When Terry walked through Ghoul's bedroom door he wasn't expecting anything, certainly not the goth teen leaning back in his chair with a hand over his mouth as he stared at his computer screen. Terry walked over to him and Ghoul jumped, then groaned and exited out of whatever he'd been looking at. Terry looked at the slightly ill-looking teen curiously.
"Dude, what's gotten your hat in a twist? You look like you walked in on your parents at the wrong moment" Ghoul held up a bony finger, smirking slightly. "One, I don't know where my hat is, so how can I get it in a twist, two, I saw my parents several times. They might as well be porn stars. What I was looking at was quite a bit worse" Terry paused, decided to let the comment about Ghoul's parents slide, and focused on the last bit. "What's worse than porn star parents?" Ghoul shook his head, and it took several minutes of wheedling for Terry to finally get him to talk about it. ("Come on, it'll make you feel better" "It'll make me feel better like a frying pan to the head will make me feel better" "I'll get Max to hack your system and get your history if you don't show me now" "…I hate you")
Ghoul popped up another window and rapidly typed in key words, going faster than Terry thought possible as he began talking. "You know how people like talking about 'what-if' situations with book, movie, or video game characters sometimes? Well, there's a very devout group who write and draw fanfiction and fanart about the whole 'what-if' concept. I recently found that they do it to super-heroes and costumed villains, too" He clicked on a link that read ' ' and sat back, moving out of the way for Terry to look.
"…Oh, my god" there were pictures of many people Terry recognized and knew personally, and several he didn't. Most of the pictures had acts of some sort of romance, or friendship, a few were fighting scenes. (He greatly liked the idea of Kai Ro fighting the Dee Dees, it was an interesting concept) There were stories, with pairing names in the titles, or who it was about, and a lot of it was good, clean, and rather innocent. The stuff that wasn't though…. "People sure like tying you up, don't they?" Ghoul covered his face with one hand. "I think I need to go public about Crane being related to me, because look at how many people actually ship a time-stranded me with him. So gross. And I don't think I've ever met Warhawk, and I can't say anything about Batman knowing him, so yea…"
Terry was starting to see how this could be taken worse than parents in interesting situations, though he felt that at this moment, his situation was a little worse than Ghoul's, since he couldn't talk about the pairings he, as Batman, was being portrayed in in these things. "Big Barda and Batman are interesting" Rex would kill him if he saw that one, he was pretty sure of it. Terry had been doing pretty good at avoiding actually looking too closely at the slash till Ghoul moaned and double clicked on one picture, making it bigger. It was Ghoul and Batman, embracing and kissing, while fighting off the T gang, with a bunch of cheering kids in the background. It was Terry's turn to put a hand over his mouth as Ghoul's head met desk. Terry reached over and got out of the picture, and clicked on a safer one. Warhawk and a time displaced young Supergirl. That was kind of cute, and anatomy was pretty good. He coughed and nudged Ghoul with his knee, to get his attention. That was about all the contact he could do right now, without that picture popping into his head. Eww…
"Thought you were bi, doesn't that mean you like guys, too?" It took a little while for Ghoul to respond, and he sat up and smoothed back his hair, sighing. "Guys are fine, they are. But I've always tried staying away from masked or costumed guys" He rolled his eyes at the clueless expression of Terry and continued. "I don't want to end up like Crane, so obsessed with a hero he's never seen under the mask of, to the point of attacking the object of his affections. That scares me, okay?" He shrugged. Terry blinked, a bit speechless. "Uh, you ever told-" Ghoul shook his head. "Nope, just you. And if you remind me how stupid that was, or if you tell anyone, I really will become Hannibal the Cannibal and set Hell on your ass, since my family has connections, and I have connections, and you really don't want me actually utilizing all of it" Despite himself, Terry gulped and crossed his heart. Ghoul threw his head back and cackled, which made the hair on the back of Terry's neck raise. That sound coming out of the blonde's mouth wasn't sane.
