Amanda & Manuel meet midday

[x-empath.livejournal.com]

Amanda and Manuel go out. As Amanda breaks the news, Manuel's coffee goes cold.


There hadn't been much conversation during the short drive from the mansion to Salem Center, and Amanda waited until she'd finished manoeuvring the car into a parking space just outside the coffee shop before glancing over at Manuel. "Close enough for you?" she asked, trying and failing not to fall into old protective habits. Seeing Manuel back on the cane and so weak brought back too many memories - when he'd arrived, the Repodemon, after his mind had been wiped... Not for the first time, she was glad he wasn't a telepath.

He didn't get out often, nor did he feel the need to. The simple idea of going out exhausted him beyond reason and going out with Amanda seemed to put more weight on that exhaustion than anticipated. Already, he was silent. The car was not a good place for conversation as when the driver got angry, so did the foot become heavier and Manuel liked living so far. Even if the majority of the school's population hated him. For most of the ride, he watched the blur of signs, people and cars until he placed his head in his hand, leaning against the window, unable to watch anymore. Her question jarred him out of his doze and he cleared his throat after taking a quick survey of where they were. "Yes. Thank you." So formal. Could he be any other way with her?

Grabbing the handle, Manuel pulled, nudging the door open and used the cane to help him get out of the car. It annoyed him that they had to go out to have a talk and agitated him even more that it was somewhere public. He tolerated it. It took him ten minutes to get inside, retrieve himself a coffee (he would be damned if he had her get it for him) and situated comfortably away from the general congregation of people at tables. He let her start the conversation.


So, here they were... Clearing her throat, Amanda busied herself stirring her tea, until she recognised the delaying tactic for what it was. Laying down her spoon, she looked up and met Manuel's eyes. She'd survived torture by Candra, faced down any number of bad guys with the Trenchcoats... she could handle Manuel, no matter how awkward the conversation was going to be. They were adults now. "Have you had a chance to talk to Angelo since you got back?" she asked.

He recognized it too, which only forced a desire to frown, yet he kept his face blank, neutral. Until she brought up Angelo. "No, I have not," he stated, regarding her suspiciously. "Why?" Why. He knew why. Even before he asked. What a stupid question.

"Because..." She took a breath. "I probably should have told you sooner, back when I ran into you at the school, but it was such a shock..." Stop babbling, Sefton,, she told herself. "Any way. Ange and I... we're dating. Have been for just on a year." She'd always favoured the 'rip the bandage off' method of telling bad news.

A year. Manuel sat there and it took him but a second to do a calculation of when exactly they had started dating. More to the point, when _he_ had fallen out of the picture. Typical. He closed his expression off, spread his fingers out on the table before relaxing and drummed them once before the inhibitor beeped. "Congratulations."

She winced slightly. Yeah, this wasn't good. "Thanks." Looking down at her hands, she wasn't surprised to see she was shredding a paper napkin. "Look, Manny, I know it's going to be hard, but I don't want this to get in the way of you sorting your shite out. Or..." And here she took a breath, knowing there were any number of people who would say she was insane for what she was about to say next. "Or us being friends. I still care about you, there's just been way too much fucked up shite between us. We're not the same people any more, and that means moving on."

He took a slow, forcibly patient breath and exhaled to a very calculated, careful degree. She seemed to be tripping over herself with her excuse and shrinking under his dark heavy stare, which he did nothing to lighten. His fingers curled into a fist and he withdrew it from the table, settling it into his lap. "You've had a year to deal with your issues. I've had a minute to deal with this one. Mind what you ask."

Her hands stilled, and she looked up at him again. "Fine, I won't ask anything of you. But you have to understand... I'm not who I was any more. If you can't deal with that, then I'll take you back to the school right now. I won't let you bully me, Manuel. Not any more."

"Nor am I the same person you were with back then. I did _not_ bully you. As far as I'm concerned, you did things of your own accord and by your own god given free will. Do not put that blame on me. And I am perfectly capable of taking a cab, if I deem that I cannot _deal_ with it," he quipped.

"I'm not going to abandon you, Manny. And I don't want to fight, either." It was said with a slightly exasperated sigh. "Look, I wanted to tell you myself instead of you finding out from a third party because I know how you felt about Angelo, even back before we split. I don't know where you are now, which is why I wanted to talk - there's a lot about you that's changed, but there's just as much that's the same and I don't know how to handle it."

"What's to handle? Move on, as you put so bluntly," he said with very little feeling to his tone. While he had looked forward to getting together with Amanda before hand, he had also known there was bad news she was giving for how she acted. However now he could see it was not bad news, it was as obvious as a neon sign blinking in his face of where she stood then and where she stood now.

She sighed again. "Fine," she repeated, wrapping her hands around her cup. There wasn't a lot of point of saying anything else - there'd been a lot of changes in Manuel, but he could still sulk with the best of them. And it was just as obvious where his thoughts were going - he'd already accused her of cheating on him with Angelo once, it didn't take a mind reader to see that was where he was going back to - as she'd said, he'd always had problems with her friendship with Angelo.

"I don't imagine you'd expect any other reaction, other than what I've given. Therefore, why should I disappoint?" he asked. "I should act the way everyone imagines I'll act and let them be satisfied with hating me, or trying to be my friend when really, they are not. I don't blame you for being with Angelo, Amanda, however, I do not have to be pleased with it."

"You know, that's just another version of the Mirror," she said quietly, lifting her eyes to meet his again. "Doing what you think people expect of you. It's a trap - you'll wind up fulfilling every bad expectation people have of you, and then where will you be?" She sipped at her tea, rapidly cooling. "And I don't need you to be pleased. I just need to know if it's going to cause you problems you can't deal with. Believe it or not, I don't want to cause any more grief than I have already."

"But _I_ have changed. I'm not that person. I have _not_ fallen into that trap. I _could_ be that way, but I am not. I will not try to prove I have changed, only that I know I have." He left his coffee untouched. "There are many _other_ problems that I am dealing with that your relationship with Angelo - while annoying and unapproving at best - is not my biggest concern. Yes, it is a betrayal to me, but should I expect any less when I already knew it would happen, despite that I was in a coma? There are some things I can ignore for a time, however inevitable that it would happen. I would have expected we would have been better friends than this, resorting to telling me first before I heard it through another party."

"It's not like I planned it or anything, it just happened," she protested mildly, but nodded. "Right then, I won't hammer the point. Which I'm so fucking good at doing, you might remember." A slight, wry smile touched her lips despite the tension at the small table. "And that's why I asked to talk to you - you deserved better than finding out through gossip."

He cooled off significantly, turning his attention to an attempt at a friendship rather than dwelling on her and Angelo. He had _much_ to say about _that_. He would leave it for now. "Let's do as you say you're doing and move on. My coffee is cold because I didn't really want coffee but tea instead."

"You ordered coffee, you dope," she told him, but with another smile. "You want me to get you one?"

Tired and irritated, Manuel pushed his coffee aside. "No, I'm ready to leave."