xp_logs | [Marie, Manuel] "Where are you golden boy,

Manny is worried about Marie and keeps an eye out for when she's coming home. He intercepts her on the way back to her room, determined to repay her a little for her kindnesses in the past by making her feel a little better, the way the deadheads do. And,he succeeds.

Manuel wasn't the most intuitive person, emotionally speaking, but even _he_ could tell that something was wrong with Marie. Reading her journal, watching her go streaking down the stairs and out the back door - something was Wrong. So there he was, waiting for her to arrive at the suite she shared with Shinobi.

Marie padded barefoot down the hall, headed for her room. Her running clothes were in her hand and instead she wore jeans and a sweatshirt that were very obviously not hers, rolled up at the cuffs. She looked nothing less than worn out and miserable, head down to avoid having to speak to anyone.

Manuel leaned up against the wall, taking as good of an empathic look as he possibly could at Marie - and what he saw frightened him. "Hola." he said, pitching his voice low and for her ears only. "Want to talk about it?"

Marie was a little surprised to hear Manuel, his accent was unmistakable, and when she looked up he was looking at her in that odd way that said he was seeing more than just the physical. "Hey. So how bad do I look?" She gave Manuel a crooked little smile. "I think I blew a fuse today, Manny. Shorted out my maturity circuits or something."

Manuel smirked at that. "Well, apparently black is your New Color, judging by what I see. Even as fuzzy as it is, that can't feel good. But no, you didn't blow a whatever-you-said. Neurology appears correct, as far as I can tell. Even the Greek Chorus looks relatively normal, but they're hard to see when I'm crippled like this."

"I feel black." Marie stopped when she reached him, looking up at him. "Usually I have it sort of together, you know? But once in a while something opens up the door for all the crap I pile up in the back of my head to come rushing out again. And I feel so stupid for acting like a child about it."

Manuel smiled. "Would you hit me if I told you that lancing that particular festering boil was probably healthier for you in the long run?"

"I wouldn't hit you under most circumstances, Manny," she said affectionately. "Maybe you're right. I just... I wish I were better than this. Running off and having to call Scott to come pick me up? Not much with the maturity there."

"You're younger than I am, you know." he said from his lofty nineteen-year-old perch. "But my power fucked me up. Allowances can be made. Now, do you want to talk in your hallway, or inside where it's much more comfortable and you have juice and soft things to sit on?"

"Inside. My legs hate me right now." Marie opened the door to her suite and let them both in. "And I may be younger than you, but... I don't know. I try so hard not to act my age and then I end up hating the fact that I'm missing out on getting to be like everyone else."

Manuel followed behind Marie, closing the door behind them. "Got a preference as to poisons?" he asked as he moved over to Marie's fridge. "And you feel cheated because you can't be an adult and a kid at the same time, is that it?"

"There's some tins of meal replacements in there," Marie said. She collapsed on the couch with a sigh. "Could I have one of those and a bottle of water, please? I went and got dehydrated."

Manuel grabbed one of the aforementioned tins, then tisks at the fridge. "You're out of orange juice. I am scandalized and shocked at this oversight." he said with a smile before flinging the (capped!) water bottle in Rogue's general direction.

Marie caught the bottle before it hit the coffee table. "There's some in the pantry downstairs, in the big fridge. Might be cranberry juice in there though. And yes, I feel cheated. I feel it a lot sometimes. And then I feel like an idiot for being so... petty."

"Do I need to do anything with this tin before I give it to you?" he wondered out loud as he rooted through Marie's fridge. "I will have to make do with grapefruit. Which one of you does this belong to?"

"That's Shinobi's. He won't mind. And no, that's the wonder of those things. They taste like shit but you don't have to work for your calories." Marie opened up the water and drained a quarter of it at once.

Manuel snagged another water bottle, plus the bottle of grapefruit juice, plus a glass, plus the tin of Marie's food. Juggling all of that, he managed to bring it all to her coffee table without breaking or spilling anything.

"Thanks, honey." Marie forced herself to sit up, sighing at the aches and pains gnawing at her muscles. "So, what's your advice?" she asked with a smile, wondering what Manuel was thinking.

Manuel handed Marie her tin and the waterbottle, then poured himself a glass of juice before answering. "I really don't have any. From what I'm seeing, you have a conflict between Who You Are and Who You Want To Be. I can't even figure my own shit out, let alone yours. But ... I should do something. You've helped me more than once."

