First Class Seating

Matthew had decided that the next time he booked an aeroplane ticket he would make sure he was sat in first class, because the nuisance of the other passengers in such cramped conditions as he was currently in was about to drive him round the bend.

The foot that had been insistently pushing at the back of his chair had stopped momentarily for the snacks that had been passed out a half hour ago, but that pause in Matthew's torture was soon amended once the perpetrator had finished crunching their way through a packet of complimentary biscuits and had thrown the litter onto the floor. The small wad of wrapping had rolled out from under Matthew's seat, mocking him until he picked it up and shoved it into his own pocket, to be disposed of later.

The boisterous laughter that occasionally erupted from behind him (which would have been annoying in and of itself, if there weren't already been the sounds of children screaming and adults nattering or complaining filling the aeroplane) had helped him to identify who he was seriously considering setting his dad on once the plane landed; so far he had managed to deduce that whoever it was, was male, past puberty and German, if the accent and the fact that the plane had set off from Hannover airport was anything to go by. Deducing this had so far stopped Matthew from turning around and chucking his book at the man, because it was reminding him of his father in two ways: one, he was turning into the British literary figure, Sherlock Holmes, and two, he was contemplating chucking a book at someone.

Rubbing his temples, Matthew sat slumped in his seat when there was a particularly pronounced kick to his chair.

Part of him wished he had the guts to throw the book at the bloke. The other part was trying to use his newfound skills of deduction to create a time wrapper that could make time move faster: for a short flight of one hour and a half, it seemed to be going on forever; Matthew decided that this must be a side-effect of having somebody repeatedly kicking you in the back.

The idea he had been shying away from since waking up that morning, of being stuck in the enclosed space of the family car with his brother and fathers, was looking decidedly rosier.

There was another strong kick to the back of his chair.

And another.

Something inside of Matthew snapped.

He turned quickly in his seat, "Look, please stop kicking the back of my chair," Apparently ready to politely ask the kicker to cease driving him insane, and was met by a wildly grinning face.

"Took you long enough," The guy (was he actually albino or had he just dyed his hair?) was slouching in his chair, top and baggy jeans wrinkled, with his feet still firmly planted on the back of Matthew's seat, "Me and Antonio," Matthew hadn't realised there was anyone else behind him apart from the kicker, but a smiling tanned man caught his attention by waving at him from the window seat, "were about to give up on you."

After the albino had elbowed him in the side, the bloke called Antonio nodded in agreement.

"I...what?" Matthew wished there was a wall nearby to hit his head on. He was tired, annoyed and only had a thread of inner strength holding him to his sanity. Had they honestly spent all that much time trying to get his attention by kicking him, of all things? "I mean, pardon?"

The man rolled his eyes, lolling his head to the side so that he could peer down the aisle, "Seriously, you're cute but I wasn't going to waste the entire flight on you, I've got better things going on." His feet slowly slid off the chair as he sat up and leaned forward, grinning up at Matthew manically, "Man, if that's what you thought then you ough'ta get your ego checked out."

The kicker's companion, Antonio, smiled at Matthew again (he seemed far too amused by all of this) as he addressed the other, "That's a bit of a weird thing for you to say, Gil."

"Whatever," The man leant further forward and it crossed Matthew's mind that it would probably be better if he just straightforwardly asked him to stop the kicking before returning to his novel; by continuing the conversation it felt more like he was encouraging him than stopping him, "So, I've got a bit of a problem and I was wondering if you could help me out?"

It was a pity he took after his papa, by never taking his own advice, "Um," He'd probably be much better off for it, "What's the problem?"

The kicker almost jumped out of his seat as he pressed himself closer to Matthew's chair, draping his arms over the top of it, "Well, you see, there's this club I want to join. It's really select and kind of difficult to get in," Antonio slapped a hand over his eyes, but Matthew could still see him smiling, "But membership's got these awesome perks, which makes it really worth your while."

Honestly, he'd been expecting something worse, "Oh, what's the club?"

If Matthew had to describe the man's grin right at the moment he asked that, he would describe it as shit-eating.

The albino moved closer, so close that Matthew wanted to move back, but then he would have to get off his seat, "You may have heard of it, babe. Usually it's called the mile-high club."

Before Matthew could fully register what had just been said to him, a pair of smirking lips pressed firmly against his own and, shocked, he toppled off of his chair.

The man and his friend laughed, even as he (what had Antonio called him? Gil?) left his seat and walked around to kneel next to Matthew, who was currently becoming rather well acquainted with the floor, "What do you say about getting me in?"

Matthew would later try to reason with himself that, from his sprawled position, it was really the only option he had left. He kicked out without thinking, and almost felt sorry for the man as he dropped to the floor beside him, cursing in a mix of English and German.

As he had expected, his family had been waiting for him when his flight landed; stood together and standing out from the crowd as they bickered with each other. Already mentally exhausted from the flight, he inwardly groaned as he saw them. It the second it took for him to focus on them, it already felt like he had never left at all. The arguing between them only ceased once Matthew had managed to make his way over, and had gained their attention. Their excuse for not seeing him had been that he had grown his hair out (he had, but only by an inch at most) and not that they had been preoccupied with an important debate about which fruit jam was best.

Matthew had good hearing.

Nevertheless, once debating time was over, and he'd been pulled into hugs by his parents and slapped on the back by his brother, they all wandered off to the carousel to fetch his bag.

"So, what are we looking for, lad?" Arthur asked as they approached it.

