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xp_logsValentine's Day... Manuel isn't the only one to have provided surprises.
It was a somewhat overwhelmed witch that knocked on Manuel's door that evening. Roses, chocolates, teddy bear... he'd certainly gone all-out. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was feeling guilty about something, but that was an uncharitable thought she stomped on firmly, since he'd gone to the trouble of telling her about the night with Dani. Still, she could make it up to him now... "Manuel? 'S me. D'you want t' let me in, or is it better I let meself in?" she called, half-expecting him to not be wearing much of anything when she actually got around to seeing him. She'd actually taken some trouble herself, wearing the black satin underwear she'd picked up in Berlin underneath Marie's short leather skirt and a bodice Domino had helped her pick out. Possibly not subtle, but he'd appreciate it, she thought.
Manuel opened the door and then bowed to Amanda. "Ah, the lady of the hour! Come in, come in, please!" he said, gesturing extravagantly. "Join me for a spot of cider?" he asked as she entered his room, and he closed the door behind him. He was himself wearing a black-and-crimson silk robe, something elegant and sexy. "You look fantastic." he said with a grin. "Please, sit down."
"Let me do this first," she said with a grin, before wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a very thorough kiss. "That's for the surprises in my room. Thank you," she told him when she released him, before looking curiously at the open crate of cider. "Cider? Where'd you find that? An' it would've cost you a bomb t' get it delivered..." she said, sitting down on his bed, not so distracted by curiosity that she forgot to cross her legs rather seductively.
Manuel grinned at Amanda, to show that he knew what she was up to and he approved. Wholeheartedly. "Showed up today. Present from parties unknown. Kuk cleared it, so we're good." he laughed. "And this is far far too good of a bottle to give up so easily. Here, let me fill you a glass..." he said, rescuing a champagne flute and filling it with the cider before handing it to Amanda. "So you liked my small tokens of affection?" he asked with a grin.
"If that's what you call small, I'd hate t' see you go all out. But I loved it - consider yourself forgiven for any an' all stupid mistakes you might have done for the past year." she teased, taking a sip from the glass. "Hey, isn't this the same stuff we had in Spain? You know, the afternoon not even Selene could wipe out of yer head?"
Manuel sipped at his own cider and nodded. "Within a year or so, I'd say." he said after a moment's consideration. "Our mysterious benefactor has excellent taste, I'd say." he grinned, then polished off his own glass before refilling it. "I really like that skirt." he said with a wink. "It does marvelous things for your legs. You should really wear it more often."
"Ah, but if I did wear it more often, you wouldn't appreciate it as much when I do," Amanda told him, having another mouthful or two of cider - the taste reminded her of that afternoon in Spain, and that tended to lead to certain warm tingly feelings. "I'm cursin' I didn't think of gettin' that for you - best I could think of was treatin' you t' a night out clubbin' on Friday, includin' overnight passes." She tipped him a naughty wink. "Booked a nice room an' everythin' so we can make as much noise as we want."
Manuel granted her the point with a gracious nod. "Probably true, but it really is devastatingly sexy." he said. "And an evening out sounds perfectly fine to me." he added with a leer. "Just fine indeed."
"Well, if it's that sexy, why're you over there an' I'm over here?" she asked, shifting slightly so the low cut of the bodice gave him a flash of lingerie. "'Cause I've got a present for you too, only you have t' unwrap me first..."
Manuel grinned. "Because at least half the pleasure's in the looking." he said with a tip of his glass towards her. "And when it comes to you, I could look all day. Of course, there's the other half of that whole thing, which is the actual fucking, but for right now, I want to look. To savor the entire thing." he said, gesturing extravagantly with his glass.
As always when the compliment didn't involve actual sexual prowess, Amanda blushed, covering her momentary shyness by finishing off her cider and holding her glass out for more. "Fair enough," she said, grinning a little foolishly - Manuel saying nice things about her went to her head worse than champagne. "I was thinkin'... 's been about a year since we started... bein' together," she said as he refilled her cider. "Been a hell of a year."
"You could say that." he laughed, and refilled her glass with more cider. "My, this is good." he said, leaving it open as to whether he was referring to the cider or to Amanda. He then pulled a lighter off his meticulously-neat end table and started lighting some candles. Once he had a good half-dozen of them going, he killed the lights to his room, bathing everything in the warm glow of candlelight.
"Oh, this is nice. Very nice..." Kicking off her heels (she'd made quite the effort herself), she stretched out on the bed, giving him a frankly come-hither look. "You thought of everythin'. Consider me impressed. A lot."
Manuel grinned. "I have not even _begin_ to impress you." he said, standing up to head over to his bed. As he walked, he unknotted the robe and let it fall, revealing nothing but him and his desire for her.
***
Later, much later, Amanda made a sleepy, contented noise as she cuddled up to Manuel. Her clothes littered the formerly-neat room, and the two of them were naked and mussed and both wearing very silly grins. "Okay, now 'm impressed," she told him, tracing patterns on his chest idly, her head pillowed on his shoulder. "That was... wow."
