn’t surprise him, but it’s no less devastating. Out of all the ways he feared his friends might discover his moronic attraction to their resident human wizard, this was not an option he anticipated. 

“I DOHOHON’T—WAHANNA!” Essek wails in a last-ditch effort to win their mercy. The words flow freely from his enchanted lips, for no greater truth has ever been spoken. Behind the wall of stone, Jester sighs in disappointment.

“I didn’t want it to have to come to this, Essek,” she laments, curling her fingers around the top of his foot and peeling back his toes. The comb’s teeth bite into the soft skin underneath, sending a shudder through Essek’s entire skeleton. “Just kidding!” she laughs. “I was totally hoping it would!”

When the tiefling sweeps the comb across that killer spot beneath his toes, ruthlessly raking it from side to side, Essek swears he hears the voice of the Luxon speak to him for the first time in his life. The dunamantic god looks him dead in his mind’s eye, laughs at him, then flips him the bird before skipping away with a resounding: “Fuck you, Essek Thelyss.” 

Just as he’s convinced his torment has reached its maximum threshold, Jester starts sawing that godforsaken comb between his fucking toes, and the drow’s sorry state of tickle-induced madness finds a way to devolve ever deeper. As each ticklish gap gets its turn getting demolished, every shred of his diminishing willpower shatters like glass against cobblestone.

Yep. That’s it. He’s done for. 

An embarrassingly brief amount of time transpires between the start of Jester’s toe-tickling attack and the moment Essek rallies the last bit of oxygen in his lungs to finally concede to their diabolical demands. He arcs his spine, smothers his heat-flushed, tear-stained face in his hands, then feels his heart shrivel up and die as his own cracked voice cries out between hiccups:

“C-CAHAHAHALEHEB!”

“I’m here!” a familiar Zemnian accent responds almost instantly, muffled but close by. The nightmarish sensation scraping between his toes suddenly lifts away, and the relief that follows is astronomical. “For gods’ sakes, Jester. Give the man a break!”

“Ha! I knew it! I told you he—!” Veth starts to exclaim, but Yasha claps a hand over the halfling’s mouth, stopping her from continuing.

“Oh hi, Caleb!” Jester greets the human cheerfully. “We were just talking about you.”

Caleb ducks as he approaches to avoid bonking his head on the curved ceiling, Dancing Lights illuminating his path while his eyes absorb the novel sight before him: a light blue tiefling waving a comb at him, sitting on the floor of a domed cavern next to a massive, mangled chandelier. Beneath the tangle of metal, a little purple foot pokes out, swirls and streaks of magenta carved in flushed paths across the bottom of it: evidence of Jester’s merciless tickling crusade. He kneels down next to her to examine the bindings encased around the drow’s ankle, tugging at them experimentally. 

“The ground is soft here. If we dig down far enough, he might be able to wiggle himself free.” 

Jester stares at him with her mouth slightly agape, like she’s about to tell him something important. She glances in Essek’s direction for a moment, then turns back to Caleb, an unreadable twinkle in her eye. “Alright. Let’s do it. I suppose he’s been trapped under here long enough.”

Caleb gives her a grateful nod. The tiefling leans down and cups a hand around her mouth. 

“We’re going to try to get you out, Essek! For real this time!”

The drow in question lays sprawled across the floor, vision blurred with tears, skin singed with embarrassment, gulping down air as his heartbeat thuds through his rib cage, the damning truth just ripped from his lips slowly eclipsing every fragment of his soul. He buries his face in his hands to avoid the gazes of all the people standing above him, boiling from the inside out. 

“Okay…” he answers feebly, too exhausted and mortified to say anything else. 

It takes about ten minutes of digging and maneuvering to free Essek’s legs from their precarious, intricate prisons, then another five to liberate him completely. The foot Jester was tickling is released rather easily; it’s the other one that gives them trouble. They have to crawl on their bellies between spikes of twisted metal to reach it, then dig his leg out all the way up to his knee. The elf doesn’t dare move his palms from his eyes until he feels the shackles around his limb go lax, and suddenly, the possibility of escape is tangible. After removing some of the excess debris surrounding his thighs and hips, Essek finds he can wriggle a few inches out from under the boulder. With a look and a nod, Fjord and Yasha grab hold of his arms and give their Kryn friend one final heave. Thanks to extra space Caleb and Jester dug out around his body, the combined strength of the pair manages to pop him free and drag his exhausted form to safety. 

“You did it!” Veth cheers.

“He’s out, guys!” Beau hollers at the others.

“Hey, that’s great. Nice job, everyone.”

Fjord and Yasha hoist him off the ground to his feet—one of which is still missing a boot. Essek staggers a little once he’s standing upright: dirty, disheveled, unbelievably humbled. But freed from the cave-in at last.

Jester crawls out from under the giant stone with Essek’s shoe in her grip, then helps pull Caleb through after her. “Well, would yah look at that! You’re free!” The tiefling’s eyes sparkle with amusement. “Oh, wow—you were right, Beau! His face is super pink.” She pats the haversack dangling by her hip. “See? You two match!”

Bristling, Essek snatches his boot from her hands and glides far away from the group, wrestling it back over his foot with his back facing them. Jester flinches a little, smile fading.

“Oh, man. Are you mad at me, Essek?”

The drow says nothing, cinching the leather threads as tight as possible around his shin. Jester worries her hands in front of her chest, stomach twisting with guilt.

“Please don’t be mad, Essek. I wasn’t trying to make you upset. Your laugh is just so cute! I never would’ve expected someone as cool and serious as you to laugh like that or have such ticklish feet.”

When the elf still doesn’t reply, Jester rushes forward and wraps him into a bone-crushing hug, tears slipping down her cheeks as her voice wobbles with dismay. “I’m so sorry if you’re mad! I can’t stand the thought of you mad at me, Essek! How can I make it up to you? I’ll do anything you ask! I can modify everyone’s memories so we all forget everything that just happened! I can let you tickle me until I pee myself! I can give you a tattoo of anything you want, totally free of charge! What can I do?” She squeezes him until he grimaces and buries her face into his back. “Please tell me what to do! I don’t want to die with you mad at me!”

At that, Essek can’t help but wince. An exasperated sigh eases from the Shadowhand’s chest. Clearing his throat, he casts a few Prestidigitations cantrips over himself to shed the grime off his dusty form, then does the same to the tiefling. 

“I am not mad, Jester,” he says reluctantly, ears and neck still burning with warmth. “I am no stranger to your benign, playful trickery; it is something I have actually grown quite fond of, and I understand that this was intended as such.” The drow pauses to swallow. “But…I cannot say I particularly enjoy being patronized and humiliated within an inch of my life for the amusement of others.”

“Being ticklish isn’t humiliating!” Jester insists, keeping the Shadowhand ensnared in her arms. “It’s the cutest thing ever! Knowing that about you only makes us love you even more than we did before.”

Essek huffs sorely. “Yes, well. Be that as it may, there is also the matter of you…” His voice trails off as he eyes the rest of the group, then returns a moment later, much quieter and more jagged than before. “Forcing me to say things I intended to keep private. Now everyone here knows what a doltish, senseless fool I am.” Despite his efforts to keep it at bay, blush burns across his skin like red-hot embers crawling through his veins. His head droops just slightly, shame knotting in his chest. “I doubt I can bring myself to look Caleb in the eye ever again.”

Jester’s hands move up to his shoulders to spin the drow to face her—which is pretty easy to do, given that he’s floating a couple inches off the ground. She cups his cheeks in her palms and forces him to meet her gaze, which is surprisingly soft and sympathetic. 

“That was really uncool of me,” she admits. “I figured you’d just say me again ‘cuz I’m so hot and irresistible and stuff, and then we’d all laugh about it afterwards.” She drops her voice even lower, lips curving into a smile. “But I should’ve known you’d say Caleb. We’ve all seen the way you look at him when you think no one’s watching.”

