LOG: Alison, Manuel - Training Log Two
Nov. 1st, 2004 09:27 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
x-empath.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsManuel and Alison have another training session, in Medlab. This one doesn't quite go very well, and Manuel's deep into Self-Pity-Land.
She must be insane. It was the only reason she could be doing this now, Alison decided, even as she paused outside the Medlab before entering, trying to collect her thoughts. The previous days' events were still fresh in her mind although the sheer misery from the last evening had faded somewhat - more from numbness of a sorts than anything else. Taking slow and even breaths Alison waited a bit longer, even though she knew there wasn't any turning back. There hadn't been any of that possible since the moment she'd started this into motion, in fact. And with that in mind she entered the medlab, heading for the room in which Manuel was.
Manuel was awake, which for him usually meant the few hours of misery between meals, Healings, and naps. He was staring at the ceiling listlessly, his right hand playing with the dampener firmly attached to his left wrist. He couldn't feel right now, so all he was left with was himself. And after the events of Halloween, himself was something he really didn't want to be left alone with much. He didn't see or sense Alison's approach at all.
The medlab was silent - the door to Mick's room firmly closed with the sign she'd taped to it still there from her earlier visit. Manuel's room was the other way - the same as yesterday, the one she'd been to talk to Amanda - the door was half open and she leaned inside, knocking on the doorway lightly while looking down just in case privacy was a concern of some sort.
Manuel didn't respond right away to the knocking. Finally, after a few knocks, he waved a hand diffidently. "Enter." he said, voice flat and lifeless. Privacy was not a concern - it was still early enough in the morning that he was under the thin covers of his hospital bed.
The temptation to say 'you look like I feel' was near overwhelming, but Alison managed to keep from doing so well enough. "Morning," she murmured, walking in the room and heading for the chair next to the bed. She sat down slowly and brought up her legs after a moment, maneuvering a bit to sit in a cross-legged position. Had had not, she figured, received her email. That or he hadn't thought to answer. "Came down to check if we were still on for the training session or not." There was a brief, dull ache at the thought of the consequences of that, though Alison let it slip away the moment after.
Manuel looked at Alison. "I suppose so." he said listlessly. "But I am dampened, for all of your safety. So I cannot project, I cannot receive." he added a moment later. He wheezed out a laugh, and a flash of pain crossed his features as he did so. "I am perfectly safe and harmless."
That was a loaded statement if she'd ever heard one, but Alison didn't really feel like pointing out all he had to do was pick up a pair of scissors to negate that statement. She 'reached' for the link she and Betsy shared - yes, there and aware. She made no move to get up, however. "Well, the dampener would be something of a problem for the training. Is there a medical reason for it?" Alison wasn't about to go against Moira or Madelyn on this.
"When I am injured, my mind tries to cast the emotion of pain out by giving it to other people. This even happens, I am told, when I myself am unconscious. So for everyone's safety, they put the dampener back on me after giving me drugs to suppress my mutation." he said sadly. "The drugs have passed, but the dampener stays on. If you will unlock me, I believe that I can control myself long enough to do a quick lesson. If not, well, I suppose I cannot argue with that, and it would do me no good to even attempt it."
The way she was sitting had an advantage - as awkward as it was to set oneself up that way, it meant she could still reach a somewhat calm frame of mind from the sheer habit of meditating like this every day, even in the condition she was in now. "All right, then." There wasn't much pleasure at this coming through the link, but there was no clear and obvious reason to say no. Alison made her decision and reached over for the dampener, pausing roughly midway so as to give Manuel some leeway on his side of things.
Manuel watched Alison lean over, and then nodded at her once to unlock the dampener. He sighed as his power came flooding back into his brain, but no rush of pain, no projection of misery accompanied it. He smiled thinly to himself, the first positive emotional display he'd put on in days. "It seems that it does listen when I tell it to do something." he mused out loud. "Now then - about today's lesson. What feeling would you like to experience?"
Alison set the dampener carefully on a side table, within reach of both of them. Shifting in the chair slightly she made sure that she could stand being like this for a while and then nodded a bit. "You had a list you wanted to go through in order, from what I remember." It didn't make sense for her to know which emotion would be used in advance of a session - that would play on her own mental state too much, possible skewing the results, in a sense. "The emotional baseline may be a bit off today." He needed to know that, even though he'd figure it out soon enough anyway. "Keeping that in mind, just go with whatever you had planned next." She spared a brief hope that today would not be something negative - although they could just keep it to a very short session if so.