Manuel shook himself out of torpor, and grinned the lazy grin of the well-satisfied. "Good. You deserve all of it and probably more." He then reached over for another glass of cider, polishing it off in one smooth swallow. "We should probably watch the DVD that arrived with the cider. What do you think?" he asked.
"There was a DVD?" Amanda sat up slightly so she could grab her own drink and not dribble it down her front... well, again, any way. There was a mystery DVD to be addressed. "Might explain who the mysterious benefactor is, so we can thank 'em."
"Looks like it." he said, maintaining his amused grin. "I'll go put it in." he said, then stood up to pad his way over to his TV, to feed the DVD to his relatively new standalone DVD player. "OK, here we go. I wonder what all this is about?" he said as he slipped back into bed, leaning over to kiss Amanda briefly. He then aimed the remote at the DVD player and pressed PLAY.
Briefly distracted by the kiss, and in snuggling up to Manuel, Amanda didn't pay much attention to the DVD starting. There wasn't much to see, at first, simply a fairly ornate room, not very large but well-fitted. Then a male voice, sounding vaguely familiar.
"Bring her in here."
Manuel blinked and then sat up abruptly. He knew that voice. How he knew it he wasn't sure, but he _knew_ it. "Wha?" he said confusedly, watching the DVD play on. The room didn't ring many bells, but the two gentlemen in black carrying a weakly-struggling black-haired girl into the room set off alarm bells in his mind. Not because he knew the men - he'd never seen them before in his life - but he knew the girl.
Amanda.
Amanda froze as she saw herself on the screen, obviously drugged and confused, saw another shape come into the shot, indistinct, back to the camera. A hand reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her face up, so the camera caught her full on. "You do clean up well," the voice said, fingers digging into her flesh, before letting go and whipping across her face. "Go on," the voice instructed the two masked men, who nodded and yanked the Amanda on screen back, before setting about the beating.
Manuel watched with a horrified fascination. He hated every second of what was going on, but he could not force himself to look away. The men administering the beating were professionals, he noted absurdly. Artistes in the ways and means of pain. As he watched, he felt a pressure building behind his eyes, in his mind. A pressure that would not be denied.
It was like it was happening to someone else, someone very far away... Amanda's hand clenched spasmodically on the glass she still held, and she was dimly aware of the sound of breaking glass, a distant flash of pain. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she abruptly bolted from the bed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She only just managed to reach the toilet before the first heaves began, but still she saw those images in her mind's eye, felt the blows raining down on her. Not the recording - this was memory.
Amanda's mad dash for his bathroom should have alarmed him, but he was dealing with problems of his own. The pressure in his head was growing to intolerable levels. He moaned softly and clutched at his head, trying every trick he knew to relieve the pressure, to calm himself and settle his mind. Instead, he got a cavalcade of images, tastes, sounds, scents, and feelings. But, curiously, he had none of the emotional vestments to them. It was like a film in his mind, the record of some other Manuel de la Rocha (for that was his name, he knew that certainly now) in some other life.
Some other poor wretch being abused - first by his father, then by his "friends" on the street, then by the asylum doctors, then by his schoolmates. Try as he might, he couldn't remember how any of this made him feel.
Shuddering in horror, the DVD forgotten, Manuel curled up into a safe little ball and tried to pull himself together. Unbidden, tears rolled down his face.
It wasn't Manuel's anguish that finally dragged Amanda back to her feet. Nor was it the bone-chilling cold of the bathroom tile on her naked skin, the dull pain of the gashes in her hand, or the blood dribbling from them and smeared on the floor, the door, the toilet bowl... anywhere she'd touched. It was something deeper, something baser, the pull of blood magic demanding vengeance, retribution, protection of the one she'd claimed as her own. An obligation she was bound to answer to.
With a half-strangled whimper, she pushed herself upright, leaving more smears of blood on the wall as she leaned against it. She felt bruised, battered, but more than that she felt used, unclean - there was a bathrobe hanging from the back of the door and she pulled it on, unable to bear the thought of Manuel seeing her naked after what he'd seen. Inside her mind, pieces were slotting into place, memories meeting with suspicions, and coming up with a name for their mysterious 'benefactor':
"Alphonso de la Rocha." She spat the name out with real venom, not even realising that she'd opened the bathroom door and returned to the bedroom, or that she'd spoken the name aloud, until she heard the intake of breath from the boy curled into a ball on the bed.
She flinched despite herself, eyes moving to the TV - the DVD was still playing, and the dull anger heightened, edging into fury. "Turn it off," she grated, clenching her fists against the urge to blast the screen into a million shards - blue sparks crackled and danced over her knuckles. "Turn it off, or so help me Manuel I'll end up destroyin' the place." When she looked over at him, her eyes had gone very dark. "He might not need you, but I do."
Manuel scrambled for the remote, turning the DVD off with a flick of his thumb. "I'm sorry." he said numbly. "I didn't know. I couldn't have known." he mumbled, then clenched his hands into fists. "Not only did he screw up my life then, but he's wrecked our Valentine's Day. I'm so sorry, Amanda." he said, then gave her a hug, trying very hard to ignore the play of eldritch energies across her knuckles or the darkness in her eyes. "Living well is the best revenge." he said hopefully.
