xp_logs | Kyle & Dori: Mann's Chinese Theater and Pizza

Dori and Kyle go on a date in L.A. compare their hands and feet to the famous, take pictures, eat pizza and talk over the food.

After getting it styled, Dori had to admit that she didn't think the short hair was so bad. Especially in L.A.'s heat. Now she didn't have to have it in a high ponytail to keep her neck from catching fire. It was still hot, but the cold water she was sipping on helped a lot with that. The smell of people, smog and city was everywhere here. In the past few years though, L.A. had seemed less like home and more like where she went to visit her mom and grandpa.

But this place was still her favorite place ever. Street performers still lined it, posing for pictures with tourists as people snapped photos of the building itself: Mann's Chinese Theater.

"What do you think?" she asked her boyfriend, "Pretty awesome, huh?"

"Very cool." Kyle said, entirely honestly. It was pretty neat, and they'd done that tourist thing where you put your hands in the handprints of actors and compared. His were bigger than most. "Too bad all they're showing is that weird ass Johnny Depp vampire movie." It'd be kinda cool to see a movie in someplace this historic.

"Yeah. I mean, the TV show was okay, but I haven't heard anything good about the movie. When I was a kid, Dad used to take me here all the time," Dori said, without the insane amounts of sorrow and regret the thought used to bring up. It was just another part of her life now.

"Still don't know what to think of him trying to say Mom can't see Ryan anymore."

"Your dad caught a really bad case of dickhead to the brain." Kyle said, matter-of-factly. 'Sometimes it gets cured, sometimes it doesn't, but right now, he's a choad." He shrugged, and moved over to stand over the Harrison Ford star. "Sweet, my hands and feet are like bigger than Han Solo."

Dori snapped a picture of that, "That is so awesome - your hands and feet being bigger than Han Solo's," she said with a laugh, "And yeah he's really... it's weird. If we had eggs, I'd say we should go visit his office or something but that'd make stuff worse. Especially with that lawyer he has."

"Bet they're bigger than the dude who played Chewie too." Except that guy probably didn't have a star. Which sucked. Chewie was the man. "Sides, eggs are delicious. Way better in my mouth than on your dad's car or something." Kyle tilted his head, and then grinned. "Dude, lets find the Harry Potter kids one. I'll see if my hands are bigger than Harry Potter and do a handstand." And now the magical time where Kyle did his best to change the subject!

"You know how tiny Daniel Radcliffe is?" Doreen laughed, "I bet MY hands are bigger than his! So, what do you want to do after this? I know the most awesome pizza place ever," she didn't mention she used to go there with Julian all the time when they were in high school together. The high school wasn't a good memory -t he pizza however WAS.

"Yeah, but isn't the red-haired kid Molly's obsessed with like a billion feet tall?" Kyle said. "And I am totes up for whatever. Pizza, walking around LA, tourist stuff, whatever you wanna do." He had dragged her all over Montana and subjected her to His Parents, it was only fair.

"Which one is it she likes again? Because there's like ten million red haired people in those movies," she was partial to Fred and George personally, though Neville turned out to be so bad ass in the end, so she liked him too.

"Ron." Kyle said, as they wandered in that general direction. "One of the infinite number of Weaselys" Okay, that meant admitting he'd read all the books, and had a Pottermore account and owned all the movies, but whatever. It was Dori. She didn't care. "Personally, I am down with Remus. Remus is the man. He's my bro." He grinned at Dori, and then bent, planted his hands on the "Dan Radcliffe" star and flipped up so he was standing on his hands. "Picture!"

"Click!" Dori said, snapping the picture, "And Fred and George are totes the best. Well, and Dumbledore. Who is kinda like the Prof, isn't he?" Doreen said after thinking about it for a moment. Monkey Joe, who was riding on her head clicked his own thoughts on that. "You shut it. You totally broke your diet while we were gone."

"Minus all the hair, yeah, he basically is. But dude. Remus freaking Lupin." Kyle flipped back over and dusted his hands off on his jeans. "Sirius is a close second, but his actor gives me a wiggins. And dude, he was the same dude as in Fifth Element. What the actual hell, right? And he's Commisioner Gordon and Dracula. I am so weirded out by his like, range."