Essek’s heart leaps into his throat. “You—what?”

The tiefling giggles brightly, tail swishing back and forth. “Don’t worry. Caleb looks at you the exact same way. Neither of you are as subtle as you think.”

A thousand warring thoughts and feelings spiral around the drow’s head at her words, clashing and melding and colliding together like remnants of dying stars. The connection between his mouth and brain seems temporarily inoperable for the moment. Jester drops her hands back onto his shoulders.

“For what it's worth, Caleb didn’t hear what you said. And I’ll make sure no one tells him. At least, not until you’re ready for him to know how you feel.”

A partial comfort from an otherwise violently disconcerting revelation. Everyone knows about his fondness for Caleb? Everyone? Are the Shadowhand’s inclinations really that transparent? He’s still only beginning to come to terms with and understand those inclinations himself, yet in the meantime, his new friends have already thrown back all the curtains and pierced through every veil. The Mighty Nein are unnervingly keen at unearthing truths about Essek Thelyss even he isn’t fully aware of himself; not to mention, embarrassing the absolute shit out of him. It is both a gift and a curse to be seen so openly by others. 

“I bet he likes you even more now after hearing how cute your laugh is,” Jester whispers, elongated canines poking out from behind her grin. The tiefling brightens suddenly, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder. “Oh! Maybe that’s how I can make all this up to you!” She turns back to the drow, eyes glittering with mischief and excitement. “How about this: if we all manage to stop the end of the world and not die gruesome, tragic deaths, I’ll get Caleb next.”

Essek blinks at her. “‘Get’ Caleb?” he repeats back, puzzled. 

“Yeah! You know—tickle him just like I tickled you today! That way you won’t be the only grumpy wizard in the group who got tickled out of your mind in front of everyone!” She pauses, cocking her head to the left and frowning up at the ceiling. “Now that I think about it, I don’t know if I’ve heard Caleb really laugh before, either. What is with you stuffy mages and never letting yourselves laugh? We need to fix that as soon as possible.” She beams at him expectantly. “What do you think? Would that make you less angry with me?”

Essek considers her proposal bemusedly. “I…hesitate at the thought of subjecting Caleb to any variation of the torture you just put me through. You have a deftness for dismantling wills and unmasking weaknesses that even Lolth would shudder at.”

Jester curtsies proudly. “Thank you. I am very talented.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of the elf’s mouth. “That being said, I am…curious. I can hardly picture what that would sound like or look like on him. He is not one for large displays of emotion—especially the positive sort.” He scratches the heated column of his throat. “It would certainly be…enlightening.”

“Yeah. And cute as fuck.”

Essek gives an awkward chuckle. “Perhaps.”

Seeing the tension leave the drow’s features, Caleb chooses now to approach the pair, dusting dirt off the bundle of fabric in his arms. “Have you apologized to our friend for your needless cruelty?” he asks Jester. “It will be a miracle if we reach Cognouza without you driving him off first.” 

Still sheepish from the past thirty minutes of indignity, Essek fiddles with the silver jewelry adorning his ears without meeting the handsome wizard’s gaze. “Fortunately for you all, my means of absconding this mortification are, at present, painfully limited.”

“Do not be too chastened,” Caleb insists with an affectionate smile. “Being thoroughly embarrassed by Jester Lavorre is one of the quintessential rites of passage for Mighty Nein membership.”

“It’s true,” the tiefling agrees, petting the crimson weasel inside her hood. Essek shifts his gaze between the three of them, then combs a bashful hand through his hair, erecting his spine and rolling his shoulders back. 

“Well. On the bright side, should all of us perish tomorrow, then there will be no one left alive to remember this all-encompassing humiliation.”

Jester cackles boisterously at that, which drowns out the near-inaudible chuckle from Caleb. Essek levies all his attention on the human’s face in that moment, trying to envision him with his head tossed back and his expression flayed open in an unbridled smile, ivory skin tinged scarlet as he peals into explosive laughter. As acute as his mind may be, the elf cannot conjure the image of the man in such a state. So odd to think that not even Jester has borne witness to it. If none of the Mighty Nein have ever heard Caleb’s real laugh before, is it possible that no one has?

Yes, Essek decides, renouncing his previous hesitancy. He would very much like to see the wizard’s reaction to enduring a bout of Jester’s giggle-inducing, devilish trickery. Now, he supposes, as a potential spectator rather than the quarry, he can acknowledge the appeal. 

Caleb unravels the thick fabric in his arms, which Essek now recognizes as his mantle, and gives it a few quick fluffs. “Here you are,” he says, holding up the cloak for him. At Essek’s timid bow of consent, Caleb maneuvers around the floating drow to drape the shroud back over both shoulders, returning the Shadowhand to his standard ornate visage. The elf raises his hands to clip the front of the cloak together, but Caleb’s are already there, fastening the clasp for him. In that brief moment of miscommunication, Essek’s fingers brush over the human’s before dropping briskly to his sides. His cheeks ignite, and both mages avoid each others’ gazes like the plague. It takes Caleb a bit longer than anticipated, an odd stint of clumsiness momentarily impeding his abilities. But eventually, he finishes re-hooking the mantle for him, then takes a step back to admire his work.

“Good as new,” he states in a level voice. But the pink flush dusted across his complexion betrays his veneer of composure. Essek smiles softly at him, wondering if the others can plainly see the indomitable affection radiating from it, but also not really caring that much if they do. Someone ought to know a semblance of what the Shadowhand feels for Caleb Widogast before they all die tomorrow. 

Jester sidles up beside Caleb and elbows him in the ribs. “Essek’s laugh is pretty cute, don’t you think?” she snickers teasingly. Caleb’s ears turn a shade darker in tandem with the drow’s.

“I…” the human stammers, caught off guard by the question. An uncomfortable sound punches out of him. “I think your methods of eliciting it from him are rather…uncouth.” His eyes flick up to Essek’s, a coltish yet apologetic smile on his face. “But yes. It is very cute.”

Before Essek has time to digest that, Jester jabs Caleb in the ribs again, this time with her finger. The human jumps from her touch with a small yelp of surprise. “Don’t worry,” she assures him with a grin. “I’m making it up to him by getting you next.”

Caleb guards his midsection with a befuddled look on his face. “What do you—what does that mean?” he asks warily.

“Well, now that we’ve heard Essek’s real laugh, I want to hear yours! You’re the only person left in our group who I’ve never heard, like, full-on belly laugh before, so now it’s my mission to make it happen!”

Caleb’s wide eyes slide between the two of them. “I have…laughed before,” he protests gingerly. “I’ve probably laughed more in my time spent with all of you than I have in my entire life.”

Jester crosses her arm and shakes her head, her mind made up. “That’s even worse! If this is the most you’ve ever laughed in your life, which is barely at all, then now I’m even more determined to make you laugh super hard for real!”

Essek lifts his chin and hints a playful smirk. “I must admit, I am also quite interested in hearing what that would sound like.”

Caleb turns to the floating drow, gawking. “I’m the one who helped you escape this one’s wrath!” he reminds him. “Now you want to turn that wrath back on me? If there’s anyone here you should be seeking revenge on, it’s her!”

“But I have already heard her laugh,” he points out innocuously. “I have not heard yours.”

If possible, the human’s face reddens deeper. It’s a refreshing change of pace: causing somebody else to blush and squirm, rather than having it inflicted upon himself. Essek quite enjoys the dynamic when he’s on this side of it. 

Mastering himself, Caleb sighs. “I’m going to temporarily compartmentalize the abject horror of you two conspiring against me until after we stop the apocalypse, and go ahead and start setting up the dome.” He retrieves his spellbook from the leather holster at his side and plops to the ground in front of them, thumbing through the worn, delicate pages. “I don’t know about you, but I’m erschöpft.”

