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He snuffles thickly, pressing the tissues to his streaming nose and awkwardly scooting his suitcase closer to himself as someone tries to pass. He's exhausted. It's so much cheaper to fly at an hour where no one else but himself and the Lord are awake, but for a man who already struggles to sleep, this isn't doing him any favors.
Beside him, Warren's listlessly listening to something on her headphones, fidgeting tiredly with the cane in her hands. She's been, thankfully, in relatively good spirits thus far, which is an absolute blessing, because, frankly, he doesn't know if he would be able to really survive this trip if she was making it more difficult. And that isn't to blame her, of course--being, and he thinks this with all the love in the world, a pain to deal with is practically the job description of being fourteen--but that doesn't make it any more pleasant when she's in one of her little moods. Sometimes she just gets in one of those states where she could chew up nails and spit out a barbed wire, and he knows that he doesn't really help matters when he takes it personally.
He's rattled out of his thoughts by the all consuming need to sneeze, hardly able to even gasp before he's ducking down into tissues in tented hands. "hH'DDZZHHue! eEIDDZZHYue!" He can't help but whimper a little in the aftermath, the way they scrape over his throat painful and uncomfortable. He is fully aware of every set of eyes that are on him now, and the ones that are pointedly avoiding looking his way. Everyone at this gate is praying, he knows, that they aren't the unfortunate souls stuck sitting next to him.
Someone nearby offers him a disgusted little scowl in response, and he shrinks further into his seat with a couple of rumbling, closed mouth coughs that do absolutely nothing to ease the congestion in his chest. Nor, really, do they do anything about the congestion in his nose, obstructing any chance at breathing except for the noisy, ineffective snuffles that don't move near enough air to sustain what he needs to survive.
He doesn't want to be so sick--he can't help that when he booked the tickets months ago that he didn't know that he would have a monstrous headcold. He's trying his best to keep everything contained all to himself, because he has no intention to deliberately infect anybody else--but this is a mess to try and deal with, literally and figuratively. He can't do anything to blow his nose right now--they would crucify him for it, and he's embarrassed even in the best of circumstances, of which these most certainly are not--but he considers it strongly. Wistfully, even.
Instead, he opts to just sort of continue pressing the tissues to reddened nostrils, trying to avoid anything spilling over. It's not the most successful or graceful endeavor, finagling all of his--and her--things with one less hand, but this is one of few times that being ambidextrous has ever actually proven useful beyond some little party trick. Not that he really uses it much, of course. For most intents and purposes he's a lefty, moreso now as an adult and out of the environment that was so weird about it, but he supposes that he got pretty good at doing most things right-handed. They taught him well.
He glances at his watch, and back at the board saying their flight's been delayed. He's never been more glad that he booked a direct flight, not least of all because at least this way they don't have to worry about missing their connection. That's really the only thing he feels grateful about for this delay.
The second hand is ticking loudly enough that he can't stop hearing it--or maybe he's just too focused on the time passing to be able to tune it out--but this whole thing is exhausting and frustrating and they haven't even gotten on the plane yet. They'll be first to board, but that just means they'll be sitting there longer in smaller seats.
And, worse, they don't even get to be in the same row anymore. Almost an hour of arguing about why they had to change his seat, and why he couldn't let them ended up with the compromise that instead of numerous rows up and across the aisle, they've shifted people around in a way that puts him only a row ahead of her, and a seat to the right. It's a horrible compromise, one that he fussed and fretted and spoke to managers and Lord-knows-who-else about, but it's the best he's going to get, so it's what he has to accept.
Not that there's really probably going to be much of a problem; she's plenty old enough to mind herself, and it's not like he's far, but she's never flown before, except as just a wee thing, and while she isn't nervous about it, he is. The last--and only--time he's ever flown before this was a decade ago to move across the country, and it was hardly a comfortable experience. Certainly not one that he had ever expected to repeat, and not just for financial reasons!
