xp_logs | LOG: Manuel and Nathan - Taking Responsibility

Manuel, in an attempt to escape the unwelcome warm feelings in the Mansion, takes advantage of his 21-years-of-age status and gets stinking drunk. Upon his return, Nathan takes it upon himself to escort the young empath back up to his room. Manuel blabbers about what he's done wrong and tries to take responsibility for things that are arguably out of his control.

Manuel sat on the curb outside the front gate of the Mansion, eyeing the keypad entry system with great amusement. He'd had ... gosh, he'd lost count by now ... he'd had a _LOT_ to drink. Pretty pretty people with pretty pretty drinks, and nobody wanted to tell him how wonderful their boyfriends were or how much they hated having to go visit their mothers. And best of all, the drink dulled the hot-knife edge of a father's murder, still left unavenged by his disgraced son. If he drank enough, maybe he could forget that for a time. He still had a bottle of a half-decent red in his hand, and was taking pulls from it as he stared owlishly at the full moon.

#Sitting at the gate drinking is not particularly acceptable behavior.# The gate swung open behind him and Nathan stepped out, eyeing him critically. "Did it help?" he asked, aloud.

"Fuck off. I'm legal." he said, swinging the bottle at what vaguely might have been Nate's head - if Nate were a midget instead of the mountain he was. "Everything felt _good_ out there." he slurred. "Everybody wanted to be my friend."

The bottle removed itself from Manuel's grip, floating steadily in the air. "I'm terribly amused by this whole concept of suddenly becoming an adult when you pass a certain age." Nathan offered Manuel a hand. "Come on. You're not sitting out here."

"Yes I am!" he protested, only wobbling a bit. "I'm gonna sit RIGHT HERE so I don't PISS ON ANYONE'S GOOD FEELINGS!" he shouted back towards the Mansion, which stubbornly refused to respond. "They can keep all their warm fuzzy shit. I'm out here mourning! YEAH!"

"On your feet," Nathan said, and, reaching down, pulled Manuel to his feet, somewhat gently. "When you pass out, you're doing it inside."

Manuel tried to jerk himself out of Nathan's grasp - skin-to-skin contact always made everything sharper, and right now Manuel was feeling too much as it was. "Gotta keep it all inside." be blathered, making a rude gesture towards the Mansion. "Nobody gives a shit about me but the wine."

"If no one gave a shit about you, I'd have left you sitting out here," Nathan pointed out with perfect logic, steering him back through the gate.

"You're the poor fucker they saddle with Empath duty." he pointed out. "Since they can't have His Holiness Charles the First wheel his ass out here to do it, they send you. Anyone else would be my bitch." he said triumphantly. But he did stumble along towards the door, propelled by Nate's iron grip. "Why's it gotta be so hard?"

"Because," Nathan said flatly. "Easy is for people who aren't us."

"Fuck that. I want easy. I want not to be alone. I want to feel without wanting to scream. I want ... " he said, and then drunken slurred off into incomprehensibility. He also let his knees buckle and slump to the ground. "She took it all."

Nathan stood over him for a moment, silent. "She didn't," he finally said, quietly. "It just feels like that." He reached down and pulled Manuel back to his feet. "Don't make me carry you inside. It would be very embarassing in the morning."

"No, she did!" he protested. "I was giving her everything ... all the good when she cut the link off. I left it all behind, she took it. Now I've got nothin'. And the pain won't go away. Ever. And nobody cares."

Something snapped in Nathan, and he suddenly found himself holding Manuel up by the collar of his shirt, glaring down at the young man. "You're right," he snarled, his voice low but the anger in it nearly overwhelming. "It will never go away. You tried to do what was right, and she tore your mind apart, and you're almost right in that no one cares. A few of us do, but only because we understand. The vast majority of people in this school? Couldn't tell a psi-link from their own ass, and have no idea how horrible what she did is. Is that what you wanted me to tell you?"

Manuel gave Nathan his best grin - which in the state he was in wasn't very good. "Don't tell me you feel sorry for me!" he yelled, flailing ineffectually with his fists. The anger was soaking into him through his wine-soaked shields, infusing him with the same sort of cold rage. "I am not you! You got everybody pulling for you! I got nothin'!"

"And whose fault is that?" Nathan hissed at him. "Too little, too late, Manuel. The irony of this happening just when you start to see things clearly doesn't escape me, but you've got two choices. Go right back to being the damaging, damaged little bastard we know and hate, or WRITE HER OFF!" It came as a roar. "Accept that she fucked up, that it was about her and not you, and keep moving down the path she tried to kick you off!"

"I DID IT TO HER!" he screamed back, losing his shield entirely. He wasn't projecting, but what he had done was torn his heart open to feel everything. "I wasn't good enough! Strong enough! Kind enough! Everything she does from here out is _my_ fault!" he said, finally breaking down completely. "Because I'm worthless."

"Bullshit. Just, bullshit," Nathan said, more softly, no longer holding Manuel by the collar. The emotions coming from him weren't anything to do with pity, but something closer to compassion. "Yeah, you didn't help. But did you teach her how to drain the life out of people to fuel her magic? Did you take away her ability to tell right from wrong, to think about the consequences of her actions?"

