xp_logs | Manuel & Cammie (Backdated 23rd)

Manuel soothes Cammie's aches and pains while talking to her all about the things she should have learned from her little experience.

It took quite little to find someone to look after Valentia for a length of time so that he could actually spend some quality time with Miss Black. Although it was really a question of whether or not he was truely wanted there, here all her faults would be bare to him and he wasn't entirely sure she liked that. She had never liked it before and now, even less. The longer he spent with her here, the more he noticed slight changes in her.

"How is your leg?" he asked, keeping conversation simple, light.

“Broken,” Cammie said simply, with a shrug. She was past wanton sarcasm at the moment, “But it’ll get better. After I spend time in a cast and with crutches. It also hurts,” she said, but he would know the last part. Pain pills were not an option with her, and she had opted to just deal with it other than taking the telepathic way out. It almost made it like a punishment. Or atonement.

“It’s what I get for being a moron.”

"Yes, that is what you get for being a moron," he echoed as he placed the tea next to her. Instead of seating across from her, Manuel took up a place beside her. He wasn't wearing a suit today, instead, wore as casual clothing as possible, looking less like an old man and more like the young twenty six year old that he should have been. His arm rested behind her and idly traced the pads of his fingers through her hair, tangling and releasing the faintest relief. Nothing she would notice coming from him but instead, possibly think it was a moment reprieve from the pain.

The pain died down for a moment and she let out a slight sigh of relief. You never knew how much you missed things like pain killers until you didn’t take them anymore, “Yeah, so I get to live with that lesson for awhile,” she said with a slight grin. “An objective lesson for next time: don’t get pissed.” Pissed off people made mistakes, but it was more than that. In the end, she hadn’t really done her friend any sort of service.

"And what other lessons have we learned from this?" he asked. Manuel closed his own eyes, if only for the sake of concentration and the continuation to give her relief where it wasn't really present. He was amused by her own self taught lessons, though had he searched any deeper, there would have been plenty of concern that he would not have been comfortable with.

“Hmmm, call for help? Don’t walk into the murderous mystery house on your own? People can be real big jerks about being different?” Cammie mused, “Some combination of all of this. But I think next time call for help tops the list.”

"Yes, calling for help would have been wise would it not?" his fingers tapped her head, opening his eyes and inticing her to look at him.

Cammie looked over at him, “Yeah. Hindsight though. At least I lived to learn from the mistake.”

"Are you being positive Miss Black? That is almost unheard of."

Cammie shrugged, “Hey, I’m not dead. That’s worth a small amount of optimism.”

"I think you need to look beyond the current." But he didn't pursue it past that, instead, continued to weave his fingers in that soothing way she seemed to like.

“Maybe when the cast comes off,” she muttered, “Right now I’m sort of high on the whole not dead.” And feeling guilty for what happened with Adrienne, but that was another story.

"Perhaps Christmas would be something you could look forward to this year." Something made him think that she hadn't looked forward to Christmas for a long time.

“Kurt offered to take me to meet some of his family, so that will be interesting. Never been to Germany. And gets me out of your hair for a bit. Absence makes the heart something something,” she said with a smile. “I figure New Years Eve will be the better holiday to be around here. Watch everyone get drunk and maybe no one will try killing me in 2010.”

"Mmm," he nodded faintly to that. Cammie was his first and last effort, although he knew it was a stretch because nothing between them was ever... anything certain. "That is nice of Kurt, sharing..."

“It was that or my parents. My mother’s been going nuts trying to find reasons for me to go to the middle of nowhere,” Cammie said, “There’s no polite way to really tell her no, so this work.”

"I suppose not," he replied evenly, if not absently. "I will not be attending anywhere special, therefore, if you need to call again, you can."

“Yeah, I’ll bother you,” Cammie said, “As long as I don’t bother you too much. I’d never thought I’d say this, but I think I caused enough trouble.”

"I do think I can handle a phone call or two. It is not quite the same as having you in the room," he mused, tugging a section of her hair.

“And think. I’ll have to spend so much time off my feet,” Cammie said with an exaggerated sigh.

"Yes, whatever will you do," Manuel said, still amused as he pushed off the couch.

“Well, if you’re busy I guess I’ll kill it with books,” Cammie said, with a twist of her lips.

He returned with a blanket and placed it over her, brushing her cheek with a trace of his thumb. "Or," he smiled over her. "A brush of sleep."

“Oh, I have to sleep? What if I’m not tired, then what then?” Cammie asked.

"Then I will make you tired, senorita."