xp_logs | Kitty and Manuel watching movies

Kitty and Manuel sit down to watch the Lord of the Rings but get sidelined a lot. Good thing he has an editic memory and she's already seen them twenty times.

Manuel had taken great pains to actually try to get cleaned up and be presentable. He still wore black, as was only fitting, but the black took the form of a tight-fitting black silk shirt and black slacks. As was his usual habit, he left the first few buttons of his shirt undone and his feet bare. The lounge space where Kitty was going to watch the films with him was empty save for her, which made things much easier - he wasn't above a little empathic scanning to guarantee privacy.

Kitty had already fished out the two copies of the Lord of the Rings from the DVD collection and flipped the TV over to DVD mode. She looked up and smiled when Manuel walked in. "Hi," she said. "How're you doing?"

Manuel gave Kitty a disgusted look before he could catch himself and return his expression back to something far more bland. "All right, all things considered." he said with a heavy sigh. "I'm doing the best I can."

Kitty caught the look and said, "Hey, honest expression of concern and sympathy over here. And the best you can do is all that anybody could expect, I would hope."

Manuel snorted. "Well, at least _you_ aren't feeling relief and happiness that my father was assassinated." Manuel said. "So you're one up on Amanda there. And you're still here, so that puts you two up. Three, you're willing to spend time with me when your boyfriend would rather be impaled with a rusty spear. So, tell me about these books."

Kitty wasn't gonna touch any of that with a ten foot verbal pole, so she accepted the subject change. "They're sort of the father of all fantasy epics, so if you've read or seen any fantasy it all feels sort of familiar, cause everybody steals from Tolkien. In the first book, which hasn't been made into a movie, this short guy called Bilbo has an adventure, and one of the things in his adventure is the finding of this magic ring. The Lord of the Rings, then, is the story of his nephew, Frodo, and the ring."

Manuel shrugged. "I didn't have a childhood, and when I was small my interests were carefully steered. Opera, finance, classical music, dance, swordplay, alcohol, and women. Pretty much in that order." he said. "Another thing that alienates me from most everyone else here. So I have not seen any of this fantasy of which you speak."

"Didn't know what you might not have seen since coming here. Well, epics, like the operatic ones although more the older classics like the stories of King Arthur and the greeks and so on, were all things that Tolkein was drawing on as sources for his stories." She held up the two box sets. "We've got the long version, which includes a lot more detail from the books and, I think, makes more sense, but is more than twelve hours long, and we've got the 'short' version, which was designed for cinematic release and apparently still makes sense to people who don't know the stories and is only a little over nine hours long. Your call."

"My gift comes with a side-benefit - I can concentrate on multiple things at the same time and not get bogged down. Professor Xavier and I have been testing it - so far I can watch six television programmes, read a book, and listen to the radio and recall all of them with perfect clarity. Let's do the twelve hour one. It's not like I have much else to do today." he said drily.

"Good God," Kitty said. "Well, it would rather be a necessary step, I guess." She popped the first disk out of the box and stuck it in the machine, skipping past the FBI warnings.

"All psis can do it to one degree or another. Have you ever seen the Professor watch television? It is a wonderous thing to behold. I think he can watch the _entire_ cable feed and keep track of it all." he said, settling back to watch the film. "Do you have anything to drink here?" he asked about ten minutes in.

"I think the very idea of the Professor watching tv is a worrying one, actually." Kitty mused, but then the prolog was starting and she fell silent. The question startled her out of her appreciation of the camera work and she blinked. "Sure," she said. "In the kitchen. What do you want?"

"I would like to get stinkingly drunk, but as that is not going to happen I'll settle for a chilled bottle of water." he said with an attempt at a smile. Drinking bottled water always made him think of Emma Frost, and thinking of Emma led his thoughts down dark paths indeed. "Charles usually watches all the newsfeeds. If he watches the more popular frivolous programmes, I have never seen it."

"Nope, not going to happen, but water it is. Hold on a sec." Kitty stood and left the room, coming back a minute or so later with water for him and a soda for her. "Here you go."

"I said it wasn't going to happen, but the thought holds some appeal." he said, taking his water and glancing back at the screen. He uncapped it easily and take a long pull from the bottle. "I am being rude. How are you doing?" he asked.

At least with Manuel she knew in advance the lie wasn't going to work. "Insert standard 'I'm fine' line here," she said instead, dropping back onto the couch.

Manuel grinned. "Seems we're both being a little less than truthful. Want to talk about it?" he asked her. "Maybe another perspective will help. Despite what Jamie thinks, I'm not a _complete_ moron."

