xp_logs | LOG: Manuel and Nathan

Who: Manuel de la Rocha and Nathan Dayspring
Where: The Fencing Hall
When: Monday evening (3/29/2004)
What: They talk about psi-bonds and what happens when they break. Manuel gets into a lot of trouble and doesn't realize it. Progress is made on humanizing the empath.

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The fencing hall is normally a fairly quiet place, not used by many. This evening, it is occupied by one extremely frustrated and irritated Spaniard. He's got one of the blunted training foils from the cabinet, and he's lunging over and over again at a tennis ball suspended from the ceiling by a bit of rope. He's missing more often than he's hitting, and judging by the swearing in three languages, he's not very happy about it.

Nathan, having left Moira to check on 'things' in her lab (he is only amazed that she waited this long; they've been back for a good six hours), is drawn to the sound of cursing from down the hall. Frowning, he wanders in that direction, feeling out the presence. Manuel, he thinks, but then stops short at the door of the fencing hall, blinking warily at the sight of the young man doing his best to kill a tennis ball.

"What did it do?" he asks, the deadpan tone coming of its own accord.

Manuel recognizes that voice. "Oh, great." he groans, stopping his exercises and turning to face the mercenary. "The perfect end to an already bad day. What do you want, mercenary?"

Nathan shrugs, moderately amused by the attitude. "I was walking down the hall, heard the multilingual cursing. Curiosity got the better of me."

"I see." he says, returning his attentions to his nemesis, the dangling tennis ball. He sets up and takes another lunge it, only nicking the ball instead of striking it cleanly, which sends it swinging wildly, the return of the ball striking him squarely in the nose. "Ow, FUCK!" he yells at the tennis ball, which proceeds to ignore him and bounce harmlessly against his chest and jaw.

"I think it's winning," Nate says helpfully. "You may want to retreat."

"Don't you have a coma you should be indulging in or something?" he spits at the merc, glaring at him first in embarrassed anger, then with curiosity. "Hey, that's weird." he says, staring at Nathan's head. "You've also got a weird thing sticking out of your head."

Nathan's eyes narrow a little, warily. "It's the link I have with Moira," he says, remembering her saying something to him about Manuel noticing it while she had been watching over him. He isn't sure he likes the boy's interest in it, dampener or no dampener.

"Telepathic, right?" he says, still looking at Nate's head with intense curiosity. "Do you know much about it?"

"More than most," Nathan says as calmly as he can. Surely they haven't turned the kid's dampener down any further. "I was linked to my wife for ten years before she died. She was a telepath as well. Much stronger than me."

Manuel looks around, as if to check that no-one else was going to come wandering along. "I had a link break on me while I was in the Box. Can you tell me what it's like to lose a link?" he says softly, his accent fairly mangling the words.

Nathan's eyes widen slightly, and before he can stop himself, he takes a step back. Manuel's expression tightens, but the younger man continues to stare at him, waiting, the faintest, barest hint of a plea in that steady gaze. "You--lost a link? An empathic link?" he asks, his voice strained. Manuel nods, and Nathan shifts sideways so that he can lean back against the wall of the fencing hall (and not be quite as tempted by the door). "The Box... you mean the psi-shielded room? Was that the cause of the link breaking?"

"I have no idea. I don't think so, as I still had it while I was in the Box. The breakage was caused by something on the other side of it. You're a mercenary, right? I know mercenaries. Alphonso used to deal with them all the time. Did you ever work for ETA? I can pay you for the information, but not very much - if you'd like. I know you have no reason to even be in the same room with me, judging by that panic I can just barely make out in your brain." he says in a rush.

Nathan raises a defensive hand, trying to still the flow of words. "Slow down," he says awkwardly. "Yes, I am a mercenary, no, I've never worked for ETA, and let's just... figure this out before you start trying to hire me." He studies the young man for a moment, wrestling with the conflicting feelings of sympathy and nervousness. *If he can barely read me, he's not able to manipulate me.* Nodding to himself, Nathan manages to smooth his expression and continue in a more level voice. "Have you been in any physical pain since the link broke?"