She stiffened at the touch, but she didn't pull away, as much as part of her mind was screaming at her to. The part that was telling her she was soiled, tainted... "I should've killed him," she ground out. "That night, at the Hellfire Club. Him an' her both - if I'd had the power, I bloody well would have." Sparks were leaping off her hands, sizzling dangerously, and she made a conscious effort to reel herself in before she managed to blow something up or zap Manuel. Closing her eyes, she took a long, shuddering breath, fighting for calm, and when she opened them again, her eyes had gone back to their normal blue. "It's not yer fault," she said, looking up at him, but not returning the hug - she couldn't make herself move. "It's him. He wrecks everythin' he touches." And he'd touched both of them, hadn't he...
Manuel looked into Amanda's eyes. "Not quite everything. He can only wreck us if we let him." he pointed out quietly. "He's still my father, even if he is a complete waste of flesh.
"You still want me? Even after... after that?" she asked, unable to help the shudder, the anger draining away, leaving her feeling sick and cold. And something else... she hadn't noticed it before, in the grip of her reaction, but there was something different about the link, something familiar... Resting her forehead against his bare chest, closing her eyes, she concentrated on the feeling. His feelings, coming back down the link at her, clear and strong. "Manuel? Is that... I can feel you, properly, like it was before you lost yer powers," she asked, looking up at him with a dawning hope in her face. Hope and perhaps a little fear.
Manuel shrugged. "I'm certainly not in any sort of headspace to get introspective on you." he said dismissively. "It's been a fuck of an evening, and I think I'm a little drunk. Sleep is probably a really good idea. Stay with me, tonight?" he asked as he slid under the covers on "his" side of the bed.
Amanda looked down at her hand - it had stopped bleeding, but there were still slivers of glass in it, and clenching her fist hadn't helped that at all. "I should get this seen to first," she said, perhaps a little distantly - what she really wanted to do was to go have a shower, as hot as it would go, and scrub herself raw, getting Alphonso's taint from her skin. "I'll come back after." Maybe. Hopefully he'd be asleep and she could slip away again - should couldn't handle the thought of anyone touching her, at least tonight.
Manuel nodded. "Good idea." he said, and then shivered for no good reason at all. "Turn the light off when you go?" he asked her, already closing his eyes to try to sort through what had happened to him.
While Manuel sleeps, Amanda slips down to medlab, and runs into Hank
Somehow Amanda got down to medlab without anyone seeing her. On reflection, perhaps heading down in nothing but Manuel's bathrobe wasn't exactly sensible, but she figured she was allowed a bit of irrationality at the moment. Heading for one of the exam rooms, she grabbed a set of tweezers and some antiseptic and dressings, hoping to get the job done before anyone found her. Alphonso had caused enough grief for one night, and besides, the last thing she needed right now were cuddles and sympathy. Not when deep down she felt unworthy of either.
"Is someone h... Amanda." Hank blinked in surprise. What in the world... "Are you all right? What happened?" He went to move closer, but something in the way she looked up at him made him pause, keeping carefully out of arm's reach... well, not out of HIS arm's reach, but enough that she shouldn't feel threatened, or whatever it was that was putting that defensive look on her face.
"Broke a glass," she said shortly, not looking up at him after that first brief, startled glance. Shoulders hunched, she began picking slivers of glass out of her palm, hissing a little at the pain. "Be out of your way is a sec." She was trying hard to keep her tone even, but her voice wobbled and betrayed her. Certainly she looked a mess, hair tousled and hanging around her face, blood smearing the robe where she'd touched it with the injured hand. "Need t' get this cleaned up..." Tears blurred her vision, and her next pass with the tweezers missed, driving the shard she was aiming at deeper. "Ow, fuck!"
Hank looked at her for a moment, then found the emergency blanket and unfolded it, putting it gently around her shoulders. "You must be cold, in just the robe," he said quietly. "May I look at your hand?" He felt... off, the last few days. His head felt fuzzy, and he was forgetting more things than usual. But something this simple he was sure he could handle... if she let him.
Amanda flinched away almost violently from him, the blanket slipping off her shoulder. Automatically she grabbed at it - she was shivering, and her feet felt numb. For a moment it seemed she might flee, but then she looked down at her bloody hand, and something seemed to register. "It hurts," she said in a small voice. "It's hurts, an' I can't make it stop, can't..." Looking up at him with wide, scared eyes, she nodded, wordlessly holding out the injured part for him to look at.
"It's all right," he said gently, taking the tweezers and bending over the hand, touching her as little as possible. "I'll take care of it. It's what I do, you know." He had to squint a little to bring her hand into fine focus... he hadn't brought his glasses... but he could do it. Very gently, he started to pick at the glass. "Is there anything else I can do to help?"
She shook her head. "Damage is done, ain't it?" she said with a raw-sounding laugh. "Over an' done with an' the bruises all gone. 'Cept nothin' really heals, does it? There's always someone ready t' rip it all open again with surprise parcels. Stompin' all over the mess they already made." Her voice turned desolate. "Manuel needs me. But I can't... It was his father, Hank. His fuckin' father got the shite beaten out of me an' then sent us a little reminder as a Valentine's present."