"Meh," Kitty said. "Abandonment and inverse abandonment shock and my parents are difficult. Pretty much standard for me, but this time I opted not to go catatonic over it all. Mostly."

"Mine are both dead. At least you still have yours." he pointed out uncharitably. "Do you want to reapproach with either or both of them?"

Kitty didn't rise to the bait. "Not sure what you mean."

"It sounds to me like they've basically abandoned you. And this is bending you seriously out of shape." he said carefully. "And that's just my opinion, not necessarily me poking around with my power."

"Oh, they did, kind of, but basically everybody does sooner or later." She shrugged, having calmed enough in the past couple of weeks to talk about it, although the flippancy was almost as much of a cover as anything else.

"You sure you're not me?" he said with a laugh. "You sounded like me, just then. But with less empathic justification and a better figure. Barely." he laughed mirthlessly. "You have the advantage - a stable boyfr... - no, lover, I see. Congratulations. Friends. Colleagues."

A flash of embarrassment accompanied the blush as Manuel spoke. "Hey, never claimed I wasn't irrational with my issues," she said to distract herself. "And you have friends."

"I do?" Manuel said, looking around wildly. "WHERE? I mean, you and I are friendly, and we talk, but friends? Perhaps, at a stretch. I know almost nothing about you, and you know little of me. Amanda has abandoned and betrayed me, Jubilee was a disaster from the get-go, and Marie-Ange is the closest I ever come to a real friend. And even she is irritated with me right now."

Kitty raised an eyebrow. "Ah well, then, guess I was wrong. I certainly thought we were friends. Why's M-A mad at you?"

"Marie-Ange had a great deal to say about my choices of expressing grief, and that's about all I am willing to say on that topic. And if you say we are, I will bow to your superior experience in the matter. I have never been one for making friends, which is just deeply ironic considering my gift." he said. "We should talk, one of these days. So I can explain some things."

"I would like that, yes. And M-A and I frequently have differences of opinion on the expressions which are allowable by society and who's got a right to say anything about them." Given the number of times she'd wanted to go slug the other girl for the things she said to Jubilee, that was a bit of an understatement.

"You would like to talk, but you will not like what you learn." Manuel warned. "The blond is cute." he said, referring to Orlando Bloom's character. "And you should not be embarrassed. Unless he's that disappointing in bed, or if just mentioning it makes you uncomfortable in some way." His expression said that he didn't _get_ that feeling, but she might, and he was willing to accomodate it up to a point.

"I'm willing to take my chances," she said, the blush coming back. "Not uncomfortable, just a little embarrassed. We've been trying to be discrete but, well, it's a boarding school full of mutants."

"Why embarrassed?" Manuel asked, honestly curious. "Wait - you're an American. That should explain it. And judging by how you feel, your first? How wonderful for you! Certainly waited a goodly long time." he
said by way of an explanation.

Kitty buried her head in her hands. "Yes, because I'm an American is part of it, and because there are frequently conversations on the journal about such things where our teachers can see, and yes, because he's my first."

"Oh, I should not tease you like this." he said with a grin. "I am sorry for making you blush. But it's very cute." he said with a small laugh. "My first came when I was - twelve? Thirteen? Something like that. It was very interesting. She taught me a lot." he said with a grin of memory. "Did not last very long, but it was not supposed to. She caught Alphonso's eye, and that was the end of that."

"Good God," Kitty said, head raising to blink at Manuel. "That... would not happen in America, I believe."

Manuel shrugged. "Are you sure about that? I remember hearing stories about the Kennedy compound..." he said, but let the thought die. "No, you're right. I have to adjust my thinking to living in this country with all of you. "My father was a scumbag in a distressing number of ways. But he was the only father I had."

"Yes," Kitty said softly, not having any way to respond to that. Her sympathy was real, though.

Manuel could feel it, and latched onto it with the fervor of a drowning man. "Thank you." he said quietly, then returned his overt attention to the film. "I have managed to completely kill the conversation, haven't I? Should I tease you more often about your clear deficit in mental faculties that made you pick the farmboy over the Spaniard, or should I just resign myself to my fate and mock your sex life?" he asked with a grin.

"How about we just go back to admiring the blond elf boy?" Kitty asked, grinning in spite of the blush.

"I don't know, I'm still reeling about being thrown over for Jamie. I mean, our love was so pure!" he said with a laugh. "But yes, the elf boy is quite the tasty little morsel."

"I don't think it counts as being thrown over if I was with Jamie for months before you came to the school," she mused. "Did you ever see Pirates of the Caribbean? He's in there, too, although he's not quite so pretty when he's not blond."

