xp_logs | Amanda, Manuel (with an appearance by Nate)

Manuel is moping, Amanda finds him in the music room being maudlin. Many things are discussed, from the link, to why Lorna was so upset, and progress is made. At least until Amanda tries to heal the damage caused by the link being broken, and things go ka-blooey, resulting in a temporary mental overlap and bigtime headaches for both of them. Nate is called in to send help.

Manuel was in the Music Room, with the door closed and the lights off. Only source of light in the room was a lit candle sitting on the Grand Piano. He was sitting at the piano, gazing off into space aimlessly and letting his fingers roam across the keyboard. Inside of him, despite Nathan's advice, the shattered link throbbed at him, daring him to just try a little bit harder, stretch forth just a little farther to find the girl who used to be on the other side.

While he stared at nothing and probed his mental wound, his fingers skittered across the ivories, plinking out a song he had heard on the radio – before he unplugged it for making him sad. Unbidden, in his mind, the words to the song came to him, demanding that he release them before they burned what was left of his heart into ash.

***

Most of the mansion was non-smoking, this was true, but there were some out of the way places a dedicated smoker could hole up in with an ashtray, a cup of tea and a couple of large tomes on witchcraft. Amanda had found that smoking helped her study, and her first session with Doctor Strange had proved interesting enough to make her want to concentrate on the reading he'd assigned. She was working her way through a book on magical practices in Asia when the thought of Manuel suddenly popped into her head. She frowned, not wanting to bring all that up again after a perfectly good weekend, but she found herself reading the same sentence over and over again whilst the feeling grew in her that perhaps he wasn’t doing so good.

'Trust your instincts,' Homily had told her once, and she sighed, realising that she wasn't going to get any peace unless she did just that. Closing the book and stubbing out her cigarette, she dropped her feet off the table they'd been propped on and got up. She had no idea where he was, but she had no doubt she'd find him, eventually.

***

"And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
Your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone"

Manuel sang, and the tears, unbidden, started rolling down his face. It wasn't fair, damn it all to Hell. It wasn't fair that he was living in pain and misery, with a hot ball of loss festering in his mind, while she got a pat on the head and a visit back home. But try how he might he just couldn't bring himself to do anything but blame himself. He dared to try to help her, after all. Seems empathy's not good for much any more. Can't help people with it, can't use it to get his own way. Can't use it at all any more.

In his mind's ear, the song played on, and so too did his fingers continue to tap out the chords of their own will.

"These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase"

***

He wasn't in any of the places she could think of him being in, so she decided to stop thinking about it. Standing outside his empty room, she concentrated, whispering the words to a particular spell under her breath. The crystal on the cord around her neck glowed brightly for a moment as she drew on more power, and she covered it over with her hand, irritated. "Show me," she said, and a series of glowing red lines appeared on the door, mapping out the first floor. One point glowed cherry red - the music room. Finally.

Cancelling the spell with a sweep of her hand, Amanda headed downstairs.

***

Manuel continued to play the song, his mind wrapping itself up in its own misery.

"Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me"

he sang, his voice growing a little louder as his feeling inside him swelled. It was getting to the point where his fitful rest was constantly being shoved aside by two things - memories of a future that hasn't happened yet, or ... her. Her in all her aspects, in all of her emotionally haloed glory. Her shitty music, her total lack of ability to carry a tune, her terrible, hard-to-understand accent, her ...understanding. Her refusal to judge. Her complete lack of sexual ethics, and her willingness to try just about anything. Twice if she liked it, three times to be sure. How just hearing her grunt incoherently at him in the mornings made the day just a little better. Her blonde roots showing. Just - all of it.

***

Fuck. Amanda opened the music room door and shut it behind her silently, but didn’t approach the figure at the piano. The song, the pain that was radiating off him in waves… suddenly she wasn’t sure this had been such a good idea. It wasn’t hard to tell exactly what – or rather, who – was on Manuel’s mind, and this was something she had no idea how to fix. Or even if she should try – the warnings she’d gotten about the danger inherent in their link had struck home. So she stood, and watched, and wondered what the hell she was doing here.