"Oh, no..." Hank reached out automatically and stopped when she flinched, biting his lip. "I'm sorry. I'm... not at my most clear-thinking just now." He went back to her hand, drawing out a small shard of glass gently. "I wish I could help you," he said, sighing softly. "Will you accept my support and commiseration instead?"
His choice of words drew another humourless laugh from her. "Yeah, know how that not thinkin' clearly thing goes. Can't seem t' get my head t' work proper right now - all I want t' do is find that bastard an' make sure he can't hurt either of us ever again." She winced a little as he went after the most deeply-embedded piece, the cuts bleeding sluggishly again where he'd already pulled the glass out. "You up for supportin' or commiseratin' with that?"
"Well, it depends on whether your definition of 'no hurt ever again' involves death or jumping up and down on his hands until they get squashy." Hank grumbled under his breath as the blood-slick glass slipped free of the tweezers. "Damn. That's usually a punishment I reserve for surgeons who use their training to harm the innocent, but I could be convinced to make an exception."
Involuntarily Amanda jerked her hand back, before returning it to him. "He doesn't have t' use his hands t' hurt people. Didn't with me. Didn't want any evidence left, so he got a couple of flunkies to..." Her throat tightened and she half-gagged at the memory. "I want him dead. I want him dead an' screamin' in the worst hell dimension i can find t' put the rest of him."
Hank nodded and sighed. "That would probably be frowned on, although... well. I can't say I blame you." He pulled out the last fragment of glass, and frowned thoughtfully. There was something he should do next, but he couldn't remember what. "Maybe a reciprocal curse of some kind?" He looked at the hand again, and then nodded. Right. That was it... water, to rinse out any fragments of glass he couldn't see. He went to get some, filling a cup and grabbing a dish for the water to go into.
"'S not enough. 'S never enough - I don't care if he is Manuel's father." Amanda didn't notice the hesitation - her teeth were chattering and she pulled the blanket a little tighter around her with her free hand.
Hank rinsed the wounds gently. "Oh, I don't know... I'm sure I've heard of something called a threefold rule? Which means that whatever you do is supposed to be visited back upon you threefold? I imagine that would be a terrible thing to wish on someone like that." Wait. He wasn't supposed to encourage the students in vendettas, was he? "Of course, you probably shouldn't. But it's not as if it's a curse, as such, just a way of ensuring that he gets out of life what he puts into it." There. All clean. He patted them dry carefully and applied the antiseptic.
"It doesn't work like that. Threefold applies t' me - anythin' I do with the wrong intentions, or even if it's a bad spell with the right intentions, it comes back t' me," Amanda explained dully. "An' even if there was a curse like that, I wouldn't know where t' start."
"Oh. I don't really know much about magic," Hank admitted. "It just seemed like awfully poetic justice." He dribbled a little more antiseptic over the cuts. "If there is anything I can do, though, please tell me? I'll help you if I can, actions that would violate my Hippocratic Oath aside."
Amanda inspected the cuts - not deep enough to need stitches, luckily, but they'd need dressing. She reached for the gauze and tape she'd grabbed earlier. "I'll be fine," she said, voice still flat. "Thanks, for the help. Um, could you... could you not say anythin'? I'll talk t' someone in the mornin'."
He took the gauze, wrapping it gently around her hand. "I won't tell anyone," he said quietly. "It's a doctor-patient thing. Since I'm treating you, I have to respect your privacy. I wouldn't tell anyone even if ordered to under oath, if you didn't want me to." He gave her a little smile. "Holds for other times, too, if you want to talk, and not have anyone know."
She looked up at him with naked gratitude in her eyes, before her face closed off, the mask slipping back down. It was all she had to hang onto, to keep from screaming - if she started that, she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop. "I..." Can't, was what she was about to say. Hank wasn't one of her people, wasn't someone she felt comfortable talking to. But none of those was around, were they? She couldn't go to Angelo with this, and he was the only one left. "I'll remember that," she temporised, wanting only to leave and scrub Alphonso's remembered touch from her skin.
Hank nodded. "I know we've never been close, and there are probably people you'd rather talk to about things," he said gravely, taping the gauze in place. "I just wanted to know that... well... I'm here if you ever need me. Sometimes it's easier to talk about some things to someone who doesn't know you well." He smiled a little. "And doctor-patient privilege means I'd never tell anyone." He let go of her hand, wishing he could do more and knowing that hugs and comfort must be the last thing she wanted right now. "Bring that hand down again tomorrow so I can check for infection."
With a nod, she pulled her hand back under the blanket, unconsciously backing away slightly now he didn't need to hold onto her any more. "I'm sorry," she said, her throat tightening and her voice coming out strangled as a result. "I just... I can't. It's too... I just can't."
Hank nodded again. "It's all right," he said quietly. "I mean, it isn't... but it's all right that it isn't, if you know what I mean." He moved away, getting out from between her and the door. Damnit. He should be more help, but he was having trouble working out how.
"I get you," she said in that small, choked voice, and before he could say anything else, she turned and slipped away.