“Ooh. Trapping yourself in a tiny bubble with us that you’re not allowed to leave, right after what we just told you?” Jester wiggles her fingers at him with a dastardly grin. “That is a pretty bold move, Caleb.”

Caleb doesn’t even look up. “If you’d like to spend the evening shivering alongside our charming Aeorian monster friends, then please, go right ahead.”

Jester considers this for a moment, then huffs, pouting her lip and slumping her shoulders. “You’re no fun,” she grumbles. She bumps Essek’s shoulder as she skips back towards the others. “I’ll start devising our plan to tickle him to death ASAP. I have a feeling his ribs are gonna be his worst spot!” 

With that, the tiefling trots away, joining the huddle around Caduceus, who’s started brewing a pot of tea for the group. Caleb continues ritually casting Leodmund’s Tiny Hut without raising his head, but the small twitch in his expression and momentary fault in his concentration doesn’t escape the Shadowhand’s canny eye. Essek hovers beside him, hesitating for a second, then carefully lowers himself to the ground, levitating hardly an inch off the floor with his legs in a criss-cross position. 

“May I sit here with you?” he asks quietly. “I…do not feel ready to face the others just yet.” He lowers his gaze and spins a silver band around his thumb, a cross between a smile and self-conscious grimace on his face. “I’m not sure I will ever recover from the mockery that one has made of me.”

Caleb’s cobalt eyes lift to meet his before dropping back down to his book, a playful curl to his lips. “Everyone in this group has made a mockery of themselves in some form or another,” he assures him, pulling spell components from his bag and arranging them in neat little rows. “I doubt they’ve lost any respect for you just because you sound like a hyena when you laugh.”

Essek’s jaw falls open. “A—a hyena?” he scoffs incredulously, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Now you understand why I must hear what your laugh sounds like, so that I may slight you with an equally scathing comparison.”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Caleb chuckles with a shrug. “Hyena laughter is quite endearing.”

Essek’s belly warms at the backhanded compliment. Caleb rolls a crystal bead in his hand as he flips to the next page of the tome. “Now I suppose either outcome of the battle ahead will be in our favor,” he adds. “If we win, we save the world and possibly get to live another day. If we lose, and all of us die, all of our mockery dies with us, along with my mounting concerns for you and Jester’s nefarious schemes.”

The drow laughs lightly. “How fortuitous. A win-win scenario.” He hazards a glance at the rest of the Mighty Nein, twirling his ring in the opposite direction. “But I believe we will win.”

Following Essek's gaze, a low breath looses from the young wizard’s lips. “Then I suppose I’ll need to stay on my toes.” His attention returns to the spell book as he drags a finger beneath a dark line of text, the corner of his mouth ticking upwards. “And you’ll need to guard yours. You’re fooling yourself if you think Jester’s appetite for trickery has been sated by today’s wiles. Now that she knows your weakness, she’s going to be watching you like a fucking hawk, waiting for her next chance to strike.” He reaches out and flicks the tip of Essek’s boot. “Best be vigilant.”

Essek suppresses a shudder, flexing his foot inside his shoe, phantom sensations still tingling across his sole. “Trust me: I most certainly will be.”

Owen slipped out of the room, moving through the shadows and bringing the knife he always keeps, quite literally, up his sleeve into his palm. Just because nobody had come running at the two gunshots didn’t give Owen any room to get sloppy.

Shadows are his best friend and he makes sure to stick close, slitting the throat of any unfortunate soul who crossed his path before they could make enough noise to alert anyone else to his presence. All the while, he kept a keen ear out for Curt’s voice. Knowing him, that would be what Owen heard before anything else.

And, of course, Owen was proven right mere moments later when he heard “You call that a punch?! My grandma can hit harder than that and she’s been dead since I was two—OW! What the fuck was that for?”

“Your friend will be here any moment,” A man with a thick Russian accent spoke, which was odd considering they weren’t in Russia last time Owen checked. He was big and burly and certainly someone that he was going to have to look into after they were finished. “I’m sure that when you hear his pretty little cries, you will be more inclined to speak. Or perhaps we will try it the other way around? That way I can have some real fun with you, da?”

That was…not exactly reassuring.

“You’re a fucking creep, did you know that?” Oh Curt, always so eloquent.

Owen peered into the room through the window in the door and was shocked to be presented with a clear line of sight. With all the effort he put into getting here, this was honestly quite disappointing.

Well, he’s not one to look a waste an opportunity such as this, so Owen wastes no time in lining up his shot and pulling the trigger. An arm flies up to his face to shield it from shards of glass and he opens his eyes once more to the Russian dead on the ground, blood pooling from a perfect shot to the head.

“My my, Agent Mega,” Owen swung the door open with a flourish because he had earned the right to be a little dramatic goddamnit, “We really have to stop meeting like this.”

Admittedly, a bit of his ire did melt away at the beaming smile Curt directed at him. Lucky for him, Owen had quite a bit of ire stored up, so it didn’t make much of a difference.

At Owen’s dry stare, Curt’s grin morphed into something a bit more sheepish as he said “It was an accident this time!”

Jesus Christ. “Are you implying that there were times that you were caught on purpose?”

Matters were not helped by Curt’s unapologetic shrug, “I get bored sometimes.”

A bruise was already blooming across Curt’s right cheekbone and Owen took a deep breath to restrain himself from making it symmetical.

Curt was bound securely to a chair, as these things typically went, and faced an identical chair with restraints that Owen assumed were meant for him. A brief survey of the situation led Owen to see that these ties would not be swiftly undone, or not swiftly enough, at least.

Or, that’s just what he told Curt, but who’s keeping track?

“I don’t want to take any risks, so I’m going to do a sweep of the building and dispose of any stragglers,” Owen said, smirking as Curt’s jaw dropped slightly, “I’ll return as soon as I’m able to free you. Maybe take this time to consider what landed you in this situation.”

He turned and walked back out the door to Curt’s “Owen? Owen don’t leave me here! I swear to God—Owen!”

It didn’t take long to finish his sweep, anyone Owen hadn’t originally found or had made their escape was dealt with. And then he did one more quick survey for anything he might’ve missed.

Just in case.

The view Owen was greeted with as he returned was certainly a gratifying one. Curt sat slumped in his seat, staring sullenly at the door as his bottom lip jutted out slightly. He looked like a kid put in the timeout corner, which is exactly what he was at the moment.

“So,” He said, walking forward and leaning down until he was inches away from Curt’s face, “What did we learn from this?”

Curt just rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath, so Owen leaned in a little closer. “What was that?”

“Don’t get distracted when I’m supposed to be watching your back.” At least he looked a little remorseful, so there was that as consolation.

Owen reached out to give him an approving, if slightly condescending scratch under his chin. “Good boy. Now—oh?”

Red began to seep into Curt’s features as Owen wrested his hand from where it had been trapped between Curt’s chin and his chest. His partner’s lips were sealed shut, likely to prevent any more sounds like that choked-off squeal from escaping.

But it was too late, and Owen longed to chase that noise.

“Ah yes, sorry, I must have forgotten about your little weakness.” Owen tucked his hands into his pockets as he circled Curt, surveying for weaknesses. He leaned in close from behind and whispered, “What a truly unfortunate position to be trapped in. If only someone had advised you against doing anything stupid before this mission began.”

As his breath ghosted against Curt’s neck, he took note of the violent shiver paired with the suppressed flinch at the sensation, and an idea began to form.

Of course, Curt did what he was so prone to doing, and started talking. “Look, Owen! Why don’t we just call this whole thing a mistake on my end and get going, huh? I’ll scan the blueprints and you can take the actual thing because I know how much you Brits love your filing. Whaddaya say to that, old boy?”

Oh, he was nervous. Risking Cynthia’s wrath in an attempt to appease Owen was a dangerous game, and he was almost tempted by the way his voice wavered near the end.

