WHO: Ezra Clarkson and Ian Rhinehart WHEN: Afternoon of July 16 WHERE: Some airplane at Reagan National Airport SUMMARY: Two strangers have an airplane themed meet cute. WARNINGS: None Ā
It had only been a couple of weeks since Ezra had made the choice to leave Ithaca behind and return to his hometown of Dunhaven, a town he hadnāt given much thought to since heād left it when he was nine. It was an odd sort of feeling contemplating going back now when most of his memories of the place included a time when his brother had been best and primary friend--almost like starting back at the beginning to forge a new path, but tainted by the knowledge that things had once been different. At least there was the prospect of the zoo to look forward to, and everything he had planned for its future. It had been one of his favorite places before theyād moved to Seattle, aside from the stables, and heād only been mollified by the fact that Seattle had had its own zoo, too.
With all of his belongings currently en route between Ithaca and Dunhaven, heād taken a few days to visit New York under the pretense of spending time with old friends from college. Of course, it hadnāt been his only reason for going. Heād been looking, too, for any connection to the past heād dreamed off and, though he had been unsurprised by the lack of such, it had been at least mildly disappointing that no one in the sea of people walking the sidewalks of the large city had been wearing any sort of sign that said I have information about Tina/Queenie/Jacob/MACUSA. And so heād passed the few days with his friends, taking in the city and enjoying the food before heād boarded a flight early that morning at LaGuardia to head to his new home.
Ezra had planned on spending the short flight reviewing the contract his lawyer had forwarded to him so that he was prepared to sign as soon as he sat down with the previous owner of the zoo. Those plans had fallen to the wayside which may have annoyed him under other circumstances, but it turned out that he didn't mind the distraction that took the shape of the man whoād introduced himself as Ian. Ezra had been surprised by the ease with which theyād fallen into conversation, especially considering the fact that talking to strangers had never been his strong suit. He would have been content to spend the whole flight talking to him but when Ian had slowly grown quiet and closed his eyes, Ezra hadnāt minded that, either.
He especially hadnāt minded, much to his surprise, when Ian had fallen asleep, his head resting on Ezraās shoulder.
It wasnāt until theyād landed and started taxiing that he found the heart to reach over and gently nudge the sleeping man. ā...Ian? Weāre here.ā
The process of flying home from Italy had been much longer than Ian had anticipated it would, thanks to an overbooking situation, a lengthy layover in London, and a flight that had actually been shorter than the time he'd spent at Heathrow, yet had somehow felt like much longer thanks to a teenager with impossibly long legs and a need to tap the beat of whatever they were listening to in their airpods against the back of Ian's seat. By the time he'd made it to LaGuardia, he was well and truly spent. Some Starbucks helped perk him up, but he had been looking forward to napping his way down the coast.
At least, that had been the plan until he'd seen who he was sitting next to. Ian was not one to chat on planes, at least not normally. His plane hobbies were usually sleeping or reading, both paired with him looking grumpy enough to keep from anyone wanting to talk to him. It wasn't that he was an unfriendly sort; the very opposite, actually, as his charisma tended to shine best when he was talking to someone new. It didn't matter that he traveled by plane as frequently as he did -- there was just something about plane travel.
But when he'd seen the man sitting next to him, he couldnāt help but introduce himself. When the man didn't rebuff him (something Ian himself might have done, so he had to give him credit) and instead introduced himself in turn, he found it easier than he would have expected to just slide into conversation with him. And, at first, he thought that the nap that he'd been looking forward to had found a suitable distraction to be kept at bay. But after too many hours in airports and not in his bed with Gambit curled up next to him, Ian fell prey to his heavy eyelids and fell asleep.
Ian could have probably slept there another eight hours, had he been given the chance. Though he didn't know it in his slumber, he'd almost naturally slumped over, his head on Ezra's shoulder. It wasn't until the owner of that shoulder was waking him that Ian realized exactly what that pillow had been. Despite himself, his ears started to turn red at the tips as he sat up.
