Manuel, Paige, some bonding (set Sunday evening)

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Manuel comes to Talk. Things get off to a rough start, but Manny doesn't back down and Paige has really bad neck tension. They eventually get along and Paige comes to a kind of realization about trust and expectations. In short, Cool Manuel strikes again, even if it takes some time getting there.


Manuel knocked on Paige's door. He had felt the text of her little chat with Amanda from Amanda's point of view, and causing that much anger and frustration in his linkmate was Not On. So he straightened his button-down just slightly while he waited for her to answer her door. And he would have answers from her, one way or the other. He owed it to Amanda at the very least.

Paige was very seriously considering not answering the door. Right now she hated pretty much everything in existence, and was perfectly willing to just sit in her bed, blankets tented over her, with her book and flashlight. However, there was the not-so-slim possibility that it was Angelo at the door, having run into Amanda, and she didn't want him to worry. It would only take a moment to tell him that she would be okay and just wanted some time alone, and then she could go back to her book. Or, well, staring at her book. Flinging the covers off her, Paige pushed her hair back, attempting to tame the static and pulled open the door, only to find Manuel staring at her with a rather unpleasant glint in his eyes. "Look, Manuel-"

"We need to talk." he said with a very predatory smile. He empathically scanned her room, looking for anyone else in her room. Since he didn't feel anyone else in there, he looked back at her. "Seems you have some free time. How convenient. Invite me in, or would you prefer to talk here in the doorway?"

"I'm really not in the mood," Paige answered wearily, leaning against the doorframe with one hand to block his entrance. She was too tired and bruised to get angry again, and besides. Paige liked Manuel in a strange sort of way, and would prefer to not have the entire school hate her, one by one. I suppose that's what I get for taking on the mansion's Prom Queen... "So, I'll just do this for you. Ahem. You hate me, I'm a bitch, if I ever even look at Amanda in a bad way again you'll suck out my brain, yadayada, fine, menacing print, the end. Now, you have a good night," she continued, backing up to close the door.

Manuel kept his smile on. "My dearest, dearest Paige. Not at all! I just wanted to get your side of the story, that's all. I'm linked to her, remember? I felt everything she felt when you two had your little chat. If I hated you, Ms Guthrie, you'd know it in no uncertain terms. And you'd probably love me for it. Now, shall we have that talk privately, or shall we continue to discuss it publicly?"

Nostrils flaring ever so slightly were the only indication, out of the norm, of Paige's unease. God, she hated mutations with the brain. Put her up against anything, a hydrokinetic, superior strength, plasma release, and she could hold her own, but fiddling with her brain? She had nothing. "Subtle threats against my mind will get you no where, Manuel. But come in, if you're so insistent. Let's make this quick."

"I don't make threats anymore. I've learned my lesson." he said pleasantly. "I was just pointing out possibilities. But yes, let's have ourselves a civilized little talk." he said, stepping into her room and taking the chair like he owned the place. "Now then." he said as she closed the door behind him. "Want to tell me about whatever it is that's all bottled up inside of you? It's unhealthy to repress like that. And since I have no friends here, you won't have to worry about anything you say passing beyond this room." he added.

"I think I've unbottled enough for today, thank you," Paige replied with a casual air, seating herself on top of her hamper with legs crossed. She was determined to make it obvious that she thought of him as no threat to her. "Anything else? You can skip the 'possibilities'; I don't really care."

"You and I both know that's a rotten lie, Paige." he said casually, crossing his own legs casually. "After all, this is all about jealousy, isn't it?" he added.

"No, I really have unbottled enough. There's no lie in that. In fact, I've unbottled enough that I am actually physically tired, and that's something." She was sliding easily into Buffy dialogue mode, and that pleased her. It would make things so much easier. "Now what exactly about jealousy, chickpea? Although, I must say, I am quite envious of that shirt you have on. Fabric is beautiful."

Manuel smiled, but refused to rise to her bait. "Have you forgotten already what I am, my dear?" he asked pleasantly, with a quirked eyebrow. "And what is about jealousy is you, actually. You're positively ripe with it. It seethes from your pores, wraps itself around you like a lover. Oh, I'm sorry, how terribly inconsiderate of me to mention such things, considering your recent difficulties. How very inconsiderate of me. Anyway, we're not talking about me, we're talking about you. Talk to me, Paige, since you won't talk to anyone else without there being explosions. I would, believe it or not, actually like to see if I could help you. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true." he said, piously holding his hand to his heart.

"Manuel my darling, you really should not be talking about difficulties with lovers," Paige returned in the same sickeningly sweet tone. "Although, I suppose you are the expert, are you not?" He was not invoking any desire in her to speak whatsoever, even if she did have anything to say to him. Which she didn't. "Now, you said you wanted my side of the story, correct? Amanda touched my horse, I was, and still am I might add, in a foul mood, Amanda was in a similarly foul mood with a dose of 'woe is me' and I lashed out at her. She in turn made very rude accusations at me," she said quickly, but in a perfectly clear tone. "There you are. My side told. I think we're done here, I would say it was lovely seeing you, but then I'd be lying and you're an empath."

