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Wanda and Lydia, Oct 26
The girls spend a Sunday afternoon shopping and discussing their futures.
She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but the place was sprawling. Composed of several rooms, each with a different sort of theme, containing everything from chairs and tables to glassware to purses--with an entire basement floor full of clothes and shoes they'd let to come near. Lydia was in absolute heaven, and the genuine smile on her face showed it. She pulled out an adorable bag and-- "Oh, god, my puppy would fit in here so perfectly." She sighed a little.
"You have a puppy?" Wanda glanced over at her with a small smile, abandoning the small rack of shirts she'd been poking absently through. "What kind?"
"A papillion," Lydia said with a rare but very real wistful sigh. "Prada. One extra inconvenient thing about living at the school..."
"Your dog is named Prada?" Wanda gave a little laugh before she could stop herself. "That's adorable."
"She's a little princess, so it seemed to fit." Lydia pulled out a beaded handbag--which was beautiful but slightly beaten up in one corner. She frowned at it. "Can't imagine where she got it."
Wanda laughed again and drew up next to her. "Too bad they don't let us keep pets at school."
"We have to make do with the boys." Lydia sighed. Then shot Wanda a look, still picking at the beading in irritation. "Are you dating anyone? You've never mentioned."
"What?" Wanda shot her a quick, startled look and grinned. "Oh, no. I think you'll know if I do. Pietro's screams will probably be audible throughout the state."
Lydia knew precisely nothing about Pietro, except that he liked glitter, had a beautiful boyfriend, was loved by Betsy, hated by Jean-Paul, and possibly an object of some confusion to Arthur. She cocked her head curiously. "Over-protective brother? Is he older--by minutes?"
"Younger, actually," Wanda said, and laughed. "Not that he'll ever admit it. Over-protective, though, definitely." From the fond look on her face, it was clear she didn't mind too much.
"I could see how that would be kind of cute," Lydia admitted. Though she resented the hell out of anyone attempting to control her... she could see the appeal in someone caring enough to put up a fight. In the appropriate measure, anyhow. "At least, until you do find someone you want to date. Then it might get a lot less cute quickly."
"Oh, it won't stop me. He'd probably deserve it too, considering what he's been up to here," Wanda said with a wider grin. "He'll just be dramatic for a while, I'm sure."
"And I'm sure we'll all hear about it," Lydia agreed with a little smirk. "You're right though--he's built himself a fine glass house, there. It'll probably be satisfying when it shatters."
"Very likely. I'm not in any particular hurry, though," Wanda said with a small shrug. "Or more, I haven't found any reason for it yet."
"Hardly a day goes by when I wish I hadn't," Lydia said with a little snort. Then she held up the handbag. "This is so annoying. It's beautiful but kind of busted there, see? Don't suppose you know how to fix beading?" The look on her face said that was just absurd, obviously.
"You do?" Wanda gave her a curious look, though she allowed herself to be distracted by the bag. "I don't know," she said after studying it for a moment, slightly doubtful. "I might be able to fake something similar, if that would be good enough."
Lydia's eyebrows went up. "It'd be amazing. Could you really?"
She had more to say on the subject of her wishes in re dating, but back to that in a moment. This was an interesting discovery--though in retrospect she shouldn't have been surprised--the girl made all those lovely costumes for the shows, after all.
"Well, I won't make any promises," Wanda said, holding her hand out for the bag so that she could take a closer look, "but I think so."
Lydia handed it over. "I should've thought to ask you. The costumes always look way better than they should for a high school production--and I'll bet you do the costumes for you and your brother too, don't you?"
"Usually," Wanda agreed with a smile as she ran her fingers thoughtfully over the damaged beading. "And thank you. Some of it's still beyond my skill level, but I can fake it."
"The older I get, the more convinced I become that most of adult-hood is literally just faking it," Lydia said. Then she cocked her head. "What about next year? I mean, are you going into fashion, or mathematics, or...?"
Wanda paused and glanced away from the bag long enough to give her a rueful look. "Honestly? I have no idea. It's not that I haven't thought about it, I just...don't really know."
