#stanley iris

The losers were all hanging out. Today Stan was fourteen, and there was an anxiety in the room due to a friendly tradition that was created for as long as the first four knew each other. Stan knew it was going to happen, he kept shifting his eyes, rearranging his limbs almost unconsciously.

Soon enough impatience won, Richie was the first to motion for an attack. Bill and Eddie were quick to follow. Then Bev who had gotten the memo from Richie. Ben and Mike looked at each other before both joining in.

Some people have the tradition of punching and pinching, but their group faced enough violence as it was. They wanted to have… fun with their traditions. And that is why Stan laid on the floor alternating between curling into a ball and kicking out his legs all while trying to get a hold on the total of twelve hands that were currently tickling him to stitches. He wasn’t very successful.

He couldn’t see who was where, his mind was too frazzled to try and pay attention to details and his eyes were scrunched up blocking any hope of sight. There was a person everywhere he could think of them being. A hand under his neck and chin, three on his ribs, two on his stomach and sides, two more on his hips, three on his sides and one lone hand trying to hold his foot down long enough to try there too.

And that was only the first minute. Thirteen would follow.

“Gihihihise! Nahhh, stahahahappihit!”

There were only chuckles and more tickles in response.

Stan kicked out as a finger wormed itself along his foot, then curled it back into his chest to try to block out the treacherous hip squeezing and thumb drilling. It was a harsh cycle.

Stan’s laughter was hysterical, loud, and uncontrollable. It was just about the most beautiful thing the group consecutively had taken part in creating.

Hands were wormed under his armpits and Stan threw his head back. There was a dull ‘thunk’ as it hit the floor but there was no cry of pain so it went unmentioned but not unnoticed. Within seconds his head snapped back against his shoulder to try to trap the spidering fingers from under his jaw.

Ten more minutes.

Stan was screaming, he normally could handle it for about the first six or seven minutes when it was just Richie, Bill, and Eddie but now there were three people added to the with Bev, Ben, and Mike! How was he supposed to take it for how ever long he had left when he couldn’t even form a coherent thought let alone a sentence.

The others were having fun still but took notice of his quick detestation. By the time he had been going for five minutes he was already out of breath, face flushed a bright pink, screaming, and going in and out of silent laughter. They weren’t cruel enough to go all out for a full fourteen minutes when they saw that he was struggling with only five, they all unanimously slowed down and lightened their intensity.

Stan didn’t take the timer I notice but they could all see how his limbs weren’t flailing as much, and how his laughter had started to become less hysteric.

That continued for about three minutes before they felt he had a satisfactory break, they slowly began to up the tickles once more.

Six minutes left.

Since they had started to speed things up with their time limit drawing near Stan had mostly give up on flailing or stopping them in any way with the exception of an involuntary twitch.

His skin had started to become hypersensitive to any touch and was in a constant stream of giggly shrieks and hysterical laughter with an occasional snort it you got the right combination (his neck at the same time as his hips or stomach (they all thought it was adorable and talked about it when Stan wasn’t around the next day)). He didn’t try to form words, if he did then it was intelligible and indistinguishable.

By two minutes left Stan was completely complacent and immobile. He couldn’t think or do anything even if he wanted to, his brain was dead to him and had given up on making sense. He was in some sort of sensory overload but it didn’t have a positive or negative effect. It was just there.

The group of teens began to slow down their fingers once again.

By one minute left everyone had began to back off and had come to an almost complete stop. Richie, Bill and Eddie who knew Stans limits better kept at it until their time was up, even then Richie kept at it putting him through soft tickles until Stan had better control of his arms and pushed Richies hands off of his stomach where they had been tracing shapes and words.

Stan wouldn’t be able to say why it was that was spelt out but if you asked the losers would tell you, ‘happy birthday Stanley!’ Was the message.

Stand breathing got back it’s natural rhythm and their rag tag team of rejects piled onto one another. Everyone was touching everyone somewhere in their giant cuddle pile.

Stephen King wrote some form of the word fuck 204 times in his book.