xp_logs | Angelo and Manuel (Reply)

Angelo, having recovered from his jetlag, wandered along to the student rec room to see if there was anything good on TV and anyone to watch it with. As he walked through the door, he stopped dead for a second on seeing Manuel there, then kept going and sat down.

Manuel, for his part, had a pile of papers on his lap, and was listlessly reading them one at a time. Very slowly. As soon as he finished with one, he'd turn it over and place it, face-down, on a pile next to his chair.

Angelo glanced around for the remote control, and spotting it nearby, reached for it to turn the TV on, the volume not too high so as not to disturb Manuel's reading overmuch.

Manuel looked up briefly at the TV set, then spotted Angelo. Shrugging slightly to himself, he went back to his reading - but this time, using a pen to scratch out some words on the sheets.

After flicking channels a few times, Angelo shifted uncomfortably in the near-silence - he wasn't all that interested in anything that was showing. Finally, he broke the silence, saying simply, "Hey, Manuel."

Manuel looked up again, and over to Angelo. "Hola." he said listlessly, then dropped his eyes back to whatever it was on the papers.

Angelo, trying to make some kind of conversation without jumping straight into recriminations, asked "What you readin'?"

Manuel looked up again. "Just some stuff from Samson." he said listlessly, his usual fire and life in his voice gone, replaced by a dry dull monotone. "Therapy stuff."

Angelo frowned, not liking the lack of energy in Manuel's voice. "Is it helpin' any?" he asked, aware as he spoke that the answer would almost certainly be "no".

"No." he replied predictably. "This is hard."

Angelo nodded. "What's he got you doin'? That emotion journal you've been keepin'?"

"Not quite. These are pictures, and I'm supposed to try to determine how they feel by their expressions. It's very stupid." he says.

Angelo blinked. "Why stupid? Unless you mean it's too easy..."

"No, it's not that. It's just - futile. People have multiple emotions at all times - it's stupid to assume that there's just _one_ feeling that they have. Psychologists are stupid, stupid people." Manuel says. "And these people are ugly."

Angelo laughed a little. "Well, I guess that makes sense, kinda. But quite often, there's one feelin' that shows through more than the others."

Manuel shows a sign of life and sneers at the other boy. "Like _you'd_ know." he says.

Angelo scowled suddenly - he didn't like being sneered at that way. "What the hell does that mean?"

"You're headblind." he says. "You can't possibly know how things really work with the mind."

"I know how feelin's work from the inside", Angelo points out flatly. "So what if I'm not a telepath?"

"Telepaths don't know any more than you headblind types. And do you _really_ know your own feelings? I doubt it." he shoots back, before taking a deep breath. "Stupid Mexican."

Angelo forces himself to silence, brutally shoving his temper back down. "I know them as well as I want to", he retorts.

Manuel just smirks at that, and doesn't say a word.

Seeing that, Angelo decides to hell with not bringing in recriminations. "D'you want to tell me what you did to Bobby?" he demands abruptly. "Or Lorna?"

"No." says Manuel bluntly. "I do not wish to discuss it with you, or anyone else. What do you care?"

Angelo stares at him in disbelief that he'd ask that. "Because they're my friends, an' whatever you did to them hurt them."

Manuel shrugs. "Still don't want to talk about it to you. I don't know you from Pancho Villa, why should I open myself to you?"

"I don't give a shit if you "open yourself to me" or not", Angelo retorts equally bluntly. "Don't care about your feelin's unless you want to tell me - but tell me what you did to them."

Manuel shakes his head. "No." he repeats. "It is none of your business. Go shoot somebody or get beat up or something."

Angelo glares at him, and speaks very carefully. "If it's none of my business, then how is messin' with people's feelin's any of yours? Stay away from Bobby from now on - he doesn't want anythin' to do with you. Same goes for Lorna."

"I do not mess with people's feelings. I protect myself when I am threatened. That is all you need to know. And as long as the assraper and the cook stay away from me, I'll leave them alone. It's not like I could do anything to them even if I wanted to, right now..." he says, brushing a hand across his bracelet.

Angelo goes white with barely suppressed rage. "Assraper? Do you even know..." He gets himself under control just before saying something he shouldn't. "No. Of course you don't, an' I'm not goin' to tell you why you're wrong. See, unlike you, I try not to betray people's trust."

"Yes, I _do_ know." he spits back, his own emotions finally starting to come to the fore. "I felt _exactly_ what that pervert went through, and how much he enjoyed it. Deny it as he might, I know _how he felt about it_."

Angelo's fists clench, and he forces them down to his sides, trying to force down the memories of his time on the streets at the same time. "Really? An' did you feel how he's feelin' about that as well? Or did you not bother to look that far, while you were diggin' around in his memories? 'Cause I seriously doubt he just happened to be projectin' that for no reason."

"Doubt what you want, you know _nothing_ about my power or how it works. He was checking me out. I felt it." His hands clench, to the point where his pencil snaps clean in two. On his bracelet, a red light starts blinking rapidly. He takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

"An' so what if he was?" Angelo snaps back. "He wouldn't've done anythin' about it, an' how does that excuse you bringin' back the memory of him bein' tortured?"

"You presume it was _his_ memory, you idiot!" he finally yells back to Angelo. "Yeah, go ahead, laugh it up. Mock the Spaniard, poor poor Empath, raped for _two years_ straight by the orderlies at the asylum. There, satisfied? Do you like knowing now? Does it make you feel like a big man? DO YOU?" And then he lapses into Castillian, spitting obscenities and wiping the back of his hand across his eyes to clear them of tears.

Angelo reels slightly, shocked, and falls back on defensiveness. "Who the fuck said I was mockin' you, or that I'd laugh at anyone who'd been through that? I don't like you much, Manuel, I'm not denyin' it, but I would never laugh at that. It doesn't change that you took his memory of much the same an' all but broke him with it."

Manuel stares, then shakes his head at Angelo. "You're just like them." he says dismissively. "Go away, Mexican."

Angelo stares at him for a few moments, fuming, then stands up. "Fine. I don't know why I bothered. But I'll tell you this now, an' it'd be better for you to listen - when you've got that bracelet off, if you ever do anythin' like that to me or mine again, you will regret it. Stay away from us."

"When I have this bracelet off, if I want to mess with you you'll thank me for it from the bottom of your heart. Asshole." Manuel says, gathering up his Samson-assigned homework.

Angelo just turns and leaves without another word, wishing he'd never entered the room. He walks in silence out of the house and to the woods, the memories coming back full force, finds a convenient clearing with a tree stump to sit on, and lights a cigarette. It doesn't help much. Finally, sickened with himself and ashamed, despite what Marie has said, of what he has done and been in the past, he resorts to giving himself something else to concentrate on, and what he considers a fitting "punishment". Pushing up his sleeve, he - slowly, carefully, so as not to put it out too soon - presses the still-lit tip of the cigarette to the skin of his inner arm.

Gritting his teeth, he does not remove the cigarette until it no longer hurts. Then he rolls his sleeve back down and just sits, drawing on what's left of the cigarette in his solitude and silence.