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It’s half an hour before his plane is due when his flight details change on the overhead screen, shifting from a normal, heartening green, confirming the flight is on time, to be highlighted in red, kindly informing him of a twenty minute delay. Just his bloody luck, but, no matter, Arthur can handle a twenty minute delay. It’s a hassle but it’s not the end of the world. He’s listening to lo-fi music, some sort of mix labelled ‘Inside a Cosy Cafe’, while reading a novel about a mysterious circus that appears without warning in the dead of night.
He had previously been rather invested in the book, having annihilated a quarter of the contents since reaching his seat at the assigned gate, but he’s distracted now. Arthur’s eyes flicker up to the screens too often for him to keep track of the eccentricities unfolding in words before him.
The delay has rattled him more than he’d originally thought. Arthur doesn’t fly well, or navigate airports well either. His excursion to the States has been acceptable but Arthur’s more than ready to return home and be reunited with his cat and a proper cup of tea. Damn his brother for moving so far away from his homeland. And damn Arthur for being sentimental enough to save up and visit him. It’s not as though Philadelphia has much to offer in the way of tourism and Arthur would prefer to see the back of this airport as soon as possible. At least he knows he can call Rhys if anything goes awry, but the man still lives miles away from the airport, Arthur had had to get a train to reach here.
Arthur bookmarks his page with a sigh through his nostrils.
There’s a fair-sized crowd bunched up around the gate now, many of them sat down as Arthur is but some are buzzing about by the gate itself, agitating the uniformed staff, and glancing out into the bay where there is plainly a plane parked, ready for them to board. The question is, if there is a plane here, why is there a delay.
After about ten minutes had passed by, Arthur notices shuffling and he sees that the business class has been called to board. The flight should have already departed by now but they’re making headway in the right direction, at the very least.
He gets to his feet when the last of those in the queue is filtering down, more than prepared to be on the plane and be in the air, now that it is running over half an hour late. He pulls his carry-on bag over his shoulder, wearing a flinty expression as he thinks of how Rhys had laughed and called him girly because of it, but he’s grown up with that nonsense, having three elder brothers and being the only gay one. A messenger bag is just as convenient as a rucksack and it won’t crush Arthur’s books and belongings.
Arthur takes his place in the growing line, noticing how the Brits seem to become shepherds to sheep, herding the rest of the crowd (Americans) into queuing submission. He’s unlucky enough to have a loud young man speaking to someone on the phone, apparently feeling the need to involve almost everyone else in conversation by making no efforts to lower his voice.
“Yeah, dude, I’m not even on the plane yet,” the American says almost directly into Arthur’s ear. It’s a wonder whoever is on the receiving line still has any eardrum left to continue with the call.
“...maybe if you didn’t move out to the middle of nowhere England…” A pause. “I don’t know, it’s probably something to do with the airport over there… plane looks fine to me.”
Arthur snorts. The rude noise is freed from him accidentally, and it causes a bit of a stir since it’s as loud as the tosser behind him and even causes the American to pause.
He colours pink but doesn’t dare turn around. Apart from the stiffness of his shoulders and the rising heat behind his neck, Arthur makes no indication that any noise had escaped him and refuses to apologise.
Vaguely, Arthur remembers seeing the young man and he believes he knows what he looks like. He’d only taken cursory notice, begrudgingly, he has to admit that he recalls the American being attractive but fresh-faced, too young for Arthur, too straight for Arthur. He’d been sitting a few rows behind Arthur with his long, jean-clad legs spread out wide in front of him, his elbows on the armrests as he’d mashed buttons on his Nintendo. He’s not Arthur’s type, doesn’t matter anyway, but he’s been blessed enough in the looks department that it hurts to look at him. All of that American charm and confidence rolled into a muscular physique.
Okay, well, maybe Arthur had taken more than a cursory glance, but that’s neither here nor there. All Arthur is focused on is getting home and worrying whether the young man is going to cause a scene now that Arthur has shown the displeasure the rest of the onlookers are sharing with him.
The queue moves.
“Yeah, speak to you later,” the man mutters out, distinctly quieter, before ending the call.
Tension crawls up Arthur’s spine, the man’s presence searing behind him, but Arthur carries on, keep calm and carry on, and approaches the attendants with his boarding pass and passport ready.
The events that occur next prevent Arthur from dwelling on the embarrassing incident, as, once he is seated, with his bag tucked away and his belt strapping him in as instructed, they are then told over the speaker that the plane will not be taking off due to a technical fault with the plane and that they were being transferred to another. Disgruntled and his nerves beginning to fray, Arthur follows the rest of the irritable passengers back to the gate.
They are never transferred on to another plane, however, as their replacement also has a technical fault, apparently, and, upon hearing this news, true panic begins to bury into Arthur. It happens at breakneck speed, the trainwreck process of the flight being delayed by a mere twenty minutes to cancelled and an entire cabin full of passengers having to book a flight for the next day.