"Not really. I got to relive some really unpleasant emotional memories a few nights ago, and that caused me to throw up a lot. I've also been really depressed, somewhat paranoid, and it's been hard to think. Still is, sometimes." he admits. He then realizes that technically he's holding a weapon while he's talking to Nathan, which (as he somewhat dimly recalled) was a no-no when dealing with mercenaries. So he dropped his foil, bouncing it off his foot to roll about a hundred centimeters or so from him.

Nathan eyes the foil for a moment, but decides to leave it where it is. "You've had a lot going on besides this, I understand," he says slowly, meeting Manuel's eyes. "It may be hard to distinguish between the side effects of the broken link and the side effects of everything else. Especially if the other party on your link didn't die."

"No, she's very much not dead." he said, then realized that he's just given away more data than he intended. So he clams up for a few seconds before his curiosity got the better of him. "What _are_ the side-effects? I talked to the other person just a short while ago, and I got an instant headache. It felt like something inside was trying to reach out, but I'm not sure."

Nathan bites his lip. "Links don't usually break when both parties are still alive," he says softly. "It's not natural. Is--she psi-gifted, or is it just you?"

"No, she's head blind." he says. "But she made the link, although I helped. She was trying to help me with my power - I made my mind like hers, and the bond just sort of sprung up from there."

Nathan stares at him for a moment. "She made the link, but you--" He stops, shaking his head. "You could have killed yourself," he says with a sigh. "Killed her, too. If you're going to have a link, especially with a head blind person, you have to keep a very clear separation between you. The link is a conduit, not... your minds overlapping."

"It is? Nobody tells me _anything_!" he says with real disgust. "It wasn't my intention to hurt anyone, least of all her!" Especially not her, judging by his expression. "But the link is gone now - but I still feel it, in my mind. It's like a door that opens out to nowhere."

Something twists in his chest, and Nathan takes a moment to fight with the pain for a moment. It seems so unfair, to have to face this again so soon after the weekend with Moira. But this is life, he tells himself bitterly, and tries to choose his words carefully. "I know... exactly what you mean," he says as calmly as he can. "My wife died... I felt her killed, on the link, as I tried to get back to help her. I used to wake up at nights crying out for her, reaching down the broken link. It took a long time for it to go away, Manuel. I won't lie to you."

Showing a truly stunning lack of tact, Manuel says "I guess I can be grateful that it's just emotions, and not thoughts as well. And that Am - the other person is still alive. But it hurts, when it is quiet and I'm alone with my thoughts. Which is most of the time, since I'm blocked now."

Nathan frowns at him, fairly sure he knows what name Manuel started to say there. Amanda's questions about links suddenly make sense, and he grits his teeth, trying to stay objective in the face of the sudden surge of anger. *You don't have all the facts,* he tells himself. *Talk to her first.*

"Do you want the link back?" he asks, the words coming out deceptively quiet and calm.

Manuel stops to think about it. "I'm really not sure. I mean, yeah, I do, but I don't think she does. So it's probably best that it is gone." He can see that surge of anger, even as myopic as his empathic sense is right now. "Why are you so mad at me? What did I do?"

"I don't know what you did, exactly," Nathan says, still in that conversational tone. "I may very well be jumping to conclusions, which is why I'm not letting the anger out. You need to learn that there's a difference between having an emotion and acting on an emotion, Manuel. Just because you can see it doesn't mean that it's driving the person." He smiles thinly. "Some of us can compartmentalize a little better than that. But let's not stray from the subject. If the link's gone, and will be staying gone, you might talk to Xavier or Ms. Frost about what can be done to help you heal from it faster. Psionic surgery is a little beyond my capabilities."

"No there isn't." he says flatly. "I know - I've sensed it a thousand times. But you're right, we're straying from the conversation. And ... surgery? No, I don't fucking well think so." His expression frosts over, like the assumption of a cold, cruel mask. "No doctors. No surgery. No drugs." he says. "I will let this shattered link rot my brain from the inside out and kill me by inches before I let another doctor have access to me voluntarily."