"So nice of you to recognize that for once." he said, not budging an inch. "And that's a good start, but that kind of answer is a dodge, not a truth-telling." he pointed out. "You're pushing me away. You're pushing everyone away. Snapping at Amanda was just the tipping point, not the root cause. You feel ... let me see here ... inadequate? Frustrated? Dare I say - unloved? Feel free to chime in here." he said, waving a hand at her encouragingly.

"Kill or be killed," Paige answered flatly, tilting her head until her neck made a terrible cracking noise. There was nothing else to add to that; it very neatly summed up everything.

"Interesting. So you're feeling - killed? Suffocated? So you lash out at the slightest provocation to make yourself feel better? That can't be healthy." he said calmly. "But I'm probably misreading you. Correct me if I'm wrong, please." he asked her. "And that sounds like some unreleased tension there. Would you like a massage? I'm quite skilled..." he said, keeping any and all salacious thoughts off his face and tucked away deep in his brain.

Under any other conditions, Paige would have merely laughed and waved him away. But today, for the most part, she didn't really care who she ticked off. Angelo was going to be terribly conflicted, and this would at least make his choice for him, Jono was about as observant as a hippie with a paper bag and damn if she really didn't give a fuck about Amanda right now. "I might as well get something out of this," she agreed, but not especially nicely. "Aren't you supposed to be a decent empath? You completely missed the point of the words, and obviously did no better with the colours, or whatever you use. I'm no literate genius, but even I can translate that perhaps my pushing away is to prevent others from pushing me."

Manuel smiled again. "Maybe you just needed to say it." he said, then rose to his feet. "Stay there, and try to relax." he said, before setting to with a full-fledged neck and upper back massage. He kept it strictly professional, out of deference to her own maelstrom of emotions. At the first touch of his skin to hers, he hissed just a little as the colors leaped into brighter, clearer focus. Touch always did that to him, and it wasn't something he normally chose to advertise. "You're quite tense." he commented pleasantly. "What have you been doing to take care of yourself, other than screaming at Amanda?" he asked her curiously.

"And maybe that's the worst cover-up I've ever heard," she replied, but most of the bite was taken out. He had very deft hands, not that she'd voice it. "I've been watching my CSI DVDs and allowing myself a select amount of arrowroot cookies with my tea, actually," Paige said, defending herself. Half an episode every night, before she went to bed. What else was there to do? What else was there time for, even?

"Oh, I don't know. I could probably come up with a worse coverup if you'd really like to hear it." he said with a laugh as he continued to massage tension out of Paige's shoulders and neck. Dear God, he was going to need a hand massage of his own just to recover from giving her a massage. Her tendons were like steel cables - for all he knew, they might actually be steel cables - and her muscles were like boulders. "So tell me about this CSI programme. I've never seen it." he said, just to get her talking.

Paige let her eyes fall closed, eyelashes resting against her cheeks. She'd had a bad day, no, make that week, and she deserved this, dammit. If Manuel took advantage of her she'd just have to pluck out an eye or something. She'd always wanted to try that. "It's about a forensics lab in Vegas," she replied tiredly, trying to let herself move with his hands, head bobbing ever-so-slightly. "Science solving crime. And the world knows how much I'm into science and justice."

Manuel nodded, even though she couldn't possibly see it. "You mentioned feeling attacked earlier. Can you give me an example?" he said, careful to continue to work on her tense spots. She very clearly needed this - and a whole lot more, but he wasn't going there despite what his body said. Besides, she consorted with Angelo, and that was just disgusting. "The way I see it, you're smart, attractive, and in control of her own life. You know what you want and you work hard towards getting it. You work yourself too hard, true, but you made that bargain long ago."

"Remind me when I said that?" she asked, but it was not angrily. There was a very good chance that she would still be more than a little ticked off when he left, but for now she dampened the clipped words, even if she wouldn't be so lenient with her actual answers. "And thank you. You're sweet."

"You're avoiding the question." he noted, but kept the massage going. She was finally starting to relax a little, and that was good. His hands were beginning to hurt. "Your exact words were "my pushing away is to prevent others from pushing me". So who's pushing you, Paige, besides you?" he asked her as he massaged. "And would you happen to have anything to drink in here?"

Paige laughed under her breath; a small allowance. "I can't help it if you're so distracted that you're awful at reading me. There is a very large difference between pushing and attacking. I'm not being attacked by any means. If I was, at least I'd be able to defend myself," she said, before stretching out an arm to point by the desk. "Water, if that's what you're looking for, is in the little blue cooler. There may be some apple juice as well."

