Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Molly-" You start. His fingertips are lazily ghosting over your side in a way you think is meant to be calming, but instead it just really fucking tickles. If he keeps it up, you'll have to twitch away within the next 2 seconds or so. You grab his wrist and try to pull it away from your torso. He lets you, expression curious.
"What's the matter?" He asks, all tenderness and care. His palm rests against your torso.
"Uh- it tickled." You mutter, hoping to push him away a little and instead finding yourself thrown back against the mattress as he races to pin you in place.
"You're ticklish?" He purrs, a chuckle in his voice and a grin on his lips - neither of which are fair whatsoever, because they make you want to start giggling in anticipation alone. "You shouldn't have told me." Saying this, his hands snake through the blankets towards your unprotected abdomen, making contact with the skin of your ribcage and wriggling experimentally. You snort in response, contorting left, then right, and up, in an attempt to escape his teasing exploration - but it's impossible to twist out of his reach with him sitting on your legs. Poorly stifled laughter very swiftly fills the room, your giggles growing gradually more hysterical as Mollymauk, only encouraged by your reaction, increases his pace, slotting his thumbs into the nooks between your ribs and gently kneading there to gauge your reaction. It's beautiful and amazing and absolutely unbearable - for Molly's almost too skilled of a ler, his touches deft and gentle and a horrible degree of devastating; your nervous system is trying to keep up with the stimuli it's been given, but with Molly growing ever more enthusiastic, the best you can do is process how badly what he's doing tickles. One of his hands teases a weak spot near your navel, tracing patterns across oversensitive nerves you previously weren't aware existed, whilst the other darts up under your arm to drill fingers into your hollows, causing you to throw your head back in hysterics. Frantic protests were spilling from your lips mere minutes ago, but it's difficult to do anything except laugh now. Your limbs are weakened from twitching and thrashing, endorphins giving your muscles a twitchy, glowy feeling of weightlessness that rather annoyingly robs you of your strength to do anything about the tickling Molly's giving you. His coat dwarfs your surroundings, and your field of vision consists of either his grinning face or the blur of colour as embroidered peacocks, suns, and moons race past in time with his movements.
"Now, tell me," he begins over your laughter. "Where are you most ticklish? Because a much as I'd love to figure that out myself, I'm not sure we have all day." Fortunately, he eases up a bit to let you speak.
"I..don't know." You manage to get out in amongst residual giggles.
Molly's eyes go comically wide, and if his grin before didn't make you giggly, you're positively giddy now. "Perfect!" He exclaims, wasting no time in continuing to wreck you. You're positive you've never laughed so hard in your life, hysterics overtaking you once more as Molly tries your knees, hips, neck, and other spots consecutively, determined to keep you laughing so unabashedly.
"Hm," he begins in the middle of spidering behind your knees. "Is there a reason you haven't asked me to stop?"
You choose not to answer, covering your face - to which molly responds by pulling your arms down so he can poke your tummy.
"Oh, that's a lovely shade of red you're turning. Do you like being tickled?"
You choose to ignore this question too, in favour of shoving his hands and sending a couple of curse words in his direction.
"So that's a yes," Molly chirps, positively ecstatic with this discovery as he draws his hands into the air to wriggle his fingers just inches from your skin. You continue laughing even though he's not touching you, the sight of his movements conjuring phantom sensations that fuel your flustered hysterics.
"Adorable." Your friend states, pausing in his teasing to place a cheeky kiss on your forehead. "Do you want me to carry on?"
…you curse the fact that you absolutely do - and nod.

