xp_logs | Amanda/Manuel - last Monday morning

Following their fight, Manuel brings up his concerns that she's found a way to block him. She doesn't see it as a problem, and eventually they get tired of talking.

Time had long since been lost track of, but the small amount of light coming in through a crack in the curtains meant it was morning, at least. Neither witch nor empath was asleep, more existing in the warm, lazy place that exists after many hours of extremely vigorous make-up sex and a break is required before anything else can happen. Amanda was lying on her front, arms wrapped around the pillow she was resting on eyes closed and a content expression on her face. Manuel was lying beside her, propped up on one elbow whilst he idly traced the patterns of scars on her back. One particular passage was in Latin, he vaguely realised, but couldn't be bothered actually reading it beyond a few words. He had other things on his mind. Namely, something which had been forgotten in the frenzy following the fight, but which was returning to bother him now.

Manuel hrmmed as he continued to trace the Latin runes. "Before, when we were arguing - you did something. To the link. How did you do that?" he asked too-casually.

"Hmm?" Amanda said, roused from the Happy Place her thoughts were in. "'S somethin' Strange taught me - we've been workin' on me learnin' t' use me magic t' shield meself from psychic attacks. I s'pose I just... reacted."

Manuel clamped down hard on his end of the link, to keep his reaction to that thought purely to himself. "Psychic attacks." he repeats flatly, still tracing those runes on her back. "Psychic attacks, or angry empaths?"

"Depends," said Amanda, deliberately casual. She shifted slightly, turned her head so she could see his face. "Strange taught me it t' protect meself, seein' how me mutant power makes me somethin' of a target t' other magic users. But he also told me I should use it t' stop meself from bein' hurt."

"That makes sense." he said in a fit of honesty. "But I can't say that I like it. You can block me unless I really push, but there's fuck-all I can do to stop you. I don't like it."

"Why?" she asked. "I wouldn't block you 'less there was a reason to. Like last night - you don't know yer own strength, an' you came close t' really hurtin' me."

Manuel smirked at her back, even though he knew she could not see it. "I've heard that before." he admitted. "I just don't like the idea that you're training with what'shisface includes thwarting me. But I can't thwart you in any way. You picked me up like a rag doll and threw me yesterday."

"Did I?" Amanda was surprised. She had reacted purely out of fear, and hadn't realised quite how strong the reaction had been, especially as it hadn't stopped the onslaught of emotions down the link. "An' it ain't like Strange an' I sat down an' figured out somethin' that would work on you. I didn't even know it would work until I did it."

Manuel smiked again, letting his "Yeah, _right_." emotional reaction seep through his mental fingers and through the link. "And yes, you did. My head still is a little tender." he said verbally.

"Could've fooled me - you didn't seem that damaged last night," she replied with a smirk of her own, rolling over onto her back so she could talk to him without the crick in her neck. "'M sorry if I bruised you - I didn't think I had enough oomph t' throw a book, let alone you." She ran her fingers down the side of his face. "Why's it bother you so much, that I'm learnin' t' shield? It ain't like we're ever gunna duke it out with our powers or somethin'."

"Didn't we just _do_ that?" he said strongly. "And what _bothers_ me is that you can shut me out any time you choose to, but if you want to do the eye-of-newt thing there's nothing I can do to stop you. And to break through the barrier you imposed would damage your mind permanently. I kind of like your mind; it's very creative at times." And then he grinned, to let her know what sort of creativity he was thinking of.

"Well, I wasn't about t' have another one of those fights any time soon, so you don't have anythin' t' worry about. Besides, you know the magic stuff wears me out - without a decent power source I'm only good for a few spells of that strength. You saw how wiped I was after not even ten minutes." Her fingers traced his jawline, moved down his neck to his collarbones. "An' thanks for not wantin' t' give me brain damage - I sort of like my brain the way it is too."

"There are places where it could be improved..." he smirked in the patented de la Rocha way, sending some _extremely_ explicit feelings down the link. "And how long will the magic stuff continue to wear you out for? You practice daily, especially when I'd rather be doing other things."

She wrinkled her nose at him for the crack about improving her brain, but shifted a bit closer, running her foot down his calf. "It don't work like that," she said, a trifle absently since the sensations down the link were _most_ distracting. "It don't matter how much I practice - long as I have t' restrict how much power I get, I'll get worn out if I do too many or too complicated spells." She shrugged, although the emotions down the link said it bothered her far more than she wanted to let on - resentment, frustration, guilt... there was a brief surge before she remembered to hold them back.

Manuel hrmmed, squirming just a bit as her foot hit a particularly sensitive spot. "I know what you mean." he said, opening his mind to her as much as he could with the filter in place. "I want to show you something, if you'll let me. No nosebleeds this time." he said, more confidently than he felt.

