xp_logs | (no subject)

Set around late afternoon, Manuel comes to pick Dani up from Xavier's. Once they're at the hotel, she opens up as to what's bothering her in a way only Manuel and Danielle can do.

Since Manuel had come back to the school, he and Dani hadn't had much more than a passing friendship, not like they had had before he had left. Part of that was because he had come back injured and having problems with his powers that she hadn't wanted to exacerbate. Part if it was because she was in school and working and just busy, but more than that...they hadn't had anything before. It was a meaningless fling, they weren't lovers exactly, not in a relationship and that had been good for both of them. Now...she hadn't wanted to resume that either. It wasn't him that had changed. She had. She didn't NEED a man.

Now, she still didn't need a man. She needed a friend. And Manuel had reached out to her when she had needed it. It was surprising in some ways, but welcome. He was different now and so was she. So long as they were clear on expectations, she would join him for a while in New York. She needed time away from the school. Time to think. To reevaluate. To consider. And...to heal, if it was possible. She was not sure it was.

Manny waited patiently beside the passenger door, hands folded in front of him, leaning on the sleek black Lincoln rental instead of the cane that rested against his leg. She knew he was here, she had to. How could she not? His presence was unmistakable between them and he was drawn to her as much as she was to him. Naturally, even if socially, they had not spoken a word for sometime. He was anxious for her to emerge. He heeded Marie-Ange's warnings and yet, he stood in the driveway, able to feel the awful, beautiful emotions of everyone within the mansion. She had not been kidding and he was well aware he would not be returning for sometime considering what had come to pass. But he remained steady, unable to avoid soaking in all the turmoil that pulsed within the building and waited. She would come. He knew she would come because he could _feel_ her and it was alarming just how strongly he could feel her within.

When Dani had started packing to go with Manuel she had filled her bag with what meant the most to her first. The woven poncho she had practically lived in when she first came to Xavier's and the blanket on her bed, clothes were secondary. She had rejected her jeans though and had packed almost entirely black or high necked shirts. When she was done though, there hadn't been a lot left. She wasn't leaving the school, not forever, but it sort of seemed like it. It could be argued that it hadn't been home for her since she had come back either.

Manuel felt strange in her mind. Unlike him, she had never been a true empath. She had always been geared more towards the negative side of the emotional spectrum and now she was highly attuned to it. Fear was her bread and butter. And it felt good. Especially when it was his.

Manuel held his breath when he saw her. Every hue that was across the spectrum threw her into a darkness that forbid any light to come in. He waited and respectfully said nothing as he opened the door for her to step in while he would attend to her belongings. It wasn't until he was within the drivers side, adjusting his cane comfortably in the door way when he closed it and drove towards the gate, intent to take her away from the mansion grounds. His powers shuddered under the weight of her own and he turned left outside, heading towards his hotel.

"Would you like dinner?" he asked. "Or room service?" he would have gotten her there sooner had he not changed his reservations so that he was side by side with a room that also shared a kingsized bed.

Dani shrugged. "I'm fine," she whispered, staring resolutely out the window and not at him as they drove. She didn't want to be around people. She hadn't been eating much either and hadn't really noticed. That wasn't like her at all. Dani didn't care.

"Yes well, while you are fine, I am not. I require food to keep going," he said. Her attire had changed to entire black outfit and he found that in itself unusual if not for the hollow haunted look across her face. She was distant and he could respect it, but not understand it. IN his own way, he was distant with many people, but he was wrapped up in his powers, he hadn't the energy to be anything more than focused on them. He was unconcerned about the general care or want of the population and yet he found himself caring here. He could feel her distance and it was a hole that bore into him the moment he felt her presence.

"Room service or take out? I would cook, though I do not cook well." Or at all but she knew that.

"Whichever," Dani shrugged. Manuel was not a cook! She was a cook, though right now she would be hard pressed to make water boil successfully. "Room service," she amended. Under normal circumstances, Dani would rather starve than eat room service or accept other luxuries, but right now...yeah. She'd take room service over take out anyways. She was normally a very independent and frugal person, but right now, caring about anything was too much effort.

He thought about pointing out how she was not alone but the cold indifference that resonated from her chilled him. "You can stay with me as long as you require. Know that I expect nothing." He wasn't sure this was a good idea, given the nature of his powers against hers, but he was like a sponge to her, soaking up those feelings without meaning to and it settled him into a silence as he drove.