Chapter Text

The house is relatively quiet this evening. It unsettles you. Without everyone's usual hustling and bustling, you're left to stew in your own thoughts, which is not normally something you enjoy doing - especially since tonight you find yourself unable to shake off a craving for…physical affection? It's odd that now you're not in mortal danger, you find yourself wanting to cuddle someone, of all things. You've experienced such longings before, but dismissed them because it's never been the right time, place, or person. It occurs to you that it's probably not that unusual to feel touch starved every now and then.
Very well. The decision is made: you'll indulge this whim for a change.
So it's with a resigned sigh that you tread downstairs in search of a friend. This is apparently a mistake, since Caleb is the only one on the ground floor, and he's busy studying - sure, he nods in acknowledgment at you as you pass, but you get the impression now is not the time to initiate any bonding attempts with him.
Back upstairs it is, you suppose. Halfway through trudging along, the turret staircase catches your attention - it holds potential, you decide.
Opening the trapdoor onto the rooftop garden at the top, you see Caduceus, sitting with a cup of tea. He smiles, and you manage to smile back.
"Hello."
"Hi, cad. Room for one more?"
"Of course," He smiles - it's warm and welcoming and friendly, and you resist the urge to hug him as he shifts to make space for you whilst pouring out an extra cup of tea. You accept it, and cradle the steaming teacup, huddling into a ball against the tree trunk in the centre of your tiny rooftop garden.
"Did you need me?" He asks.
"No. Yes. Not sure. I…was lonely, I guess. Fancied some company."
"Ah," he nods sagely, satisfied with your answer. Caduceus has always been good at reading people. You find it easier to relax around him; you never really need to say much.
"I love what you've done with this place. You should be proud of it," you continue, waving a hand at the gigantic oak towering above the pair of you.
"Thank you, though this was hardly my work. This is the Wildmother's," he replies, and pats the soil beneath you.
"It was a wonderful idea,"
He hums. The pair of you finish your teas, falling into silence. At some point, your head comes to rest on Cad's shoulder. And at another point, his arm encompasses your shoulder in a comforting embrace. He smells of forest and earth and tea leaves - of course he does. You smile a little bit, adjusting yourself against the crook of his neck. He shifts so you're laying on his stomach instead, neither of you bothering with words. There's nothing to say that hasn't already been said, or that he hasn't already gathered from your body language. One of his large, soft hands comes down to card fingers through your hair. You hum.
"Thank you, Cad."
"Anytime,"
His fingertips brush a ticklish spot near the nape of your neck, and you scrunch up momentarily.
"Ah-"
"Sorry," he chuckles, moving away from the area without question. You curse inwardly when you feel a pang of disappointment at this fact - now you're craving tickles, too?!
A couple of seconds later, you feel Cad flutter his fingers over your skin again - and you'd swear it was deliberate, but it's Caduceus; he's hard to read. You scramble to suppress a reaction, and when you succeed, his fingers linger - which is both what you were dreading and hoping for. Your stomach does a small flip as slow, steady patterns softly tracing over your sensitive nerves, and it's so, so difficult to not giggle.
Which is why, after a couple of seconds, the dam breaks.
"Ahaha, Cahahad!"
"Yes?"
Dammit. He's probably clocked that you don't entirely hate this. Stupid firbolg mind reader.
"Ihihi-uh-"
"It's fine. This is fine. You're fine. Just tell me if you want me to stop." He's smiling again, only this time you feel flustered. His other hand makes itself known at your side, gently squeezing and poking in places that force even more giggles from your lips.
You find yourself feeling happier for it.

