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

You'd think that most people would quit once they'd almost lost everything in a gamble. But the cup brothers were certainly not most people, even after losing to the devil himself.

Now, gambling with the devil's right hand man wasn't any less dangerous, but at least there was the possibility he'd give you a second chance. Well, only if you weren't cuphead or mugman. Speaking of them, right now they are pretty much betting their lives away for money, one wrong move and they could say bye-bye to their souls.

"Wait! Uh..King Dice sir, could me and my brother talk alone for a moment?" Mugman interrupted politely, not wanting to make the wrong choice. "Hmmm, I'll give you two minutes, but no cheating boys!" King Dice replied with a shit-eating grin. Mugman wasted no time in grabbing Cuphead's arm and running to a different room where Dice couldn't hear. "Mugsy! Whaddya doin', I was about to play our last turn!" Cuphead's whisper-shouted, angry but curious on what his brother had to say. "L-look Cuphead, I'm not so sure we should do this without a plan. I mean what if we get it wrong?!" Mugman couldn't help but stress out about their current situation. Cuphead still wanted to wing it, but he had to agree that blind luck had seldom worked for them in the past.

But just when Mugman was about to accept his fate, Cuphead had a little lightbulb moment. "Hey Mugsy! I got the perfect plan, listen to this" He announced, trying to keep his voice down nevertheless. The mug was intruiged and leant his 'ear' close to hear his brothers so-called plan. Inaudible mutters and mumbles were heard until they had it all figured out completely. Just in time too, as it had gone 2 minutes, "Boys! Time's up~" Dice called out. The brothers nodded firmly at eachother, walking back to the other room to greet their opponent. "Okay Dice, I'll play my turn now." Cuphead stated hastily, picking up the small 6-sided dice on the table. He was about to roll when....he stopped, "I-..I don't know if I can do this, I mean losing would just be- GET 'IM MUGSY!" All of a sudden, Mugman jumped up onto the table and swiftly pounced on King Dice, trapping his hands behind him. This earned a yell from the taller man, focusing so much on Mugman that he didn't notice Cuphead approaching. "Not so tough now, huh Dice?" Said man whipped his head around to the voice, instinctively bringing his knees to his chest out of fear. "Geez, King Dice sir, the Devil must treat you really badly if you're scared of us" Mugman pitifully remarked. Dice just sat silently staring at the floor, still partly afraid of what was to happen to him now. "Relax, Dice! Me and my brudda ain't gonna hurt ya!" Cuphead assured him, leaving Dice as confused as ever.

"*Sigh* Dare I ask what you're going to do, little nuisances." He wearily said. The brothers shared a 'should we tell him?' look before concluding that it wouldn't really change anything. "Well, hurtin' ya is against the rules, so we're gonna tickle ya to pieces instead!" Cuphead answered. Dice widened his eyes upon this and quickly grew nervous, knowing fully well how relentless children could be. 'What do I do?! How do I get out of this?!' King Dice's thoughts disappeared entirely as he felt a gloved finger gliding down his stomach. A twitchy smile was created on his face, gritting his teeth as Cuphead lightly scratched his ribs.

"C'mon Dice, where's that laugh~?" The cup teased, his brother still restraining their targets arms. What all three of them didn't expect, was for another voice to be coming their way.

"Heya, boys! I just thought I'd drop on by to make sure you two ding-dongs aren't dead yet!" It was the one and only Ms. Chalice. King Dice's jaw dropped to the ground upon her appearance, while the two 'ding-dongs' shared an overjoyed smile. "Chalice!" They shouted in sync, said girl making her way over to them.

"Wow, looks like you boys have this guy in a real bind, mind if I help out?" She offered, smirking fondly at Dice, who seemed to have stopped functioning. "I- wh- h-how-"

"Trust me fella, it's too long a story. Now, what exactly is goin' on here?"

