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“ Flight 7623 is delayed until further notice due to storms .”
“Fuck.” Jamie throws his bag into a chair and falls into the seat beside it. He doesn’t notice that there’s another person sitting across from him until he’s got his boots in the lap of a man who looks three times his size and just as pissed about it.
The man shoves Jamie’s feet out of his lap and growls, “go sit somewhere else.”
Jamie sneers and puts his feet up to the side of the man, making sure that his leg is in a position where if the man doesn’t want to touch him he has to keep his legs uncomfortably close.
The man rolls his eyes at him and pulls his cell phone out.
Jamie was expecting him to get up and move on his own, but it looks like he’s just as stubborn as Jamie is.
He waits until the man’s on the phone and then makes a loud farting noise just as he’s about to say something to the person on the other line.
He kicks him.
The man kicks his legs and Jamie’s prosthetic joint wrenches to the side as his knee dislocates.
Jamie’s prosthetic leg hangs in his skinny jeans and it looks fucking grotesque as hell to the man who just kicked him. He’s staring at the separation with his eyes wide and his phone held away from his ear.
“Ouch,” Jamie says sarcastically. He leans forward and positions his leg so that his knee is in a bent position, then pushes down on the coupling so that it snaps back together.
Now that he knows he didn’t accidentally break Jamie, the man rolls his eyes and presses his phone to his ear again. “Yeah, I’m still here. Some punk in the airport is being a dickwad.”
Jamie sticks his tongue out and puts his legs back up on the chair.
He pulls his laptop out of his bag, ready to play some loud, obnoxious music when the man’s voice suddenly changes from annoyed and sharp to… something gentler.
“Yeah, put her on the phone.”
Jamie inches down behind his laptop and tries to look busy as he listens in. Probably talking to a girlfriend or wife or something.
“Hey, honey.”
Jamie peeks over his laptop and sees a soft smile on the dour man’s lips. Shit. He doesn’t look like a giant douche anymore.
“I’m not going to be home in time to read with you, but you can call me and read to me,” he says, his voice patient.
Jamie hides behind his laptop again and quietly pushes keys, not actually doing anything, just listening in. The big mean ol’ bastard across from him has a kid.
That’s fucking hilarious.
“Aw, sweetie,” he chuckles a little and it’s both gravelly and sweet at the same time.
Jamie feels a little sliver of treacherous warmth in his chest.
He’s too gay for his own personality sometimes.
“Yeah, I love you too. I’ll let you know when I know,” the man says, shifting in his seat. His smile turns bittersweet at whatever the kid on the other line says. “Alright, go eat dinner, pumpkin.”
After he hangs up his phone, the soft Christmas music playing on the overhead speakers hangs heavily between them.
Jamie very deliberately closes his laptop and then moves to sit right next to his companion.
“So. You got a kid?” he asks.
“Fuck off.” The man is surly as ever now that he’s not on the phone with someone he cares about.
“I had a kid. Well, I didn’t. A sheila I was poking in high school did,” Jamie explains, putting his feet back up and grinning up at the man. Well, his shoulder. God, he has big shoulders
“Go away.”
“I was too young and scared to do anything about it, and she didn’t want me around, so I took off. Never found out how having a kid would change things,” Jamie says wistfully.
“Please. Go the fuck away.”
“In the end, I’m not sure if I really regret it?”
The man sighs heavily.
“I mean, I guess I would if I knew the change was going to be positive, but all I can think of it being is a time and money suck and then my personality staying the same and I’d just be another shitty dad ruining my kid’s life with broken promises and missed birthdays, Y’know?” Jamie chews on his lip and rolls his head to look up at the other man again.
When he doesn't say anything, Jamie sighs and shrugs. “Don’t really know how to be a dad anyway. Not worth trying.”
“If you’re not all in, don’t bother trying,” the man says, finally dragged in by Jamie’s chatter.
Jamie shrugs it off and scratches his stubble. “Maybe. ‘S probably selfish. Most of the things I do are.”
“If you don’t stop bumming me out, I’m going to pick you up and make you move.”
Jamie laughs and pulls his feet down before scooting closer. “Right, so what’s your kid’s name?”
The man stays silent.
Jamie sighs and leans back in his chair.
“Fine. Got a few hours delay to deal with. Not like it’s going to get much more boring —“
“ Flight 7623 has been permanently grounded due to weather conditions.”
Jamie sees the man stiffen and wonders if he’s going to die in this airport terminal.
“Now… mate, I’m superstitious and I know I didn’t cause that to happen—“
The man stands and picks Jamie up, his hands clamped around either of his upper arms. He slides Jamie’s bag down five seats with his foot and then sets him down in the chair next to it.
“Don’t move from this spot,” he says, his voice low and threatening.
Jamie swallows and barely resists throwing himself at the man.
He was doing everything he could to intimidate and detter Jamie, but it just made him want to crawl back for more.
“Yeah,” Jamie says, laughing nervously. “Sure. Right here.” He makes an okay sign with his prosthetic index finger and thumb.
The man leaves him and goes back to his seat with his stuff.
He calls his daughter again.
Jamie listens from afar, not bothering to hide his interest anymore.
“Hey, it’s me, put Ari on— I’m not flaking. My flight just got cancelled.” He rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily, leaning back in his chair. “Just let me talk to her.”
Jamie frowns a little at whatever’s happening on the phone. Hot-large-dick was a good guy. He didn’t deserve the chewing out he was likely getting.
He knows when the daughter gets on, because he lights up. Not like before, he looks more tired than the first conversation, but there’s still a huge difference.
Jamie watches with rapt attention.
The man seems to be listening intently to what his daughter is saying. He smiles and says a single word, then nods and goes back to listening—
Jamie suddenly realizes that he’s listening to his kid read to him.
It’s fucking adorable.
He drags his bag up and pulls out his tablet, then opens his reading app and surveys what he has. The Call Of Cthulhu probably isn’t great for kids. He scrolls through his tech books and other bullshit down to the copy of Winnie the Pooh that had come free with the app.
He taps it and glances at the man as the book buffers. He’s sitting and smiling, listening to his kid.
Jamie slings his bag over his shoulder and stands before returning to the seat he had just been forcibly removed from.
The man’s face goes from placid to pissed when Jamie slumps next to him. Jamie holds out his tablet and wags it up and down as a sign to take it.
Once the tablet leaves his hand, Jamie props his feet up on the seat across from him and slouches down in the chair he’s in. He might as well sleep if he’s not going to get any more entertainment out of poking his bear of a neighbor.
Just as Jamie’s drifting off, he hears the man begin reading from his tablet and an arm settles across the back of his chair.
He tenses at first, but then relaxes again when his neck isn’t broken.
The words sound familiar in the same way that a childhood nickname does. He’s heard them before but can’t recall the order or phrases until he hears them.
Much as he doesn’t want to, he drifts off again. A warm arm as his pillow, and a deep voice rumbling in his ears.