Morgan & Manuel, then not!Manuel & Doug | Monday evening

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Morgan and Manuel cuddle during Casino Royale in an attempt to help Manuel regain control of his powers.

"I see today is a better day," Manuel offered, riffling through movies he had selected. He leaned against the table, one palm flat on the top to support his weight while he sought to pick something appropriate for them both. "Come and pick something, lest I do it for you." His tone suggested he did not look forward to this and she probably even less so. Yet she was here and so was he.

Morgan shrugged and waved the book in her hand at him. "You pick one, those things can't keep my attention for more than ten minutes, anyway." The metamorph flopped down on the couch and tucked her feet under her. "I don't know why you sound so sour, all you have to do is hang around for a while and keep physical contact. I, on the other hand, get all of the emotions in the vicinity crashing down on me without any capacity for dealing with it. I get short stick so try to be less sullen about it." True to his word months ago Manuel had at least loaned her clothing which would fit once her body shifted to his. Right now everything was baggy on her, a look she didn't prefer but it would make the hour and a half or so of sitting around holding his hand more tolerable than it would have been with a skirt or too short pants or those stupid skinny jeans some people wore.

"You will be projecting without meaning to and it will require me to rein you in as best as I can. If I can. My control is still limited and I will be more vulnerable to your projections if I allow it." He would try not to. "This may be trialing for you. I brought you Tylenol for afterwards."

He tried to pick something more action that did not require any thinking on his part or hers. I, Robot stuck out at him, but also, Minority Report. He enjoyed the technology in that, though the acting was much to be desired. Finally though, Manuel settled on Casino Royale. He enjoyed the acting, the action and the storyline.

"Have you seen this?" he asked, turning it over and finding his cane. Regardless if she had or not, he put it in and settled down on the couch next to her. His left palm settled on his knee and he opened it for her to lace her slender fingers through. "Does this mean you will acquire my limp?"

"Do people have shiny, shiny guns and die horrible deaths," she asked with a fair bit of enthusiasm. Hey, she liked guns. She gave him a small, half smile. "Let's hope I'm all into fuzzy bunnies and rainbows today and not black pits of despair." She opened her book first, finding the page she wanted because it was easier while she still had use of two hands. Only after she found the spot in the book she wanted did her hand slide up his open palm, fingers seamlessly intertwining with his as if she'd done this countless times before with him.

Morgan had to scoot closer to Manuel so her arm wasn't stretched out to an uncomfortable point, but she wasn't really worried about his personal space considering keeping contact meant you were already violating it anyway. "Are you always this tense near another person?" She was paying attention to his posture, the way he held himself, and the tension in his muscles. She found it amusing that while she was on the worst end of what would come in addition to being in someone else's clothes and cuddling up to a guy she'd had precisely one real conversation with Morgan was the one who looked totally natural and comfortable. She swore Manuel would start squirming any moment now.

"I enjoy my personal space." There was no need to expand on his explanation however he had a feeling she would ask, was wanting to dig a little deeper into emotions that she would feel coming from him. He was mostly full of frustrations and currently working quietly to temper those emotions, pulling a veil over them so she would not feel the full assault of him and the rest of the mansion. Come to think of it, this was not the best place to do this. "You understand that you'll feel everyone's emotions, yes? This was not the best location and I lacked to think of that in advance. Do you want to go somewhere else? A remote hotel perhaps?"

"You know, you're really not my type," she told him with a playful grin. Manuel could sit there and be awkward but it would only cause Morgan to be more playful and likely cuddly just to mess with him. She needed to get her entertainment out of the situation somehow, right? "Just because you lack foresight doesn't mean I don't. I know what will happen, even though you like being all cloak and dagger about how the empathy deal works for you. But since that's exactly what you're having issues with, other people's emotions I mean, then I figured it'd be more useful if I was stuck dealing with it. Maybe I can figure out something you haven't.

"Get over the personal space thing, you don't get it for at least another hour and a half, probably not for another two hours." Her free hand prodded him in the side as if trying to fluff him up like a cat may have done when he was found to be unsuitable for laying on as is. "It's not like my emotions are going to be worse for you the closer I get and hanging out with the marble statue version of you is really unappealing, for the record. Not to mention uncomfortable." Her shoulder nudged him a little and she wondered if the guy ever looked anything but serious and determined.