It was a somewhat overwhelmed witch that knocked on Manuel's door that evening. Roses, chocolates, teddy bear... he'd certainly gone all-out. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was feeling guilty about something, but that was an uncharitable thought she stomped on firmly, since he'd gone to the trouble of telling her about the night with Dani. Still, she could make it up to him now... "Manuel? 'S me. D'you want t' let me in, or is it better I let meself in?" she called, half-expecting him to not be wearing much of anything when she actually got around to seeing him. She'd actually taken some trouble herself, wearing the black satin underwear she'd picked up in Berlin underneath Marie's short leather skirt and a bodice Domino had helped her pick out. Possibly not subtle, but he'd appreciate it, she thought.
Manuel opened the door and then bowed to Amanda. "Ah, the lady of the hour! Come in, come in, please!" he said, gesturing extravagantly. "Join me for a spot of cider?" he asked as she entered his room, and he closed the door behind him. He was himself wearing a black-and-crimson silk robe, something elegant and sexy. "You look fantastic." he said with a grin. "Please, sit down."
"Let me do this first," she said with a grin, before wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a very thorough kiss. "That's for the surprises in my room. Thank you," she told him when she released him, before looking curiously at the open crate of cider. "Cider? Where'd you find that? An' it would've cost you a bomb t' get it delivered..." she said, sitting down on his bed, not so distracted by curiosity that she forgot to cross her legs rather seductively.
Manuel grinned at Amanda, to show that he knew what she was up to and he approved. Wholeheartedly. "Showed up today. Present from parties unknown. Kuk cleared it, so we're good." he laughed. "And this is far far too good of a bottle to give up so easily. Here, let me fill you a glass..." he said, rescuing a champagne flute and filling it with the cider before handing it to Amanda. "So you liked my small tokens of affection?" he asked with a grin.
"If that's what you call small, I'd hate t' see you go all out. But I loved it - consider yourself forgiven for any an' all stupid mistakes you might have done for the past year." she teased, taking a sip from the glass. "Hey, isn't this the same stuff we had in Spain? You know, the afternoon not even Selene could wipe out of yer head?"
Manuel sipped at his own cider and nodded. "Within a year or so, I'd say." he said after a moment's consideration. "Our mysterious benefactor has excellent taste, I'd say." he grinned, then polished off his own glass before refilling it. "I really like that skirt." he said with a wink. "It does marvelous things for your legs. You should really wear it more often."
"Ah, but if I did wear it more often, you wouldn't appreciate it as much when I do," Amanda told him, having another mouthful or two of cider - the taste reminded her of that afternoon in Spain, and that tended to lead to certain warm tingly feelings. "I'm cursin' I didn't think of gettin' that for you - best I could think of was treatin' you t' a night out clubbin' on Friday, includin' overnight passes." She tipped him a naughty wink. "Booked a nice room an' everythin' so we can make as much noise as we want."
Manuel granted her the point with a gracious nod. "Probably true, but it really is devastatingly sexy." he said. "And an evening out sounds perfectly fine to me." he added with a leer. "Just fine indeed."
"Well, if it's that sexy, why're you over there an' I'm over here?" she asked, shifting slightly so the low cut of the bodice gave him a flash of lingerie. "'Cause I've got a present for you too, only you have t' unwrap me first..."
Manuel grinned. "Because at least half the pleasure's in the looking." he said with a tip of his glass towards her. "And when it comes to you, I could look all day. Of course, there's the other half of that whole thing, which is the actual fucking, but for right now, I want to look. To savor the entire thing." he said, gesturing extravagantly with his glass.
As always when the compliment didn't involve actual sexual prowess, Amanda blushed, covering her momentary shyness by finishing off her cider and holding her glass out for more. "Fair enough," she said, grinning a little foolishly - Manuel saying nice things about her went to her head worse than champagne. "I was thinkin'... 's been about a year since we started... bein' together," she said as he refilled her cider. "Been a hell of a year."
"You could say that." he laughed, and refilled her glass with more cider. "My, this is good." he said, leaving it open as to whether he was referring to the cider or to Amanda. He then pulled a lighter off his meticulously-neat end table and started lighting some candles. Once he had a good half-dozen of them going, he killed the lights to his room, bathing everything in the warm glow of candlelight.
"Oh, this is nice. Very nice..." Kicking off her heels (she'd made quite the effort herself), she stretched out on the bed, giving him a frankly come-hither look. "You thought of everythin'. Consider me impressed. A lot."
Manuel grinned. "I have not even _begin_ to impress you." he said, standing up to head over to his bed. As he walked, he unknotted the robe and let it fall, revealing nothing but him and his desire for her.
***
Later, much later, Amanda made a sleepy, contented noise as she cuddled up to Manuel. Her clothes littered the formerly-neat room, and the two of them were naked and mussed and both wearing very silly grins. "Okay, now 'm impressed," she told him, tracing patterns on his chest idly, her head pillowed on his shoulder. "That was... wow."
