Manuel/Amanda - lost log of Atlantis...
Feb. 14th, 2004 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsFollows these emails about Amanda first seeing auras. The pair meet up and decide to experiment in making the link on purpose, with mixed results. Unfinished-ish.
Manuel hums to himself tunelessly as he walked down the hall of the dorm floor. He's looking at the room numbers like he's trying to remember something. Something important.
Music - something loud and guitar-heavy and angry-sounding - blaring from Room 201 helps him get his bearings. There's not many other people in the mansion with a liking for punk, and most of those live in the basement.
The music's usually the key, and that holds true in this case as well. He heads for the source of the music and politely knocks on the doorframe of the open door. Amanda is lying on her stomach on the bed, a large book open in front of her. She's so engrossed - and the music is so loud - that she doesn't notice Manuel's presence at first. He clears his throat pointedly and she looks up, momentarily startled. "Hey," she says with a smile.
Manuel smiles back - his honestly happy smile, not his plastic I'm-so-bored-I-could-die one. "Hola. Got a few?"
"Of course." She sits up, brushing hair out of her eyes and patting the bed beside her. "You got me email, then?"
Manuel ambles in and takes the proffered seat. "I did." he answers. "I have an idea. But there are risks."
She raises an eyebrow curiously. "Life's a risk, or so Pete tells me," she replies with a shrug. "What have yer got in mind?"
"You mentioned seeing auras as colors. If we manage to link, then you can see how I see..." he says tentatively. "But we've never done a link sober."
"I could visit me supplier," she suggests, grinning. The she becomes serious. "I'm game, if you are. An' ain't we s'posed t' be 'learning about our powers'?" She says the last in a clear imitation of Profesor Xavier's cultured tones."
Manuel grins. "Exactly. So I want to try the link sober. I think I know how it is supposed to work, Braddock went over it in psionics class..."
There's no point trying to hide from Manuel the faint unease the mention of Betsy's name elicits in Amanda, but she tries to push it away any way. "So how do we do this?" she asks, closing the book beside her and straightening her posture.
"Just ... don't move around too much. And try to accept whatever comes. She was talking about telepathic bonds, but I think I can adapt for my own power..." And then his eyes blaze red as he reaches out, forcing his power to attempt what it doesn't want to do - make a tunnel between the two teens, force their perceptions together.
What Manuel is trying to do would have been practically impossible with anyone else, but not only is there a pre-existing pathway between him and Amanda, but her ideas of 'normal' have been stretched beyond any kinds of limits, so she has no difficulties in accepting what they're attempting. She calms her mind with one of the exercises Romany emailed her, and visualises a link between the two of them, a thread of energy glowing the same cherry red of Manuel's eyes. Manuel picks up the thread she's offering, and smoothes out her own emotions to match his own as much as he can - make the two as similar as possible and then bridge should attend to itself. This is how it worked last time, with the lust and the empathic bridging...
Amanda twitches, ever-so-slightly, as the link reasserts itself. Last time there had been so much going on that she had barely been aware of the link, save for the sharing of emotional states it generated. This time she can sense it, like a slight buzzing in the back of her head. She opens her eyes and blinks, trying to orientate herself. "Wow."
"Welcome to my world - if this works," he breathes, and takes a look around, slowly extending out his empathic senses to examine Amanda's own feelings. Unfortunately, the blinding glare is a little bit too much, and he's forced to look away quickly.
It's not quite the same as the phenomenon she's been experiencing lately, but close. "Pretty amazin' place, your world," she says. "Tell me what I'm seein' here."
"Well, we can't actually look at the link itself, so we need to go find someone _else_ to look at. I can't see through walls." he grumbles. "Wait - can you see me through the bond?"
She nods. "I think it's you. Hard t' tell - it keeps mimickin' me. Or what I think is me." She rubs a hand across her forehead. "Yer right, we do need someone else, just t' compare." Voices float faintly up from outside, and she moves to the window. "Hey, Artie an' Miles are out there - they close enough?"
Manuel nods. "Ah, good. Children have uncomplicated emotional states. Good pick." And he stands and goes over to the window, focusing his empathic senses of the playing children. "See it? They've got a thread between them - a fat one. They're good friends. See all that yellow and that pink? Friendship and trust there."
"'S a bit different t' what I've been seein' - me books reckon I'm seein' energy, as well as emotions - but yeah, I get you. This is what you see all the time?"
"More or less, yes. And I can reach out and change the colors, or the intensities. Can't really change the threads yet, although I should be able to..."
She glances over at him. "No wonder people tend t' freak when you tell 'em what you can do." Then she frowns, looking from Manuel to the two boys playing in the snow below them, and back again. "That's odd."
"What is?" he asks, with a yellowish-green flash of curiosity.