Manuel nodded, and then struggled to make himself more comfortable - which just served to remind him that his chest had very recently been caved-in by a demon from Hell, and that moving was a Very Bad Idea. He managed to refrain from transmitting his pain, but it was a near thing. "Before I begin - if you begin to feel pain, I want you to put that dampener back on me. Immediately. It will be the only way to make the pain stop." He took as deep a breath as he could manage, and his eyes glowed red as he projected. Today's emotion was happiness, apparently. He kept it very small and generalized for the time being.
There was a reason she'd put the dampener within reach of either of them, although it was nice to see the decision validated. A small nod answered his request and that was it. Session started. The chair was cool, an everlasting fact of being in the medlab, the sensation keeping her attention as she tried to concentrate on being calm, not thinking about anything else. The small kernel of happiness slowly taking shape was so very clearly not of her own making that it almost hurt for a moment, nearly wiping everything out.
Manuel stopped his alteration immediately when he saw Alison's reaction to his modification. "Tell me, how did you feel?" he asked her quietly, as speaking loudly hurt. Well, hurt _more_, anyway. "You do not wish to be happy?"
"I wasn't expecting that one." Taking a slow, even breath, she reached for the calm again, managing it to a certain extent. And now, it seemed, would be one of these moments she had known would happen eventually - the having to be honest and saying something even if she didn't particularly want to. "I felt... glad. Just a bit." Alison closed her eyes for a moment, before focusing on him once more. "Since there's not much of that today, feeling it and knowing it wasn't real..." she shrugged, letting the sentence trail off.
Manuel frowned. "I need to better integrate it into your existing emotional set." he said, wheezing just a bit. "Make it less fake, more real." His eyes glowed again, and the joy rebloomed inside of Alison's head - this time, the joy was attached to Lorna leaving her suite - something that formerly did not feel that way at all.
Eyes going wide, Alison paled, shaking her head - that's not how it had been and what she was feeling simply wasn't true. Her stomach twisted, everything within her rebelling violently at that sentiment being attached to that particular memory and she hissed, leaning forward. "Stop. Not that."
Manuel again stopped the weave and looked at Alison. "What?" he said, a bit crabby from being interrupted again. "I put the feeling onto one of your threads, like I said I was going to. Integrate it into your current emotional structure. Did I not accomplish this?" he asked, then fell silent as he deal with the pain of his injuries, keeping them inside for himself and not outside.
Breathing exercises were the basics for many things and Alison was making use of that now, a lot. "The... thread you chose is tied into my memory of Lorna deciding to move out of our suite last night." Another deep breath, and although she wasn't nearly as calm as she should be in her opinion, it was better than wanting to find a quiet corner to cry in. Ups and downs, she reminded herself. "I would appreciate it greatly if you chose another thread. I can't deal with you adding happiness to that one."
Manuel shrugged, then hissed as he immediately regretted it. "It was current, it was fresh, and it was easy to see. That's why I picked it." he said, wincing. "Let me find something else to use, then, if you think you can continue."
"Yes." Something else was fine by her - in fact anything else would be fine at this point, except that particular memory. And it was a very bad way to approach this, Alison realized, bringing herself to a stop. "Give me a moment and then try again." Closing her eyes she started regulating her breathing again, slowly pushing thoughts and emotions away one by one.
Manuel watched with some amusement as Alison struggled to bring herself back into neutral. She succeeded, but what took her minutes and intense concentration took him about a second and required very little effort at all. This time, he took one of her thicker threads - he couldn't be 100% sure right now, especially since his concentration was shit, but he was fairly sure that that thread had Miles on the other end. He latched the happiness onto that, coloring it the bright clear red that represented that feeling.
The fact that some things were good in her life, some thing remained untouched and perfect and that many of those were tied into Miles, and that was what Manuel glanced upon. There was a familiar undertone of sadness which was tied to thoughts of the little boy, briefly surging in response to the steady surge of happiness, before Alison managed to dampen it gently, concentrating only on the emotion Manuel was generating and nothing else.
Manuel frowned at Alison. "Why does being happy make you sad? You make no sense." he said, leaning back into his pillows to take some strain off his abused torso. "Is that something I did by mistake?"
