Work Text:
“I bet I could make you laugh.”
It came out of the blue one day, while the two best friends were casually sitting in a teamspeak together. It didn’t really make sense originally, because they make each other laugh and giggle uncontrollably all the time. Skeppy wasn’t even sure why he’d even said it.
“What?” Bad said after a beat of awkward silence.
“You heard me.” Skeppy said, deciding to just run with it instead of dropping it. “I bet I could make you laugh.”
“Skeppy, we laugh at each other’s terrible jokes almost every few minutes. I’m not understanding the point of this.”
“Yeah, but I bet I could make you laugh!” Skeppy repeated almost childishly. “I bet I could make you laugh and if I do then you have to do a forfeit!”
“What?!” Bad protested. “Skeppy I didn’t agree to this!”
“Too bad, we’re doing this now!” Skeppy said with a grin, folding his arms across his chest even though Bad could see none of this.
“Well-” Bad spluttered, trying to turn the conversation back into his favor. “Well, then I bet I can make you laugh before you can make me laugh! And then you’ll have to do a forfeit instead of me!”
“Is that a challenge, BaldBoyHalo?” Skeppy teased smugly.
“Oh my goodness. I am not bald, Skeppy, stop it.” Bad’s exasperated voice could be heard scolding him. “If this was a contest for annoying the other, you would’ve just won, I’ll tell you that.”
Skeppy, amused by his friend’s antics, found himself having to swallow down his own snickering already. Maybe he’d bitten off more than he could chew, but he wasn’t going to back down two seconds after the challenge was put out there. “That’s not very nice, you know.”
“Calling me bald wasn’t very nice either.” Bad argued back.
“Yeah yeah, whatever. Should we decide on forfeits now or later when one of us, meaning you, loses?”
“Wha- I am not going to lose! It’s you who is going to be doing the losing, mister!”
“Dude, just answer the question.”
“Um…” Bad pondered for a moment. “If I win, you have to not be mean to me for a whole month.”
Skeppy groaned. “Dude that’s so lame, I’m barely mean to you anyways! I don’t even troll you as much as I used to anymore. You don’t make good forfeits.”
“Oh come on, are you saying you want me to think of something worse for you?”
“Normally I would say no, but I’m so incredibly confident that I’m going to be the one winning this that I say go for it.”
Skeppy could hear Bad trying to think again over the computer call, making noises of frustration when he eventually drew blanks.
“Ugh, I don’t know. Maybe we should just think about the forfeits later. Once I have more time, I’ll think of a super awful forfeit for you and you’ll be so annoyed to have to do it!”
“I’m not losing this challenge, BadBoyHalo.”
“Oh, you so are, Skeppy.”
And from that moment, the challenge was on.
@skeppyextra 9:24pm
@saintsofgames are you ready to lose bald boy
Skeppy cackled to himself as he sent the tweet. There was nothing in the rules that said he couldn’t make himself laugh, or anyone else making him laugh. It was just a competition between the two of them. Looking forward, Skeppy knew that this little contest wouldn’t be able to stay between the two of them for very long- not that sending out this tweet was helping. Their friends would eventually figure it out, and in turn, it would end up on the Internet communities he and Bad had manifested.
@ saintsofgames 9:30pm
@skeppyextra I think you mean YOU’RE going to lose >:D
Skeppy rolled his eyes as the comments under both of their tweets went berserk. People were speculating like mad, wondering what they could be talking about. He snickered to himself again at some of the reactions- it was always rather amusing to see the twitter community go haywire.
@ JustVurb 9:34pm
Skeppy and BadBoyHalo are fighting over who keeps the bed privileges and who has to sleep on the couch
And there was Vurb’s terrible joke, right on time. At least one of them could stay consistent. Skeppy put his phone down on the desk as he sat back in his chair, humming nothing in particular as he started to actually think about this. If he was going to win, he’d have to really try. This wasn’t like some game of BedWars that he could win just by knocking his best friend off of a cliff or anything like that. He knew Bad had a certain amount of determination in him, and even if Skeppy were to win, it wouldn’t be an easy win.
On the other hand, figuring out a forfeit was the easiest part. Skeppy had thought of one the moment the challenge had started, but he’d chosen not to say it since Bad had suggested they wait. It wasn’t much to think about, but it was something he really wanted. And since he really, really wanted it, it just made him all the more determined to win. It wasn’t even a bad forfeit either.
