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Chicago (Stage Version) - Amos & Mary Sunshine - Tourette's Syndrome Awareness Month Prompt 2 : Motor Tics

Prompt : Write a fic about a character with motor tics Headcanon : Amos has motor tics, Autistic!Amos Author's note : Mary Sunshine's character was based on the real-life reporter who wrote the original play it was based on partially out of guilt for platforming people like Roxie, so I'm just running with the idea that Mary knew Roxie wasn't as innocent as she presented herself to be

Mary and Amos had met immediately after Roxie's trial, once the chaos from the outside murder had died down. Mary, now off the clock, saw the man sulking outside the courthouse and felt a bit of sympathy. Deep down, she knew that Roxie wasn't being 100% truthful in her trial. All of the signs were there.

Amos never seemed like the horrible slob Roxie had framed him as in the court. Of course, Mary also understood that people could be two-faced. It'd be hypocritical to question the legitimacy of Roxie's story but take Amos at face value. Maybe he was a really shitty person behind closed doors and Roxie was right to present him as such.

But he just didn't strike Mary as that good of an actor.

So, she approached him and asked if he wanted to go get dinner with her. Having nothing better to do now that he was alone, he agreed and they promptly made their way to the closest bar, ordered the cheapest appetizers they had, and got to talking.

It took Mary Sunshine a moment to turn off the journalist part of her brain and just listen to his ramblings but, once she did, she found herself fascinated by the way his brain worked, drifting regularly from the trial to his job as a mechanic to what he had for dinner the previous day to the trial again.

He seemed relieved to talk so openly, and that just made Mary more suspicious of the picture that Roxie had painted for the jury. If Amos was really so heartless and sloppy, why was he being so polite and why did it seem like he hadn't been able to talk so freely in years?

Eventually, Mary began to pick up on these little motions he was doing. She didn't notice it at first but sometimes he would blink rapidly and then his eyes would dart to the side or his neck would jerk or his hand would shoot up. She'd been so enraptured in hearing the man speak that she didn't even notice these at first.

When she did notice, though, she couldn't help but ask. "What's with all the little movements?"

"And then he... What?"

"Like the..." Mary trailed off awkwardly, unsure of how to word it. She poorly mimicked the motions and Amos went rigid. "It's not a bad thing, dearie" she backtracked. "I'm just curious"

"I'm sorry" Amos swallowed thickly, his gaze fixed on the table rather than on the woman across from him. The motions ceased, though the sudden tenseness in his jaw made it seem like ceasing them was uncomfortable, even painful, for him. Mary raised her hand off the table to reach for his and assure him that it was okay, but the flinch and the brief increase of the rate of breathing made her falter.

This was definitely not the douchebag that Roxie described.

"I'm not gonna hurt you" she assured him, and he cautiously opened an eye, expecting to get that same, disgusted look Roxie would always give him whenever he twitched too much, but he was met with only a kind smile and concerned eyes. "I didn't mean to freak you out like that... I'm sorry"

"Why are you being so nice?"

Mary smiled. "Because you're a nice person" she told him simply. "I'm simply returning the favor"

"Oh"

"You don't have to hide the movements, by the way" she told him, noticing him closing his eyes tensely for a moment as he seemed to suppress a twitch. "And you don't have to explain them if you don't want to. I was just curious"

"I can't really control them" he admitted, hesitantly letting out a neck jerk and sighing in relief when Mary's kind expression stayed the same. "I mean, I can suppress them for a bit but it hurts" he elaborated. "They just... Happen"

"Fascinating"

"I guess"

...

"Now, about this coworker you were telling me about" Mary said, clapping her hands definitively. Amos' eyes lit up and that light didn't leave even when his hand involuntarily shot up again.

"Right!" he said a bit loudly with a big smile. "So, anyways, you would not believe what he did next..."

Do not repost on other sites! If you want to participate in this month's challenge, there are 15 Tourette's-centered prompts that you can find here