"We don't wanna lose our souls so we're ticklin' Dicey here till he gives up!" Cuphead blurted out, making Dice groan and blush a bit. Chalice chuckled and knealt down beside Mugman, whispering something inaudible into his straw. The mug's face lit up, suddenly hoisting King Dice's hands above his head. Dice struggled against Mugman's surprisingly strong grip, but gave up easily as it was no use. "Alright, scoot over Cuphead, I wanna get in on this too!" Chalice said. The cup obliged, leaving Dice twice as scared as he noticed how thin and tickly her fingers looked.

"Hmmm, how 'bout you go for his underarms and I stick to his belly?" Cuphead suggested.

"Got it, Mugman are you gonna gonna be fine holdin' him?"

"Yep! I'm feeling particularly strong today!" Mugman replied, even though there was practically no struggle against his grasp. On the count of three, Cuphead and Chalice started poking and prodding every inch of stomach and armpit they could find. Giggles and snickers found their way out of Dice's mouth, his feet kicking a little.

"Hehehahaha, yohohuhuhu brahahats are sohoho dehehahad whehehen thihihis ehehehends!" He 'threatened', it lacked intimidation though considering he was being tickled silly. Dice squeaked when a certain cup lightly pinched his side, his face growing crimson red again. "Awww, your squeaks are adorable~!" (⚠️Not a ship!⚠️)

"Shuhuhuhut ihihit cupfahahace, yohou pihihehece ohof shi-ACK!! WAHAHAHIHIHIT NOHOHOHO, STOHOHOHOP!!!" Dice suddenly exclaimed as Chalice squeezed his hip repeatedly. "Better watch your mouth mister, or I'll make it ten times worse next time!" She said, giving one more squeeze that felt like a ticklish electric shock. Everything then went at a steady pace for a while until Mugman just had to think out loud.

"Hey guys, so people normally have ticklish necks, but since Mr Dice has no neck, wouldn't it be realistic if he was ticklish around the neck?" King Dice mentally gulped after he said that. After a recent 'makeup incident' with his playing cards colouring the pips on the underside of his head, both Dice and his cards learnt how ridiculously sensitive he was there. Both Cuphead and Chalice turned to look at where Dice's neck should be, wondering if what Mug said was true or not.

"Listen kids, I will let you go anywhere else you like. But please, do not touch that area." But his pleading only made them more interested. Mischief ignited their eyes, huge smirks forming on their lips. The last words he could choke out before they attacked were,

"Oh crap."

Soon thin fingers were dancing along the underside of his head, while some thicker fingers scratched and poked. Meanwhile Kind Dice was thrown into hysterics,

"WAHAHAHIHIHIT, WAHAHAHAHIHIHIHIT! PLEHEHEHEHAHASE STAHAHAHAHAP, IHIHIHIH CAHAHAN'T TAHAHAKE IHIHIT!!" He yelled, just hoping that at least one of them would stop. His wish technically came true as Chalice slowed down, slightly worried about going too far. She sighed and said, "alright, let's stop this now, Cuphead." Her friend obeyed, ceasing his hands.

Dice inhaled desperately and Mugman decided to let go of his arms, Dice immediately rubbed his tingling body.

"*huff* y'know, after all that *huff*, I don't give up and I wanna see who wins the bet. *huff*" He admitted, his smug attitude returning.

"Don't worry ding-dongs, I got this" Chalice reassured them. "Mugman, now!"

As fast as he could, Mugman pulled Dice's head really hard so that it popped right off his shoulders. King Dice obviously tried to grab it, but again to no avail as he couldn't entirely move without his head.

"Ugh, what now? Gonna roll me like a dice until I give up?- wait no don't actually do that, I'll be sick." Dice remarked, completely oblivious about the now exposed underside of his head. "Nope, it's just a little experiment to see if you'd change your mind!" Chalice explained. Without warning, she blew a big raspberry on the bottom of his head, and boy did he f*cking scream 💀.