***

Manuel didn't look up as Amanda entered - instead, he kept tinkering at the piano. Without even realizing that she was present, he finished up the song with the last few lines.

"I tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone.
But though you're still with me,
I've been alone all along."

His fingers wandered through the last few bars of the song, and the music came to a shuddering halt. Manuel still had his eyes closed, but he was seemingly almost choking, like he was fighting something.

Watching his shoulders shaking, hearing him struggle to breathe past his pain, Amanda made up her mind. She might not be able to do much about the emotional stuff - and she was still not sure if trying would be an entirely good idea any way, after the near-catastrophe of the link - but physical pain she understood. She crossed the room, the words of her healing spell already forming in her mind.

Just before Amanda got to where she could touch Manuel, he opened his eyes and looked directly at her. It could have been the lighting, it could have been the tears shimmering in his eyes, but at that angle, in this light, something about his eyes looked just the tiniest bit - reddish.

Automatically she glanced at his wrist - the dampener was still there, its lights blinking rather erratically. But somehow, despite the dampener and the link being severed, she knows something in him was calling her, needing her here. She sat down beside him on the piano bench, not touching him, but close.

"What do you want?" she asked simply, unconsciously echoing his words the last time she'd gone to him, what seems a lifetime ago now.

"I don't know." he chokeed. "I just don't. It hurts - it's like there's a door to nowhere, a gaping hole where you used to be. And you don't even feel it..." he mumbled in poorer-than-usual English.

"I _can't_," she told him. "I went t' Emma, got her t' poke around in me head. The ritual... it locked that part up. Sealed it up tight. Anythin' in that part of me head is as good as gone now. But that don't mean I can't feel bad about it. About you." She reached towards his face, brushing away tears with her fingertips. "I can't fix the link - they won't give me the power for that, an' from what Nate said, we were fuckin' lucky not t' kill ourselves with it. But I can take away some of the pain."

Manuel smiled - a very familiar, bitter smile. A smile that gets used as armor. "Must be nice." he said. "Wish I had that option. Just wave a wand and poof, all the problems disappear. And how can you take the pain away? You're not even really you any more - you are, I can see you and hear you, but there's something missing."

"Yeah, sure, 'm all fixed," she said, anger edging her words. "Don't matter that I nearly killed meself in the process, or that I have t' wear a power source all the time just t' cut the cravin's enough t' function. Or that every time things get hard - an' in this place, that's every fuckin' five minutes - I have t' find somethin' t' distract meself so I don't end up poundin' on Marko's door - or yours. Yeah, there's somethin' missin' from me, an' you know what it is? Me fuckin' self-respect, is what. But that don't matter, 'cause I've got me magic wand, don't I?" She took a deep breath, trying hard to get her control back. "Yer got damage, physical damage, from when the link was broken. I can see it, same as I can see the bad feelin's yer havin', the way that thing is fuckin' with yer energy. I can fix the damage, or at least get it started."

"I don't have a lock on my door any more." he admitted. "And what's wrong with coming to visit me when you need me?" he said, expression almost comical in its confusion. "Wait - you said that you can see damage? And you can see my emotions? When did you become an empath? Can you unlock me?"

"What's wrong with it is that I need to, when it should be I want to," she said bitterly. "'M a fuckin' addict, Manny, an' until I get it under control, I can't trust meself not t' use you again, like I did last time." She smiled faintly at the confused expression on his face. "You remember back before I left, when I was seein' auras? 'S one of the things Rom was teachin' me while I was in England. It ain't all emotions - just the really strong ones - but 'm gettin' better at it. An' I wish I could unlock you, but..." She gestured helplessly at the pendant around her neck. "This fuckin' thing only gives me so much, an' there's no other power source. I just don't have enough."

Manuel stopped and stared at Amanda for a good long couple of moments. "I think I am ... jealous. Yes, I'm sure of it. I'm jealous," he said with naked envy all over his features. "But now you can see how I saw? Can you see the threads? Can you change the colors yet?" He actually sounded pathetically excited at the possibility of someone to share his power with.