Manuel shook his head. "Never seen that one either." he admitted. "And you are stomping all over the pure and delicate thing that was our love. And here I was going to sweep you off your feet and take you to my Mediterranean love bungalow for nights of endless pleasure." he smirked. "Alas, it just was fated not to be."

"We will have to do that one next time, then. We'll get you up to speed on your modern films eventually. Also, let me just say for the record that the fact that you just mentioned a Mediterranean love bungalow is very weird."

"Why?" he asked, and then sighed. "Let me guess - my sense of humor is off-putting and distressing?" he said. "And Jubilee tried, but most of the films she brought were, I am sorry to say, complete crap."

"No, mainly because it's a 'love bungalow'. And if you want we could start with less modern stuff. I don't think you can ever really understand the American idealism if you haven't seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, for example."

"What's so odd about a love bungalow? It's really a lovely place with a great view of the Med." he said, puzzled. "Wait. You think I was _joking_ about it?"

That got him an even odder look. "Well, not now," she said.

Manuel sighed. "Look, you don't believe me, that's fine, but it _exists_. I'll get you the address if you're really curious."

"No, I believe you, I believe you. I thought you were joking but... No, no need for the address. Really." She paused. "'Love bungalow' is still a silly name for it, though."

"It sounds better in Spanish." he confessed. "And in English it's a very silly name."

Kitty grinned, then looked up as the music shifted. "Oooh, battle."

Manuel glanced over at the television. "This swordfighting is so bad I think I may be physically ill." he said dryly. "I mean, I'm sorry, but doing that sort of thing is a really good way to get very dead very fast."

"With a saber, sure," Kitty said, "but they brought in professional broadsword makers and fighters to do their training. It's all as period accurate as possible, given it's fiction."

Manuel shrugged. "Broadswords are all well and good, but I like my swords to have functional points. Much easier to stab people than to take a bloody great swing at them."

"Yeah, but that's assuming you've developed steel that can hold an edge. These, despite actually being made out of steel, represent an earlier technology."

Manuel shook his head again. "Iron will hold a point, if you're determined about things." he said. "Sure, you'll need to resharpen it a lot, but a good warrior takes care of his tools. At least, that's what I was taught."

"Actually," Kitty said, "they even took that into account. There are a couple shots of Aragorn sharpening his sword, I think."

"I'm impressed." Manuel said with surprise. "Nice touch, that."

"Yeah," Kitty agreed. "Jackson seriously loved his topic, so he took a lot of care with the movies."

"Apparently. Who's Jackson?" Manuel asked. "The writer, I am guessing?"

"Co-writer and director, and part producer. Basically the driving force behind the project." She paused for a second then grinned. "And he looks like a hobbit." She gestured to the screen where a wide shot was failing to show the little people to advantage.

Manuel glanced over at the screen again, and grinned. "Guess he was just living the roles." he said. "I don't know about you, but the film feels like a labor of love. Not sure if that's the power or my own opinion speaking."

"Possibly both." Kitty considered what he'd said. "There's no question that he loved what he was doing, that they all did. I wonder, can you pick up the emotions behind the creation of objects? And if so, could you pick them up even from a copy, albeit an exact copy, like a DVD."

Manuel shrugged. "Don't know. And power-experimentation is a very low priority, given that I am who I am and I've done what I've done. Ethics and morality tend to dominate my training sessions."

Kitty opened her mouth to suggest something, then shut it before starting again. "I'd offer to help run some experiments, but I can just imagine the blow up. Couldn't you ask Dr. Mctaggart if she'd be willing to run some controlled experiments on the side of your regular training with Nate and the Professor and whoever?"

"Nathan isn't training me, and hasn't been for months now. I work with the Professor, expanding on what Loki and the Askani taught me. But I cannot go to Loki for more instruction, and I do not trust the Askani, so I work with Charles." he explained. "But Charles is far more interested in my developments as a moral and ethical human being than he is in training an empath. And I cannot say that I blame him. I am nearly as strong as he is, although he is far more versatile and experienced."

"I find your rational questionable," Kitty told him. "Professor X has always been more concerned with all of our developments as moral and ethical people, regardless of what our powers were, or their strengths. First step, stop anybody from actually hurting, second step, ethics."

"This from the girl who walks through walls. A valid point." he said musingly. "It's frustrating. There's so much more I could do, I know it, but he won't teach me how! And occasionally I really hate being held back like that? I could be saving _lives_."

