fandomhigh | BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

Billie perched on top of a pile of luggage that looked suspiciously like it could have come out of the back of an upscale garage band's van. (It . . . kind of had. She'd managed to pack a few non-musincal essentials, but they were all shoved into the corners of the various road cases. She had her priorities, okay?) She had her phone out, scrolling through her latest playlist, when a video call request came in and she grinned.

"T!" she greeted.

"B!" said Thea from the phone. "You landed!"

"I landed!" Billie agreed. "I am so totally in Baltimore, dude!"

"You're so totally in Baltimore!"

They proceeded to run through everything that had happened to each of them since they last talked -- about an hour ago, before Billie's flight landed.

"I know it's totally too early to call," Thea admitted eventually.

"Dude, I was so totally going to call you." Billie grinned. "How cool is it that we're both on our own epic adventures?"

"It is most, most egregiously nonbogus," Thea said. "Oh! That's the opening bugle. I gotta go!"

"Yo, I cannot believe you moved to the Alaskan military school."

"That's the Alaskan musical conservatory, thank you!"

Billie laughed and nodded. "Right, right, excellent!" They both gave each other a one-handed air guitar. Which anyone walking by would somehow be able to hear.

You're welcome, passersby.

"Talk to you later, T!"

"Talk to you later, B!"

Billie deflated slightly as she hung up with her ~~soulmate~~ ~~other half~~ best friend, then went back to tooling around on her playlist, one ear of her massive, audiophile headphones slid back so she could hear if/when anyone else came to join her in the lounge. Or when the shuttle eventually arrived.

"Righteous," she muttered, bopping along to the music on her headphones. "First day of grad school playlist complete." She kept bopping, then looked around at her stack of luggage in the otherwise empty lounge. ". . . Now what do I do?"

[open! And a little earlier than normal, perhaps, because I managed to completely forget that I have an event tonight. :P]

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That was a much better reason for not shaking her hand, honestly. The alternative was a different road.

"Well, I don't think you're bad." From the short conversation. And the weird lack of any sci-fi knowledge.

"Thanks," Erasmus said, awkwardly, like an awkward thing. "I don't think so, either. So, uh, what's with your, uh..." He gestured to the suit parts. "Is it some kind of armor?"

"Yeah, it's... it's busted right now, but it's going to be armor that'll be able to help save people from life threatening situations."

Not the Iron Man kind. Just... the normal kind.

"Just got a few kinks to work out."

Like a functional AI.

"Okay, well, can we just assume that I don't understand any of whatever you're doing there and go from there?" She probably already had from how he'd never heard of scifi.

Riri stared at him for a moment before nodding slowly. "So, you know armor, right? I've... reinforced that and added internal components to be able to wear it when it's two feet taller than me and heavier than hell when all together."

Erasmus was nodding along. "That sounds complicated. Are you like an engineer or something?"

"Plannin' to be the best one around," Riri agreed with a grin. She'd take everything already out there and make it better.

"Well, I've never seen anything like your armor before," which was a weird-ass statement if you were from where Riri was, but then again, he was homeschooled, "so I'm sure you will be."

She'd take it anyway!

"Thanks," Riri said with a grin. "Maybe I'll get to show you what it looks like when it's not all busted."

"I'll be looking forward to it!"

Oh, shit, was this what making friends was like?

BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

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