Spideychelle one-shots

After: Part 2

Peter

Peter didn't know who the heck thought it was a good idea to have the reunion right before Christmas, but he definitely disagreed. Wholeheartedly. 

Trying to arrange travel and accommodations in the pre-Christmas rush was giving him a headache. Luckily, he didn't have to worry about flying back on Christmas Eve or any other nonsense. This was the perfect excuse to spend Christmas at home with May. In fact, he wouldn't put it past her to have bribed someone to have the reunion now, just to make sure he would be there.

Peter would have loved to spend every Christmas at home, but plane tickets were expensive and his salary wasn't exactly huge. He was doing better now, but there had definitely been a few years there as a student where the choice had been flying home or eating for the next month. 

So he was excited to go home, excited to be back in the city he loved. But if he didn't get out of this god-forsaken airport in the next ten minutes, he was going to get back on the plane and fly back to England. Seriously, there was no way this place was real. It had to be some manifestation of his own personal hell, brought on by the eight hour flight and not enough sleep the night before. 

He sighed in relief when he finally spotted his bag on the luggage carousel, narrowly missing being spiked by a woman with an umbrella and three screaming children.

The crowds thronged, and Peter once again wondered who had designed this airport and whether they were still alive. He personally thought the person deserved to spend the rest of eternity in the hell that they had created. 

May had come to meet him, carrying a truly atrocious sign that Peter was pretty sure was written in pink glitter gel pen. Probably revenge for him sending her the aforementioned glitter pens. It was an inside joke to them, a nod to their mutual hate of glitter, something that had been cemented during a certain school play that no one was allowed to talk about. There had been glitter. Lots and lots of glitter. May claimed that she was still finding it in the carpets. And after the parents of the kids had been dragged into it as well, May and Peter had agreed that all pictures of the event would be burned and it would never be discussed again, except at Christmas, when they would try to send each other the most atrocious glitter products they could find. 

Peter didn't actually mind gel pens that much, but the glitter and the fact that they were part of a stationary set all centered around glitter, had decided it.

He was glad to see May was using her gift. 

He was even gladder to see her, the pain of missing her becoming even sharper when he saw her, everything about her painfully familiar.

"Hey, stranger," she said, laughing, and he felt the familiar pang of guilt in his chest. She hugged him, and he buried his face in her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice muffled by her sweater. "I'm sorry I don't visit more."

"What?" She said, drawing back so she could see his face. "Pete, I didn't mean it like that. I'm happy to see you, and it's Christmas. This is happy, okay?"

He nodded mutely. 

She smiled, but it was sad. "I don't blame you for not visiting, Pete. I'm just happy to see you. It's not like you aren't visiting because you don't want to, right?"

"Right," he said, feeling better. "Sorry, I guess I just missed you a lot."

"Silly boy," she said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "Did you like my sign?"

"I loved your sign," he said, admiring it close up. "Did you - " he laughed, reaching out to touch it. "Did you glue extra glitter on?"

"You bet," she said, eyes smiling. "It's yours to keep, too. You can hang it up in your fancy office."