Arthur’s distraught as he waits beside everyone else for a bus to take them to a nearby hotel for the night, then to have to come back tomorrow afternoon and do this all over again. He imagines everyone else is too, though the crowd mentality is to be furious, understandably, Arthur might be too if he wasn’t so fucking tired. He resents being the closeted sensitive idiot he is, it’s not very English and prefers to overcompensate by being cynical but he feels stranded, alone, and exhausted.
Collecting his baggage had been a nightmare all by itself, only to be followed by being packed on to a jolting bus and dumped at the doorstep of a hotel jam-packed with a cantankerous throng of holidaymakers and British nationals and whoever else, it’s the final straw when the only receptionist on duty this early in the morning is half asleep as he processes each uncooperative person individually.
Arthur might as well have stayed in the airport at this rate.
He sacrifices his position in the queue, not that the infernal thing is moving, to run outside, baggage and all, gasping in a lungful of the Philidelphia air he resents so much and fishing around in his messenger bag for a well-earned fag.
Believing himself to be alone, he’s tearful and ashamed of himself as he drags on his cigarette, deeply enough to burn his lungs but he holds in the breath, savouring the sting, and releases a mushrooming burst of smoke into the air.
He’ll have to ask his parents if they can look after little Capers for another day while Arthur somehow trundles his way back home. His mum had been picking him up from the airport and he could really do with having a heart-to-heart with his mum, to console him, as he sniffles, sitting on his battered suitcase. With no significant other, his parents are the only people waiting for him back at home and Arthur aches to see them, no matter how much of an adult he is and how overbearing his parents are, a big hug from his dad and a large helping of apple crumble would really soothe his soul right now.
“Hey,” a masculine voice says above him and Arthur nearly startles out of his skin, having to juggle the cigarette back into his grip so he doesn’t drop it.
He clutches a hand to his chest and glares up at whoever dares to intrude on his morose solitude and, to his amazement, it’s the American who was ahead of him in the queue at the gate.
“Bloody fucking Christ,” Arthur hisses.
The American raises his blond brows with what is evidently amusement.
“Sorry. You seemed a little lost in the moment, there.” Arthur notices the precise instance, as the man’s eyes meet Arthur’s, when this stranger sees the puffiness of Arthur’s face and the tear tracks on his cheeks and connects the dots. “Sucks, huh? I’m really bummed out too, I’ve not seen my brother in ages and I’ve only booked a week off… this is a whole day wasted.”
Arthur doesn’t know what to say and the American continues with a sheepish twitch towards Arthur’s cigarette, which is crumbling into ash as he neglects it.
“I was gonna ask if you had a cig to spare but I didn’t realise you were crying, I wouldn’t have bothered you otherwise,” the man says in a surprisingly remorseful tone.
Arthur swipes at his cheeks, his face crumpling up into a frown.
“I’m not crying,” Arthur grumbles.
“...hey, if I weren’t a caveman, I’d be crying too. It’s okay for dudes to cry, but I ended up just kicking the vending machine earlier, instead.”
Despite himself, lightness shimmers through Arthur, downy at the centre of his chest, and his lips quirk into a tired smile, though it’s accompanied by a roll of his eyes.
“You can smile!” the man exclaims, beaming at Arthur as he comes closer still and squints at him from behind his glasses in the murky, early morning light. “It’s a pretty smile, too.”
It’s Arthur’s turn for his eyebrows to shoot up into his hairline, and his aren’t nearly as neat and seemly as the American’s. That comment had been… unexpected. This entire conversation is bizarre, by Arthur’s standards, he isn’t often approached by handsome, straight men like this one, but he’s never been in this situation before either. The man is likely on the verge of passing out, like Arthur, who feels like he’s drunk but without any of the giggly, carefree fun that entices him to drink when he does.
“Here,” Arthur says, collecting his cigarette pack from his bag and offering it to the American. He accepts one gracefully and Arthur lights up for him. “You don’t look like the kind to smoke,” Arthur comments, almost scrutinising. He’s confused more than judgemental. It’s not as though he’s a good example.
“I don’t usually,” he admits. “Don’t tell my mum, she’ll freak,” he says with an easy laugh. After a lull in conversation where they both take calming drags on their smokes, the American adds, “I’m Alfred, by the way.”
“Arthur,” he returns. He continues to be baffled by this man and he can’t understand why Alfred is striking up a conversation with Arthur, especially after the incident at the airport which Alfred must have heard. “American Airlines is shite, then.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Alfred chuckles. “I was wrong. Manchester Airport wins this round.”
Arthur nods, satisfied.
“Don’t say this has put you off my mighty homeland?” Alfred enquires with a note of pride that is unmistakably authentic despite the teasing in his query.