Amanda nodded. "'S not the same as when we did the link that time, when we shared powers, but yeah, I see how you can." There was a faint emphasis on the last word. "I get... energy as well. Enough t' know if someone's sick or hurt, even if they don't realise it. Some of what they're thinkin' about, if it's something they think about a lot. I dunno 'bout bein' able t' change anythin' - Rom was pretty strict on fuckin' around with it." She hesitated, and then said. "Somethin' Rom taught me is that just 'cause you can do somethin', doesn't mean you should."

"But how do you know? I mean, if I listened to everyone who has told me about my power, I'd never use it. And then what good would I be?" he said, unable and unwilling to conceal the bitterness. "Empathy is what makes me special."

"You choose who t' listen to. You think about things before you do 'em, think about what the consequences will be," Amanda said. "I do the wrong thing with me magic, an' it hurts me, bounces back t' hit me three times as bad, eventually. The difference for you is you don't get some nasty karmic punishment tellin' you where yer goin' wrong. But you've got Emma. You've got Marie. You've got Shinobi. They care about you, want t' see you be a reasonable human bein'."

Manuel managed to look both blank and confused at the same time. "This is so different from how I was raised." he said. "My fat - Alphonso was always of the sieze-advantage-and-exploit-it school, not really much of a listener." he mused. "And I am _tired_ of being made a fool of because I decided to try to share how I felt. For protecting myself from others. For wanting to know."

"Sometimes you have t' pick an' choose who you share with. An' when. An' you ain't a fool, Manuel. Never that." She looked at him intently. "Do you remember what I said about your aura, back when we swapped powers that time? 'Bout what it looked like?"

Manuel screwed up his face as he tried to think. "No." he admitted after some long moments. "Wait - yes. You said I was ... too spread-out, or something like that."

She nodded. "That's it. You wanna know somethin'? It's changin'. Slowly, but it is. Like it's pullin' itself back in. There's more of you in there."

Manuel blinked a few times. "So what's that mean?" he asked. "That I'm ... me?"

"Yer gettin' that way. Yer makin' progress." Amanda smiled a little. "Thought you might like t' know."

Manuel grinned like an idiot - apparently, self-emotional control hasn't been very high on his training list. "Yeah, guess that's a good thing." He then looked pensive for a few moments, then something dawned on him. "Were you listening, earlier, when I was playing?"

"A little bit. I was studyin' an'... this sounds mental, but it felt like you were callin' me. So I came an' found you."

Manuel now looked extremely confused. "I couldn't help but ... pick at it." he said cryptically. "And I had heard the song on the radio, and I was in here anyway, so I just started playing. Would you like to hear the whole thing?"

With a nod, Amanda shuffled away a little to give him room. "Yeah, I would."

Manuel nodded, and then takes a deep breath. "I am not very good with the singing in English. But I'll try." And he began to play the song from the beginning. He was really very, very good as a pianist. As a singer - less so. His voice was raw, and still highly emotional, but not very technically talented. When he was done, he was once again leaking fluid from the eyes, and in the candlelight, even from the side angle, his eyes looked just a touch reddish.

The song wasn't her usual taste, and to tell the truth, technical singing talent wasn't usually a factor in punk, but there was no denying the emotion behind it, or the meaning the words had to him. As the last chords died away, she was quiet, face hidden by the shadow cast by the hair hanging over her face.

"So..." Manuel said hesitantly. "Was it really so bad, when I held you when you cried, and took away your pain for a little while?" he asked softly.

"No, of course not." Amanda looked up, and there were tears in her own eyes, which she brushed away briskly before they could fall. "I asked you to, an' you did, an' it made things easier t' deal with. But..." And here she stopped, the words jamming in her throat. With an effort, she made herself go on, tell someone the last secret of that time. "That afternoon when you made Lorna... happy. Remy found her later, an' came an' got me, t' heal the burn. An' at the time I couldn't understand why you'd do something like that, hurt someone like that. An' later, when things were gettin' bad, Remy found out I was still seein' you, an' he said some stuff that made me realise I was usin' you, same way as I used the power I got from Marko. That I'd do anythin', hurt anyone, t' get me fix."