Alison took the time to sort through what she was feeling, the memories and thoughts tied to the emotion. "No. No, not a mistake. You were going for things related to Miles, right?" At his nod, she continued. "Easy to make me happy there. Which you probably noticed." Short sentences were always easier when she was 'under the influence' so to speak, it seemed. "I love Miles. Knowing he's happy now reminds me. Of how unhappy he was before. That makes me sad. Along with the being happy." Another slow breath, the small smile a touch bittersweet. "And sad is easy now, too. So it comes up easier than it normally would, I guess."
"Sadness is easy for you now? Why is that?" he asked her, and then looked into her emotional makeup to see if he could see the answer for himself. He wasn't getting much that was clear, other than something had wounded her relatively recently, emotionally speaking. Something important to her, to go along with the new spike in positive and happy emotions - even some lust. Seemed that Alison wanted somebody, but it wasn't easy for her. He could tell that much.
"Lorna." She sighed. This clear explaining that went with the training wasn't easy - she'd expected that, but it was still a challenge, to say the least. "She isn't talking to me right now. I stay out of her sight." Sadness and hurt spiked at that, something else lurking deeper underneath. There was a minute shift however, as though the positive was firmly keeping its hold, balancing out the grief somewhat.
"What did she do now?" he asked her. "I ask only from curiosity." He explained, forestalling her objections. "It was probably about me, and about these sessions. I do not understand why she is still so angry. There is nothing more I can do for her until I learn more about my power."
For her or to her, Alison wondered evenly - she's thought long enough as to what had really happened that night to actually remain calm about it now. "It was about you and the sessions, yes," she confirmed. The temptation to ask him to stay away from Lorna, to buy her that space now as a certainty was almost overwhelming.
Manuel nodded sadly, the news quite clearly taking something out of his will to continue. "I had nurtured a hope that trying to get control, to master my power, might have earned me some, what is the word, slack? Yes, that. But I should have known better." He looked miserable, and not just from the pain in his chest.
"Is that why you want to learn to control your power?" Amanda telling her about Emma had made Manuel's motivation very clear, as far as she was concerned. Then again, Manuel had seemed to be wallowing in a misery of his own since Alison had arrived.
"It is one reason of several, but an important one. Contrary to public opinion, I am human and do have feelings of my very own now that I have learned to shield myself." he said tellingly. "I do not like feeling useless and helpless."
"No one likes feeling useless and helpless." Alison stared at him levelly, tiredness settling around her slowly now that the happiness had nearly faded entirely. "And clearly public opinion isn't a factor in everything." Had it been, she would hardly have gone through Betsy and Nathan calling her insane or losing Lorna's friendship. There was probably more to come, too. If Manuel thought training was over, he was in for a surprise.
Manuel shrugged as best he could without ripping his insides apart. "You don't understand. You can't see it every day, feel it when you walk down the hallway. It was stupid of me to think..." he said, leaving his last thought unsaid. "Anyway. Shall we continue?" he said with a cough that brought tears to his eyes.
"I'm not going to offer you false sympathy or lies by trying to tell you I understand. No, I don't understand. I'm not an empath. But I'm getting an insight into it," she said calmly. "I may not feel it directly from people, but being avoided or actively," she skipped over the word 'hate', hoping Lorna wasn't feeling that somehow, "disliked, I'm getting know." Manuel had earned being treated that way a great deal in her estimate, but she wasn't there to throw rocks at him. She signed and broke her pose, fingertips pressing to the side of her temple lightly, and ignored the offer to continue entirely in favor of waiting for what he might say instead.
Manuel looked pathetically grateful even for that scrap of consideration. "I know how much of how I am treated now I deserve." He said softly, almost too mumbled to hear clearly. "I do not know how to repair the damage. I wish I did. There are five people, perhaps six, who hear my name and do not feel poorly towards me. All the things I did when I was mad, there is apparently no atoning for, no forgiveness. But I try anyway."
She was not counseling Manny. Alison repeated this to herself several times, hand falling back to rest on her knee slowly. She wasn't equipped to do so, she didn't know the twist of his mind enough and she had no hope of making a big difference anyway. "That's all any of us can do, Manuel. Try." God, she was tired. "Each of us, in our own way."
"So I keep hearing." Manuel said, and then apparently tried valiantly to Suck It All Up and start dealing. It mostly worked. "So - since you didn't answer my question earlier, may we assume that this session is over? I hurt."
Well, if he could do that it was only fair Alison do the same. "I was going to suggest we continue, actually. But if it's interfering with your concentration, it's probably best we stop." She glanced at the dampener but didn't pick it up just yet.
Manuel paused for a few seconds. "I think I can deal with the pain, and it is good practice for me." he admitted. "So - more happiness?" he asked her in a very false cheery voice.