In the hotel, Manuel set her suitcase down and the first thing he did was order food from the restaurant below. He added some tasteful changes to the menu, ones that he knew they would accomediate him and watched her as they confirmed the order. She moved so differently from the person she was before, he was trying to pin point the exact change but turned his eyes to the menu and his attention off her, lest he stare at her all night. Replacing the reciever after the call was made, he turned to her and settled down on the edge of the bed. "This is your room and it is next to mine."

Dani wandered around the room almost listlessly, but her mind was taking note of everything from the fire escape to the door between their rooms. It was unlocked. It was a nicer hotel than she had ever been it, but she didn't feel overwhelmed or out of place. She just felt like she was here. Idly, she wondered if he ordered any hot tea. She liked hot tea, anything hot really. She felt cold. It was cold outside, but this went beyond that. This was a cold deep inside her, not something that could be warned by water or a hot drink.

"Dani," Manuel stood up and approached her. "You are walking around like an apparition. You say nothing and you seem to be calculating something, but what, I cannot tell. I see it in your eyes, Fantasma. I understand you do not want to talk, however you are speaking to me in our own language. " Their empathetic lanugage. He was unnerved by what he saw, but the cold within her settled over him like a snowy blanket and he found his powers chose not to focus on anything else. He was unwillingly drawn to her.

Something flashed in her eyes and Dani shut her abilities down so that she wasn't broadcasting to him. He was always more sensitive to empathic things than she was, "I don't know," she replied. She didn't know who she was now, what she was. She couldn't just go back to the way things were. She knew that was not an option even if she wanted to and she didn't. "All I see is horrors."

With the absence of her, the emotions of everyone else in the building flooded in on him though thankfully, they were not as stressful as the mansion residence. Still, the sudden withdrawl made him blink and he would have staggered was he not leaning against his cane so heavily. "Please, you need not to do that so quickly next time," he said, his head rushing in a wave of dizziness. He took a slow breath and waited until it passed before he offered a hand to link through hers. "What horrors?"

With that question, Dani almost transformed before his eyes. She was confident and stood straight. The all black clothing was perfect for her as opposed to strange and casually brushing her hair out of her face, Dani stepped up close to Manuel. They were practically the same height, which Dani used to her advantage. Wrapping her arms lightly around him, she whispered in his ear about the asylum, being raped, his father, all swirled together in a miasma of his fears, pulling them together in her mind and sharing them the way a lover might whisper sweet nothings. She stopped short of making him see them again, of making him experience them. Slowly, reluctantly, she stepped away and smiled, almost ferrally. She had enjoyed it.

What he thought was a hug had turned abruptly into something else entirely. She had him before he could stop her. His emotions darkened and cloaked before his very eyes. He was suffercating, suddenly in a small space. It closed on him and a small part of him knew this was her, but it was trampled over with panic. "Stop it--" he shuddered and the rememberence, not just the reminders but the words, the undertone, the posession and cruelty drove into him with ease like a knife and he bled his fears into her freely. Flushed with unbridled anger at the release of her hold, it was the first emotion he was able to grasp and find stability, gritting his teeth against the intrusion. He was furious that she did that but he understood it on a level too well from his teenaged years.

"So this--" he grasped his cane and stepped back. "--this is what you have become?"Manuel said, withdrawing a hankerchief from his pocket and dabbling the persperation off his forehead.

Instantly, Dani shut down again and turned away, not willing to look at him and what she had done. This was not the first time she had done this to him, but it was the first that was intentional. She hadn't intended this specific reaction, but it wasn't a surprising one. "That was words, Manuel. I can make you relive them. See them. Lock them in your psyche forever. Invade your dreams," she stared resolutely out the window to the people on the street, "And what is worse is I like it."

"This enjoyment does not disturb you?" he asked, allowing her the space she desired. A knock at the door broke their conversation and Manuel let in the roomservice who left the cart by a nearby table for two. He tipped the young man and closed the door. The auroma of dinner drew him to the table and he sat down, preparing dinner. "You should eat."

"Of course it does," Dani replied, standing in the window still. "That is the problem. I don't want to like it. She turned to look at the cart with its plates covered in metal toppers, "I'm not hungry," she hadn't really been hungry since she had come back. Amanda had left her some toast and things, but other than nibbling the edges, she hadn't eaten in days.

"The mind says one thing, the emotions say another. The eternal problem of an empath." He meant it in a generalization, though he did consider her an empath as much as he considered himself one. "Come sit and have a tea then. We do not need to talk. Only sit." Manuel didn't know if he could help her, but he knew where she stood now.