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Flying internationally was bad enough on its own, but Michael was quickly discovering that flying internationally with a headache was ten times worse. Sure, it wasn’t a bad headache or anything like that, just a dull pain in his right temple, but it was enough to make everything else seem just a little bit worse. For example, normally the fact that he could never get much sleep on planes didn’t bother him. He’d gotten used to running on very little sleep while simultaneously dealing with jet lag, what with all the traveling he had to do for his job. But it was six hours into a seven-and-a-half-hour flight and Michael had barely managed to doze off for a cumulative time of twenty minutes. He was also seriously contemplating murdering the woman in front of him who had decided to lean her chair as far back as possible. In his opinion, people who did that should go to jail, or at least be given the shittiest airplane food available.
At least he wasn’t the only one not having a good time on the flight. For some reason, Luke had decided to take the middle seat between Ashton and Michael despite being by far the tallest of the three, and he was clearly suffering from it. Michael would usually offer to switch, but the evil lady in front of him meant that Luke would probably be even more cramped in the aisle seat.
Currently, Luke was attempting to fall asleep on Ashton’s shoulder. Ashton had the special talent of being able to fall asleep basically anywhere, something Michael regularly complained was completely unfair, and planes were no exception. He had wedged the airline-issued pillow between his face and the airplane window within the first twenty minutes of the flight and had yet to wake up.
Meanwhile, Luke had tried sitting in practically every position he could in his cramped airplane seat and, as far as Michael knew, had yet to drift off for more than a couple minutes at a time. Michael glanced over to see Luke burrowing his face into Ashton’s shoulder. His neck was bent at an awkward angle and he was more hunched over than Quasimodo. To put it simply: he looked like crap.
Michael bumped Luke’s elbow with his own. “Psst.”
Luke groaned and lifted up his head, squinting at Michael with reddened eyes. “What?”
“You can lean on me if you want.”
Luke hesitated for less than a millisecond before shifting in his seat to rest his head against Michael. Michael wrapped his arm around Luke and straightened up as much as he could in the uncomfortable airplane seat, but Luke was still bent at an awkward angle.
“I’m sorry I’m not the perfect height to be your human pillow,” Michael joked, wincing as the pain in his temple throbbed.
“It’s okay,” Luke mumbled, his breath hot against Michael’s collarbone, “I should have known I’d never be able to get to sleep. Economy seating is always unbearably cramped.”
Michael made a noise of agreement, thoughts of his headache fading as the awareness of Luke’s proximity swept over his brain like a tidal wave. The chill that poured from the vents above them was now being combated by the warmth that Luke seemed to constantly radiate. Michael couldn’t help but melt into it a little. One of his least favorite things about airplanes was the way they seemed to leech out what little body heat he had, so it was nice to have even a few minutes on a plane where he didn’t feel as though his bones had been replaced with ice cubes.
“You going to sleep?” Luke asked.
“You know me, I’ll be lucky if I get an hour. I’ll probably just watch whatever new action movie looks good.”
Luke hummed and shifted his head again, his eyelashes fluttering against Michael’s neck as he closed his eyes. “Well, let me know if you want me to move so you can sleep.”
“Will do.”
Michael was twenty minutes into the newest installment in The Fast and the Furious franchise when Luke straightened up, rubbing his eyes. Michael paused the movie, trying not to think about just how much he missed the feeling of Luke pressed up against him.
“What’s up?”
“It’s no use. There’s no way I’m going to fall asleep without permanently damaging my spine.”
Michael pulled out his remaining earbud, studying Luke’s face. The dim florescent lights deepened the dark circles around his eyes, and Michael was pretty sure it wasn’t just the shadows that were giving Luke’s skin a gray tinge. He wanted to reach over and smooth out the creases imprinted on Luke’s face, but he settled for putting his hand on Luke’s arm.
“You could put your head on my lap, if you want.” The words slipped out before Michael could give them much thought, but once they were in the air, he was too tired to take them back.
Luke blinked over at him, but Michael couldn’t tell if the expression on his face was confusion, hesitation, or just plain exhaustion. “Are you sure? I don’t want to crush you or anything.”
Michael snorted. “I’m not exactly fragile, you know.”
“Yeah, but still…”
Michael tugged his sleeves over his hands and turned back to the screen, feeling a flush spreading up his neck into his face. “You don’t have to if it would make you uncomfortable, it was just an idea.”
“It wouldn’t make me uncomfortable,” Luke said quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t just offering because of, I don’t know, pity or something.”
Michael raised an eyebrow, not taking his eyes off the frozen image of Vin Diesel’s face on the screen in front of him. “When have I ever offered something out of pity?”
“Fair point.”
Squirming in his seat, Luke stretched his torso out over Michael’s knees, his feet still on the floor. Michael glanced down and was suddenly overwhelmed with how small Luke looked. Yes, he was still clearly a very tall man scrunched into a very cramped space, and yes, Michael did feel as though his knees were about to make an ominous crunching noise, but something in his expression and the way he tried, even now, to take up as little space as possible was incredibly endearing.
“You know, you could probably stretch your legs over Ashton’s lap. It’s not like it’ll wake him up,” Michael said, glancing over at the man fast asleep in the window seat.
“You sure he wouldn’t mind?” Luke asked, turning his head to stare up at Michael with sleepy blue eyes.
Michael gripped the ends of his sleeves to keep himself from brushing the stray curls off Luke’s forehead. “Ashton would give any one of us a limb if we asked, I don’t think he’d mind having your gross socks on him for a couple of hours.”
Luke let out a tired chuckle. “You’ve got a point there.”
Michael hesitated as Luke got his legs into a comfortable position before saying, “You know you don’t have to just be stretched over my knees. I mean, that can’t be comfortable.”
Michael couldn’t tell if Luke’s cheeks actually flushed or if it was just wishful thinking. “I didn’t want to invade your personal bubble or whatever.”
Michael rolled his eyes and tugged at Luke’s shoulder. “You’re already in my personal bubble, idiot. Just get over here.”
Luke let Michael pull him fully into Michael’s lap until he was curled up with his back pressed against Michael’s stomach and his head on Michael’s knee. Michael tucked his right arm across Luke’s chest and let his left hand hover centimeters away from Luke’s hair under the pretense he was simply using the armrest.
Humming slightly to himself, Luke took Michael’s hand in his and pulled it up to plant a feather-light kiss on Michael’s knuckles. “Thank you,” he mumbled, eyes already sinking shut.
“Anytime,” Michael said softly, not quite able to keep his voice even as his stomach filled to the brim with butterflies.
As Luke finally settled into a comfortable position with his cheek pressed against the back of Michael’s hand, Michael finally caved. He started carding the fingers of his free hand through Luke’s hair, gently untangling his mess of curls. Luke sighed contentedly and tilted his head slightly to give Michael better access. The constant thrumming of the plane’s engines still stoked Michael’s headache, but he was no longer bothered by it. All he cared about was the weight of Luke asleep in his lap and the brush of Luke’s lips against his hand whenever he exhaled.