roy needs to just let me work
written by the amazing

Grim sat at his desk, pencil scratching at the page in front of him. Tactics and plans shifted through his thoughts, constantly morphing and reshaping until they found their way out through the pencil onto the notebook below. The bright green clock let out a tick as the minute passed, just about the only other sound beside the writing to break the room’s heavy silence.
Roy looked on lethargically from under the table’s sunlamp a short distance away. Colors dark and saturated to soak up more light and heat, he let out a lazy yawn and stretched out over his sunning stone before rolling over onto his back.
“I’m bored,” the chameleon stated plainly. Grim didn’t seem to notice. Roy closed his eyes and rested, listening to the sound of the large dinosaur working. And then he vanished.
The dinosaur blinked and looked up at where the chameleon had been before returning dutifully to his work. Roy did that sometimes. And then he stopped as the paper crinkled near the border and the small micro reformed back on the page, looking curiously at it.
“So what’s all this, then?” Roy asked, only for a large hand to raise up and gently brush him off the paper. Stumbling, he glowered at the dinosaur. Grim chuckled and mimicked the look.
“None of your business,” he said amusedly, but then his gaze returned to his work and the pencil began to scratch once again. Roy, however, padded back over to the saurian’s wrist and flopped over it. Grim tried to ignore him, hands still shifting back and forth over the page, to the enjoyment of the small chameleon.
Roy laughed and hung on until the saurian sighed and lifted up his large hand to peer closely at the chameleon and meet his gaze. Grim held it for a moment, trying to convey seriousness, but judging by the chameleon’s grin, it seemed the lanky reptile was immune. Grim snorted over the micro and shook his hand off on the table halfway back to the lizard’s sunning stone. Roy clung to the hand and Grim thought he heard something like a growl but then the chameleon lost his grip, falling to the table. Hoping he’d give up, Grim returned once again to work, glancing at the chameleon from the corner of his eye.
Roy squatted, tail swishing as he watched the saurian back. Finally he pulled himself to his feet and padded determinedly back over to the saurian. Grim sighed and let his pencil drop down to the page as he turned to give Roy a wry look, but Roy didn’t meet his gaze. The saurian watched in puzzlement as the chameleon climbed onto his forearm and began to scale the ceratosaurus up to his shoulder.
“What’re you doing?” Grim asked, head tilting in confusion.
“None of your business,” Roy replied, trying to deepen his voice to match Grim’s earlier comment and tone. It was a good attempt, at least.
Trying not to let the chameleon get to him, Grim once again picked up his pencil and began writing as he felt the tiny hands and feet pitter patter slowly over the back of his neck, the chameleon peering about. But now his thoughts were slow and disjointed, the flow staunching. But Grim wouldn’t let the chameleon win and succeed in distracting him. Glowering at the page as if it were the journal’s fault, Grim forced up a dredge of memory from before the reptile had left his rock and began to write once more. But then he stiffened as the chameleon poked his small head into the back of Grim’s shirt.
“R-Roy, what’re you- uh…” Grim stopped and doubled back down again. He wouldn’t. Let. The chameleon. Beat him.
“How do you get your scutes to fit through the holes back here so easily?” Roy asked, pulling his head back out and climbing down. “None of my business?”
Grim shook his head. “I just do. It’s easy for me. Guess I just have experience.”
Roy nodded, poking at one halfway down Grims back and yelping as Grim rolled his massive shoulders.
“Hey!” Roy complained, shooting a glare back over his shoulder up at the dinosaur. Grim tried to hold in the small bubbly laugh from making its way past his lips. Then came the scritching of that pencil once again as Roy let himself drop onto the base of Grim’s thick tail. He paused for a bit, poking the small of Grim’s back, but the saurian didn’t return his attention to the smaller guest. Roy huffed, looking about and examining his options. Then it was the saurian’s turn to yelp as he felt the small lizard outright crawl up the back of his shirt.
“Roy!” Grim growled, trying to reach back for the micro. “You can’t just crawl up peoples’ shirts!”
Roy huffed, feeling the saurian shift and avoiding the reaching fingers. “Says you. You stuff me in here anyhow every time you eat me. Besides, ‘You can’t just eat people’ sounds like a rule that comes before ‘No crawling in shirts.’ “
Grim growled. “Yeah, well…” He huffed, twisting back around and gripping his pencil tightly, letting the chameleon do his thing. After all, Roy couldn’t actually stop him from his planning, only try to distract him. He was trying to, too. And Grim wouldn’t let him. Even if he did have to hold down a laugh at the ticklish sensation as the chameleon crawling over his side. Now where was he? What was he thinking of doing with the new model?
Roy crawled out onto Grim’s leg, to the saurian’s relief, and padded over to his knee, peering around under the desk for some reason. Grim took a breath and pressed his pencil to the paper.
“You have big feet, you know?” Roy said. Grim couldn’t hold in the smirk. And, finally admitting defeat, he slipped a hand under the table and brushed off his leg as if of dust. The chameleon yelped as the hand pushed him over off the knee, sending him tumbling down. As the chameleon face-planted into the top of the saurian’s foot that gentle scritch-scratch returned from above.