"Ah," Ian started, hesitating as he rubbed his eyes with his fingers. "Sorry about that. Wow, that's embarrassing."
Ezra let out a small laugh and shifted in his seat, though immediately felt bad for the chuckle in case the other man thought he was laughing at him. He wasnāt. In fact, he inexplicably found the whole situation--from falling asleep on his shoulder to begin with to rubbing the sleep from his eyes--incredibly endearing. The last thing he wanted on any given day was to unnecessarily make anyone feel uncomfortable, especially when he didnāt think there was cause for discomfort to begin with.
āNo, itās fine,ā he smiled, subtly shaking out the hand that had started falling asleep. āI think weāre practically married now, though, since Iāve officially been kept up by your snoring,ā he joked. There had been no snoring, and the joke had come so easily, and so quickly, that he hadnāt thought about what he was saying until heād said it.
Apparently, āmarriedā was still a trigger word. Good to know. Ezra would continue pretending like it wasnāt, just as heād been doing since heād moved back to Ithaca. He willed his smile to broaden, and his smile obeyed his command. āAlso Iām teasing, in case that didnāt already come across.ā
Ian found it refreshingly easy to return Ezra's smile with something wider and brighter than his usual half smirk. Though he still felt the tendrils of embarrassment clinging to him, they were falling away easier than expected thanks to the good-natured teasing and the other man's warmth. That, he thought, was rather refreshing as well.
"So long as I didn't drool," Ian teased in return, his eyes dropping to the shoulder he'd been leaning against as though checking for any incriminating evidence to the contrary. He raised his hand, reaching out to straighten the shoulder of Ezra's shirt with a gentle tug; he'd already used him as a pillow, so he hoped the quick touch seemed more nonchalant than anything else. "I'm not exactly sure which relationship stage accidental drool would land us in."
āI think thatās the co-parenting stage, actually,ā Ezra quipped back, eyes darting between his shoulder and Ian. āThough one typically assumes itās the child--human or fur kid--doing the drooling, not the co-parent, but we always did have an unconventional relationship.ā His attention was torn from Ian when the pilot came over the intercom to announce that theyād be docking in just a few minutes, but he quickly returned it to him when the intercom crackled out.
Glancing at his watch, he said, āRight on time, actually.ā He found that a part of him was almost disappointed by that fact. āSo are you here for business, or just for fun? ā It was meant as small talk, an attempt to keep the conversation going until the two men inevitably parted ways, but maybe he was also interested in knowing if there would be at least one friendly face heād have a chance of running into in the city. He might be living outside of DC, but that didnāt mean he couldnāt randomly find himself driving in for...whatever reason he could come up with.
For as excited as he was for his new venture, and the distance it put between him and his most recent past, Ezra could already tell he was going to miss the advantage of actually knowing people.
There was something decidedly intriguing at how Ezra was able to shoot the joke right back at Ian. It wasn't that he wasn't surrounded by quick-witted people in his life -- on the contrary, most of the people he surrounded himself with were some shade of clever, as a rule. So few of those people, though, came in the shape of a man that wasn't related to him in some way.
Unwilling to get ahead of himself on that, at least for now, Ian began the process of powering his phone back on. He found himself smiling at the question. "Returning from business, actually," he explained, dismissing the notifications that came up on his screen before shifting to pocket the device instead. "I was in Italy, but this is my final stop. Well," he amended, tipping his head to the side in consideration, "I actually have to catch an Uber and go about a half an hour south to Dunhaven, but after all of my delays and extended stays in uncomfortable airport chairs, that's going to feel like a blink of an eye."
āHold on.ā Ezra stopped short, blinking a couple of times as he tried to discern whether or not heād heard that right. āDid you just say Dunhaven?ā
Ian paused, letting one of his eyebrows ever so gently arch as he nodded. The smalltown wasn't devastatingly unknown, he knew; they were sleepy and the citizens were mostly older gossips, but it was close enough to DC and had a good university, so the name was familiar to some. It just didn't happen all that often. "Yeah," he confirmed, even as he nodded. "It's this little town where I live."
