xp_logs | LOG: Manuel and Dani

Manuel buries Frank and does a little housecleaning as a form of coping. Danielle keeps him company.

When Danielle hadn't found Manuel in his room, she headed outside. Usually that would have seemed odd, but she figured he'd want to get away from everyone's emotions and be alone. Being outside would generally be the place to look then. And he had posted about the rose garden.

Unsurprisingly, he was there with a shoebox and a small shovel. Dani sat on the ground a few feet away, obviously there for him both in body language and emotionally, but letting him make the first move - if there was going to be one. Grieving was a very individual process.

Manuel had almost got his makeshift grave deep enough. He'd given himself a blister on one hand, but at this point he could barely even feel it. Behind his eyes, behind the tears, a single set of images kept replaying themselves over and over again. Amanda, begging off about being tired, about not being in the mood, about needing her space, needing time to sort herself out. The next set was her with Remy - what she felt, the desperate want in her, the fulfillment and enjoyment she took from it. All the things he'd wanted to give her, offered to her freely, and spurned. It was so obvious in hindsight, but no - he had to go with the gallant reflex, with a desire to do well by her. Well, along with the lizard, he was burying that part of himself today.

As Manuel carefully placed the shoebox in the grave, Dani murmured a prayer for both Frank the lizard and for Manuel. It was not much, perhaps, but it was what she could do. Curiously, she wondered what the two trash bags were for that were set off to one side, but she assumed that maybe they had been left there by someone else.

Manuel straightened up slowly, filling in the grave as best he could. He'd need to find a suitable marker to commemmorate it, but for now he'd always have the location burned into his memory. Turning around to pick up the trashbags to finish the second part of his grieving, he saw Danielle standing a respectful distance back. She'd even worn black - a suitable touch, he thought with black humor. "Danielle." he said, voice rough, eyes hidden behind his mirrorshades. He too was wearing black from head to toe. "Come with me." he told her.

Silently, she followed him in a procession of sorts over towards a small firepit that they had used for the pool party back in the summer. Even if he was not ready for words of comfort, he was ready for physical presence. And that was enough.

Manuel smiled thinly at the firepit. Perfect. Opening one bag, he motioned Danielle closer. "You of all people might appreciate this." he said, and then pulled a shirt out of the bag. His Spanish Flag clubbing shirt - the mate to Amanda's Union Jack one. He threw the shirt into the pit, and then pulled out lighter fluid and a lighter - a cheap plastic one, one of Amanda's naturally.

"Fire destroys...and cleanses," Dani said softly, understanding. "It allows for rebirth as well."

Manuel nodded. "Got the idea from one of those Psych books Leonard keeps pushing at me." he said with bleak amusement. He got the fire going using liberal amounts of lighter fluid, the lighter itself, and his shirt as a starter. "So much for that, huh?" he said, as he began to empty the bag into the firepit. Shirts, knick-knacks, papers, CDs - a small mountain of debris that one accumulates when one is into someone else and trying to share their hobbies and their interests. Well, he was done with that, too.

Danielle shrugged, noncommittal. "Coyote also stole the fire so that we could live," she commented, trying to caution him about destroying himself in the process.

Manuel sneered at that. "Loki was a Frost Giant." he countered, just as obliquely. He stared into the flames, at the things he'd purchased to better understand Amanda, to become closer to her, and longed for absolution. It wasn't coming, but the enormity of it all almost drove him to his knees. He'd invested too much in her. Too many hopes, too many hopes for the future. He'd let himself love, even if he was shit about expressing it like everyone else did. Despite everything, she'd never understood. Not truly. He wondered if anyone did. Danielle there didn't. Nobody did. He wasn't sure, he thought in a bleak moment, if _he_ did. The only one he'd ever received unconditional understanding from was a fucking Norse God. Charles wanted to change him, mold him, channel him into "safe" and "productive" directions.