But… “We both know that you were going to let me take them anyway.” Owen unzipped his coat, “You know, I found something that I think you’ll enjoy with me being a proper Brit and all.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Thrown by the abrupt change in topic, Curt tried to crane his head to see what Owen was talking about, but Owen made sure to keep what he was doing firmly out of sight.

He withdrew the feather from his inner pocket, twirling it between his fingers before swiping it questioningly across the nape of Curt’s neck and oh, reaping the rewards of situations like these was a beautiful, wonderful thing.

A sound that was nothing short of a scream tore itself out of Curt’s throat and the chair that Owen would’ve sworn was bolted to the floor just shifted under the force of Curt trying to throw himself bodily away.

Silence echoed for a brief moment before Curt cracked. “Owen! You don’t have to do this! Look, I’ll do anything you want!”

Huh. “Anything?”

“Yes, you fucker!”

Owen wished that he could bottle up this moment and keep it forever. He’d never want for anything else.

“Well then,” He ran a soothing hand through Curt’s hair before gripping it tight and whispering in his ear, “Laugh for me, love.”

With Curt’s head near immobilized, Owen got to work. He was just as methodical and precise in this venture as he would be in any mission, cataloguing gasps and squeaks and squeals with a single-minded focus employed only in interrogation rooms.

To start, he slowly dragged the feather across the nape of Curt’s neck, waited a brief moment, then did it again. The fist in his hair kept him still enough and his pleading fell on deaf, uncaring ears.

It seemed as though his pitch jumped when the feather was centered, brushing over the top of his spine.

So, when Owen decided to focus his attention a bit more on that spot, “OWEN! Ohohohohohowen holyshit fuhuhucking PLEHEHEASE! Shitshitshit sohohohohohomewhere ehehelse!”

Taking careful note of the lack of the words no or stop, Owen decided to acquiesce and move so he was facing his partner. For the first time since this truly began, Owen was able to get a good, proper look at Curt’s face.

And he was glowing.

Owen nearly had the breath knocked out of him by the sheer beauty of the man in front of him. A wide smile was plastered across his face and his eyes were shining. However, some of that may be due to the few stray tears that had begun trickling out and that Owen tenderly wiped away with his thumb, smile softening when Curt leaned into the touch.

“You,” Curt huffed, “Are an evil man, Owen Carvour. Do you plan on letting me out any time soon?”

A hum reverberated through Owen’s chest as he contemplated before firmly grasping Curt’s chin, angling his head up to look him in the eye. “My fun’s only just started, love. But, I’m sure that I could be persuaded to show a little mercy. You did miss out on your interrogation, after all.”

Curt’s breaths were coming in sharp bursts, eyes glued to the feather inching ever closer, “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Well, I’m feeling rather generous so I’ll make this easy. Simply admit that I’m the better spy and we can be on our merry way.” Owen’s lips curled in a challenging grin, watching Curt’s eyes snap up to his, narrowed.

It was an out, simple as that. Owen was giving Curt the opportunity to ask for this to stop with minimal damage to his ego. He wasn’t a monster, the moment he sensed genuine discomfort was the moment he stopped.

Which is why, when Curt’s response was “Kiss my ass, Carvour,” Owen didn’t feel even a shred of remorse.

“It’s your funeral. Let me know when you change your mind, agent.” He angled Curt’s head a little higher and fluttered the feather under his chin, revelling in the frantic laughter that immediately spilled from his lips.

He stayed there for a while, exploring, learning that tracing his jaw elicited breathy giggles while dusting over his collarbones drew out little snorts in between. All the while, Curt tugged desperately at his bonds, cursed Owen out in several languages, and laughed.

But not once did he tell Owen to stop.

And then, Owen’s hand slipped, and the feather curled around Curt’s ear.

“SHIT!” Curt froze for a moment, shocked by his own reaction. He looked up at Owen and a spark of fear entered his eyes. “Now, baby, we can talk about this!”

“Talk all you want, Mega. There’s only one thing I want to hear.” Still, Owen waited a few moments for a concession that never came, just in case.

Nothing. “Suit yourself.”

His first attempt at threading his weapon of choice behind Curt’s ear was met with a jolt so fierce that Owen almost feared that he’d given himself whiplash. For his own safety, Owen pressed a firm hand against Curt’s cheek, holding it still so as to prevent any potential injuries.

Then, excruciatingly slowly, Owen dragged the feather along the shell of his ear, allowing some of the fronds to slip behind and dance across vulnerable skin.

Curt’s mouth dropped open in a soundless scream before words came rushing back to him. “NononononONONONO OHOHOHOHOWEN PLEASE! I CAHAHAHAN’T! SHITSHITSHIT NAHAHAHAH HAVE MEHEHERCY!”

And since none of those were the correct words, Owen switched over to his other ear, giving it the same treatment. For a few moments, he darted back and forth, occasionally swiping across his neck to keep him guessing.

Owen looked at the feather curiously. All this commotion over something so delicate, he truly would never understand this man he’d somehow fallen in love with. As an experiment, he stuck the feather into Curt’s ear and twisted it.

That’s when Curt went from cracked to shattered.

“OKAY! OKAHAHAHAY I GIVE! YOHOHOU’RE THE BEHEHEHETTER SPY!”

At that, Owen immediately withdrew, tucking the quill into his pocket for safekeeping as he worked to undo the binds.

They were expertly done, just as he’d suspected, and Curt certainly wasn’t helping matters slouched over the way he was. But Owen didn’t say anything and Curt was very nearly recovered by the time he was done.

“That wasn’t so hard now was it?” Owen crouched down between Curt’s legs to look up at him, placing gentle hands on his knees. “Do I need to carry you out of here or can you walk?”

Curt just flipped him off before standing, ignoring the slight wobble in his balance as he found his footing. “What, that? That was nothing!” Owen reached a hand threateningly towards his pocket, prompting a nervous step back, “Wait no I’m sorry! You win I lose and all that.”

A smug smile situated itself on Owen’s face. “Yes, well, let this be a lesson to you to try and avoid this situation in the future. Perhaps next time I will have to use the other side of the quill.”

“You don’t have to do that!” Curt quickly made his way out of the room.

Owen trailed after him, musing “I could write my name. Let everyone know exactly who it is that you belong to.” He smirked at the slight stumble in Curt’s step, “Or I could simply write Curt is ticklish over and over again. What do you think?”

“What I think,” Curt whirled around, blush high on his cheeks, “Is that I’m fucking exhausted and need some sleep. To make up for this, you better be in that fucking bed with me or so help me God I will—”

“Can’t make up for something that you so clearly enjoyed.” Owen cut him off, thoroughly enjoying the way Curt gaped as he stumbled over his words.

“I—I didn’t—You little.” He took a deep breath and composed himself, “I did not like it and you owe me.”

Owen heaved a put-upon sigh, as though sleeping while holding the love of his life in his arms was some sort of chore and not the one thing he would rather be doing for the rest of his natural life. “I suppose. It’s never good to leave a debt unpaid, you know.”

Seemingly satisfied, Curt continued leading them out of the building, leaving Owen to mutter to himself, “It seems as though making you admit it shall have to wait until next time.”

Miles eyed him warily, crossing his arms. “I know you’re just trying to get in my head.”

Hobie laughed quietly, and his color returned to…normal? Red Spider suit; black vest; and his skin was actually a human color. Yeah, this could be considered normal. “Hate to break it to you, mate; but it’s very easy to get into your head. You get in there so much on your own; you start leaving the door open.”

Miles pouted, but he inched closer to Hobie’s side and rested his head on his shoulder.

Hobie smiled a bit more, plucking a few notes. “Bit of a fuss-bucket, but we like that about you. ‘S cute.” He leaned in turn, letting his head rest on top of Miles’ as he hummed softly.

“Someone has to worry about you and Gwen, especially when you start scheming together. Or not checking in for days; remember the talk we had about that?”

“Gotta unplug sometimes, my guy.” His color shifted again, flipping between grey and another muted palette. “You…you worry about us?”

