Scott and Manuel, Tuesday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott gives Manuel a driving lesson. They survive and make to a coffee bar, where they have a long, occasionally rather disturbing conversation about perspective, ethics, freedom, and the choices one makes. Manuel practices his projection - at Scott's invitation. Scott is unusually forthcoming.



He was not going to yell, Scott told himself. Yelling was bad. Yelling did nothing but get him in trouble and mess things up. So no yelling. Really. Sweet reason. And no clutching the car's 'holy shit!' handle.

"Manuel," he said in a Very Steady voice. "What color was that light you just drove through?"

Manuel stopped to think for a second. "Kind of an dullish maroon." he said while adroitly whipping the car with suicidal abandon through crowded Salem Centre traffic. "No, perhaps it was more of a faded scarlet. Hard to tell, really. I only saw it for a split-second."

"Red, Manuel. It was red. What do we do when the light's red?" Scott gritted his teeth as Manuel stopped bare inches from the back of the car in front of them.

"How can you tell? Everything looks red to you. And I wanted to get to the coffee bar quickly. They're the only place in town where I can get a decent Turkish coffee." he said by way of a reply, tapping his fingers against the wheel in irritation. "~Come ON, you stupid pigfucker!~ he shouted in Castillian, sticking his head out the window for greater effect. "~Syphillitic goats dishonoring your grandmother move faster than you do!~"

"Enough," Scott said sharply. "Or we're pulling over and I'm driving." The light ahead of them finally changed and traffic started moving again. Too slow for Manuel, to judge by the hissing he was doing under his breath. "Red light is the one at the top, Manuel, and it means you stop. It does not mean you speed up so that you can get into the middle of the intersection just in time to get hit."

"Pish." Manuel said. "I felt him coming a mile off." he said by way of elaboration. He itched to turn the radio on, feed the CD player, but Scott's taste in music was truly abysmal, and he didn't feel like indulging it. "I have places to go and a short amount of time to do it in. Besides, I've seen Alphonso's drivers do this a thousand times! He let me sit up front, once. That was fun."

"And if you get us pulled over and get a ticket for speeding and reckless driving, you'll be walking to wherever you want to be. I don't think I'd count on being punctual then." He really ought to have handed off Manuel to one of the volunteers who had been helping with the driver's ed. Only he'd thought that would be cruel.

"I? Get a ticket? I hardly think so." Manuel said with an infuriating grin. "Officers are so understanding where I am concerned." Which was pure bluff, but Scott didn't need to know that. "And besides, we're nearly there. You can drive home, if that will help the fear-levels in your mind go down."

Scott tried very hard not to grind his teeth. "We'll see," he gritted. "After the coffee bar." They managed to make it to said coffee bar without causing a major accident, amazingly enough. "Remind me to pick a car I don't like, next time we do this," he grumbled as he opened the passenger's side door.

Manuel hrmmed. "That's easy enough to see. I could pick out a car you don't like." he offered, then walked into the coffee bar without locking up the car or anything.

Scott swore under his breath, locked the car, and followed him into the coffee bar. "I don't suppose you're getting this Turkish coffee to go," he said sardonically as he came up to Manuel where he was standing at the counter.

"I could, if you're that anxious - and you are. Do you want anything?" he asked in a still-too-rare flash of generousity. Manuel stared at the line in front of him, and suppressed an urge to make it go faster.

Scott looked around the coffee bar assessingly. Quiet, despite the fact that there were quite a few people in here. "We might as well stick around and relax for a bit." Relax. Hah-hah. Then it struck him that he hadn't answered Manuel's question, and he gave the younger man a somewhat diffident look. "I--just a regular coffee, maybe? Want me to find us seats?"

Manuel sighed and nodded. "Black, I presume?" he asked, then impatiently waited in line. The woman two people up from him in line couldn't decide what she wanted to drink, and Manuel was fairly sure that Scott would object if he killed her messily.

Scott found two fairly comfortable chairs around a small table in the corner and sat down in one, letting the air in his lungs out on a sigh and willing the residual tension from Mr de la Rocha's Wild Ride to go with it. This was not precisely the sort of getting out of the mansion he needed to be doing, he suspected.