"I never hurt anyone! She did that to herself, and I told her to bandage it. And she did." he protests. He stopped to think about this latest revelation, then shrugged it off. "You couldn't use me if I didn't want to be used. So I still don't see where the problem was. I _helped_ you. I couldn't help Lorna, and I couldn't even really help myself, but you - you I could help. Now you're telling me that I did help you, but you still took abuse because of it?"

"It was more than the burn. It was makin' her feel 'happy' without even givin' her the choice about it. Like I said before, just because you can do somethin' doesn't mean you should. Makin' Lorna happy... it frightened her. Took away her control, made her feel like a puppet. You understand what I mean?"

"No." he said, still confused. "She was so miserable. I thought a little bit of happiness in her life would be a good thing. I don't understand why she's so upset about it. She got to feel what so few people really ever do - perfect joy. I do good work." he said, with a little bit of pride. "For the price of a meal, that seemed a fair bargain to me."

"She didn't ask for it, Manny. People need t' feel they have control over their lives, an' since that's practically impossible, then at least they want t' have control over themselves. How they think, how they feel. Havin' someone go in an' change that for 'em scares the shite out of them. Think of it like this - you can't help feelin' what other people feel, right? An' sometimes their emotions make you feel somethin' you don't want to. An' later, when you aren't feelin' like them any more, you're upset about it, right?" Amanda was trying hard not to say Bobby's name, but she hoped her implications were clear. Manuel wasn't stupid by any means, but sometimes he could be incredibly _dense_. And at least talking about this side of things was a handy diversion away from explaining the ethical issues of addiction.

Manuel sighs deeply. "So I am back to where I am now - my power is basically useless. I can't ever _use_ it without someone getting scared or being the Bad Guy for trying to help." he said. But an idea hits him - "At least, not on anyone I care about."

"'S not useless, Manny. I can think of a couple of good things 'bout it." Amanda tried to keep the wicked grin off her face, but failed miserably. "An' it ain't that you shouldn't use it at all, just don't use it on people without permission. Same as the telepaths don't go 'round snooping in our heads without askin'. Same as me askin' before I do a spell on someone." She thought about the second part. "Maybe... there's nothin' wrong with usin' yer powers if someone tries t' hurt you." Then, remembering him asking her to help him hurt Angelo, she added. "On purpose, I mean. Like someone tryin' t' beat you up or somethin'." That brought back a memory of the two college boys and what she'd done to defend herself - she wasn't sure if Manuel could read the wave of fear and anger and guilt that memory generated, but she tried hard to damp it down anyway.

Manuel shared a lot of those memories, and he _never_ forgot a feeling. "Well, OK, there is that, yeah. But unless I want to go back to satisfying rich bored housewives for my daily bread, I need something else. And I _have been_ using my power when people try to hurt me. I got into a lot of trouble for it." And yes, he could read that wave of fear and anger and guilt. Instinctively, he tried to reach about along the severed link to make them Go Away, and wound up with a stabbing pain behind his eyes for his troubles.

"This is a school, Manny. 'S where they teach you t' be able t' do other stuff. Why else do you think I've been studyin' me arse off? I didn't even get the rich house wife option." Seeing his wince, she reached out to gently touch his temple. "Want me t' try that healin' spell?"

At her touch, the stabbing pain turned into a crescendo of agony. "Yes." he managed to get out through gritted teeth. "No one here knows shit about my power."

Amanda jerked her hand away, seeing the reaction touching him had. "Join the club," she said wryly. She turns on the bench, swinging one leg over it to straddle the seat so she can face him. "Turn an' face me, an' give me yer hands," she instructed.

Manuel did as instructed, holding his too-thin hands out for her inspection. "At least you have somewhere else to go." he said, as the throbbing in his head lessened just a little bit. "My power's sensitive to touch." he said, somewhat unnecessarily.