Glancing at the cane and going back to his ignored question she finally asked, "Why do you have the limp? Is it physiological or are you just weak in general?"

He did not grin back. Instead, he picked up the remote and turned to the appropriate channel. There, he flipped to the DVD and silently thanked someone for changing the batteries in the remote. Her shoulder nudged into his and he shifted uncomfortably. She seemed to like to talk and so he let her. He wasn't in a talking mood, or thought he wasn't until he was poked in the side. After not being touched for almost over three years, except for medical reasons, the poke to the side unleashed a brief smile. He did not want to encourage that again, dropping the smile instantly and focusing on the television.

"My pronounced limp is a result of getting hit by a truck. Hence Forge's consistent reference to the accident when he feels the need to point out that I should not have woken from the two year coma." He said nothing about Jennie, there was no need. He could feel her wonder, curiosity was it, hoovering over him like a magnifying glass and Manuel shifted on the couch, attempting for more comfort. If he did not get comfortable immediately, for him it was like sleeping in the wrong position and waking, having to deal with it. He did not want cramps.

Morgan caught that brief, fleeting smile and smiled to herself smugly. So he did have a soul buried under all that cranky. Perfect! "Did it heal wrong?" Her nose wrinkled up a little. "That sucks. In that case, yes, I'll have your limp. I'll also have your voice." She frowned a little, he may not like all of this. "To a degree, I will also have the way you think. Think of it like a street plan. Nothing forces you to turn right at the intersection, but you can only turn where there is one. People are like that in how they think and I get that, too. I can choose to think like you or to think like me, but your mental imprint is always there. I can't avoid it, contact enough to bring mutation brings that as well." After a moment she added, "Forge is largely a moody little bitch anyway. Who cares what he thinks unless it's about something technological?" No, Morgan was in no way still holding a grudge about the security guy taking it upon himself to out her profession to the entire journal system. Not at all.

"That is fascinating yet disturbing. How does it not interfere with your way of thinking? How do you not take on the personality aspect of both yourself and the person you are impersonating?" He hit play and waited for the DVD to load. "Will you be able to repeat being me again? Without the contact?" This concerned him greatly but it was a chance that he would take. He needed someone who could do this. There was the option of asking Amanda yet there was too much emotional attachment for control to be gained. He pointedly ignored her smug smile.

She shrugged. "I never much bothered with how it works just that it does work. Aye, there was a bit of malfunction at one point but that's all better anyway. Personality isn't genetic and from what Xavier told me my mutation works on genetic. Though I'm not really sure how that involves hair length and mind stuff since that happens as well." She shrugged again. If it ain't broke don't fix it and right now her powers were working just fine for her. Then again, she hadn't attempted a mimic this thorough since she'd shown up for help with her powers. She didn't bother telling Manuel that because she was confident in herself and was sure he'd just freak out.

"Without contact? No. I can't pick up a copy of someone and store it for later, though that'd be useful. I can pick up a copy of you from stuff like hair, though, but I've never gotten more than a physical copy out of that, no mutations and no mental imprints."

"Malfunction? What specifically malfunctioned?" Could she have a malfunction with him? His powers were difficult to take in on a consistent basis, he could imagine how it would be for her, like how it was for him when he manifested. Though Manuel felt that he had something better back then, a progression to learn faster than he could now. There was a constant fog in his head and though he knew he could feel it, he couldn't see any regard to clear it. This was to help him with that, though if she had a similar reaction, he would not be any farther then he was.

"The kind that comes from taking on too many mental imprints in quick succession," she told him calmly and casually. "It's why I came here, but it's not a problem since there's been no imprint in my head but my own for months. It's not like I've just been hanging around here teaching kids how to wiggle out of being restrained by someone bigger than them. I've been doing my own work, too. I'm good enough to leave if I want to so don't go worrying your pretty little head, love." If she wasn't worried then he had no reason to be. After all, it was her own identity she was fucking with, he just got to sit back and be Manuel.