It was a couple of minutes before Manuel appeared, a coffee in either hand. "Thanks," Scott said, reaching out to take the one in the standard-sized cup. "And look - I may not like the fact that you were speeding and breaking traffic laws, but you weren't driving badly, per se. You seem to have good reflexes."

"Of course I do. I dance, I fence, I wine and dine and romance far better than anyone else in the Mansion. My reflexes are top-shelf." he said arrogantly, settling into the cheap chair uneasily. He looked at Scott, and his eyes flashed red to fulfill Scott's wish - that the residual tension Go Away.

Scott blinked, shaking his head a little at the sudden sense of calm that descended over him. "Please don't do that," he said after a moment, the anger he should have felt muted to a trace of discomfort.

Manuel blinked. "Why not? You wanted it, I gave it to you." he said, sipping his Turkish coffee with an expression of pure contentment. "I didn't even ask for a thank-you. Gotta practice with our powers, after all."

"I didn't ask you for it." Scott took a sip of his own coffee, hearing the words come out level, utterly calm. "And I am not your guinea pig, Manuel."

"You felt it. I took it as an invitation. And no one is my guinea pig. Hence why I need to practice where and when I can." he said, sipping his coffee like a Continental.

That was... mildly bothersome. More than bothersome, really. Despite the calm still pervading his thoughts, Scott's hand went white-knuckled on the coffee cup. "That's not appropriate, Manuel. I would appreciate it if you didn't practice on me."

Manuel looked over at Scott and sighed. "Forget it. I won't practice on you." he said, then sipped at his coffee. "I had almost forgotten what real coffee tasted like."

Scott took another sip of his, telling himself to set aside what had just happened. For now, at least. "I'm surprised Amanda didn't bring you some back from Istanbul."

"I don't think she was thinking that far ahead." said Manuel sadly. "I wish she had. The commute is just murder, and getting time away from my studies doubly-so." he said with a grin. "Be a good project for Econ, though. Import-export businesses."

Scott made the appropriate monosyllabic noise and sipped at his coffee, his gaze wandering around the coffee bar, assessing his surroundings instinctively. No one paying undue attention to them. No visible potential problems.

Manuel smiled thinly as he felt Scott's paranoia and suspicion come out just a little bit. "Relax. The mood of the place isn't hostile. I'm keeping an eye on things just in case. I'll let you know if the mundanes get hostile."

"And what you see is always reliable?" Scott asked quietly, his expression not changing.

"You want to go on being paranoid and suspicious, be my guest. I'm also keeping an eye out, so to speak." he said reasonably. "And I can see well enough."

Scott shook his head, but left it alone. "You won't pass your driver's test if you drive like that," he said after another space of silence.

Manuel shrugged. "There's always next year." he said. "I expected not to pass. It's just nice to get off-campus once in a while."

"If you pass the test, you could get off-campus more often," Scott pointed out. Logic.

"I don't think I am actually permitted to pass anything the first time 'round." Manuel said with a laugh. "And I really have nowhere to go besides to this coffee shop."

Scott sighed, sinking back into the chair. "No social life outside the mansion?" he asked with a touch of wry humor. "I know how that goes..."

"I don't have much of a life, period." explained Manuel. "Too much stupidity when I was struggling with control, and too many class differences. I thought I could get off-campus and involved with HeliX, but Jamie shot that down. They claim that he doesn't run things, but I disagree."

"You don't need to be involved in HeliX to get off campus," Scott pointed out. "And if you're interested in that kind of... what, beneficial work, maybe that's the term, there are probably other avenues. You should ask Charles."

"I don't _want_ to ask Charles. Charles is now in charge of my empathic development - except all he wants to do is talk. He is not filling me with confidence." he said stubbornly. "Sure, it's nice to talk with someone for whom I don't need to explain every single little thing, but that's _all he does_. Talk. It is annoying to me."

"Maybe he's trying to help you build an ethical base for using your power," Scott said, remembering Jean telling him about some of the long conversations she'd had with Charles while she was first working on her telepathy. "You yourself admit that you did a lot of stupid things while you were learning control."

Manuel nodded. "I know that." he said irritably. "But I don't have that kind of _time_."

Scott blinked at him. "What, you're working to a deadline?"

Manuel didn't answer the question, favoring instead another few sips of his coffee.

