White Knuckles

“Well, I… I guess this is goodbye,” Jay says, reluctantly pulling his hands out from where he’d tucked them in his pockets half an hour ago so he can sign. He’s not sure if he was trying to stop them from shaking, or trying to keep them from asking Penelope to stay. “I’m gonna miss you, Pen.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Penelope says. She’s speaking slowly, because she’s got a carry-on bag in one hand, clutching her boarding pass and jacket in the other. “We’ll text and video chat.”

“Yeah…”

“Besides,” she adds, smirking, “you’ll be fine. You’ve got your boy looking out for you.”

“He’s not my boy,” Jay replies quickly, keeping his movements small and hidden. Q might be standing back to give them some privacy, but Jay isn’t sure how much he can hear. “You’re an awful sister.”

“Excuse you, bitch, I’m a great sister,” Penelope retorts. She glances at her watch and then over her shoulder. “I… I gotta go, Jay.” She goes up on her toes and kisses him on the cheek, the only part of him that she can reach without pulling him down to her level. “I love you.” Jay opens his palm and then presses his middle and ring finger to his palm. She grins and offers her cheek for him to kiss.

“G’bye Pen,” Jay says, forcing the words out. It’s harder than usual, with the lump in his throat.

Penelope winks at him and then just before she heads in to join the security line, she says something to Q, too fast for Jay to catch. Q goes red and flips her off, muttering and scowling as he does.

Jay smacks him gently on the shoulder and asks, “She said?”

“Uh, it’s nothing, dude,” Q says, signing along sharply after a moment.

“You don’t want me to ask,” Jay guesses.

“It’s really nothing, Penelope’s just… y’know… being Penelope,” Q finishes lamely.

“Can just ask her later.”

“If she wanted you to know, she would’ve signed it.”

“Oh, fuck you, Q,” Jay says, using the incorrect sexual sign out of habit. Q doesn’t care, but it’s always annoyed Penelope. His chest hurts. “Quit being a bitch.”

“I can’t abandon one of my core personality traits!” Q tugs Jay away from the security check in and leads the way to the observation area. “Besides, would you even like me if I wasn’t a bitch?”

“Who says I like you now?”

“Jaysen Kent Eiser, you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“I would if she still talked to me,” Jay replies, smirking. He squints a bit, when they come up on the elevator, and asks, “Where are we going? The door is that way.”

“Thought you might like to watch Penelope’s plane take off.”

Jay doesn’t realize how tightly wound he is until he just about collapses with relief. Penelope has been right down the hall for all of the worst days of his life, from losing his hearing to coming out and being effectively disowned by their mom while their dad just watched, and the idea of her not being there anymore kind of makes him want to throw up. He’s nowhere near ready to say goodbye.

“Th’k you,” Jay says, the words barely a buzz in his throat. Q touches the tips on his fingers to his chin and pulls them away with a soft smile.

“After you, 007,” Q says, gesturing to the elevator with dramatic flair.

“Double o, seven,” Jay repeats quizzically.

“You know, like the spy.” When Jay still looks confused, Q fingerspells it, “J-a-m-e-s B-o-n-d.”

“Who?”

“Dude, you don’t know James Bond? Oh, man, we gotta watch that when we get home,” Q says, a grin stretching his face into childlike glee. Home means something different to Q, it means something different to Jay now that Penelope is gone, but Jay… Jay could get used to seeing that smile every day. “Our names line up with the characters!”

“There’s a character named…” Jay stumbles a bit as he tries to recall the letter sign. He doesn’t need to fingerspell often anymore, and ‘q’ is such an uncommon letter anyways. All he can think about is how he signs Q’s name, and how delighted Q had been when Jay offered to teach it to him. He and Penelope had it figured out the day they met Q, it was so perfect… He runs through the alphabet in his head and kicks himself when he remembers that Q’s name sign is a just a modified version of the Hufflepuff sign with the letter sign. “Uh, named Q?”

“Yeah! He’s the tech guy.”

“I can’t believe there’s another weirdo out there who goes by just a letter.”

“Okay, listen…”

“Listen?” Jay pulls his best offended expression. “Dude, did you really just go there?”

“You’re the worst,” Q informs him.

They step out into the lounge that overlooks the airstrip and Jay heads to the wall, looking around for the terminal Penelope’s flight is supposed to be leaving from. He spots the blue Echo Airlines plane and leans his crossed arms on the metal bar that stretches the window.

Q settles in next to him and taps Jay’s shoulder. “You going to be okay with Penelope gone?”

“Of course,” Jay replies. He hesitates. “That’s… It’s going to be bad, but I’ll get through it. I’ll miss her. But I’ve still got you, right?”

“Always,” Q promises, face solemn as he holds his pointer finger up and circles it.

“Always,” Jay repeats. He takes his swirling finger and starts making the common non-ASL sign for craziness, pointing at Q as he does.

His breath hitches as he ducks to avoid Q’s halfhearted smack and Jay has to pause a moment to adjust his binder and curse Penelope for booking her flight so late. He’s had his binder on for way longer than he really should’ve. Penelope, thankfully, had been too distracted to scold him for it.

It wouldn’t have done any good, because the only way he would’ve missed seeing her off at the airport would be over his dead body and not wearing his binder was too much of a nightmare to consider.

A movement catches his eye and he turns to see the Echo plane wheeling over to the farthest runway. Jay grips the bar a bit too tightly, his knuckles going white, and doesn’t take his eyes off the plane until it’s too far away to make out more than a blur.

“G’bye Pen,” he says, too loud in the presumed silence of the observation area.

Q’s hand settles on top of Jay’s wrist, carefully not restricting his hands, and Jay feels a sudden rush of affection for him. Penelope being half a world away is going to suck, no doubt about it, but Jay knows he’ll get through it all right if Q has his back like he promised to. Always. Jay sways until they’re bumping shoulder and pulls his hand free of Q’s to sign.

“Let’s go home?”

“Let’s go home,” Q agrees. “C’mon, dude.”