While normally he would be worried about his reputation, it was already so bad that it did not matter in the least what happened. Unless she outright went and did something illegal. Then that would cause some great complications, especially with Remy and his removal. Considering Remy was already in a bad enough mood as it were, subtly making threats, Manuel did not want to entertain that. "My own forewarning is try and not panic. You will not die."

Morgan blinked at him, red eyes having gone a little wide. "Well, gee, thanks for that one, love. That's the way to put a girl at ease. And here I'd always pegged you for being more socially gracefully than that. Look at my lack of judgment there." She shook her head, shoulders shaking a little with suppressed laughter. "No worries here, I don't panic very easily." Though she was wondering what sort of bombardment she was in for now. Morgan was intentionally not letting the mimic go through until she had enough to replicate his mutation as well. There was something about holding hands with yourself that was just a little creepy for most people.

Letting the conversation die away, Morgan settled her head on his shoulder without asking if he cared. She anticipated the way he tensed back up a little more, but she also wasn't too bothered by it. He would either learn to relax with a woman curled up next to him or he'd be damn uncomfortable for the next while. Either way, she turned her eyes down to the psychology book in her lap.

With the progression of the movie, Manuel relaxed significantly. His shoulders fell and he sunk into the couch though now and then his hand went to his thigh, massaging away any cramp he felt coming on. He paid little attention to her, if only to glance at her now and then to be sure that he was sitting next a blue woman and not himself. He did't have to go that far to look, her white hair was in the corner of his eye, confirming their current situation. He was vague on how the mimic worked, however when she turned, he knew it would be weirder than he thought. No one liked to face themselves, not even on a good day.

By the time the credits rolled on the television Morgan was quite comfy. She'd glanced up at the screen whenever there were impressive sounding fight scenes but otherwise her eyes remained on her book. She'd ended up curled up closer to his side and their clasped hands ended up in her lap instead of on his knee but he hadn't put up a fight so she didn't think twice about it. Mostly she thought he was too weirded out by the entire situation to acknowledge it much. Morgan closed her book as the names and crew positions scrolled upward and moved her shoulders this way and that to stretch them out. Keeping their hands in her lap, she sat up and looked at Manuel. "Are you ready?" She was the one who had to shift into a male form but she wanted to make sure he was okay to cope with seeing her become him. Obviously she thought there was something off in her brain to cause that to be her priority.

This time spent in front of a movie with her would have seemed cozy by anyone else, but he was far from that. This time was spent reflecting on the interactions, his emotional ones and how he seemed to care very little about the people in the mansion. While he was concerned with their safety, he had no real ties to anyone.

Relationship-wise, he had cut himself off from the world. He was so focused on his powers, focused on gaining control so he didn't look weak that he neglected the very thing that people generally needed from others, interaction. Contact had very little meaning and even sitting here on the couch, he noticed how he had absolutely no desire for her or anyone else for that matter.

He felt numb and as he watched James Bond, he felt he could relate to the 007. Close relationships were foreign now, obsolete in his everyday routine and he was satisfied with it. He had mild concerns for people, a bigger feeling for Dani, but beyond that, he steeled himself further, being less than receptive to the others at all.

Pulled reluctantly from his thoughts, Manuel sat up, very aware of her own emotions as well as his own. "Yes, I am ready," he stated and waited eagerly to begin.

"Loads of people freak out at this part when it's themselves they're seeing so try not to flip out on me much, alright love?" Morgan flipped the little switch inside of her, or that's how she'd always thought of it anyway, and soon her body was bleeding into another form. It was a fluid transition, her skin paling as the blue leeched away and her hair darkening and shortening. It took less than a minute for her to fully take his form and for the mimic to complete from all that stored up contact. Once the process was completed Morgan let go of his hand.