The lack of answer answered the question pretty conclusively. Scott sipped at his coffee, watching Manuel for a moment. "If you're putting pressure on yourself to succeed quickly, that's one thing," he finally said. "If it's someone else putting pressure on you..." He had made a habit of apparently keeping his nose out of Hellfire business, but it wasn't as if he didn't keep as aware as possible.

Manuel shook his head. "No, it's not that." he said with a smile. "I find myself developing something of a perfectionist nature. There is a lot I could be doing with my power, _good_ things, but I lack the knowledge. And I refuse, categorically _refuse_, to dance on Askani strings any longer."

Scott raised an eyebrow, but let it go. "Personally, I'm glad," he said. "Nathan's spending the time he used to spend with you training, and he's too valuable not to put to use as soon as it's feasible."

Manuel took the rebuke with good grace. "I see." is all he said verbally. "It is good that he uses his time productively, then? Rather than wasting it with me?"

"I wasn't under the impression that it was wasted time - was it?" Scott shook his head. "But there were--are other options for you, and I'm selfish enough when it comes to... that particular part of the school's operations that I don't feel bad about filling up his time."

"You just told me that it was." Manuel pointed out. "But I can be magnamimous. And there are no other options save Charles. Empaths are rare. Fully trained and sane ones even more so, from what I am given to believe."

"I said no such thing," Scott said with a sigh. "And before you say I felt it, I'm well-aware of the fact that you've been markedly less... stupid since your lessons with Nathan's friends. Except perhaps for that business with Jubilee." A flare of honest aggravation sparked inside him as he thought about the girl.

Manuel quirked an eyebrow. "Hardly my fault." he said, but declined to elaborate further. "And you very clearly assigned him a higher priority than me. Which is, I suppose, only right and proper. His gifts are versatile and well-trained. Mine is strong but not well-trained at all."

"You might consider perspective, too," Scott said. "I'm not much of a teacher, Manuel." And he was about ready to stop trying to be, too. "I see things from the perspective of the other side of the school's operations. From that perspective, I wish you well, but I want to put him to work as soon as I can."

Manuel nodded. "However, given my experiences at Xavier's, if I do not look out for my own interests, no one else will." he pointed out, then finished the last of his coffee. "Let's be honest, shall we? No one here gives a rat's ass about Manuel de la Rocha except for Manuel de la Rocha and Amanda Sefton. And Amanda's in no position to do me any favors. So that leaves me nowhere at all."

"It's not that no one has ever tried to look after your interests," Scott said, "it's that you don't trust anyone who's tried. Or you don't want to pay what you think is the price." He smiled mirthlessly at Manuel. "What, you don't think I listen? You've done enough shouting on the subject from time to time. Plus I'm a shameless eavesdropper. I consider it part of the job description."

"Of course not!" Manuel said with offended dignity. "The price is always too high. Join our cult, allow them to slam language and culture and who-knows-what-else directly into my brain. No thank you. I prefer to remain my own man, to rise or fall on my own two legs. If I have learned _anything_ in my life, it is that nothing comes for free."

"Then don't bitch about poor, neglected Manuel," Scott said a bit coldly. "Turning down help, or getting impatient at how it's offered - you're just lucky Charles has a lot more patience than Nathan - is all your choice."

"There was no choice at all. The terms were never clearly stated before the Deal. And it was not MY IDEA to begin training with him. I was instructed that it was mandatory." Manuel said, still keeping his pleasant smile on his face. "I begin to see how business is done around here."

He was too tired for this. And this was very definitely not his responsibility, thank God. "Whatever," Scott muttered and sipped at his coffee. "At least you got basic control out of it, right? No more being used." He gave Manuel a brief, hard look, some of his suspicions about the Hellfire Club resurfacing. "So long as you don't let yourself be used."

"Have I ever stopped being used?" Manuel asked pleasantly, leaning back in his chair. "The players have changed, but the dance continues."

Oh, that was terribly reassuring. Never let it be said that he was incapable of leaving someone to nurse their victim complex, though. "We are what we choose to be, Manuel," he said, then sipped at his coffee again. "So I've chosen to be a depressed workaholic. You?"

"That's a very nice thought. We are who we choose to be. I happen to disagree. The paths we walk are decided in part by us, yes, but in part by our environment. What I would choose to be you and everyone else will not permit. I want to be my own man, trained in the use of my power, free to use it as I see fit. To make my own way in the world. To take the family name and turn it back into something that can shake the pillars of the world." he said. "Do you think you could arrange that for me, Mister Summers?"

