Amanda, Manuel - Tuesday morning
Jun. 24th, 2004 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAfter his first session with Galin, the Askani empath, Manuel tests his shielding ability when Amanda comes calling. There are limits, but they still manage to be outrageously cute any way.
Manuel sat in his room, desperately trying to ignore all of the worry and concern and anger and whatnot that floated through the Mansion like a psychic oil slick. He sat in his chair and closed his eyes, concentrating on erecting a wall between his brain and the rest of the world - a row of screaming bricks, each one frosted white with fear. When the wall was finally erected (save for the one brick that was the warm pulsing hole of his empathic bond to Amanda) he re-opened his eyes and just concentrated on his breathing. In and out, nice and even. Concentrate on the nothingness, that was the ticket.
Amanda, for her part, was wanting to ignore what was going on around her as well. And the best distraction she knew was Manuel. Besides, what he'd mentioned about shielding was a good thing, something to be happy about. And she could do with good right now. So she headed up to his room once she'd finished her sixth cigarette of the morning, doing her best to shunt aside her own feelings of fear and worry.
Manuel looked up at Amanda as she walked in the door, and very nearly lost his wall entirely as he got a brainful of her emotions. She was trying not to share them, he knew that, but she was doing a sloppy job of containment, and so he was left to deal with the spillover. His wall shook threateningly, but another closing of the eyes and some mental discipline and the walls stopped their quavering, returning to their reassuring solid state. "Good morning, Amanda." he said, eyes still closed. "Feeling a bit out-of-sorts?"
"'S one way of puttin' it." Her mouth quirked a little as she paused, holding the door open. "I can go, if you want. No reason for both of us t' be feelin' shitty, 'specially since you don't really care 'bout what's happenin' t' Sarah." There was no malice intended - she knew there were some people he really didn't bother about.
"No, this will be a good test. I'm not ready to go out there, but if I can withstand your feelings, then I'll know this is working. Look at my emotions, and tell me what you see." he said tersely, as if he was supremely distracted by something. "I don't feel worried or angry at all right now." he said.
He didn't - she could feel that through the link. He was concentrating though... Closing the door behind her and sitting on the bed, Amanda summoned up her aura sight, wincing a little at the conscious effort it took. Yep, she was definitely not in a good place mentally, if her magic started giving her trouble. That thought was lost, however, as she concentrated on Manuel's aura, the uniformity of the emotional part, radiating fear at her. "'S like... a wall," she said slowly, frowning a little as she tried to focus beyond the fear and failing to, although she could tell from the link _he_ wasn't frightened. "What... Is that yer shieldin'? What you learnt today?"
Manuel smiled thinly, then let the expression die as he walls began to quaver at the pressure of his own emotions, hers, plus all the free-floating stuff. "This is what we went over today. Gives me a grinding headache, but I'll take a little bit of pain over being worried and scared out of my mind by you lot." He paused to concentrate on reinforcing his wall, and after an uncomfortable pause he opened his eyes again. "I can't project through it yet, but this wall keeps me in and all of you out. It's all I ever wanted." And at that, his wall broke entirely. "Fuck." he swore as he felt his wall collapse and the full force of all the free-floating emotions slam into his brain.
"That's fuckin' brilliant. Really." The cloud of worry lifted a little as Amanda realised the implications of what he'd shown her. "An' in one day. 'M glad for you."
Manuel's hands spasmed into fists as he fought to regain his discipline, to ignore the pain and recreate his wall brick-by-brick. This time, instead of fear, he tried something new - he made each brick mirror-shiny, a little pool of shimmering quicksilver, to try to reflect emotions away from his wall, to make the strain easier to deal with. When his wall was built, he looked at Amanda and grinned. "Much better." he said, as this variant on the wall was far easier to buttress and maintain.
She blinked as the new wall filtered into her vision - a variant of the Mirror, almost, only this time it wasn't _his_ emotions that reflected hers, but a surface layer, behind which he was himself. "That's the strangest thing. 'S like lookin' in an empathic mirror..." She pulled a face as she processed the emotions she could see, that were coming off her. "Fuck, no wonder yer've got a headache if yer gettin' that off me."
"Welcome to the Mirror. Since this seems to be working, and it's less work for me, I think I'll keep it up for the time being. This won't withstand even the most casual scan, but for the background crap, it seems to do the job quite nicely." he said with a grin. "And you're not that bad, really. And now I need aspirin. I have a _killer_ headache - Galin had Nathan test my new wall today. Fucker walked right through it like it wasn't there. When I went head-to-head with him, he cheated to win, but it hurt me to contest it."