Chapter Text

As far as humans go, you reckon you're pretty tough. Hanging out with the group of albeit odd mercenaries who called themselves the mighty nein has to count for something, right? They'd fought 2 dragons, for gods' sake. If they accepted you as one of their own, you couldn't be that weak.
And yet.
Today has not been kind to you. Taking a leaf from Nott's book, you'd decided to try some alcohol to give you a bit of courage. But as it turns out, being slightly tipsy does not help you when it comes to combat. Instead of dodging a Gnoll's jagged blade with your usual finesse, you found yourself overreacting. A swerve slightly too far to the left landed you smack bang in the path of another dagger, and Jester had to stop you bleeding out for the umpteenth time this month.
Arriving back at the Xorhouse after the ordeal is a welcome respite. Your legs ache after the long trip across the continent, so the chairs and a cup of tea from Cadeucus are more than welcome.
Around half an hour passes as everyone unpacks their gear, and Essek swings by for some "official debriefing shit", as Beau calls it. You find yourself a little lost for purpose afterwards, so drift upstairs to the rooftop garden by default. It's still odd stepping outside at 3 in the afternoon and seeing a pitch black sky, but the stars are beautiful above the fairy lights strewn throughout the Xorhouse's turret tree. It's easy to lose yourself in the constellations for hours. You decide that's exactly what you'll do.
What could be 5 or 50 minutes passes, and you're on the cusp of nodding off when Caleb clears his throat from the trapdoor, jolting you awake.
"Uh, y/n."
"Yes, hi, yeah?" You rub the grogginess from your eyes to wince at Caleb, who's carrying a stack of books. A stream of light from inside the house floods into the garden, and it's a tad blinding.
"Sorry to disturb you, is it okay if Fjord and I come up here?"
"Sure, there's room."
The pair of them sit either side of you, Caleb pulling out his ink and parchment in preparation for a study session.
"Hey," Fjord smiles, patting you on the shoulder. You twitch slightly at the physical contact, but blame it on your sleepiness rather than the incessant voice in the back of your head screaming about how touchstarved you are.
"Y/n?" He's frowning now.
"Sorry, did you say something?"
"Yeah, I asked how you're holdin' up."
"Ah, sorry. M'tired."
"I can tell."
"Yeah, being stabbed tends to have that effect on people."
Fjord gives a low chuckle.
"You're okay now though, ja? Not still hurting?" Caleb pipes up, opening a book and sending Frumpkin to sit on the turret wall.
"Yeah. M'fine." Apart from the fact that you're pretty sure you'll combust if you don't receive any physical affection in the next few hours. You plop your head on Fjord's shoulder in the hope it'll help somewhat. He snorts, but shifts to accommodate you anyway, the three of you falling into comfortable silence as you look up at the stars again.
You're awoken by a couple of fingers poking your torso.
"I don't wanna move her…y/n? Y/n, wake up." The poking continues.
"Wahahait, tickles." A little disoriented, you giggle and swat the hands away.
"Oh, does it?"
…Hold on a second. In what feels like a mental slap to the face, your brain catches up with what you've just said, and your eyes snap open to see Fjord grinning at you. Hands start squeezing your sides before you have a chance to react. The feeling is a bit of a shock to your sleepy system, and laughter pours from your lips instantly as your body attempts to combat this unexpected affront. But Fjord has you backed against the tree trunk, so the most you can do is try to grab his wrists and slip further down towards the floor as hysterics take over your frame within seconds. It's one thing being caught in a tickle fight when you're awake, but being half asleep has you completely at your friend's mercy from the get go - not that you mind too much. In fact, you're secretly really happy this has somehow come about - nonetheless, Fjord's fingertips tweaking your ribs tickles something awful, and the feeling's a horrible, confusing mix of amazing and unbearable.
"Ahaha, nohohoho!" You cry, arm flailing out and whacking something.
"Agh, Scheiße!" Looking up, you realise with dismay that it was probably Caleb's face, because he's scowling at you. In an instant, he grabs the wrist that hit him, and his other hand darts under your arm. You all but shriek, contorting away from his tickling hands - which is into Fjord's. At this point, it's hard to process the bombardment, and the sensations become a little scrambled so you can't tell whose hands are whose anymore - only that there are three of them, and it tickles way too much for you to have any semblance of control over your laughter. Fjord keeps finding new spots that elicit better reactions than the previous ones. Rude. Furthermore, if you could, you'd speak up to let Caleb know that the patterns he's spidering over your skin are way too ticklish. Alas, since the both of them are doing a rather marvelous job of reducing you to a limp laughing puddle, you'll have to settle for giggling helplessly.
Just as it seems you'll be stuck in this position for the foreseeable future, a couple of knocks sound from underneath the trapdoor. The onslaught grinds to a halt. Fjord's hands freeze over your tummy, and Caleb withdraws so he appears innocent. You're a trifle too high on endorphins. Your skin tingles with leftover sensations still to be processed, driving more laughter from your lips. All you can do is raise your head weakly to see Cadeucus propping open the trapdoor. He smiles when he sees you. You'd smile back, though you've already got a stupid grin on your face.
"Ah, hello. Everything okay? I heard- I heard a racket."
"Oh fine, fine, just peachy. They're murdering me up here."
"Oh, that's not true," he chuckles. "You can get out if you want to." With that, Cadeucus disappears back downstairs, content with his observations.
"Ja…" Caleb starts, and you wish for the house to collapse and swallow you whole. "You can."
"Ihi, uh…" words fail you.
"Be honest," Fjord grins. "Did you or did you not want us to stop?"
"One of those," You answer cryptically in an attempt to deflect the question. Caleb stifles a snicker at Fjord's expense.
"Look," Fiord wriggles his fingers where they've been hovering over your torso, and you suck in your stomach. "Either you say you like it, and we carry on, or you don't like it, and we let you breathe. Your choice."
Well, shit.
"Option A." You mutter, covering your face with part of your arm.
"What?"
A pause. "Option A." Slightly louder, this time.
"Sorry, I don't under.." You pull Fjord's hands closer with a huff. "..stand. oh."
"Just…don't tell the others, please." You start, face on fire.
"Wouldn't dream of it." Caleb replies, pinching your side.
"Fjord."
"Yep?"
"Wipe that smug grin off of your face."
He tweaks your side and grins wider. "Nope."

