xp_logs | Nathan and Manuel, Monday late afternoon

Hours after this post and after the afternoon Mandarin class, Nathan and Manuel run into each other for the second time today. It doesn't go much better than the first. They argue (about the usual), Nathan tries to bludgeon Manuel over the head with metaphor (again), and the Mirror comes into play. The conversation, after becoming a little more rational, comes to an abrupt end when Nathan unintentionally scares the crap out of Manuel.

Manuel stomped into the kitchen via the back porch. His stomach was growling, and the scowl on his face (and some carefully-scrubbed-away tear-tracks) seemed to be carved into his expression with a scalpel. He made a beeline for the fridge, threw it open, and began to rummage for something to eat.

Nathan was almost at the kitchen door when he sensed Manuel's abrupt entrance. He paused for a moment, then shrugged mentally and went in anyway. He hadn't eaten between his meeting with Manuel and the Arabic class, and he was actually hungry. Manuel was standing at the fridge, pushing stuff around with rather more force than was strictly necessary. "See anything good?" he asked neutrally, putting his Mandarin books on the table before limping over.

Manuel growled, literally _growled_, at the contents of the fridge. "Why, does Master require sustenance?" he said in an obviously-exaggerated servile tone. "Has the deal changed again?"

"Knock it off," Nathan said coolly, peering over Manuel's shoulder. "No one's impressed."

"I don't care if you're impressed or not." he said, groping for something, anything, that would A) feed him B) not upset his stomach and C) let him get out of the kitchen without losing complete control over his power. "I ... don't want to see you right now. I don't think I can really control myself very well."

Nathan shook his head and limped back over to the table, sitting down. He'd let Manuel find some food first, then forage for himself. He probably shouldn't be crowding the boy anyway, after this morning. "I wasn't intending to interrupt your sulk," he said, more sharply than he should have. But seeing that journal entry had annoyed him thoroughly. He'd actually taken it out somewhat on the kids in Mandarin this afternoon, which hadn't been at all fair. "But you're not the only one who needs to eat."

"I am _not_ sulking." he said sulkily. "I am trying to be considerate for the feelings of others. I hear it's a good idea. You should try it sometime." Nothing in the fridge was doing it for him - not without cracking the deals on any of the dozen-or-so sealed Tupperware containers in the fridge. Most of those had writing on them, but they were in English and he couldn't muster the patience or the discipline to puzzle them out right now. So instead he slammed the fridge closed and stepped in front of the cabinets, to see if they held any promising foodstuffs in them.

"Announcing to everyone that you're righteously pissed and they should keep their distance is a very public sulk," Nathan said coldly. "And bottling all that up instead of finding someone you can talk to about it is a stupid idea."

"It's a little hard to talk to people when you open your mouth and then they get pissed off at your existence." he said, searching for edibles. The box of cheesy crackers held some attraction, so Manuel snagged it - not realizing that it had someone's name written on it already. Someone who wasn't him. "And I am _not_ bothering Xavier so that I can get a three-and-a-half hour talking-to on personal responsibility and how disappointed he is. Fuck that. I don't want his understanding. I don't need it."

Nathan's eyes narrowed. "Your existence, or your behavior?" he inquired, listening closely to the thoughts Manuel was letting slip. "And you do want understanding. Maybe not Xavier's, but don't lie to yourself."

Manuel shrugged, not rising to the bait. "Does it make a difference?" he said, then went looking for a bottle of water or something. Sitting on the dock by the lake may have been relaxing, but it was thirsty work. Inside his head, his thoughts, when not circling around the unfairness of the deal he received earlier, touched on loneliness. That he wanted someone he could talk to, someone who could understand who he was and what he was going through, but nobody here fit that bill. And he had to stay away from them for their own good, lest they hate him like most everyone else did.

Nathan wrestled with the urge to slam his head against the table a few times. "Here's a thought," he said, responding without thinking to what Manuel was 'leaking', rather than what he'd said aloud. "Relate to people in a way that's not going to make them angry with you, and your chances of finding someone to play sounding board go up exponentially."

Manuel snorted at that suggestion. "Sure. Just stop being me, be what they want me to be. That's what you want, I know. Not going to happen." The head-slamming urge came across loud and clear, and despite all his angers Manuel couldn't help but smile a little at it. "Wait - I didn't say anything about that. You're poking around in my head again!"