"Head t' head with Nate would give anyone a headache," Amanda said, still examining Manuel's aura with curiosity - and as that feeling grew, she saw an answering change in the play of colours she could see. It was only the emotions, 'though; his energy was still the same, still his. A little fatigued, and she could see the spike of the headache growing. "I've got some of that headache tea around - I made some for Frenchie not that long ago. I'd offer t' do a healin' for you, but I'm still not allowed, least not 'til Strange gives me the once-over tomorrow."
"Thanks for the offer, but I'll take the tea and not the healing. Save your strength - this little thing is pretty trivial. I used to get reall skull-tearing headaches when I first manifested - I quite literally thought I was going to die for a while there. And then when Xavier did his mutant-killer thing, I was projecting when it hit - that was very unpleasant indeed. I wonder if she ever really recovered from that - I doubt it." he mused. "Anyway - no-headache tea and then some rest. This wall is MUCH lighter than the other one - I can actually think some around it."
"That I can do. Be back in a jiffy." Amanda got up and padded away to the student kitchen, glad for the chance to do something useful. Sitting on her hands was something she'd never been good at, and waiting wasn't one of her favourite pastimes. Five minutes later she had returned, a steaming mug in her hand. "Let it sit for a little bit t' steep," she instructed, setting it down next to him and letting her fingers slide across his hand. "Great timin', this shieldin' of yers. I ain't an empath an' the atmosphere's gettin' t' me."
"Well, there's not much I can do for you. I can barely shield _me_, let alone the both of us. Someday, though." he said with a squeeze of her hand. "If she wants to commit suicide like this, there's not much you, I, or anyone else can really do." he offered cynically. "She's a walking wound, emotionally speaking. If she survives this, she might come out of it with some healing."
"I know that. Don't make it much easier t' sit 'round an' wait for news." Tentatively, she asked: "Yer shieldin' up t' contact? 'Cause right now I could use some."
"One way to find out..." he leered, and pulled Amanda in for a hug. His shield flexed, but the reinforcement and a quick effort of will held it together. "Shhhhh." he told Amanda as he hugged her. "Things will work out one way or the other. Worrying yourself sick about it won't solve anything. And going after her would just kill the both of us."
Sitting in his lap, Amanda laid her head against his shoulder, glad to just _stop_ for a while. "I wouldn't have gone," she said quietly. "Not once I found out what was what. No matter what the rest of 'em say, I ain't that stupid. An' I wouldn't do that to you."
"I'm reassured by that, truly." he said quietly. "I didn't really fancy dying because you wanted to go out and play the heroine." He just held her quietly, revelling in the simple contact, taking refuge in the stillness inside his own mind. "I would have gone with you, you know." he said after a while. "If you went, I would have gone too."
"I didn't want t' play the heroine, I just wanted t' stop my friend from bein' hurt," she told him. "She would've done the same for me, if I hadn't been in bloody Mexico at the time." With his arms around her, and with the simple joy she was getting from the link, the churning inside her head was starting to slow down. "An' I know you would have. Which is why I couldn't. I used t' say I didn't matter, but now I sort of do, since if somethin' happens t' me, it happens t' you as well. It's takin' some gettin' used to."
"You're telling _me_" he said with a wry grin. "I don't want to think about Mexico right now. It makes me want to go downstairs, hunt the Mexican down and then break my word and maim him. " he said, then reached around for the mug of tea she had prepared for him. Adjusting himself slightly, he drank deeply from the mug. "This stuff tastes like dirt, you know. It had better work."
"Mexico was my idea, not his," she reminded him quietly. Then she smiled. "If it doesn't taste bad, it's not good for you," she said, mimicking Homily's northern English accent with startling accuracy. "It's terrible, I know, but it does work. Fuck knows I've had enough over the years."
"I'm not questioning whose idea it was. He failed to protect you - he let you come to harm. For that alone I should have his stones on a string." he said fiercely but quietly. "And this stuff really is terrible." he grimaced, choking the rest of it down. "How long does it take to kick in?"
"About five minutes. It's faster 'n aspirin, since it's already dissolved, I s'pose." Her tone wasn't without sympathy - it really was vile stuff, the willowbark tea, like drinking powdered aspirin mixed with muddy water. "Ange tried - Rack was out of his league, an' yers as well, least with that thing on. Maybe even without. Magic's tricky, an' Rack was sneaky, good at gettin' his way." With a small shudder, she cuddled closer to him. "I chose t' go, so anythin' that happened is my fault."
