So Many Striders - Now With Illustrations!

"We'll have to take this show on the road then. Spread the love. Be really gay and incestuous seeming in a variety of exciting locals." Dirk sits back up partially but remains leaning against Hal. No reason to abandon perfectly good back rubs.

 

"We can go on a tour around the states, stopping off at major tourist locations to be gay at each other in public." Hal stills his hand when Dirk sits up, in case he wants to move away, but when he stays close the hand resumes rubbing. He likes feeling Dirk's back, firm beneath the shirt which moves slightly with his hand. His touch turns lighter, and he traces down over the nobbles of Dirk's spine, that he can only just feel through the skin and shirt combo.

 

"Mmm. I like back rubs. I will absolutely go with you on whatever dates you like if snacks and back rubs are provided." Hal is also soft and warm, very nice to lean against. The release of tension from both being touched and feeling on more solid ground inter-personally is leaving him a bit giddy.

 

"Well damn, that's a bold offer that I'll have to bear in mind. Tell me, are there any qualifications such as on the quality of the provided snacks or the length and attentiveness of the backrubs? It's important to know these sorts of things before planning progresses further." Hal, confidence bolstered by Dirk's words, slips his hand up under Dirk's shirt to rub directly on his back, still keeping his touch light. This way he can feel Dirk's scars, thin lines of raised and differently-textured skin.

 

"Please, you know that Striders are by nature equal opportunity snackers, all manner of bite sized foods pilgrimage here for the chance to experience our egalitarian rule. And I'd like to challenge you to find an unpleasant way to do back rubs." Hal's fingers directly on his skin is even better, and the light touch makes him feel pleasantly shivery. The temptation to lounge across Hal's lap like an overgrown cat is strong.

 

"You know, I was about to make a joke about stale Hostess cakes, but then I remembered that time when the Daves still lived here and Davesprite found one under the couch, and instead I'm going to try not to think about that instead." Hal traces his finger down the length of a scar, avoiding the serious temptation to pinch Dirk's side, instead climbing his fingers up his spine. "I mean, I bet I could if I tried, so that's probably not the best thing to challenge me to do while my hand is actively on your back."

 

"I think you're forgetting the bit where Davepeta hid that cake under there on purpose and was furious their stash had been compromised. It's an important element to the story. It's kind of hard to take their spats seriously when they puff up so adorably at each other like that." Dirk snickers and actually does stretch out across Hal's legs, arms crossed up under his chin to make himself comfortable. "Mmm, pet me. Or take me up on that challenge. Either way I will be the winner."

 

"Ugh. I remember, don't worry. I mean, I understand stashing food, but stashing things that are going to go all stale and dry and otherwise disgusting is just silly. Even if it results in Miyazaki-style floof siblings." Hal snorts, shaking his head, then stiffens in surprise for a moment when Dirk starts moving away. Of course, it turns out that Dirk isn't moving away, he's just draping himself over Hal's legs like the world's longest house cat. As he's horizontal now, Hal pushes up the back of his shirt to admire the pale, freckle-dusted skin beneath it, able to see the knobs of Dirk's spine as he loops his fingers around each one, up to his lower neck.

"I was under the impression that petting you is what I was already doing, but hey, I'm up for taking such an easy challenge to win." And, with Dirk's bare side right there and exposed visually and everything, Hal trails his fingers down and around to stroke his nails down along where back meets side. Surely, any back rub that involves tickling is a bad back rub.

 

"I was just trying to do you a favor, this is prime pettin' real estate I'm sporting here, letting you in on the ground floor of this excellent invest-" Dirk shivers and hums contentedly when Hal runs his nails lightly along his back and side. It's just on the edge of ticklish and feels almost better for that. He stretches even longer, arching his back slightly, and relaxes.

 

Hal grins broadly when Dirk breaks off on what he was saying, but apparently for a good reason rather than a bad one. Which is definitely good, but he was aiming for a negative reaction, wanting to prove that bad back rubs exist and all. With confidence gained from the fact that Dirk hasn't reacted as badly as he claimed he would to tickling, Hal delves further around, pressing firmer with his fingers in a sort of scrabbling motion. The Full Tickle has been initiated.

 

Dirk jolts when Hal tickles him, biting his tongue hard enough that he tastes copper. Every muscle in his body freezes and he fights mightily with the urge to thrash and struggle; broken noses and hospital visits are a bad way to end a date. Strained, breathless giggling forces it's way out of his mouth and he waits for this to be over.

 

Hal grins broadly at the sound of Dirk's giggles, and continues to tickle him. He's proving pretty well, he thinks, that there's such a thing as a bad backrub, and even better than that his nose remains solidly unbroken despite the tickling that's occurring. Take that, Dirk's alarmed and strange previous warning, Dirk is in fact capable of not breaking noses.

