Pale Pan Palet

You and Toby had been together for a bit now. You two had been friends for a while beforehand, and had pretty much been glued to one another since you both warmed up to the other. You two didn’t really fight much, you both kept the other in check, it was all great, right? Wrong, according to the others around the mansion. See, you were the “vocal stim queen”, dubbed by Nina. There would be nothing wrong with that, if Toby hadn’t developed tics based on your vocal stims. Now, the second you stimmed, he ticked. If he’d tic, you’d stim, and then you’d feed off one another. The others knew neither of you could help it, but they couldn’t help the dread they felt when it started, since both of you could and accidentally had fed off the other for an hour.

Even though the others dreaded when it started up, you thought it was hilarious once you realized what was happening. You hadn’t meant to cause Toby’s tics, but now that you both had developed this reaction to one another, you both found it hilarious. Now, you didn’t even always finish out your vocal stims. Sometimes, you’d be caught off guard by Toby’s tic, you’d just end up laughing. For whatever reason, the Red Robin commercial had became a vocal stim of yours, which meant Toby eventually developed a tic from hearing you say it over and over. You two were in your bedroom, Toby was helping you tidy up, and you had the tv playing. Something about this environment led to you stimming, and you found yourself mumbling “Red Robin” in a sing-song voice. Sure enough, you heard a quiet “yum” in response from across the room, followed by Toby’s neck popping. You snorted, and he started laughing.

“Oh, you just had to make me develop another tic, did you?” You just laughed, tossing something at him playfully. You two couldn’t help but crack up, both of your involuntary behaviors had decided to feed on one another. Apparently, even your disorders seemed to agree that you two went together. You began folding your clothes up as he rearranged your desk. He knew how you best liked your stuff organized, and he was one of the only ones you trusted to touch your belongings. You trusted that Toby wouldn’t fuck up your stuff or leave it a mess. You knew him, he cared about what you cared about. It was one of the best things about him. You put your clothes in their assorted drawers, you and Toby working simultaneously to fix your room back up. You were really happy Toby liked cleaning, because you struggled to get your room in order when you were on your own.

While you were cleaning, you continued stimming, opening and closing your hand and shaking your hand at the wrist as you got closer and closer to being done. Toby noticed and smiled, happy that you were comfortable enough to stim like this in front of him. He knew stimming could be a sensitive subject for some neurodivergent people. He noticed when you’d start to stim but hide your hands or force yourself away from it when in public. He assumed you had whatever reason for not being comfortable with stimming around others, so he was happy to have made the list of people you were comfortable enough with to not suppress yourself. You began bouncing on the balls of your feet, your eyes lighting up as you’d stop to stim for a moment before actually putting your things away.

You finally noticed his eyes on you and his warm smile, and you looked at him curiously. You didn’t feel judged, but you didn’t understand what the staring was for. “What’s up?” Toby just shook his head and finally looked away. “Nothing, I didn’t mean to end up staring, I’m just happy you’re not suppressing yourself around me.” You smile a little, nodding at his words. You enjoyed it too, life was so much easier when you weren’t constantly hyper aware of every action you made in order to prevent behaviors that would be met with judgement. You appreciated how Toby didn’t infantilize you for your disorders, and how he didn’t focus on the act of stimming itself, but rather your comfortability. He didn’t make everything you did out to be some big thing or treat you differently for no reason, he just thrived in the fact that he made you comfortable. You noticed he had stims of his own, although you didn’t know if he knew that or not. You often noticed that he’d rock when he got too overwhelmed, which you understood pretty well.

“Which stim is the most fun for you?” Toby asked, his question catching you a little off guard. “Hm? Which kind of stim, vocal or physical?” Toby shrugged. “Both.” You appreciated his small talk. Even with the tv going, it was easy for you to lose your focus on a task. Actually, the music kind of made it worse sometimes. At least you weren’t wearing headphones, you’d never get anything done. You thought for a moment about the stims you did and which one you liked doing or did the most. You made the motion of opening and closing your fist while shaking your hands from your wrist. “I think I do this one the most, it helps me concentrate the best. As for vocal stims, I really like the ones where you respond with your tics. But if I had to pick one vocal tic, it’d be the ‘Gramps? I’m in my twenties!’” As if on cue, Toby’s voice immediately kicked in, matching yours for the other half of the stim. “Yeah, 1920s!” You both laughed in response to your stims and tics bouncing off of one another’s. You smile, and decide to ask him about his tics. “How about you? What’s your favorite tics?” Toby thought about it for a moment before smiling. “I liked when I had the tic where I clicked twice and then yelled boom. That was really interesting.” You giggled, remembering several times when the mansion common area would be full, so nobody would hear Toby click twice besides you before he screamed BOOM at the top of his lungs.

“As for physical tics, most are kind of annoying, I don’t know if I have a favorite physical tic…” Toby thought for a bit about the physical tics he had, and which one got on his nerves the least. “Probably the snapping or the finger guns that I did for a little. Snapping gets old after a while, but the finger guns were really funny, mainly because it would almost always happen during a time that I should not have been throwing finger guns.” You chuckled, nodding with his words. You remembered the finger guns tic, it was honestly one of his funnier tics in your opinion, like he said, because of the almost always awful timing he had. Tim and Brian had almost died on a mission and had been telling him about it when he finger gunned at them. The rest of that convo was a little more awkward. “I’d ask you what your favorite stim is, but I don’t think you have more than one.”