"Water is perfectly acceptable. Would you like one?" he asked, continuing his massage until he got an answer from her. "And you're still avoiding the question. English isn't my first language, you know." he commented. "Who is pushing you besides you?"

Paige could only nod her head in answer, too busy thinking up an answer to his question to spare the words. "I was pushed away in the past. And I suppose now I feel it is easier to keep my distance than to rely too solidly on people who might decide they are bored and toss me away in the future. Yes, that's what it is. Not pushed, exactly, tossed. Like an old toy."

"I know how that feels." he said. "You're far from the only person to ever feel that way. We all have, at one time or another. You, me, your siblings, your lovers, all of us. It's part of being human. Mutant. Whatever." he said. He then stopped his massage just long enough to snag two bottles of water, opening both of them and handing one to Paige. Moving back behind her, he took a deep drink before continuing the massage. "May I tell you a story? A true story, even? About a man you know, and a future that may come to pass?"

"Story time sounds all right," Paige answered finally, taking the bottle of water only when he bumped it up against her shoulder. It was cold and felt deliciously good against her scratched throat; if she didn't know better she'd of thought that perhaps Manuel had done this on purpose. Perhaps he had. "Should I turn to watch you?"

"Not at all necessary - I'm still working out some tension here." he said, continuing his massage. "The story is about a man you know, and how he could not bring himself to trust anyone. He was suspicious, trusting none and seeing hurt where none was intended." He paused to take a drink of his bottle of water, then continued. "This man, who you know, had the power to inspire trust, to bring people together. To make love bloom, to bring understanding and tolerance."

A cold chill ran up Paige's spine before she firmly reminded herself that he was telling her a story, not threatening her. At least, not as far as she could tell. Letting herself relax again, nodded, just a little, for him to continue.

Manuel took another drink and continued his story. "To resolve his difficulties, to make it possible for this man to trust, he forced trust on everyone around him. First his friends - he solved their difficulties, made them love one another as men and women, as mutants and humans. Then, as his power grew still stronger, he influenced more and more. Some fought this love, not understanding it or not trusting it. Others embraced it, made it their own. Until at some point the whole world was bound together. And he looked at what he had wrought, at this world bound together by perfect love, and he wept for it."

A small smile was rising at the corner of Paige's mouth, and not entirely out of enjoyment, but more mirth. Manuel was definitely from one of the countries of love. His "poetic flair" if she was being so kind, "goopy way with words" if she was being more honest, certainly was not what she was used to. A man using the word weeping was still very much a foreign concept to her. "Is this my lesson? Convince you to bend to my will and make the world what I consider perfect? That's not a very good lesson so far, Manny."

"Oh, not in the slightest!" Manuel said, continuing his massage of Paige's shoulders. "The point of this little story is that a failure to trust, an unwillingness to risk, can bring disaster to even the best of us. And this man you know, the man I speak of, was far from one of the best of us. According to many, he was possible one of the worst." he said sadly. "Risks must be taken, even though the outcome is possibly disaster. Because to not trust, to withdraw and lash out against those who extend a hand, is to court disaster."

"I think you're missing the part where I did trust, multiple times even, and I got, how do they say, screwed over?" Paige reminded him, pausing his massage momentarily as she lifted her left shoulder and carefully rolled it back. It was cracking; that was nice. "And not the good kind," she added with an amused tone.

Manuel grinned at Paige, and let her rotate her shoulders to pop the tendons. "And because you fell a few times, you've decided to stay on the ground?" he asked pointedly. "I had thought you too stubborn, too determined for that. Where's the go-getter girl who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to get it?"

Snorting in what no one could mistake for a lady-like fashion, Paige shook her head, her hair falling over one shoulder before she pulled it back to the front. "You fall so many times, emphasis on the many, not few as you seem to think, and you realise perhaps this isn't the way you should go at it. Perhaps there's a better way. So now my risks are more calculated and my trust more difficult to achieve. If they do not care to make the effort, well." She raised her shoulders as much as she could, under his hands, in what would have to be an attempt at a shrug.

"By your logic, I should be compelling everyone to love one another unconditionally, because my way is far easier than the clumsy fumblings of the mindblind." he pointed out. He knew she respected logic, so he thought he'd give it a try. Even though it was far from his strong point, and he suspected she could run logical rings around him.

"Not at all," Paige answered smoothly. "In the end, this works out for the best, really. I do not get hurt by insufferable fools who are more concerned about themselves and making themselves look good than the feelings of others and end up only trusting those who are actually trustworthy. If you were doing your mind wha- pardon me, 'compelling'," Paige slid in, giving him a flash of teeth to indicate her teasing, "That would null the entire idea."