Manuel shook himself out of torpor, and grinned the lazy grin of the well-satisfied. "Good. You deserve all of it and probably more." He then reached over for another glass of cider, polishing it off in one smooth swallow. "We should probably watch the DVD that arrived with the cider. What do you think?" he asked.
"There was a DVD?" Amanda sat up slightly so she could grab her own drink and not dribble it down her front... well, again, any way. There was a mystery DVD to be addressed. "Might explain who the mysterious benefactor is, so we can thank 'em."
"Looks like it." he said, maintaining his amused grin. "I'll go put it in." he said, then stood up to pad his way over to his TV, to feed the DVD to his relatively new standalone DVD player. "OK, here we go. I wonder what all this is about?" he said as he slipped back into bed, leaning over to kiss Amanda briefly. He then aimed the remote at the DVD player and pressed PLAY.
Briefly distracted by the kiss, and in snuggling up to Manuel, Amanda didn't pay much attention to the DVD starting. There wasn't much to see, at first, simply a fairly ornate room, not very large but well-fitted. Then a male voice, sounding vaguely familiar.
"Bring her in here."
Manuel blinked and then sat up abruptly. He knew that voice. How he knew it he wasn't sure, but he _knew_ it. "Wha?" he said confusedly, watching the DVD play on. The room didn't ring many bells, but the two gentlemen in black carrying a weakly-struggling black-haired girl into the room set off alarm bells in his mind. Not because he knew the men - he'd never seen them before in his life - but he knew the girl.
Amanda.
Amanda froze as she saw herself on the screen, obviously drugged and confused, saw another shape come into the shot, indistinct, back to the camera. A hand reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her face up, so the camera caught her full on. "You do clean up well," the voice said, fingers digging into her flesh, before letting go and whipping across her face. "Go on," the voice instructed the two masked men, who nodded and yanked the Amanda on screen back, before setting about the beating.
Manuel watched with a horrified fascination. He hated every second of what was going on, but he could not force himself to look away. The men administering the beating were professionals, he noted absurdly. Artistes in the ways and means of pain. As he watched, he felt a pressure building behind his eyes, in his mind. A pressure that would not be denied.
It was like it was happening to someone else, someone very far away... Amanda's hand clenched spasmodically on the glass she still held, and she was dimly aware of the sound of breaking glass, a distant flash of pain. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she abruptly bolted from the bed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She only just managed to reach the toilet before the first heaves began, but still she saw those images in her mind's eye, felt the blows raining down on her. Not the recording - this was memory.
Amanda's mad dash for his bathroom should have alarmed him, but he was dealing with problems of his own. The pressure in his head was growing to intolerable levels. He moaned softly and clutched at his head, trying every trick he knew to relieve the pressure, to calm himself and settle his mind. Instead, he got a cavalcade of images, tastes, sounds, scents, and feelings. But, curiously, he had none of the emotional vestments to them. It was like a film in his mind, the record of some other Manuel de la Rocha (for that was his name, he knew that certainly now) in some other life.
Some other poor wretch being abused - first by his father, then by his "friends" on the street, then by the asylum doctors, then by his schoolmates. Try as he might, he couldn't remember how any of this made him feel.
Shuddering in horror, the DVD forgotten, Manuel curled up into a safe little ball and tried to pull himself together. Unbidden, tears rolled down his face.
It wasn't Manuel's anguish that finally dragged Amanda back to her feet. Nor was it the bone-chilling cold of the bathroom tile on her naked skin, the dull pain of the gashes in her hand, or the blood dribbling from them and smeared on the floor, the door, the toilet bowl... anywhere she'd touched. It was something deeper, something baser, the pull of blood magic demanding vengeance, retribution, protection of the one she'd claimed as her own. An obligation she was bound to answer to.
With a half-strangled whimper, she pushed herself upright, leaving more smears of blood on the wall as she leaned against it. She felt bruised, battered, but more than that she felt used, unclean - there was a bathrobe hanging from the back of the door and she pulled it on, unable to bear the thought of Manuel seeing her naked after what he'd seen. Inside her mind, pieces were slotting into place, memories meeting with suspicions, and coming up with a name for their mysterious 'benefactor':
"Alphonso de la Rocha." She spat the name out with real venom, not even realising that she'd opened the bathroom door and returned to the bedroom, or that she'd spoken the name aloud, until she heard the intake of breath from the boy curled into a ball on the bed.
She flinched despite herself, eyes moving to the TV - the DVD was still playing, and the dull anger heightened, edging into fury. "Turn it off," she grated, clenching her fists against the urge to blast the screen into a million shards - blue sparks crackled and danced over her knuckles. "Turn it off, or so help me Manuel I'll end up destroyin' the place." When she looked over at him, her eyes had gone very dark. "He might not need you, but I do."
Manuel scrambled for the remote, turning the DVD off with a flick of his thumb. "I'm sorry." he said numbly. "I didn't know. I couldn't have known." he mumbled, then clenched his hands into fists. "Not only did he screw up my life then, but he's wrecked our Valentine's Day. I'm so sorry, Amanda." he said, then gave her a hug, trying very hard to ignore the play of eldritch energies across her knuckles or the darkness in her eyes. "Living well is the best revenge." he said hopefully.