"There's time." Lydia shrugged. "If nothing else, you could help teach at the school for a year or two. But if you can manage beadwork anything like that, maybe a little fashion side-business wouldn't be a bad plan, either." She grinned, lips pursed firmly together.
"I'd never even thought about it," Wanda said, sounding thoughtful. "I mean, I guess I could. But it's always been more of a hobby."
"That could be either a reason to do it, or a reason not to do it," Lydia mused. "Your mother's a writer thought, right? And your father was an artist?" So clearly, she was from an environment that meant work didn't have to destroy love.
"Sculptor," she agreed, even if it still gave her a small pang to think about him. It was getting easier, though. "And you're right. I should at least consider it."
"Applying for colleges this winter?" Lydia asked, already going through the racks again for another bag. Well, she'd need one--it'd take Wanda a while to replicate that one, after all. "There are some incredible design schools in New York, if you wanted to stick around."
"It will depend on what Pietro wants to do," Wanda said immediately, then paused. Sticking together was always going to be her first instinct, but it wasn't really just the two of them any more, was it? Pietro might have been making his own plans. It made her frown slightly for just a second before the expression cleared. "I mean, at least in part."
Lydia was both intrigued and vaguely concerned by this response. She turned all of her attention from bags to Wanda. "Why do you say that? Do you two have some business scheme or... something?"
"Oh...no, nothing like that," Wanda said, shifting just a little as thought it had just occurred to her the idea might be strange. "We just tend to do things together, is all."
Lydia cocked her head slightly. She had, of course, previously noticed the closeness between the Maximoffs. It was sweet, in a way, but at times like these... she wasn't so sure. Still, knowing how important it was to Wanda, she was careful to look as non-judgey as possible, which was no small feat for Lydia. "Why?"
One little word, but it made Wanda go completely still. It wasn't something she ever thought about, the whys of it. It was just what they did, the two of them. It was who they were.
"We always have," she said finally, not quite looking in Lydia's direction, though at least she had plenty of other things to focus on. "It was just the two of us for a long time."
Lydia nodded thoughtfully. If it were someone else, someone she didn't like quite as much as Wanda, she would've been blunter. But since she did like Wanda--and quite a lot--she decided to find out what was going on here from the ground up. No point giving advice that wasn't remotely on point just because she had an opinion... as much as she might like to. "You know, I never really thought about it, with you two, just because your father seems to do pretty well. But you didn't know him until you were older, right?"
"We only met him a few years ago," Wanda said with a ghost of a smile. It seemed odd to talk about it so easily, considering what an absolute mess it had been at the time. "He's been very good to us, considering."
"He does seem, you know. The right amount of involved." Too much parental involvement was not something Lydia was remotely familiar with, but she'd heard horror stories, anyhow. "But before that...? You were with your mother but it was... rough?"
"Our parents -- adopted parents," Wanda clarified with a small grimace, but in that context it was necessary, "were lovely, but we grew up pretty poor. And then our father died. And then there was a...house fire. We lost everything. It wasn't a good few years." And understatement to say the least, but if Wanda was going to talk about it at all, she had to put at least some distance behind it.
Honestly, Lydia wouldn't have guessed; the Maximoffs didn't dress or act like they had money, but they didn't let on much at all either way. Especially Wanda, who had a natural, quiet kind of elegance about her, as opposed to her brother's unfortunate affection for trashy-glam.
She nodded at this intelligence, filing it away. "Makes sense, then. You both probably had to grow up a lot faster than most kids. Then with the whole mutant thing..." Lydia gave a short shrug. "Most Xavier's kids had their childhoods interrupted."
But they'd had each other, and Lydia now understood a little better where Wanda's, well, attachment was coming from.
"It does seem common," Wanda agreed with a ghost of a smile. "Unfortunately. But maybe it's necessary for us to be able to deal with what we can do. Making sure we're at least heading in the direction of mature enough to handle it before it even starts." Honestly, she had no idea. But things could have been so much worse if she hadn't started out knowing just how dangerous she could be.
"Built in maturity test," Lydia mused with a faint smile on her face, the bags totally forgotten, now. Which was saying something because, well, shopping. Bags. "So--I think the point I was getting at is that you and your brother have always done things before, and you're planning to continue doing them together in the future, yeah?" For once, no judgment. It... was weird, honestly, but when Lydia actually thought someone had a brain, she could trust them to make their own decisions.
