Kevin & Nico - Waffles & Talk

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Kevin drags Nico to Waffle House. Waffle antics and conversation ensues.

Backdated to Friday 20


Eating always came first at the Waffle House. That could have just been Kevin's stomach talking, though. The fact that he'd gotten waffles and an omelet had more to do with Kevin being a guy with a very typical metabolism than any weird mutant metabolism, which he largely lacked. He wasn't exactly sure if Nico's impressive array of waffles were for the same reason. She looked pretty damn happy from the syrup rush, though.

"Can I get you guys anything else?" the waitress asked with a hopeful voice as she came to clear some empty dishes from their table. The only response from Kevin was a questioning look shot in Nico's direction.

Nico's mutation didn't demand large amounts of food; it was all her own appetite. Perhaps it was the fact she had been unconsciously neglecting a proper dish for the last days. So once she had sat, Nico had realized just how hungry she was, and at least this time she was happy to satiate that hunger.

Looking up to the waitress, she gave the question a second. "Just a refill please?" she asked as she pointed at the soda, already empty for the third time. She was going to take over a bathroom sooner or later, but for the time being? Happy waffle times. "You good?" Nico asked as she turned towards Kevin.

Kevin turned to the waitress and nodded. "Ah'm good here." When he looked back over to Nico he was wearing a damn amused expression. "You're gonna bounce off the walls in like twenty minutes from all the sugar and Ah'm gonna deny any involvement in you getting that way. Just so you know."

Nico stuck her tongue out at Kevin before taking a mouthful of waffle. A sugar high would be much appreciated at that moment. "I don't care. As long as I don't get any crazy ideas like trying to break into the kitchen or something around those lines, you are free to just sit and enjoy the show." She wasn't going to make that much of a show anyway. "Goodness, it's been way too long since the last time I ate so much, and willingly, and waffles."

"You got into the habit of eating unwillingly?" He arched an eyebrow. How did you unwillingly eat? "Is Julian secretly a feeder? Like, he gets off on feeding his girlfriend? 'Cause that's creepy. Ah'm pretty sure even on the kinky spectrum that's creepy. You should swap him out for a less creepy model. Or just punch him maybe." Kevin maybe enjoyed that image too much. He even liked Julian alright. There was just something about the poor rich kid schtick that Kevin couldn't get into. Probably since his own parents were dead so he couldn't worry too much over being temporarily disowned. Such a small problem in the grand scheme of things.

Nico almost chocked on the current waffle-victim of her hunger. "Wh-what!? What are you talking about...I meant that it's been a while since I decided to eat a lot. Which is different from, say, going to a dinner and realizing you have to go through seven courses before the main dish, and you have to out of manners." Her dad had taken her to a couple of those meals. "Besides...me and Julian are no longer together." Nico made a face, lifting another waffle. "I broke it off."

"Oh." Now he felt like an ass. She didn't seem heartbroken about it and she was the one who called it off so maybe she wasn't. Still. He felt like an ass. "Sorry, Ah didn't know. Ah was just kiddin' and stuff since you said you hadn't willingly eaten so much. That's all." He shoved a larger forkful of omelet into his mouth than was really wise so he would have something to occupy his mouth other than his foot.

The best Nico could muster was a sad little smile. "I'm acting like I don't care, but I didn't have that goth panda epiphany until after seeing me in the mirror with enough makeup to paint the mansion." And she really looked like a Black Sabbath wannabe gone wrong, so, so wrong. "I...my powers got in the way. Again. I almost killed him." She stabbed a waffle with a little too much killing intention. "Again."

"Ooooh." The weird powers stuff. Kevin hadn't taken her up on the challenge to see who could decay something faster yet, but he knew her powers were a little too much like his own now. He wouldn't have wished that on anyone, not even someone he didn't like. "How do they work? Ah mean, is it a contact thing? If it's a contact thing is it a skin contact thing?" He held up a gloved hand and wiggled his fingers. "Got some experience workin' 'round the whole 'Ah kill what Ah touch' thing."

"Nah, I don't even need to touch anything. I just have to be around to do my thing." She sighed, and then resumed her eating. Only after the waffle was long gone did she decide to speak again. "I just...see, or smell energy, and then I take it. Just...suck it out of whatever I latch to." She tried to sound cool, but the bitterness was showing up again. "Sorry, I'm not trying to get all emo on you."

Kevin shrugged. "It's cool. Ah did the emo thing hardcore for a while. Ah earned my doom cloud, ok? Named 'im Fred and everything." Which was a little awkward when he considered the FBI agent he was dealing with at the time was named Fred Duncan and Kevin had been in FBI custody when he had named his doom cloud. "So until you get a handle on it basically everything's at risk? Everything's a danger if you get...hungry, Ah guess? In an energy sorta way? Or is that not what triggers it?"

Against her best attempts to remain sullen, Nico smirked a little. "I don't think I have a doom cloud. I have a doom werelight though? She's Mia, by the by." That had to count for something right? "It's not that I can't control it...well, not all the time. It demands a bit of constant focus, like consciously holding something on your hand? So if you fall asleep you drop it." Sure, there were ways around that issue with an actual object you had to hold, but it was a good example in her opinion. "In my case...falling asleep is simply getting too distracted to think clearly, or getting too relaxed and start thinking I can control it perfectly." At that point she blushed a little; even if it had ended horribly, she had enjoyed that last time with Julian.

His remaining omelet was taking his attention away from the blush or why it may have been there. He probably didn't want to know anyway. She didn't look nearly embarrassed enough for the blush to be for that. "Ah get that. Ah can't really let my guard down either. It's not really an off or on thing for me, though. It's just there and since Ah can't control it being on or off Ah've gotten control everything else. Like how close people get and knowing where everyone is and havin' a real good grasp of spatial awareness so Ah know just how close someone can get before Ah gotta take a step back. Or knowing the almost exact proportions of someone's face if Ah wanna kiss them. Stuff just gets...complicated in ways you're used to them not bein'."