"All right," Scott said with a mirthless smile. "So you've chosen to be resentful and see us as holding you back. I shouldn't have needed to be told that, I suppose."

"It's not a choice. It's an observation. If you wanted to help me, you'd find me someone I could practice on. If you cared about my well-being, you would smooth over my mistakes, explain them, help me to understand what it is that I am doing wrong. Yet, these things do not happen. How am I supposed to feel? Tell me!" Manuel said quietly but intensely. "Give me something I can cling to, give me something that is mine and mine alone, that no one can take away from me."

"Then let's kill two birds with one stone here," Scott suggested. "Why do you think I objected to what you just did to me?"

Manuel shrugged. "I have no idea." he finally offered up after a few moments. "Perhaps you thought I was going to crush your mind, maybe you thought I was going to rip your secrets from your lips. Maybe you just don't trust me, and want to see me far, far away where I cannot disrupt your life."

"I was raised by the most powerful telepath on earth," Scott said. "I've had two intimate relationships with telepaths, and I'm currently psi-linked. If I was worried about hiding things, trust me, you wouldn't be the first person I'd be directing that worry at." He leaned back in the chair, taking another sip of his coffee before he went on. "I'm not in control of my own emotions these days, Manuel. What the headblind world sees is a facade - " Getting to be a damned thin one at times, too. " - and having someone alter my emotions for me only makes it very clear to me that I don't have that control."

Manuel sighed. "And now we come back to this again." he said with a heavy exhalation of breath.

Scott leaned forward suddenly, feeling a weird flicker of recklessness. "I could choose to ignore that concern, though," he said quietly, not sure whether he was testing Manuel, or himself. "Maybe this once. While we're sitting here, far enough away from the mansion that none of your fellow psis are going to come knocking on the door wondering what we're doing." It was the same impulse that had led him to offer himself as a training partner for Remy. He wanted to know what Manuel would do.

Manuel looked confused. "You are planning something." he said in accusing tones. "What?"

"I'm not planning anything. I'm curious. It's almost always easier to understand a person based on what they do, rather than what they say. Words are pretty empty most of the time." Scott set his coffee cup down on the table in front of them. "So I'm giving you a chance to do something, Manuel. Take it if you want."

Manuel looked at Scott with great suspicion. "No." he said finally. "The risk is too great. I cannot make you forget, and if I do anything you do not like, you will report me and I will face the punishments."

"You can tell truth from lie, right? I won't, Manuel." Scott laughed suddenly, wryly. "So long as you don't do anything that winds up getting me arrested or anything like that, I mean. That I would have to explain."

"I remain skeptical, but I think I have enough now to avoid the worst if it comes to that." he said, then his eyes glowed red. He projected self-confidence, the sort of bedrock confidence that comes from years of being tested and never having been found wanting. He let it go on for a minute or two, then let the weave fade.

Scott closed his eyes, trying to fight back a completely irrational surge of pain as the feeling of confidence faded as suddenly as it had come. It felt like a crash, like he'd fallen out of a window onto concrete, and for a moment his breath caught in his chest. "So," he said after a moment, his voice unsteady and his eyes closed behind his glasses. "I've just learned that you are... very perceptive about the emotional states of the people around you. That you think, before you use your powers... that you'll restrain yourself. What did you learn?"

Manuel smirked. "So far, not much. That you seem to feel that I can trust you when you tell me that this little incident will not be reported. That you're had your faith shaken, and shaken _hard_ of late. You want too much and try too hard because you are terrified of what will happen if you fail. And, like everyone else I have met here, you fear my power."

"Your power, or that you might misuse it?" Scott asked as levelly as he could, opening his eyes. "I'm afraid of what telepaths could do." How could he be anything but? After what had happened with Stryker, with Kwannon... "That doesn't mean I'm afraid of telepaths."

"Yes it does." Manuel said stubbornly. "Unless you're afraid that some telepath is going to wander by and break your nose physically, you're afraid of the power they wield."

"So why am I psi-linked to someone I'm afraid of?"

Manuel shrugged. "Because you feel that the benefits outweight the risks? I'm not a telepath, I cannot tell you what you think." And there was absolutely no frustration there, none whatsoever, thanks for asking.

