Email to Amanda

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

To: [trouble]
From: [ornery old man]
Subject: last night



Feel like I owe you... an apology? An explanation? Maybe both? I was quite comprehensively freaked out last night. Wanted to talk to someone but didn't want that someone to be anywhere near me--hell, I upset Moira because I wound up in the 'don't touch me' headspace again. It took Charles the better part of an hour to help me pull myself together.

I just don't want you to think it was you. Okay, so maybe it was you in the sense that I really didn't want you to see me fall apart but that's a stupid pride thing. I'm male, remember? Can't help myself sometimes...

As for what happened... the thing I was working on for Pete is... a summary, I guess, of what I remember from the years I spent working for my former employers. I had to start at the beginning, obviously, which meant going over that first year I was there, when I was being conditioned. Thought I was doing pretty well and keeping it all at emotional arm's length but I guess my subconscious had other ideas.

There was... a girl, one of the other candidates. She and I were in cells next to each other and we used to talk through the ventilation shaft. She was a little older than I was, and pretty tough. She used to tell me to stay strong and we'd make it through, but she didn't wind up making it through the conditioning herself. The dream I had was about the night she died... she told me she wasn't there anymore, then I felt her mind disintegrating...

I'm just really sorry, Amanda. Feel free to call me a big fat hypocrite the next time I tell you not to do the pushing-away thing?

Nate

Comments

No explanations needed

[xp_daytripper]

To: [old man]
From: [trouble]

Hey, I get you. I figured you needed to talk it out, but I didn't think you wanted to do that on the journals, and you know me, I prefer face to face to the whole writing thing any way. Which is why I offered to come find you. And you really weren't keeping me awake - I really had been working on something and wasn't a bit sleepy. Certain spells tend to make me a bit wired, or make for bad sleep if I don't wind down first.

And the rest explains it. I did end up talking to Homily last night, and she told me there are some things stronger than the potion - the stuff you've been digging up is bigger than what herbs can handle, and it's bound to give you nightmares. If it gets too bad and you start going crazy from lack of sleep again and don't want Moira's drugs, I can hit you with the sleep spell - last resort, mind. I can't control how long you're out with that.

Thanks for telling me now. I mean, you didn't have to, you could just have left it as 'bad memories' and I would have been all right. It's good to know that you trust me with the truth, even tho' I don't know what to say. Except there are some fucking bastards in the world. Seems like people have no end of ways of dicking with each other, and just when you think it can't get worse... I just hope this thing you're doing with Pete helps in the long run.

Don't worry about the pushing away - sometimes you have to. I'll try and be better at picking up the hints next time and just email you instead. I can be a bit dense sometimes. *wry grin* But you owe me one lecture-free pushing away, all right?

A.