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Maybe Alastor had it coming with the way he had been provoking the other every other moment for the past week. Maybe he should have seen it coming when Angel sidled up to him one day, teasing curiosity ringing in his eyes. Maybe in hindsight, the question was a completely normal thing for anyone to ask. However, Alastor found himself dumbfounded by the words that left Angel’s lips next.
“Do you like to be tickled?” he asked, the bluntness of the question almost more shocking than the words itself. Angel rested against the back of the couch, peering over the other’s shoulder to look at his face. Alastor stiffened at the proximity, before his lip curled up into a superior grin.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, my dear,” Alastor replied simply, turning a page in his book. “Why would you ask such a ridiculous thing?”
Angel narrowed his eyes. He had gotten better at telling when the other was bullshitting over their time together in the hotel. Based off the way Alastor refused to meet his eyes, his gaze trained firmly on the book in front of him, he decided there was a fairly high chance that the radio demon wasn’t being entirely truthful.
“Well, I’ve just noticed,” Angel drawled. “That you never seem to protest all that much when I tickle you. Not to mention, you seem to be awfully provocative lately, which is usually my specialty. Do you have any idea why that might be?”
“None whatsoever,” Alastor snipped, his grip tightening on the edges of his book. He had genuinely intended on reading it earlier, but by this point he was finding the task to be quite difficult. “What you call provocative, I call annoyance with the ridiculous antics you put on every day. And I’m sure I’ve asked you to stop many times; it’s not my fault if you haven’t noticed.”
“Really?” Angel walked around the couch, coming to take a seat besides the other. Alastor forced himself to hold his position, even though the way the other was suddenly sidled up next to him was making him want to do anything but. “Is that so?”
“Yes—”
“Because I can’t recall you saying it once.”
Alastor paused. In hindsight, he really should have said something in protest, just to throw off suspicion. However, it was increasingly difficult to convince himself of that when the threat that the other might actually stop loomed threateningly over him. For now, he settled on pressing his lips together in noncommittal silence.
Angel grinned. Bingo. “What’s wrong, Al? You seem so quiet suddenly.”
A smile was fighting its way onto Al’s features, his lips turning up against his will.
Angel walked his fingers up his arm slowly, each step foretelling Alastor’s doom. “I think that I’m right. And if I am, that means you would put up absolutely no resistance if I tried to tickle you, oh… now, for instance?”
Alastor’s heart leapt in his chest, his pulse racing about a mile a minute. Angel’s fingers had reached his shoulder and were now tracing light circles over the area, sweeping teasingly close to his neck. “A-Angel,” he said weakly, wishing he didn’t so desperately want this so that he could do something, anything, to stop it.
“Hmm?~” Angel inquired with a wonderfully smug grin. “Is something the matter?”
“T-This is quite ridiculous,” Alastor tried, his shoulders scrunching up involuntarily against the touches which danced on the edge of his nerves.
“Consider me a comedian.”
Alastor’s arms trembled where they held his book, and he felt frozen in the moment, unable to move away from the strangely addicting sensations and yet incapable of giving into his desire for more. Nails descended slowly towards his neck at last, softly tracing the skin, and Alastor’s grin widened as he shrunk lower into the couch.
“Do you want me to stop?” Angel asked as shudders zipped down Alastor’s spine. “All you have to do is say the word and this can all end.”
“P-Plehease, Angel!”
“Not please,” Angel corrected. “There’s a different word isn’t there? Do you remember what it was?”
Alastor shook his head, unable to say anything in retribution when everything in him pleaded for this to never end. He bit his lip, fighting back the soft giggles escaping him.
“Oh that’s right!” Angel exclaimed, reaching out and poking Alastor’s sides suddenly. “ ‘Stop!’ That’s all you have to say if you want this to end.”
Alastor yelped as Angel tossed a leg over his lap suddenly, pressing him down into the couch. With two of his hands he pinned Alastor’s wrists over his head, wiggling the other two teasingly above him. “How about this,” Angel proposed, grinning in devilish delight. “You admit you like being tickled, and I’ll keep you here like this until you can’t breathe anymore. What do you say?”
Alastor’s face was flushed, his eyes wide as he took the other in. He opened his mouth to reply, but in that exact moment Angel’s hands descended, ten fingers scribbling teasingly over his sides with reckless abandon. Any words he had planned to say were quickly lost to him as he dissolved into manic laughter, squirming as much as he could in his position.
“Aw, you’re so cute like this,” Angel cooed, his nails trailing devastatingly over his skin. “Not a big bad demon at all. What would all of Hell say if they could see you like this?”
“T-Thehehey nehehever wihihill!” Alastor spluttered, tugging at his trapped arms. “A-Ahahaha, Ahahahangel, plehehehease!”
“You know, you keep saying that,” Angel said. “But what exactly do you mean by that? Please what? Please stop? Please keep going?” He pinched his hips experimentally and Alastor spasmed, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Alastor kicked his legs out uselessly. Sensation whizzed through him, making him brain fuzzy as attempted to focus. “N-Nahahaha, ihihihit tihihihihickles!”
“That is the point,” Angel agreed.
He continued to tweak and poke his hips until Alastor was practically writhing on the upholstery. The latter’s face screwed up, his nerves flaring at each and every touch. “A-Ahahahangel! Thihihihis ihihihisn’t fahahahahahir!”
“No?” Angel reached back, grabbing onto his knees along with his hips, and Alastor screeched, nearly jumping out of his skin. “Then why aren’t you stopping me? I know you’re more than capable of doing so.”
It was true. Alastor knew that, technically speaking, he could stop this if he wanted to. In a one-on-one fight between the two of them, Alastor would always win. And yet, the demon was held by a far greater force than physical strength—the need to lose himself. He needed the feeling of fingers wiggling over his skin, to drown in a sea of laughter, to feel the desperation rising to his throat.
“Hmm?” Angel mused, a teasing lilt to his voice. “I haven’t received an answer. Maybe I should go somewhere else. Maybe upwards?” He eyed his ears with a smirk and Alastor yelped, shrinking back into the couch.
“N-No, wait! Nahahat thehehere!” Alastor crowed quickly. “Ihihihi, ahaha, uhuhum—”
“Yes?”
Angel lightened up the tickling, so that his fingers merely traced and swirled over his stomach; it was still unfairly ticklish, but not as much as before. Alastor swallowed, averting his eyes with a slight flush to his cheeks. “M-Maybe I don’t mind it as much as I might have claimed.”
Angel’s smile softened a little at the stammered admission, and he leaned down suddenly, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. Alastor froze, his heart fluttering wildly in his chest. “W-What was that?”
“That was your reward. And this—” Angel vibrated his hands over his ribs suddenly, making Alastor burst into hysterical giggling—“is your punishment. After all, I made you a promise, didn’t I?”