"You seem to assess risk and reward pretty closely, Manuel. Don't you think that applies to interpersonal relationships, too?" Scott shrugged right back. "Or even professional relationships. Betsy and Nathan might be capable of doing something alarming with their telepathy, but they're also just as capable of facilitating communication, warning me about potential threats, detecting someone in trouble."

"They have that priviledge." Manuel said. "Empathy, from what I have seen, is good for parlor tricks and doing horrific damage."

"Empathy could detect someone in trouble just as easily," Scott pointed out. "You yourself just told me you could detect someone here in this bar getting hostile. If you walked into your suite tonight and found your roommate about to kill himself, you could stop him from doing that. You helped keep Amanda together while she was struggling with her addiction." He smiled faintly. "Should I go on?"

Manuel smiled thinly. "And yet when I told people about how bad I felt that I could have prevented Shiro from self-immolating, I was told "It is none of your concern". So your examples wear badly." he said with a smile. "Amanda - is the only good I have ever done. I know that, now. And even that hangs by a thread."

"Shiro's not dead," Scott pointed out, "and everyone who went after him is fully recovered. So the goal was achieved, and basically, what you were kicking yourself over is the fact that you didn't choose to take what might have been an easier approach. And maybe Amanda's the only good you've ever done, but that doesn't mean she's the only good you can ever do."

"Three injured? One burned out? And you consider this a success, when with a _thought_ I could have stopped the entire affair?" Manuel protested. "You are as crazy as the others if you think that was a preferred outcome. And I have tried to do some good. It has not gone well. I have been told, in no uncertain terms, to attempt it again would be hazardous to my person."

"Everyone's recovered," Scott said steadily. "And when were you trying to do this other good, Manuel? While you were still trying to get control over your abilities and didn't know what you were doing?" He shook his head. "I would have an empath on my team happily," he said, his voice low. "The potential value of your gift for the sort of situations we face would be extraordinary."

Manuel blinked, and then slowly, slowly, clapped his hands together a few times. "Well played." he said with a grin. "You offer me much, and risk nothing. I'd like to believe you, and I feel that you think you're sincere. But there is too much distrust, too much _fear_, for me to be tempted."

"You have no idea what I risk," Scott said with a sigh, picking up his coffee cup. "None at all. And as for the distrust and fear... it's not all on our parts, I think."

"Fear? Of _what_?" he asked with a snort. "What do I have to fear from you? You're not Nathan, you don't have the Askani watching your every move."

"You're not afraid of me," Scott said, "but you are afraid of some of the things I represent. I wonder, hearing some of your opinions about class distinctions and the like, whether you wouldn't be more comfortable with the sort of ideas M--the Professor's friend Erik espouses."

"I do not know the man you speak of." Manuel admitted. "So I cannot say if I would prefer his rhetoric over the Professor's. What does that have to do with anything? Are you seriously telling me that if you're not a True Believer that you're a second-class citizen?"

"Just that you're very conscious of your status as a psi, and a de la Rocha. Can you tell me honestly that part of what troubles you isn't that you see people you consider beneath you shaping the direction of your life?"

"I have no control over my life right now. My life is decided for me - classes, living quarters, associations - all of it." he admitted. "And I would be lying if I said that I really liked it that way. But I have no choice."

"Classes?" Scott asked with a frown. "Who picked your classes for you?"

Manuel grinned. "This term, I fought for self-determination and received it. Last term, it was Mistress Frost who did the choosing."

"So you're improving," Scott pointed out. "In terms of your freedom to choose what you're doing."

"Baby steps." Manuel retorted, but he smiled as he said it. "I still have no right of association and I cannot leave the Mansion by myself. I have nowhere to go. This is the first time I have been out unescorted in months. And I'm still escorted, really - by you. I have _never_ been outside the Mansion by myself."

"Here's a thought," Scott said dryly. "Pass your driver's test."

"Here's another - I am still effectively a prisoner until you choose to allow me to pass the driver's exam." Manuel snapped back, his temper clearly fraying.

"Until I choose to allow you to pass the driver's exam?" Scott said, bemused. "Manuel, it's pretty simple. You either drive to a standard or you don't. It's the same standard for everyone."

