in which a tag of Jay's on a tumblr post is quoted, and he reacts.

“Oh oh oh oh! Oh man oh man oh man oh many mans!”

“Jay?” Charlie is out of her bed in the motel room, exhaustion and fear in her voice. The world feels like that quiet just after dawn but I just let out a sound that’s probably more like a jaysaurus than a Jay but really happy for all of that. “Jay?” she says, sharper.

“I – I - I – thith!” I get out, shoving my tablet at her.

Charlie takes it. I flop back onto the bed and make mousey happy sounds, too happy to even try and get out of the bed. Moving is for people with happiness to spare: I’m all a joy machine, like Christmas wrapped up in a body of Jay spasms! Like that, but cuter!

“Someone turned a tag you wrote on tumblr into a quote,” Charlie says. “That’s – this –.”

And she must be so happy for me that she loses words as well because I pull a bit out of the happiness to bounce off the bed (this is what beds are for) and plow into her with a hug that sends her into her bed. “And they got it from a tag and not a post and I’m all quotey now and it’th huge like some giant famous thing and friends!”

Charlie pushes me off of her, putting the tablet to the side – the nightstand, I think? – and says my name in that way that means I did something bad but I didn’t do anything bad at all and I grin a huge grin that almost hurts my face a little.

“You’re really happy about this, huh,” she says, her anger something else entirely. It’s hard to be angry with a really happy Jay; even I can’t do it and I’m me!

“Yep!”

“If you don’t tell humans you like them they tend to never know,” she says, repeating the quoted line, then clamps a hand over my mouth. “I don’t think the rest of the motel would be happy being woken up over this, Jay.”

“But I was all quoted!”

“They might be quoting other things,” she says dryly, then thumps me onto my back before I know what she’s doing because I’m all way too happy to really pay atttention to bindings and does a giant tickle war until I’m too sad-happy to even move from that!

“And that,” she says as I let out gasps out after, “is how you tell a Jay you like them.”

“Charlie,” I manage to get out, and she just laughs softly and this time just hugs me gently in the bed.

“I do like how happy you get over things, kiddo, but not at 4 a.m.. Which means it’s time to get back to bed for a few hours.”

She dumps me onto my bed because I’ll all tickled-out tired to move and I can feel her grin and it’s all okay that I can’t see her because she’s all happy for me and I might even use it to get cookies for breakfast – maybe even not just cookies!

I go all back to sleep, which might be kind of rude after being all a quote but Charlie wants to sleep more and I can be as happy when I wake up next and she won’t get me with tickles at all next time. Well. Not unless I let her.