Work Text:
"Come on, Gus! Tickle a penguin! It's fun!" The penguins standing in front of Shawn obligingly giggled and shivered as he tickled their ribs in turn.
"Shawn, we have been standing here tickling penguins for thirty-four minutes," Gus says warningly, probably more warningly than he said it at twenty-seven minutes or at fourteen minutes or at seven minutes. "Let's just go, okay? The boss is that way." Gus points up a winding path defended by man-eating plants, freaky little armless mushroom-things that Gus calls goombas, and a pack of tiny blue things that grab onto your head and suck your brains out. Shawn shivers. He hates the tiny blue things.
"Look, this is clearly the real point of the game," Shawn protests, continuing to tickle. The penguins don't seem to get tired of it, and even Gus will have to admit that it's pretty cute when Coach Penguin giggles.
Just then, Gus squints off into the distance, as if noticing something up past all the enemies. "Shawn - wait - oh, wow, can it be?"
Shawn pauses in his tickling. "What? What is it?"
"I think it's the toad brigade," Gus says.
Shawn pauses in his tickling. The penguins stand around good-naturedly. "The whole brigade?" he asks, hesitantly.
"I see Smart Toad, and Digger Toad, and - "
"Stoned Toad! Tell me Stoned Toad is there, Gus, tell me - "
"We'll just have to go up the path and see," Gus insists. "And he's called Sleepy Toad. This is a game for kids, Shawn."
"Whatever. I want to see if he's holding." Determined now, Shawn takes off up the path.
He pretends not to notice Gus surreptitiously keeping all the tiny brainsucking blue things away from him. And when they reach the Toad Brigade, he only tickles them a little.