Chapter Text

The warmth of Molly's chest would've been much more comforting if you weren't hiding against it in embarrassment. His skin is mottled with scars but it's still soft, still feels so very him when he gives a low chuckle, and you feel his breath with the laughter.
"Look at me."
You shake your head. His hands are resting above your hips. They give a gentle squeeze.
"C'mon. You can do it."
Your eyes focus on his neck tattoos. They're feathers, of all things. Of course they fucking are. The fingers of his right hand slip under your shirt and rest, unmoving against your skin. It's all you can do not to burst into giggles. You feel his other hand trace over the skin of your neck before nudging your chin upwards gently to meet his gaze. Reluctantly, you let him move you.
It's a mistake. Absolutely, the worst decision you've ever made. You should've stayed stubbornly buried in the crook of his neck. His smile, the warmth in his eyes - that teasing, knowing look - it's rather too much.
"There we go. Why are you so embarrassed?"
"Because- that…wasn't meant to happen." You mutter, replaying earlier over in your head. He'd placed some kisses on your neck, which had sent you firstly into a fit of laughter, and secondly into your little period of hiding.
He laughs again - dammit.
"Relax. I'm happy it did. I mean, this is something I've got to exploit-"
"It is not," you scoff, hoping the deflection will calm the burning in your cheeks.
"Oh, it is," he grins, shifting too quickly for you to stop him from pinning you against the mattress. And all at once, you're laughing, squirming, trying to escape as his fingertips spring to life, squeezing and prodding and tracing over every sensitive spot they can find (and there are many). It feels ecstatic and carefree and soft, and eternal- like he could carry on drawing laughter from your writhing frame forever and ever (you'd let him).
"Tickle tickle. See?"
You rescind that thought. Never in your life have you felt your face heat up so quickly. Amongst all your laughing, you manage to find the mental room to register how utterly injustly, completely unfairly flustering this tiefling is.
And then he stops.
Now that the world's come back into focus, you're left in a state of confusion - are you disappointed or relieved that he's no longer wrecking you? It's hard to decide.
Then he has the audacity to smirk at you. "You like this, don't you?"
Your heart stops.
"Ah, ah- don't look so surprised. You never asked me to stop. Don't think I didn't hear you whine when I did just now."
You utter a very weak, very pathetic excuse of an explanation. He just raises his eyebrow.
"Admit it, and I'll carry on."
A tense silence. With a deep breath, you grab his wrists and pull them towards your torso. He snorts.
"Ask me with words, not gestures. You understand?"
Oh gods, this is going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