"What'd he do, angst at him?" he said, clearly not buying the "he tried!" argument. "It's over and done, and you're here now. Anyone who wants to fuck with you gets to deal with me. And I can be quite inventive, when I put my mind to it." he said, nuzzling her neck slightly. "I protect what's mine."
She shuddered again, but this time with desire. And at his words - she'd never have someone claim her like that before, and it surprised her to find she liked it. "I know yer inventive," she murmured, tilting her head slightly so more of her neck was exposed.
Manuel could read _that_ invitation from a kilometer off, even without his power. So he nuzzled it a little more, grinning all the while. "You like that." he said flatly. "Good. I do too."
Amanda wriggled a little in his lap, sliding her arms up and around his neck. "How's that headache comin'?" she asked, smiling at him with a not-so-subtle invitation in her expression. "'Cause there's other ways of blockin' out what's goin' on that work for both of us..."
Manuel grinned, then closed his eyes as his shields wavered. It took him visible effort to get them under control, and the effort clearly drained him. "Crap." he said disgustedly. "Looks like my shield isn't going to cooperate. I feel too much, and the wall breaks down. On the plus side, the headache is starting to fade a little. I'm sorry, Amanda. The only way I could keep my shield up and still give you what you want is to not feel a damned thing about it. And I can't do that - and I don't want to."
"Bugger," she said, settling for a chaste kiss on the cheek instead of the one she'd intended planting on him. "An' no, I wouldn't want you t' do that either - I like it much better when you react, an' I don't just mean yer bits an' pieces."
Manuel took a moment to reinforce his shield as much as he possibly could, and gave her the kiss she wanted from him in the first place. The shield buckled and nearly broke, but by the time he came up for air the shield held - barely. "That's a promise. When things calm down..." he leered.
"An' if they don't, well, we can always find somewhere far enough away from the stress. I promise not t' bring any with me." Amanda kissed him again, this time a gentle brush of her lips to his temple. "I've still got that emergency bankcard Dom gave me, an' this'd count as an emergency, I think."
Manuel nodded. "I'm tapped out - Europe was expensive. It will take some time to rebuild my finances." He then wiggled a little in his chair. "All the more reason to work on getting this shielding thing down - it's seriously interfering with my sex life. And that is _intolerable_. I have a perfectly willing woman here who is _dying_ for me to claim her as my own, and I can't. Not and keep myself to myself." he said with a leering grin.
"Consider me incentive, then," she told him, with a chuckle.
"You always have been." he replied.
Manuel sat in his room, desperately trying to ignore all of the worry and concern and anger and whatnot that floated through the Mansion like a psychic oil slick. He sat in his chair and closed his eyes, concentrating on erecting a wall between his brain and the rest of the world - a row of screaming bricks, each one frosted white with fear. When the wall was finally erected (save for the one brick that was the warm pulsing hole of his empathic bond to Amanda) he re-opened his eyes and just concentrated on his breathing. In and out, nice and even. Concentrate on the nothingness, that was the ticket.
Amanda, for her part, was wanting to ignore what was going on around her as well. And the best distraction she knew was Manuel. Besides, what he'd mentioned about shielding was a good thing, something to be happy about. And she could do with good right now. So she headed up to his room once she'd finished her sixth cigarette of the morning, doing her best to shunt aside her own feelings of fear and worry.
Manuel looked up at Amanda as she walked in the door, and very nearly lost his wall entirely as he got a brainful of her emotions. She was trying not to share them, he knew that, but she was doing a sloppy job of containment, and so he was left to deal with the spillover. His wall shook threateningly, but another closing of the eyes and some mental discipline and the walls stopped their quavering, returning to their reassuring solid state. "Good morning, Amanda." he said, eyes still closed. "Feeling a bit out-of-sorts?"
"'S one way of puttin' it." Her mouth quirked a little as she paused, holding the door open. "I can go, if you want. No reason for both of us t' be feelin' shitty, 'specially since you don't really care 'bout what's happenin' t' Sarah." There was no malice intended - she knew there were some people he really didn't bother about.
"No, this will be a good test. I'm not ready to go out there, but if I can withstand your feelings, then I'll know this is working. Look at my emotions, and tell me what you see." he said tersely, as if he was supremely distracted by something. "I don't feel worried or angry at all right now." he said.
He didn't - she could feel that through the link. He was concentrating though... Closing the door behind her and sitting on the bed, Amanda summoned up her aura sight, wincing a little at the conscious effort it took. Yep, she was definitely not in a good place mentally, if her magic started giving her trouble. That thought was lost, however, as she concentrated on Manuel's aura, the uniformity of the emotional part, radiating fear at her. "'S like... a wall," she said slowly, frowning a little as she tried to focus beyond the fear and failing to, although she could tell from the link _he_ wasn't frightened. "What... Is that yer shieldin'? What you learnt today?"
