fandomhigh | BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge

So ... this was the East coast, huh?

Cosima wasn't sure what she had expected to see, and the bland nothing of an airport lounge wasn't giving her much of an impression of her new home yet. She felt a sudden twist of worry mixed with homesickness. Maybe she shouldn't have obeyed the impulsiveness that had led her to transfer to some tiny boarding school thousands of miles from home. Not that San Francisco was doing anything great for her lately, but at least she knew people there.

If she looked at it logically, she knew not to let her nerves wreck the experience. School would be fine, and if it wasn't, she could go home at the end of the summer -- or even sooner if she wanted. But logic wasn't the easiest thing to have when you were 16 and alone in a strange airport.

She lounged in a hard airport chair, earbuds in, and poked at her phone until she found a new science podcast to listen to. It was comforting.

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This was fucking bullshit.

It had been fucking bullshit when his mom had silently slid the brochure across the table and stared him down, it had been fucking bullshit when his dad had stood in the doorway and watched Jesse angrily stuff his dufflebag full of hooded sweatshirts, and it remained fucking bullshit for the entire flight from Albuquerque.

And now, Jesse was faced with the dilemma: he could totally just bail on this. He'd never been to Baltimore, sure, but he could find something to do here. He'd be legal in a little over a year, and until then, he could lie.

And he was almost committed to this plan when he saw the other new arrivals for this school of his. And if he was looking at the right group of people -- well, this didn't exactly look like military school, was the thing.

It was worth poking at, anyway. He could always bail later.

He wandered over, and asked -- kind of loudly, since the one girl had an iPod or whatever -- "Is this for, uh...Fandom High?"

Also didn't sound like military school, now that he was thinking about it. He'd been too mad to notice before that it wasn't named 'Have No Fun Academy' or whatever, like the rest of them.

"That's us," Cosima said, smiling up at him and feeling more at ease. This guy seemed like a familiar type from back home. (Her gaydar was a work in progress, but her stoner-dar didn't lie.) "Hey, I'm Cosima."

"Jesse," he said, awkwardly kind of shifting his bag and giving a little wave. "You're...going to this school, too? Seriously? You're not fucking with me?"

Look, dude, she had dreadlocks. Girls with dreadlocks generally didn't go to Have No Fun Academy. (He hadn't even thought there would be females of the species there, honestly.)

Either there was a loophole, ooooooor his folks had sent him to a completely different school than what they'd thought.

He wasn't going to get his hopes up, but...okay. This wasn't the worst, so far.

"Dude, I don't even know you," Cosima pointed out. "Why would I fuck with you?"

"I don't know," Jesse said honestly, actually smiling a little, "but you seem very chill, and I was totally expecting to be greeted by like, a big scary dude with a buzzcut. So this is a nice surprise. I just didn't want to get too happy about it if someone was gonna come along and tell me to drop and give him fifty, y'know?"

"Oh my god, is this supposed to be military school?" Cosima asked, looking properly appalled at the thought. "Because the website I saw was all about independent study, learning at your own pace, supporting unique students, blah blah blah. I can't do the drop and give me 50 thing."

Edited 2015-05-01 23:13 (UTC)

"Well, my parents definitely thought they were sending me to military school," Jesse told her, smiling a little wider. "But, um, I'm thinking more and more by the minute that they got confused about what kind of school this really is. Not that I'm complaining."

He held his hands up, looking around -- maybe he was on a hidden camera show. "Not complaining at all."

"Yeah, maybe don't tell them," Cosima decided, smiling back. "What they don't know won't hurt them, right? And nobody deserves military school."

"You. I like how you think," Jesse said, pointing at her. "I definitely don't deserve military school. Cosima, right? Am I saying it right?"

He was. He'd just never met anyone named Cosima before.

"You got it," Cosima nodded. "It's Italian. Not that my parents are, they just decided to be different."

She leaned forward in her seat. "Want to talk about why the military school thing came up? Or is that way too personal?"

It probably was, but she was curious.

"Not doing so great with the regular school thing," Jesse explained, shrugging as he took a seat. "And they're sick of getting calls from the principal, you know? They figure it's easier just to export the bad kid and get a good one back, I think."

If he sounded a little bitter -- well, finding out that he wasn't going to military school after all wasn't quite enough to take the sting out of why he was being sent.

"If it ain't, I'm in the wrong spot," Ada offered. "We'll just have to sit here, adrift, until they call our names over the intercom like some toddler who wandered off 'cause their dad was too busy watching the game."

"At least if we're in the wrong spot, we're not in the wrong spot alone?" Jesse offered, with a tiny little something resembling a smile. "'Cause if I gotta be lost, I'd rather be lost with someone who's looking for the same place. Strength in numbers, all that."

Plus, you know, so far it was all cute girls. He was dealing okay.

"And I bite, so I gotta count for two, right? So, between you, me, and my mean streak, we'll be just fine," Ada decided. "H'lo. 'M Ada."

"Jesse," he replied, vaguely waving the fingers that were holding his dufflebag. "You bite, huh? All the time, or only if I ask nicely?"

Come on, what else was he supposed to do with that? His hand had been forced.

Edited 2015-05-02 13:02 (UTC)

"Well, no one's ever asked me nicely, so I don't rightly know," she said, grinning.

"So it's only unprovoked biting?" Jesse asked, smirking and lifting a brow. "I'll have to be on my guard around you."

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BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge

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