Wanda nodded slowly, though she looked a little far away. "That was the idea. Or, I guess that's always been the idea, so I assumed it would continue like that." But things were different now, weren't they? There were other people to think about.
Setting aside the new bag, but letting Wanda keep the one in her hands (Lydia would buy it for an example), Lydia took her friend by the arm and started wandering the place slowly as they talked. "Do you want them to?" she asked.
Personally, she didn't get it--being so dependent on someone else for anything would drive Lydia up the damn wall. But on the other hand, she'd never had anyone so dependable as Pietro clearly was for Wanda... even if she found it hard to envision the little brat as anything like, the proof was here. So she wasn't entirely judgy on the subject, either, as she'd half expected to be.
Hell, it'd be nice to know there was someone to rely on, like that. Someone who wouldn't take what they knew and use it against you, no matter what.
"We're always going to be close, I think," Wanda said with a very small shrug. It wasn't quite an answer, but it was the only one she could give without doing a lot of thinking on the issue. And probably a long conversation with her brother.
In the end, she just shot a smile Lydia's way. "But I have time to consider everything. Almost a year, really. A lot of things might happen before that."
Lydia raised both eyebrows, letting Wanda know that the non-answer had been noted. "True. And you must have options to consider, anyhow, between now and then, right?"
"More than I know what to do with," Wanda agreed just a little dryly. "What about you? Are you going to stay with the school?"
Lydia shook her head. "I don't think so. There's too much else to do without teaching on my plate, and without that, there's no reason to stay in the building.
"Plus, I really need a bigger closet."
"And maybe a break from high schoolers?" Wanda gave her a knowing look, for all that there was more than a little teasing in it.
Lydia smirked slightly--which was mainly a pursing of the lips, but accompanied my a crinkling of the eyes that showed true amusement. "I admit there's a certain allure to that. Though college students aren't a lot better to live with, if my little, disused apartment is any indication.
"Definitely need my own place. For me and Prada."
"Of course," Wanda agreed with a wider smile. "For Prada, if nothing else."
She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but the place was sprawling. Composed of several rooms, each with a different sort of theme, containing everything from chairs and tables to glassware to purses--with an entire basement floor full of clothes and shoes they'd let to come near. Lydia was in absolute heaven, and the genuine smile on her face showed it. She pulled out an adorable bag and-- "Oh, god, my puppy would fit in here so perfectly." She sighed a little.
"You have a puppy?" Wanda glanced over at her with a small smile, abandoning the small rack of shirts she'd been poking absently through. "What kind?"
"A papillion," Lydia said with a rare but very real wistful sigh. "Prada. One extra inconvenient thing about living at the school..."
"Your dog is named Prada?" Wanda gave a little laugh before she could stop herself. "That's adorable."
"She's a little princess, so it seemed to fit." Lydia pulled out a beaded handbag--which was beautiful but slightly beaten up in one corner. She frowned at it. "Can't imagine where she got it."
Wanda laughed again and drew up next to her. "Too bad they don't let us keep pets at school."
"We have to make do with the boys." Lydia sighed. Then shot Wanda a look, still picking at the beading in irritation. "Are you dating anyone? You've never mentioned."
"What?" Wanda shot her a quick, startled look and grinned. "Oh, no. I think you'll know if I do. Pietro's screams will probably be audible throughout the state."
Lydia knew precisely nothing about Pietro, except that he liked glitter, had a beautiful boyfriend, was loved by Betsy, hated by Jean-Paul, and possibly an object of some confusion to Arthur. She cocked her head curiously. "Over-protective brother? Is he older--by minutes?"
"Younger, actually," Wanda said, and laughed. "Not that he'll ever admit it. Over-protective, though, definitely." From the fond look on her face, it was clear she didn't mind too much.
"I could see how that would be kind of cute," Lydia admitted. Though she resented the hell out of anyone attempting to control her... she could see the appeal in someone caring enough to put up a fight. In the appropriate measure, anyhow. "At least, until you do find someone you want to date. Then it might get a lot less cute quickly."