"Your emotions, your aura, whatever the fuck you want t' call it. 'S different to theirs." She indicates the two playing boys. "Theirs is all compact, tied t' 'emselves. Yours is more... loose, I s'pose you could say. An' it changes accordin' t' what yer picking up from others."
Manuel blinks. "Is it?" he asks, far too neutrally for the wild spikes of red and black that jump through his emotional aura. "I can't tell - I've never been able to see my own aura before."
She sees his reaction and reaches out without thinking to smooth it out with a projection of reassurance. "Think about it - you feel what others feel. 'Course you're gunna have a different aura." She frowns a little. "Wish I could show you what it looks like."
Manuel is, for the first time ever, subjected to his own power. And falls prey to it without so much as a murmur, as his emotions get smoothed out. "Wish I could see it." he sighs.
Catching sight of her sketchbook lying on her desk, Amanda grins. "I'm a pretty crappy artist - nowhere near Frenchie's talent - but maybe I can draw it for you sometime." She tilts her head and looks at him again. "There's other stuff, underneath what yer gettin' from the sprogs. Hard t' see, but it's... darker. More complicated. More... you?" She shook her head. "I'm not explainin' this too well."
Manuel merely looks fascinated. "You look no different than you usually do." By way of demonstration, he _twangs_ one of the empathic strings, causing a brief welling of lust in Amanda. "That one's as strong as it ever is." he smirks.
There's a familiar tingling through her body as Manuel tugs at the string, and she grins. "So that's what that one is," she says, the flush of her reaction moving down the link. She sees Manuel's aura shift again, reflecting what she is guessing is her own - a conflicting mix of colours, predominantly curiosity and fascination, heavily overlaid with rising lust. She nudges his corresponding empathic node, enjoying the reaction she gets from him, both emotional and physical.
Manuel once again falls victim to his own power, judging by his immediate physiological reaction. To show off, he takes the thread that comprises their lust for one another, and does ... _something_ ... to the thread that causes the lust to go deeper, to be more personal. He then has the gall to look surprised when he feels the change overtake him. She can't help but laugh at the expression of almost comical surprise on his face. She runs her fingers along his arm, enjoying the sensation of fine cotton under her fingertips and the accompanying flux of emotional reaction it elicits. If she is unsettled by Manuel's tweaking of their emotions, she hides it well, even with the link.
Manuel lets his eyes close for just a second, to enjoy the feeling and the sentiment behind it. Even with his eyes closed, he can still "see" Amanda's emotional patterns, and the artificial tie that links her to him. "Now do you see?" he asks quietly. "What I go through, every day?"
Manuel hums to himself tunelessly as he walked down the hall of the dorm floor. He's looking at the room numbers like he's trying to remember something. Something important.
Music - something loud and guitar-heavy and angry-sounding - blaring from Room 201 helps him get his bearings. There's not many other people in the mansion with a liking for punk, and most of those live in the basement.
The music's usually the key, and that holds true in this case as well. He heads for the source of the music and politely knocks on the doorframe of the open door. Amanda is lying on her stomach on the bed, a large book open in front of her. She's so engrossed - and the music is so loud - that she doesn't notice Manuel's presence at first. He clears his throat pointedly and she looks up, momentarily startled. "Hey," she says with a smile.
Manuel smiles back - his honestly happy smile, not his plastic I'm-so-bored-I-could-die one. "Hola. Got a few?"
"Of course." She sits up, brushing hair out of her eyes and patting the bed beside her. "You got me email, then?"
Manuel ambles in and takes the proffered seat. "I did." he answers. "I have an idea. But there are risks."
She raises an eyebrow curiously. "Life's a risk, or so Pete tells me," she replies with a shrug. "What have yer got in mind?"
"You mentioned seeing auras as colors. If we manage to link, then you can see how I see..." he says tentatively. "But we've never done a link sober."
"I could visit me supplier," she suggests, grinning. The she becomes serious. "I'm game, if you are. An' ain't we s'posed t' be 'learning about our powers'?" She says the last in a clear imitation of Profesor Xavier's cultured tones."
Manuel grins. "Exactly. So I want to try the link sober. I think I know how it is supposed to work, Braddock went over it in psionics class..."
There's no point trying to hide from Manuel the faint unease the mention of Betsy's name elicits in Amanda, but she tries to push it away any way. "So how do we do this?" she asks, closing the book beside her and straightening her posture.
"Just ... don't move around too much. And try to accept whatever comes. She was talking about telepathic bonds, but I think I can adapt for my own power..." And then his eyes blaze red as he reaches out, forcing his power to attempt what it doesn't want to do - make a tunnel between the two teens, force their perceptions together.
