2019-11-27 - Kindred Spirits

Summary:

Lydia and Kamala meet at a deli for the first time, and they hit it off swimmingly.

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Wed Nov 27 20:34:35 2019
Location: Katz's Delicatessen

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

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lydia-dietrichkamala-khan

Katz's Delicatessen is a little bit out of the way for lunch, but sometimes it's worth it to get yourself a good roast beef sandwich, Lydia decides. Wednesday afternoon the day before Thanksgiving isn't the busiest time for the shop, so the lines aren't as long and you can actually find a place to sit, especially if you're perpetually surrounded by a fine green glowing mist.

Lydia is dressed for warmth today. While the big winter storms have missed New York, it's still rather chill and windy. She's got a nice, fur lined tan coat that seems to be a bit oversized and goes down almost to her knees. Jeans, boots that go up to mid shin, and a beanie, which her unruly black hair kind of explodes from in a curly mess.

A pastrami on rye. It's to die for, really. And Kamala is hungry! While her family is preparing for the whole Thanksgiving thing in their own way, she wanted to just get out and get a sandwich. And some air. And away from said family for a bit. Especially when they started in on the whole 'why aren't you making straight As like your brother?' bit.

Because her brother doesn't sneak out to do super-stretchy super-heroing, that's why!

Dressed in a warm winter coat that's decorated with various super-hero patches, a Ushanka on her head, and a pair of warm leggings and boots, Kamala ducks into the deli and gives a wave to the staff.

"All the tables are full, you'll need to double up!" comes the call from the counter. Kamala pauses, and looks around.

"Uhm, okay!" She notices the girl sitting by herself, and even if she's glowing green, there's none else at her table, and that counts for a free space. Making her way through the tables, she arrives at Lydia's table and smiles warmly. "Hi. Do you mind if I join you? It's like a little not busy but still busy, you know?" she asks, and then pauses. Manners. Extending her hand, she offers it to Lydia. "I'm Kamala."

Lydia looks up from her sandwich (which she hasn't gotten to yet. She just finished her first Kosher pickle (they're so good she got two)) to look up at the girl who was brave enough to sit with her. She grins widely when a hand is thrust towards her. Most people wouldn't do that, so she likes this person already.

"Lydia," she says, taking the hand. Her ectoplasm leaves a cold, tingly, and slightly numbing feeling to the skin, like somebody had rubbed menthol over it. "Please! Join me. I enjoy the company. What did you end up with?" She asks, motioning to Kamala's sandwich.

Accepting the hand, Kamala shakes it and grins. "That's so cool. Literally and figuratively. Do you tingle all the time?" she asks curiously on the mist, looking at her own hand as it evaporates. The way that Kamala asks though makes her sound in slight awe, as if commenting on Lydia's manicure as she sets down the tray and drops into her seat. "The Ruben with extra kraut. It is /so good/." comes the admission as she gets out her napkin and a little hand sanitizer. Not for shaking Lydia's hand, it's a thing with her. After cleaning up her hands, she settles in across from Lydia.

"Escaping the parents? Or just up here on vacay or something?" is the next question, as she picks up her pickle to start tucking into it, the cup of iced tea set on the side.

Lydia doesn't look particularly perturbed at the sanitizer, and in fact looks pleased at Kamala's choice of sandwich. "Oooh. Rubens are so good here, too. I went hot roast beef today. Get a bit of cheddar on it, some horseradish and mmmm. It's good."

"Parents," Lydia says with a groan. "Well. Specifically my mother. She's the worst. I told her that I've got an exam coming up after Thanksgiving so I had to study extra hard today." She looks over her shoulders to make sure that nobody is listening in, and she leans over to whisper conspiratorially, "There isn't any test."

"Oh my gosh, /tell me about it/." Kamala responds, an eyeroll, but there is nothing but sympathy there. "My ammi got my report card and was all 'why are you making Bs when you should be making As, and I just could not deal right now. Oh, I love the French dip. With that au jus…" There's an mmming noise, but when Lydia's leaning in to share her secret, the young woman breaks into giggles.

"I should have said that! But she knows I'm on break, so that wouldn't fly, at all." comes her confession as she takes a bite of her sandwich, and closes her eyes, making a pleasured noise. "Then she's like 'we're inviting over this boy you haven't seen since you were five and you should show him around'." She blows out her breath. "Which is code for you're of age now, we're seeing if we have a suitable match for you to date and marry and.." she makes a face. "Ugh!" There's a roll of her eyes. "At least they only do this every once in a while."

Lydia's eyes go wide, "It's as if you're talking about my mother. I'd never hear the end of it if I got anything lower than a 4. GPA. I have to be the perfect little daughter for her, and her idea of perfect is a loooooot different than what I wanted. At least I got to choose my own major."

She sighs and nods at Kamala's lamenting about being hooked up with a boyfriend. "I'm lucky that she hasn't done that to me this year. Yet. But think of it this way: The boy you get hooked up with probably doesn't want this as much as you do."

