xp_logs | Nathan and Manuel, Wednesday

Manuel's worries about his training are complicated by the addition of a new element. Or should that be an old one?

Manuel walked into the lecture hall, expecting Charles to meet him there for another gruelling session of Self-Discovery 101. Instead, he got Nathan. "I'm sorry, do I have the wrong room?" he said. "I was supposed to meet Professor Xavier here for a therapy session." he said, letting his voice trail off. He was sure he had the right time and the right room. Positive of it. So why was Nathan there?

Nathan looked up from the paper he was reading - a late essay from the international relations course - and raised an eyebrow at Manuel, smiling a little. "You've been set up," he said easily. "You're here to see me."

"I am?" he said, his heart sinking. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would I need to talk to -you-? You're no empath." he said with a sigh. He had a vast dislike of being made to feel foolish, and right now he was fighting it with everything he had. "Is this some kind of joke? Is Jamie hiding behind a corner somewhere with a camera?"

Nathan tucked the paper back into the file folder, clicking the pen so that it retracted. "Why are you so paranoid? Charles, I think, just wanted to circumvent any preemptive howling on your part."

"I'm not paranoid!" he said, and then realized that he was almost shouting and took a moment to get himself under control. "I am not paranoid." he said, in a more normal tone of voice. "But my sessions with Charles are rather ... private, and sometimes they get intense. Yesterday he managed to stop me from drowning all of you in what I was feeling at the time."

"Well, you're not here for therapy," Nathan said matter-of-factly. "I'm neither qualified, nor, suffice to say, particularly inclined. I think I did quite enough of my amateurish best to mess with your psyche back in the summer."

"Then why are you here?" he asked, finally getting his emotional feet back underneath him. The effort cost him, and he looked a little shaky. "I took all my finals from you. Did fairly well at them, I think."

"Charles asked me to assist with your empathy training," Nathan said, deliberately - if lightly - stressing the word 'assist'. He was not having Manuel bring up the whole nonsense of being indebted for teaching again. "I agreed. He wants us to have a little chat before we begin, to make sure we're both on the same page here as to what we're doing and what it's meant to accomplish." As he spoke, he was unwinding his empathic defense, slowly and deliberately, so that Manuel could see the lack of fear, or indeed, of anxiety. There was maybe a little surprise rattling around in his head, about that, and about how right it felt to be going along with the Professor's suggestion.

"We've been down this road before." Manuel said with a heavy sigh. "Do we really want to do it again?"

"The road looks a little different than it did the last time," Nathan said, gesturing at a seat. "Sit down. I hate having conversations with standing people."

Manuel flopped bonelessly into a chair. "How, precisely, do you plan on assisting me with my empathic training? Since it turned out so well last time." he said nastily. He didn't dare hope that this could succeed, not after last time.

"I'm your new practice subject."

Manuel couldn't help it. He laughed. "You have got to be kidding." he said, and then took a look inside Nathan's suddenly no-longer-there shields. "You're not kidding. Why would you do this?"

"It actually surprised me," Nathan said, slouching in the chair and trying not to wince as his back protested. He maybe needed to be wearing the brace a bit more than he was lately. "How many reasons there are to do it."

He raised a hand, ticking them off as he spoke. "Firstly, I'm not afraid of you, or other empaths or telepaths in general anymore. This is probably partially due to the intensive therapy, partially to how much better trained I am than I was nine months ago. Secondly, the training I've had would enable me to recover a lot faster from serving as your guinea pig. The patterns in my mind are getting to the point where they're ingrained, so they'll reassert themselves speedily."

Manuel looked like he was listening. This was good. "Thirdly," Nathan went on, "I can reproduce the empathic defense in a portion of my mind. Wall off a piece, and thereby act as my own spotter."

Manuel looked highly dubious. "Show me." he demanded.

Time to put his money where his mouth was, then. Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in, then out, and only then reweaving the spiral-patterns in a corner of his mind. Rather an odd feeling, although Charles had checked him out and claimed that it was just as effective as it was on a bigger scale.

"There," he said, opening his eyes again. "Have at it - although kindly limit yourself to something positive, all right? If I wind up on the floor I'm going to be cross with you, and that's not a good way to begin this."

Manuel rolled his eyes at Nathan. Hrm, let's see now. Something positive. As Charles had just been showing him, he did not do well with positive. Negative was quicker, easier, more seductive. Tenatively, he reached out and gave Nathan satisfaction. Not too much - he didn't want the big man to be truly insufferable - but just enough to test this so-called partition of his. It was more of a struggle than he was expecting.

It was definitely a weird feeling. He could feel the steady rush of satisfaction, which was not at all unpleasant, really, but there was a part of him that was... well, distinctly apart, regarding the whole thing rather coolly. Assessing, still. "Hmm," he said, watching Manuel and letting that part of him be what spoke up. "You know, I take it back; try something negative if you want. You're going to have to experiment with that anyway, and we might as well see if the partition holds."

Manuel stopped the satisfaction-weave and then nodded. "Fair enough." he said, and then went for fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. The kind of fear paranoids feel at the unknown. The sort of fear that makes brave men break and sends lesser souls crashing into mental illness. A very satisfying sort of fear.

Again, that bizarre dichotomy. Nathan could feel sweat standing out on his forehead, knew that his hands were shaking... but part of him stood back and watched, calm and collected, even pleased. Because the partition was definitely holding.

