Chapter Text
"I just don't think we're right for each other."
John blinked, shifted a bit in his seat. His knee bumped his cane, sending it clattering into the aisle. He stooped to retrieve it. A man struggling with a bit of carry-on luggage knocked into his shoulder as he straightened up.
"Sorry," the man said. He did not sound particularly sorry.
John ignored him. He looked at Sarah, who was looking back at him with an earnest expression.
"Seriously," John said. "You're telling me this now?"
"I wanted to be honest," she said.
"The plane hasn't even bloody taken off yet," John said. He gestured into the aisle, towards the passengers still stowing their belongings and settling slowly into seats. "We're about to be trapped together in a metal tube for twenty-three hours, and you're telling me this now?"
"Someone had to say it," she said, and now she did look sorry. Not sorry enough, in John's opinion, but there wasn't much he could do about that.
"We've just been on holiday," he said. "I had a nice time—"
"It was awful," she said.
"Awful!"
"Oh," she said, and tucked a strand behind her ear. "No, I didn't mean it that way. Not entirely awful."
"Oh, well, that's great," he said. His face felt hot.
"There was that restaurant. The one with the fish. That was nice."
"Two weeks together in New Zealand, and the only good thing was the restaurant with the fish?"
"I'm sorry!" Sarah lifted her hand, pinched the bridge of her nose with her index finger and thumb. She looked very unhappy, now, and more than a bit embarrassed. "I thought you felt the same way. We didn't get on at all! It was—well, it was all a bit of a slog, wasn't it?"
It had been a bit of a slog, but he hadn't really wanted to be the one to say it. Sarah was bright and witty and lovely, after all. And, well, she was also his boss. That made the situation significantly more awkward than it might have been otherwise.
Perhaps he had not really thought this through.
Harry had warned him, after all, but she was really the last person fit to be doling out relationship advice.
"I—" he shook his head, at a loss. "What did you think was going to happen, here? That you'd break up with me and then we'd spend the rest of the flight laughing about the whole thing?"
"Erm, well, yes?" She gave him a hopeful, pained sort of smile. "I did sort of think we had potential. As friends?"
"Twenty-three hours," he said. "This flight is twenty-three hours."
"Twenty-four," a dry voice piped up from the seat in front of him. "There's a headwind. And I do hope you're not going to spend the entire time whinging."
"Yeah, not helping, mate," John said. He put his head in his hands. Tilted his face towards Sarah. "Christ, you could have at least waited until we'd landed."
"Yeah, I'm—I see that now. Sorry." She bit her lip, shot him an uncomfortable smile. It seemed genuine, that smile. "I really am sorry, John."
"Yeah," he said, and sighed. "Me too."
"Thank God that's over with," the man in front of them said. His voice was deep and drawling, irritatingly posh.
"No one asked you," John snapped.
"And yet you've involved me anyway, making sure to air the last gasps of your dying relationship loudly enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear."
"All right," John said, and stood up.
"John!" Sarah's hand shot out, grabbing at his forearm. He looked down at her. She huffed, gave him an embarrassed sort of smile. Took her hand away.
"Listen," John said, stepping out into the aisle. He stumbled a bit over something on the floor, kicked it out of the way.
"John, don't," Sarah hissed. "Just sit back down."
John shook his head, braced his hand on the seat rest in front of him, leaned down to get a look at the man with the irritating voice.
It was the man who had bumped into him in the aisle. Well-dressed, slim, with pale skin and rumpled dark hair. He looked back at John with sharp eyes, his brow raised in some sort of challenge.
"I do believe they frown upon physical altercations mid-flight."
"Listen," John said again. He thought the man had a rather punchable face, all things considered. He was a good-looking bloke. Posh. Smug. Definitely punchable.
"Of course, you're just the type," the man said. He did something with his brows that made him appear, somehow, even more smug.
"The—type? What type?" John would not quite describe himself as sputtering. He didn't sputter. He was just a bit thrown. That was all.
"Ex-military," the man said. His voice dipped into a drone that sounded almost bored. "Invalided out. Struggling with a residual injury—clearly psychosomatic, by the way—and recently dumped. Your pride has been wounded. You'll be seeking to reassert your manhood in any way possible, and what better way than initiating a fight? You've clenched your fist three times since I began speaking—oh, don't look surprised, I've been paying attention—and I suspect you'll be throwing the first punch in three, two, one—"
"Psychosomatic?" Not sputtering. Definitely not sputtering.
"Best be careful when you do," the man continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You don't want to trip on your cane. It's rolled into the aisle again, or didn't you notice when you kicked it aside? See, as I said. Psychosomatic."
John looked down at the ground, at his cane resting against the side of his foot. He'd tripped over it as he'd scrambled out into the aisle. Hadn't even noticed it was gone.
He barked a laugh.
The man blinked at him, his smug, self-satisfied expression wavering just a bit.
"Amazing," John said. "Just—absolutely bloody incredible."
The man blinked again.
"Well you're—right, yeah? Right about all of it."
"Not all of it," the man said.
John raised his brows.
"Clearly you have no intention of punching me."
"Well, no," John said. It was all a bit surprising, he thought. He'd very badly wanted to punch the man a moment ago. Now he rather thought he'd prefer to sit next to him and ask him questions instead.
"Pity," the man said. "Now I'll need to find another way to get myself thrown off the plane."
He stood up, brushing past John on his way into the aisle. Then he hesitated, turned back with a crooked sort of smile, and winked—winked—before cutting swiftly across a row of seats and tackling the beverage cart.
"What in the world?" Sarah cried, standing up.
John shook his head, watched as the man was roughly wrestled to the ground. There was a great deal of shouting and clinking of bottles. It was all a bit ridiculous and, he supposed, rather needlessly dramatic. If the man had wanted off the plane before takeoff, surely he could have just approached a flight attendant.
He was smiling, he realised distantly. He hadn't had cause to do much of that recently.
"I think our flight's going to be a bit delayed," he said.
"Great," Sarah said, and offered him a sardonic little smile. "Well. I suppose that will give us plenty of time to analyse where our relationship went wrong."
He laughed, a genuine sound, because for God's sake, what else was there to do? She was clearly embarrassed and seeking to break the ice. And he—he wasn't as upset as he should be. Wasn't upset at all, really. He sat down again, rubbed his hand across his face.
"Seriously, though," she said. "What was that all about?"
Airport security had arrived. They hauled the man up off of the ground, began dragging him towards the exit. Some of the passengers clapped.
"I have no idea," he said. He leaned over and retrieved his cane from the aisle, looked at it for a long moment. Its weight felt foreign and unwelcome in his hand.
Psychosomatic.
He had the strange urge to laugh again. Instead he tucked the cane away under his seat, leaned his head back against the cushion. Closed his eyes.