fandomhigh | Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Portalocity Port, Saturday Morning

Tony's first airplane ride wasn't as interesting than he'd hoped. It was rather like riding the bus, only with less space and more pretzels. Although "boring" was probably the way to go when it came to air travel.

He'd spent a bad half hour in Customs after his flight had landed. They'd pulled him from line and fingerprinted him and for a bit he was afraid he'd be barred from entering the US. But they apparently realized he was neither a drug dealer nor a terrorist and let him through.

He retrieved his oversized duffle from the baggage claim and followed the instructions on the crumpled printout of an email from the school. He took a quick detour to buy a horribly overpriced breakfast sandwich with his shiny new American money. (Dollar bills? What was wrong with coins?) He made a wrong turn on the way back, but he managed to orient himself and find his way to the Portalocity terminal.

A piece of paper tacked on the wall in one corner of the room said "Fandom High." Looked like he was in the right place. He sat down on a bench under the sign, duffle near his feet, and clutched his laptop case as if it might walk away. (It wouldn't, would it? Arra would've warned him if that was a possibility.) It seemed he was the first to arrive. Not surprising, since he'd taken the red eye out of Vancouver. Late-night flights made it easier to say goodbyes to vampire ex-boyfriends.

[Newbie airport shuttle! Open to all new students and teachers, no matter which world they're from. Posted early for great slowplay. ~~OCD coming.~~ We can has OCD!]

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"Los Angeles," Claire said. "I think I was on the plane forever. My mom wouldn't let me drive."

Jealous, she added, "Berlin always looks really cool in photos."

Lola rather thought driving from Los Angeles to Washington DC would be like driving across Siberia. "I like it. But it is perhaps not as . . . exciting as Los Angeles."

It probably would be, but Claire was deeply attached to her hearse.

She made a dismissive noise. "We so don't live in the exiting part. Unless you're Goth enough to think funeral homes are really interesting."

"Goth? Like . . . Marilyn Manson?" She made a face. She knew what a funeral was, and what a home was, so it wasn't hard to work out what a funeral home would be. "You live in one of those? Does it smell?"

"Marilyn Manson, Bauhaus, whatever," Claire agreed. "My dad ran it and now my brother does." She shrugged, not offended by the question. "Most people say it smells better than they expected. Plus all the gross stuff is in the basement."

Lola liked Bauhaus a lot better than Manson. "Is that why you come here? To get away from the Goths?"

"Nah, that's kind of ..." Claire searched the ceiling for words. "A fringe benefit. I'm here because my ex has gone insane and my brother has fantasies about boarding school that he's inflicting on me. What about you?"

Lola blinked, not following everything, but figuring she got the basic gist of what the girl was saying. "Exchange program. To improve my English." She shrugged. "And because my father is always at work and my mother is always in the bottle."

"Your English is about a thousand times better than my German," Claire claimed.

Then: "I'm sorry, though. That's kind of awful, with your parents."

"It is how it is," Lola said, then raised an eyebrow. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Das ist gut."

"It still sucks," Claire said, then shook her head. "Um, sauerkraut? Autobahn? I really, really don't speak anything that isn't English."

Lola laughed. "That is okay. I'm not expecting anyone to speak German." Though it might've been nice to find someone who did. "At least you didn't try Volkswagon."

"See, if I'd thought of that I would have had three German words," Claire said, with a smirk. "So what's your name? I'm Claire."

"Lola. A, uh. 'Junior'."

"I'm a senior," Claire shared. "So at least this is my last year. I have no idea what boarding school will be like."

"Me, too. I have seen movies, but they are often not true."

Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Portalocity Port, Saturday Morning

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