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Ribecca likes Shelly’s room. It’s cozy, decorated in gentle shades of yellow, and, well, Shelly’s there. She likes Shelly about a billion times more than she likes her room. She likes how she smells, she likes her voice, and she likes how warm Shelly is, curled up under her arm.
The sheets on the bed are soft, the pillow is soft, Shelly’s hand on the center of her ribcage is soft. Ribecca feels fuzzy. She melts into the mattress.
“Hmm. Hey, Ribecca?” Shelly mutters after a yawn. Before she can answer, she starts to trace her finger across her chest, featherlight. It’s not enough of a motion to stir Ribecca from her sleepy daze.
Ribecca blinks slowly. “N’yeah?”
“Did you know Brachiosaurs had twenty-four ribs?” And then, when she only replied with a quiet murmur, “How many do you have?” Her tone shifts ever-so-slightly on the last sentence.
Ribecca knows, obviously, but she’s nearly half-asleep and is having a hard time recalling. Lazily, she drawls, “Ffffive…?”
“Noooope.” Shelly quits tracing and skitters her fingers gently over her bottom rib. Ribecca flinches, a handful of giggles bubbling out of her. The quicker touch stops as soon as it begins, and then she switches back to tracing. Tracing which… Ribecca is now realizing is getting awfully tickly.
She groans lightheartedly. “Shellyyy, come on, aheh- Shellyhehe…” Her cheeks dust with purple. Ribecca can feel Shelly smile against her side.
“Sorryyyy, I’m bored.” She whispers cheerfully. Then, back to her normal volume, “Guess again!”
Ribecca tries to pay attention and remember but her thoughts are further muddled by the tingles across her ribs. She tips her head back, further into the pillows. “Uhhg, four?”
“Awh, incorrect!” Shelly quickens her tickles again. In the midst of gentle scribbling, she pinches Ribecca’s middle rib just hard enough to wring a squeak from the skeleton. She squirms on the bed but she doesn’t escape. She doesn’t even try to. Eventually, she starts tracing again. “Okay, last guess…!” She’s blatantly teasing now. Ribecca thinks her face might as well be slapped on the front of a pack of grapes and titled as the company’s mascot with how much she’s blushing.
“I dunnohoho, two- two mihilliohohon?”
Shelly mimes the sound of an incorrect buzzer and ‘tases’ her in the side.
Ribecca squeals, curling forwards and flopping on her side. “NOHoho EEK–!! FUHUAHAHACK!” She curses when Shelly grabs the side of her ribcage under her coat and gives it a rapid series of squeezes. Each squeeze brings an electric shock of sorts through Ribecca, electing more embarrassingly pitchy laughter. She tries her best to shove out Shelly’s hand with her arm to no success.
“Tickle, tickle, tickle!!” Shelly giggles, shifting to her knees to get a better angle of approach. Ribecca whines, laced with cackles.
“SHEHEHELLY– ssSShehellyYEHE- AHAHAHAHA!!” She curls up as much as she can, kicking the air, unable to escape. …Not really wanting to escape. ……At all.
Shelly maneuvers them – with help from several tweaks to Ribecca’s spine – until she’s sitting on her hips, only further pinning her to the bed. She wiggles her fingers in the air and Ribecca desperately tries to hide her face in her sleeves. “Now, let’s count.” Shelly chimes, then she squeezes her top left rib, “Oooone!”
“NYAHAHAHA NOHO– EEHEHEHEHAHAha snrt– ple- pleheheaseee!!” Ribecca pleads, wiggling like a beached fish. Her face burns, her heart flutters, she feels like she might explode.
Shelly squeezes the next rib down, her free hand littering pokes up and down her spine. She grins with mischievous glee. “Twooooo! Come on, Ribecca, you’re gonna make me lose count!! This is the second one, okayyy? Remember! There will be a test later!”
Ribecca throws her head back with helpless laughter. The teasing makes it so much worse (Better!? Auuuhggg.)
“Threee!! Awwh, you’re doing so well!!”
“PLEHEHEEEASE AHAHAHUHU IHITtt tickles- it–!”
Shelly attacks her top left rib. “Four!!”
“AHAHA NOHOHOHO IT TIHIHICKLEHEHES!!!” Tears of mirth spring to the corners of her eyes. Shelly pauses to wipe them away with her thumb.
“It does? I was wondering why you were laughing so much. Hehehe.” She’s gentler as she reaches her middle right rib, knowing that the skeleton is slowly reaching her limit. “Fiiiive!” Once she counts the second-to-last one, she stops altogether.
Ribecca greedily gulps down air, giggling with each exhale, her body going limp. She’s well aware they aren’t done yet, but she still takes advantage of the break she’s allowed. When she blinks away her tears, she finds Shelly beaming at her.
“Ready?”
Ribecca blushes again. “Hhhh.. Yeah- eheh- yeahah, okay.”
Shelly grins. “Okayyy!” She plants her sides on the bed on either side of Ribecca, leans down, inhales with a comically loud noise, and blows a raspberry on her sixth rib.
Ribecca screeches. “AAHAHAAAHEHEEEE–!!!” She bucks, scrambling on instinct to quell the unbearable feeling. The tingles radiated from the attacked rib to the rest of her ribcage and even lightly to her spine and neck.
“Which one was that? Huh?”
“SIHIHIX!! Six– auuhahaha sihihix…!!” She exclaims.
However intense, the buzzing only lasts for a few moments, and Ribecca slowly melts back into panting and leftover giggles. “Ohohh fuhuck… hhh.. Heheh…”
The collar of her coat is too soft against her hypersensitive neck so, with help from Shelly, she wrestles it off. Shelly steals it after that, putting it on though it’s a size too big for her.
Shelly flops to the bed beside Ribecca, smiling warmly at her. “...Sorry.” She says again, however cheerful she still sounds.
Ribecca shakes her head slowly. “Noho, no, I.. hhhh, I had fun.” She admits. Her face is violet and she presses it to Shelly’s chest to hide it when she’s pulled closer. Arms wrap around her spine and Shelly’s head rests on her shoulder. Her body heat is heavenly, and the touch snuffs out the last of the ticklish aftershocks, leaving only tickledrunk sleepiness behind. Everything is soft again. Slowly, within the room she likes, in the arms of the girl she loves, Ribecca falls asleep.
♡