"So that's it then?" she asked in disbelief, "You're just going to stop feeling? Stop living?" This was something she had almost done and had not expected it from him. He was so much stronger than that, even if he didn't think he was.

"If you listen to her, I never actually started." he said sadly. He did finally drop to his knees now, losing control over his body as his mind whirled in circles, circling Amanda's betrayal and Frank's death and his own lifedrain like a ship in a death-spiral around an event horizon. "What have I done?" he asked rhetorically. "It hurts..."

Dani cradled him, stroking his hair and back, "I ain't at her door, I'm here, ain't I? And she's wrong, you know. You live, you love. You ain't done nothing to deserve this pain," She rocked gently, letting him grieve.

Manuel shook his pain. "I let it happen." he said, on the verge of losing it completely. In front of him, unseen, the fire burned merrily, fueled on his dreams and hopes and fears.

"You did everything she wanted. You you ain't all-knowing...you're human. We were given free will and that comes with a price. She made her own choices, whether you like them or not." Dani wasn't trying to villify Amanda, but whether regardless of her opinion of the situation, Manuel saw her as one. It would be a long time, if ever, that he would see her any differently.

"I don't blame her. Much." he said. "I blame me. I let all this happen. I could have fixed it, changed, tried harder, done better..." he said, almost huddling into himself. "I was so sure I knew what the score was."

"You mean changed her emotions for her," the idea that someone could change a persons mind or their emotions, anything like that made her uneasy, even as her own powers skated dangerously close to that edge, "Free will Manuel. You have it too. And you respect that in others because you so desperately want it in yourself. It's there, you don't need to find it."

"Free will? Since when have I had free will? Raised to be the next de la Rocha, then discarded, tossed aside, picked up, made into a mindbreaker, a weapon, and then discarded again, to be picked up here, expected to conform, go along, fit in, become just another man." he said. "Then I went to another place, another world. He chipped away the chaff, like a sculptor with a block of marble. Chip away what isn't the statue, and when you're done only what you want will remain."

Dani shook her head trying to explain, "Ain't what I meant. You have the choice now. You didn't then for many reasons. Now you choose who and what you want to be. You may not like your options, but they are there. Fire cleanses for rebirth, you have to decide what it is cleansing in your soul and what will emerge."

Manuel shrugged. "If you say so." he said. "There's a strong bias towards becoming a certain type of person here. And I'm not sure if that is me or not." he admitted. But he did straighten up to watch the fire burn. "I am free." he said, staring into the flickering flames. "Free from obligation, free from the shackles of what she wanted me to be."

Danielle nodded, resting her head on his shoulder and watching the flames. There was a bias towards an idealistic person and that wasn't entirely her either, but it challenged her to do things she'd never tried before. It didn't seem that long ago that long ago that she was watching her grandfather's funeral pyre burn like this one.

Manuel watched the flames for a time longer, and then draped an arm over Danielle. "This will burn for a while." he said. "And burning plastic smells horrid. I think I need a drink. Join me?" he asked, sounding much closer to his normal self. "Marie-Ange seems to think I'm going to go to Amanda's room and smite her down. I don't think I will. Not my style at all."

"Smiting isn't you, no," Dani agreed, getting to her feet and making little patting mostions to get the dirt and grass off her bottom, "Drinks can be done. Anything in particular you want?"

"Alcoholic would be perfect, but that's not going to happen. Something with grape juice?" he said. Danielle looked good in black, he decided. She'd look even better naked, and now he didn't have the little voice in his head warning him about how Amanda would react. Hell, at this point it'd almost be justice. "I think you missed a spot." he said, brushing some nonexistant dirt off her bottom. "There. Think I got it."

Making a face at the mention of alcohol, Dani tried to remember what grape juice related drinks they had an only came up with the obvious. "Grape juice is in the kitchen, you hungry too?"

Manuel grinned. He was, but not for what she thought. "Bring it up to my room?" he said. "I'm not quite up for being quite that social."