Manuel smiled thinly, then let the expression die as he walls began to quaver at the pressure of his own emotions, hers, plus all the free-floating stuff. "This is what we went over today. Gives me a grinding headache, but I'll take a little bit of pain over being worried and scared out of my mind by you lot." He paused to concentrate on reinforcing his wall, and after an uncomfortable pause he opened his eyes again. "I can't project through it yet, but this wall keeps me in and all of you out. It's all I ever wanted." And at that, his wall broke entirely. "Fuck." he swore as he felt his wall collapse and the full force of all the free-floating emotions slam into his brain.
"That's fuckin' brilliant. Really." The cloud of worry lifted a little as Amanda realised the implications of what he'd shown her. "An' in one day. 'M glad for you."
Manuel's hands spasmed into fists as he fought to regain his discipline, to ignore the pain and recreate his wall brick-by-brick. This time, instead of fear, he tried something new - he made each brick mirror-shiny, a little pool of shimmering quicksilver, to try to reflect emotions away from his wall, to make the strain easier to deal with. When his wall was built, he looked at Amanda and grinned. "Much better." he said, as this variant on the wall was far easier to buttress and maintain.
She blinked as the new wall filtered into her vision - a variant of the Mirror, almost, only this time it wasn't _his_ emotions that reflected hers, but a surface layer, behind which he was himself. "That's the strangest thing. 'S like lookin' in an empathic mirror..." She pulled a face as she processed the emotions she could see, that were coming off her. "Fuck, no wonder yer've got a headache if yer gettin' that off me."
"Welcome to the Mirror. Since this seems to be working, and it's less work for me, I think I'll keep it up for the time being. This won't withstand even the most casual scan, but for the background crap, it seems to do the job quite nicely." he said with a grin. "And you're not that bad, really. And now I need aspirin. I have a _killer_ headache - Galin had Nathan test my new wall today. Fucker walked right through it like it wasn't there. When I went head-to-head with him, he cheated to win, but it hurt me to contest it."
"Head t' head with Nate would give anyone a headache," Amanda said, still examining Manuel's aura with curiosity - and as that feeling grew, she saw an answering change in the play of colours she could see. It was only the emotions, 'though; his energy was still the same, still his. A little fatigued, and she could see the spike of the headache growing. "I've got some of that headache tea around - I made some for Frenchie not that long ago. I'd offer t' do a healin' for you, but I'm still not allowed, least not 'til Strange gives me the once-over tomorrow."
"Thanks for the offer, but I'll take the tea and not the healing. Save your strength - this little thing is pretty trivial. I used to get reall skull-tearing headaches when I first manifested - I quite literally thought I was going to die for a while there. And then when Xavier did his mutant-killer thing, I was projecting when it hit - that was very unpleasant indeed. I wonder if she ever really recovered from that - I doubt it." he mused. "Anyway - no-headache tea and then some rest. This wall is MUCH lighter than the other one - I can actually think some around it."
"That I can do. Be back in a jiffy." Amanda got up and padded away to the student kitchen, glad for the chance to do something useful. Sitting on her hands was something she'd never been good at, and waiting wasn't one of her favourite pastimes. Five minutes later she had returned, a steaming mug in her hand. "Let it sit for a little bit t' steep," she instructed, setting it down next to him and letting her fingers slide across his hand. "Great timin', this shieldin' of yers. I ain't an empath an' the atmosphere's gettin' t' me."
"Well, there's not much I can do for you. I can barely shield _me_, let alone the both of us. Someday, though." he said with a squeeze of her hand. "If she wants to commit suicide like this, there's not much you, I, or anyone else can really do." he offered cynically. "She's a walking wound, emotionally speaking. If she survives this, she might come out of it with some healing."
"I know that. Don't make it much easier t' sit 'round an' wait for news." Tentatively, she asked: "Yer shieldin' up t' contact? 'Cause right now I could use some."
"One way to find out..." he leered, and pulled Amanda in for a hug. His shield flexed, but the reinforcement and a quick effort of will held it together. "Shhhhh." he told Amanda as he hugged her. "Things will work out one way or the other. Worrying yourself sick about it won't solve anything. And going after her would just kill the both of us."
Sitting in his lap, Amanda laid her head against his shoulder, glad to just _stop_ for a while. "I wouldn't have gone," she said quietly. "Not once I found out what was what. No matter what the rest of 'em say, I ain't that stupid. An' I wouldn't do that to you."