"Poking?" Nathan growled. "I am not bloody well poking. You're projecting loud and clear. Very loudly." He shook his head, wrestling now with real anger. "Stop being you. Are you absolutely sure you know who 'you' are?"

"No, but you apparently do, since you're all too ready to tell me who to be." he spit back, the box in his hands denting from his hands spasming into fists. "Shut up. Conform. Do what I tell you. Feel what I want you to feel." he hissed. "The last people to tell me these things were the bloody doctors at the asylum!" He's clearly been spending too much time around Amanda, as he's starting to pick up on her slang. "You get your doctor to prep some thorazine while you were at it?"

"Is it really that incomprehensible to you that there might be a way to live where you get along with people and feel comfortable with yourself?" Nathan countered. "You're so damned determined that you're not going to give an inch of ground that you're ignoring the fact that life involves compromise."

"Your compromise sucks." he said, finally finding the bottled water and snagging two bottles of it. "Your compromise equals you getting everything you want. Some compromise -that- is. Or does that word mean something else besides what I think it means?"

"Oh, and being around you while you practice your power is just precisely what I want!" Nathan snapped, well aware of the fact that he was starting to lose it but unable to help himself. "Having to figure out some way to teach you when you've decided you're above that is going to be such fucking FUN!"

"You were the one who took that on yourself. Not me. It wasn't my idea. I had a deal with the Askani, yes, and that will apparently involve you. I wish that wasn't the case, but it is. The rest of it is NOT my fault, and I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for it!"

"Did I say you were responsible?" Nathan hissed, struggling to get his temper back under control. "I went into this with my eyes open, on both fronts. I'm just trying to point out that this particular compromise sure as hell doesn't involve me doing anything I want!" The table and chairs trembled a little, the dishes rattling softly in the cupboards, and Nathan forcefully pushed the anger down and away. "But as usual, you miss the point. This isn't about me. This is about you, not willing to cut anyone else any slack."

"No one cuts me any, and that's a two-way street, remember? No one _cares_ about my problems. You sure as hell don't - you just want me to be safe, to be harmless. And results count, processes don't. You're getting what you want in the end, in all particulars. I get nothing I want." he hissed before turning on his heel to face away from Nathan - to get his own power and emotions under control. "My control is not good today. You should go, or I cannot promise I will not do something unwise."

Nathan was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, and even though part of him was fully aware that this was not a good thing to be doing, he was too busy seeing red to listen. "No one cuts you any slack?" he snarled. "Are you really capable of deluding yourself to that extent?" He took a limping step closer to the young man, ignoring the way the dishes were rattling in the cupboards again. "Are you dead, Manuel?" he snapped. "In jail? Back in an asylum? Has anyone taken your powers away from you for good? You have gotten nothing but slack, boy. The people here are bending over backwards trying to help you become a functional human being, and you have done NOTHING BUT WHINE!"

Manuel's discipline broke, and the Mirror sprang into existance with a vengeance. Unfortunately for him, that meant anger. "She _LEFT_, Nathan! She was the ONLY ONE who cared a DAMN for me, and she is _gone_!" He is radiating loneliness and abandonment, his eyes blazing red. He raised his wrist, the one with the dampener on it. "This jail is more comfortable by far than my previous experience. But a cell with gilded bars is still a cell." he spit out in English before devolving into Castillian. ~So don't tell me that you care, or that people just want me to get better.~ he said harshly. ~I know it's a lie.~

The anger guttered out suddenly, like someone had thrown water on a fire, and Nathan stared at Manuel with weariness and something close to real sadness. "I am going to do you a favor," he said quietly. "I am never going to tell Amanda you said that."

"Amanda?" he said, the Mirror quenching his internal fires and jerking his emotional state back down into the blackness of sad. "She has nothing to do with this. NOTHING." he said, staring at the dampener around his wrist. "No, I deserve this. All of it. The anger, the fear, the suspicion, all of it. Mine."

"Manuel..." Nathan sighed, rubbing his eyes. Oh, he'd handled this so very well. "You want the truth?" he asked, fighting with a mixture of sadness and pity and a strange yearning to do better, to fix this somehow. Logically speaking, he knew it was beyond him, and yet... "You do. Deserve it, I mean. You've earned it." He went over and sat back down, all but collapsing into the chair. "But that doesn't mean you have to keep it. It is within your ability to change, but you can't do that and hold onto the way of thinking that led you to do those things." Sighing, he made a helpless gesture. "It's that simple. You have to decide what you want."

