A/N: This chapter is mostly character and plot set-up. I plan for this to be a couple chapters long at least, so bear with me./strong
Josie's stomach jumped slightly as she felt the wheels of the airplane touch down in a different country—hell, on a whole different continent—than she was used to. She was anxious, but in no way complaining as the woman sat next to her for the entirety of the nine-hour flight from America to England was clearly ill. It wouldn't have been so bad if the woman in question hadn't been continuously sniffling, wiping her nose with the palm of her hand and then proceeding to touch things like the armrest, the overhead light, and Josie's scratchy airplane blanket that she kindly handed to her with all the best intentions. Why hadn't she been sat next to another student from her study abroad program?
Once the pilot had finished announcing his successful landing, they proceeded to sit there for another solid fifteen minutes before actually getting off the plane. Way too much time for Josie to begin spiraling deep into her worst fears for this trip. What if the dorms were disgusting? What if she hated her roommate? What if she got lost? What if everyone scowled at her for being a dirty American and blamed her for Donald Trump getting so close to becoming a world leade
Her train of thought was cut short when she realized that the sniffling woman that had been sitting next to her was now standing, hunched in the crammed space of the plane and talking to her.
"I'm sorry?" Josie asked, indicating that she hadn't heard a word the woman said.
"It was real nice sittin' next to ya', dear," she smiled warmly. Josie couldn't quite place her accent. Somewhere between Scottish and Irish maybe?
"Oh, uh, you too!" Josie barely managed to stammer out with a forced smile.
When the woman put her hand out to shake Josie's all Josie could see was the hoard of germs crawling on the woman's palm as projected by her germaphobic imagination. Being in the flying petri dish that passed for a plane for nine hours had been struggle , Josie jumped out of her seat, banging her head against the roof of the plane and releasing the oxygen mask from above her seat.
"Shit! I mean, sorry!" She exclaimed, wide-eyed in embarrassment, as the woman stood there with her hand still held out, clearly confused at Josie's strange behavior.
"S'alright, dear," the woman said warily, and began backing away with her carry-on tucked closely under her arm as if Josie was some manic freak about to tackle her.
With the woman out of sight Josie touched her head tenderly and winced involuntarily. That would definitely leave a physical scar as well as an emotional one.
Awesome. This is going swell already.
Meeting up with her classmates for the summer at the baggage claim didn't go much more smoothly. Somehow, Josie managed to grab another girl's suitcase on accident, and the girl angrily snatched it out of Josie's hand without saying a word. It wasn't until a few seconds later she even understood what happened, when her actual suitcase came rolling around the corner of the conveyor belt.
Goddamnit, Josie, get it together, she scolded herself.
Before she could get too upset at her own social ineptitude though, the program leader called everyone's attention.
"Alright, guys, we're going to go get on the airport shuttle, and they'll be taking us to the hotel where we're staying for the first night. Don't get too used to it! We'll be heading to the Christ Church dorms bright and early tomorrow.
The students shuffled along through the airport to the bus, and rode silently to the hotel. Everyone was too exhausted from their long journey to do much talking.
When they made it to the hotel roommates were assigned by gender and alphabetical order of last name. Josie, being a Barlowe, was roomed with Harley Blackner. She didn't know a lot about Harley, except for the rumor that she was once kicked out of a class for threatening to physically fight a professor over his interpretation of Hamlet that he taught as fact. Needless to say, she had a healthy fear of Harley and planned to try to stay out of her way for the remainder of their time as roomies.
"Do you care which bed I take?" Harley grunted not at Josie, but in her direction.
"Oh, no! Not at all!" She responded with far too much vigor, causing Harley to give her a skeptical look. She'd been getting that look from a lot of people lately. New experiences caused her to get a little jumpy.
"Oookay," Harley drawled, and she tossed her bag next the bed closest to the window of their room. "Well, if you don't mind, I'm probably going to pass out now, so could you hit the lights?"
"Sure thing!" Josie enthused again, earning a more concerned look from Harley. Why not just give her a thumbs up too, Josie? Ugh, dumbass.
"Kay… G'night," Harley said, giving her one last furtive glance before cocooning herself in blankets and promptly falling asleep. Josie was sure she was asleep because a nice, hearty snore erupted from Harley's mouth every few seconds.
Double awesome. She thought as the flipped off the lights and got ready for bed. This trip was already not going like she'd imagined it would. She was in England, a place she'd always wanted to visit for the culture and history, and here she was with germy women that gave her weird looks and a roommate that either was crazy or thought Josie was. Not exactly what she was hoping for.
As she went to plug her phone into its charger she got a YouTube notification: "New video from Danisnotonfire." She smiled to herself. That could help. Josie dug her headphones from out of her purse, plugged them into her phone, and clicked on the link to the video.
"Hello, internet," came Dan's voice, "I'm finally back home in the land of crumpets, tea, and lads after being on tour with Amazingphil for the past three months in America. So, today I figured I'd talk about traveling…"
Awesome. She thought unironically for the first time today.