"Oh, it won't stop me. He'd probably deserve it too, considering what he's been up to here," Wanda said with a wider grin. "He'll just be dramatic for a while, I'm sure."
"And I'm sure we'll all hear about it," Lydia agreed with a little smirk. "You're right though--he's built himself a fine glass house, there. It'll probably be satisfying when it shatters."
"Very likely. I'm not in any particular hurry, though," Wanda said with a small shrug. "Or more, I haven't found any reason for it yet."
"Hardly a day goes by when I wish I hadn't," Lydia said with a little snort. Then she held up the handbag. "This is so annoying. It's beautiful but kind of busted there, see? Don't suppose you know how to fix beading?" The look on her face said that was just absurd, obviously.
"You do?" Wanda gave her a curious look, though she allowed herself to be distracted by the bag. "I don't know," she said after studying it for a moment, slightly doubtful. "I might be able to fake something similar, if that would be good enough."
Lydia's eyebrows went up. "It'd be amazing. Could you really?"
She had more to say on the subject of her wishes in re dating, but back to that in a moment. This was an interesting discovery--though in retrospect she shouldn't have been surprised--the girl made all those lovely costumes for the shows, after all.
"Well, I won't make any promises," Wanda said, holding her hand out for the bag so that she could take a closer look, "but I think so."
Lydia handed it over. "I should've thought to ask you. The costumes always look way better than they should for a high school production--and I'll bet you do the costumes for you and your brother too, don't you?"
"Usually," Wanda agreed with a smile as she ran her fingers thoughtfully over the damaged beading. "And thank you. Some of it's still beyond my skill level, but I can fake it."
"The older I get, the more convinced I become that most of adult-hood is literally just faking it," Lydia said. Then she cocked her head. "What about next year? I mean, are you going into fashion, or mathematics, or...?"
Wanda paused and glanced away from the bag long enough to give her a rueful look. "Honestly? I have no idea. It's not that I haven't thought about it, I just...don't really know."
"There's time." Lydia shrugged. "If nothing else, you could help teach at the school for a year or two. But if you can manage beadwork anything like that, maybe a little fashion side-business wouldn't be a bad plan, either." She grinned, lips pursed firmly together.
"I'd never even thought about it," Wanda said, sounding thoughtful. "I mean, I guess I could. But it's always been more of a hobby."
"That could be either a reason to do it, or a reason not to do it," Lydia mused. "Your mother's a writer thought, right? And your father was an artist?" So clearly, she was from an environment that meant work didn't have to destroy love.
"Sculptor," she agreed, even if it still gave her a small pang to think about him. It was getting easier, though. "And you're right. I should at least consider it."
"Applying for colleges this winter?" Lydia asked, already going through the racks again for another bag. Well, she'd need one--it'd take Wanda a while to replicate that one, after all. "There are some incredible design schools in New York, if you wanted to stick around."
"It will depend on what Pietro wants to do," Wanda said immediately, then paused. Sticking together was always going to be her first instinct, but it wasn't really just the two of them any more, was it? Pietro might have been making his own plans. It made her frown slightly for just a second before the expression cleared. "I mean, at least in part."
Lydia was both intrigued and vaguely concerned by this response. She turned all of her attention from bags to Wanda. "Why do you say that? Do you two have some business scheme or... something?"
"Oh...no, nothing like that," Wanda said, shifting just a little as thought it had just occurred to her the idea might be strange. "We just tend to do things together, is all."
Lydia cocked her head slightly. She had, of course, previously noticed the closeness between the Maximoffs. It was sweet, in a way, but at times like these... she wasn't so sure. Still, knowing how important it was to Wanda, she was careful to look as non-judgey as possible, which was no small feat for Lydia. "Why?"
One little word, but it made Wanda go completely still. It wasn't something she ever thought about, the whys of it. It was just what they did, the two of them. It was who they were.
"We always have," she said finally, not quite looking in Lydia's direction, though at least she had plenty of other things to focus on. "It was just the two of us for a long time."
Lydia nodded thoughtfully. If it were someone else, someone she didn't like quite as much as Wanda, she would've been blunter. But since she did like Wanda--and quite a lot--she decided to find out what was going on here from the ground up. No point giving advice that wasn't remotely on point just because she had an opinion... as much as she might like to. "You know, I never really thought about it, with you two, just because your father seems to do pretty well. But you didn't know him until you were older, right?"