"He can do just about anything," Dori agreed with a nod, "It is really crazy to watch, but really cool in a crazy way which makes no sense at all, does it?" she said, thinking about it. "Lupin is an awesome character. In my head," and fanfic, "he totally didn't die at the end because that sucked so hard."

"Nobody died in the end. No one! Not even Snape." He'd just given up on any hope of ever being cool again. Screw it, this was more fun anyway. Besides, who was gonna say anything, Kyle thought. "Right, okay, now what do we do with ourselves? I think we're running out of actors to compare hands to."

"Let's go for pizza. The place I know... you can get Marshmallows on it. It's amazing. And everything else, you'll love it," Dori promised.

"I am not eating marshmallows on pizza." Kyle protested. "You can get all the weird crap you want, I am getting pizza with meat on it."

=

Of course, when confronted with a pizza that actually came with smoked salmon on it, Kyle gave in and went for weird anyway, and ended up with a seafood pizza. Calimari and salmon wasn't -that- weird after all. He picked a lingering piece of calamari off the plate and chomped on it with enthusiastic crunches before stretching out in the booth a bit more and making a full-belly-maybe-too-much-food groan. "Okay, you win. Best pizza ever."

"Told you so," Dori said happily around a mouthful of her side of pizza, "We used to come here all the time for birthdays and stuff," and then things had changed and it ended up being a rarer treat. "They put so many awesome things on the pizzas here."

"How you're not half turtle instead half squirrel, I do not know." Kyle said. "Is there a squirrel person in Ninja Turtles? I don't remember one but I missed a lot of cartoons growing up. Maybe your brother's gonna wake up half-turtle some day, and then your dad can REALLY lose his shit."

"Gee, I hope not. I don't want what happened to me to happen to Ryan. That whole experience sucked," Dori mused, but she had to giggle at the Ninja Turtle stuff, "And the rodent on their team was a rat - Splinter. Have you ever seen the movies? Those are good movies."

"Dude. Vanilla Ice was in one of those movies. Give me the original comics, or the cartoon, sure, but the movies are pretty lolarious." For the crime of reminding him of the turtle rap portion of one of those movies, Kyle confiscated one of Dori's pieces of garlic bread. "I still say your dad needs a kick in the balls. Which bee-tee-dubs, do you need me to sit on you about financial aid papers for this year or you got that done already?"

"Yeah, I'm working on it," Dori said, "But I need to claim Dad's income so I'm not going to get much this year later - if anything. Having to claim Dad's stuff sucks so much."

"Bleh. More student loans?" Kyle pulled a face, and dug a hand full of claws into the surface of the table. "Okay, we have -got- to figure out how to get that shit straightened out for you. Dude won't contribute, you shouldn't have to claim his income."

"Yeah, I know," Dori said, cheeks puffing out, "It doubly doesn't help that he makes so much money. I mean, when he lived at home I never really appreciated how much he made and now that I have to fill it into forms it's like WOW, you know? And he's starting to be a jerk to Ryan too, like threatening to cut him off like he did me if he doesn't dump his girlfriend and stuff."

"Bleh. Money." Kyle grunted. At least he had enough that he could cover travel and dates and such so Dori could use her money to pay for books and gas and food on campus. "Seriously, why does he have to be such a dick? You're his kid!" His claws made an ugly squeaking noise scraping across the table, and thankfully it was too hard for him to leave marks in it. "Jesus, at least mine didn't try to not claim me." Hell, his dad wasn't actually his biological father. "Right, change of subject before I hurt something, like this table or my hand or your dad's face."

"These tables are pretty indestructible. And if you really want to get back at him we can send him those photos we took in that boot at Disneyland," Doreen noted as to her dad's face, well, they wouldn't let them in the building or past reception. She knew that from experience, "But yeah, something else. Want to see Brave with me? That looks pretty cool."

Kyle considered this. "Double-feature we can see Men in Black 3 too? Because dude, Wil Smith." Plus movie time was long enough that then they could go get tacos, and he wouldn't feel all bloated from eating too much too fast. "I mean, dude. Wil. Smith."

"It's a date," Dori said happily.