"There wouldn't be any doctors or drugs involved," Nathan explains as patiently as he can. The boy is really exceptionally irritating, he reflects. "Psionic surgery is just that; a telepath goes into your mind, to repair something or alter something that's causing you problems."

Manuel ohs softly, his icy mask shattering into the confused boy that he is. "I didn't know. Sorry." he offers lamely by way of explanation. "But my problem is empathic, not telepathic. Wouldn't you need another empath to do this surgery you speak of? And I'm the only one I know."

"I really don't know," Nathan says, a bit uncertainly. "Xavier would be the one to ask. I've had both empaths and telepaths perform psionic surgery on me, but they didn't have... repair in mind. And I don't... it's hard to know how they went, what exactly they did. There were so many of them..."

"I think I've done this surgery you speak of." Manuel says, showing a truly abysmal lack of self-preservation instinct. "From what you're saying, this is what the asylum was training us to do. I was the key, the focal point. Empathy cuts right through telepathic shields - as you know. So I could get in even when a telepath couldn't, and convince the subject to lower their shields so that the others could get what they wanted." he says in an everyday matter-of-fact voice. "I didn't like doing it - I know now how wrong it was. At the time, I didn't have a choice."

Nathan isn't sure what keeps him from turning on his heel and leaving. From running. "They were training you as a mind breaker," he says very quietly, hearing his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. There is a roaring in his mind, too, white noise that he can't quite manage to think through. "No wonder you're... having such problems."

"What makes you say that?" he asks with genuine curiosity. "I endured hell in that asylum, but I am here now, trying to make a new go at things. Ohhh, I get it now. You wish I was back there now, because I frighten you." He slumps at that thought. "I frighten me sometimes, too."

Nathan glares at him. "Would you stop jumping to conclusions?" he snaps. "For fuck's sake, boy! Yes, you frighten me. But if you think I would actually prefer to see you back in that place, continuing merrily along the path to becoming a mind breaking son of a bitch like every other empath I've known before you, you've disengaged your brain, again."

"Even as messed up as I am, I can practically taste your fear." he replies, still slumped. "Or would you prefer a shallow grave out back? I don't know. I didn't want to distress you beyond the minimum necessary. I failed. Again. You don't have anything to fear from me. Earlier - that was an accident. I didn't know about those - what did you call them, triggers? Yes, those. I didn't even know it was _possible_! I should go."

"How many times am I going to have to tell you that I don't want you dead?" Nathan growls, moving to stand in front of the door, just in case Manuel does make a break for it. He stops trying to control his emotions and just lets down his walls, so that Manuel will be able to see what he's feeling more clearly. "I don't. And it's not because I'd rather see you suffer, or anything stereotypical like that." He stopped, breathing raggedly. "Yes, I am afraid of you. If you weren't wearing that dampener, I wouldn't be here talking to you. But it's not personal, damn it!" His hands clench into fists at his sides, but he forces himself to relax them again. "If you believe anything, believe that I don't want to see you become like the empaths I knew. I really don't, Manuel. I would love to see you prove all my preconceptions about empaths wrong, to see you show me that it can be a gift, instead of just a fucking weapon." Nathan raises a shaking hand to his temple, wondering where the headache is coming from all of a sudden. "I just... don't know if I have it in me to help you," he goes on, his voice weakening. "I look at you and I see them. I've been running from them for seven years, and I just can't..."

Manuel ahs again. "I understand." he says sympathetically. "I feel the same way about doctors. I cannot do anything to change your mind, so I should just make things easier on you and avoid you completely. I am sorry to have killed your good mood from your weekend. It sounds like you had a lovely time - as lovely as one can have in America, anyway."

Surreal, Nathan thinks fitfully. This conversation has taken a definite turn for the surreal. "My mind is my own business," he says unsteadily. "You... don't need to avoid me, Manuel. I can... I'll think about the problem with your link, see if I can remember anything that helps you." He turns, but glances back over his shoulder at Manuel, trying vainly to smile. He doubts the expression is particularly convincing. "Just don't... pick at it," he says, and goes before Manuel can say anything else.