"We'll keep it to low levels for today. But more happiness it is," was the quiet reply.
She must be insane. It was the only reason she could be doing this now, Alison decided, even as she paused outside the Medlab before entering, trying to collect her thoughts. The previous days' events were still fresh in her mind although the sheer misery from the last evening had faded somewhat - more from numbness of a sorts than anything else. Taking slow and even breaths Alison waited a bit longer, even though she knew there wasn't any turning back. There hadn't been any of that possible since the moment she'd started this into motion, in fact. And with that in mind she entered the medlab, heading for the room in which Manuel was.
Manuel was awake, which for him usually meant the few hours of misery between meals, Healings, and naps. He was staring at the ceiling listlessly, his right hand playing with the dampener firmly attached to his left wrist. He couldn't feel right now, so all he was left with was himself. And after the events of Halloween, himself was something he really didn't want to be left alone with much. He didn't see or sense Alison's approach at all.
The medlab was silent - the door to Mick's room firmly closed with the sign she'd taped to it still there from her earlier visit. Manuel's room was the other way - the same as yesterday, the one she'd been to talk to Amanda - the door was half open and she leaned inside, knocking on the doorway lightly while looking down just in case privacy was a concern of some sort.
Manuel didn't respond right away to the knocking. Finally, after a few knocks, he waved a hand diffidently. "Enter." he said, voice flat and lifeless. Privacy was not a concern - it was still early enough in the morning that he was under the thin covers of his hospital bed.
The temptation to say 'you look like I feel' was near overwhelming, but Alison managed to keep from doing so well enough. "Morning," she murmured, walking in the room and heading for the chair next to the bed. She sat down slowly and brought up her legs after a moment, maneuvering a bit to sit in a cross-legged position. Had had not, she figured, received her email. That or he hadn't thought to answer. "Came down to check if we were still on for the training session or not." There was a brief, dull ache at the thought of the consequences of that, though Alison let it slip away the moment after.
Manuel looked at Alison. "I suppose so." he said listlessly. "But I am dampened, for all of your safety. So I cannot project, I cannot receive." he added a moment later. He wheezed out a laugh, and a flash of pain crossed his features as he did so. "I am perfectly safe and harmless."
That was a loaded statement if she'd ever heard one, but Alison didn't really feel like pointing out all he had to do was pick up a pair of scissors to negate that statement. She 'reached' for the link she and Betsy shared - yes, there and aware. She made no move to get up, however. "Well, the dampener would be something of a problem for the training. Is there a medical reason for it?" Alison wasn't about to go against Moira or Madelyn on this.
"When I am injured, my mind tries to cast the emotion of pain out by giving it to other people. This even happens, I am told, when I myself am unconscious. So for everyone's safety, they put the dampener back on me after giving me drugs to suppress my mutation." he said sadly. "The drugs have passed, but the dampener stays on. If you will unlock me, I believe that I can control myself long enough to do a quick lesson. If not, well, I suppose I cannot argue with that, and it would do me no good to even attempt it."
The way she was sitting had an advantage - as awkward as it was to set oneself up that way, it meant she could still reach a somewhat calm frame of mind from the sheer habit of meditating like this every day, even in the condition she was in now. "All right, then." There wasn't much pleasure at this coming through the link, but there was no clear and obvious reason to say no. Alison made her decision and reached over for the dampener, pausing roughly midway so as to give Manuel some leeway on his side of things.
Manuel watched Alison lean over, and then nodded at her once to unlock the dampener. He sighed as his power came flooding back into his brain, but no rush of pain, no projection of misery accompanied it. He smiled thinly to himself, the first positive emotional display he'd put on in days. "It seems that it does listen when I tell it to do something." he mused out loud. "Now then - about today's lesson. What feeling would you like to experience?"
Alison set the dampener carefully on a side table, within reach of both of them. Shifting in the chair slightly she made sure that she could stand being like this for a while and then nodded a bit. "You had a list you wanted to go through in order, from what I remember." It didn't make sense for her to know which emotion would be used in advance of a session - that would play on her own mental state too much, possible skewing the results, in a sense. "The emotional baseline may be a bit off today." He needed to know that, even though he'd figure it out soon enough anyway. "Keeping that in mind, just go with whatever you had planned next." She spared a brief hope that today would not be something negative - although they could just keep it to a very short session if so.
