xp_logs | Nathan and Manuel, Thursday afternoon

After meditating with Danielle and before class, Nathan stops in, a bit anxiously, to check on Manuel. Manuel surprises him - pleasantly - in a couple of ways, and Nathan finds himself urging him to take the second half of the international relations class. Who'd have thought it, a few months ago?

Nathan knocked on the door, feeling a certain amount of trepidation. After what had happened on New Year's... but no, Manuel had been cleared, magically speaking and undoubtedly by Charles as well. No need to be nervous. In fact, being nervous was probably bad, even if Manuel didn't have access to his powers again yet.

Manuel opened the door, the last etherial few measures of one of Bach's piano concertos floating through the open door. "Professor Dayspring." Manuel said with a respectful nod of his head. "What can I do for you?"

Nathan offered a slightly half-hearted smile. "Stop calling me Professor?" he suggested, meaning it as a joke. "You used to call me Nathan." Or, you know, various nasty names...

"OK. Nathan." he said with an agreeable shrug. "OH! Hey! I have something in here for you! Wait just a second, let me get it." And then he stepped back into his room and starting tearing through a pile of papers on his desk, very clearly looking for something. The next concerto began on Manuel's CD player, and he had his laptop open and displaying the school journalling system. Finally, he found what he was looking for and handed Nathan a neatly-bundled stack of paper. "Here you go." he said with a nod. "I still owed you a paper from before my head went boom. Here it is. I've left most of it intact and just reworked the conclusions, so I apologize in advance if it seems a little schizophrenic."

Nathan blinked as he took the paper. "Uh... thank you. Wasn't expecting you to finish that, but... well, it's a good thing, I guess." He managed a slightly steadier smile. "Are you going to take the second half of the course this term?"

Manuel thought about it for about three point four seconds. "Sure." he said with a grin. "I think I'd like that. And I had some time to myself here since I got home from Europe. Trying to wrap up the last danglers from my old life before starting up with my new one." he added with a grin. "Got a new tattoo and everything."

"I saw that you're back on the journals," Nathan said. "Should be easier to stay in the thick of things around here, now, if that's what you want. A lot of communication goes on via the journals."

Manuel nodded. "I don't like just sitting up here on my own. It gets boring." he confessed. "And there's got to be a ton of stuff that I haven't done that I probably should try out. And Amanda's still in Europe." he pouted. "And while I'm thinking of it - was that you who uploaded the Sinatra to the music server? Some of it's not too shabby. A little plain and very simple, but not bad."

Nathan blinked, looking thoughtfully at Manuel. "How did you know that?" he asked. "That it was me."

"Just a guess." he said with a grin. "It felt like it might be you."

"It was," Nathan confirmed after a moment, shaking his head with a slight smile. He had to wonder now if Manuel's power wasn't operating on some level. "Any guesses as to what else I put up?" he prodded.

Manuel hrmmed, and then made a study out of studying Nathan. "Classical. Definitely some classical in among the Rat Pack stuff." he said after some long moments spent in thought. His eyes, however, stayed their usual brown color and he wasn't even _trying_ to hide them.

Interesting. "The Russian composers," Nathan said after a moment. "Prokofiev, Stravinsky... I think there were a few more that I put up. It's been a while since I did that, now..."

"So the Prokofiev was yours, then?" he mused. "That I really liked. Anyway - suppose I should invite you in. Have to warn you, it's the maid's year off." he said with a laugh as he stepped back to allow Nathan access. And sure enough, things were a gigantic mess - clothes strewn everywhere, stacks of CDs precariously perched on his desk and floor, and reams of papers scattered all over the place.

"You really need to tidy this place up a little," Nathan murmured wryly, finding an uncluttered chair and lowering himself down into it. "At some point the mess will spontaneously evolve into a higher life form, you realize this."

"I keep meaning to, but then I get distracted by discovering something new. Did you know that I own a pair of leather pants? I look pretty damned good in them too, if I do say so myself." he said with a grin. "And there's so much music in here!"

Nathan couldn't help a chuckle. "I'm sure Amanda highly approves of the leather pants, by the way - you might want to keep that in mind."

Manuel grinned the grin of a teenager in serious lust. "She does." he said. "I know it."

Nathan's expression turned more serious. "I suppose, really, I was stopping by to see how you were," he confessed after a moment, more quietly. "After everything that went on over the New Year."

"I'm OK. Pretty well, actually." he said immediately. "She's out of my head now. Amanda and the coven saw to that." he added quietly. "And I'm not hurting or throwing up when I try to remember things She didn't want me to remember."

Nathan nodded. "I'm glad," he said simply. "Now you can really start going on with your life." He smiled a bit faintly. "I have some personal experience when it comes to having crap in your head that's holding you back."

Manuel nodded. "Which is why I posted what I posted. Which reminds me - after lunch I'm headed down to the Music Room. Apparently Forge wants to talk keyboards." he said with a grin. "That should be fun. And then maybe some basketball or skateboarding with Alex before I meet with the Professor."