She kept blinking and trying to swat at things that weren't there. "Oi! What the hell is up with your acid-trip vision! You didn't tell me you're permanently on LSD." It wasn't the worst surprise ever but it wasn't exactly pleasant. The sensory overload of the myriad of colors distracted her from the imminent push of the emotions of the mansion's residents, but the moment she closed her eyes and placed her hands over them to shut out any and all vision they all came crashing down on her. There was no sound but she thought of it as a cacophony. The emotions were loud, some of the screaming at her the way you heard things in dreams without ever actually having to hear a sound. You just knew there was a sound and understood it. That's what those emotions were for her.

Manuel recoiled his hand and a chill spread over his entire body. "I apologize," he said, his voice wavering as he felt her growing distress. "I am accustom to it." For a long time he had seen things like that, grown to it and eventually thought little of it when emotions swam in his vision. He closed his fist and his knuckles whitened. He gave her a moment to find her barrings but her obvious growing distress weighed on him and he sat up more, turning towards her. "Focus on your own emotion and build it as a layer. It will help. That is if you can focus on it long enough to separate your emotions from theirs."

Deliberately, he took this time to shield himself and her, doing exactly as he had practiced. One layer at a time. His anger was his strongest ally and thus, it was the first to minimize the chokehold. He was slightly taken back by the layer he immediately unleashed under such dire need to protect her from what he felt almost on a consistent basis and pleasantly took it as a step forward, rather than a step back (due to the type of emotion he was feeling).

"Ah! Stop that!" She didn't open her eyes, but she also didn't have to. Morgan immediately reached out and swatted him in the arm. It wasn't hard and it wasn't meant to be, she just wanted his bloody attention. Every hair on her, well his actually, body stood on end as she felt this rage roll over her and squeeze down around her. It was like the wetsuit that separated her from the ocean but the ocean wasn't as cold as that layer that descended upon her like that. Her hands waved in front of her as if trying to get an annoying fly to get away. "You're not helping," Manuel's voice came out of her mouth with a thicker Boston accent than Morgan usually spoke with. The Irish undertones had completely vanished and she was all Southie. "You're all cold and dark and that's really fucking counterproductive." She felt every muscle in her body tense up and she now knew why he was always so tense and twitchy.

"Just..." she cracked an eye open to look at him and he was swathed in dim, dark, menacing colors that shouldn't have been there, "back the fuck off and let me deal on my own until I ask for your help, okay?" She'd had mutations sprung on her without knowing the person was one and she could deal, she just needed some time to adjust to the colors and the noise and the ever-present screaming of those emotions did, pulling at her and pleading for her to do something about them. You need a wall, Ness. You can build a wall but you need an emotion to pour into it. Fuck, how do I pour an emotion into building a bloody wall?

Frustration laced through his anger and crept in like a disease, spreading over what he was building between her and them. She had one emotion to focus on and it was his. He had to release, abruptly put away with the slap of sudden alarm in her. Like a subtle change in tone, higher pitched in hues rapped around her, enveloped her and he did little but allow that emotional push to set him back. He couldn't have stopped if he tried, he was simply not strong enough or not in control enough to do so. His shields were a failure to her, to himself and it bore down on him harder. This scramble strained him under her pull, her projections and he didn't speak, knowing that his voice was unsteady, swallowing hard for the shards of his layers crumbled to her demand.

The anger surrounding her shattered suddenly, falling away like broken glass and Morgan felt like she could breathe a bit more. There were still emotions bombarding her, shoving themselves at her from all directions but she had learned a long time ago that you had to shut things out and learn what to concentrate on. Otherwise you got yourself shot and a one way ticket under the earth very, very quickly. Morgan calmed in the absence of Manuel's anger. She could feel the press of emotion but she ignored it as best she could. She tried to still her mind. It was something she'd learned to do when she had been taught how to be a sniper. It was something she'd learned with more finesse when she had to shut down telepathy that was sprung on her all at once for a job that would keep her impersonating the woman who had the mutation for more than two months. Slowly stilled and she calmed.

The Boston accent had quieted, some of the Irish sneaking back in when she spoke finally, nearly twenty minutes later. "How do I build a wall? I can do it with telepathy but I'm assuming I need to go about it differently with empathy. If you explain it to me, even poorly, it will click for me mentally because I can put it together how you would. If you were explaining to yourself how to do it, that's what I need to know." His voice had come out even, but not strained, from her. It was a precarious calmness that could have been tipped easily, one she was keeping a stranglehold on, but one Morgan had achieved nonetheless.