He just wanted to see his best friend in person. And if all it took was a laugh, then he was so ready to make it happen.
Vurb eventually found out first, mainly because he spam messaged Skeppy asking what they were talking about until he relented. Skeppy immediately regretted telling his friend about this, because only a few minutes later Vurb returned to bother him with strange images that read ‘ Oooh Bad you wanna laugh soooooo bad’ with some hypnotic looking patterns. He decided it was better to just not ask where the pug got them from.
“Yoooo, Skeppy, go look at Bad’s stream right now! He’s talking about you!”
Skeppy stared at the message for a moment, raising an eyebrow. He’d forgotten that today was Saturday. He remembered the times he wasn’t allowed on Bad’s streams with a small smile to himself, knowing that he went on his friend’s streams anyways. They’d gotten past those days now, which was a good thing in more than one way. But the best thing is that Skeppy couldn’t fail the challenge so easily now when he doesn’t troll Bad anymore- the way his friend would absolutely lose it would sometimes have him rolling in laughter when he muted.
Skeppy snapped out of his thoughts when he clicked on Bad’s stream and heard his voice.
“So yeah, like I was saying, I need to get Skeppy to laugh because there’s no way I’m going to lose this! It’s all for fun and games, but we agreed the loser has to do a forfeit, which I still don’t know what mine should be for him, so if you guys have ideas tell me those as well!”
That little cheater!
Skeppy was not about to have this. They’d never agreed that outside help was illegal, but he was deciding now that it should be. He furiously messaged Bad to get on teamspeak, watching as he responded and did as he was told. He could hear Bad playfully complaining about harassment in the back as the stream continued.
Buddy has joined your channel.
“Oh, you little cheater!” Skeppy started immediately, not even letting Bad get a hello in. “You can’t be asking for help from your viewers! That’s not genuine! If you wanna win and get me to laugh, which you still won’t, by the way, then you have to do it with your own brain power!”
“Wha-” Bad huffed. “Skeppy you can’t just go around changing the rules after the fact, that’s not fair!”
“Nah nah nah, don’t try to ignore me! Hey, Bad’s chat, stop giving him ideas! If he listens to any of you then he auto-loses!”
“SKEPPY!” Bad complained with slight annoyance. “Don’t tell my chat what to do. That’s mean.”
“You’re the one telling them to do what you want! Stop treating your chat like that and then yelling at me for doing the same thing, you hypocrite!”
LMAO, he’s got a point dude
CHAT BE QUIET LET THEM BICKER
I still don’t know what’s happening
Skeppy read some of the chat comments as they scrolled quickly past his eyes. He hummed in satisfaction as he got confirmation from most of the chat that they wouldn’t help Bad anymore. “Victory!”
“Skeppyyyyyy!” Bad whined again. “This is so unfair. You guys never take my side whenever he comes here and crashes my stream! Where’s the BadBoyHalo love?!”
“Oh come on now, don’t be like that Bad.” Skeppy said, tone slightly smug. “They love you, don’t pretend that they don’t. Right chat?! DO WE LOVE BADBOYHALO?!”
It didn’t take long before the stream’s chat blew up with messages of BadBoyHalo support. Skeppy once again hummed in satisfaction. “My work here is done.”
“Oh my goodness.” Bad breathed out, sounding almost a little strange.
Skeppy noticed this slight change immediately and began to smile to himself. “Oh? What’s that? Are you struggling not to laugh right now?”
“N-no…”
“Oh, I think you are! You think I’m soooooo hilarious and amazing, don’t you Bad?” Skeppy teased more.
“No, you stop that.” Bad said, his voice back to normal. “Maybe I was holding back a few chuckles there, but your teasing ruined it. Congrats on playing yourself!”
Skeppy stuck his tongue out. “Boooo, you’re no fun. Just admit I almost had you there and I’ll stop bothering you.”
“Go away Skeppy, you’re distracting me too much from the stream. I’m in the middle of an event!”
Skeppy rolled his eyes in amusement, feigning hurt. “Oh, okay, BadBoyHalo wants me to go away, chat he doesn’t want me here, can we get some sadchamps in the chat?”
“Wait, no, Skeppy, I didn’t mean it like that-”
“BYE!”
He hung up, shaking his head as he contained his own laughter- he was an honest man, even if no one heard it he wasn’t looking to laugh at anything Bad did or said. He’d have to try harder the next time they spoke.