He just sighs, and uses his free hand to rub hard at his eyes. It doesn't do anything to ease the fatigue that he's hopeful (but not optimistic) will be solved by a good night's sleep tonight, but he feels compelled to try nonetheless. Sometimes it's about the journey more than the results, even if the journey is just trying to not be quite so tired in an airport by his gate with a hundred and fifty other people who want, equally badly, to get this over with.
Warren pulls her headphones off for just long enough to lean over and elbow him lightly in the stomach. "When do we get to go?"
"I don't know. They aren't sure how quickly it'll be." A weary glance over at the man at the gate tells him it probably won't be any time in the near future. "I'll let you know when things start looking like they're wrapping that way."
She clearly isn't pleased by this answer, but lets it pass with a huff of annoyance and slumping deeper in her seat, idly kicking her suitcase and resuming whatever she was listening to.
He sighs with relief, which proves to be a mistake when it catches in his chest and makes him cough roughly into his elbow. It isn't a particularly cold day, nor does he have any illusion it will be when they disembark this afternoon, but for now he's glad to be wearing a sweatshirt. Some old, faded thing that's started to get raggedy on the edges, proudly emblazoned with the logo of an elementary school she hasn't attended in years, now, and it's showing every inch of that time.
But it's soft, and it's warm-ish, and it's a comfort to have when this entire trip has him grinding his teeth to dust before it's even truly begun.
The congestion feels like cement in his sinuses, thick and crackling and, he fears, an ominous suggestion that it may decide to become a sinus infection if he doesn't head it off now. As much as he doesn't want to, he digs the travel packet of tissues somebody at one of the innumerable desks he's stood at today gave him--whether out of sympathy or out of a desire to avoid becoming the next victim of this cold, he isn't sure, nor does he care. They're almost out. He's been rationing them as best as he can, but this is reaching the 'desperate times' that are calling for 'desperate measures'.
He attempts to blow his nose, and the shifting congestion is enough to spark that irritation to life, and prompts sneezing that's just as desperate as the times and measures preceding the aborted effort. "Huh-! huUDDZZHieww! uH'DZZHHyue! 'ZZHHyuuee!"
He manages to smother the last one a little, nips the beginning in the bud enough that it seems to quell the worst of that miserably sneezy feeling, now reduced to just a weird, crawling sort of itch that he knows won't be satisfied long. It doesn't escape his notice that not a single person offers a blessing.
His shoulder nudges Warren's. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."
"What am I gonna do, fly the plane away?"
"Alright, sassy pants. Stay put."
He hustles to the bathroom and glances anxiously back over his shoulder towards her once before he slips in. He grabs some toilet paper from one of the stalls, avoiding looking at anyone else around him because he's so flustered about potentially seeing the expressions on their faces, and takes a second to blow his nose fiercely enough to actually attempt to clear it for the time being.
He hopes that they can start this show on the road soon, but grabs a handful of paper towels and shoves them into his pocket so that, hopefully, when he needs them later, he's got something to actually sort of contain all of this. The sight of himself in the mirror is one that makes him wince when he catches it. His nose is already red and starting to chafe, nostrils glistening with moisture no matter how much he keeps tending to it, and the shadows under his eyes look especially pronounced in the harsh fluorescents of the bathroom.
Somebody else washing their hands is looking at him while he washes his own, and they awkwardly scoot one sink away from him to finish the task. He's deeply embarrassed by the fact that, even when they can see the attempt at being cleanly, they move further away from him.
He doesn't have any desire to continue being looked at, so he just dries his hands and hustles back to where Warren's been sitting, one side of her headphones off to be able to keep an ear out for what's around her. "Thanks for not getting kidnapped."
"Someone tried, but they said I was too much hassle and brought me back." She relinquishes hold of their suitcases, and lets him take his own back. "Which way's the bathroom?"
"Do you want me to walk you over?"
"No, I'll find it. If I tap my cane really loud and obnoxious, people are pretty good at bringing me to it."
"If that's what you wanna do."