“Always. You guys both bottle everything up and then act like drinking from it will make it go away.”

Hobie winced, but he couldn’t help another little laugh. “That’s a half decent line, innit? I…You worry about me, huh?” He murmured, his hands going a little tense before he suddenly looked away and cursed under his breath.

Miles glanced at him curiously as he flickered again, between those muted tones and his bright pink. “Are you—”

“Shut up.” Hobie ran his thumb under his eye, a smile stuck on his face as his body settled into the pink palette.

“Hobie!” Miles said just a bit teasingly, hugging the taller boy’s arm and rocking against him. “You’re all pink~ You turn pink when you’re happy, is that it?”

“I don’t turn colors; what are you on about?!” He let himself rock with Miles, reaching to ruffle his hair with his free hand. “An’ I’m not happy; I’m miserable. You’re out here tormenting me.” He carried on dramatically, slipping his arms around Miles and pulling him into his side as he started to lean over. “Makin’ me cry and all. Terrible.”

“Aw, poor thing.” Miles snorted, trying to get his hands between them again. “Maybe I should cheer you up?” He got one hand just under Hobie’s vest, squeezing his side a few times.

“Oi, watch it!” Hobie yelped, giggles starting to slip out as he tried to lean into Miles. “You’re tickling!”

“You’re ticklish?! That’s crazy, man. Unbelievable.” Miles smirked, bringing both hands to scribble up his sides. “That sounds like a cute thing, and you hate being cute.”

“Miles, you—No!” Hobie let out a cackle as Miles grabbed his waist, electricity rushing through his midriff under his touch. Sparks of color flashed across his body, and he tried to shove Miles’ shoulder as his form settled back to pink.

Actually… Now that Miles really thought about it…

“Have you always turned pink when you get tickled?” He asked softly, letting his thumb press circles on Hobie’s hipbone and brushing stray tears off of his face with his free hand.

Hobie slapped lightly at Miles’ face as he giggled. “Stop saying that…” He half whined, lifting the neck of his guitar as he let his head fall onto Miles’ again.

“How do you keep denying it?!” He pulled his hands back, rummaging in his pockets for his cell phone. “Here, c’mere.” He giggled as Hobie slipped his arm around his waist and hooked his chin over his shoulder, and Miles snapped a picture of them without really looking.

“Okay, there, l—What. The. Fuck?!” Miles stared in disbelief at the photo.

Hobie snorted, laughing snidely as his body turned a few neon colors before going pink again. “Oi, that mouth, love.”

“There’s no way—Hobie!” Miles squeaked as Hobie suddenly pressed a flurry of kisses against his neck and cheek, his phone slipping out of his hand as he laughed.

Sure enough, the photo only showed the pair of them: with Hobie’s red Spider Suit, black vest, and dark brown skin.

-------------

Gwen had made the fatal mistake of letting Hobie bring her to a pub in his dimension. She had also made the mistake of letting him drag her to three more after that. They were cuddled up in the hammock Hobie had strung up on one side of his bedroom, rocking slowly as the canal shifted the boat.

“Not really sure why you thought you could beat Karl on that third one, lovey.” Hobie purred, fingers carding through Gwen’s hair as her head rested on his chest. “How many times have you told me you don’t even like whiskey?”

“Not my fault you keep shitty whiskey…” She murmured into his shirt. “’N I needed to shut him up.”

“Forgot the sauce makes you a rude li’l bitch, didn’t I?” Hobie smirked down at her as she set her chin on his chest and tried to glare at him.

“Why are you so okay anyway?” She griped. “You knocked back half a bottle of vodka right at the start.”

“Little lesson for the pub crawl: Ol’ Roy waters down the vodka bottles he serves out. Keeps the good shit for himself. Takes a bribe and a half to get so much as a shot out of him, but you need that buzz to choke down some of the food Mary’ll serve ya. Bet you didn’t even notice how fast we booked when they tried to give you those burger things; they’re awful, and you hadn’t even—Aw, love…”

Gwen’s eyes had fallen closed, and she smiled softly as she snoozed quietly against him. “’M listening… Promise.”

“Sure you are.” He pulled her head to rest against him again, tracing gently along the side of her face. “Kinda important, though, you do need to eat more if you’re gonna drink that much. The healing thing ’ll fix ya quicker, but still. That second place? We hit it just for those chicken strips, okay? The cheap wine was a bonus. And I’m still mad you let Riri take that root beer float from the Winchester, man; you’ve gotta try it.”

“I just try not to eat dairy when I have a stomachache…” She yawned for a moment, stretching her arms and hands like a kitten before loosely clutching at his shirt. “Bad things happen.”

“She said, shortly before getting into a drinking contest with a super soldier and keeling after three shots.”

“Hm? Oh, sorry; I got distracted by your cigarette breath. Run that by me again?”

Hobie barely stifled a laugh, ruffling her hair gently. “Okay. It was only, like, two.”

“Two per pub, more like.”

“Nah, it was not like—” He suddenly paused, thinking back to a few hours prior. “…Shite.”

Gwen chuckled sleepily, trailing off into a quiet snore.

Hobie huffed as he smirked, humming a tune and letting his fingers strum against her spine. He wasn’t entirely sure how long they stayed like that; the rocking of the hammock was good for melting away any semblance of focus. Suddenly, though, a thought jumped out of the remaining haze of alcohol to the front of his mind.

“Oi, Gwendy.” He murmured, dragging his nails more purposefully up and down her back.

She shifted slightly, a smile breaking her face as snickers slipped out. “Mmph… Not funny, Miles…” She grumbled, pushing softly at Hobie’s face.

“Ooh, I’ll try not to be offended at that one, love.” He sneered as she whined. He moved his hand to lightly tickle her ear as it turned bright red. “Remember you told me I could ask you one stupid question a day?”

“Seriously? Now?” She huffed, the pout audible in her voice.

“It’s still today, innit?” He kissed Gwen’s hand when it shoved the side of his face again. “Just the one, I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah…Go on.”

“So, um… Do I, like, change colors?”

Gwen was silent for a second before starting to giggle as she looked up at him. He could tell by her tone that she might still be a little buzzed. “What? Like a chameleon? Hell no!” She asked in disbelief.

“Heh, right?! God, I can’t believe I almost fell for that. Miles tried to get in my head that—”

“You change more like a fever dream.”

And, suddenly, his body flickered between normal and grey. “…What?”

“It’s like… Maybe a strobe light? No. It’s like flashing, but not quick, like…”

“I do not change colors!” He insisted, the greyscale settling in.

“Ack! Volume…”

“Sorry, just—” His palette was quickly muted, and he hugged Gwen close. “I’m pretty sure I would know if I was changing colors all the time, y’know? And you never said anything like that before.”

“I don’t go around questioning how people’s bodies work in other dimensions.” She shrugged, her head falling onto his chest again. “You want me to let you know every time I notice you breathing? I can hear your heartbeat; does that surprise—Oh, that’s really fast, actually.”

“Nah, nah, nah, don’t get distracted.” Hobie ruffled her hair again, his colors shifting brighter as she laughed softly. “Does—Does everyone do it? The gang and all?”

“Your gang here? I mean, yeah. I think it’s just your dimension’s thing. Changing colors with how you feel, I think.”

“Oh, you think now? Which is it?” He turned pink, unable to keep the smile off his face as she stretched groggily and let her hands fall onto his face again.

“Hey, you’re all different. I don’t keep track of all of you. I know most of your little patterns though, Cuddlebug.”

Hobie pouted, feeling his face heat up. “Don’t believe much in patterns…”

“Okay, but then how did I know you’d say that?” She cupped his face in her hands, thumbs drawing the smile along his cheekbones. “I can feel you blushing.”

“Pfft, yeah?” Hobie shifted between pinks and neons, taking hold of one of her wrists. “You wanna feel somethin’, eh?” He dragged the flat of his tongue up her palm, his piercing almost catching between her fingers when she shrieked and pulled away.