They weren't thirty minutes into it and exhaustion cloaked a heavy blanket over him, tired from the anger fed into a wall he only realized now was a small fraction of a strong shield he hadn't known he was able to build. He wanted to rebuild it, surge that focus into a shield twice as strong, however he wouldn't for the suffocating she felt. Morgan was here on her own accord, doing him a service for free (though he knew everything came with a price) and he would not trouble her anymore than she had already gone through.

The aggravation of others' emotions rose in him slowly, seeping in and he felt anxious to rebuild the shield he previously had as the seconds pressed on. "You need-" Manuel wavered, clearing his throat and he tried again. "This requires you to focus on your own emotion. One emotion, whether it be the panic you feel now or the feelings you felt earlier. Take that emotion and keep it close. Take another emotion within you and build it outside of that. Smooth it over as you would a sphere and carefully relax. On each exhale, imagine you're feeding that layer, strengthening it. A memory helps to strengthen emotions, if you are unable to find one within yourself."

"And technically I can build it around you as well, correct?" His voice was measured coming out of the borrowed hips, but it was stronger and more stable than his had been. Morgan listened to what he said, repeated it several times in her mind and pulled a memory that was vivid and was what she needed. She was on the top of a mountain hidden in the brush with Aleister and Thom. She had finally managed the calm stillness they had been trying to get her to understand for weeks. She pulled that calm close to her, imagined it like a blanket and wrapped it around not just herself but Manuel. She could feel his anxiety and she wanted to ease it. On instinct, one that was all her own, she reached out and laid a hand on his leg. It was just contact but it calmed some people. It also made her more aware of him and reminded her to wrap that tranquility around him as well and pull it tightly so there were as few seams as possible. That was an instinct of his she was using, something that just clicked because of his explanation and she went with it without questioning it. The moment she questioned it she knew that control would melt away. Right now the less she thought the and more she just did the better.

Next Morgan reached for a memory from childhood. Her and her dad playing baseball with neighborhood kids and their dads at a park a few blocks from her childhood home she'd visited recently with Adrienne. It was her first homerun and that shocked excitement built the bubble around them. It was such a high to see the ball fly over the fence and she felt that emotion as strongly now as she did then and with every exhale she imagined pushing it out of herself and into that shield, that wall, that protective bubble and she tried her hardest to push it past herself and around him as well. She repeated, pulling more memories and more emotions out of them and trying to breath layers of protection around them like stacking blankets to keep the cold out. It took time, and she was very careful about the slow progression, but she relaxed every time she released a deep breath.

"That is correct." Manuel waited but he was not blind in his waiting. He felt what she was doing and patience become trialing and difficult to hold steady, stiffening at the contact. His emotions steeled against her like a vice gripping in a fierce grasp to push away, but he let go the moment the instinctive assault lashed out. The second wave of her contentment enveloped him and his lips parted, slowing his breathing. Contentment. He had not felt that in a long time, but it was not his emotion. He recognized it as hers because he felt he had nothing but determination behind his anger, determined to control to be better than what he was left with. However, he was tired and could not hold onto it for long. It took strength to resist a settling feeling such as this and the longer she focused on it, the more it was projected to him.

Minute by minute, she slowly broke him down, leaving him slightly bewildered. He dared not to interrupt her, knowing that his own deeper emotions would wreck everything she focused to build.

Morgan kept pulling memories, all of them good. She built layer upon layer until she couldn't feel the cracks in the shielding anymore. She could feel the emotions but they didn't press in on her, they didn't push and scream and beg for her to fix the ones that felt broken. There was distance between the emotions and the two of them, wrapped in the warmest and calmest moments of her life she could recall. It was listening to someone speak underwater almost, the way the emotions resonated dully so they didn't violate her own.