"Depends on who you talk to." he muttered, finally starting to pull himself together and erect some shields to keep everyone else out. "After all, I'm the callous asshole, remember? I'm the one who just doesn't care."

"Don't take on the responsibility for her," Nathan said. "Take the responsibility for being a shit and fucking up your relationship, yes, although I will point out that it takes two to tango. If I'd had any sense I would never have fixed your damned link in the first place." That felt like an eternity ago, now.

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked. "I drove her out. Ask her, she'll tell you. Ask anyone." he said as the would inside his heart bled into the void once again. Talking about Amanda always made it throb, but this was like nothing he'd felt since the day she'd ripped the link out. "What kind of a man would do that to someone, anyway?"

"Do what?"

"Drive her away." he replied. "If I had given her what she wanted, if I had listened to my heart and not my ears, she'd still be here. With me."

"Do you know that? Or is it just a convenient possibility with which you can lacerate your soul some more?" Nathan asked sharply. "And if you'd ignored her wanting space, those last couple of months, are you really that sure it would have worked to keep her here?"

Manuel nodded. "Absolutely. I know it." he said. "I think Marie-Ange knows, too. She used to
give me looks when we'd go out for tea and biscuits."

Nathan said something brief and savage in Askani, then resumed steering Manuel towards the mansion. "You want to believe that it's wholly and completely your fault because you're the only target you can see," he said.

Manuel blinked owlishly at Nathan. "No speakee dead-chick." he said thickly. "I could have stopped it. Stopped her. Made everything right. But I did what she wanted me to do - that's what I told myself every day. Listen to her words, Manuelito, not her emotions. You have to listen to the -words-. That's what Leonard tells me almost every day."

"You could have stopped her. You could have changed her, changed her emotions... and would she still have been Amanda if you did that?" He gave the boy a little shake. "Think, damn it."

Manuel laughed at Nathan. "I'm waaay too drunk to think." he said proudly. "And given who Amanda is now, is that a bad thing to have killed her before she could be the monster she is going to be?"

Nathan stopped, frowning. Hyperbole? Something shifted at the back of his mind, a flicker of fire, and the perplexed moment faded. Time to get Manuel inside now. "You're drunk, and there is occasionally not truth in the wine. I know you don't actually mean that."

"The fuck I don't!" he said indigently. "Look who she is now, what she's done. Who she put at risk. What'd we get out of the deal, another enemy and a dick-with-legs that'll live to fuck someone half his age again." he griped.

Nathan stared at him.
Manuel wobbled a little bit, but did his manful best to return the stare. "I miss Lusanya." he told Nathan. "I miss her with every beat of my heart. I have NEVER needed her like I do now, and you ... you let her die. You fucker." he said, and then threw a wild punch.

Nathan caught his wrist, pushing the questions that Manuel's comment had provoked out of his mind. Drunken and combative young empath to deal with, first. "I did not let her die," he said, his voice tight. "You have no idea what's been going on with them."

"I don't care. She's not here anymore, and it's your fault!" he said, and took a swing with his other hand. He probably would have been more effective were it not for the tears in his eyes.

"You really want to hit me?" Nathan asked, stepping back out of range. "Is that actually going to make you feel better?"

"You're too good at blocking with your mind." he growled. "And someone has to pay."

Nathan shook his head. "Inside," he said curtly. "I'm not in the mood to be used as a punching bag."

"And I'm not in the mood for inside! Too fucking happy!"

"Well, you're not staying out here. Don't make me knock you out and carry you, because I will."

"You're just gonna haveta knock me the fuck out." he said belligerantly to Nathan's chest. "I don' wanna go in there. I'll get assreamed if I piss on the Danes."

"We will go in the back way," Nathan said, his voice clipped, "and if you're lucky, we'll make it up to your suite before you pass out. You've had entirely too much to drink to stay conscious for much longer."

"Not. Goin'. Empaths stay out here, away from all the happy." he said stubbornly.

"You are going inside to sleep it off. Last chance to get there under your own power."

"Don' wanna." he said stubbornly, his eyes glowing red as he tried to convince Nate of the same thing.

The empathic suggestion bounced harmlessly off Nathan's defenses. "Fine," Nathan said tightly. "Psi-bolt or fist to the jaw? Which would you hate me for less in the morning?"

"Hate you for _LIFE_." he growled, taking another extremely ineffectual swing. "Everyone hates me, so I may as well hate you."

"Stop it," Nathan growled right back, catching his wrist again. "If everyone here hates you, why did you come back?"
"Don' have anywhere else to go." he muttered.

Nathan went back to steering him towards the mansion. They'd get to the door at some point. Eventually. "You have all the options in the world," he said under his breath. "It just hurts too much to see them right now."

Manuel apparently took that as a cue to sing. "And I tear my heart open just to feel..." he warbled off-key.

"Charming," Nathan muttered. At least he was moving in the right direction.