She stiffened at the touch, but she didn't pull away, as much as part of her mind was screaming at her to. The part that was telling her she was soiled, tainted... "I should've killed him," she ground out. "That night, at the Hellfire Club. Him an' her both - if I'd had the power, I bloody well would have." Sparks were leaping off her hands, sizzling dangerously, and she made a conscious effort to reel herself in before she managed to blow something up or zap Manuel. Closing her eyes, she took a long, shuddering breath, fighting for calm, and when she opened them again, her eyes had gone back to their normal blue. "It's not yer fault," she said, looking up at him, but not returning the hug - she couldn't make herself move. "It's him. He wrecks everythin' he touches." And he'd touched both of them, hadn't he...
Manuel looked into Amanda's eyes. "Not quite everything. He can only wreck us if we let him." he pointed out quietly. "He's still my father, even if he is a complete waste of flesh.
"You still want me? Even after... after that?" she asked, unable to help the shudder, the anger draining away, leaving her feeling sick and cold. And something else... she hadn't noticed it before, in the grip of her reaction, but there was something different about the link, something familiar... Resting her forehead against his bare chest, closing her eyes, she concentrated on the feeling. His feelings, coming back down the link at her, clear and strong. "Manuel? Is that... I can feel you, properly, like it was before you lost yer powers," she asked, looking up at him with a dawning hope in her face. Hope and perhaps a little fear.
Manuel shrugged. "I'm certainly not in any sort of headspace to get introspective on you." he said dismissively. "It's been a fuck of an evening, and I think I'm a little drunk. Sleep is probably a really good idea. Stay with me, tonight?" he asked as he slid under the covers on "his" side of the bed.
Amanda looked down at her hand - it had stopped bleeding, but there were still slivers of glass in it, and clenching her fist hadn't helped that at all. "I should get this seen to first," she said, perhaps a little distantly - what she really wanted to do was to go have a shower, as hot as it would go, and scrub herself raw, getting Alphonso's taint from her skin. "I'll come back after." Maybe. Hopefully he'd be asleep and she could slip away again - should couldn't handle the thought of anyone touching her, at least tonight.
Manuel nodded. "Good idea." he said, and then shivered for no good reason at all. "Turn the light off when you go?" he asked her, already closing his eyes to try to sort through what had happened to him.
While Manuel sleeps, Amanda slips down to medlab, and runs into Hank
Somehow Amanda got down to medlab without anyone seeing her. On reflection, perhaps heading down in nothing but Manuel's bathrobe wasn't exactly sensible, but she figured she was allowed a bit of irrationality at the moment. Heading for one of the exam rooms, she grabbed a set of tweezers and some antiseptic and dressings, hoping to get the job done before anyone found her. Alphonso had caused enough grief for one night, and besides, the last thing she needed right now were cuddles and sympathy. Not when deep down she felt unworthy of either.
"Is someone h... Amanda." Hank blinked in surprise. What in the world... "Are you all right? What happened?" He went to move closer, but something in the way she looked up at him made him pause, keeping carefully out of arm's reach... well, not out of HIS arm's reach, but enough that she shouldn't feel threatened, or whatever it was that was putting that defensive look on her face.
"Broke a glass," she said shortly, not looking up at him after that first brief, startled glance. Shoulders hunched, she began picking slivers of glass out of her palm, hissing a little at the pain. "Be out of your way is a sec." She was trying hard to keep her tone even, but her voice wobbled and betrayed her. Certainly she looked a mess, hair tousled and hanging around her face, blood smearing the robe where she'd touched it with the injured hand. "Need t' get this cleaned up..." Tears blurred her vision, and her next pass with the tweezers missed, driving the shard she was aiming at deeper. "Ow, fuck!"
Hank looked at her for a moment, then found the emergency blanket and unfolded it, putting it gently around her shoulders. "You must be cold, in just the robe," he said quietly. "May I look at your hand?" He felt... off, the last few days. His head felt fuzzy, and he was forgetting more things than usual. But something this simple he was sure he could handle... if she let him.
Amanda flinched away almost violently from him, the blanket slipping off her shoulder. Automatically she grabbed at it - she was shivering, and her feet felt numb. For a moment it seemed she might flee, but then she looked down at her bloody hand, and something seemed to register. "It hurts," she said in a small voice. "It's hurts, an' I can't make it stop, can't..." Looking up at him with wide, scared eyes, she nodded, wordlessly holding out the injured part for him to look at.
"It's all right," he said gently, taking the tweezers and bending over the hand, touching her as little as possible. "I'll take care of it. It's what I do, you know." He had to squint a little to bring her hand into fine focus... he hadn't brought his glasses... but he could do it. Very gently, he started to pick at the glass. "Is there anything else I can do to help?"
She shook her head. "Damage is done, ain't it?" she said with a raw-sounding laugh. "Over an' done with an' the bruises all gone. 'Cept nothin' really heals, does it? There's always someone ready t' rip it all open again with surprise parcels. Stompin' all over the mess they already made." Her voice turned desolate. "Manuel needs me. But I can't... It was his father, Hank. His fuckin' father got the shite beaten out of me an' then sent us a little reminder as a Valentine's present."