Roy groaned, shaking his head and turning over. Taking a breath to yell at the dinosaur, it emerged as a squeak as the foot lifted up under him. Some instinct made him roll and he quickly tumbled off the side onto cold floors below. Forced by the cold to scramble to his feet, he quickly felt something warm and soft press in on him from above as Grim lowered his foot back down. Huge toes pressed down over Roy, one on each arm and the middle toe on his head, keeping his small, wriggly form pressed into the ground.
“G-Grim!” Roy yelped. “It’s cooold!”
Expression smug, Grim added a bit more pressure to the little reptile below. “If you don’t like the temperature, maybe you should’ve stayed on your sunning stone. Beside, it’ll warm up.”
Roy growled like a puppy despite his attempts to sound fierce and tugged his arm. The toes lifted and Roy tried to pull his lower body out from under the ball of the saurian’s great foot, but then the toes came down again, tapping lightly. Roy covered the back of his head as they thoomed gently down around and over his head like huge heavy pillows.
Grim stretched, feeling his concentration returning with his little game going on down below. The chameleon squeaked about but Grim managed to block out the word themselves, flipping over the page and carrying on on the other side. Roy pushed up below and Grim dragged his foot to the side, rolling the micro onto his back. Splaying his toes threateningly overhead, Grim let them relaxed as he described a particularly subtle plan into his notes, not even pausing to acknowledge the tiny arms shaking with the strain of keeping that middle toe from touching down on the chameleon’s face.
Squeak squeak, “Grim,” squeak “Grim” squeak squeak, Roy continued and the saurian in question began to hum to himself. Then, overcoming the Chameleon’s pushes and protest, he scrunched his toes around the reptile’s torso and began to slowly and methodically wriggle them, pulling Roy up and out from under the foot until he found himself held flat in the space between the toes and the ball of the foot.
“I’m gonna bite you,” Roy threatened and Grim snorted in amusement.
“You’ll taste foot then,” Grim answered, wriggling the toe by Roy’s head. The chameleon growled, arms pinned to his side as the toe poked at him.
“Quit it!” he said, and Grim giggled. Now he realized why Roy enjoyed messing with him. Well, now it was his turn.
Grim raised his foot and splayed his toes, letting the chameleon flop to the floor. Flexing said digits in the air above the micro, he waited for Roy to spring to his feet and run off, listening closely. Without looking he let his foot swing through the air and thump down with a micro trapped neatly underneath. Grim smirked and dragged the wriggling chameleon back into place before pressing down affectionately for a moment.
As the foot lifted up again Roy just glared from where he lay on his back, wondering if he should run again or if the dinosaur would just catch him as easily as before. The toes wriggled overhead, ankle rolling in its socket as the macro waited for his little captive to flee once more. But Roy just kept glaring at the saurian’s chest where in vanished behind the edge of the table. Grim wasn’t even looking, how’d he do that to begin with?
But Roy found he waited too long as the toes tilted down and pressed into Roy’s chest. The micro squeaked and pushed at them, but they simply wriggled about, deftly weaving the long claws safely away from the reptile as the toes rolled and pressed into the chameleons vulnerable belly.
Grim paused in his writing to listen as the chameleon began to shake under his toes. He didn’t have to wait long until the chameleon was outright guffawing at the ticklish sensation. Grim grinned, listening carefully to the chameleon’s pleas between sucking in deep breaths and letting them out in loud bouts of laughter. Only after a few minutes, when Grim was sure Roy couldn’t take any more did he finally relent and let the foot relax over the small micro.
Roy sucked in his breath between two large toes, not caring how fresh it was. He was just glad the saurian had cut him a break. He let his head thump back and listened out. Where was the pencil scratching?
“Done,” Grim said, putting down the pencil and rolling back. Roy blinked as the saurian came into view, grinning down at the face peering out from between his toes. Roy gasped and let his features fall into a glower as he growled.
“Let me up, you butt!” he shouted, but Grim just laughed.
“Roy, you’re red in the face, you know that?”
Roy stopped, taken aback as he realized the saurian was right. “That’s just from the laughter!” he lied, trying to still sound angry. Grim rolled his eyes in a manner Roy thought quite inferior to the chameleon version, and the toes slid down from Roy’s face. For a moment the chameleon thought he was going to be let go but then the toes gripped around his waist and lifted up, carrying the micro up with them.
“Hey, wait!” Roy protested, pushing at the toes to no avail. Grim ignored him as always, bringing the foot up to rest on the other knee before plucking the chameleon up. Dangling the micro by his tail, Grim brought him up to eye level and gently poked him.
“There we go. Now then, have you learned your lesson?” Grim asked. Roy paused and glared, arms crossed over his thin chest.
“No,” he finally said. “Imma get you back for sure.”
Grim smirked. “Whatever you say, micro. Whatever you say.”