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"How the hell did he beat me? He wasn't even using his main!"
That was the first sentence that Damien ever heard without anyone saying it. It was Lasercorn's voice, and he was incredulous as Damien had managed to defeat him in Mortal Kombat. Damien turned to look at him, eyebrow cocked in confusion. He couldn't even catch the lingering of movement on the older man's face.
In fact, as soon as Damien's attention had turned back to Lasercorn, he extended a hand and said, "Good job, man."
Damien blinked a few times in rapid succession, unsure how to respond. The messages were absolutely mixed, and Damien wasn't sure if he should be happy that Lasercorn was surprised at being beaten or if he should feel insulted. With little time to react other than a solid millisecond of confusion, he returned the handshake and nodded. "Y-Yeah, man, great game."
"Well, you know what that means! It's time for Courtney and Mari to face off to see who gets fatalicized!"
"Fatalicized? What, like italicized? What kind of weird made-up fucking word is that?"
"I actually really like that present-tense verb usage of fatality. We don't use words that rhyme with italicized enough," he responded to Ian's voice, and he relinquished his controller to the couch for one of the two ladies to pick up for their match.
When he sat back by Ian, the bearded man looked at him with confusion. "How did you know I was thinking about how dumb the way I pronounced that was?"
"He's a psychic, I tell ya!" Lasercorn retorted, shaking a fist. Damien chuckled, but there was a sick churning in his stomach that was telling him that this wasn't really just a joke now. He had just heard Lasercorn speak without speaking, and now he had just heard Ian.
He tried not to let the weirdness of the situation get to him as he watched Courtney and Mari spar it out on screen, and he even cheered as they both scored blows against one another. Unfortunately, Courtney ended up losing. Damien knew how much she had wanted to see Cassie's fatality.
"Dammit, now I won't get to see this girl that looks like me kick a thunder god in the balls. I wanted to see his spine pop out!"
"Hey, don't even worry about it. I can come over and help you learn to use Cassie, and then you can do the fatality."
Courtney turned her head back to face Damien. "Dude, your ESP is up to eleven today. How did you know that I was bummed out about not getting to see my fatality?"
And just as suddenly as the question left Courtney's lips, the eyes of everyone in the room seemed to turn against Damien, looking for some sort of explanation as to how he had just managed to read his friends so easily. The entire moment felt just as eerie and out-of-place to Damien as it did to anyone else that was standing by. Tommy even heard and came into the studio, just to shout out, "Alright, add it to the compilation!"
That diffused the tension in the air. At least, for everyone except Damien.
Ian's arm wrapped around his shoulder, and the breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding was forced out of him. "Alright, that's been Mortal Kombat 11! Now, let's go watch Courtney get fucking annihilated!"
Courtney slumped in her position on the couch and whimpered, "Oh my God, she dead."
"CUT! Alright, we got enough. Let's get this to Spence, and he'll work his magic from there. You're free for the next half an hour now. Go do something."
The grip on Damien's shoulder was released, and he almost fell backwards out of his seat. He looked at everyone, and they were all goofing off as though nothing had happened. It was almost like they had completely forgotten the fact that Damien had somehow managed to read what they were thinking twice in a row.
Mari's voice came to his head, saying a quiet little, "That was fucking weird. I mean, I've seen weirder things, but damn."
He had learned not to respond out loud to their thoughts by this point, and instead, internally replied, "no kidding."
After a couple more hours of recording stuff for Smosh Games, as well as general workplace tomfoolery, Damien was allowed to go home, but as soon as he started to leave his chair, he heard Courtney walking towards him.
How did he know it was Courtney, you might be asking? That was because he could hear her thoughts, of course. "Okay, phase 1 of the plan is about to be a go. Just don't be suspicious. We can't let Damien know what we're up to, or that we're even up to something... Christ Courtney, why can't you be cool even in your own head?"
Damien turned around to face her, and she stepped back a bit in surprise. "How did you know I was walking up to you?" she asked, eyes wide and full of confusion.
He let out a sigh and said, in the quietest tone he could muster, so as not to disturb the other people around him, "Because I've been reading people's minds all day, and it's messing with my head."
Courtney looked at him, started to smile as though she were going to break into laughter, and then turned serious in her expression as the pieces started to fit together in her head. "OH! So that's why you were able to read everybody's thoughts and respond to 'em! That's so COOL! Can you hear what I'm thinking about right now?!"
Her excited, semi-loud tone made him start to feel anxious, and he started to shush her. "Hey, not so loud! I don't want people to actually know that I've been reading their minds!"
Courtney nodded. "Oh, right. Uh, but can you read my mind right now?"
"Hi, Damimem! I love you!~" her thoughts cooed.
"I love you too, Courtney. Also what the hell are you planning?"
Courtney's face turned from an excited smile to an embarrassed, blushing lip-bite. "You. You read my mind while I was walking up to you too?"
"I can't exactly control whether or not I can read minds. If I could, trust me, I wouldn't be listening to ANYBODY's thoughts. But uhh... yeah. I did. And you didn't make it very hard for me." Damien let out a sigh and crossed his arms, leaning on his back foot a bit.
She looked down at the ground and said, "Well, if I say something, it'll spoil the entire thing. But uh, if you must know SOMETHING about it, it has to do with Shayne. I was actually about to ask you if you wanted to go to dinner with us. I'm actually introducing you two to the girl that I really like right now."