She opened Manuel's eyes and the colors were easier to handle now. They were distracting and she'd find herself following a particularly odd shade she'd never seen before, but she could function now. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I realize it may not be the most comfortable thing for you to be swathed in, and I know you were trying to help before, but you can't wrap me in anger and expect me to do anything but lash out. You don't know there, but I just needed you to stop so I could deal. Sorry I yelled at you." The apology was likely unnecessary but Morgan wanted to deliver it anyway. "Anger gives you passion, which stops you from thinking and it causes you to get killed really quickly in my line of work. I shut that down a long time ago, it does me no good. When I get angry, well, it takes a lot to get me there. People tend to end up dead." Her voice never wavered, never raised. It remained a calm, quiet tone that sounded almost unnatural coming from Manuel's mouth.

Tilting her head to the side, Morgan couldn't help but ask, "Why are you so angry? What does that give you?"

He understood and nodded but that was all she got out of him for the moment. With only the two of them, Manuel dropped his head in his hand, rubbing his brow. Repeatedly he pressed his fingers into his eyebrows, smoothing them back, hanging his head, allowing himself to feel her contentment and loop it back to her. He was good at looping, an easy projection to repeat. But the contentment was only surface deep and underlying were all his darker emotions, for the moment, trapped.

In her line of work. He wondered what that really was, but chose not to ask as it was not of his business to. She must have gone through much if she was this receptive to exploring everything that lay pent up and he dropped his hand, eyes glowing a faint red, something she may have not noticed she was doing herself, except much deeper in colour. "It is all I am left with. Do not say anything to anyone." The plead 'please' hung in the air between them. He did not need another trip to the therapist. All he needed was control and that he could accomplish on his own.

"If you were constantly bombarded with ill feelings towards you and had very terrible means of shielding against it, it would leave you very resentful too. I am working to temper that anger or channel it so I do not set it on anyone within the mansion. My tact is not always well as I have very little patience when it comes to expressing concerns. Animosity surrounds me and I currently feel the weight of _everything_ that has recently come to pass. This anger makes me feel alive. I feel I am losing my humanity. I'm concerned, but I simply do not _care_ enough what transpires."

Morgan bit down the urge to reach out to him. She was a fan of contact but she didn't think he was. There was also the weird factor with her currently wearing his form. She wouldn't admit it to anyone, not even to him, but she had a soft spot developing for the guy. It was one she didn't want, soft spots did things like kept you in Salem when you had decided to return to your family. They trapped you in ways you swore were too claustrophobic only to realize it didn't bother you as much as you thought it would. No one needed to know, but she felt bad for him. Maybe she pitied him a little, but mostly she empathized, a word that took on an entirely new meaning for her.

"So if we can help you build your shields again and you then get distance from the emotions you evoke in many of the residents here your resentment may fade, which means your anger may fade and then you may have the chance to experience an emotion other than rage again?" She wanted to make sure she was on the right track. She could feel the happiness bouncing off of him, but she could sense something darker, colder, muddy beneath it. She felt so bad that it was all he had that she wanted to erase it for him if she could. Morgan held onto her desire to push her own happier emotions into him, force the anger down. That didn't really accomplish anything. Not anything lasting. Not anything real. But it was so tempting to do it. It was right there and even with her almost nonexistent control she was sure she could do it because his instincts would tell her how. If anyone found out about this soft spot of hers they may realize what a fuzzy little fluff ball she really was.

"So how do we get your shields back up?"

He felt her pity, that empathizing emotion that looped back with her happiness and his own darker emotions boiled beneath. It made him mad to feel that sympathy and he would have balled his fist had he not been pumped full of contentment. He knew he was being controlled, that she seemed to be stronger than he was with his own powers and it crossed his mind that perhaps the accident did more than cripple him physically but also shattered an emotional glass that would never be repaired the same way. Amelia had made this speculation more than once. Perhaps he would never have control but it only reset his determination to reign over something he knew he couldn't have.

"My anger does not only revolve around the mansion or those within it. It is my fail safe. A life vest, if you will. As passionate and reckless as it is, it also grounds me to a degree I cannot accomplish on my own. I can only go so far to train myself. I require your strength and practice with you. It will allow me to be freed of the burden I carry."