"One time," she says waving her last pickle in the air to punctuate her sentences, "I relented and went out on a date with this boy just to get my mom to shut up. He was so relieved that I went on that date because his mom was just as bad as mine, 'cause it turned out he was gay. We decided to go out and watch a horror movie together so that we could kill some time. I ended up 'dating' him for a good six months to give him some space from his family until he could come out to them."

She takes a bite out of her pickle, finally. "We're still friends today, and he's got this really cute boyfriend now. I'm really happy for him."

"I know that, and you know that. But our parents? You know how that is." A sympathetic ear, how much Kamala has needed this? She sinks in her seat in utter relief. "Right? Because they want us to have these great grades and get great careers, and then marry someone they approve of and then totally stop everything you want to do in order to become a baby factory." she grumbles at that as she listens to the story.

When Lydia finishes, Kamala gives her applause, her smile absolutely warm. "That's /awesome/!" she admits with a sigh, sitting up again so she can sip at her tea and then turns her attention to the mist that surrounds Lydia. "When did that happen?" she asks curiously. Not that she has any fear of what Lydia has. Especially as she leans in. Because now it's her turn to share a secret.

Looking around, she puts her hand on the table. And then after a soft concentration, the hand glows yellow, and expands.

"Fifteenth birthday. Right in the middle of my birthday party. Scared the heck out of everybody there," answers Lydia. "Turns out I can do all sorts of things with it." In demonstration she extends the mist of ectoplasm to surround her silverware and they float up and twirl around.

Her eyes go wide again at Kamala's embiggening and she grins. "That's neat, too! Are you a mutant like me?"

When Lydia starts floating the silverwear, Kamala's eyes widen. "Okay. That's probably really awesome at Halloween. And if you just don't feel like getting out of bed and the phone is jussst out of reach." Giggling, she shrinks her hand back to normal. But then the question of if she's a mutant or not comes up.

And it gives her pause. She considers, drawing in her breath. "I don't know what I am." she admits. "There was this strange mist.. and it changed me. Someone else had it happened to them, and she said it was some type of alien DNA." She frowns at that. "I mean, I'd be okay with being a mutant. The not knowing part? That's disconcerting." she admits as she looks at the sandwich and starts to work on it again.

"I was at a party too when it happened to me. Not a brithday party. Just a high school party. And there was drinks and stuff, and they tried to get me to drink and.. it got weird."

Lydia scowls. "That's not cool. If you don't want to drink then you don't want to drink. Nobody should be forced into it," she says. "I've tried a beer once myself and… well… I didn't like it at all. That's the most I've ever drank. Thor offered me some Asguardian wine but… it wasn't kosher. I would have tried that."

She sits back, and thoughtfully chews on a bite of her sandwich. "Alien, hunh? I mean. That's cool, too. I know a couple of people who might be able to help? When I first got my powers, my mom took me to every doctor and specialist in the greater New York area (and then some) to see if there was a 'cure' to it. I got to know some of those people pretty well."

"My parents don't know yet…" Kamala admits quietly. "…and I don't really want to tell them." There's a bit of a pleading look in her eyes as she looks up to Lydia and she reaches to take Lydia's hands to get her to agree to this. Because it's as if they are already best friends, and there's no telling if she'd tell her mom or not! But she's already trusting Lydia with one thing, then she is totally derailed.

"You met Thor?!" she asks with wide eyes and she releases the other woman's hands. "I totally wrote a fanfic once that Thor had gotten amnesia and ended up touring with a hair band from the 80s. I never published that one. Cause Thor playing guitar?" she giggles at that.

Lydia squeezes Kamala's hands and assures her, "I won't tell anybody. I would have kept mine a secret too if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a walking glow stick."

At the mention of fanfic Lydia's cheeks color. "Oh man. I'd love to read that one. I write a lot of fanfic myself, but mostly based off of supernatural TV shows and movies. Like Twilight. I used to write a looooooooot of Twilight fanfiction." She takes another bite of her sandwich. "I've even self published a couple of my fics, too! Eventually I'm going to have some of my original works published."

"I totally write superhero fanfic. I used to do some heavy duty shipping when I first started.." Kamala blushes at that, glancing down at her sandwich and takes a bite. "..then I realized that well.. like, my favorite subject is totally dating someone of the same sex, and it made me change everything. Especially since.." she trails off at that, shaking her head.

"So I mainly write action and adventure stuff these days. And like.. alternate universe things." she admits with a smile as she grins up at Lydia. "Sure you didn't have a boyfriend?" comes the playful tease and a wink as she works on her sandwich. "Do you go to college here? Or still in high school?"

Lydia blushes some more at the mention of a boyfriend, and shakes her head. "No, I'm not really interested in boys," she admits. "Which is ironic since I mostly wrote romantic kind of stuff." She shakes her head, "I didn't really discriminate who I paired off. Boy/boy, girl/girl, boy/girl I wrote it all, just… whatever made sense to me in my headcanon."

She points in the general nort-western direction and says, "I'm going to NYU to finish my Bachelors in English. I don't know what I'm going to do with it but it beats going to law school, which is what my Mother wanted."