True to her word, she starts making her way in the rough direction he came from, tapping her cane more aggressively and obtrusively than she needs to, and sure enough, somebody in a vest immediately comes over to try and assist her. He watches the employee take her towards the restroom, and disappear off in the distance.
In the meantime, he takes the opportunity to bounce his leg so hard that it's jingling the keys in his pocket loudly enough that it makes somebody nearby look over at him. It's a silly habit, probably, something he's sure he should've outgrown ages ago, but there is something about it that he's always found soothing in a way that's hard to replicate. Like scratching an itch that's deep in his soul.
Speaking of itches he'd like to scratch, he can feel that fluttery, prickly sort of tickle in his nose. Rubbing a knuckle hard against the side of it does absolutely nothing to actually quell it, nor does he expect it to, but he has to do something, and this is really the only thing to do, unless he intends to either coax it out or to fight his own nature and suppress it until it goes away. Since one is unappetizing as a thought, and one is impossible, he just tries to ignore it a little until it makes itself too prominent to do so.
A coworker told him, once, that he looked like he was a Renaissance painting the way he would sometimes press a knuckle so delicately to his septum, barely touching and more gestural than aiming for effectiveness, long fingers curled, pale skin contrasted by the warm, flushed tones of damp nares. His argument that that might lean more towards Baroque than Renaissance hadn't made much of an impression.
He still thinks about it sometimes when he does it, of the idea that someone might borrow his hands for their painting, borrow his expression, commit him to oils and canvas and all manner of things. There's something oddly thrilling and embarrassing in equal parts by this idea. Cerine's had him sit as a model on occasion, has always brushed off his sheepish laugh and half-hearted plea to do him justice the way a camera can't, to take artistic liberty and clean up the worst of him into something more palatable.
But there is no friend here, and he is not sitting in her cramped little studio apartment that tries to fulfill the 'studio' as much as the 'apartment'. He's sitting on an uncomfortable seat, surrounded by people whose patience is already taxed in a way that he doesn't think they're really in the mood to extend him the grace he's sorely needing in a state like this.
No, he is patient zero, and they are all the people who are hoping to God that they can be sat as far from him as possible. But, as much as they most certainly are wanting him to keep all of this to himself, to avoid getting caught by patient zero, by the plague rat sitting in their midst, not a one of them seems to be stepping up to offer him any tissues or anything of the like. He's left to fend for himself, fielding their glares and whispers, and he can feel the anxiety deep inside of his chest like it's going to burst out of him.
He jumps so badly when an employee touches his shoulder that it startles her as well, and he can't fight the shaky sigh and the hand that flies to his heart in the wake of it. "Oh! I'm sorry, I--I didn't notice you come up."
"We're getting ready to board. When your daughter gets back, we'll have you two on first, and then we can start getting the other passengers on."
"Oh, that might be just about the best news I've heard all morning." He isn't aware of how tense his shoulders are until he relaxes them from this. "She should, uhm--should--? hH-! uUDZZHHue! huUZZHHyue! Huh-uH--! ...hUDDZZHHyue!" He's tucked down into his handful of tissues, unable to stop the fit that drags itself across his throat and is absolutely miserable for his sinuses. He can feel how deeply he's blushing, the woman averting her eyes politely while he attempts to sort of deal with the aftermath of this. "I, uhm--excuse me, I'm--sdff!--I have a cold, and it's--"
"Bless you." She offers him a couple napkins from her pocket, clearly having prepared for coming over here. There's not much he can do for it, but he's glad that, even if it's embarrassing, he's getting some little benefit from it. "You're far from the first sick traveler we've ever had, and, dare I say it, definitely not the worst I've seen in awhile."
He gratefully takes the napkins, and very awkwardly blows his nose as softly as he can. "Thank you. I'll, uhm...I guess I'll take that as a comfort, then." It's a very thin comfort, but he really does appreciate the kindness she's attempting to offer. He resigns himself to the flight ahead, unable to do much else.