xp_logs | Manuel and Marie Meet. (Reply)

What Happens: Manuel and Rogue meet, and learn things about the other. I think he's got a Thing for the letter M.
Time: Wednesday, 9AM.

Dramatic Personae: Manuel de la Rocha, Marie D'Ancato

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It's the Fencing Hall. Normally deserted at this time of day, when most folks are socializing, watching TV, or working on homework. Manuel's in here for a very different reason, though. Reverently, he takes one of the blunted training foils from the protective case, placing it on the floor carefully. He then lowers the infamous tennis-ball-on-a-string that every fencer learns to loathe from its hook on the wall, letting it dangle free from the ceiling. Returning to where he placed the foil, he picks it up and very slowly assumes the proper Spanish starting stance. His gaze is focused on the tennis ball, waiting for it to come to a complete stop.

The door swings open quietly and someone takes several steps into the hall before halting. "Oh, excuse me," a young woman with a southern accent says. "Didn't expect to find anyone here." Marie continues into the hall, looking for something along the bench near the door.

Manuel ignores the girl (for once!), concentrating totally on the ball and his own treacherous body. When the ball reaches perfect stillness, he lunges. To anyone with any modicum of grace or training, his coordination is _very_ clearly shot, and he misses the ball entirely by a mile. ~SHIT!~ he says, disgustedly, in Castillian.

Marie finds her little blue mp3 player under the bench and retrieves it, coiling the earphone up around it. She slips it into her pocket while she watches Manuel with a great deal of sympathy, remembering her own recovery after Stanley. "You'll get it back," she reassures him.

Manuel blinks, and looks over at the American girl. Then does a double-take that very nearly knocks him over. "I'm sorry." he stammers in English as he brings a hand to his forehead. "Who are you?"

"Marie," she says, frowning at his reaction. "Rogue. We were talking in my journal the last couple days. Are you okay?" She takes a few steps toward him but pauses at 'personal space' distance, not wanting to make things worse if it's really her that's the problem.

Personal Space means something different to Manuel than it does to most folks. "What the _hell_ are you?" he asks, remembering to ask it in English. "And I remember you now - you're the one who made me angry the other day."

Marie backs off several steps. He's obviously well enough to stand at the moment. "...I'm me. Yes." She crosses her arms over her chest, feeling a little wounded but at the same time strangely comforted to meet someone whose reactions to her are very much the ones she often has when she looks in the mirror. "Should I go?" It seems obvious that she should, but she doesn't want to offend.

Manuel stares straight at Marie's eyes. "You're very, very strange. There's ... Jesus, four of you in there? Five? It's hard to tell, the colors are all blurred together and hard to see." He almost looks - sympathetic?

Marie does a head count. Cody, Logan, Eric, Stanley, the Brit from the other night is mostly gone, then there's the Japanese, the rest are whispers... she nods. "Four, usually, and me. Five right now because of Sunday, but he's fading." His sympathy is a little wrenching, really. People usually look at her blankly, or look as though they're about to refer her to the nearest psych ward, when she mentions the others.

Manuel nods along with her assessment. "OK, I see him now. Fading is a good term for it. To borrow a phrase, that's some fucked-up shit."

"You can see them." She can't help her smile. "Sometimes, I... I guess I never knew if they were /really/ there or if I were just crazy. Instead of them being there and me being kinda crazy as well, y'know." Marie backs up until the bench hits her in the backs of the knees and she sits down, feeling more comfortable with the wall at her back.

Manuel takes a seat as well, placing the naked blade across his lap easily. "Well, sort of. It doesn't work quite like that. I can see their emotions. And yours, if you're curious. Let's see, we've got ... oh, hello! We've got some _very_ interesting things going on in there." He smirks at the last, seemingly satisfied with himself.

Marie eyes him warily, though she's amused at his smirk as well. "I feel so... specimen-y," she says dryly. "Do tell."

Manuel quirks an eyebrow. Clearly, she didn't get the memo about getting all offended and disgusted. This could be fun. "Well, you're in love - or at least you feel like you're in love. Nice shade of pinkish-red there. And over here we've got some nice hot red anger, coupled with some black of depression - no, wait, there's some frustration in there as well. And you've got some stress - that grey shows up quite nicely. And what's this? Some green? Yep, looks like curiousity. You're curious ... about me? Yes, I see the tie."