"Yeah. Not really into boys either." Kamala admits with a shrug. "Now if this sandwich was alive…" that's offered in a playful tone, then her attention drifts back to the woman and then she ohs. "I go to ESU. Haven't figure out what I want to do yet… but what is it with mothers wanting us to be doctors, right? I guess they want us to be able to take care of the babies."

She grins again and works on her sandwich, polishing off the last bite. "I mean, even with the mist, it's like.. an air of mystery with you. Already attractive." That's said in a way that's not really flirting, just pointing out that Lydia is kinda cute.

Lydia just blushes even harder at being called cute. "I…." she stammers, "I…. Thank you. Nobody's really said that to me before," she admits. "It's… it's not something that I ever really considered, you know? I always thought this," she says waving a hand into her ectoplasmic mist, "would just scare people away too much."

Considering, Kamala glances at Lydia, then raises a dark brow. "Looks at it this way. There's a whole world out there with mutants, right? With like wings. Or tentacle faces. Or just weird skin. I mean, I look normal, but I can totally make myself bigger or smaller and stuff. You have cool ectoplasmic telekentic stuff. It's not telepathic too, is it?" she asks suddenly, realizing that if she could..

"I'm not scared of it. I think it's kinda neat. Like your hair." Shrugging her shoulders afterwards, there's a warm smile at Lydia. "But hey, it helps with the mom not setting you up thing, right?"

Lydia shakes her head, "No, it's not telepathic. At least. I don't think so. I've never tried reading anybody's mind with it." Her lips purse into a moue of thoughtfulness. "I don't think I even want to read people's minds. It seems invasive and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what goes on in people's heads."

Lydia groans and rolls her eyes, a hand reaching up to self consciously twiddle one of her curls. "It doesn't stop her from trying, though. She does it less ever since I left home to go to school at the Institute, but she hasn't completely stopped."

"If I didn't go home every couple of weeks, my parents would panic and put out an APB and then I do go home for the weekend and it's all smothering.." Kamala sighs and lifts her tea for a sip, reaching up with her free hand to show off some of her hair. "Straight as a board. It'd take an act of congress to get it to curl, I think." she admits with a laugh, "But we totally should exchange numbers and stuff and hang out again. Maybe see a movie or something…"

Then she pauses, realizing what that sounds like.

Lydia grins hugely. "I'd love that," she says, missing the connotations. She pulls out her phone so they can exchange numbers. "I'm also LydiaOhLydia on AO3 if you want to read anything I've done. Even the embarrassing stuff I wrote when I was 13."

"I'm KhantStopThis." Kmala responds with a grin in response to Lydia, as she exchanges numbers and emails with Lydia. "I totally have my own embarassing fanfics there. And it's clear I'd never dated if you read them." Now it's her turn for her dark cheeks to warm in a blush. "But we'll totally have to figure out what we're gonna go see and do!"

Lydia finishes up her sandwich, "Well, we've got each other's numbers, so we have time to figure that out. There's always something doing in the city, you know?" She takes a moment to tidy up her area. "It was really good meeting you! I'm glad I've found a kindred spirit in so much!"

"I know, right. I totally look forward to hanging out with you again!" Because hanging out with other heroes is fun. But just.. hanging out with a friend? More acceptable. "Call me when you want. We can natter or just hang out. Like you said.. there's a lot to do!" Kamala smiles beautifically at Lydia and then pauses. "Can I hug you? Because this totally seems like a hugging moment."

"You can totally hug me," Lydia says, standing up to do the said hugging. She trying to keep herself from crying, since she hasn't really been hugged in years. Her powers put people off, with the whole numby tingly thing going on with it.

"You can totally hug me," Lydia says, standing up to do the said hugging. She trying to keep herself from crying, since she hasn't really been hugged in years. Her powers put people off, with the whole numby tingly thing going on with it.

"You can totally hug me," Lydia says, standing up to do the said hugging. She trying to keep herself from crying, since she hasn't really been hugged in years. Her powers put people off, with the whole numby tingly thing going on with it.

Kamala is totally a hugger. And Lydia better get used to if they're gonna be friends. Standing up and straightening herself out, the young woman steps up to the smaller one and slips her arms around Lydia's shoulders to pull her into an embrace. Her fingers close her coat to give her an affectionate squeeze, pressing to her, despite all the tingly feels that she puts out, Kamala just starts to laugh. "It tickles a little." she admits to the other girl.

Lydia laughs with Camala, "Yeah, doesn't it? I feel it too." That is not something she likes to admit, but it just kind of slipped out. It feels like the kind of thing she can share with her new friend. "Okay. I should head out and do some 'studying.'" You can almost hear the air quotes. "I'll catch you later?"

Stepping back from Lydia, Kamala catches her hands and gives her a quick squeeze before she's watching the mist disappate around her. "Yeah. I'm gonna go back home and hope things have cooled down a little and I can survive the latest round of 'you made /what/ in science?'." she says and with a last glance over her shoulder, she gives Lydia a wink. "Til next time!"

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