Pacific Rim - Of Monsters and Machines (Private)

[Spectre of the Fade]

(( Private, between Spectre of the Fade and

@eheu ))

♠

Richard Hendry

The average flight from LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport, to YVR, the Vancouver International Airport, took around three hours, and in that respect, Richard's own flight from the former to the latter wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He spent around three hours up in the air. Just three hours, from an objective point of view. Richard would argue that it had been much longer if one kindly informed him of that, though, because he had been an unlucky person stuck in the seat right behind a mother and her obnoxious children. One of the children was five, the other somewhere around seven, and it really seemed like they were having a competition over which of them could be the most annoying. Their combined noise was draining enough, sure, but he could deal with children. Even bad ones. It was their mother, her nose stuffed in a book the whole flight no matter how much her children squealed, that made the experience seem to take so damn long. Inattentive parents were one of his biggest pet peeves.

Then, it took him more than two hours to pass through security after landing, a step required because he'd been on an international flight, even though he'd already passed through security at LAX without issue. The metal detector freaked out, of course, and he had to spend several minutes being carefully patted down while explaining to security officers that he was not carrying anything metal, he just had a bullet from an old injury stuck in his leg and he wasn't entirely sure why the scanner had even picked up on it.

Less than fifteen minutes after finally being released he found himself lost in the American Terminal of the airport, to top off the crap that had been his day til that point. Well and truly lost. 'Might not even deny it if someone were to ask' lost. The map he'd picked up after stumbling across an information thing was exactly zero help. He had been a Marine, dammit, he knew how to navigate. Just...apparently not in airports. LAX had been slightly easier. Marcus, at least, was familiar with the place. But here was...ugh.

He stopped, dead center in the middle of whatever damn area he'd managed to wander off to, and frowned down at the piece of paper in his hands. Yeah. Zero help. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Fuck. He automatically raised a hand to push it into his hair, but the short hair he found there was just as dissatisfactory as the last time he'd gone to make the same gesture. Admitting as much was out of the question, but he'd liked his long hair and he'd liked his beard, and how his head felt light and his face felt naked. It was all very uncomfortable. It was all firmly in the realm of 'uncomfortable things Richard was not admitting to people thank you'.

Passive aggressively pulling up the sleeve of the gray fleece pullover he was wearing because he was in goddamn Canada and he still wasn't entirely sure how these people lasted in this cold, Richard pulled back the cover on his watch to check the time. It was another and a half before his flight to Anchorage took off. He let out a breath of relief at that; at least he didn't have to account for a time difference. An hour and a half and he still had to find the right gate. A gurgle from his stomach quickly took his attention off of looking around for some sort of helpful sign, however, as the only things in life he was weak to were his usually excessive appetite and Claire's puppy eyes. At least navigating himself toward a food joint was easier than finding his gate number, as he found some hockey-themed bar within just a couple minutes of walking. The bar was full and most of the tables were occupied, but he lucked out and managed to grab the last open one. Even better, it was clean. He plopped his duffle bag, the one and only bag he'd brought, on the floor then sat down, adjusting after he was seated so the bag was under the table and between his legs. Safer that way. After flagging down one of the servers and requesting a menu, he leaned back in the booth and considered the decor, an unconscious frown crossing his face.

Richard hadn't ever really put thought into hockey. Ice was cold and he (along with his father and two of his sisters) liked football better, so it hadn't ever really crossed his mind. The hell was a Canuck, anyways? A bird?​

 

[eheu]

Erin Lovell



​

Vancouver International, early afternoon.


The fact that Erin hadn’t actually had any chance to travel anywhere far from her hometown may be a valid excuse for her having absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do, or where she was supposed to go, as she stood still in one of the passageways in the airport.


“I’m going to be just fine,” Erin had said to her sister before she stepped off her car, around half an hour earlier. Airports were just places where people go to get on planes that would take them to where they wanted to be - she had decided that it was impossible that it could be made anything convoluted enough to prevent her from just figuring out on the spot.


She was doing her best at the figuring, but it appeared increasingly likely that she was wrong.


She had in hand a kraftpaper envelope containing the ticket and all her files, over her shoulder a large travel bag containing all the things she needed to survive for a few nights away from home. And no map.


She realized that the part about not having a map probably contributed much to the part about having no idea where to go.


“Map. Right.” She said to herself as she took off for several steps in a random direction. She was certain that she had seen at least one of those information stands somewhere. Maybe if she looked hard enough she’d just find one of them that had airport staff behind the shelf with all the brochures, then she could just ask about it directly and removing the need for the brochures altogether. She figured she’d fetch a map even then, just in case.


Now it was just a matter of seeking out that information stand. Absently tugging the collar of her hooded jacket, she looked around for that lovely little blue circle with the italic i cut out.


The first thing blue she laid eyes on was on the outside of a food joint.


Close enough, she thought.


_____


She had enough time for lunch, despite she was quite accustomed to skipping the meal. And she was slightly hungry already anyway. The bar, however, happened to be quite full of people already; and seconds after she walked in she was beginning to question the decision to do so.


Making her way through the restaurant being careful not to actually topple anything over with her luggage and seeking an seemingly nonexistent open table, she noticed something that was just as good: a table of four just around the corner, with only a single man occupying one seat.


The importance of the discovery of hers, however, lay in the fact that the man had a map in hand.


She quickly retreated to behind the corner she just walked past because she had just come up with a great idea.


Flattening her hair, she suddenly hoped that she had actually went for the big haircut before her trip - the look would be much more convincing with the ridiculously short straight bangs in the front - but then she was so thankful for the existence of the black hooded jacket over her shirt. Pulling the hood over her eyebrows - double checking that the intended effect of the spooky-shadows-over-the-eyes was achieved - Erin put up the most serious face she could managed, and walked back around the corner.


She stopped at the table, calmly put her bag down aside, and took the opposite seat.


“Good afternoon,” she said, in a much deeper tone than she usually spoke.


“I was told to speak with a -” the pause was half for stress, and half because of the fact that she hadn’t come up with a random name beforehand. She glanced beneath the table, but despite hopes of finding anything on the tags that would’ve been on any piece of checked-in luggage, there was nothing useful on the duffle bag.


“- Marcus.”


No, he doesn’t look like a Marcus at all. Erin had no idea why she came up with that. Oh, might as well.


“I see you have brought the merchandise.” She said, just in case he noticed her look at the bag. She put her enveloped on the table, then reached for the map that was sitting next to the man’s hand on the other side of the table, trying her best to act like she knew what she was doing - so for some thirty seconds she had the map unfolded in her hand, searching on it for a secret message of confirmation somehow encoded onto the contents of the inconspicuous map that only she knew to look for, and knew how to decypher.


“No,” she said, shaking her head slightly as she shifted the map a little, “No.”


Another few seconds of tense silence.


Pretending to be able to read something else from the map was severely distracting her from the actual task of actually orienting the map the right way and reading it to figure out where she was going.


“Nope.”


Putting the map down, she pulled the hood back, ruffled her hair, and broke back into her usual smile.


“Not working,” she said, mostly to herself, before looking at the man on the other side of the table probably quite confused by the time, “Sorry. I, uh, got lost.”


It was almost as if it wasn’t until this point she realised what the tomfoolery in the past couple of minutes was all for. Erin picked the map back up again, this time making a genuine effort to read it.


She also took the menu from the waiter who delivered it to the table, opening it on the remaining corner on the table that hadn’t been occupied by the envelope and map. As an afterthought, she turned the menu around so it would be in the right direction for him.


“Hungry?”