"Unbelievable," Ezra laughed, running a hand over his hair. "That's where I'm headed, actually. I guess I live there now, too. Well, I lived there a long time ago, but I'm moving back." A small flicker of hope lit up inside of him that maybe he wouldn't wind up friendless in Dunhaven, after all. It had been so easy to strike up a conversation with the man when they'd been strangers and he had to hope that meant that they'd get along as essentially neighbors, too, if there size of Dunhaven was as small as he remembered.
Turning in his seat, the laugh still bright on his face, he said, "I guess we need to get our stories straight, then, since I imagine you've got someone back home who will want to know why you went to Italy and came home married with ambiguously-specied kids."
Though Ian didn't believe in coincidences in the general sense, it was hard not to appreciate this one as being exactly that. What were the chances that they would be seated next to one another, both on their way home to Dunhaven? Probably not very high at all, but there was something undeniably intriguing about that fact. Well, if he were to be honest with himself, there was something undeniably intriguing about Ezra himself. Ian couldn't help but be a bit pleased to know the man be around Dunhaven; he would never turn down a new, intriguing friend.
Ian laughed himself, shaking his head once before teasing, "My siblings might have a few questions and my dog might be concerned, but that's about the extent of it. Rather convenient."
āWell, that shouldnāt be a problem, then. Dogs love me,ā Ezra replied. āWhat kind of dog do you have?ā
Ian had originally considered getting a dog as a method to try and get outside and be more active, but it had taken only seconds of meeting Gambit for him to realize that he was the dog for him. Like a parent might be with their child, Gambit was also one of his favorite topics of conversation. "I'm not totally sure," he admitted. "I adopted him from the animal shelter and he's definitely a mix of some kind. There's some black lab in there, but that's definitely not it." Ian smiled. "He's a very good boy."
Ezra raised his eyebrows, interest piqued. Though, to be entirely fair, his interest would have been piqued had Ian said he had turtles waiting for him back home. āDid you know that labs, originating in Newfoundland, are rated the top dog breed by the American Kennel Club?ā he asked, unable to stop himself from diving right into animal trivia. āTheir traits tend to be dominant, so even with mixed breeds, they retain a lot of what people love about labradors. Iāve never met a dog who wasnāt a very good boy,ā he said, a dopey smile on his face. Honestly, if heād been at all settled during his time back in Ithaca, he was sure heād have had his own dog by now. Maybe once he was comfortable in Dunhaven, he could look into his own pet situation.
And then, realizing Ian might not appreciate him unintentionally dismissing his dogās goodness, he added, āBut I am entirely confident that yours is the very best.ā
A bemused expression filled Ian's face, not at all put off by the indication that all dogs were good or the sudden facts about labs. If anything, it made Ezra even more intriguing, which was certainly saying something as it was. "You're not wrong. All dogs are the best boys, even if I might spoil mine a little bit extra."
Hesitating just a second, he let his head list to the side and hoped he wasn't pushing it. "If you ever want to see how good of a boy he is, let me know. We go to the dog park in town a lot and live downtown above Anteaques, so we're pretty accessible."
People were starting to stand up in the aisles around them and suddenly being surrounded by bodies trying to secure the best position to get off the flight caused a flicker of panic to rise up in Ezra. Heād never been great at crowds of people and the rush to get off of a plane was always his least favorite part of any flight. He cleared his throat and pulled his attention back to Ian, taking a moment to process what heād said.