"The red case with the maple leaf sticker," He had bought it especially so that he could find his luggage quickly. There had been many times when he had had to stand at the carousel as nobody knows how many almost identical bags sailed past; it was a traveller's nightmare.

"Is it a large sticker, or a small sticker?"

Arthur snorted, "Great question, Francis."

"Yeah, great question Papa."

"Oi, don't be cheeky, Alfred!"

"You said it first!"

"He's my husband; I'm allowed to."

"That's a load of sh-"

"Alfred!"

Matthew wasn't sure whether he wanted to smile or cry. The dynamics of his family never really changed and he was willing to accept that they would have probably all gone mad without being able to vent at each other through menial arguments. He settled for sighing and turning to his papa, "The sticker's pretty big, and it's on the front of the case, so it should be easy to spot. Anyway, how have things been at home? Dad said you were going to work more hours or-"

"Matthew," Francis interrupted, looking over his shoulder, before turning to his son, "There's a young man waving at you from the other side of the carousel," The smile he had worn before, warm and comforting (like he had missed while he was away) became teasing, "I think there may be someone you're not telling me about?"

Matthew didn't even look over his shoulder, "Papa, please just ignore him. If you don't, he won't ever go away."

Francis just looked sympathetically amused, "I don't think you're going to be able to avoid him, darling. He's heading over here right now."

"Really?"

"Really."

Ignoring the questioning looks directed at him by his family, Matthew hastily spun around and hurried over towards the man who was, indeed, walking over to him.

Before Matthew had a chance to drag him to somewhere more private, apologise again for the, ah, kick, or insist that he leave him be, there was a piece of crinkled paper held out to him.

"Listen," The albino half grinned and half glared as the paper was reluctantly taken from him, "you've already messed up my chances of getting into the mile-high club and you've kicked me in the crotch, something nobody gets away with, so you have to hear me out." Matthew had to agree with at least the latter half of his reasoning and so resisted the urge he had to aim another well-aimed kick at the guy, "My name's Gilbert Beilschmidt, I'm not in any clubs, which is a downer, but in all other ways I'm awesome. Babe, I've got the holidays to waste here and judging from who met you, you're grounded too.

"That," He pointed at the paper Matthew was holding, "Is my number, and when you've got some free time you've got to call it."

Matthew spared a glance at the paper before looking at Gilbert again, "Are you being serious?"

"Yeah, and this is rare, so you should feel honoured. Usually it's people giving me their numbers and not the other way around, but, hey," He shrugged, grinning madly at the blond across from him again, "Like I said, you're cute, so I made an exception. You better make it worth it."

"We don't really know each other," And you just spent an hour and a half harassing me, "And I don't think we'd get along very well..."

Matthew followed the direction Gilbert's eyes travelled in as he looked to the side, at Antonio, for help. After seeing his friend shrug uselessly but gesture at him to keep on trying, he pushed away the piece of paper Matthew was holding out for him to take back, and scowled, "Just take the fucking number, okay?"

"I don't think I should."

"Well, I do."

"Um, I'm not interested in a relationship right now," Matthew felt a little bad about saying this, but he wanted this guy off of his back, not just because he knew he would give in if Gilbert kept being so insistent (it was a bit of paper with some numbers on it, what harm could it do?) but because he could hear the voices of his family and it sounded like they were getting closer.

"Well, watch out, 'cause your about to become interested."

Being kissed twice in the same hour by a stranger was not what Matthew had anticipated happening when he boarded the plane earlier that day, but as Gilbert pressed closer to him he found quite a lot of the thoughts that had been circulating in his mind deserting him.

On the other side of the carousel, Antonio clapped.

Gilbert drew back from the kiss first, looking smugly at the breathless man in front of him before glancing warily at the shocked form of Matthew's family, who had stopped their movement towards them and were looking rather surprised at what they had just seen, "Babe, by the time you next catch a flight, I'll be giving you platinum membership."

The flight he next took was certainly improved upon for Matthew by there being no Gilbert sat behind him to kick his seat. Plus, there was no anticipation of sitting in an enclosed space with his family (the last time that had happened had been fun). However, Matthew was not best pleased to note that he was instead sat with his boyfriend next to him, blowing in his ear and making a general nuisance of himself.

"Gil, stop it." He had tried pushing the enthusiastic man away, but the attempts were half-hearted and he always found the albino migrating back into his personal space.

"Mattie, I can't fucking resist you, so you should stop resisting me," Lips pressed against his cheek.

"It's the easier option."

"But it's not the most fulfilling." Matthew hissed as Gilbert punctuated this by lightly biting on his ear.

He pushed him away with the hand he wasn't using to hold his book, "Go to sleep, Gil."

The arm across his shoulder tightened slightly as Gilbert reburied his head in the hollow between Matthews's neck and shoulder, "Not until I've got membership," he mumbled.

"You're going to be awake a long time then."

Matthew could feel him grin, "It'll be worth it," And had the warning of him moving away, before Gilbert leant forward again to try and wrangle a kiss out of him.

At least this time they were in first class (and there were enough empty seats for Matthew to move).

"Hey, come back! You can't tell me you weren't enjoying it – damn it, Mattie!"

End

[NA: Please note that I've also posted this on my livejournal, so if you have an account, you may have already seen this there.

I hope this is better than I think it is. It's been so long since I last wrote anything, I'm worse than rusty. Still, I love PruCan and liked this idea, so I typed this up (the fact that there are keyboard size dents in forehead, from when I kept getting writers block, can be ignored).

If you see any mistakes, feel free to tell me; I'd be really grateful if you would.

Thanks for reading! :3 ]