“Oh, my god, you fucking weirdo!” She accused, scrubbing her hand against his shirt as he laughed at her.

“I thought you’d see it coming, love~ I’m so easy to predict, apparently.” Hobie sneered, his colors still shifting despite lingering on pink.

“That’s not what I said, you big baby!” A few giggles snuck into her voice as she pushed herself up onto her knees, gripping her head for a moment and wincing.

“Easy there, Gwenny; watch your volume.” He taunted, lifting his hands and letting her brace herself against them. It quickly turned into her trying to shove his hands over his head, which he definitely didn’t just let her do without a fight. Definitely.

“You don’t believe in patterns; do you ever not speak bullshit?” She grumbled, letting go of his hands and crossing her arms.

“Gettin’ a little hostile, aren’t we?” He chuckled, crossing his own arms under his head as his colors flickered again. “I mean, here I am having an existential crisis, and you just want to leave me in the dark.”

“Yeah, you look so bothered by it.” She huffed and rested a hand under her chin. “You’re flipping between stuff, but…You light up when you’re happy; you start fading when you’re down; when you get upset, you turn grey. Actually, no, it’s like: You turn into some kind of newspaper collage. Like, literally, there are words on your face right now. I think they change depending on what’s bothering you…”

Hobie touched his face, finding himself distracted. “When do I turn pink?” He murmured, accidentally interrupting her going on about neon or something.

She snickered just a bit before she grinned brightly. “You turn pink when… God, it might be the best one. You turn pink when something makes you super happy. Happy like when cats purr; it’s your tail wag. You also turn pink when you’re planning pranks or goofing off with the band; it’s so great and—Wait. You said that Miles…” She paused suddenly, thinking for a second. “You do turn pink around Miles a lot, don’t you?! Hobie that’s so cute!”

Hobie groaned, letting his arm fall over his face.

“You turn pink when you blush sometimes too~” She poked his cheek, and a smile crept onto his face. “That’s the happy blush~!”

“Shut up…” He whined, a few giggles sneaking into his voice and getting amplified when Gwen’s fingers started crawling up his ribcage. “Gwen…”

“Is that my Gigglebug?” She asked teasingly, starting to scribble her fingers as her hands moved toward his armpits. “Oh, my god; did Miles find out you like getting tickled?! Is that what this is about?”

“Gwen, I do not—!” He started to insist, only to break into loud giggles when her hands shot up. “Gwendy, please!”

“Oh, yeah? Then why are you still pink?” She giggled a bit herself, bracing her knees around his legs as the hammock started to rock.

“I don’t change colors!”

“Okay, you’re just trying to do the contrarian thing. I love the commitment to the bit, but you are literally tickled pink right now.”

He lashed his hands out, hugging her tight and pulling her back down onto him. It didn’t help much; her fingers still found a bit of wiggle room against his upper ribs, but she rolled her eyes and chuckled.

“I hate you.” He murmured, the bright pink still lingering as he nuzzled into her shoulder.

“Hate you too, punk.” She teased, shifting slightly to kiss his mouth. “Ack! Yeah, that was definitely more than two cigarettes, Hobie.”

He snorted, his colors flickering for a moment as the hammock slowly stopped shaking, and Gwen chuckled and rested her head on his collarbone.

And then the hammock fell to the floor, and both of them laughed themselves hoarse.

------------

“What happened?” Miguel had asked worriedly when he first saw the look on Peter’s face. He had rushed Miguel across the facility and down to the infirmary before finally answering:

“There was an, uh, incident down in Equipment Development.” Peter explained a bit warily. “One of the kids got hurt. Kinda figured you’d want to make a proper report, and he’s not exactly being cooperative.”

Miguel had paused at that, realizing that there were very few Spiders in Spider Society that tended to be uncooperative. Definitely only one uncooperative kid. Sure enough, there was a single occupied bed in the infirmary, and Hobie sat as tense as if he were made of stone. His left forearm was wrapped tightly in bandages, his hand barely having the leeway to squeeze the grip strengthener in his hand.

“Hey, hey, Hobie Brown!” Peter called in a playful tone, clapping Hobie’s shoulder. “Lookin’, uh, a little blue there, eh?”

The muted blue shifted instantly to greyscale, and a distinctly not-human sounding hiss filled the air between them.

“Okay, not funny; got it!” Peter said quickly, stepping back and nudging Miguel forward. “Miguel, here, just needs t—”

“Fucking hell; what’d you bring him for, pops?!” He griped, flopping himself over onto his side and cringing as he adjusted his arm. His voice was groggy, still slightly affected by the heavy anesthetic that had been used on him.

Peter sighed softly, and Miguel rolled his eyes. “I brought him because your injury is, well, pretty bad. We need an incident report, y’know?”

“He said you were being obstinate about it.” Miguel chimed in, and Hobie’s color flickered as his head whipped around to glare at both of them. “He has half a point though. Tell me what happened.”

Hobie huffed, settling back to greyscale as he returned his focus to his hand exercise. “Ain’t nothin’ to write about.”

“Literally, the one thing I asked you for.” Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, if it were nothing, you wouldn’t be sulking in here.”

Instantly, Hobie put on his smirk, rolling onto his other side and looking at them with a shrug. “So, who’s sulking? I feel great.” His greyscale somehow grew cloudy, those dark blues melting in as if the newsprint had been dropped in paint. Neither Miguel nor Peter commented on it.

“I mean, Miguel definitely knows a thing or two about sulking; I’d tend to agree with him on this.” Peter tried another joke. Hobie chuckled, but he didn’t change.

“I don’t believe in agreements, then.” Hobie shrugged, smiling a bit tauntingly.

Miguel eyed him for a moment. “LYLA, pull up the footage from Equipment Development. And the medic’s record.”

Hobie’s face fell before he could catch it, and he sat up quick enough to make himself dizzy. “Oi, Tink—”

“You got it, boss!” LYLA’s voice was bright before she appeared on Miguel’s shoulder. “It is a little rough though.”

Miguel watched through a small holographic window as Hobie assisted Peni with repairing and recalibrating the blade weapons in her mech’s arms. He’d made some joke, and she laughed and punched his arm. They stepped back a bit—not nearly enough, and definitely not behind the designated safety glass—and she pressed a button on a remote. The saw blade spun, apparently picking up speed even after she pressed the button again. They moved warily, and Hobie’s eyes never leaving the mech as he put one arm in front of Peni, his color shifting to the harsh greyscale. It quickly turned into both arms snatching her off the floor when the saw shrieked and launched off of its gear. Miguel tore his eyes away before the impact, clamping his hand over his wrist before the scream could bury itself in his mind.

“Dios mio, kid…” He murmured, and Peter covered his mouth as he tried to find something to say.

Hobie stayed silent, wincing a little as he stared at his arm.

LYLA hummed sympathetically, petting the side of Miguel’s head. “Medics’ report says that the wound was pretty deep. Hobie’s one of the faster healers, but nerve damage is no joke. They want him on observation and physical therapy for a little while before he goes on another mission.”

“And why exactly did you need me to ‘get a report’, Blue?” Hobie asked gruffly. “Just rip me up and piss off, alright?”

“Excuse me?” Miguel might have stammered a bit.

Hobie’s hand clenched as his body stayed that dark grey, and he groaned irritably. “Just tell me how fucking stupid I am! How the irresponsible rebel let a poor li’l bird get hurt! I know what the others said!”

“Wait, wait; hold on.” Peter said slowly, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. “Who said that about you?”

“Oh, like I keep a fucking catalogue of which Red-Suit Peter Parker is which. Come off it.”