"Sometimes it's easier to figure things out for other people. I don't know who I am, Manny. I know I'm in there somewhere, but..." Marie shook her head. "And I don't know who I want to be, either. I'm just trying to be who I think I should be, and to make sure I don't turn into someone I'll hate." She paused, going back over what she'd said. "Wow. That was confusing." She shook the meal replacement and opened it up.

Manuel smiled, one of his rare honest smiles. "No, it sounds very familiar to me." he says. "And what more can you expect out of life, but to be who you think you should be, and try not to be the person you hate?"

Marie smiled back at him. "Maybe to be who I really am, instead of who I think I should be? Things keep changing so fast, Manny, I can't even keep up. A few months ago, I got into pre-med, I was going to go to university and a few months before that was before Stanley, and everything. I can hardly catch my breath." She sighed and drank from the tin, then washed it down with water.

Manuel bah-ed at that. "You read too many textbooks. Life is rarely so cut-and-dried, and is never so simple." He then takes a deep drink of his juice - apparently the tartness bothers him not at all, for it actually looks like he enjoys the stuff.

"My life /was/ simple," Marie said regretfully. "It really was /that simple/. I guess I've never gotten over the fact that that's just not how it is, for real, that life then was the anomaly. I keep waiting for it to smooth out and it isn't going to happen."

"If you really thought it was that simple, then you must not have been looking very closely." he said dismissively. "Even children's lives aren't that cut-and-dried."

"I think mine was as close to being that way as you can get outside of books. Everything was so steady. Even the chaos made sense somehow." She pulled the quilt off the back of the couch and dragged it into her lap. "I'm probably romanticizing it. And it was unrealistic. I feel about five years old right now."

"I noticed." he said, tapping his forehead and then taking another gulp of juice. "I used to think I had life figured out, until I found that both my parents resented me." he admitted quietly. "So it just goes to show - as soon as you figure it out, it changes on you."

"You can tell that I feel like I'm five?" Marie was a little surprised at that. "I mean, I'm not trying to hide anything right now anyway. I suppose it would show..." She hugged part of the quilt to her, settling back on the couch.

"An educated guess." he admitted. "Isn't that a large part of emotional interpretation?" he says with a smirk. "That's what the book said, assuming that I read it right."

Marie smiled at that. "Yes, that's right." She put her chin on her knees and sighed deeply. "I worry that people are going to think less of me for being childish sometimes, or being hurt by things. I am. I just try to hide it."

"Why should you worry what they think of you? Please the people you care about, the rest can go hang." he said stridently. "Don't waste love on ingrates."

Marie's expression was briefly baffled as she listened to Manuel and then she nodded. "Sounds like something I'd tell someone," she said a little sheepishly. "You're right, though. I've got to get that through my head. I've got a very small pool of people to make happy, really, and most of them are happy as long as I am."

Manuel grinned. "See? Problem solved. Empath makes it all better." he smirked.

Marie gave him a shy smile. "Yeah, you did. Thanks, Manny."

Manuel streeeeeeeetched his lanky frame, then took another drink of his juice. "And without my power, even. Dayamn."

"Yeah, you're good." Marie laughed at him. "The amazing Manuel, folks, he'll be here all week."

"I'm not just good. I'm _that_ damned good." he leered at Marie.

Marie shook her head and reached for the second bottle of water, the first one empty now. "I'll have to take your word for that. Or someone elses, if you have references."

Manuel smirked. "I do, but one of them is now unfortunately hideously biased. A shame, she was a lot of fun. But I have others..."

Marie tossed the plastic cap from her water at him. "I'm sure you do," she said, grinning. "Handsome guy like you, with that accent and all that charm."

Manuel smirked again. "Even among you filthy savages, I manage to keep myself amused. Less now, with the dampener and the fucking Mex - Angelo making me look like a nutter publically..."

"Mmm, well, this filthy savage is glad that you're her friend," Marie said, obviously amused. "And being a nutter is par for the course around here."

Manuel shrugged that off. "Doesn't mean I have to _like_ dragging myself through the mud for the amusments of others."

"I wasn't amused," Marie said quietly. "And mud washes off. Besides, what do you care? Let them think what they will, none of them know how hard any of this is for you." Her voice got stronger and her eyes flashed in spite of her obvious exhaustion. "If they're amused, fuck them, and I hope they get a taste some day of what it's like to have to /really/ struggle."

