Five Things Deanna Troi Pretends She Can't Sense

Title: Five Things Deanna Troi Pretends She Can't Sense
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: FR-13
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Notes: Not mine. Spoilers for the series. Requested by beatrice_otter.

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Five Things Deanna Troi Pretends She Can't Sense

1)

No matter how careful humans are to minimize their tells, they can't suppress the flare of emotion that occurs when they draw a new card or evaluate the state of their hand. There's no such thing as a poker face when playing poker with an empath. She'd be doing a poor job as a counselor and a friend if she let it affect her play, however, so she pretends not to notice.

2)

Ever since she grew old enough to recognize the feel of sexual interest in another being's mind, she's grown used to it intruding on a significant portion of her interactions with men, and some women as well. It's a natural biological reaction; she shunts it aside and continues as though it had not happened. Otherwise, she'd have difficulty looking the rest of the command staff in the eye every time she changes uniform styles.

3)

For months after Beverly's brief relationship with the Trill ambassador, Odan, the doctor has trouble keeping her eyes off of Commander Riker. Deanna considers bringing it up more than once, out of both professional and personal concerns, but ultimately decides she isn't the best person to do so. She doesn't want Beverly to think she's at all jealous, because she isn't. Jealous, that is. She and Will had both agreed that they are completely free to see other people, after all!

4)

Ever since his stint as a powerless human aboard the Enterprise, Q's emotions have been slightly transparent to Deanna. She keeps silent about this, however, as she doubts very much that the Captain wants to know what the entity is really feeling every time he shows up to annoy his favorite representative of the species.

and... 5)

Her mother. Whenever she can get away with it.

~