"'S your sheets that I'll be bleeding on if yer wrong," she said with a half-grin. She settled herself a little more comfortably, and then looked up at him steadily. "What d'you want me t' see?"

Manuel lifted his hand and placed it on the side of her head. "Open your mind, if you can. I'm not entirely sure how this will feel..." Down the link, he pushed his problems with the filter, with trying to drink from the firehose of feelings, and in particular - the Mirror, and how he used it to save himself. His mental touch was rough, and the feelings were pushed hard, but the feeling of trying to be gentle also came across.

She winced at the initial contact, but she knew he was trying not to hurt her so she fought her instinctive initial reaction to slam the shield back up and opened her mind instead. That was getting easier too - Strange's training was very much focussed on the mental side of magic, and she was learning a lot from him. Gradually the sense of what Manuel was trying to show her came across, and she felt a stab of... something. Like she'd found someone who not only could understand, but who felt the same. The feeling was so strong it brought a prickle of tears to her eyes.

"I hate this thing." he said, looking at his right wrist, and the dampener that sat upon it. "I hate it because I need it. Without it, I cannot be me - I would be you, or Marie-Ange, or Doug, or Clarice, some blend of all of them."

She nodded, and pulled Romany's pendant up from where it was sitting behind at the back of her neck. In the dim gloom of the be-curtained room, the central crystal glowed faintly. "This doesn't just feed me the power t' function like a normal person; it cuts me off when I get too much. 'S why, when I was goin' t' Mexico, I took it off - I needed more power than it was givin' me, if I was gunna beat Rack. An' I think if I hadn't been in a coma when Pete brought me back, I wouldn't have gone. Not if it meant givin' up the power again." She dropped the pendant and lay her hand against his still cupping the side of her head. "'S hard, not bein' able t' let yerself have want you want, even if you know havin' it will probably do horrible things t' you."

"See, you have the option of taking the pendant off to do your mojo. This thing is locked, tied firmly to my wrist. It has been removed once, and that was when it shorted out and very nearly killed me." He then showed her the ring of scar tissue around his left wrist. "I am told I will bear this scar for life."

She winced again, tracing the barely-healed scar tissue with a gentle finger. "If I'd gotten t' it soon enough, I could've at least made the scarrin' less. Now... there's too much, too deep. I ain't got the power t' heal somethin' like that." She sighed. "An' yeah, I can take it off, get me jollies from mystic sources again. But if I do, I won't be me any more. Or at least not a me yer'd want t' know. I let it take me over again, an' I end up back on the same path I was, the one that leads t' me turnin' into someone like Rack. An' I don't wanna be like that, ever. No matter how much power it gets me."

Manuel, who didn't know Rack from a hole in the wall, merely shrugged. "Power is its own reward, but it is your decision. On the day when I finally get control of my talent, I plan on smashing this thing with a very large hammer, then going to get rip-roaringly drunk."

"Sometimes the price is too much." Amanda gave up trying to explain it, knowing she'd never be able to put it to him in a way he'd understand. She grinned at his last suggestion. "We'll make a party of it," she said, pushing away the disquiet that talking about Rack always roused in her.

"There is always a price." he agreed sagely. "The only question is - what is the price, and are you willing to pay it? And we will make a party of it. We'll fuck on the roof, and drink until we're stupid, and laugh at the world and its absurdities."

"Sounds like a plan t' me," Amanda said, finding that sensitive spot with her foot again and sending a spark of desire down the link, just to make her point. No more serious talk.

Manuel grinned at what he was feeling - both over the link and from his leg. "Well, you seem much fuller of life than you were a half-hour ago or so..." he said before nuzzling at her neck.

"'S the thing 'bout havin' the rapid mutant metabolism, means I recover fast," Amanda chuckled, arching her neck before turning and capturing his earlobe between her teeth. "My turn t' make you whimper, I think..." she murmured, before nibbling gently, all the while sending exactly which feelings he was arousing back down the link at him.

Manuel meeped as her teeth closed around his earlobe. "You can't break me." he chortled as his mind supplied him the images from the link. "Liked that one, did you? Well, let's see if you can top _this_..." And then sent another extremely explicit image and feeling down the link - something extremely risky and public, but oh-so-hot.

She gasped at both the sensation down the link and at where Manuel's hand had chosen to land just then, but covered with some retaliation in kind. "Think I did that once," she said, with a wicked grin. "Amazin' what E does for yer sense of adventure."

"E? E's a _sedative_ to me. It's my chill-out drug of choice." he said with a smile.

She rolled her eyes, amused. "Trust you t' always go one better," she said, before leaning up to capture his mouth with hers and distract him thoroughly. Nothing else was said for some time.