The study is silent, save for the scratching of pen on paper as you sit hunched over some important research, trying to make sense of the old books laid out in front of you. Caleb is sat on the floor somewhere behind you, going over spell books from Essek. Your hand fiddles idly with your hair for a while as you work - though strays to your collarbone after a few minutes without you realising, fingers repeatedly brushing over the sensitive skin there in a subconscious attempt to satiate a Lee mood that you've been trying to shrug off for the majority of the day.
Caleb stifles a yawn and turns the page, determined to carry on reading despite the sleepiness creeping in after a fairly intense morning. Sunset is in one hour and thirty minutes, and Caleb would like to make the most of those minutes before the group calls him to dinner or an outing. Despite this resolve, he can't help but notice the sunlight from the window glance off your fingers as they trace a seemingly random pattern over your clavicle - it looks like…no. He furrows his eyebrows, watching for a couple seconds. You probably just have an itch or something, Caleb reasons, since the alternative would be that you were trying to tickle yourself, which - Caleb knows you're not averse to the sensation, but he's not sure whether you'd make a habit out of trying to emulate the feeling. Well, not definite, anyway. He logs the thought for later and continues hyperfocusing on his wizardry for the next 58 minutes.
Spells learned, Caleb puts his books away and glances back towards your desk. He notices you're doing that thing with your hand again - intriguing. Interest piqued, Caleb gets out his spell components to organise them, which gives him an excuse to keep an eye on you as you study.
You're oblivious to the pieces clicking into place in your friend's head, too deep in your research to feel his gaze. It's almost finished; you only need about another half a page of notes before you can call it a day.
"Are you alright, Y/N?" Caleb's voice makes you jump after spending the whole afternoon in quiet.
"Yeah, I'm good. Why?" You ask, skimming the next paragraph and jotting down a single bullet point. He clears his throat from behind you, so you turn in your chair to see him paused in cutting up some copper wire.
"Uh, you seem a little distracted, is all." Caleb mutters, eyes drifting momentarily to your collarbone - which, you realise, has been home to one of your hands for quite some time. You try to pass off the tracing by reaching up slightly to fiddle with your necklace.
"No, I'm good." Yes. You're good, you think, ignoring the slight heat rising to your skin.
He probably hasn't noticed, anyway.
"Okay," seemingly content with your response, Caleb returns to cutting the last pieces of wire, and the both of you slip into silence again for a while.
Sunset's in ten minutes. Caleb decides to start packing up, because Nott will probably admonish him if he doesn't come to eat with the group. Just as the third sachet is placed into his pocket, he notices your hand has drifted back to your collarbone.
Whatever, he's got some time to kill anyway.
A swift motion of his hand and a couple of whispered words later, you feel your touch mirrored on the opposite side of your collarbone, invisible fingertips brushing over your nerves just as you turn the page of your notes. You suppress a twitch, and turn to give Caleb an unamused look. He raises his eyebrow at you, saying nothing as he files the mini copper wires into a pouch and begins organising different sachets of ash and powdered components. Seconds later, you feel fingers poke into your sides.
You push your chair back immediately, stride over, and slap Caleb's arm. He looks askance at you.
"Ow. What was that for?"
"Make the unseen servant leave and I won't smack you again." He's definitely on to you, and if there's one - no, two - things you're good at, it's panicking and deflecting.
"Ah. You are going to be like that. I see." Caleb pauses. "Very well." He waves his hand a couple of times. "It's gone." Then, in one swift motion, he wraps his arms around your waist, and hovers his fingers inches away from your sides. Your hands race to grab his wrists before it's too late, but Caleb preempts the move, and braces an arm around your ribs before you can stop him, holding you in place so his free hand can skitter a couple fingers over your side.
You mutter a string of curses, and try your utmost to twitch away, biting back a giggle - caleb just follows your movements, tickling a little faster with a horribly amused look in his eyes as you manage to squirm your way into a more vulnerable position, winding up on the floor with Caleb above you.
"You do want me to do this, don't you?" He asks. Well, fuck.
"Perhaps," you mutter reluctantly, determined not to meet his gaze because you're pretty sure you'll die from embarrassment if you do - Your fingers flex and you become suddenly aware of the fact that Caleb's pinned your wrists to the floor whilst he was talking.
"Okay. I thought so. You…are not very good at being subtle." He smiles a little, and wastes no time in spidering his fingertips lightly over your tummy. Years of training in complex somatic components has made his fingers deft, which infuriatingly works to Caleb's advantage as he tries to gauge your reaction - which, at the moment, is to dissolve into giggles and protests.
Caleb could keep this up for a while, it seems, but changes tact to squeeze your sides, seeking out your most sensitive spots with a kind of urgency.
There are only 8 minutes till sunset, after all.

Chapter Text

“See, the issue with including those somatics is-” you are falling asleep as you speak. You and Caleb have been at this for over two hours, books sprawled everywhere in an attempt to modify a spell. You are beginning to resign yourself to the fact that this may be a problem for the other genius of unprecedented arcane talent in your group - Essek - but Caleb still seems determined to have a crack at it…so much so that he doesn’t appear to be listening to a word you’re saying. His eyes are fixed on a page of the tome you’ve borrowed from Thelyss.

You get it, you’ve done the same many times. But your boredom gives way to a spark of mischief, and perhaps a little bit of Jester’s influence peeks through as you move to take the book from under Caleb’s nose. He blinks, eyes clearly having to adjust after so long studying, and glares at you in a way that would be intimidating if it contained any genuine venom.

“Scheiße, give it back!” Caleb tries to snatch at the spellbook you’ve taken from him. He fumbles to climb up and grab it, but you manage to hold it out of his reach.

You make up an excuse that you were talking about important things and would prefer it if he listened instead of read. It’s complete bullshit, and Caleb can tell.

“Ja, no, not buying it. This book is important-” He leans forward and tries to clamber up to grab the book. His hand catches your side by accident and it’s impossible to prevent yourself from yelping in response.

“Ticklish?” Caleb Widogast never grins, but there’s definitely an amused quirk to his lips. You’ve seen the rest of the Nein balled up in tickle fights plenty of times, thanks to the tieflings, but had managed to dodge that particular bullet thus far.

