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Before: Christmas in Terminal A... Part One


Nick

By the time I got downstairs, threw my shit in my bag, and got out of my mother's house, I had no clue where ol' Dogface had got to. I was seething. I couldn't believe my mother, blaming me for the crap Dogface had said. I mean sure it was stuff that I'd thought of and wondered a couple times - if things had been different between us all before Leslie had died, would she still be here? If I had personally been a better brother, what then? All Dogface had really done was give a voice to the deepest fears that had lived inside each of us for the past eleven months. But still. You'd think that my mother would've avoided underlining the crucial point of Dogface's point by not kicking me out on Christmas Eve. You know?

I got into the rental car and texted Dogface.

Where u at?

It took her a moment to reply. Down the street.

Stay there. Be rite there.

I backed out the driveway and turned, pulling up behind Dogface. I unrolled the window and she stood on the sidewalk. "I'm not going back there," she said firmly. "I'm not going through the rest of Christmas getting told I'm ugly."

"Get in the car," I said.

She shook her head, "I swear to Christ, Nick, I'm not putting up with that anymore."

"I know, and I'm not neither. We're going to the airport."

Dogface picked up her bag and haucked it into the backseat before climbing in and buckling up in shot gun. She looked over at me as her seatbelt clicked. I could feel her eyes on me as I turned back into the street and started driving to the airport. She gnawed her lip a moment. "So... what happened?" she asked.

"I came to get you," I answered. Somehow, I didn't want to tell her what really happened. I wanted to keep that private. I don't know why. It just felt... I dunno, like I'd be asking for a pity party if I told her. And I didn't want a pity party. I just wanted to forget it ever happened.

She frowned, "I'm sorry."

"Its not you," I replied.

"Actually it really was," she said.

I shrugged.

We fell into silence for several long moments before she said, "So Christmas in Los Angeles, huh?"

I shrugged, "If we can find a flight. Which all things considered isn't gonna be easy tonight."

"Are you pissed at me?" she asked.

I sighed. "Not really," I replied. "I just... I'm more pissed with myself, I guess. I mean, the only reason everyone got so mad was because you were right."

Dogface looked at her knees and rubbed the caps gently. "I'm sorry I ruined your Christmas," she said quietly.

I stared ahead out at the eerily clear roadway. Everyone was at home, with their families or whatever, enjoying the peace and joy of Christmas. They were laughing, drinking eggnog, eating ham dinners and watching movies. They were hanging stockings by fireplaces with care and baking Christmas cookies. Nobody was on the road at this hour except us rejects.

I couldn't bring myself to answer Dogface.

"Next year, you should just... leave me in California... me and Jimmy Stewert and my popcorn and I won't bother you," she rambled. "Then you can spend Christmas with your family."

I drew a deep breath. "You, me, and Jimmy Stewert," I said, "It's a date."

Dogface raised an eyebrow.

"You are my family," I explained simply.




Ashley

"Well this isn't at all depressing," Nick said, sitting down with a huff at a green plastic table we'd walked halfway across the airport to find. It was crowded as all hell, people were running every which way. We'd gotten separated and lost like fifteen times. There was so much noise as people talked, walked, ran, and rushed on, dragging along suitcases and bewildered looking children.

I put my tray down across from Nick's, and started rummaging around through my bags of food. "You could've stayed at your mom's," I said.

Nick didn't answer. Instead, he put his full concentration on the container of salad he'd bought. I watched as he struggled to open it, poured his dressing over the top of the lettuce and spinach, and shoved the first forkful into his mouth and begun chewing.

"You're like a rabbit," I said.

Nick looked up from his greens. "What?" he asked, mouth full. A piece of spinach fell out and landed on the table. He picked it up and put it back in his mouth.

"Gross."

"What?" he asked again.

"Any number of things could've happened to this table --" I started.

"You think people are having sex on tables in airport terminals?"

"-- and you just pick up the lettuce and eat it like it's nothing --"

"That was spinach," he said.

"The five second rule doesn't actually exist you know," I said.

Nick shrugged, "I have yet to extract dickdiaroo."

"Oh I'm sure your dick has diaroo," I replied.

Nick smirked. "You're awful interested in what my dick does and does not have."

I snorted. "You wish."

Nick's smirk didn't fade. He stabbed the lettuce and spinach up with his fork, his eyes never leaving me as he bent down and took a bite of the Greek dressing covered greens.

"Seriously, though, you eat like a woman."

"When I don't eat like a woman, I grow like a chia pet," he answered.

"It looks like you're eating a chia pet," I retorted. I opened up my Burger King bag and took out the whopper and fries I'd ordered. Nick watched as I undid the wrapper and folded it back to create a holder on the burger, then took a big, lingering bite. I hummed in appreciation. Even though the burger was stale, I made it sound like it was orgasmic.

Nick was still staring at me. He was chewing a colossal mouthful of lettuce.

I waved my fries at him. "You want one?"

His eyes narrowed.

I took one out of the little cardboard cup thing and waved it at him.

He snatched it like a seagull and stuck it in his mouth. "Fuck," he groaned. "That tastes good." I laughed as he stole the whole cup of them. "You want my pomegranate?" he held up the pom he'd gotten.

"No that's okay, you keep your creepy healthy food over there."

"It's not creepy," he said, laughing, "Why the hell is a pomegranate creepy?"

"It's like an alien egg sac or something," I replied. "Creepy."

Nick made a grossed out face, "Sick, Dogface. Sick."

"Besides, you were cute fat."

"I was not," he argued, "I looked like a teletubbie with hair."

I snorted on the Sprite I'd just taken a sip of. "Oh my God, you totally did."

"See?" Nick laughed, "It just proves you've got magic wingman powers of some sort though, Dogface. Because even when I looked like a giant teletubbie, you still managed to get me some."

"You're famous," I replied, "I owe my wingman skills more to easy targets than to actually skills."

Nick leaned back, eating my fries, his salad completely abandoned. "Who'da thunk," he said, musing, staring up at the ceiling as he sucked the salt off a french fry in a way that would've made a gay guy plotz in lustful agony, "That you'd end up being my holiday ho?"

I laughed. "Sorry, but no," I shook my head. "Never happening, Carter. Never happening."

Nick laughed and sucked the fry completely into his mouth.