It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

airport au

i was theo (pancho) and chl0rinekissed was bedussey (eugene). it reads exactly like a hallmark movie. enjoy.

PANCHO: Basically, the only thing that mattered when I saved up all my sick days at work and purchased a plane ticket to Los Angeles during the holiday season, when they were the most expensive, was the thought of the look on my girlfriend's face when I knocked on her apartment door on Christmas Eve. She'd had to move down there a few months ago because her sister was dying or something, and it just hadn't worked out for her to move back yet. I knew she was kind of mad at me before she left, but I'd worked really hard while she was gone to fix myself up and turn myself around, and we'd been talking more, so I was really excited to surprise her and spend Christmas and New Year's with her. I really liked to surprise people, ever since I was a kid.
Running late had never been my plan, but as I glanced at my phone screen as I ran through the airport, I noticed that I was ten minutes late and not getting any closer to my gate. I shouldered my luggage and did my best to weave through the crowd. When I finally made it to my gate, my heart sank. They had just closed it, like two minutes ago. "Fuck!" I hissed, tightening my grip on my bag.

BEDUSSEY: Everything seemed like it was going just fine the night before. My bag was mostly packed, my ticket was paid for, and I had set my alarm to go off with enough time for me to get ready and leave for my business trip the next day. Sure, it was the holidays, but it wasn't like I had anyone to spend them with, and it was all expenses paid. I had gone to bed thinking that nothing could go wrong, but look where I am now. Just arrived at the gate, two minutes late, luggage messily packed and still trying to get myself to wake up. Things were definitely not going according to plan. I had a meeting to attend at 6:00, and now I'd be lucky if my flight even landed by then, all thanks to me forgetting to pay the bills.
It wasn't like I regularly forgot to pay them, but I'd just been so busy this month that the thought had slipped my mind. Right in the middle of my shower that morning, the water went off. I'd had to make breakfast with my hair still wet and cold in the December morning chill, and then on top of all that I spilled orange juice on my shirt and pants so I had to change again. That completely threw off what I had packed the night before. I had thought I would only need what I had in my apartment at the time, and the rest of my clothes were at the laundromat, so I had to repack after changing. By the time I had straightened everything out, I was running late. Somehow I had managed to almost make it to the airport in time, but not quite. Still panting from running as fast as I could across the airport, I let out a heavy sigh. My boss was gonna kill me.

PANCHO: I kept thinking that this couldn't be happening, but evidently it was. I had blown a lot of money on a plane ticket that I had missed. For a couple seconds, I was royally pissed, but my anger slowly melted down to sadness as I realized I wouldn't be able to see my girlfriend. Christmas would be spent all alone again, watching cheesy movies and eating microwave popcorn. I had decorated sparsely, just a string of lights on the wall, because I had been expecting to be in LA for the holidays. There was no food at home either for the same reason. My girlfriend had been with some friends on Christmas the previous year, but I forgave her because we had only been dating for two years, ten months, and eleven days then, so it's not like she should've felt obliged to spend the holidays with me. But I was really looking forward to seeing her this time, and now my plans were ruined. I didn't have the money to buy another ticket, and if I had, all the flights probably would have been booked. I sighed and sat down in one of the airport chairs to sort things out for a moment. I really, really, loved my girlfriend and I was trying to figure out any other possible ways to get there in time, but nothing worked. I looked around the airport, at the people running around and smiling at each other, stepping on flights with looks of nervous excitement, and my heart crumbled again. But then, my gaze landed on another guy about my age, staring at the recently empty gate with a look of shock and dismay. Had he missed the same flight as me? He looked kind of ruffled, his hair a little damp and his clothes looking like he had run the whole way there.