Requested Cuphead tickle!fic. Read at your own amusement.

He had died so many times he felt no longer felt pain. Mugman was safe, as his brother was meant for second players, but Cuphead was the one who had died well over a million times in every gamer's copies of his game. He was only one out of the thousands of downloads, but this particular game was glitched.

And by glitched, he meant that the villains were not attacking right.

It had started out normal, with the Devil and King Dice tempting Cuphead and Mugman into selling their souls, they made a deal to collect more souls in exchange for theirs, and the tutorial was the same. Even his grandfather gave the same advice.

But for whatever reason, when Cuphead went out to fight, the villains were not attacking him or Mugman the right way. He and his brother weren't dying, like all of the other copies out there, because the attacks were not meant to kill.

He supposed that things could be worse—there were so many copies of him that died hundreds of times, why not be grateful for this reprieve?—but at the same time Mugman did not have to endure this torture nearly as often because he was not the face of the game. It was Cuphead. And boy did Cuphead regret being the lead in the normal games, but being in this glitched game was even worse.

The villains used tickle attacks. Bloody tickle attacks. Out of everything there was, Cuphead was being tickled in nearly every boss battle instead of being hurt or killed. Flowers, vegetables, ghosts, everything and one shot out tickling petals, leaves, feathers, disembodied gloves that wriggled and tickled the young cup to tears, and anything else you can think of. The worst part was that once he was hit by anything, even if it tickled, Cuphead still had lives he needed to save. He still had HP. When he was shot by an attack, his HP would go down one while he was stuck for a few seconds laughing (in the real game, if he was frozen, he was subject to be hit and hurt again—the same went for tickling). If he was hit in that time he couldn't move, he would lose another HP and be tickled for even longer.

When he lost all of his HP, he did not die. The villain would only keep him for a minute or so at a time, tickling the cartoon in their own evil way before letting him go back to the map. Cuphead and Mugman both wondered if this was some way to make their constant deaths up to them, because being tickled was much better than the pain of constant death.

Now, his attacks were different too. Cuphead still had his peashooter, the lobber, the bombs when in plane mode, etc. But when his moves were charged up, he could send EX attacks that tickled his foes right back. But it took him a long time to make it to this particular level, and like most players, he was stuck on it: Beppi the Clown. You know, the one with the train, and balloons, and the clown.

Cuphead had not even been able to tickle Beppi from how often he was attacked himself. And he had lost many, many times. Eventually, it came to this point right here, right now. He had lost all of his HP, and so Beppi was currently taking what time he wanted to tickle the living crap out of the cup.

"STAHAHAHA! BEHEHE, AHAHA! PLAHAHAAA!"

"Giving up my soul isn't my "cup" of tea!" The clown grinned. His gloved fingers wriggled on the small cup's belly and sides, making him cry with laughter. "I'm not letting you go without a warning! If you come back, you'll only come to regret it! I'm not clowning around here!" With that, Beppi released Cuphead and patted his little cup head. "We're only tough on ya because we love ya, kiddo. Now go back to the map and try again."

"W-wait, wahahait!" The cup collapsed on the ground, panting heavily. "Wait…"

Beppi crossed his arms and leaned against his car—Cuphead had not even made his way to the second phase of this round—and waited.

"I…" Cuphead caught his breath, and looked up at the clown. "Why…are you…tickling us?"

The clown giggled, then laughed and picked Cuphead up. "We're a glitched game, silly head!" He nuzzled his long nose into the cup's belly, making him squirm and giggle lightly.

"But why tickling?!" Cuphead pushed Beppi away.

"Because you're too serious for your own good and at least one Cuphead and Mugman need to be happy," Beppi admitted. "Your gaming lives may not be the best, but you still fight for our souls in every game and die in every game. We can't change the plot, but we sure as heck can change our fighting styles!"

Beppi blew a raspberry against the sensitive tummy, and Cuphead squealed and laughed.

"Besides," The clown grinned smugly, "It's obvious from how many times you two are losing you like it."

And with a flash, Cuphead was brought back to the map. He still had a ways to go still through the game, but at least the clown had given him an honest answer. And honestly, once Cuphead met up with Mugman again and they talked about going into destroy Beppi with tickles together, they discovered that this was pretty fun.