āAntiques? Iām not sure that was there when I lived there,ā he said, then added, ābut, to be fair, I left when I was nine, so my memory could be hazy. Actually, I should probably get a crash course in Dunhaven in the near future.ā
"Definitely after your time, if you haven't been around since you were nine." Ian's own gaze went to the people around them, all posed to rush from the plane. Normally he was among that crowd; this was the first time in his life that he was a bit disappointed to have to leave. "It's a combination tea shop and antiques store? I own it, so... I kind of recommend it." At that, he flashed Ezra a smile.
Ian leaned down, collecting his messenger bag that held his laptop from where he'd stowed it under the seat. "As much as I want to say it probably hasn't changed much, it does feel like it's a different place entirely now than it was when I moved there at eighteen. I'm sure you'll get the hang of things before you know it, though."
Ezra made a mental note to stop in sometime, if only because he actually did love tea. It had only gotten more pronounced when heād begun dreaming about Newt and now he couldnāt remember the last time heād even had coffee.
And then, trying again, he said, āMaybe you could show me around the new and possibly improved Dunhaven sometime?ā He honestly felt about halfway ridiculous suggesting it, as if sharing a row of seats on a plane while headed toward the same destination somehow meant that Ian wanted him to impose his company on him. He was never going to make new friends if he didnāt try, though, and he knew he really did need to try. As much as he tended to prefer the company of animals over humans, in general, he couldnāt deny that being entirely without the latter sounded more than a little bit lonely.
Ian tried very hard to dampen the smile that Ezra's suggestion inspired, though it only went but so far. He couldn't help himself. Though he very much enjoyed the company of the people that he surrounded himself with, he also very much enjoyed the potential of adding Ezra to his list of people to be surrounded by. It was a ridiculous thought, of course. He'd only just met the man, after all, and he'd actually fallen asleep on him. But the grace that Ezra had responded to that potentially embarrassing moment and the ease that this conversation had flowed made him want to see more of him. That didn't happen very often to Ian.
"Sure," he replied, a much more calm response than what his internal thoughts might have led someone to believe his current level of calm happened to be. "I'd be happy to."
Ezra beamed, elated by the idea. āYeah? Well, then, Iāll be sure to stop by Anteaques sometime between now and the near future.ā
"New residents get half off their first order," Ian replied, making up an entirely new rule at the shop that he would have to make sure he passed onto his employees. "We'll call you a new resident, even if you were here before. I feel as though there's a reset at some point that you've probably passed."
Did people normally file off the plane this fast? It was almost like Ezra had blinked and suddenly only a handful of people remained in the aisles jimmying their carry-ons out of the overhead bins. It was honestly a bit of a disappointment, which was not something heād have ever thought heād think about getting off of a plane too quickly.
With one more stroke of genius, though, Ezra offered, āIf Iām going to be saving half on my tea, then you should at least let me pay for a shared Uber to Dunhaven? Unless you parked here, in which case you donāt even need an Uber.ā As quickly as heād found the idea brilliant, he started second-guessing it. Why was talking to people so hard sometimes?
Relieved for once that he had been just frugal enough to not want to pay for parking at the airport, Ian shook his head. "No car," he clarified. "Well, I have one at home, just not here. So if you wanted to share an Uber, I would be up for that. We are going the same way, after all."
Maybe he should have been more hesitant about getting into a car, even an Uber, with a man he had just met on an airplane, but Ian was generally a pretty good judge of character. He had grown rather good at reading people through his time owning his shop and he had a good feeling about Ezra.
Ezra had already had a good feeling about buying the zoo, despite the fact that it had been a huge investment that he hadnāt initially been entirely sure he should make. But for as excited as he had been about getting started with that, heād been admittedly nervous about starting all over again somewhere with so many memories still existed, even if time had made them a little hazy. But, as he smiled in response, his nerves calmed, his thoughts quieted, and all he felt was hope that this was a sign that he had made the right choice, that he was finally headed in a better direction than heād been headed in a long time. If making a friend before heād even crossed over the city limits wasnāt proof that good things were ahead, he wasnāt sure what was.
āIn that case,ā he said, gesturing around Ian toward the aisle, āafter you.ā