"Yeah, well, as usual I'm the bad guy and they're the Good Guys. And I plan on giving them _all_ a taste of what it is really like to struggle ... some day. Not now. Now I wait, and I learn. About all I can do, really." he said with a disarming shrug.

Marie filed the words away for a later date. If it all went well, they'd be dusty hyperbole when that time came. "I don't believe in bad guys," she said, matching his shrug. "Besides, I'm sure most people don't see me as one, but I'm probably worse than most of the people in this house, I just cover it up well. So it's really ludicrous of them to judge."

"Since I'm not being domianted by purple-haired telepaths or under the thumb of a power run amok, I've actually been doing fairly well lately." he said. "Samson says so, and I think Xavier concurs. Still no work on my power itself, though. That's frustrating."

"I can imagine. But they must have some idea what they're doing, right? You'll get around to working with it soon. I've noticed you're doing better, I think it's great." She finished her meal replacement and made a face, then tossed the tin all the way into the recycling in the kitchen, a lazy arc that ended in a clatter of tin on tin and glass.

"I guess so. I don't know. Samson's suppressing some professional jealousy, even though he hides it well. I think, if things continue to do well, that I'm up for a step-down in a few weeks. That will be _so_ nice - the Red-X mission was sweet sweet extacy and utter hell at the same time." he said, then takes a final gulp of his juice.

Marie nodded. "I hope it happens that way then. Samson looks at me like he wants to either open up my head and look inside or get me out of his sight as fast as possible. I think I give him a wiggins, as Jamie would say."

"Jamie rarely makes any sense. He's such an ... American!" he said with some real annoyance. "People like him, that's obvious, but he avoids me entirely. Suppose it can't be helped. And I think Samson wants to _be_ me."

"He's crazier than the rest of us then," Marie said dryly. "I wouldn't want to be you. However, I can see how he'd be a little envious."

"I have been reading the books you gave me. Slowly, for my English is not good, and Doug ... avoids me unless obligation demands it. This job of ... profiler, it intrigues me." he said with a smile.

"It is pretty damn cool, isn't it? People are fascinating. Irritating, but fascinating." She looked Manny over speculatively. "And you'd be able to prove all your theories about someone to yourself... that would be amazing. You'd be brilliant at it."

"Perhaps. I am not wild about working for the US Government. They do not treat mutants well, or so I have heard." he mused. "Perhaps Juan Carlos has a similar group who could use my talents? His son used to play with me when fat - Alphonso would visit the Palace..."

"You could work for whoever you wanted, Manny," Marie pointed out. "You'd be good enough, you could work for yourself, they'd come to you."

"I think I'd prefer to make a pile of money first, before I do something I like that doesn't earn much." he pondered. "Put my Knight-hood to use. Which reminds me - I have a phone now. It arrived this morning. Do you want the number?"

"Please?" Marie fumbled in the pile of wet clothes and came up with her phone. "I'll just put it right in here."

Manuel rattled off the digits so that Marie could record them into her own phone. "Perk of being the White Knight." he grins before putting his phone back in his pocket. "And now that you are feeling better, I have Psychology homework to swear it. I swear, the fucking moron who wrote the goddamned book should be dragged out into the street at midnight and beaten to death by angry mobs! He's an _idiot!_"

"You could write him and tell him that," Marie said helpfully, with that little smile that said she knew she wasn't being helpful at all. "Thanks, Manny."

Manuel got what she was referring to. "You're welcome. Least I could do." he said with a smile, before standing up to head out. "That author's still a fucking idiot. And I think Xavier _knows_ it, and likes inflicting pain on those of us who can See."

Marie laughed at that. "Let him have his little amusements. He's got to put up with us all, it should bring him some joy, even if it's just at watching us tear our hair until we're all as bald as he is. Good luck with it."

"I think you're onto something." he said with a laugh. "He's just _jealous_! Now if he'd just teach me how to do empathic screens, I'd leave him alone. But nooo, he flunks me instead."

"I'll help you study later if you want. It doesn't matter if it's right, you still have to know it," Marie said sympathetically. "Go on and do your work."

"That's just _bullshit_." he said agreeably. "And there's no lock on my door, so stop by anytime. I'm usually in - if you know what I mean." he said with a leer, before letting himself out.

"I know what you mean." Marie shook her head as he left, smiling. He was incorrigible, but in a good way most of the time, and he was learning to be a good friend. She snuggled down, feeling remarkably better.