"You okay?" Ghoul shrugged, having lapsed into snickering. "No idea. Probably not. I'm finding I really don't care, though. I don't really have an interest in anyone, odd as it sounds, and I can't leave my room, so growing insanity is a welcome distraction to the insufferable boredom" Terry fished his phone out of his pocket and turned it on, scrolling through names as Ghoul rolled his eyes. "What, calling Arkham on me?" Terry pressed a button and Ghoul's tab with his e-mail on it blipped, showing one new message. Ghoul went to the computer and opened it as Terry slipped his phone back into his pocket. Ghoul opened it, and then looked back at Terry, blinking. Terry smiled a little and scratched the back of his head. "Um…this is a little weird, but Max calls me a lady-killer" Ghoul snorted. "Wonder where she gets that idea" He muttered, too low for Terry to hear. What, was the raven haired young man that clueless to what he looked like? Lady killer was a fitting description. Terry hesitated, and then continued. "Anyway, these are some of the girls I dated, or just know who would probably like you. The most likely is a girl named Melanie Walker she-" "Is the former Ten for the Royal Flush Gang, I know. When some Jokerz ransomed her family, don't know the outcome of that one, by the way, she went to me and Terminal for information" He paused. "She threw me through a window. I like them feisty, but not that hot"
"…I don't remember Melanie being that assertive. Maybe she was just ticked that her family had been kidnapped and you said something to really get her angry?" Ghoul nodded, conceding the point. He tended to do that sort of thing. "I don't know if she'd like to hear from me anyway, but you know, whatever" Terry pointed at another name and phone number. "She's from my school, her dad's a business-man, and is pretty cool. I did an assignment with her and Dana once, some weird stuff happened, but it turned out okay, though her house was swallowed up in a freak sink-hole and she moved. Gets great grades" Ghoul rubbed his chin for a moment then typed in Jackie Wallace, Hamilton High, and smiled slightly at the picture on the high-school's sports page. "Sporty, well-liked, and I've always had a thing for red-heads" Terry smirked and tapped the screen, over the tab for Ghoul's e-mail. "Call her, then. Or, I can bring her next time if you'd prefer" Ghoul smirked and shook his head. "Was this your plan, or Max and Dana's?" Terry had a studiously innocent expression. "You really think I'd be this sneaky?" Ghoul snorted. "No, I was just being nice, adding you in the options. My guess is it was Dana"
Well, that stung a little, though Terry supposed it was better Ghoul thought he was fairly unintelligent, or whatever passed for that in Ghoul's head, because he'd stopped treating Terry like he was downright stupid to an extent. Better to be an idiot in the eyes of a coming unhinged gothic teen than a candidate for Batman. "By the way, how did you get my e-mail?" That brought Terry out of his thoughts, though it took a second to realize the tone wasn't accusatory, just amused. "Well, Max. She gave it to me" Ghoul spun around in his chair, grinning widely. "Oh, good. Another hacking war. The truce is over!" Terry blinked as Ghoul fist pumped the air and propelled himself around his room. "You really were bored, weren't you?" "Yes, and team-ups with Batman helped a little, as did your brother, interesting twip, isn't he? But nothing compares to hacking wars, and Terminal stopped waging them against me, sore loser" Terry rolled his eyes.
"So, what's the score?" Ghoul grinned. "Me, six. Max, five. And then we had a truce, no going into personal files on each other's computers. However, I count my e-mail personal. Think most people do. So it is on!" Terry snorted and pointed at the door, waiting till Ghoul caught sight of him again. The blond paused, thought, and nodded. "Yea, a little early, but it's about the time you usually go. Which is fine, I'll be busy dealing with Maxine. He flexed his hands, fingers hyper-extending and cracking. Terry winced. "You going to sleep at all?" Ghoul propelled himself to his computer, waving a hand dismissively. "Probably will drop off for an hour, its fine. Later, Terry" Terry sighed and walked out the door, a little more amused and worried than he had been walking through it.
Ghoul trusted him more, was that a good thing, or a bad thing?