Marie wraps her arms around her knees, watching Manuel intently, analyzing what he's revealed. It's not just the parts about her that fascinate. It's the parts about him too. "That's... you can /see/. Me. Us. You could across the room. And you could feel me on Sunday. Can you feel everyone? Can you /see/ everyone?"

Manuel laughs, an ugly, ugly sounding laugh. "When it comes to my gift, the boundaries between _me_ and _you_ are pretty much meaningless. Right now you're curious, stunned, and a little afraid. I know this because I'm curious, stunned, and a little afraid." he admits. "I can also see them." he adds unnecessarily.

Marie's silent for a while, thinking about this. "I'm sorry," she says at last, thinking about how hard it is to hold on to herself in the hours after she steals someone else. -Maybe that's why the angry,- she muses. -Maybe it's not just them, maybe it's because that part of /me/ is easiest to hold.-

Manuel shrugs that off. "Oh, and since I'm telling you far too much about this. I'm don't just read the colors - I can recolor them." And, by way of demonstration, he projects a nice big wave of reassurance - that everything's gonna be fine, that there's nothing to worry about. As he does this, his eyes blaze cherry-red. He lets the feeling die after a few seconds - just long enough to make the point.

"Thanks," she says faintly. "For being honest. That scares the hell out of me, but I'm sure you can tell that now." It does. Being manipulated is a terror that wakes her up in the night. Her hands whiten as she grips her elbows tightly and forces herself to stop being afraid as fast as she can, partly for her, partly for him. It's an ugly terror.

Manuel feels it instantly, and without even thinking his eyes flash scarlet and he takes the fear away. Squashes it cold, like a bug. "Don't do that." he snaps. "I didn't tell you all this so that you could find new ways to drive me insane. If I want to go mad, I'll go find that oaf of a groundskeeper."

"Sorry." Marie drops her head to her knees. "You hit an Issue." She capitalizes the last word with her emphasis and then laughs and lifts her head, tossing her hair back. "I think I may be all Issues. At least you can take care of yourself, that's good." She'd be more afraid except for his honesty. "Why are you telling me?"

Manuel knows from Issues, yes indeed he does. "Sorry." he says, unapologetically. "And ... I don't know. I have this distressing habit of spilling my guts to pretty girls. It is a failing of mine." He smiles charmingly at this last, but it never reaches his eyes.

"Honesty is never a failing." She lets the comment about her looks slide by. It's irrelevant to her and it's probably irrelevant to him, really.

Manuel waves that off, then remembers that he wanted to regain his fencing skills. "Well, this has been devestatingly charming, but unless you've got something more interesting for me to do, I think that I need to try to get my reflexes back." Looking over her from head to toe, he grinned suddenly. "Want to help?"

"Afraid I can't do that." Marie stands up and offers her hand to help him to his feet. "I might break you, and then we'd both be sorry."

Manuel quirks an eyebrow. "I doubt that." he says with clear amusement. "But even if you could, the breaking would be spectacular. Sure you won't risk it? You never know, you might like it. Empathy is _very_ useful that way."

Marie laughs and points to a spot on the ceiling near the center of the room. The cement underbelly of the house above has clearly suffered slight damage and there's a discolouration that could be dried blood. "See that? That's the mark our senior self-defense instructor made when he startled me in training. And I /like/ him." She puts her hands in her pockets and shrugs. "And then there's always the danger of you accidentally joining my little collective in my head. Honestly, I don't know you nearly well enough to say if I'd be willing to take that chance. I have enough fucked up men in here to last me a life time. I'm sure someone else would be happy to help you out."

Manuel looks at the indentation and the bloodstain and then shrugs. "A pity, then. We could have been so beautiful together." He then stands, and holds the foil loosely at his side.

Marie laughs and shakes her head. "I'm sure you say that to all the girls. Enjoy your training. I /am/ sure you'll have no trouble finding assistance, in any capacity you might require, if you ask around." She leans on the door, pressing it open. "It was nice meeting you."

Manuel shakes his head. "Not all of them. Just the beautiful ones. The pleasure was, I believe, actually yours." he comments with a jaunty wave, before turning his back towards the fencing target.

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