HTTYD - Day 8, Part 2

After the game, Marcus volunteered to give carpools to some of Jessie’s teammates whose parents hadn’t been able to pick them up. More accurately, though, Jessie had volunteered her dad for him, and he’d been too nice to tell any of them no. So he, his daughter, two of her teammates, and one of her teammates brother all piled into his modest sized sedan, along with half a dozen gym bags and backpacks. There hadn’t even been enough room in the trunk to fit all their stuff, so all the backpacks had to pile up onto one of the back seats. In order to fit everyone comfortably, Jessie sat in the driver’s seat, so that one of the kids could sit passenger while the other two sat next to the bags in the back.

They had all been in awe of Marcus’ little contraption that he used to get into his car, although he didn’t know whether to feel cool and proud or a little bit patronized as he walked up the ramp while they looked down at him in wonder. It hadn’t been necessary for him to show off since Jessie would be riding behind him and could’ve just picked him up, but she wanted to show off the gadgetry to her friends. Once he’d sat down in the driver’s seat, they all piled in as well, including Jessie in the regular seat that Marcus’ had been built upon. He glanced upwards nervously as he saw his daughter’s giant thigh pass just inches over his head as she sat down, and the resulting micro-quake as she sat down all around him. “Ooh, look, I fit perfectly into the seat!” she cheered, feeling snug in her position with her dad sitting between her legs. “He hasn’t actually had to drive with me sitting behind him yet,” she explained to the others, tussling her dad’s hair with a smile.

“It would’ve been nice if my seat was raised a bit more though,” Marcus commented, feeling moderately claustrophobic with her pale pair of muscley legs on either side of him. Her crotch was right behind him too, and while he obviously didn’t care to look, he felt like he could sense its presence anyways.

“Well you’re the one who OK’ed this version,” his daughter reminded him. “There were others you could’ve picked from.” After a pause, she realized she didn’t want to guilt trip him though, so she added, “But I’ll try my best to keep still and hopefully you won’t notice.”

“Aww, you guys are so cute together,” her teammate in the passenger seat said, taking a snap of the father-daughter duo as Marcus started up the car.

“Oooh, send that to me,” Jessie remarked as she buckled in her seat belt, and her dad soon pulled out of the parking spot while she punched in everyone’s address to the GPS.

~

“Oh my God,” Jessie exclaimed as they walked through the front door, glad to finally be home. “Ugh, I just wanna collapse,” she sighed, slinging her things to the side of the door and trudging to the family room, where she set her dad down on the coffee table before falling face first onto the couch. Then she rolled off the couch and onto the floor, rolling once more around until she was sprawled out on her stomach, having groaned the whole way. “I don’t know why I feel so tired,” she said, her head resting sideways on the ground as she watched her dad climb down from the table and walk over to her.

“That’s because you played real hard tonight. Maybe I just haven’t been to a game in a while, but you seemed way more fired up than you usually are.”

“Well, that’s cuz I was glad you actually came, I wasn’t sure if you would. Feels good to have people watching and supporting you.”

“And because of what your coach talked to us about too, I’d imagine.” He hopped onto her back and began stomping on it like he had after her last game, a kind of mini massage for the giant teenager.

“Yeah. That was pretty wild.” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, enjoying the feeling of his little footsteps soothing her muscles.

“Feel good?” he asked with a smile.

She nodded, “Mhm, it’s nice… although my feet are kinda more sore, I think. Actually, I wonder if I need new shoes.” Marcus looked behind him, where a pair of black-socked feet lay at the end of her aching legs. “It would be nice if you could rub them too.” Before he shrunk, her dad used to regularly give her both kinds of massages after her games, although he wasn’t as fond of foot rubs, since her feet always smelled a bit funky after games and practice. “Although that’s OK if you can’t, it’s like you can really walk on them like you do with my back, so I wouldn’t expect you to be able to.” She had said the comment to try and be nice, not wanting to pressure her dad into something he wasn’t easily capable of. But it had sort of the opposite effect, and his stubborn heart suddenly wanted to at least try to massage them now, just to prove to her (and more importantly, himself) that he hadn’t lost his touch at his new size.

She felt him hop off her back, and she tried to look back at him, confused. “Daddy, I literally just said it’s fine. That wasn’t like, me trying to use reverse psychology or anything.”

“I know it wasn’t,” he replied, walking alongside her legs, and paused at her knee. He checked to make sure she wasn’t looking, and then dove his hands towards her legpit in an attempt to tickle her.

“AHH!” she laughed, his delicate fingers easily tantalizing her nerves, and her lower leg reflexively threw itself backwards, clamping down on itself as a defense mechanism, the same way people clamp their arms when their armpits are tickled too. Marcus had been leaning over her leg though, so he was immediately slammed into the back of her lower thigh, squeezed between the two halves of her legs—except she didn’t release him right away, even once his tickling had stopped. His faced was smushed against her skin, her sweat having only just recently finished evaporating, and the salty smell of her sticky skin wasn’t too pleasant to behold.

She rolled onto her back, deliberately keeping her leg clamped around her little dad in the process, and giving him one more quick, playful squeeze before letting him go. “Was your little prank worth it?” she asked, leaning back on her elbows.

“Yes it was,” he told her defiantly, straightening himself out. “The more you overreact, the better I’m reminded of just how great a tickler I am at this size.” She rolled her eyes and he laughed, continuing down the length of her legs til he arrived at her feet. Even just walking up to them had surprised Marcus with how strong the smell was. She had worked out to such a hard degree that he could literally feel the heat radiating off of them as he walked between them, with only the chills he felt in his spine cooling him down. He turned to stand in front of one of them, and his heart skipped a beat at seeing how large they were. They’d seemed plenty large a few days ago when she’d stepped on him during her bike ride up the hill, but this was somehow more daunting. Because here, with both him and her feet standing upright and facing one another, he was finally able to see the truth, that her foot alone was taller than his entire body. He was barely nine inches tall, and her foot was a little more than nine and a half. He didn’t know why that specific size comparison was such a bother to him; perhaps because normal people got compared to other human beings, but as a shrunken person, his closest comparison was just a foot.

But regardless of their size, Jessie’s feet smelled like shit. Socks that had become damp with sweat, and then dried, and then soaked with sweat, and then dried again; stale and stuffy, moist and musty. He hated it. Maybe I could try giving her a foot rub sometime after she’s taken a shower, he thought. Cuz there’s no fucking way I’m even gonna touch them as they are now.

Jessie saw him studying them, seemingly lost in thought, and suddenly darted her foot forward, causing him to jump back with such a fright that he stumbled and fell over backwards. She broke out into a fit of laughter, albeit still feeling a little bad, as he sighed and got back to his feet. “I can take my socks off if they smell too bad,” she teased, “would that make it easier?”

Marcus chuckled and shook his head, “No, it definitely would not.” He walked his way along the side of her body back to her midsection. “I guess you were right, I ain’t rubbing those things, at least not until they’re nice and clean again. But I’ll still finish your back massage if you want.”

She nodded and flipped over to her back, closing her eyes and smiling as she waited for him to climb aboard. “Deal!”