“I was… only visiting my brother,” Arthur answers. “It wasn’t bad.” He squashes down the rest of his cigarette on the wall behind him, holding on to it still as he refuses to litter. “Besides, I have a mighty homeland of my own, as you’ll soon find out.”
“Must be something special to get you so upset,” Alfred laments. “Or is there someone special you’re missing?”
Arthur jerks his head towards Alfred, though he has been gazing back and forth at the American’s face, Arthur now holds the man’s gaze, his eyes narrowed and his heart tight and heavy.
“Excuse me?”
He hasn’t been successful with men and, now that he’s in his thirties, Arthur’s found he’s mostly content with being single, if that’s how he’s meant to be. He’s done chasing romance and having his heart broken and his life upturned. Arthur hasn’t been in many relationships but he falls in love as a shooting star swoops down near the earth’s atmosphere, it seems distant but then suddenly it’s upon him.
It doesn’t seem feasible that Alfred could be interested in him. Arthur’s never attracted men like Alfred in his life, the straight ones always drift towards the more feminine men, like drag queens and such. Arthur knows he has some, what can be classed as, feminine traits but, while he has nothing against crossdressing and the like, he doesn’t unless it’s for fun. And while he has quite the temper, Arthur’s prefers the quiet life, he doesn’t really haunt around places where single, gay men would be available.
Now this though…
Arthur’s stumped.
Why else would Alfred be hunting for an answer about whether Arthur is tied to someone or not? Arthur could be totally off the mark, however, American social habits are often at odds with those of the Brits, that he is accustomed to, so this might be perfectly normal.
He wrings his hands.
Alfred takes a step back, using his free hand to rake through his hair in a gesture that betrays nervousness, which Arthur finds rather endearing.
“Shit. I don’t know what I’m doing,” Alfred mumbles, stubbing out his cigarette. “I thought… I could have sworn you were checking me out at the airport and I didn’t say anything since… what was the point, I was never going to see you again, but, here we are.”
“What?” Arthur utters out in a near audible gasp.
Alfred’s self-assured breeziness seems to fracture around the edges now and he tugs at his hair before dropping his arms to his sides and tilting his head towards Arthur, grimacing.
“I’m sorry, I’m way off the mark, I’m more tired than I thought-- I thought you were gay, and you were looking at me--”
“I am,” Arthur says, dazed, his eyes wide as he looks back at Alfred. “You are?”
“Not exactly,” Alfred responds. “I kind of go for whoever I find cute. I think they call it pansexual? Or I’m just bi, I can’t keep up sometimes…”
Arthur doesn’t know what sends him off reeling further: how obvious he’d apparently been about mooning over Alfred in the airport, or that this man, who is utterly out of his league, considers Arthur cute enough to be interested in.
“You are definitely the reason why books should not be judged by their covers,” Arthur mutters, almost to himself but Alfred hears him.
The American’s smile is almost cocky.
“Classic straight guy, right? Yeah, it took me a while to figure it out, and even longer to be cool with it, but now I don’t want anything to hold me back from meeting cool people.”
Arthur shakes his head in astonishment but he’s smiling again. A shiver travels up the back of his shoulders and he clutches his arms into his middle, absorbing as much warmth from his jumper as he can. It’s growing colder, and they’ve been outside for a while now. They should probably head back inside if they want a chance of getting a hotel room to actually get some sleep.
“I don’t have anyone special, since you asked, but I think you already knew that,” Arthur tells Alfred with a faux haughtiness, when really, he’s feeling cheeky.
“Maybe I guessed,” Alfred says with a grin boyish enough to make Arthur go weak at the knees if he was standing.
“It was a very impertinent question.”
“I ask a lot of those,” Alfred counters shamelessly. “Like… you wanna ditch this place and get a drink together? We’ve got a lot of time to kill and I’m not going to fall asleep.”
The Englishman inhales a sobering breath of fresh air, unable to wrap his mind around the madness that is unfolding, and willing himself to embrace it. He has never been asked out by a man as handsome or bold as Alfred, and he might be too wild, he might be all wrong for Arthur, but it doesn’t feel like that, not at all. Arthur feels refreshed, almost freed from his fatigue, and his toes are curled into his shoes, giddiness flitters around inside him and he has to admit that he wants nothing more than to have a drink with Alfred.
“Fine,” Arthur acquises. “Don’t make me fall in love with you, bloody American. I can’t cope with long-distance.”
“I forgot to mention that I’ve also got a job interview while I’m in the UK,” Alfred says, helping Arthur stand and throwing both of their cigarettes in the tray above the bin. “So I make no guarantees.”
Even while Alfred’s charming enough to win Arthur’s heart and his hand in marriage, and erase almost all ill-feeling of the chaotic night they met, Arthur will also maintain that American Airlines are pure shite.