Manuel watched Nathan with absolute horror and amazement. Sure, the fear was taking effect - he could see that - but there was this section that was beyond its reach, like it wasn't even there. A hole in his mind, of a sort, that the fear would not bridge. "Do you have any idea how disturbing this looks?" he asked with amazement.

"Not r-really. But I think that's enough." The fear was no longer pushing at him, and Nathan breathed out rather more shakily, concentrating. He could sense Charles watching, just to keep an eye on things, but... no, he wasn't going to need help. He unwound the defense, relaxing a little as the sense of tension faded, and ran over a few of the meditative patterns until his thoughts started to reorient themselves.

A little too much adrenaline in his system, still. He was going to have a headache, he suspected.

Manuel let his weave die, and then stared at Nathan. "You should be catatonic by now. A quivering ball of jelly. I don't understand." he said petulantly. He was truly not used to being thwarted.

Breathe. In and out. And with every breath, his thoughts - and emotions - settled further, back into their proper patterns. "I told you," he said, much more calmly, and looked down at his hands. Still a little unsteady. "A lot's changed in the last nine months. But take a good look, Manuel... see what I meant about how much faster I'd recover?"

Manuel had to acknowledge the truth of what he was seeing. "I do." he admitted. "I don't understand it, and I don't like it, but I have to admit it's real. Is this something the Askani taught you?"

Nathan nodded. "Not specifically to use it with you," he explained. "But in general, yes. There's more than shielding to defense, at least for a telepath, and restructuring my mind like this has been very healthy for me. I'm tougher than I used to be, mentally. On all levels, now."

Manuel sighed. "Good for you." he said. "I'm stuck in the same rut all over again. My shielding is better, because I practice it constantly with Charles's help. But on projection, I've made no progress whatsoever."

"Which is why I'm here. To help with that." Nathan regarded Manuel steadily. "I'm playing a role here, Manuel, assisting Charles. This is not me taking over responsibility for your training. Charles very specifically asked me to help you practice projection - to handle the practical side of that, while he continues to try and hammer ethics into your head."

Manuel looked at Nathan askance. "I'm still skeptical." he said. "But I'm also desperate, so I agree." he said. "I humiliated myself for you once, I can do it again."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "Right," he said sardonically. "Ask me if I care if you're skeptical, Manuel? I have a minimal emotional investment, here..." Best to be honest. He couldn't deny it completely. "I always felt I left things unfinished with you - through no fault of my own! - and Charles pointed that out while we were talking. But at this point," he said crisply, "that's the sum of it. I'm not here to fix you, or turn you into a good human being."

"So you're only here because it benefits you?" he said, and then wondered why he felt so hurt inside. "Well, at least we're being honest. I don't want to spend the rest of my life dampened or in the Box or drooling while I count on my fingers. I want to learn both sides of my power."

"Well, no," Nathan said frankly. "Honestly, I think you've made quite a bit of progress since last summer, too. You are however in a bit of a rut, like you said. And since this is something I can do..." He shrugged. "In that sense I'm working from something of the same motivation. I started things with you last summer because I was in the position to be able to do it." He smiled briefly. "I just didn't do it very well."

"I am not, as Marie-Ange would say, in a good place. Charles has been a wonderful instructor, if a hard one. But I need this. I cannot afford for you to go and break your brain or flake out on me in some way. I've trusted you once, and now I have no choice but to do it again. And that hurts."

Nathan arched an eyebrow. "If you expect me to apologize for events beyond my control - well, I am sorry, actually." The sarcastic edge was gone from his voice completely at this point. "I couldn't have done much to change anything that happened in August, but I certainly do regret that your training was part of the collateral damage. The only thing I'd take exception to," Nathan said, a bit more dryly, "is the idea that you ever actually trusted me."

Manuel stood up in a flash. "I showed up every day to train! I did whatever you asked me to! I put up with a lot of CRAP for you, and now you belittle it? You mock it?" He was just about to do something really stupid and drastic when he suddenly relaxed and sat back down. "Fine, fine." he said, clearly having a conversation in his head and having to vocalize it through rather than just thinking the words.

"There's one other thing," Nathan said, not reacting to the flash of anger. "It's going to be me doing this, Manuel. Not the Askani. Galin, Lusanya, Evaris... they have nothing to do with what we're going to be doing." No more acting as the passive channel, or the psi-energy battery, for them to do their thing.

Besides. At this point, he was as much an Askani as they were. And they'd been the ones to point that out.

"Why?" Manuel said, clearly emotionally off-balance and reeling. "I mean, if that's how it has to be, then fine. I was just ... curious."

"Because we don't need them," Nathan said simply. "Not for this. Charles is the one teaching you theory and mindset now, not them. All that I need to know to uphold my part of this, I've already learned. As you just saw."

Manuel nodded. Another blow to him, then. He was going to miss Lusanya. "It's your decision." he said simply. "I'm ... not feeling well. If you will excuse me..." he said, standing up slowly.

"Manuel... that doesn't mean you're not going to see them," Nathan said, realizing suddenly what the problem was. "They're as free to visit you as they ever were. Whenever they or you want."

Manuel looked at Nathan, and the look was heartbreaking. "Of course." he said, clearly not believing a word of it. He headed for the door, both hands clasped over his stomach. He had clearly intended for it to be a stately retreat, but that didn't last too long. He broke into a run before he got four steps away, and dashed through the doorway and into the men's room on this floor.