"I'm reassured by that, truly." he said quietly. "I didn't really fancy dying because you wanted to go out and play the heroine." He just held her quietly, revelling in the simple contact, taking refuge in the stillness inside his own mind. "I would have gone with you, you know." he said after a while. "If you went, I would have gone too."
"I didn't want t' play the heroine, I just wanted t' stop my friend from bein' hurt," she told him. "She would've done the same for me, if I hadn't been in bloody Mexico at the time." With his arms around her, and with the simple joy she was getting from the link, the churning inside her head was starting to slow down. "An' I know you would have. Which is why I couldn't. I used t' say I didn't matter, but now I sort of do, since if somethin' happens t' me, it happens t' you as well. It's takin' some gettin' used to."
"You're telling _me_" he said with a wry grin. "I don't want to think about Mexico right now. It makes me want to go downstairs, hunt the Mexican down and then break my word and maim him. " he said, then reached around for the mug of tea she had prepared for him. Adjusting himself slightly, he drank deeply from the mug. "This stuff tastes like dirt, you know. It had better work."
"Mexico was my idea, not his," she reminded him quietly. Then she smiled. "If it doesn't taste bad, it's not good for you," she said, mimicking Homily's northern English accent with startling accuracy. "It's terrible, I know, but it does work. Fuck knows I've had enough over the years."
"I'm not questioning whose idea it was. He failed to protect you - he let you come to harm. For that alone I should have his stones on a string." he said fiercely but quietly. "And this stuff really is terrible." he grimaced, choking the rest of it down. "How long does it take to kick in?"
"About five minutes. It's faster 'n aspirin, since it's already dissolved, I s'pose." Her tone wasn't without sympathy - it really was vile stuff, the willowbark tea, like drinking powdered aspirin mixed with muddy water. "Ange tried - Rack was out of his league, an' yers as well, least with that thing on. Maybe even without. Magic's tricky, an' Rack was sneaky, good at gettin' his way." With a small shudder, she cuddled closer to him. "I chose t' go, so anythin' that happened is my fault."
"What'd he do, angst at him?" he said, clearly not buying the "he tried!" argument. "It's over and done, and you're here now. Anyone who wants to fuck with you gets to deal with me. And I can be quite inventive, when I put my mind to it." he said, nuzzling her neck slightly. "I protect what's mine."
She shuddered again, but this time with desire. And at his words - she'd never have someone claim her like that before, and it surprised her to find she liked it. "I know yer inventive," she murmured, tilting her head slightly so more of her neck was exposed.
Manuel could read _that_ invitation from a kilometer off, even without his power. So he nuzzled it a little more, grinning all the while. "You like that." he said flatly. "Good. I do too."
Amanda wriggled a little in his lap, sliding her arms up and around his neck. "How's that headache comin'?" she asked, smiling at him with a not-so-subtle invitation in her expression. "'Cause there's other ways of blockin' out what's goin' on that work for both of us..."
Manuel grinned, then closed his eyes as his shields wavered. It took him visible effort to get them under control, and the effort clearly drained him. "Crap." he said disgustedly. "Looks like my shield isn't going to cooperate. I feel too much, and the wall breaks down. On the plus side, the headache is starting to fade a little. I'm sorry, Amanda. The only way I could keep my shield up and still give you what you want is to not feel a damned thing about it. And I can't do that - and I don't want to."
"Bugger," she said, settling for a chaste kiss on the cheek instead of the one she'd intended planting on him. "An' no, I wouldn't want you t' do that either - I like it much better when you react, an' I don't just mean yer bits an' pieces."
Manuel took a moment to reinforce his shield as much as he possibly could, and gave her the kiss she wanted from him in the first place. The shield buckled and nearly broke, but by the time he came up for air the shield held - barely. "That's a promise. When things calm down..." he leered.
"An' if they don't, well, we can always find somewhere far enough away from the stress. I promise not t' bring any with me." Amanda kissed him again, this time a gentle brush of her lips to his temple. "I've still got that emergency bankcard Dom gave me, an' this'd count as an emergency, I think."
Manuel nodded. "I'm tapped out - Europe was expensive. It will take some time to rebuild my finances." He then wiggled a little in his chair. "All the more reason to work on getting this shielding thing down - it's seriously interfering with my sex life. And that is _intolerable_. I have a perfectly willing woman here who is _dying_ for me to claim her as my own, and I can't. Not and keep myself to myself." he said with a leering grin.
"Consider me incentive, then," she told him, with a chuckle.
"You always have been." he replied.