Manuel nodded, and then struggled to make himself more comfortable - which just served to remind him that his chest had very recently been caved-in by a demon from Hell, and that moving was a Very Bad Idea. He managed to refrain from transmitting his pain, but it was a near thing. "Before I begin - if you begin to feel pain, I want you to put that dampener back on me. Immediately. It will be the only way to make the pain stop." He took as deep a breath as he could manage, and his eyes glowed red as he projected. Today's emotion was happiness, apparently. He kept it very small and generalized for the time being.
There was a reason she'd put the dampener within reach of either of them, although it was nice to see the decision validated. A small nod answered his request and that was it. Session started. The chair was cool, an everlasting fact of being in the medlab, the sensation keeping her attention as she tried to concentrate on being calm, not thinking about anything else. The small kernel of happiness slowly taking shape was so very clearly not of her own making that it almost hurt for a moment, nearly wiping everything out.
Manuel stopped his alteration immediately when he saw Alison's reaction to his modification. "Tell me, how did you feel?" he asked her quietly, as speaking loudly hurt. Well, hurt _more_, anyway. "You do not wish to be happy?"
"I wasn't expecting that one." Taking a slow, even breath, she reached for the calm again, managing it to a certain extent. And now, it seemed, would be one of these moments she had known would happen eventually - the having to be honest and saying something even if she didn't particularly want to. "I felt... glad. Just a bit." Alison closed her eyes for a moment, before focusing on him once more. "Since there's not much of that today, feeling it and knowing it wasn't real..." she shrugged, letting the sentence trail off.
Manuel frowned. "I need to better integrate it into your existing emotional set." he said, wheezing just a bit. "Make it less fake, more real." His eyes glowed again, and the joy rebloomed inside of Alison's head - this time, the joy was attached to Lorna leaving her suite - something that formerly did not feel that way at all.
Eyes going wide, Alison paled, shaking her head - that's not how it had been and what she was feeling simply wasn't true. Her stomach twisted, everything within her rebelling violently at that sentiment being attached to that particular memory and she hissed, leaning forward. "Stop. Not that."
Manuel again stopped the weave and looked at Alison. "What?" he said, a bit crabby from being interrupted again. "I put the feeling onto one of your threads, like I said I was going to. Integrate it into your current emotional structure. Did I not accomplish this?" he asked, then fell silent as he deal with the pain of his injuries, keeping them inside for himself and not outside.
Breathing exercises were the basics for many things and Alison was making use of that now, a lot. "The... thread you chose is tied into my memory of Lorna deciding to move out of our suite last night." Another deep breath, and although she wasn't nearly as calm as she should be in her opinion, it was better than wanting to find a quiet corner to cry in. Ups and downs, she reminded herself. "I would appreciate it greatly if you chose another thread. I can't deal with you adding happiness to that one."
Manuel shrugged, then hissed as he immediately regretted it. "It was current, it was fresh, and it was easy to see. That's why I picked it." he said, wincing. "Let me find something else to use, then, if you think you can continue."
"Yes." Something else was fine by her - in fact anything else would be fine at this point, except that particular memory. And it was a very bad way to approach this, Alison realized, bringing herself to a stop. "Give me a moment and then try again." Closing her eyes she started regulating her breathing again, slowly pushing thoughts and emotions away one by one.
Manuel watched with some amusement as Alison struggled to bring herself back into neutral. She succeeded, but what took her minutes and intense concentration took him about a second and required very little effort at all. This time, he took one of her thicker threads - he couldn't be 100% sure right now, especially since his concentration was shit, but he was fairly sure that that thread had Miles on the other end. He latched the happiness onto that, coloring it the bright clear red that represented that feeling.
The fact that some things were good in her life, some thing remained untouched and perfect and that many of those were tied into Miles, and that was what Manuel glanced upon. There was a familiar undertone of sadness which was tied to thoughts of the little boy, briefly surging in response to the steady surge of happiness, before Alison managed to dampen it gently, concentrating only on the emotion Manuel was generating and nothing else.
Manuel frowned at Alison. "Why does being happy make you sad? You make no sense." he said, leaning back into his pillows to take some strain off his abused torso. "Is that something I did by mistake?"
Alison took the time to sort through what she was feeling, the memories and thoughts tied to the emotion. "No. No, not a mistake. You were going for things related to Miles, right?" At his nod, she continued. "Easy to make me happy there. Which you probably noticed." Short sentences were always easier when she was 'under the influence' so to speak, it seemed. "I love Miles. Knowing he's happy now reminds me. Of how unhappy he was before. That makes me sad. Along with the being happy." Another slow breath, the small smile a touch bittersweet. "And sad is easy now, too. So it comes up easier than it normally would, I guess."