"I do now. Didn't before." Keeping in mind his warning, Amanda used one of Romany's calming drills to settle her emotions before taking his hands. She wasn't expecting the slight jolt - almost like a static shock - and she started the spell straight away, not wanting to cause Manuel any more pain than he was already experiencing. She could _see_ the damage caused by the tearing of the link, in her mind's eye, and she carefully set the spell to encouraging the tissue to repair itself.

Manuel moaned as the spell got to work, and inside his mind his power went ballistic, pushing _hard_ against the filter, trying to get something, _anything_, through the new channel created from himself to Amanda. Unfortunately for him, healing magick didn't create an empathic bridge so all he got was increased blood pressure and more remembered pain from the now-slowly-healing link.

Amanda frowned in concentration, squeezing her eyes tighter closed. She could feel Manuel's power pushing against her spell, trying to use it to re-establish the link, but after Nate's warning, she couldn't let that happen. There was a faint throbbing in the back of her head, as if the door on her side were trying to open against the weight of Romany's spell, and she pulled back, focussing on healing the purely physical damage. The quartz crystal on the cord around her neck was glowing white-hot, the other stone set on either side joining in with more muted purple as she drew on every scrap of power she had.

Nearly there... the last patches of damaged tissue were beginning to knit together when she felt something snap inside her head, and a trickle of blood ran from her nose. "Fuck!" she muttered, halting the spell and letting go of Manuel's hands.

Manuel sprawled backwards, falling off of the piano bench and landing quite gracelessly onto the floor. He didn't rise from the floor - instead, he curled into a ball, cradling his head as much as he could. ~Ow.~ he said in Castillian.

Amanda wanted to get up and make sure he was okay, but was having her own pain issues. The headache was instantaneous and huge, and she groped blindly in her pocket for something to stop the nosebleed with. "Bloody fuckin' hell, that was stupid," she cursed through gritted teeth.

~What the _fuck_ was that?~ he moaned in Castillian as he tried to stop the multiverse from exploding in his head. ~I haven't felt this bad since the asylum.~

He was talking, so at least he wasn't dead. "Yer power was fightin' me, tryin' to make the link again," she managed, not realising that he was speaking in Castillian and therefore she shouldn't have been able to understand him. "An' I had t' be stupid an' keep goin' any way. Nearly fried me own fuckin' brain." Blood was running over her fingers as she finally found a crumpled tissue in the pocket of her jeans. "Fuckin' Christ, this hurts."

~I think that I hurt something inside.~ he said in Castillian. ~The link burns like a bad acid trip. And English just will not come to me right now.~

"Stay put. 'M gunna call Moira." Amanda pushed herself to her feet, using the piano as leverage - a flurry of discordant notes drove another spike of pain through her head, and she left a smear of blood on the white keys - but it was a bad move. The room spun violently, and she pitched sideways, crashing to the floor. She just lay there, whimpering slightly.

~I'm not going anywhere.~ he said in Castillian. ~The universe is too busy exploding behind my eyes. What did you _do_ to me?~ he asks, still in Castilian.

"Right now I have no fuckin' idea," she grated. "An' I'm a little busy tryin' _not_ t' dorwn on me own blood, so enough of the demands, all right? You can yell at me later."

~When did you start speaking Castillian?~ he asked before a Herculean amount of willpower allows him to roll over onto his belly.

"'M not. Yer speakin' English, ain't you... Wait a sec..." Pushing herself up with both hands, blood splattering the wooden floor from her nose, Amanda managed to half-sit, half-sprawl. "The link... it's not back, is it? It doesn't _feel_ like it is. An' even when it was there, I never could understand Castillian." She held the tissue to her nose again, even though it was rapidly soaking through. "What the fuck did I do? 'S just a normal healin' spell, it shouldn't have done nothing like this."

Manuel probed at where the link was, and immediately rolled back onto his back, cradling his head. ~No link!~ he groaned in Castillian.

"Ow. Don't to that again." Amanda winced, partly in sympathy but partly because her own headache had redoubled. "Okay, I really fucked somethin' up. You got a phone on you? There's no fuckin' way I'm tryin' standin' up again an' I left mine in me room like I normally do."

