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Fucking perfect.
This is exactly how you want to spend your first day of freedom. It was 2 am, you were stranded in an airport in Washington, and it was freezing. Not cold, not “brisk”, but freeze-your-balls-off-and-have-a-snowball-fight-with-’em freezing. You ran a hand through your hair and stuck it back under the only pocket of warmth on your whole god damned body; your armpit. Granted, it was NOT dignified. But it was warm.
It was the last day of the semester before Christmas Break, and you were meant to be heading back to Texas, back to your two elder brothers, and (most importantly) back to somewhere you didn’t have to wear a goddamn hoodie indoors. Unfortunately, about five minutes before you were meant to board the plane, a blizzard the size of New Mexico blew in. Everything was grounded, delayed and re-delayed, and there was no way you would be able to make your way back to the college in this ungodly weather. So you were stuck, in a coffee-stained hoodie with a coffee-stained bag next to some kid from your college.
The airport was empty, other than an old janitor polishing the floor a couple feet away, a lady at the check in desk, you and the boy sitting next to you. His skin was dark, his glasses were thick and magnified his eyes to a some-what hilarious size, and the mop of hair that sat awkwardly on his head looked like it hadn’t been brushed in years. You recognized him, you’d seen this kid around campus. You had literally 0 classes together, lived in completely different dorm rooms, and had exchanged 0 words since day 1. Which was exactly how you both seemed to want to keep it. You stuck your earphones in your ears and sat back on the uncomfortable airport seat, huffing a little. It was late, but you’d managed to get a pretty decent night’s sleep for a couple weeks, so you felt mostly fine, just majorly pissed off.
The kid, however, was clearly a different case. Whenever you glanced over (You’re not staring, shut up), his hilariously large eyes were drooping, or forcefully blinking awake. You ignored it, partly out of apathy, mainly because you were so completely socially inept that you wouldn’t have been able to start the conversation. So you just ignored him, listening to your shitty music on full volume. It wasn’t until you felt a weird, oddly sudden weight on your shoulder that you looked up.
The kid had literally passed out, and slumped over sideways. The corner of his face was buried in the space between your neck and shoulder. His ridiculous hair tickled your jawline a little, just barely touching it. The glasses had slipped off his face a little, sitting comically on a diagonal across his face. You sat there for a while, trying to figure out what to do. You briefly considered waking him up, but you felt sorry for him. Plus, he was cute.
Not wanting the kid to slump over and wake up, you wriggled out his arm from the comforting (and slightly sweaty) warmth of your own armpit, and slowly laid it over the kid’s side. He shifted slightly in his sleep and holy fuck this kid was straight up adorable. You smiled a little, got yourself comfortable, and kept listening to your music. The kid slept peacefully, and the blizzard kept raging. It was around 3:30 am that the snow finally let up a little, and the kid started waking up. You didn’t notice much, not until the weight from your shoulder disappeared completely. You turned your head, blinking behind the shades. The kid blinked back, partly from shock, partly from drowsiness.
“Uh,” he said, adjusting his glasses, “Hi there.”
“‘Sup,” you replied. Oh god this was awkward you were ready to crawl in a hole. There was another short pause, punctured by the floor-buffer. The kid stuck out a hand.
“John. John Egbert,” he said, suddenly breaking into a toothy smile. His two front teeth were way too big for him, “I figure if I slept with you, you ought to know my name!” you chuckled a little, shaking his hand.
“Well John-John-Egbert I’m Dave,” you said, your accent slipping a little. For reasons that you could NEVER understand, your elder brothers spoke with a thick texan accent for the first six years of your life, and you had spent the next thirteen years trying to hide it. It reverted back to the thick, deep-south, let’s-marry-our-cousins voice whenever you felt nervous, or angry, or any emotion other than “I’m pretending to give less of a fuck than I actually am”.
“We uh, go to school together, right?” John said, clearly more out of obligation than actual interest.
“Yup,” you said. Then, as an afterthought, “what’s your major?”
“Film studies. I know, lame. You?” he asked. John seemed legitimately interested. It took you a little while to answer because you were completely floored by how adorkable this kid was. And you could feel yourself slowly falling in love.
“Uh...Art,” you smirked a little, “I run a webcomic.” It was a little charitable to call Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff a webcomic, but ‘Webcomic’ sounded a lot cooler than ‘ironically shitty cartoon’.
“Cool! And uh,” he added, his ears going a little pink, “You can uh, remove the arm if you want.” You jolted your arm up like you’d been shocked. You rubbed the back of your neck.
“Sorry,” you said, the accent slipping a bit more, “It’s too early for this shit.”
You chatted for a while, about a lot and nothing. John was waiting for his cousins to get back from some sort of expedition to some sort of island, his favourite colour was blue, he was a self proclaimed “Pranking Extraordinaire ”, and (most importantly) he was single and straight as a curly fry. Eventually, the snow died down enough for you two to head on home. you didn’t notice until about seven.
“Oh hey!” John said suddenly, sitting up a little, “It’s cleared up!” The whole city was covered in several feet of snow, it looked like everything had just shifted about a foot upwards. John got to his feet, slinging the backpack over his shoulder.
“You headed back now?” You asked. It was difficult for you to disguise his slight disappointment. You had to stick around and wait for your flight. If John left, that was it. You’d enjoyed talking to John, and what’s more, you liked John. And for some reason, you doubted that you’d talk again. John nodded a little.
“Well, I figured the...uh, Starbucks ‘round the corner might...uh, be a bit warmer than here, and you look awful cold...?” he said, like he was asking a question. You raised one of your eyebrows.
“Are you asking me out on a date, Egbert?” you asked, unable to keep the joking out of your voice. Coincidentally, you were currently making no effort to hide the accent.
“No! I just want to go and platonically get coffee with my new completely platonic friend!” John said, like he was trying to come up with an excuse.
You grinned a little, getting to your feet. “Either way, coffee is coffee, and a day hasn’t gone by that I will pass up shitty Starbucks coffee while it’s cold as balls outside and the wind’s howlin’ like some sort of banshee on her period without any painkillers, and-” you were rambling, you knew you were, and you couldn’t stop.
\Thankfully, John hit you on the shoulder before you could say too much, laughing a little. You couldn’t help but smile. “C’mon, you big dummy. It’s cold enough to see your breath in here!” John grabbed you by the wrist. Your skin felt prickly and warm at the contact, even if it was through several layers of clothing. You sent a silent thanks to Old Man Winters, who was currently the greatest wingman in the history of History.