"We only met him a few years ago," Wanda said with a ghost of a smile. It seemed odd to talk about it so easily, considering what an absolute mess it had been at the time. "He's been very good to us, considering."
"He does seem, you know. The right amount of involved." Too much parental involvement was not something Lydia was remotely familiar with, but she'd heard horror stories, anyhow. "But before that...? You were with your mother but it was... rough?"
"Our parents -- adopted parents," Wanda clarified with a small grimace, but in that context it was necessary, "were lovely, but we grew up pretty poor. And then our father died. And then there was a...house fire. We lost everything. It wasn't a good few years." And understatement to say the least, but if Wanda was going to talk about it at all, she had to put at least some distance behind it.
Honestly, Lydia wouldn't have guessed; the Maximoffs didn't dress or act like they had money, but they didn't let on much at all either way. Especially Wanda, who had a natural, quiet kind of elegance about her, as opposed to her brother's unfortunate affection for trashy-glam.
She nodded at this intelligence, filing it away. "Makes sense, then. You both probably had to grow up a lot faster than most kids. Then with the whole mutant thing..." Lydia gave a short shrug. "Most Xavier's kids had their childhoods interrupted."
But they'd had each other, and Lydia now understood a little better where Wanda's, well, attachment was coming from.
"It does seem common," Wanda agreed with a ghost of a smile. "Unfortunately. But maybe it's necessary for us to be able to deal with what we can do. Making sure we're at least heading in the direction of mature enough to handle it before it even starts." Honestly, she had no idea. But things could have been so much worse if she hadn't started out knowing just how dangerous she could be.
"Built in maturity test," Lydia mused with a faint smile on her face, the bags totally forgotten, now. Which was saying something because, well, shopping. Bags. "So--I think the point I was getting at is that you and your brother have always done things before, and you're planning to continue doing them together in the future, yeah?" For once, no judgment. It... was weird, honestly, but when Lydia actually thought someone had a brain, she could trust them to make their own decisions.
Wanda nodded slowly, though she looked a little far away. "That was the idea. Or, I guess that's always been the idea, so I assumed it would continue like that." But things were different now, weren't they? There were other people to think about.
Setting aside the new bag, but letting Wanda keep the one in her hands (Lydia would buy it for an example), Lydia took her friend by the arm and started wandering the place slowly as they talked. "Do you want them to?" she asked.
Personally, she didn't get it--being so dependent on someone else for anything would drive Lydia up the damn wall. But on the other hand, she'd never had anyone so dependable as Pietro clearly was for Wanda... even if she found it hard to envision the little brat as anything like, the proof was here. So she wasn't entirely judgy on the subject, either, as she'd half expected to be.
Hell, it'd be nice to know there was someone to rely on, like that. Someone who wouldn't take what they knew and use it against you, no matter what.
"We're always going to be close, I think," Wanda said with a very small shrug. It wasn't quite an answer, but it was the only one she could give without doing a lot of thinking on the issue. And probably a long conversation with her brother.
In the end, she just shot a smile Lydia's way. "But I have time to consider everything. Almost a year, really. A lot of things might happen before that."
Lydia raised both eyebrows, letting Wanda know that the non-answer had been noted. "True. And you must have options to consider, anyhow, between now and then, right?"
"More than I know what to do with," Wanda agreed just a little dryly. "What about you? Are you going to stay with the school?"
Lydia shook her head. "I don't think so. There's too much else to do without teaching on my plate, and without that, there's no reason to stay in the building.
"Plus, I really need a bigger closet."
"And maybe a break from high schoolers?" Wanda gave her a knowing look, for all that there was more than a little teasing in it.
Lydia smirked slightly--which was mainly a pursing of the lips, but accompanied my a crinkling of the eyes that showed true amusement. "I admit there's a certain allure to that. Though college students aren't a lot better to live with, if my little, disused apartment is any indication.
"Definitely need my own place. For me and Prada."
"Of course," Wanda agreed with a wider smile. "For Prada, if nothing else."