Manuel shook his head, and then regretted it as the fireworks went off behind his eyes. "No...." he groaned. "No phone."

"Great. We're fucked then, 'less one of us suddenly got telepathic..." Amanda trailed off as an idea struck her with as much force as anything could strike her through the blinding headache. "I've got no fucking idea if this will work, but it beats crawlin' t' the nearest phone. She let herself slump to the floor again and lay there for a moment whilst she gathered her thoughts. Please be awake and in this time zone... she thought desperately, before deliberately sending her thoughts in Nate's direction. *Nate? Help.*

Manuel just watched the fireworks detonate in time with his pulse behind his eyeballs. ~This might not have been a good idea.~ he said in Castillian.

"'M gettin' that," growled Amanda. She tried again, as hard as she could. *Nate!*

Something was tugging at him, a weaker pull than either Moira or his visions, and Nathan opened his eyes slowly, blinking around at the bedroom. The tug came again. Familiar, he thought dimly. It felt familiar. One soft voice amid all the others, calling his name, but he knew this one... #Amanda?# he sent weakly. #Amanda... what's wrong...?#

Amanda was getting ready to try again when she 'heard' Nate's response. Thank fuck for that. *I fucked up. Spell went wrong. Need doctor for me and Manny* she sent back, the effort starting her nose bleeding again. *Need Moira*

Purely on the "I hurt so bad that anything else I do can't possibly make it hurt any worse" theory, Manuel called out ~Amanda?~ inside of his head, between firework explosions, just to see what would happen.

"OW!" Now it was Amanda doing her best fetal ball as pain blasted through her head. "Fuck it, Manny! Stop it!" she growled, unaware that she was still linked to Nate.

Nathan sat bolt upright in bed. #No--!# he thought disjointedly, and without knowing what he was doing, reached out. #Get away from her, get AWAY!# he snarled at the presence he registered as Manuel, preparing to lash out at the connection he saw between them. #Get away from her, you little son of a bitch... I'll break it myself, I swear--#

Manuel, as it turned out, didn't sleep entirely through the Psionics class taught by Kwannon. He threw up a quick mindshield, focusing on his pain as a deterrent to the hostile thoughts. The fireworks in his brain really didn't like the mental shield, but Manuel gritted his teeth and persevered anyway.

Nathan started to smash through the shield, but Amanda's words finished sinking in and he stopped short. #Moira...# he sent confusedly, sensing Amanda's pained thoughts. Even Manuel's, if somewhat filtered through the shield. #You did something... you need Moira....#

*YES* Amanda sent back, exasperation clear even through the link. Followed by a quieter. *Hurry?*

Manny's contribution to the discussion was a mental ~Estupido.~

#H'yah nahmaree, siv'alu bohanda,# Nathan seethed at him. #Drea'hal, dreahail'ya--# But he turned over, reaching out to shake Moira's shoulder.

Manuel rolled back onto his side, to look at Amanda. ~The doctor will get here soon.~ he thought ... very quietly ... at Amanda. A fierce sense of protectiveness was washing out of the Castillian, aimed right at the girl.

"Great. 'M just gunna lie here an' wish I was dead for a while, if that's all right with you," she murmured tiredly, wincing at mental touch. "Can I have me head back now?"

~I do not know.~ he thought at her - quietly. ~You made this link, not me.~

~What did I go an' do a stupid thing like that for?~ came the returning thought. Her mental tone was disjointed, exhausted.

~And being bonded to me is such a burden?* he spat back, his pride hit by her tone.

She winced again. ~Ow. Stop yellin' at me.~ There would be more, but the effort of thinking coherently was getting too much.

~Sorry,~ he thought at her softly. ~This is new to me, too. Outside of the pain, this is ... nice.~ he mused.

~You have a pretty fucked up idea of nice...~ Blood ran down the back of Amanda's throat, and she coughed and rolled over onto her side. ~I think I broke something.~

Manuel didn't respond to that statement, preferring to wait for whatever medical assistance came - or for the time to arrive when standing wouldn't make his head explode.

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