Miguel pulled up the video again. Peni got hurt? And if she had gotten hurt, why didn’t Peter mention it? He braced himself as he let it run this time, and he spotted it: The moment of impact, as Hobie held her tight, the very edge of the blade nicked her forehead. And even then, he only realized it had happened when she kept wiping a dribble of blood away from her eye. She was the one to activate her watch and send out an alert, but a few Spiders had already come running as Hobie screamed.

He looked up, watching Hobie bicker with Peter for a few seconds. “Why do you think I’d call you stupid for this?” He asked, and both of them balked at his tone of voice. His eyes were soft, concerned; and his tone seemed a bit shaky.

Hobie cringed, the look on his face incredulous as his colors flickered. “You’re asking me that after last year, huh? We’re only supposed to save some people sometimes, yeah?”

Miguel sighed. “I haven’t forgotten. But don’t try to put words in my mouth about this. I’m not going to scold you for probably saving your friend’s life.”

Hobie rolled his eyes, biting his lip on some comment, surely.

Peter’s hand returned to Hobie’s shoulder, squeezing firmly. “Hobie, no one—No one—should even have the nerve to tell you that you were wrong here. Lab accidents just happen. Peni is safe; no one’s dead; HQ isn’t on fire; I don’t see any sentient saw-based super villains, and you’re not even missing that hand.”

Hobie huffed softly toward the end, remaining mostly stone-faced despite his color shifting brighter.

“Just know you’re amazing, Spider-Man.” Peter said finally, patting Hobie’s back.

A shock of neon flickered through Hobie’s palette, and he let a soft chuckle slip out.

“Oh, that’s what gets a smile out of you, really?”

Hobie lightly shoved Peter’s arm with his good hand. “Yeah, right, pops. You know you ain’t that funny. Lemme go back to my sulking; I’m so good at it.” He let himself fall onto his back, draping his arm across his face and sighing sadly.

And flecks of pink bloomed across his normal colors. Peter gave a look of exaggerated offense, crossing his arms and looking back at Miguel.

Miguel let out a fraction of a chuckle. “Didn’t think you were the type to doubt yourself this much, Spider-Punk.”

“Sorry, Hook, I like to think I’m multifaceted. Full a’ surprises and all.”

He blinked at the nickname, letting a smirk creep onto his face and resting his hands on his hips. “Well, if you can’t pull yourself up out of this little rut, I suppose we’ll have to help you—” He gave a light tap to Peter’s shoulder and winked as they made eye contact. “—And the method might not be so delicate.

“Pfft… Don’t know what I believe less: You thinking I want your help or you thinking I’d need you to be delica—!” His voice was caught in a yelp as one of Miguel’s hands suddenly squeezed one side of his ribcage. As he started to flail, Peter fired a bit of webbing that stuck his bandaged arm to the wall.

“If you really want some commentary, you should probably keep that arm immobilized for a bit.” Peter taunted, leaning closer to scribble gently at Hobie’s other side.

“Oi, hey!” He griped, giggles starting to slip out of him as his free hand pawed Miguel’s arm. “Fuck off; that’s not funny!” He curled over onto his side, pinning Peter’s hand under his weight. It didn’t stop him scribbling his fingers at all, but Hobie seemed determined not to let him have that hand back.

“It’s a little funny.” Miguel shrugged as he sat on the bed as well. He set his left hand firmly on Hobie’s shoulder, flexing the fingers on his right to get them primed. “You called me Hook earlier, didn’t you? I wonder why.” He said it playfully, as if he didn’t actually know, and he dragged his claws gingerly against the back of Hobie’s t-shirt.

Hobie’s legs kicked out as a shriek escaped him, his laughter jumping quickly to cackles as bright pink tones covered his body.

Peter chuckled as he watched them, squeezing Hobie’s side softly until he got the opportunity to pull free when the kid suddenly writhed. “Must be really funny if you’re laughing this much.” He teased, sneaking a few pokes across his stomach. “Hobie ‘Spider-Punk’ Brown stuck in a giggle fit from the evil backscratcher~!”

“Pops!” He laughed, his free hand making a grab for Peter’s wrist again. Miguel, completely undeterred—and maybe a little shocked by it—pulled Hobie to lie flat on his back, and he let his claws scribble softly all across the kid’s stomach. Hobie covered his face, giggling brightly as he seemed to make an effort to keep still.

“Aw, the lone wolf still kicks for tummy scratches.” Peter smirked, leaning on Miguel’s arm and tickling along Hobie’s ribs. “Definitely something Miguel knows about.”

“You are terrible.” Miguel chuckled, shaking his head and sneaking scribbles toward Hobie’s sides.

“You’re both terrible!” Hobie barked out, twisting a bit harder than he meant to and shouting suddenly. “Ack, shit!” Bright red lightning-like bolts flashed along Hobie’s arm as his body flickered between the pink and newsprint palettes.

Peter flailed to remove the webbing from the injured arm, not that there was anything he could do beside watch Hobie ride out the sting of pain. “I am so sorry…” He stammered, suddenly panicked and rambling while Hobie’s voice came out a bit ragged:

“M’fine, m’fine, mate, really.” He insisted, flexing his fingers as best he could and letting out a sigh as the pink tones started to reappear. His eyes fell on Miguel, and when he smirked, Miguel realized he’d been holding his breath.

“You’re fine?” Miguel asked, pushing himself to stand back up.

“As I can be.” Hobie shrugged, grinning harder to cover the wince. “You two gonna stop bothering the invalids now?” His bright pink was muddied by the muted blue, though it flickered between the two.

Peter sighed and shook his head with a weary smile, patting Hobie’s knee as he got up.

Miguel crossed his arms. “Not just yet. Have you told your little crew about this?”

Realization flashed across Hobie’s face, and grey text etched itself into his skin as he tried to push himself up. “Shit, I need to get home, I—”

Miguel grabbed his shoulder before he could accidentally put his weight on the wrong arm. “We can arrange that. I meant: Have you told Gwen and Miles? Or Pavitr?”

For as tall as he was, Hobie seemed to shrink at the idea alone.

“Hobie…” Peter scolded without scolding him.

Hobie pulled a pillow over the side of his head, groaning in frustration. “Ugh, look, okay? I don’t want them worrying over me. I don’t de—” He bit his tongue and paused, the color draining away from him— “They’re busy and all, and I’ll be fine. I begged the doctor not to say anything to you, but Peni had already run off. Then Pops showed up, so, yeah, maybe I was a bit pissed off.”

Both men glanced at each other. Some parts of Spiderman really are always the same.

“They care about you, you know.” Miguel said softly, and Hobie cringed himself into a smaller form. “They love you.”

His hand clenched tighter on the pillow, and bits of the newsprint highlighted itself in pink while others crossed themselves out or tried to become more prominent.

It was sort of an unspoken rule in Spider Society not to read the words that would flash across Hobie’s body, or at the very least, not to comment or draw attention to them. He rarely got emotional enough for them to be legible anyway, but most Spiders could respect the idea of staying out of someone’s head.

But Hobie doesn’t change colors. So, if Miguel’s hand covered up the words “I don’t deserve them” when he pressed his palm to Hobie’s back, it was a coincidence.

“If you stay here to heal up, they’ll notice you missing.” Miguel caught a glimpse of something and glanced away. “If you try to sneak out before you’re healed up, they’ll notice when you can’t use your hand properly. Tell them.”

“…Fine.”

“Promise you’ll do it.”

His colors darkened a bit. “Promise…”

Miguel pat his shoulder firmly, finally stepping back. “And stay behind the safety glass next time. That’s why it’s there.”

Hobie chuckled softly, letting out a quiet sigh as Miguel and Peter made their way out of the infirmary.

“LYLA, let the medics know that Hobie might need another round of painkillers.” Miguel said once they were definitely out of earshot.

She appeared on his shoulder again, a clipboard in her hands. “Already done, boss!”

“By the way, give me an estimate on the kid’s recovery. What do you think?”

