Camaraderie

Come on, Marie!
Lemme introduce you.
I know you'll like them,
And they'll like you.
And if they don't,
Well,
I won't be friends with anyone
Who doesn't like my sister.

As they finish Now Or Never, posing with Off The Hook looking positively giddy next to them (even Pearl), Marie almost wants to laugh. The concert was a huge success, every group got a great response, and every time she and Callie came out they got a better reception than before—even the time they left the stage, then went right back on for another chorus of Calamari Inkantation, startling the crowd into laughter because there was no in-between band for once. Callie had a good idea, there.

Still, all good things have to end, and as they go backstage Callie's legs wobble. Marie grabs her arm. "Did you overdo it?"

"Maybe," Callie admits, looking back at the stage. "Awww, people are throwing flowers!"

They've been throwing flowers all afternoon, but Marie glances back, too. They've moved on to throwing other stuff. That's gonna be a pain to gather later. "We'll worry about it after the meet-and-greet with the people with backstage passes."

Callie sighs as they continue off stage... walking right past four enormous boxes that were used to carry on lights. Marie gets an idea. "Actually... can you go back to the dressing room alone?"

Callie raises an eyebrow, but nods.

Marie moves fast, snagging a sharpie from the stage manager's abandoned clipboard, then stacks the boxes and drags them back onstage. A murmur of questioning sound surrounds her as she sits on the stage, uncaps the marker, and writes CALLIE in bold letters on the first box, then turns it so everyone can see it and sets it on one side of the stage. She gives herself the next box, and box three is for Off The Hook, Chirpy Chips, and Hightide Era. By the time she's finished scrawling Wet Floor on box 4, people have resumed chucking things on stage, but now they're aiming for the proper boxes.

Marie stands, blows a kiss at them all, and strolls off.

Callie's waiting there, laughing. Marie links their arms. "I thought you were going ahead?"

"Had to see what you were doing," Callie says,

The two continue to their dressing room. The first backstage pass holders have already come up: in the hallway with all the dressing rooms, a tiny crab with his mother is talking Paruko's ears off, while right nearby an eel with a mohawk is getting autographs from members of Ink Theory.

As Marie unlocks their dressing room door, she hears a quiet voice behind them. "You're Callie? From Legally Squid, right?"

Marie turns to see Agent Four, looking absolutely adorable in the outfit Marie helped her pick out (and bought her) for the concert, holding a pad of paper and pen. Callie pretends not to recognize her; she laughs and reaches for the paper. "That's me. Who should I make this out to?"

"Well, you're my sister's absolute favorite, and I know your hand must get sore writing autographs, so if you could just—"

"Your siblings aren't here. You're the one who gets the autograph," Callie says, smoothing out the page. "It's sure lucky you got to be here, isn't it?"

Four laughs. "That's my name—my turf name, anyway. Lucky. But you'd better make it out to Tulia, even though I hate that name, or I can never let them know I got an autograph."

Callie flips the page and writes something, then hands the notebook to Marie. Callie made out two autographs, one for each of Four's names. They keep chatting while Marie does the same. She tunes back into the conversation to hear, "I won a ticket from Marie's radio show. It's really nice of you to let your cousin perform with you, even if she's not as famous."

Marie hands back the notebook. "I'm plenty famous."

Four rolls her eyes. "No one who works on the radio is really famous," she says, then glances down the hall and gulps. "Omicod that's Pearl."

"Let me introduce you," Marie says, taking Four's hand while Four looks somewhere between rapturous and terrified. "I'll be back to help with the next fans in a sec, Cal. You should get changed while you've got a minute."

With that, Marie tows Four down the hall, past many other bands greeting fans, to where Marina and Pearl stand alone. As expected: few people get tickets to see the intro band, and fewer still backstage passes. "Off the Hook, this is Lucky," she says, pushing the now-mute, clearly terrified girl in front of her. "We talked a bit. She's your biggest fan."

"You can't just—" Four starts, then remembers who is in front of her and gulps.

"Nice to meet you, Lucky!" Marina says, holding out a hand for Lucky to shake.

After a few seconds, where it's very clear Lucky is in too much fan-panic to do anything, Marie takes pity. "She's fourteen, is S+ in Rainmaker and Clams, and would love both of your autographs." Then she leaves Lucky to her fate.

As she walks back to Callie, stopping to sign autographs and have short conversations with squids and jellies and crustaceans alike, she hears Callie laugh. That's a good sign. She's in front of their dressing room, so she can open the door if she needs to hear the Inkantation to feel grounded, but as Marie gets closer she sees Callie's talking rather animatedly to a pair of inklings.

...A pair of inklings she recognizes, when Drown half-turns and waves at her.

Oh, no.

Marie speeds up and gets there just in time to hear, "It took me ages to catch one, but Marie still keeps the cute squishy thing as a pet."

"Callie," Marie says, just to make sure she's hearing right, "are you telling them childhood stories?"

Callie gives her a smile that would've worked beautifully with her Octarian outfit. "I also wacked her with my bug net in the process, which is how she got that scar on her—"

"CALLIE!"

Sync snorts, and covers her face with her hands. Drown doesn't even try to hide his laughter.

Cod.

What did Marie do, letting them meet?