Stuff Like That There
(Hugs)
by Em

"I want some huggin', squeezin'/ muggin', teasin' and some stuff/ stuff like that there!"
- Stuff Like That There, Bette Midler

A/N: I don't like this one much. You can tell that I didn't really bother to try and figure out why they're playing the game their playing or really what the game entails or anything. Sorry. I just frankly didn't think it was that important and explaining it all would have required quite a bit more exposition than I wanted for this bit o' crack!ficciness. I especially don't like the end of this one.

04: Ticklish

"Are you going to ask your question or aren't you?" Raven demanded in that oh-so-calm tone of voice that said she was just shy of actually falling asleep on him if he didn't do something interesting...and fast.

Robin was not about to lose the chance to ask Raven any question he wanted to so easily. After all, it had taken him plenty of careful conniving to get her to play a game of verbal Bullshit. "Don't rush me," he told her defensively. "I didn't rush you."

She scoffed and continued to play absently with the deck of cards they had decided not to use.

"Alright," Robin allowed, crossing his arms and meeting her eyes, "Are you ticklish?" he asked.

Raven looked at him in surprise. "You're kidding right? That's your question?" She shook her head. "After all that posturing and thinking, that's the best you can come up with?"

Robin was not deterred. "That's my question, now are you going to answer or do you forfeit?"

Raven sighed, "No--"

"Ah-ah," Robin said chidingly, "You have to meet my eyes when you answer, remember?"

Raven sighed again and swung her gaze up to his. "No," she answered succintly.

Robin's face broke into a grin, "Bullshit!" he exclaimed joyfully. "You're lying!" He couldn't believe he caught her lying so soon in the game and on top of that, that she was ticklish!

Raven frowned. "I am not," she insisted.

Robin pointed at her. "You are too! I can tell."

"First of all," she started superciliously, "I am not lying and second of all, you couldn't possibly tell even if I was."

"Of course I could tell," Robin insisted unconcernedly. "I can always tell when you lie."

She scoffed, "That's ridiculous."

He shrugged. "I knew you were lying when you swore to Beast Boy you didn't make his boom box disappear just like I knew when you told Starfire you ate all the pudding in the fridge when you actually threw it out..." he paused to see her reaction to his confessions. "I even knew you were lying when you told Cyborg that you didn't have any plans and went with him to the auto show last week," he said triumphantly. He grinned widely at her look of suspended disbelief. "I know your tells."

She closed her mouth and visibly controlled her expression so that it was sarcastic but not surprised. "My tells?" she asked pointedly.

"The little things you do when you're lying," he explained.

"I don't do little things, when I'm lying or otherwise," she replied, offended.

He laughed at her offense. "Of course you do, everyone does."

"Even you?" she challenged.

He smiled wryly, "I don't lie."

She raised a brow and crossed her arms. "Now that's bullshit."

"Prove it," he dared.

"You lied to the mayor two weeks ago when you told him it wasn't Beast Boy's elephant prints in the new cement outside City Hall," she pointed out calmly.

He looked momentarily chastised. "Yes, well, that was--"

"--A lie," she finished for him.

"So maybe I lied once--"

"Bullshit yet again," Raven insisted. "You also lied to Starfire about being allergic to the color pink."

Robin flushed crimson, "In a way, I actually--"

"--lied," Raven once again finished for him bluntly.

"Hey!" Robin exclaimed, "I seem to recall you chiming in and claiming that allergy yourself!" he pointed out defensively.

Raven was unapologetic. "Unlike you, I actually am allergic to the color pink."

Robin tried to read her expression but was laughing too hard to fathom any true reading. "Yes, I suppose it's something in the dye, isn't it?" he asked sarcastically.

She nodded, "Indeed it is."

Robin shook his head, "That's the explanation I gave her."

Raven shrugged, "So you got one thing right," she said unrepentantly.

"What does it do, make you break out in a rash of crankiness?" he tried.

"Actually, it..." she paused for the briefest of moments but before Robin could call her on the lapse, she spoke again, "...gives me a headache."

"Bullshit," he said emphatically, albeit laughingly.

"So prove it."

He couldn't and she knew it. "Okay, fine," he accepted. "But I still say you're lying about being ticklish."

"And I still say you can't possibly know that I am lying."

"Fine, then I'll prove to you that I can tell when you're lying."

"I await your proof with great eagerness," she said monotonously.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't bother to comment. He was too busy thinking of a way to prove it to her. "Alright, so say a few statements, some of them lies and some of them truths, things that are easy to prove like 'I'm wearing pink underwear' when you're really wearing purple or whatever and I'll tell you if it's a lie or not."

She heaved a long-suffering sigh, but leaned back and crossed her arms, apparently thinking of what to say. Apparently coming up with something, she met his eyes. "My bookmark is on page 156 of the book I left in the kitchen," she said, bored.

"Lie," he decided. Her expression remained neutral so he went to the kitchen and picked up her book, bringing it back to her and opening it up to the bookmarked page. He looked down at the numbers on the bottom center of the page and smiled as he read, "Two-hundred and six." He raised a brow of his own as he closed the book and sat back in his seat.

Her expression hardened just a bit with the smug look on his face and she thought up another sentence, "The last song played on my mp3 player on the coffee table was a country song."