Her face lit up as she mentioned the girl. Damien had seen Courtney happy before, but he had never seen her radiate pure, giddy joy like this. She was practically glowing with glee at the thought of seeing the girl, and Damien felt honored that Courtney was planning on introducing her friends to her, and that he and Shayne were the first two people she had asked. (At least, as far as he knew.)
However, he was also conflicted at how sneaky her thoughts had been when he had read them as she was walking up to him. If it were just a dinner to introduce Courtney's crush to him and Shayne, then why was she saying that he couldn't know what she was up to?
Damien thought to himself, "I am NOT going to get myself roped into this scenario. I don't know what she's planning but it's not good."
"So, how did Courtney rope you into this scenario?"
Damien looked his best friend of 8 years in the eye and shrugged. "She just seemed so happy. I wanted to meet the reason why. Plus, I think it's awesome that she trusts and loves us enough to give us a glimpse into her relationship with this girl, even though they aren't really dating yet."
Shayne nodded, and he twiddled his thumbs. While, naturally, Shayne was awkward in social situations, he wasn't usually this nervous-looking.
Damien had tried to suppress the urge to listen to the words of others rattling around in his brain, but this time, it was too tempting, and he was really worried about his best friend. Even though Shayne wouldn't be super pleased to know that his friend had read his mind without asking, Damien immediately rationalized his thought process by explaining it with his concern for Shayne being nervous.
"Jesus, how the hell am I gonna bring this up naturally in conversation? This was a stupid idea."
This immediately made Damien want to ask him what he was planning on bringing up, but that would then out him as a clairvoyant, and that would raise more questions and maybe even freak out his friend. So instead, he contemplated all of the things that could be, until Courtney came in a few minutes later, with a tall, slender woman on her arm.
The two girls sat opposite Damien and Shayne at the booth, and Courtney was just a ball of concentrated sunshine as she looked at the other girl. "Hey, you two! This is Aisha! Aisha, this is Damien and Shayne, two of my favorite boys!"
Aisha extended a hand toward Shayne first, and then Damien, and she winked at Damien, like she knew something that he didn't. "It's nice to finally put a face to the names. I've only heard good things, I promise. And hopefully the same goes for me!" She giggled, and her arm wrapped around Courtney's shoulders.
Damien looked at the two of them and smiled, as Shayne assured Aisha that Courtney had only said nice things about her.
Involuntarily, Aisha's thoughts jumped at him, and he couldn't help but listen to them, as he took a sip of his water.
"She's right. They're both very cute, and would be even cuter together."
He choked on the gulp he had just taken, and Shayne immediately noticed, patting him on the back. "You okay, man?" he asked. Damien's gaze turned to his, and the look in his eyes was so concerned and oddly affectionate that he felt a blush start to rise in his cheeks. Sure, he had had a crush on Shayne for a year or so now, but the bluntness of Aisha's thoughts and the way that Shayne had jumped to his aid without hesitation had him kind of discombobulated.
He nodded, wheezing out a white lie about the water going down the wrong pipe or some other cliche thing like that.
Courtney looked worried, and then as he met her eyes, she immediately realized what was going on and she took in a sharp gasp of air, whispering, "Oh shit," under her breath.
"Um, do you guys mind if I head to the bathroom for a second?" he asked, straightening out the crinkling of his shirt. Everyone at the table shook their head and Shayne even got out of his seat to make room for Damien to get out of the booth. He thanked them all and rushed his way into the restroom, making a beeline for the sink.
Collecting the water in his hands, he made a sizable well before splashing it on his face. Reading minds was fucking difficult, and this was proving to be no exception to the rule. He had never had this ability before, so how the fuck had he managed to unlock it while playing Mortal Kombat? Just that thought alone was enough to drive any normal person to madness.
It had finally clicked in his head now what Courtney and Aisha were planning. They had set this up to be a double date, and they were gonna have Shayne confess that he had a crush on Damien today.
And while, normally, knowing this would make Damien ecstatic, today, it was just tiring as hell.
He splashed his face a couple more times before drying off with a paper towel and leaving, making sure that he looked at least somewhat presentable.
When he got, he tapped Shayne on the shoulder and scooted back into the booth after he made way. "Alright, sorry. Now, what do you do for work, Aisha?"
An hour later, Courtney and Aisha had taken off, and Damien and Shayne were in Shayne's car. Now that Damien knew what he was thinking at all times, in hindsight, it was awkward that he had agreed to carpool with him today of all days.
Sitting in the front seat, with Shayne right next to him, he turned and faced his best friend, and said, quietly, "I can hear everybody's thoughts, and it's fucking AWFUL."
At first, Shayne's eyebrow furrowed and he looked like he was questioning it, but after a minute, it seemed to click in his head and color started to pool in his cheeks. "S... So you know about what I had asked Courtney and Aisha to do?" His voice was small and far away, almost matching the tone and quality of Damien's.
"Yeah, and... I appreciate it and all, but-"
"God, I knew I shouldn't have tried doing that. It was a dumb idea, I'm really sorry-"
Damien looked at him, and hearing him all flustered and embarrassed was cute as hell. "Don't be. The only reason that I'm being weird is because I have no idea what caused this. And I wasn't expecting it, and I didn't want to ruin your plan, or make things weird in front of Aisha."
"Okay, but why would you not want to ruin my plan? I was just going to fuck up our 8 years of friendship, nothing much-"
"Because I like you too, you dingus."
"Just PLOP, down the drai-Wait. Really?"
Damien nodded, reaching to grab Shayne's hand that was sitting on the center console. Their fingers interlaced, and for the first time in the day, Damien didn't feel like he needed to avoid hearing Shayne's thoughts.