A few weeks passed by after the first incident, and during those few weeks the pair continued to win. Their communities would always keep track of how awkward their interactions were lately, since they were so stone-faced and not laughing. Neither of them really foresaw this challenge going on for this long, but they were both too stubborn to surrender, and so the challenge continued.
But somewhere along the line, unannounced to their friends and their communities, the two had finally settled on a date to meet up. And they’d continued the trend of telling no one all the way up to the day they finally did meet up. The airport was still noisy, despite how the way the world was at the given moment, but it didn’t take long for Skeppy to spot the familiar brown mop of hair that belonged to his best friend. Skeppy’s eyes met Bad’s gaze, and suddenly he was running, his luggage banging on the ground behind him as he booked it into the arms of his best friend for the first time.
Skeppy’s ears drowned out all of the background noise of the airport as his senses focused only on the other man he had trapped in his bear hug. Nothing else currently mattered, not even their little challenge. It was just him, and Bad, and his thoughts that were screaming the obvious at him- he finally met Bad, he’s finally here, they finally did it.
Skeppy wasn’t sure how long they stood there, hugging each other tightly, but Bad eventually pulled away first and his eyes scanned quickly over him. Skeppy raised an eyebrow as he watched Bad’s lips quirk up into a wobbly smile, as if he was trying desperately not to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You-” Bad choked on his own words, shaking his head and pushing his giggles down. “You’re shorter than me. I was right all along!”
“Bruh moment.”
I almost got him again though. I’m definitely going to win this.
Skeppy only realized his forfeit for Bad meant nothing now once the two of them piled into the taller’s car, driving to Bad’s house in a comfortable silence. They’d met up, which was what Skeppy had chosen as he forfeit. He hadn’t really thought about this confliction until now. He’d have to think of a new forfeit then, wouldn’t he?
“Do you actually sleep with a stuffed animal?” Skeppy asked in total disbelief, catching a glimpse into Bad’s room before he hastily shut the door.
“No…”
Skeppy felt a grin spread across his face. “Bad… you sleep with a stuffed animal…”
“Skeppy…” Bad whined, tone warning.
“That’s so cute! Do you like, wrap around it like a little kid when you go to bed at night?” Skeppy asked, voice dripping with teasing.
“No!” Bad protested. “Stop this right now!”
“Or what?” Skeppy provoked with an even wider grin. “What is BadBoyHalo going to do to me if I don’t stop calling him cute for sleeping with stuffed animals?”
Bad narrowed his eyes playfully at Skeppy then, taking a rather menacing step towards him. Skeppy’s grin dropped into a nervous smile. “Let’s just say I have a theory I want to test, and it may have something to do with our little challenge we made about a month ago. Care to be my test subject?”
“Um… no?” Skeppy bit out, getting even more nervous by the second. What could Bad do to him that had to do with their laughing chall-
“Wait wait wait, Bad, no, no that doesn’t count, Bad, stop!” Skeppy began to shout in a slight panic, his brain suddenly connecting what Bad was about to do.
Bad gave him a playfully evil grin, stepping forwards towards his friend as said scared friend had begun to rapidly back away. “Come here Skeppy! You should have thought about it before you began to tease me for my stuffed animals!”
Skeppy made a mad dash to the hallway, trying to escape his friend’s wrath, but completely tripped himself up trying to scramble away so fast. He fell to his knees, which gave Bad enough time to quickly run over, wrap his arms around Skeppy’s torso, pulling him up to stand again before losing his last amount of mercy and scribbling his fingers all over his best friend’s stomach. Bad’s grin grew impossibly wider as he heard Skeppy shriek and dissolve into high pitched laughter.
“Stop squirming you muffin! This is your punishment for being such a mean potato! Take it like a man!” Bad shouted, doing his best to control his wiggling friend in his arms.
“Bad- Bad no- Stop!” Skeppy cried out between fits of uncontrollable giggles, thrashing desperately to try and escape the clutches of the evil BadBoyHalo. “This is- isn’t fair! Tickling is cheating!”
“Ah ah, we never said that, now did we?” Bad countered smugly, continuing to run his hands lightly all over his friend’s sensitive stomach. “This definitely counts, by the way. The moment you first laughed, you totally lost the challenge. This is just my victory lap!”
“Bad!” Skeppy pleaded, his brain going all fuzzy due to the unbearable sensations radiating on his skin. “Please!”