"Which would be why I'm saying talk it over with the Experimental Powers teacher. I don't think the Professor has taught powers control besides ethics in a while."

"Moira is far from my favorite person on the planet, and in psionics instruction, and _especially_ empathy, trust is key. I can't learn from someone I don't trust." he said urgently. "That's very important, and I'm not sure people realize that."

Kitty nodded. "Ok, sure, I can see how that would be. Which begs the question, what teacher do you trust?"

Manuel smiled thinly. "Charles, mostly." he said after a moment. "I mean, I trust Galin and Lusanya, but they're both dead, and they can only come out at Nathan's sufference. And Nathan, aiee, he is a complicated topic. There is little love between us, for reasons too complicated to get into now. And Betsy, no Kwannon, I have to keep them separate - she betrayed my trust in instructors, and I am slow to trust again."

"Pretty short list," Kitty said, frowning slightly. "I'm sorry for that. Which does rather just leave you the Professor, yes."

"Unless you can think of another functional psi who extends into the empathic ranges, it does indeed." he said with a sigh.

"No, but any of the teachers could be a supervisor for experimentation, couldn't they? I mean, just stuff like figuring out if you could feel emotions from objects and so on. There are a lot of things you could work on that wouldn't necessarily need a psi on hand."

"I tried that too." Manuel admitted. "With Alison. Which caused, in case you didn't know, Lorna to move out of their formerly shared suite."

"Do you still trust Al, then? You could work with her still." The Lorna thing wasn't really a consideration - other people would react the way they would react, but as long as the principles were comfortable, that was what mattered. Besides, both Lorna and Al were happy with their new 'suitemates'.

Manuel stopped to think about it. "I do, but I do not want to risk injuring her. We've done just about everything we could do save for empathic resonance off of objects that we can do without some sort of a governor."

"Hmm... Then I'm out of ideas." Kitty shrugged. "Sorry."

"Hey, at least you cared enough to _try_. That alone was worth it to me. Sometimes - no, strike that. Often, I think I'm the only one who does." he said.

She flashed him a smile. "Hey, I like being a sounding board for ideas and experiments and stuff. Any time you want, just ask."

Manuel struggled hard to avoid embarrassing himself with a display of emotion. "And I'd like to think you might even, possibly, remotely even give a shit about me as a person." he said quietly.

Surprise that he would even doubt it colored her mind. "Course I do," Kitty said, simply.

Manuel leaned over and kissed Kitty on her forehead. "Thank you for that." he said, clearly fighting back some emotion.

The idea that there would ever be question that people cared about someone hadn't really occurred to Kitty - it didn't fit with her world view - so she wasn't sure what had Manuel so off balance, but she wasn't going to push. "You're welcome," she said, simply, unwilling to brush off something that clearly meant a lot to him. "Um... movie?"

"Movie. Right. Sorry." he said, collecting himself to continue watching the film. "How does somebody so wonderful as you wind up with someone as spiteful as Jamie?" he asked after a few moments of watching Hobbits, Dwarves, and Men trod through Lothlorien.

Kitty managed not to sigh. She was fine with having friends who didn't like each other, but she generally avoided talking about them with each other. "I know you don't think so, but he really is wonderful. Good for me." There could be no doubt that she loved him, either, from what Manuel could feel from her.

"If you say so. You certainly feel good when you talk about him, but he does not treat me very well at all." Manuel commented. "And hey, that's a very, very pretty elf." he said, motioning vaguely towards Galadriel. "Are all the elves that hot?"

It wasn't her place to apologize for Jamie's behavior to Manuel, nor Manuel's to Jamie, so she skipped it. "Yes, pretty much. Although in a couple minutes she's gonna do this weird green skin thing which is far less attractive."

"I knew a girl with green skin once. She was very exotic." he said diplomatically. "Very, very enthusiastic." He waited for the weird green skin thing, and then shrugged. "That was a really nasty color of green." he said with distaste. "And I have seen some really nasty colors."

"Personally, I've got no problem with green. Miles is really cute. But yes, the green Cate Blanchet is definitely best described as nasty."

"Especially that shade of green. It makes me think she's jealous of somebody's success, and that jealousy is eating her alive." he said with a shudder that was only partly exaggerated. "Downside of being me - just about every color reminds me of a feeling."

"Definitely a down side," Kitty agreed. "In the book Galadriel's not quite so... well, not quite so off. Or maybe I just don't like Blanchet."

"I'd do her." he said, forgetting for a second who he was sitting here with. Then it hit him. "Oh, fuck. Sorry. That was rude of me." he said apologetically.