"Being myself is what earned me their distrust, their suspicion, their fear." he echoed miserably. "I know that now. But I am told over and over again that to control my power, I have to hang onto myself, to be me. On the other hand, being me is a bad thing that people fear."

Nathan took a deep breath, rubbing at his eyes again. "Sit down," he instructed gently. "I'm going to make myself something to eat, and I can make enough for two. That's part of the problem here, I think." He rose again, heading over to the fridge, not waiting to see if Manuel obeyed. "It's possible to reinvent yourself," he went on, rifling through the vegetable keeper. "You don't have to be... static. I don't think you really want to be. Don't you want to change, Manuel?" He glanced over his shoulder at the kid with a strained smile. "You don't like how it feels when people regard you the way they do. You want more. You can't have it both ways."

Manuel sat with a speed that was probably disturbing to witness. "But if I change, then I'm not me anymore. I'm someone else. And then I have even less control than I do now. And people get angry, or sad, or suspicious, and then I am back where I started. So I cannot change."

"No," Nathan said, assembling the ingredients for a salad. There was already-cooked chicken breast, and he grabbed that as well. "You're just a different you." He brought the food over to the counter and found a knife. "Look at me," he said quietly, watching Manuel as he put the salad together. "Am I a mercenary, or am I a language teacher?"

"You're a mercenary." he said flatly, still soaking in the Mirror-induced Sad Place. "Why?"

"Then why am I here teaching kids how to speak foreign languages?" Nathan asked, the bleakness beginning to fade away, replaced by calm resolve. The Askani were murmuring at the back of his mind, as if discussing something. "Why am I not out killing people for money?"

"Because you are injured, and you are incapable of killing people for money anymore? I don't know. That's none of my concern." he said, the Mirror improving his mood up to a firm resolve. "It isn't important. You're my jailor now, in many respects."

Nathan shook his head. "Missing the point again," he said. "I'm here because I've changed, Manuel. I'm here because the me that was doesn't exist anymore. And you know what?" He offered a slight smile. "I'm happier. The adjustment is hell, yes, but when I'm up at the front of that classroom, or with Moira, I stop and I think 'Yes, this is better. I'm glad I'm here.'"

"You're still a mercenary, you just take your payment in satisfaction, a woman, a safe place to rest and heal." Manuel countered calmly. "You are still you."

Nathan shook his head, letting it pass. So much for illustrating the point. "You won't get what you want," he said. "Not as long as you won't make a fundamental change in your self." A faint smile tugged at his lips. "You have to grow up, Manuel."

Manuel scowled at that. "You make no sense." And then his stomach grumbled loudly, so he tore open the box of stolen cheezy crackers and ate a few.

"Adulthood sucks," Nathan went on easily. "It involves doing things you don't want to do, recognizing that you're never going to get everything that you want. But that's what buys you the rest of it. The acceptance, the respect... the friends." Chopping up a green pepper, he slanted a sideways look at Manuel. "You want to regard it all as lies, as a game, that's your choice. But you don't get the prize unless you play the game."

"I reject your game. I will make my own game." he said foolishly, stealing another handful of crackers and eating them.

"Then you'll lose," Nathan said very quietly, not looking at him. "And years down the line, when you're sitting in that room, the shells of the people you knew around you to remind you of what you could have had, you'll look back on that choice and curse yourself."

Manuel looked as if he had been stabbed. "That is not fair." he said, sulking.

"No, it's..." Nathan trailed off, his hands stilling at the strangeness of the feeling that came over him. The Askani were dead silent, yet there was a sensation of... pressure, from somewhere. Butterflies in his stomach. "It's true," he said slowly, the images from the dream flickering through his mind, edged in eerie blue. The sky full of stars inside his mind shivered, and his hand clenched around the handle of the knife almost spasmodically. "You will remember," he said, and a very small, distant part of him heard the Askani accent edging the words. "You will remember this choice and weep for it."

Manuel stood up, still clenching his crackers and his bottle of water. Looking at Nathan with something approximating horror, he fled the kitchen at a dignified walk that became a dead run as soon as he thought he was out of eyeshot.

The light glinting off the blade of the knife snapped Nathan out of his odd reverie, and he blinked down at the half-assembled salad for a moment before he realized that he was alone in the kitchen. "Well, shit," he muttered, reaching out just enough to establish that Manuel was beating a hasty retreat before he turned his attention inwards. "~So what the flonq was that?~" he asked in the battle language, and got nothing but eerie silence in return.