She flipped through papers on the board, kicking her feet casually. “Well, based on previous known injuries, and the medic’s report; adding in physical therapy time: I’d say he’ll be mission-ready by next Friday. Probably the Monday after to be 100% normal. Just estimating; you know he’d probably say otherwise.”

Miguel nodded. “Check in once in a while. If he hasn’t told anyone by Wednesday night, drop them a message first thing Thursday.”

Peter looked at him with a smirk, and Miguel rolled his eyes and chuckled.

---------------

“Hobart Brown!” That was Miles’ voice, and it was weighted by his Puerto Rican accent. He was pissed. His sneakers squeaked against the infirmary floor as he stomped up to Hobie’s bed.

Hobie nearly choked on the sip of water he’d taken, catching the grip strengthener when it slipped out of his hand and flickering through several different color palettes.

“Oi. We don’t pull the government names, you know that!” He had barely set his water bottle down when Miles cornered him against the headboard, eyes sharp with rage.

“Shut your punk ass up!” He barked suddenly, seeming to shock both of them for a second. Hobie rested his left hand on his chest, and he felt his face heating up.

“When the hell were you going to tell us that you got hurt?” He continued, crossing his arms as he glared.

Hobie winced, and dark blues settled in with flickers of pink. “I-I, well…When I stopped being hurt?”

“Hobie!” Miles ran his palms over his face, and absolutely none of the anger had drained from his eyes when he looked back up at him. “How could you do this?”

“I did check-ins; you can’t say I didn’t!”

“Yeah, and you lied to us!”

“I—I did not lie. I just…didn’t…”

“Lying by omission is lying, Hobie! And it’s a shitty thing to do to your partners!” His hands were moving a bit wildly before he clutched at his jacket sleeves for a moment. He sighed heavily and let them fall to his sides. Hesitating just a little, Hobie slowly took Miles’ hands into his own, and Miles stared at the remains of the newest scar on his forearm. Miles squeezed his hands tightly, closing his eyes and taking a breath.

“It’s just… After everything that happened, and out of everyone here…You were the one person I thought would never lie to me! Not about important stuff, at least...” He moved one hand to the side of Hobie’s face, brushing his thumb over the words he pretended not to see. “And you are so important! To me and Gwen and Pavitr and your band and so many people.”

In the midst of his speech, Hobie spotted Gwen creeping in with her hands behind her back, but that last part might have gotten to him a bit. The colors on his body fluctuated again, and he felt himself sinking into the hand cradling his face.

“Did you make him cry yet?” Gwen asked a bit playfully, approaching the bed and lightly nudging Miles with her elbow.

“Gwen…” Miles chided softly as brighter tones started to appear on Hobie’s body.

“He has such a way with words, Gwendy; I don’t know what to say.” Hobie leaned to rest his chin on Miles’ head, rubbing his thumbs across his knuckles.

“Yeah, yeah; I wasn’t done, by the way!” Miles pouted.

“I’m not stopping you; I just thought we should give our maybe still-injured partner his flowers.” As she spoke, she pulled a picture frame and a card from behind her back. Pressed inside of the frame was a bouquet of clearly handmade paper flowers wrapped around the neck of a familiar-looking paper guitar.

Hobie found himself staring, the breath stolen from his lungs as he took one corner of the frame in his hand. Gwen didn’t let go, and he was glad for it, because he felt like his hands would have been weak even without the injury.

“Miles made them for you last week—”

“Don’t tell him that!” Miles groaned, blushing as he tried to glare at her. He gestured to Hobie’s face and color with one hand while the other rested its palm on his own face. “See, he’s not going to listen now!”

Hobie had slipped his arm around Miles, pulling him in for a hug and kissing his wrist instead of trying to get him to move it. He had shifted almost completely to a bright pink, bits of text occasionally visible on him before shifting back to blurry lines.

Gwen snickered and sat on the bed, hugging Hobie’s arm. “You seemed pretty off in that first call. Guess we know why now, but he wanted to make you something to cheer you up.”

“I can admit it’s working.” Hobie nodded, smiling at Miles again. “It’s beautiful, love. You never stop amazin’, do ya?”

“Do not compliment me when I’m mad at you.” Miles huffed, his face softening as he looked up.

Hobie set the frame on the table beside the bed, holding the stand out with his pinkie and flexing his hand as he pulled it back. “’S the best time to compliment you though, innit? You care so much; feel so much; I admire that about you.”

Gwen nodded. “Plus, your accent slips out when you’re mad. It’s the cutest thing.”

“He sounds like his mom.”

Gwen slapped Hobie’s arm, barely stifling a snort. “Stop right now. You know his parents already don’t like me. Plus, don’t say that after I saw you blushing when he yelled at you.”

“I like a li’l double meaning, I’m afraid. And Man’s got a bark on him. Makes me weak.”

Miles looked between them, groaning. “Of course you would roll up like this. You two are practically the same.”

They glanced at each other; Hobie’s colors flickered darker, so Gwen was the one who said: “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a type.”

Miles glared at them, but the tiniest hint of a shy smile pulled his lips.

Hobie chuckled softly and shook his head. “Ey, come on, don’t lump her in with my bad decisions. If she had listened to me, she wouldn’t have told you about her broken arm from that Rhino mission.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot you were the one who said that first. Do you do this a lot?” She murmured, and suddenly both of them were eying Hobie with an edge of…judgment? Felt like judgment. Hobie cringed, looking away for a moment.

“I…” No, no, no. He’d jumped from the church wagon a long time ago; no need to start an impromptu confessional.

They love you.

Shit.

“Look, we’re Spiders, okay? We heal fast. I heal faster. When I get hurt, it’s nothing. Maybe I have to sit out for a while, but the crew can handle most work and shows.” The words were just falling out of him without much control, and he found himself squeezing Gwen’s sleeve when one of her hands traced lines on his arm. “My crew—My friends—I feel like they, uh… How the fuck…? T-There’s plenty of them. They go out, knock some heads and chill with each other. You two… You have whole cities to go home to; you’re flying solo when you’re on patrol. And I don’t want to be the one… distracting you?”

Somehow, stopping felt worse than the rambling. They were still staring at him, but their eyes were soft; both of them took hold of one of his hands.

“You wanna translate?” Miles asked, running the pads of his fingers along some older scars before pulling his hand up to kiss his knuckles.

Gwen shook her head, smiling. “Just means he loves us~” She said almost teasingly, lacing her fingers with his and hugging his arm again. “Loves us so much he thinks he’s not good enough.”

“Did I not just get through telling him how important he is to us?” Miles asked in disbelief. “Honestly, this guy.”

“Feelings are dumb like that.” Gwen shrugged, huddling closer to Hobie’s side. “That’s why I can’t stand them.”

“Tell me about it…” Hobie murmured, resting his head on top of hers. “I do care about you birds, though. Can’t really hide from that. Where’s Pavi, by the way?”

“He’s gonna call before he drops in; said he was making your favorite thing from his dimension, and he didn’t want to interrupt us.” Miles finally walked around the bed to properly cuddle up to Hobie’s other side.

“He also told us it was supposed to be a surprise,” Gwen giggled as Miles leered over at her, “but I think Miles was already raging.”

Hobie chuckled, grinning softly as he looked down at his hands. He flexed the fingers on his left hand; they felt a bit stiff, but they moved just fine. Well, fine enough for now; he needed to get his hands on his guitar.

“What are we thinking?” Gwen pressed a kiss just below Hobie’s shoulder.

“Oh, you can’t tell?” Hobie teased, his palette settling on the bright pink tones. “I thought you said I change colors.”

“Do you seriously still think we’re making that up?” Miles laughed lightly.

“Maybe~ What color do you see?”

“You’re pink, as usual, you dork.”

“Cool, so you probably know what I’m going to do next.” He slipped his arms around both of them, hugging them tight as he let his fingers scribble against their stomachs. “Or not? How were you both too slow?” He laughed, speaking over them as they fell into loud giggles and complaints.