fandomhigh | BWI Airport | Portalocity Lounge

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport | Portalocity Lounge | Saturday Morning

Madison was not pleased when she pushed open the door to the lounge with the Fandom High sign on the door. Like it wasn't bad enough that she had to deal with being dead, now Ron decided to send her to some lame summer camp so Kairos and Nakita couldn't find her.

She slumped in one of the chairs near the door. There was a black suitcase decorated with stickers sitting next to her and a dirty yellow and black backpack at her feet. Her eyes were glued to the door in search of any danger that might be incoming - in the form of dark reapers or new classmates.

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Wesley couldn't imagine a life spent entirely in the same place. He immediately felt for this girl. "Good lord, really?" he asked, then immediately bit his lip, hoping that didn't come across as too spoiled or pretentious. "I just mean - my family travels quite often. I've been... well, everywhere. Although trust me, if you're looking to travel, England is not the place you'd want to start."

"Where would I want to start?" Madison asked, figuring that if he had been so many places, she would pick his brain about them.

He tried to size her up. The pink in her hair and the modern, punk-looking clothes called a few places to mind. "Tokyo. Brisbane. Edinburgh, maybe, if you stay downtown. Vancouver. Stockholm." Ironically, most of these were places he hadn't enjoyed when he'd visited, but that was mostly because he'd spent his time there being dragged from event to event, while his father sneered at the local teenagers sporting dyed hair and unconventional clothes. Suddenly realizing that his list of cities he'd been to might come across as bragging, while this girl might or might not even have the means to travel to all these places, so he decided to do some damage control. "But I hear that Gainesville and New Orleans and San Francisco have some interesting subcultures as well," he added.

"Wow, you really have traveled a lot," Madison said. "What was your favorite place?"

[alas, my bed is calling my name! sp?]

"Probably St. Petersburg," Wesley answered after a moment's pause. "The architecture was wonderful, and there were these incredible museums..."

<[Sorry, I'm new - what does "sp" stand for? Haha, sorry. But you're welcome to go to sleep and we can finish up tomorrow! :)]

"What kind of museums?" Madison asked. "I like going to art museums."

[sorry! welcome to the game :D SP = slow play]

"Mostly standard art museums," Wesley said. "But the collections there are quite different from typical European art. Or even American art, for that matter. What kind of art are you interested in?"

Oh, no problem. Thanks!

"I'm really into photography," Madison admitted. "But I like paintings too."

"Do you take photographs yourself?" Wes asked, weirdly fascinated. It was just that of the hundreds of people he'd been forced to mingle with in his life, most were extremely boring, and very few had actual interests like art and photography.

Madison nodded. "My dad got me a really cool camera for my birthday. This place should be fun to photograph."

"Oh, well, if you ever need a subject - " Wesley cut himself off, realizing that what he was saying sounded very much like a pick-up line. "I mean - not to say that I would - I didn't mean to - " Helplessly, he looked up at Madison and trailed off, hoping she knew what he was - and wasn't saying.

Madison couldn't help but chuckle. "I actually do enjoy taking photographs of people. So I may take you up on that sometime."

"Oh. Well, I'd be happy to oblige!" Wesley finally said.

Still blushing a little from his most recent faux pas, he decided to change the subject. "So what classes are you taking at Fandom?"

"That's a good question," Madison said. "I haven't seen my schedule yet."

When she did, she would be bitching up a storm to a certain light reaper who thought he was funny and picked her workshops.

"Do you know what you're taking?"

"I believe my father signed me up for classes focusing on weaponry and self-defense," Wes replied. "He seemed to think I could use some... toughening up."

Well, that was more than he'd wanted to share. Oh well.

Oh, sorry, were we not supposed to know what classes we were in? Fail.

"Hmm, those would be cool classes," Madison agreed. "Maybe my... guardian... signed me up for them."

[oh, it's cool! they can know - I just didn't want her to have her schedule before arriving.]

Wesley tried to clamp down on his instinctive curiosity about her hesitancy surrounding the word "guardian." He wanted to know, but small talk was one thing - prying into matters that were none of his business was entirely another. He continued the train of thought they were already on: "Yes, sparring with you would be quite interesting."

Oh, bollocks. That was worse. He squeezed his eyes shut in mortification.

Oh, okay, great.

Madison snorted. She was oh-so-ladylike.

"I am not a great fighter," she said. "I mean, I took a few years of martial arts but I wasn't the best or anything."

[feel free to IM if you have any questions! evilenabler :D]

Edited 2010-07-03 16:25 (UTC)

Oh, where to start on Wesley's martial arts training?

"I've taken... twelve years of martial arts, and ten years of fencing," he said, doing a quick tally. Yep, seventeen years old and he was able to cite double-digit values of his combat training.

"Oh, wow," Madison said, clearly impressed. "You'd be able to mop the floor with me."

Of course, now she was wondering if he'd be able to actually hurt her, given the fact that her body was an illusion. Hmm.

"Probably not," Wesley admitted. "The last practical test of my abilities was... not very inspiring, to say the least." Not that his failure in Sunnydale had been entirely caused by his physical weakness. Nope, he had failed in a number of other fields as well. "I'm sure you could take me in a fight," he said finally.

"I doubt it," Madison said. "But we could definitely spar sometime. I think I heard there's a gym on the island."

"Sounds like a plan," Wesley agreed, smiling.

Now, he didn't know much about girls, given that mostly they laughed at him or tried to kill him, so he wasn't sure what to think about this invitation. He was, however, fairly sure that most dates did not revolve around the two parties sparring with one another - although that had always seemed to be the way Buffy and Angel had bonded in Sunnydale. The sheer probability seemed to suggest that Madison was only being nice, so he decided to go with that.

That would be about the time the man in tights walked into the lounge.

"I, uh... guess it's time to go," Madison said. "This should be interesting."

"Indeed," Wesley agreed. He picked up his luggage and managed, just this once, not to trip over it. Come to think of it, he was pretty proud of that.

Re: Waiting

onlykindofdead.livejournal.com - 2010-07-03 19:39 (UTC) - Expand

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