"And you're so sure, in your arrogance - excuse me, certainty, that you know who is an insufferable fool and who is not?" Manny asked curiously, finally finishing up with his backrub and returning to his original chair to face her more fully. "I'm an empath, and I don't know. Nathan is a telepath, and he doesn't know. Headmaster Xavier is the strongest mind I've ever felt, and not even _he_ knows. What makes you think that you know?" he asked.

Paige allowed him the small smile that came with accepting a compromise of sorts. "I do not know. Of course not, my arrogance only goes so far, but my logic is in that if they can be bothered to make an effort, an actual effort, then perhaps they're, well, worth it. There's a difference between, that and 'here, I e-mailed you/left cookies on your bed/smiled at you in the hallway all of one time and you didn't reply, can't blame me, though, I tried'. That's not an attempt, or if it is, it's merely at making themselves feel better," she retorted, voice taking on a cutting edge. "But look at that. I seem to have moved past anger and into bitterness."

"There's still a good bit of anger there." he said with a flashing grin. "And how precisely do you define "making an effort"?" he asked her, keeping his grin going. Despite himself, he was enjoying this. "Because your standards might be - unrealistic."

"Persistence," Paige answered, matching his grin with her own. While normally she had a rather irritating habit of perfect posture, she allowed herself to lean back against the wall, propping her feet up on her night table. "Would you believe those posts where someone woes and then get back about thirty replies that all say along the same line of 'if you want help, just ask' drive me mad? Obviously then want help, or they wouldn't have posted. The only thing is, they probably want you to come up with a way to help them. If they'd known, then they would have just asked you, wouldn't they?" Paige shook her head, her grin still on but mostly just wryly amused. "Or maybe I'm just screwed up in the head. Who knows?"

Manuel hrmmed. "So failure to be proactive, to know what is wrong and know what the solution is, is a failure to you?" he asked. "I wouldn't want to misunderstand you."

"You exaggerate a little, but yes. You should already know what is wrong if I've told you, although, knowing without my telling, picking up on clues is always welcome, especially in my case. And not so much knowing the solution, the ultimate solution, as knowing something to do to help. If you can't help in a big way, but can't be bothered to help in a small one, I think that says something," Paige explained, gesturing with her water bottle. "Maybe to counter my craziness I expect too much of people, huh?"

"Maybe just a bit." he said with a smile. "I'm not Marie-Ange, but I can do a little predicting of my own. If you continue on in this vein, you will wind up alienating those who would care for you in any real way." he said.

Paige returned the smile, if not a little sadly. "Probably. I just don't see any other way to do it. To be melodramatic, I'm too damaged to go through it again," she said, eyes slipping from his face to the window for a moment before snapping back into focus. "Anyways. This went better than I expected. Thank you for not sucking out my brain."

"If I was going to suck anything..." he said, and then stopped. "Never mind." he finished with a smile. "Well, I know how much you fear the idea, but if you like, I could give you a pleasant night's sleep." he offered. "No obligation, just me offering a woman who I think I could call a friend a chance to catch her breath for a time."

"Oh, Manny," Paige laughed, rolling her eyes. Some things never changed at least. "I think I'll have to build up to the sleep giving, but I think, after all this, I'd be willing to accept the friend part. Cautiously, for reasons already stated, but accepting. I don't think your girlfriend is going to like it very much, though. Sure you want to get into that sort of trouble?"

Manuel shrugged with a grin. "It's really none of her concern. I have been owned before, and she does not own me. Not now, not ever. As I do not own her." he pointed out sensibly. "And I understand your reluctance. I even understand it. I will take no offense." he added. "But if you decide that you are willing to risk it, willing to trust, you know where to find me." He then tipped his nonexistant hat to her. "And if you get tired of your current crop of paramours..." he insinuated with a wink. "Good night, Paige. Sleep well."

Paige continued her laugh, standing up to push him out the door with mock effort. "Yeah yeah, get out of here, you scoundrel," she said, suddenly very thankful that she'd had the mind to wash up after getting out of the stables if only so she didn't leave handprints on his shirt. Owned or not, handprints were another thing entirely. "I'll try my best. You as well."

Manuel stood and nodded to her. Feeling brave, he lunged in to plant a chaste kiss on her forehead. Unnoticed by her, his eyes flashed scarlet for just a split-second. "Sleep well, Paige. We should talk again soon. Don't be such a stranger. If no-one else here understands you, you know that I probably will." He then quit her room quietly.

Notes: Manny, at the end of this log, mind-whammies Paige into getting some sleep. Just in case you missed it, since I totally did. I was distracted by the forehead kiss, really. Anyway, yes. Paige sleeps tonight, however, the next day (Monday) she finds herself being glared at by person(s) who she considered if not friends than not enemies either and comes to the assumption that if they loathe her, then everyone else must too. I only say this as I recieved a number of questions on the subject; feel free to ask if you're confused!