God, he sounded like such a lost kid. Morgan shoved her sympathy away and focused. Steely calm came over her, she was going to work and she needed to concentrate for that. "Okay, so we practice. So tell me what to do exactly and we'll see if I'm going to be of any use or if we just cuddled for no reason for two hours or however long that movie was."

Later that night Morgan follows emotions around and she finds Doug, who win the prize for being the first person who has ever been able to ID her in a mimic.

Doug was counting the fact that he was sitting in the rec room watching TV a victory. Yes, nobody else was currently around, but people could walk in, and he wasn't hiding away from being social. Or at least, he wasn't hiding away quite as much, he amended honestly. He flipped through the channels, trying to find something that caught his interest.

Morgan was experimenting with Manuel's powers, which meant she was still walking around in his body. She still felt like she was on an acid trip because of all the colors, but she was managing to not crumble under the pressure of all the emotions so the colors weren't so bad to deal with. She'd managed to build a sort of makeshift wall of sorts which didn't keep the emotions out so much as it turned the volume down on them. She moved along the corridor with a hand on the wall to help her get around since she had Manuel's limp but no cane to help with it. Currently she was following emotions around the mansion, letting them lead her to people. They grew stronger when she got closer to someone physically, the color of their emotion brightening. She was trying to match the colors to the emotions they corresponded to in order to understand how to read the technicolor.

Doug looked up from the television and cocked his head over his shoulder at the heavy tread in the entrance way to the rec room. His eyes took in a dozen different bits and pieces about the way that the visitor stood and carried...himself? Herself? Pronouns were almost as difficult with a mimic as they had been when he'd been a woman. "Hello, Morgan," he said casually. "Nice suit. Manuel's, I assume?"

A sarcastic look immediately crossed onto Manuel's features. The expression was all Morgan's and looked unnatural on the Castilian's face. "Aye." She limped into the room and fell back onto the couch near Doug, but not too close. She was respecting some people's personal space today, Doug got to be one of them. "Had to wait in line for hours before it fit. Did you know that some of the fight scenes in Casino Royale are wholly disappointing?" She sighed, obviously very put out by this fact.

"Mmm," Doug murmured noncommittally. All too many movies had fight scenes that were wholly disappointing. Some managed to get things right, but it was hard to suspend disbelief when you'd actually wrested a gun from someone or stabbed them with a knife, and saw it done in terribly unrealistic fashion on the screen. He kept flipping, nothing really taking his attention. The downside to Emma's manipulations, he supposed, as there were times when one wouldn't -mind- distraction of one form or another.

"A telepath can't peg me," Morgan told him, interrupting his very manly silence. "How did you? It's interesting, I've never run across anyone who could tell unless I messed up something I said or couldn't remember something." Since Doug knew it was her she wasn't bothering to put Manuel's accent on. He sounded rather odd with a Boston accent but she was used to it now, having used her own accent when she was with him to decrease the strange factor of sitting there with yourself and explaining to yourself how to cope with your own mutation.

"Little things," Doug replied. "No cane, for one. The way you roll your shoulders slightly. That slight little smirk that Manuel wouldn't ever have." It was easy if you knew what you were looking for, and he was familiar enough with Manuel to catch the differences.

"No cane but still a limp, he could have misplaced it." Though she'd give him the posture, she stood like a soldier, especially when she was in a male body, and Manuel stood like an upper class type. It was similar, but not so strict. She also knew she lacked some of that tension he carried around constantly. "The smirk came after you spoke," she pointed out, giving him another sarcastic look. Morgan suspected it had more to do with his mutation, not that she knew much about it, than obvious cues. She'd walked past a dozen people who had history with Manuel tonight and none of them gave her a second glance. The emotions that rolled off them were clear enough indicators to her that they thought she was the loathed Spaniard.

"I haven't seen him without it since..." Doug trailed off as a sudden connection was made in his head. "Heh. I think I know who bought it for him." It was an odd thing for Marie-Ange to have done, but it fit with a few offhand remarks she had made. "Anyways, if it was just the cane, that might have been one thing. But my brain works a bit differently than most."