Bad ignored him for a few more moments, secretly enjoying hearing his best friend laugh again after having gone so long without the familiar cackles due to the challenge- that was the only real downside to their competition. Though he knew when to stop, and he released Skeppy from his arms a second later. The moment Skeppy felt Bad’s hands pull away, he rocketed away from his friend and hugged himself around the middle, breathless giggles still pouring from him as he gave Bad the biggest glare he could.
“That was not fair. That doesn’t count. You can’t hold that against me.” Skeppy complained.
“Oh, I can and I will.” Bad replied smugly. “You’re lucky I still haven’t thought of a forfeit for you yet. But you’ll get your loser prompt soon, because you lost!”
Skeppy’s eyes narrowed at his over-confident friend. Fine. If Bad wanted to play this way, then he could be just as dirty.
“Well, if you insist on counting that…”
Bad had no time to react as Skeppy lunged at him, tackling to the carpeted floor and giving the same cheater’s treatment he’d just endured a few moments ago.
Needless to say, around ten minutes later, they both agreed that the earlier laughter they both had let ‘slip out’ did not, in fact, count. They also agreed that the challenge was off as long as they were together in person, because it felt wrong to have to hold in their joy for the short time they had together.
Goodbyes were always the hardest. No matter what context they were, they never felt good to go through. Skeppy and Bad had enjoyed their time together in person to the fullest extent, but even they couldn’t stay together for too long. They both still had ties in different places that they had to return to. It didn’t make it sting any less though.
The car ride back to the airport had been silent as well, with an air of mounting sadness as they both knew what was coming. As much as they knew they should take advantage of the time in the car ride as well, neither really knew what else to say. Talking then would only make the reality of the goodbye too real.
It did become painfully real once Bad pulled the car into the airport’s drop off section. They both looked at each other for a moment, before they both pulled each other into a sort of awkward hug, angling themselves to avoid the car’ brake handle that stood in between their seats.
“I had fun.” Bad said first, giving Skeppy another squeeze as he spoke.
“I did too.” Skeppy replied softly. “I’m gonna miss you.”
Bad shook his head. “Oh my goodness, don’t make me cry. I’ll miss you too Skeppy. Do you maybe want to call in teamspeak when you get home?”
Skeppy nodded into his shoulder. “Yeah. Even if I’m tired out of my mind, I’ll make sure to call you anyways.”
Bad reluctantly pulled away from the tight hug, reaching to grab Skeppy’s luggage from the backseats. “Hey, you know, at least our challenge will be back on once you’re home. I plan to win still.”
Skeppy smiled with a roll of his eyes. “You’re definitely going to lose.” A pause. “Hey Bad? Do you wanna know what I’ve decided my forfeit for you is before I go?”
Bad blinked. “Oh? What is it?’
Skeppy suddenly felt nerves, but he pushed forward and said it anyway. “When you lose, my forfeit for you is that you have to come visit me this time. I know you hate plane rides, but these few days were so fun, and it can’t be the only time we meet up in person.”
Bad was silent, staring at his friend for a moment before a soft, affectionate smile made its way onto his face. “Is that so?”
Skeppy gulped in nervousness still, nodding his head slightly. For a moment, he feared that he said something wrong, but suddenly his best friend in front of him dissolved into small, soft giggles. He sat shocked as Bad looked him in the eyes purposefully as he giggled at what seemed like nothing. And just as sudden as it started, his friend’s giggle fit stopped as he just smiled again. “Consider me a loser then.”
Skeppy blinked. Once, twice, before a crazy grin grew on his face as he comprehended what Bad had just done. He couldn’t contain himself, he wrapped his ridiculous friend in another hug, his own laughs coming out like crazy as his happiness bubbled up in his chest. Bad hugged him back, secretly smiling to himself due to how proud he felt for losing. Even if he lost, this really didn’t feel like one.
“I’m holding you to that Bad.” Skeppy said eventually as he pulled away, snatching the handle of his suitcase and opening the car door.
“We can talk about it when you get home!” Bad called out the window as Skeppy began to rush away, not wanting to miss check in for his flight.
“I’m holding you to that too!” Skeppy yelled behind him, happy giggles still pouring from his lips as he entered the airport, sadly leaving his friend behind.
But it would be okay. They would meet up again soon, Bad never breaks his promises. And it was all thanks to their stupid little laughing bet.