"Sadness is easy for you now? Why is that?" he asked her, and then looked into her emotional makeup to see if he could see the answer for himself. He wasn't getting much that was clear, other than something had wounded her relatively recently, emotionally speaking. Something important to her, to go along with the new spike in positive and happy emotions - even some lust. Seemed that Alison wanted somebody, but it wasn't easy for her. He could tell that much.
"Lorna." She sighed. This clear explaining that went with the training wasn't easy - she'd expected that, but it was still a challenge, to say the least. "She isn't talking to me right now. I stay out of her sight." Sadness and hurt spiked at that, something else lurking deeper underneath. There was a minute shift however, as though the positive was firmly keeping its hold, balancing out the grief somewhat.
"What did she do now?" he asked her. "I ask only from curiosity." He explained, forestalling her objections. "It was probably about me, and about these sessions. I do not understand why she is still so angry. There is nothing more I can do for her until I learn more about my power."
For her or to her, Alison wondered evenly - she's thought long enough as to what had really happened that night to actually remain calm about it now. "It was about you and the sessions, yes," she confirmed. The temptation to ask him to stay away from Lorna, to buy her that space now as a certainty was almost overwhelming.
Manuel nodded sadly, the news quite clearly taking something out of his will to continue. "I had nurtured a hope that trying to get control, to master my power, might have earned me some, what is the word, slack? Yes, that. But I should have known better." He looked miserable, and not just from the pain in his chest.
"Is that why you want to learn to control your power?" Amanda telling her about Emma had made Manuel's motivation very clear, as far as she was concerned. Then again, Manuel had seemed to be wallowing in a misery of his own since Alison had arrived.
"It is one reason of several, but an important one. Contrary to public opinion, I am human and do have feelings of my very own now that I have learned to shield myself." he said tellingly. "I do not like feeling useless and helpless."
"No one likes feeling useless and helpless." Alison stared at him levelly, tiredness settling around her slowly now that the happiness had nearly faded entirely. "And clearly public opinion isn't a factor in everything." Had it been, she would hardly have gone through Betsy and Nathan calling her insane or losing Lorna's friendship. There was probably more to come, too. If Manuel thought training was over, he was in for a surprise.
Manuel shrugged as best he could without ripping his insides apart. "You don't understand. You can't see it every day, feel it when you walk down the hallway. It was stupid of me to think..." he said, leaving his last thought unsaid. "Anyway. Shall we continue?" he said with a cough that brought tears to his eyes.
"I'm not going to offer you false sympathy or lies by trying to tell you I understand. No, I don't understand. I'm not an empath. But I'm getting an insight into it," she said calmly. "I may not feel it directly from people, but being avoided or actively," she skipped over the word 'hate', hoping Lorna wasn't feeling that somehow, "disliked, I'm getting know." Manuel had earned being treated that way a great deal in her estimate, but she wasn't there to throw rocks at him. She signed and broke her pose, fingertips pressing to the side of her temple lightly, and ignored the offer to continue entirely in favor of waiting for what he might say instead.
Manuel looked pathetically grateful even for that scrap of consideration. "I know how much of how I am treated now I deserve." He said softly, almost too mumbled to hear clearly. "I do not know how to repair the damage. I wish I did. There are five people, perhaps six, who hear my name and do not feel poorly towards me. All the things I did when I was mad, there is apparently no atoning for, no forgiveness. But I try anyway."
She was not counseling Manny. Alison repeated this to herself several times, hand falling back to rest on her knee slowly. She wasn't equipped to do so, she didn't know the twist of his mind enough and she had no hope of making a big difference anyway. "That's all any of us can do, Manuel. Try." God, she was tired. "Each of us, in our own way."
"So I keep hearing." Manuel said, and then apparently tried valiantly to Suck It All Up and start dealing. It mostly worked. "So - since you didn't answer my question earlier, may we assume that this session is over? I hurt."
Well, if he could do that it was only fair Alison do the same. "I was going to suggest we continue, actually. But if it's interfering with your concentration, it's probably best we stop." She glanced at the dampener but didn't pick it up just yet.
Manuel paused for a few seconds. "I think I can deal with the pain, and it is good practice for me." he admitted. "So - more happiness?" he asked her in a very false cheery voice.
"We'll keep it to low levels for today. But more happiness it is," was the quiet reply.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}