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Ever since Ray went through puberty, he’s had Tourette’s syndrome. It started out with a twitch in his neck, subtle but still annoying. Within a few months it became a full blown turn of his neck, jerking and sometimes painful like he looked to the side too fast for his body to handle. He wasn’t medicated like a lot of other people who he had met with a tic, his doctor had tried at first but it made little difference and wasn’t covered by the family’s health insurance, so he learned to deal with it. It was the main reason that he doesn’t drive, being too afraid of a tic hitting and causing him to have an accident. Sure, it made some things a little difficult, but what’s life without a challenge?
When he got the job at Achievement Hunter, he made sure to get it out of the way and tell the guys. Everyone at the office knew, so it wasn’t that big a deal. Besides the occasional joke during a let’s play, no one talked about it. It was one of the perks of his job. He could tic and it wasn’t a problem and none of the fans really noticed when it did happen, and if he had to be pulled onto a podcast or the patch, he could suppress them, even though it was the most uncomfortable sensation in the world. It was like, holding back a sneeze, only it shivered down your spine at the same time. He hated to do it, but it was just easier than having to explain it.
Versus made it harder to hide. When he was pumped up, more hyperactive, his tics were a bit more powerful, harder to suppress. He wasn’t used to having to hide it with the guys, so when the filmed the first month’s videos, his ticks were pretty noticeable and to make it less awkward, he’d make a few jokes about it with guys, trying to brush it off as nothing.
“Alright, Twitchy McGee here is champion, for the fucking fourth week in a row, and its’ Ryan turn to take your ass down.” Geoff taunted.
“Totally go this,” said Ray, rocking back on his heels, his head jerking to the side as the excitement built up.
The 6 men stared at the screen, waiting for the game to pop up.
“It’ssssss Fusion Frenzy!” yelled Michael.
“Let’s do it.”
The match up had gone great, Ray keeping his belt for another week, but the aftermath was less rewarding. A few people had asked what was up with the Twitchy comment, was he okay, nothing too bad. But when a Behind The Scenes came out a few days later where people could see him twitching quite a bit, something that happened when it was getting crazy in the room, he just made a few jokes about it like usual, only this time people didn’t take so kindly to them. His feed was filled with quite a few people accusing him of making fun of people with tics, calling him an asshole for daring to joke about something like that. Most though he was faking it and had state that they wouldn’t be watching a video with Ray in it anytime soon. He understood where they were coming from, having gotten on friends in high school when they tried to make fun of it whether it came to him doing it or anyone else. It wasn’t a something to tease or make fun of, but he had dealt with it for years, couldn’t they just leave him alone.
He tried to ignore all of it as much as he could, but the stress only seemed to make his tics worse.
Instead of the one of two he’d get every hour or so, he’d get double that. It was getting harder to ignore them or try to suppress them, so he took to hiding on the edge of the shot, trying to hide them as best he could. He didn’t want to bring anymore flack down on Achievement Hunter than he already had. It was starting to get bad, like it had been when he was younger, making his performance in his games go down. He’d started having more instances of being in a state of ticking for minutes at a time, jerking his head left and right. It killed his neck and had even caused him to throw off his glasses and crack one of the lenses.
He was starting to get bitter towards his tics, something that had never been an issue for him. He was tired of hiding it and getting shit for something he couldn’t control. The chance to finally put all the hate and stress to an end presented itself in the form of being invited onto the podcast with Gavin, Gus, Burnie. He’d had a good day, having kicked Jack’s ass at the claw machine and a sweet Dorothy and King Julian combo proved as his trophies. He went into the podcast like his usual self, happy to be invited to join the regulars.
Half way through the podcast his body was exhausted. After an hour of warding off tic after tic, he just didn’t have any will power left. While Burnie and Gus were on Gavin about something idiotic he said, Ray let the floodgate fall. Tic after tic came, leaving him to look like he was constantly shaking his head back and forth. It was making him dizzy as fuck, but it was better than holding it back at this point. After a full 30 or more seconds, his neck finally stopped, leaving every staring at him.
“What?” he said before drinking some of his water.
“You okay, X-Ray?” Gavin said, surprised by Ray sudden outburst.
“All good, Vav.” He shrugged it off.
“Got it out of your system?”
“Nah, it’ll hit again in a few minutes.”
Burnie and Gus exchanged looks for a moment before turning their attention back to Ray, “I think this is a good time to bring this up. Why do you do that?” asked Gus.
“Do you not know?”
“No! every time I ask Burnie, he tells me to go ask Ray, and I didn’t want to be rude.” Gus said, throwing Burnie a dark look.
“Why didn’t you just google it?” Gavin asked, “It’s not that hard to figure out.”
“It Tourette’s, man. I thought it was pretty obvious,” Ray offered, looking between the two men “I mean, I jerk my head to the side randomly. That seems pretty google worthy.”
“So, you do have Tourette’s? It’s not something else?”
“I have Tourette’s but Tourette’s doesn’t have me.” He laughed, “but seriously, yeah, I do have it. It’s been a thing since I was like, 12, or something.”
“I’ve never seen you do it that much before,” Gus leaned in fascinatedly.
“Yeah, I try not to on video stuff as much as I can, but lately my control has gone to shit, so I just gave up on trying to hide it.” He leaned back, glad to get that off his chest.
“People have been givin’ him shit about it on twitter.” Gavin grumbled, “Bout time they realized that it’s not right to do that. “
“Thanks, Vav.”
“No problem X-Ray.”
From then on the podcast went on as normal, Ray having his moments, but otherwise it was a great time.