"I remain skeptical." said Manuel, leaning back in his chair. "You collect the exams, you have ample opportunities to selectively edit things to your specifications. I would, if I did not wish for a student to escape my control."

"Oh, for God's sake." Scott actually laughed. "Manuel? I don't like you. I have no desire to spend much time around you. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as you're able to even marginally pass the exam and the road test, I'll release you onto the unsuspecting public gladly." He shook his head. "More fucking paranoia," he said, his voice low but oddly vehement for a moment. "I hear it from you, from others, and I honestly wonder just why Charles bothers sometimes. But then, I'm not as good a person as he is."

"Who else doubts me?" Manuel demanded. "I would like to know, so that I could deal with it. That is, assuming that that too is not forbidden to me." he hissed. "It is not paranoia, it is _the way things are done_. I have nothing to offer you save for my power, and you have rejected that. Or is that it? Is there something you want from me, in exchange for your cooperation?"

"Doubts you?" Scott asked, briefly thrown again. He really couldn't keep up with the younger man's thought process. The whole headblind thing, he supposed; he supposed there were whole levels to this conversation that he wasn't even perceiving. "I don't want anything from you," he said with a sigh. "I used to want certain... intangible things from the students, before I realized that I wasn't getting them and that it was maybe better that way." He sipped at his coffee again. "Right now, I'd be satisfied with seeing you pass your driver's test. You get one more, bigger step towards independence, and I can at least say that I taught you how to drive. I'll take my successes where I can find them."

"Everyone wants something. You don't have to be shy, there's no need to fear reprisals." Manuel said with a grin. "Just tell me what you want, and I'll see if I can get it for you. You help me, I help you. Everyone wins. That's how the world works."

"You want to know what I want?" All he felt, strangely, was a sort of weary, dreary amusement. This conversation had gone such odd places. Maybe they should have gotten the coffees to go. "I want all of you to be safe - even those of you I don't particularly like. I want you to have the time and space to deal with your problems without the crisis du jour landing on our roof every second day. I want to walk through the halls and hear laughter, not people screaming at each other." He took a slightly unsteady breath. "I want every emergent mutant in the world to be guided through their manifestation kindly, rather than burned at the stake, whether literally or figuratively. I want the Professor's friend Erik and those like him to vanish overnight. I want governments of the world to stop using mutants as weapons."

Manuel wasn't making any attempt to interrupt him. Scott stared down into the coffee still left in his cup. "I want to be able to wake up in the morning not afraid of what the day will bring, and I want to be able to sleep without dreaming about all the horrors that could happen the next day. I want to be able to stop planning, and not feel like I'm being criminally negligent if I do." Scott took another sip of his coffee. "I want it to stop," he said hoarsely, "and I want to stop hating myself for wanting that."

Manuel blinked. "A strong demand list. I can aid with some of it, and perhaps aspects of the rest." he said slowly, after much thought. "The emotional responses I can do easily. The rest - that's a little beyond me, unfortunately. My power is limited, especially at the levels you are discussing. But I seem to recall mention of something called - Cerebro? Some sort of psionic amplifier?"

Scott didn't answer the question directly. "You know," he said after a moment, "when you used your powers on me just now, I really felt for a moment like all of that was achievable. In the realm of possibility, at least." He sighed. "Talk to Charles," he said with a touch of bitter humor. "You two can be the dreamers. I'm just the point man. I go where I'm told, do what I'm told, and try not to get too many people killed along the way."

Manuel shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "A dreamer? Me? Never would have figured myself for the type. I do know what I want, and unfortunately there's very little I can do actually _get_ what I want."

"This is turning into a really depressing conversation." Scott drained the rest of his coffee in one swallow. "Then again, I've been wondering lately if the cynics don't have it right after all."

"I cannot afford the luxury of cynicism. I'm an empath." Manuel said simply.

Scott opened his mouth, then closed it, shaking his head. Yeah. Definitely whole levels he wasn't getting. "You about done your coffee?" he asked, without any heat. "You can drive home if you want. I won't reclaim the keys. But if you want to pass your test, you need to start paying attention to the traffic laws."

Manuel grinned. "Coffee's done." he said, standing up. "Let's go back to prison." he said with a grin and a jaunty wave. "I'll try my very best not to frighten you too badly."

"Yeah. Prison, here we come," Scott said with a bleak smile.