Manuel, with a social life. Amazing how good could come from things like this. "Sounds like fun," Nathan said, and then grinned suddenly. "I heard you and Amanda had a fairly good time with my friends in Berlin."

"Once we got Her out of my head, yeah, we managed to keep ourselves amused." he said with a straight face before ruining it with a grin. "I had to cut it short as Amanda had some family business to attend to, but she should be back any day now. I have to ask, though - what's with the guy who wouldn't come out and mingle with everybody? I don't know, I kept getting the impression he was scared to death of me. And I don't know why."

Ah. Well, he'd walked right into that one, hadn't he? "Mick, you mean?" Manuel nodded. "He's had a rough time the last few months, and he's afraid of psis. I know, your powers aren't functional, but he's been pretty severely traumatized. Hence the hiding."

Manuel ahhed. "Well, that's too bad." he said as neutrally as he could. "I'm absolutely harmless right now."

"Logic doesn't really help," Nathan said gently, "not when someone's been that badly hurt. To be honest, Manuel..." He paused, wondering at himself, but then went on. "Probably the best metaphor is an abused animal. He doesn't have much sense of self, and he's reacting on an instinctive level, not a rational one. The fact that he's hiding rather than lashing out is probably a good thing, for now. He's a fairly powerful mutant."

Manuel nodded. "And I'm not. Not right now, anyway." he said. "It makes sense, but it's unfortunate." he said, and then left it at that. "I hope he gets better soon."

Nathan gave him a genuine smile. "Me too. It's good of you to be concerned." Then again, he was fairly sure that the 'old' Manuel probably would have understood, too. Interesting thought. "So," he said more briskly, "if you're going to take the second half of that course, you really sort of need to find the textbooks from the first half."

Manuel shrugged. "They're in there somewhere." he said, jerking a thumb towards the "school" pile, which was a heap of textbooks, old papers (several of the dipped-in-red-ink Nathan Specials clearly visible) and associated notes and other school debris. "I'll find them with Amanda's help - she's made great progress on her finder-spell."

Nathan gazed at the pile for a moment, and the two books in question yanked themselves out from the pile, floating over to land gently in Manuel's lap. "We probably won't use the first again, though you might want to review it anyway. The second we only got a chapter into, so I think I'll just continue with it."

Manuel blinked and then nodded."Well, that was easy." he said with a grin. "I've already started working on my music Independent Study course, and now I've got these to review this weekend. Solves my free-time problem quite nicely." He then reached for his desk and took a black stone on a leather cord off of his lamp, and put it around his neck

"You found the charm," Nathan said with a smile. "Good. That helped you a lot last term. Let you put your ideas across in English a lot more easily."

"Amanda found it for me." he admitted. "I had it the whole time, but didn't remember what it was. And that's my warmstone, and my Old Norse stone. That last one doesn't get much use here, but the warmstone is very handy to have first thing in the morning. My room gets _cold_."

"She does come up with handy little things like that on a regular basis," Nathan said. "She gave me a protection charm that came in very handy once."

"The Warmstone wasn't hers." Manuel said, with confusion. "It's Loki's."

Nathan blinked. "Ah," he said. "Didn't know that... souvenir from Asgard, huh? I suppose you all had some..." He smiled a bit ruefully. "That was not a happy time around here," he mused, "wondering what was happening to all of you there..."

Manuel shrugged. "We weren't having much fun either. At least, those of us who weren't Rahne weren't." he said with a frown. "I remember most of it - a whole lot of how to think in certain ways, coupled with a good bit of pain to work as a spur to concentration."

He really needed to stop prodding. The people who needed to know the state of Manuel's memories probably knew, and he really had no business poking around. Still... "How much do you remember about our lessons, back in the summer?" he asked hesitantly.

Manuel shook his head. "We had lessons in the summer?" he asked curiously. "News to me. Those I don't remember at all."

"Ah." Interesting. "Remedial stuff, basically," Nathan said somewhat vaguely, then smiled. "I much prefer the full-class experience, myself."

Manuel nodded. "Fair enough." he said. "I'm looking forward to classes. I need to take Basic Math or something - I'm pretty horrible with numbers. And is there a Computing for Dummies class somewhere I could take?"

"Possibly. I'm not at all familiar with that side of the curriculum - maybe talk to the Professor, or Scott?" Nathan checked his watch, frowning a little at what it told him. "And as much as I hate to chat and run, Manuel, I do have classes this afternoon I should probably be getting to..."

Manuel nodded. "I'm meeting with Professor Xavier this afternoon. I'll ask him. He's going to scan my brain again anyway, looking for damage or trauma or anything like that." he said. "I actually blocked him the other day. For about fifteen seconds."

"Definitely progress," Nathan said approvingly, rising. "So I'll see you tomorrow in class, then? Two'o'clock..."

"I'll be there." Manuel promised.