"I get it...but is not just that. It's magic; it messes with everything." She took a moment to order her ideas, because she was more likely going to confuse him if she didn't put it clearly. "A mutant power, when under control, can be used when the mutant wants, right? Even in your case, you are not forced to decay stuff if you don't want to. Magic...has to be used. The energy I take is converted into magic based energy, and it builds up over time, until I have more than my natural reserve's limits. So I, let's say, leak. That's a bad thing." It meant her particularly dark and dangerous magic could accidentally react to her emotions of thoughts and hurt others, or just make a mess.

"At the same time," she said as she waited for the waitress to leave her soda and leave. "I can't just neglect it, because a part of me needs to feed on energy on a regular basis. It's like food, but I also need food." Nico sipped some of her cold soda, giving Kevin a thoughtful stare. "No rest for the wicked."

"You never knew Nori but her mutation was like." She was the first person had thought of when Nico had mentioned her natural reserves getting overflowed. "She sorta absorbed electricity. She went sorta literally crazy if she didn't expend it and let it keep building. She ran a lot to work off the energy and she'd unleash her built up electricity in the danger room. Ah know magic ain't exactly the same, but can you do something like that? Find a way to safely sorta let it out every day so even though it builds you deplete it back down?"

Judging by Nico's face, Kevin could have just called her and idiot. "What do you think I've been doing since freaking day one? The problem comes from the fact I can drain just about all the energy I want as long as there is something to drain around, even if it's more than I need, and even if I'm already on that sort of balance I strive to keep." She shook her head in exasperation. "This hunger for energy might as well be infinite. Sure, storing far more than I need or can use will probably make me go crazy, but in the end I'll just expel it all and hurt whoever is around." She shrugged. "I'm helpless on that matter."

That look she gave him had Kevin's hands up in a gesture of surrender for a moment. "Ah didn't mean you weren't doin' anythin'. Ah was just wonderin' if it would help. You keep drainin' like a binge eater, right? But releasing it on your own when you can control where it goes or what it does doesn't help? You drain and drain, right? Until you're full or overcapacity or somethin'? Releasin' it on your own more often don't help?"

"It's complicated." And she was repeating herself now. She lowered her glare, since it didn't help to blame Kevin for anything anyway. "There is a point, of course, when I'm on balance with what I have drained and what I have released. Right now, for example, I'm alright. But at the same time, I'm holding it back, because I could still turn everyone in this place to dust if I wanted to. So it's just a matter or learning how to live with this...power of mine."

"You'll figure it out," Kevin told her with some confidence. "The more dangerous you are to people you don't want to hurt the more you'll work to find a way to keep them safe. That's how it went for me anyway. That's how it is for 'Vette. S'not the same thing, Ah know, but the in the end the results the same. You mess up and someone gets hurt. 'Vette messes up and someone gets sliced up. Ah mess up and someone gets mummified at best and loses an arm or worse at the worst. In the end, we mess up and other people pay the price. Usually makes people more dedicated to figurin' out how to stop it from happenin'. You're dedicated, so you'll figure it out sooner than later. Might not be easy, but you'll figure out a way."

There was no point on answering that with a sad face, was it? All had been said already, and Nico didn't feel like going emotional on Kevin. She had gone emotional over almost everything in her room already, so there was no need. Nico closed her eyes for a moment, just focusing on her breath, and the hummed a little as she opened them again, fork attacking another waffle. "Well, I better, because if I get kicked out of the mansion I won't be able to have you drag me here again."

The Southerner was suddenly wearing a wounded expression. "Then Ah'd be down a waffle house girlfriend. Ah'd only have my backup girlfriend left." He stared at her with wide eyes, his expression one bordering scandal. "What kinda waffle pimp would Ah be if Ah only had one girlfriend?"

Nico had the decency of chewing her waffle before answering. Pointing the fork at Kevin, she grinned evilly at him. "A very lousy Waffle Pimp, I must say. Lucky you, I'm not planning on resigning the girlfriend position anytime soon, so don't sweat it." The grin remained as she sipped some soda. Evilly, of course. It waned a bit once she was done though. "Thanks for taking me out, though. I think I needed this. Badly. You even dealt with my drama, and I don't know what kind of drama you are in. So if you want to share, don't be afraid of being a drama llama at me."

"Ah really feel more kinship with camels, really," he told her quite seriously. "Llama's just aren't really awkward enough for me to relate to. Might be the lack of humps. Ah feel like Ah'm a hump kinda guy." His expression started to crack a bit, a corner of his mouth twitching with the strain not to smile. He used drinking as a way to try to maintain his composure but quickly after he lost it and the smile slid onto his face. "It's cool. You seemed sorta cooped up. And Ah don't have any drama, really."

"Damn, I didn't know you were into camels. Need to write this down for later usage." Camel-related jokes would be a must later now. "And no drama? Man, that's either a very good thing, or a very bad one. I hope you are in the first group, though." Nico considered there was enough drama in the mansion already, so why add more? "So, feel like returning your Pimp headquarters now?"

Kevin shrugged and pulled out a few bills for the check. He was pretty sure he'd done the mental math accurately but threw down an extra ten just in case. "Pretty sure Ah'm in the first group. Ah don't hang around enough people to get into drama." He stood and gestured with a bit of a flourish for her to go ahead of him. Normally he'd offer his hand when being stupid like this but he thought maybe contact wasn't a great idea with her awesome death powers even if they didn't require touch like his. "My Pimp Pad awaits. Unless you don't feel like goin' back yet. In that case there are endless back roads and many music stations you can be in charge of," he offered with a grin.