"NONONONONO STAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!!" Uncontrollable laughter poured out of him, luckily it was a rather short raspberry. "Give up yet, Mister Dice?" Chalice asked cockily, Mugman popped his head back onto his body in the meantime. King Dice collapsed into a giggly puddle, holding his poor head. It took about 5 minutes before he had finally regained his breath and stamina. It was only then he admitted defeat, he also realized that Chips was staring wide-eyed from the other side of the room. Dice turned so red you'd wonder if his head was white in the first place. "H-....how long have you been here?" Chips grinned and replied "Oh, y'know, I saw like all of it. I won't tell, I promise boss." He surrendered his hands to show he'd keep the promise. "Good, 'cause you're fired if you tell anyone about this." Dice threatened, he was lucky the Devil didn't see though, he'd be teased for it every.single.day.

Chips kept his promise, but he took advantage of this discovery every chance he got just to mess with the Devil's number one.

In reality, Dice didn't mind one bit if it meant he got some bonding time with his colleagues. The Devil did find out eventually though, and, well, let's just say Dice was too tired to get up the next morning ;). (Stop I'm reading this again a while later and this line sounds so stupidly dirty, I'm so sorry 😭)

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

Okay, this took WAY longer than it needed to so I'm sorry for that but I hope you enjoyed this fic. Honestly though KD has gotta be one of the funniest villains ever 😂.

“Gee, I never saw a clown look so serious before,” Mugman joined in, resting a hand on Beppi’s knee in mock concern. His fingers started to drum a light, teasing rhythm, every tap stirring butterflies of anticipation that threatened to flutter out into giggles. This was so completely unfair, Djimmi was playing dirty, enlisting extra tormentors. He’d get them all back good later. “Maybe he forgot how to smile? Think we oughta help him?”

“Hey, Mug, watch this.” Not daring to open his eyes for fear of cracking – ha, cracking, cups – wait, no jokes, he couldn’t be foiled by his own hilariousness! – Beppi felt Cuphead tugging at his hat. Oh no, those little rascals, they wouldn’t dare…

The deadly tickly tip of his own peacock feather assaulted his defenseless nose, making Beppi exhale hard, twisting and scrunching his face up every which way like he had a mouthful of sourballs in a vain attempt to evade it. He was putting on quite the show, if Mugman’s giggles – which were definitely not helping – were anything to go by.

“Damn, I was hoping he’d sneeze confetti again.” (That was a good one, if Beppi thought it himself.)

“Let me try!”

Beppi could only guess Mugman had grabbed the feather from the way it fluttered torturously back and forth over his neck; he had to press his lips together hard, barely managing to squash the squeal. He wanted to squirm away so bad – but if he could hold out just a little longer, maybe they’d get bored...

“He squeaked! I heard it!” Cuphead exclaimed with sadistic glee, before hopping right up onto Beppi’s lap, making them wobble dangerously as he repeatedly poked his cheek. “C’mooon, where’s the big ol’ goofy Beppi grin? It can’t hide from us forever!”

“Oh, I know! First to find the giggle button wins!”

Beppi knew he was a goner from ‘giggle button’; he had no hope of keeping a straight face when they both attacked, sixteen wicked little fingers finding every weak spot (of which there were many). Snickers started spilling out when someone pinched around his trembling tummy – he was pretty sure that was Mugman, because Cuphead was a lot rougher, prodding along his ribs like he was typing a particularly urgent telegram. Despite shaking with not-quite-silent mirth, he was still just about holding his pose up until a finger wiggled viciously into that spot between his ribs and underarm.

He let out a squawk like a strangled chicken, jerking too violently to maintain his balance and finally sending the three of them tumbling spectacularly off the stool. Instead of hitting the floor as the cups jumped off of him, however, Beppi found himself cradled in a pair of familiar beefy arms.

“What a pity, such a shame,” Djimmi murmured, eyes twinkling with affection and amusement before he moved his hands to clasp Beppi’s wrists, rendering him helpless. “The ticklish clown just lost this game.”

“N-now hold your Charlies a sec,” Beppi protested, a feeling of utter joyous doom swelling in his heart as he struggled ineffectively in Djimmi’s tender grip, Cuphead and Mugman smirking menacingly at him. “This game was never fahahahair nononono not there!”