 

Dirk makes tiny, quickly aborted movements to try and get away. He's scared that if he lets himself move at all he'll flail and injure Hal. Not that he's incredibly opposed to the idea; elbowing him in the kidney is sounding more and more like a fantastic idea, and if Hal pisses blood after too fucking bad. The growing bubble of frustration and helpless fury in his chest wears down his self control more and more the longer this goes on. Instead of lashing out he accidentally claws livid red lines into his own arm, forced laughing broken by a hiccuping sob before turning into wheezy giggles again.

 

As soon as Dirk starts to make little movements like he's trying to get away, Hal eases up on the tickling slightly, wriggling fingers slowing to a halt as it continues. The triumph of having managed to make a backrub bad is washing away like the hair-cork was finally taken out of the drain, Being steadily replaced with a layer of what the fuck did he just do that for, when he knew Dirk didn't like to be tickled??

He clears his throat.

"So uh. That's how to make a backrub into a negative experience."

 

Dirk didn't notice the tickling decrease in intensity, and still needs a few seconds to breathe when it stops. Breathing hurts when he tries to do anything but pant shallowly, and tears stand in his eyes. When he can reliably move under his own power again he immediately twists onto his side, freeing Hal's legs, grabs and pulls him down so that Hal is horizontal too, and starts tickling him back. Even with how pissed Dirk is, he's mindful of not looming over or holding Hal down; Dirk isn't the one blatantly doing shit someone had asked him not to do. Instead he scrabbles and wiggles his fingers under Hal's arm and along his ribs, tickling him through his shirt.

 

Hal squeals in surprise when he's pulled down to the blanket, and he twists away from Dirk to try to escape. Not because he's afraid of being tickled, because he sincerely doesn't understand what's so bad about laughter, but because he's nervous that Dirk will pin him down. Of course, it turns out that he has his priorities the wrong way around, because Dirk doesn't trap him in the slightest. He just wedges his fingers in under Hal's arm and wiggles them and, without any instruction to do so from Hal, his back curls and his knees jerk up and his stomach is clenching with laughter but not like he's got used to it doing, it repeats much faster than when he's laughing at something funny and he can't get it to stop all he can do is follow his instincts and roll onto his side away from Dirk, knees curled up to his chest and arms clamped as tight as he can get them to his sides. He tries to tell Dirk to stop, but all that comes out of his mouth is little "Ah, ah, ah," panting noises. For what it's worth, he's now really sorry he tickled Dirk.

 

After about half the length of time Hal ticked Dirk for, almost immediately after Hal rolled on his side to get away, Dirk withdraws his hand and stops touching Hal completely. He's glad that Hal is facing away, using the privacy to wipe his eyes dry and rub roughly at his sensitive, overstimulated skin to chase off the last vestiges of the tickle sensation.

Dirk also might be sulking. He knows he shouldn't have done that to Hal. Feeling annoyed and guilty at the same time is hard. It's hard and no one understands. The solution he chooses ends up being a kind of middle route; he mumbles "Sorry" with his face half squished into the blanket and shades crooked as all hell.

 

Hal wraps his arms tight around himself, hands clamped on his sides to block any further retaliation on Dirk's part, just in case. Dirk doesn't speak, and Hal uses the time to get his breathing under control again, stopping himself from panting and making his breaths come slow and quiet, which is harder than he thought it would be. It's his body, it should do what he wants, dammit. He understands, now, why Dirk was so against being tickled, and while he's sure the experience was a great lesson for him and everything he still rather wishes he'd not been such an idiot in the first place, and avoided it.

He's almost so wound up in thinking about how shitty tickling is compared to how it's portrayed in media that he doesn't hear Dirk's apology, but he does hear it and so he has to reply. He licks his lips, and swallows. "I'm sorry too. Didn't realise how much bullshit that experience is."

 

Fuck. Right. Hal's probably never been tickled before in his life. He couldn't have understood why Dirk warned him off so harshly. He leaves off his frustrated sulking, the guilt lingering.

"You didn't know. I promise I won't do that to you again. Retaliatory tickling isn't exactly the most mature reaction I could have had, especially since you didn't understand." His glasses are poking the shit out of the side of his face so he takes them off and put them on the carpet above his head. "Since we're both lying down we could, you know, really up the public gayness factor here and move from tickle fights to cuddling. If you want to, no pressure." Cuddling is okay on a picnic date, right? Dirk isn't sure.

 

Hal twists his head towards his upper shoulder, trying to crane back over it to look at Dirk, but it's not particularly successful so he lets his head flop down again. "I mean, you did tell me not to do it on pain of pain, so it was still a dick move on my part, and not exactly mature either. So, y'know, sorry."

Instead of letting Dirk know verbally whether he wants to cuddle or not, Hal shuffles backwards towards him, hoping he'll get the hint, and also stop Hal if he's about to shuffle into a plate or something. He'd been worried Dirk was going to tickle him more, but if he's beating himself up for doing it at all, he's not that likely to do it more anyway. Maybe 17% likely. And as surprisingly horrifying as the tickling had turned out to be, he's willing to risk making himself vulnerable to it in exchange for cuddles, with those odds.