What Manuel is trying to do would have been practically impossible with anyone else, but not only is there a pre-existing pathway between him and Amanda, but her ideas of 'normal' have been stretched beyond any kinds of limits, so she has no difficulties in accepting what they're attempting. She calms her mind with one of the exercises Romany emailed her, and visualises a link between the two of them, a thread of energy glowing the same cherry red of Manuel's eyes. Manuel picks up the thread she's offering, and smoothes out her own emotions to match his own as much as he can - make the two as similar as possible and then bridge should attend to itself. This is how it worked last time, with the lust and the empathic bridging...
Amanda twitches, ever-so-slightly, as the link reasserts itself. Last time there had been so much going on that she had barely been aware of the link, save for the sharing of emotional states it generated. This time she can sense it, like a slight buzzing in the back of her head. She opens her eyes and blinks, trying to orientate herself. "Wow."
"Welcome to my world - if this works," he breathes, and takes a look around, slowly extending out his empathic senses to examine Amanda's own feelings. Unfortunately, the blinding glare is a little bit too much, and he's forced to look away quickly.
It's not quite the same as the phenomenon she's been experiencing lately, but close. "Pretty amazin' place, your world," she says. "Tell me what I'm seein' here."
"Well, we can't actually look at the link itself, so we need to go find someone _else_ to look at. I can't see through walls." he grumbles. "Wait - can you see me through the bond?"
She nods. "I think it's you. Hard t' tell - it keeps mimickin' me. Or what I think is me." She rubs a hand across her forehead. "Yer right, we do need someone else, just t' compare." Voices float faintly up from outside, and she moves to the window. "Hey, Artie an' Miles are out there - they close enough?"
Manuel nods. "Ah, good. Children have uncomplicated emotional states. Good pick." And he stands and goes over to the window, focusing his empathic senses of the playing children. "See it? They've got a thread between them - a fat one. They're good friends. See all that yellow and that pink? Friendship and trust there."
"'S a bit different t' what I've been seein' - me books reckon I'm seein' energy, as well as emotions - but yeah, I get you. This is what you see all the time?"
"More or less, yes. And I can reach out and change the colors, or the intensities. Can't really change the threads yet, although I should be able to..."
She glances over at him. "No wonder people tend t' freak when you tell 'em what you can do." Then she frowns, looking from Manuel to the two boys playing in the snow below them, and back again. "That's odd."
"What is?" he asks, with a yellowish-green flash of curiosity.
"Your emotions, your aura, whatever the fuck you want t' call it. 'S different to theirs." She indicates the two playing boys. "Theirs is all compact, tied t' 'emselves. Yours is more... loose, I s'pose you could say. An' it changes accordin' t' what yer picking up from others."
Manuel blinks. "Is it?" he asks, far too neutrally for the wild spikes of red and black that jump through his emotional aura. "I can't tell - I've never been able to see my own aura before."
She sees his reaction and reaches out without thinking to smooth it out with a projection of reassurance. "Think about it - you feel what others feel. 'Course you're gunna have a different aura." She frowns a little. "Wish I could show you what it looks like."
Manuel is, for the first time ever, subjected to his own power. And falls prey to it without so much as a murmur, as his emotions get smoothed out. "Wish I could see it." he sighs.
Catching sight of her sketchbook lying on her desk, Amanda grins. "I'm a pretty crappy artist - nowhere near Frenchie's talent - but maybe I can draw it for you sometime." She tilts her head and looks at him again. "There's other stuff, underneath what yer gettin' from the sprogs. Hard t' see, but it's... darker. More complicated. More... you?" She shook her head. "I'm not explainin' this too well."
Manuel merely looks fascinated. "You look no different than you usually do." By way of demonstration, he _twangs_ one of the empathic strings, causing a brief welling of lust in Amanda. "That one's as strong as it ever is." he smirks.
There's a familiar tingling through her body as Manuel tugs at the string, and she grins. "So that's what that one is," she says, the flush of her reaction moving down the link. She sees Manuel's aura shift again, reflecting what she is guessing is her own - a conflicting mix of colours, predominantly curiosity and fascination, heavily overlaid with rising lust. She nudges his corresponding empathic node, enjoying the reaction she gets from him, both emotional and physical.
Manuel once again falls victim to his own power, judging by his immediate physiological reaction. To show off, he takes the thread that comprises their lust for one another, and does ... _something_ ... to the thread that causes the lust to go deeper, to be more personal. He then has the gall to look surprised when he feels the change overtake him. She can't help but laugh at the expression of almost comical surprise on his face. She runs her fingers along his arm, enjoying the sensation of fine cotton under her fingertips and the accompanying flux of emotional reaction it elicits. If she is unsettled by Manuel's tweaking of their emotions, she hides it well, even with the link.
Manuel lets his eyes close for just a second, to enjoy the feeling and the sentiment behind it. Even with his eyes closed, he can still "see" Amanda's emotional patterns, and the artificial tie that links her to him. "Now do you see?" he asks quietly. "What I go through, every day?"
