xp_logs | Kitty and Manuel

Backdated to the 23rd. Manuel is not doing so well, and in another sense, is doing just fine.

Manuel shuffled down the hallway, heading from the wing of the Mansion where his room was down to the Kitchen. He looked out of it, but he often looked out of it before his morning caffeine shot. Bleary eyes, less-than-perfect hair, and oddly enough, long sleeves.

In August.

Kitty was coming out of the kitchen, a plate with a sandwich and some veggies blanaced on one hand, a book open in the other, reading as she walked, phased out so she wouldn't bump into anything. Anyone was another matter, as she almost always paid enough attention to not go through anyone. People got weird about that. So the flicker of motion coming down the hallway caught her eye and she looked up. "Cripes, Manuel, forgive me for saying it, but you look awful. Anything I can do?"

Manuel blinked a few times, then started as if he'd just seen her. "GAH! Don't startle me like that! No, I'm OK. Just going to go get some breakfast. Yeah. Breakfast." His accent was slipping - away from the slightly old-money New England-sounding accent he normally had when speaking English in favor of the lisp of his Castillian. "Good morning..." he said, and then paused for a long moment. "Katherine!"

Kitty oughtright stared. "Ohhhkay..." she said slowly. "Somehow, I'm not buying the 'you're ok' line. Want me to make you anything? I do a mean pancake."

Manuel stopped to process that for a few moment. "I like pancakes," he said, but more as a question than a statement. "Sure. Will there be coffee?" he asked, obediently walking towards the kitchen. He stopped after a few steps, thought about something, and then took his shades out of his breast pocket and slipped them onto his face.

"Coffee is doable, sure." Kit phased back in as they entered the kitchen, setting her sandwich on the counter. There was still some coffee left in the pot, miraculously, so she poured it out for him. "Take a seat," she said, putting the cup on the table. "You sure you're ok?"

"Yeah," he said after a long moment. "Not about me," he muttered. "Got a lot on my mind," he said after another long couple of moments. "Coffee!" he said, having apparently just spotted the cup. He grabbed it and drank from it greedily, not putting the mug down until it was empty. "More, please?" he said, his Castillian lisp coming out in force.

Seeing the look he had given the cup when he recognized it, Kitty had already started grinding beans before he asked. "Yep. Let me just..." She swapped out the filter and collected his cup, putting it under the drip as she turned the machine on. "You want to talk about it, what ever it is? And do you want blueberries in your pancakes?"

"Lot of stuff in the air tonight. Gotta keep it out," he said absently as he thought about her request. "Yes, please," he said after a few long moments. "Do I sound cranky to you? Angry?" he asked her suddenly, in a rush, while scratching at his forearms through the material of his shirt.

The coffee cup full, Kitty swapped it for the pot and only lost a few drops before the pot was safely in place. She brought him the cup and shrugged. "Not... angry, really. Wouldn't even say cranky. Just majorly, majorly out of it." A quick rummage through the fridge brought out the blueberries she'd seen earlier, as well as the other ingredients, and she started to mix them together. "Is there a lot of anger in the air? I guess I can imagine that, whatwith everything that happened this weekend."

"Yeah," he said, ignoring the cup until his brain finally told him it was there. "Thanks," he said, and then drank the entire thing straight off. "I get a lot of happy in with my anger. Little baby anger, frustrated at a world she doesn't understand," he said with just the hint of anger in his voice. He then stopped doing anything for a minute or so before his vision swam back into focus. "But it's not about me. She needs me."

"That was almost entirely incoherent," Kitty said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Rachel needs you?" she asked, latching onto the bit she had understood. "What for?" The mix completed, she pulled out a pan and set it on the fire to heat before going to refil his coffee cup.

Manuel thought about that for a second. "Not Rachel. Not touching Rachel. Promised," he said, letting a new thought percolate across his overworked brain. "Amanda," he pronounced when the thought finally landed home. "I'm blocking everyone. I can do it!"

The key, Kitty decided as she poured out the first pancake, was to figure out which thread of thought he was dealing with at the moment, and then most of what he was saying started to make something like sense. "Well, congratulations, then," she said. That seemed safe enough. Watching the bubbles form in the batter, Kitty gave thanks once again for not being born psi.

Manuel smiled at that, the smile of the terminally brain-sick or of the complete innocent. "Me in here, them out there. Can do it. Takes a lot. Probably sound really dumb. Not dumb. Focused," he said haltingly.

"You don't sound dumb," she assured him as she flipped the first pancake onto a plate and laddled out some more batter. "Terminally distracted, maybe, but not dumb." And that was a scary thought, that to actually have full shields he had to distract him to such a point that he'd probably walk into traiffic if there wasn't someone there to stop him.

Manuel was shielding with every last scrap of his concentration and focus, so he entirely missed where Kitty's emotions just went. "Proving a point. That I can block it all out, not interfere, not let myself feel it. It's hard," he said, belaboring the obvious. "Pancakes!" he said, as his overtaxed brain finally noticed them. One hand went for the fork, to start cutting and eating. The other was spent scratching the forearm of his fork-holding hand.

"Let me know if you want more," Kitty offered. She'd shut off the heat when she finished the stack and brought them over, but it wouldn't take long to heat it up again if needed. In the meantime, though, she snagged the coffee pot and refilled his cup for him, hesitating over the question forming in her mind. "Um, Mannuel? Feel free to tell me to buzz off, but what's wrong with your arm?"

"Gotta need," he said, scratching at his arm. "Running way low. Can't fill up," he said, still scratching his forearm as he ate. Once the pancakes were gone, he put his fork down and then realized, at last, what he was doing to his forearms. He then put his hands underneath his thighs in an attempt to stop himself from scratching.

"Er... any chance it's something I can help with?" Somehow, given the tone that had come out in, she was guessing not. Kitty couldn't think what it was that Manuel might need, though.

Manuel looked at Kitty, really _looked_ at her, then shook his head. "Nope," he said with a shrug and just a hint of his more usual accent coming out. "Thanks for breakfast. Gotta go. Meditate. Calm the mind. Maybe actually think a little," he said, standing up from his seat in the kitchen. "Thanks. Amanda hates it when I get like this."

"Okay," Kitty said, trying not to look so worried. He seemed more present all of a sudden, and that was good. "Hope the meditation works, and let me know if you do need anything? I don't mind."