"Oh, no..." Hank reached out automatically and stopped when she flinched, biting his lip. "I'm sorry. I'm... not at my most clear-thinking just now." He went back to her hand, drawing out a small shard of glass gently. "I wish I could help you," he said, sighing softly. "Will you accept my support and commiseration instead?"
His choice of words drew another humourless laugh from her. "Yeah, know how that not thinkin' clearly thing goes. Can't seem t' get my head t' work proper right now - all I want t' do is find that bastard an' make sure he can't hurt either of us ever again." She winced a little as he went after the most deeply-embedded piece, the cuts bleeding sluggishly again where he'd already pulled the glass out. "You up for supportin' or commiseratin' with that?"
"Well, it depends on whether your definition of 'no hurt ever again' involves death or jumping up and down on his hands until they get squashy." Hank grumbled under his breath as the blood-slick glass slipped free of the tweezers. "Damn. That's usually a punishment I reserve for surgeons who use their training to harm the innocent, but I could be convinced to make an exception."
Involuntarily Amanda jerked her hand back, before returning it to him. "He doesn't have t' use his hands t' hurt people. Didn't with me. Didn't want any evidence left, so he got a couple of flunkies to..." Her throat tightened and she half-gagged at the memory. "I want him dead. I want him dead an' screamin' in the worst hell dimension i can find t' put the rest of him."
Hank nodded and sighed. "That would probably be frowned on, although... well. I can't say I blame you." He pulled out the last fragment of glass, and frowned thoughtfully. There was something he should do next, but he couldn't remember what. "Maybe a reciprocal curse of some kind?" He looked at the hand again, and then nodded. Right. That was it... water, to rinse out any fragments of glass he couldn't see. He went to get some, filling a cup and grabbing a dish for the water to go into.
"'S not enough. 'S never enough - I don't care if he is Manuel's father." Amanda didn't notice the hesitation - her teeth were chattering and she pulled the blanket a little tighter around her with her free hand.
Hank rinsed the wounds gently. "Oh, I don't know... I'm sure I've heard of something called a threefold rule? Which means that whatever you do is supposed to be visited back upon you threefold? I imagine that would be a terrible thing to wish on someone like that." Wait. He wasn't supposed to encourage the students in vendettas, was he? "Of course, you probably shouldn't. But it's not as if it's a curse, as such, just a way of ensuring that he gets out of life what he puts into it." There. All clean. He patted them dry carefully and applied the antiseptic.
"It doesn't work like that. Threefold applies t' me - anythin' I do with the wrong intentions, or even if it's a bad spell with the right intentions, it comes back t' me," Amanda explained dully. "An' even if there was a curse like that, I wouldn't know where t' start."
"Oh. I don't really know much about magic," Hank admitted. "It just seemed like awfully poetic justice." He dribbled a little more antiseptic over the cuts. "If there is anything I can do, though, please tell me? I'll help you if I can, actions that would violate my Hippocratic Oath aside."
Amanda inspected the cuts - not deep enough to need stitches, luckily, but they'd need dressing. She reached for the gauze and tape she'd grabbed earlier. "I'll be fine," she said, voice still flat. "Thanks, for the help. Um, could you... could you not say anythin'? I'll talk t' someone in the mornin'."
He took the gauze, wrapping it gently around her hand. "I won't tell anyone," he said quietly. "It's a doctor-patient thing. Since I'm treating you, I have to respect your privacy. I wouldn't tell anyone even if ordered to under oath, if you didn't want me to." He gave her a little smile. "Holds for other times, too, if you want to talk, and not have anyone know."
She looked up at him with naked gratitude in her eyes, before her face closed off, the mask slipping back down. It was all she had to hang onto, to keep from screaming - if she started that, she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop. "I..." Can't, was what she was about to say. Hank wasn't one of her people, wasn't someone she felt comfortable talking to. But none of those was around, were they? She couldn't go to Angelo with this, and he was the only one left. "I'll remember that," she temporised, wanting only to leave and scrub Alphonso's remembered touch from her skin.
Hank nodded. "I know we've never been close, and there are probably people you'd rather talk to about things," he said gravely, taping the gauze in place. "I just wanted to know that... well... I'm here if you ever need me. Sometimes it's easier to talk about some things to someone who doesn't know you well." He smiled a little. "And doctor-patient privilege means I'd never tell anyone." He let go of her hand, wishing he could do more and knowing that hugs and comfort must be the last thing she wanted right now. "Bring that hand down again tomorrow so I can check for infection."
With a nod, she pulled her hand back under the blanket, unconsciously backing away slightly now he didn't need to hold onto her any more. "I'm sorry," she said, her throat tightening and her voice coming out strangled as a result. "I just... I can't. It's too... I just can't."
Hank nodded again. "It's all right," he said quietly. "I mean, it isn't... but it's all right that it isn't, if you know what I mean." He moved away, getting out from between her and the door. Damnit. He should be more help, but he was having trouble working out how.
"I get you," she said in that small, choked voice, and before he could say anything else, she turned and slipped away.
