The tickling stopped. Laurel froze, gaze slowly leaving Nic's face and drifting down to her chest. Her face was unreadable.

Nic relaxed as Laurel stopped tickling his foot. He got his feet away from her before he let go and let out a sigh of relief. Then he waited for her reaction.

Laurel remained frozen.

After another long moment or two, Nic tried to get a look at Laurel's face.

When Nic got closer, Laurel shied away. She refused to look at him.

Nic backed off a little to give her some space.

There was nothing from him for a long minute. Then he swung his leg over and put his foot in front of Laurel without a word.

Laurel didn't react for a long time. When she did she reached out and put a light hand on his foot. "Don't... do it like that again..." she whispered, voice a little odd.

Nic didn't say anything. He was staring off to the side blankly.

Laurel hadn't liked that at all. After another long moment she moved, slowly crawling up his leg to sit beside him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and hid her face.

Nic still didn't move - slowly tuning out the world around him again.

When Nic didn't hug her back, Laurel pulled away and noticed what was going on. After a brief moment of hesitation she leaned up and kissed him lightly.

That brought him back a bit, but he looked like he still wanted to just check out.

"Stop," Laurel pleaded before kissing him again.

Nic was confused, not sure what he was doing wrong this time.

"Don't..." Laurel suddenly looked like she might cry as her voice broke, "l-leave me again."

Nic was having a really hard time trying not to emotionally shut down like it went against every grain in his body. He tried to keep eye contact with Laurel. She could see the emotions in his eyes changing with every heart beat. It seemed to be wearing him down.