Caleb is usually the target of choice for the group's antics, but your ears redden with the knowledge that might be about to change. You know you’ll never live it down if there’s someone else on the group’s list of ridiculously ticklish mages.

“No.” Your response is just quick enough to be suspicious. There is a brief pause as the two of you exchange something unspoken. Then you bolt.

Caleb is, unfortunately, not far behind, having expected this. Your friend wraps his hands around your sides instantly, wriggling his fingers experimentally.

“Come on. Give it back. This is childish. shouldn’t have to be tickling you.” Nevertheless, he doesn’t seem too discontent with the situation - there’s a note of amusement in his voice.

“Then stop!-” You gasp, refusing to give him the reaction he wants. Your breathing is shallow from the effort of suppressing laughter. You stubbornly keep the book out of his reach, resolve crumbling but not broken just yet.

“Hm.” Caleb thinks aloud after a couple seconds of tickling your sides yields no success. “I need to find a ticklish spot…”

His hands skate over to your stomach and hips, fluttering gently. It tickles immensely, and you finally give up trying to hide your reactions, bursting into laughter. Fuck wizards and their dextrous hands.

"Ah, fuck! Caleb! NO-" At this point, your arms have reflexively drawn closer to your torso, but you clutch the book against your chest in an act of defiance. Giggles keep escaping, but you’re too determined not to let him win at this stage.

“You are not making this easy for yourself, my friend,” He mutters, pausing to see if he can snatch the book from your iron grip - he can’t. He can flutter a couple fingers over your neck, though, so your head’s no longer buried into your knees, and you uncurl from where you’ve been hiding in a defensive ball.

You’ve somehow managed to end up in his lap, which doesn’t really help matters - one, because it increases the chance of Caleb successfully retrieving his book, and two because it gives him better access to your torso - he hooks his hands around your ribs, fingers tracing infuriatingly ticklish patterns that make you laugh even harder than before.

“How much longer do I have to keep this up? Give it back.” He punctuates his words by drilling his thumbs into your sides for a moment.

"SHIT-NEVER!" You manage to stand your ground through a bout of hysterical laughter. Caleb’s beginning to get a sense of where your weaker points are though, and maneuvers so he can reach both your neck and the back of your ribs - he’s utterly lethal.

He seems a little proud of his work, too, a smug smile on his face. It occurs to you he’s probably not doing this just to get his book back. You still stubbornly cling to it. You consider throwing it to draw him off, but you’re aware how valuable it is and wouldn’t want to damage it.

“No? You are not giving it back? Okay, you’ve made your decision.” He says solemnly, and snakes his hands under your arms - you drop the book instantly, and he catches it.

Game over. The tickling stops.

“Thank you.” He smiles, patting your shoulder and going back to his reading as if nothing has happened - as if you're not sprawled on the floor, residual giggles and a blush making it hard to string a sentence together.

Whatever you were meaning to talk to him about can’t have been that important, because you can’t remember what it was now. Caleb continues reading, the hunger in his eyes telling you that whilst you're ready to give up on the problem at hand, he wants to spend a bit more time working it over independently.

You manage to collect yourself, and walk out the room to grab a drink after the onslaught, leaving Caleb in peace. You pray that Molly isn’t downstairs, because you need a cup of tea and some quiet after that saga.

Molly is indeed downstairs. And Jester. Oh no. Mercifully, they don’t acknowledge you as you come in and put the kettle on. You stand at the kitchen counter, trying to choose what to have, when Molly pokes you.

“Hello. Tea for me as well, if you wouldn’t mind.” He grins, and you think maybe he shows that extra bit of fang on purpose when he smiles.

It seems like the water takes forever to boil. As expected, the words you were dreading are spoken in the empty space.

“Sooooo, is Caleb suddenly really funny? Or were you practicing Tasha’s hideous laughter? Everybody heard you upstairs.” Jester’s tail is swishing.

You decide this is an excellent time to exercise your right to remain silent.

That is, until you feel hands swipe quickly along both sides of your torso, and you practically jump out of your skin.

“Ah!- Schmidt!” You turn around with a poorly concealed laugh, and as expected, there’s no one there. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out somebody has sent their unseen servant downstairs to ensure their studying isn’t disturbed again.

“You’re ticklish?” The tieflings are looking at you like a present at Winter’s Crest.

“CALEB WIDOGAST!” You shout across the house, beginning to scramble away from the two tickle monsters he’s summoned. “You are a dead man!”