It was just such a boy thing to say. Kitty started laughing, almost falling over on the couch.

Manny grinned at her obvious mirth. "It's _true_! Of course, I'd also quite happily do Legolas, so I guess that makes me equal-opportunity, doesn't it." he said with a grin. "Amanda always thought that was cute." he said, and that put a wet blanket on his good mood quickly. "Wish I could tell her about it."

Kitty sobered up, straightening up in her seat. "Equal opportunity elf lover, noted. And I'm sure you'll get a chance." It was a given in her life, at least. People went away at really bad times and left you all alone, and then they came back when they wanted to. Which she was a little bitter about, but they did at least come back.

Manuel picked up on Kitty's feelings easily. "Sometimes they don't come back at all." he said, making an educated guess about where her thoughts were going. "My father won't be coming back. Not like Doctor Grey." he said, making _no_ attempt to hide his bitterness and jealousy. "WIsh I knew how she did it. I wish SHE knew."

Kitty was pretty ok with people being bitter about Jean's return, actually. "It's probably something to do with her powers," she said, shrugging. "But you're right, sometimes they don't come back." After all, his father was dead and normally that wasn't something you got better from. "Mostly, though."

Manuel sighed heavily. "Mostly." he agreed. "But I'm trying not to think about it tonight, lest I turn into a blubbering fool on you." he said bravely. "It's hard to let go of over two thousand years of history. Even if it was from the hated Romans. I do not believe I am related to Pontius Pilate, though, if that makes you feel any better. The Roman records are understandably quite spotty."

"I tend to avoid holding your ancestors against a person. After all, my ancestors killed Jesus." She could definitely understand not wanting to think about it all for a night. "

"No, that was mine. Please tell me _you_ of all people aren't swallowing the Big Lie about the Jews being the killers of Christ?" Manuel said with disgust. "And to think I kind of liked Judaism."

Kitty snorted. "No, course not. And, even if I were inclined to such a stupid view, the Pope took it back a decade or so ago."

"Fat lot of good that did when _my_ ancestors were hunting people down and burning them at the stake." he said with a shrug. "See, that's another thing I don't get. Where I grew up, family was a _huge_ deal. Very important. Here, no one cares, and I don't understand why."

"Because more often than not your blood family is less understanding, accepting or loving than the 'family' you choose for yourself." Not that Kitty was bitter or anything.

"I _still_ don't get that! That was Amanda's big hangup - choosing your own family." Manuel said with frustration. "That very phrase is nonsensical."

"Nah," Kitty said with a shrug, "just a very modern idea. The 'urban tribe' being the people you love, trust and understand most in the world, who takes care of its own, versus the nuclear family which is controling, stifling and likely to devolve at a moment's notice. Or at least at a moment's divorce proceedings."

Manuel smiled thinly at Kitty. "Ah, I can see why you are bitter. But might I remind you that you are not the only one who had their parents split up? My father poisoned my mother when I was fourteen." he said calmly. "So I know a thing or two about what you are feeling. That was what pushed my power to manifest itself."

Kitty stared at him in open astonishment, both at what he'd said and the manner in which he'd said it. It took her a few moments to find words to reply, and when she did it was simply, "What?"

Manuel nodded. "I could never prove it, and the anguish my mother's death caused me sent my power into overdrive." he said, still matter-of-factly. "And now it's quite irrelevant, as both of them are gone. I may have mentioned before that I am not like most of you here." he said with a wry grin. "I've been through a lot - my mother's murder, the asylum, Amanda, Columbia, all of it."

"I think many of us have been through a lot, but yeah, in a couple ways you're not quite like many of us. And in a lot of ways you are. For what it's worth, I feel for you and what you've had to go through."

Manuel looked at Kitty, and then smiled the first real smile he'd had in days. "Yes, I see that." he said with a grin. "Anyway - this is an interesting film. Too bad they shot the big guy full of arrows, eh?"

Kitty glanced back at the screen and realized that, indeed, Pippen and Merry had been dragged off already and Aragon was having a moment. She shrugged. "Boromir's a tragic figure," she told Manuel. "Almost entirely taken in by the ring's power, he redeems himself for his actions by his death in the service of the fellowship by trying to protect Merry and Pip. It's a theme thing."

Manuel hrmmed. "A steep price to pay." he said thoughtfully. "I wonder how he came to the decision to pay it, or if it was spontaneous?"

Kitty grinned. She didn't much care for literary theory, but there were some books she could talk about for hours, and the Lord of the Rings was definitely on that list. "Well..." she started as the credits began to roll across the screen.