Robin watched her face intently for a moment before deciding, "Truth." He picked up the compact mp3 player and the display flashed as he turned it on and expertly went to the last song played menu. He looked up at her and smirked, "Why, I never would've pegged you for a Keith Urban fan, Raven."

She grit her teeth, but thought up another sentence almost immediately. There was a repressed sort of smugness in her expression that let him know whether she chose to tell the truth or a lie with this statement, it would be a doozie. "I am not wearing any underwear."

Robin blinked, both at her statement, and at what he saw in her eyes. When the realization finally filtered through his head, his jaw dropped, "You're not wearing any underwear?" he sputtered.

She frowned and stood up, "Okay, that's enough."

Gathering his wits back about him, he couldn't help but smile, "Wait, aren't you going to let me prove that I was right and you were telling the truth with that one?" he asked innocently.

She looked at him and narrowed her eyes.

"Can I take that to mean you concede the point?" he asked, if possible, even more innocently.

"Fine, I concede the point," she admitted, starting for the kitchen.

He followed her, "Okay, so you're ticklish, since I caught you lying in that one that means I get to--"

"I never conceded that I was ticklish," she interrupted. "So you get to nothing."

He opened his eyes in blatant surprise. "I just proved that I can tell when you're lying or not, Raven!" he pointed out.

"About those other things, not about me being ticklish," she insisted hard-headedly as she crossed the kitchen for the cupboards that held her tea things.

"Fine, I'll prove that you're ticklish," he determined.

And before she could even begin to guess what that statement might mean for her personal space, he had trapped her against the cabinets and was being surprisingly good at holding her in place and systematically checking all typical ticklish spots.

Raven instinctively tried to get out of his grasp, but when she realized it was pointless, she gave in and resorted to staring at him in utter boredom while he tried to tickle under her arms first and then her neck.

Beast Boy and Cyborg walked in when Robin had one arm firmly locked around her waist and the other hand determinately poking at her ribs.

"Aw, dudes!" Beast Boy exclaimed, immediately diverting his eyes, "Not in the kitchen!" he exclaimed. "We eat there, man!"

Raven sighed her long-suffering sigh again and stepped away from Robin's embrace which had loosened with the shock of seeing their compatriots.

"I was just trying to prove that I know when she lies," Robin explained.

"Whatever you call it, man, do it in your room!" Beast Boy insisted, still diverting his eyes.

Raven walked behind him and smacked his head, "I think you've been watching one too many porn movies, Beast Boy," she said monotonously as she walked out of the kitchen.

"No, really," Cyborg asked, grinning, "What were you really doing?"

Robin sighed, "I was trying to find her ticklish spot."

Beast Boy waggled his eyebrow, "If you still don't know where a woman's special spot is, Rob-o, then I'd say you're education is sorely lack—ow!" Beast Boy finished, rubbing the back of his shoulder where a flying paperback had winged him. "Damnit, Rae!"

Raven continued to read as if she had done nothing, so with a glare which she ignored, Beast Boy turned back to Robin.

"As I was saying..." he started, only to be interrupted by another paperback book smacking him on the ass. "Will you quit that?" he directed toward Raven who was still reading as if she had never done anything else.

Robin chuckled. "Actually, I really was just trying to find out where she was ticklish," Robin spoke before Beast Boy could get himself into any more trouble. "In the cleanest sense of the word."

Beast Boy rolled his eyes, "That's easy, it's her--" he was once again cut off by a well aimed paperback to the back of his head. "Where the hell does she get all these books from?" Beast Boy wondered.

"You better stop before she runs out of paperbacks and starts chucking hard covers," Cyborg warned.

Beast Boy shook his head, "Sorry, Robin, man, have you seen her hard covers? They're huge!" he walked quickly away.

Robin wasn't interested in Beast Boy anymore anyway, he was walking toward Raven on the couch, "How come Beast Boy knows where your ticklish?"

Raven didn't look up from the book, "Lucky guess."

Robin narrowed his eyes, "Bullshit."

She looked up at him and her look was almost innocent. Almost sweet. She almost smiled. "Prove it."

Robin sighed and flopped back onto the sofa cushions to her left. He knew under other circumstances,he might have been upset at being thwarted from knowing what he was trying to learn, but he was used to that with Raven so instead, he conserved his energy...for now. Just because they had been interrupted didn't mean it was over. He knew it wasn't over and so did she. But he was content to wait for a bit. He had already found out quite a few things about the normally private Raven, after all.

Finding out any information about Raven was quite exhausting and he was certain that finding out where Raven was ticklish was going to be no exception.

'Ah,' he thought as he let his eyelids flutter closed, part of his mind already working on a possible plan of attack, 'The lengths I go to just for a little information from that girl...'

In the end, it was worth it, he knew. Exhausting and convoluted, yes, but also exhilarating and challenging and worth it. Definitely worth it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: As I said, I don't like the end. I like the banter between Robin and Raven about the lying alright. I kind of based the game their playing loosely on the "bullshit" game I've recently heard about. Only, they decided not to play it with cards since it was just the two of them.

Spoiler: Next theme is "Chocolate" and I sort of have an idea for that one. Although I probably won't get to it until after the bar (which is the 25th and 26th of this month)