"Yeah, I see that. Mutation the cause of it?" No point in not asking. It wasn't like people were all secretive about being mutants around here. Besides, Morgan was genuinely curious. She hadn't sought out many mutants while in a mimic before, but she'd run into them accidentally and this was the first time she was identified. It was a fascinating experience for her.

"Mhm. Pattern recognition. Like I said, I'm probably one of the few who could have figured it out." There was no bragging or malice in his voice, more a statement of fact. "And you even almost had me for a split second until I looked closer."

Morgan preened with his last statement. It was an intentionally exaggerated preening, one which she hoped made Manuel look ridiculous. On second thought, he likely looked all too normal sitting there preening. The thought made her stop and frown a bit. "Pattern recognition, huh? What, uh, what does that mean in the every day application type of sense? You just crack codes really well? I assume there's more to it than that."

"Codes and languages. And body language. Which is what I meant when I said my brain works a bit differently than most." He shrugged diffidently. This was his first time meeting the mimic in person, though he'd seen plenty of her interactions with others on the journal system.

"Interesting. So, basically, no matter whose body I dressed up in if you either knew them or knew me well enough to interpret body language cues you would always be able to identify me? Or in the case of not knowing me well enough but knowing the other person well enough you'd be able to identify that it's at least not them?" Damn, that was handy. Okay maybe it wasn't that handy unless you were in the business of espionage and thwarting it, but it was still pretty damn cool.

"Pretty much, yeah. Either that, or you'd have to be really good at mimicking their mannerisms." It was possible, he supposed, especially to a casual interaction. Not to mention most people saw what they wanted or expected to see. "So, how does empathy feel?" he asked curiously.

"I am, usually." The last word was tacked on with an obvious after thought. "I don't tend to mimic a person as that person in a place where people know them without extensive study as well. Plus their brains tend to fill in gaps for me. " She shrugged. The mental bit never made sense to anyone so she wasn't about to try. "Empathy is...loud," she sighed and slumped down a bit against the couch. "Everyone feels so loudly. It gives me a headache. Obviously it gives him a headache too because he thought to bring me Tylenol. Though, your emotions are quiet, I appreciate that at the moment. It's kind of overwhelming, like being at a concert on the floor and everyone's pressing in so tightly against you that you can barely breathe and every inhalation is filled with body odor so thick you can taste it." Morgan made a face. "Alright, that was slightly disgusting, but it was kind of accurate."

"Say no more." The mental image was entirely too vivid for Doug's taste. "Sounds a bit like me and crowds. Too much random input that my brain tries to make sense of. Airports and those kinds of places tend to give me screaming migraines."

"Ugh, yeah, so it's like that. Only it's emotional overload, pretty much." Morgan rubbed at her temples even though it wasn't exactly her temples or her brain that was the issue. What exactly were the emotional receptors of the mind? How did you massage those? "I'm surprised he doesn't go flippin' mad dealing with this all day. Especially with the special level of loathing he gets from so many people."

"He brings some of that upon himself," Doug admitted candidly. He was somewhat indifferent to the Spaniard. He did not hate him with the fiery passion that some did, but Manuel would never be his closest friend. "The first time he was here at the mansion, he...didn't treat people very well." That was quite the understatement.

Morgan shrugged. It looked oddly natural on Manuel's body. "I'm not arguing his past, but he was in a coma for two years. People have the capacity to change. I just think if everyone hates who he was so badly they should give him the opportunity to be someone more than that person. If you just continually expect a person to be the same, fucked up version of themselves that they used to be then there's really no incentive for them to change. Even when the outcome isn't great, struggling uphill is a lot less attractive than the mud puddle you're used to splashing around in."

"Not making a judgment either way," Doug waved the comment off. "Just explaining that some people were hurt pretty badly, and aren't very quick to forget a grudge." He wasn't entirely sure how Amanda had gotten back on good terms with him, considering the codependent trainwreck their relationship had been.

"Everyone's got baggage. Some just really don't know when to throw shit out or donate it to the Salvation Army or summat." Morgan waved a hand dismissively. "How about we all beat each other into a bloody pulp until our issues are all worked out." She looked over at Doug with the most innocent expression she could manage on her borrowed face. It looked oddly at home there. "Not productive?"