Zeke Carraway didn't just hate airports. He loathed them with a burning, fiery passion.

In other, completely unrelated news, he had been wandering around Chicago O'Hare International Airport for the best part of two hours, desperately trying to find his check-in counter. People were pushing past him on either side, hurrying to their destinations, saying goodbye to their loved ones or waiting to pick someone up and, in any case, paying him no heed whatsoever. And Zeke had already done his damnedest to follow the directions the nice lady at the information counter had given him—hell, he had even gone back and asked again, not that it had gotten him anywhere except on her nerves. And now here he was, washed up in front of the same overpriced souvenir store for the seventh time in an hour.

Sighing, Zeke set down the backpack that was his only hand luggage, the main part of his belongings already sent ahead by tour bus last night. At least he didn't have to haul any big bags around, he thought. Although having one to sit down on would be kind of nice.

Some suit-clad businessman pushed past him, talking on the phone and speedwalking to the priority check-in. Zeke moved out of the way, smiling and waving at the little girl who stared at his bright blue hair until her stressed-out mommy picked her up and dragged her back to her three siblings. Leaning against the souvenir shop window, he slid down, sitting on the floor with his backpack against his chest. People drifted by. A trio of teenage boys passed him, each carrying a cone of ice cream. His stomach growled. Ice cream sounded nice right now…and when he had finished that, maybe he should take the hint and enter the stupid souvenir shop at last. He'd probably already missed his flight, anyway.

Something fluffy brushed against his arm. Zeke looked up and found himself face to face with a cat, a large, fluffy orange tabby rubbing its head against his outstretched palm. He had no idea how a cat had ended up in a place like this, but he wasn't one to question it. Animals always had a tendency to find him in unlikely places.

"Hey, little buddy," he said quietly, scratching the cat's ears and feeling himself relax. "How'd you get here? Did your humans forget you at the airport too?"

The cat purred contentedly in return, and Zeke smiled. Maybe this place wasn't so bad after all. Maybe he could make himself comfortable with his new feline friend and make a home at this airport, living off overpriced snacks and sleeping in the plushie section of that souvenir store until he finally found his—

"Oh my goodness, there you are!"

Heels clacked over the tile floor, and a young woman moved into his field of vision, an empty cat crate in her hands and a look of relief on her face. "Pumpkin, what are you doing?" she chided the cat, carefully picking it up and ushering it back into its crate. "You can't just run off like that, geez, I've been looking for you everywhere! Thank you so much for finding her," she added with a smile to Zeke. "So sorry about this cat, I have no idea how she keeps getting away like that."

"You're welcome," Zeke answered with a smile back. This lady wasn't much older than him, he realized, a little ruffled but very pretty, with a slight Audrey-Hepburn-in-Breakfast-at-Tiffany's feel to her; and for a second he wondered if this was their meet-cute and she would ask him to get coffee together now. But just as he prepared to embrace his new rom-com existence, she had already turned and rushed off to disappear in the nameless, faceless crowd.

"Bye, Holly Golightly," he muttered after her, waving idly. "Bye-bye, Pumpkin."

Nobody answered. Zeke just sat there, holding his backpack, a large teddy bear in a Chicago T-shirt staring holes at his head from the window behind him. He didn't feel like searching for his plane anymore. Maybe someone else's pet would come to him. Or maybe someone would come find him here, pick him up and show him the way or something.

"Where is it, where is it…"

A tall, black-clad figure brushed past him. Zeke looked up. That voice…

He scrambled to his feet, but by the time he had risen, the figure had already passed. He looked around, scanning the crowd for that telltale mop of blond hair, that stupid, fancy—

Checkmate.

The good part about Neo's tall spaghetti noodle build was that it was always easy to spot him in any crowd, his bright hair shining over people's heads like a beacon. The bad part was that it allowed him to walk very fast, and Zeke had to break into a sprint to catch up with him. Which he did, tired legs be damned. Here was his chance to find his bandmates and his plane, and he was not about to miss it.

He found Neo at a check-in counter, arguing furiously with an airline employee before letting out a long string of Finnish curses that Zeke didn't want to understand but also understood perfectly. "No!" he shouted. "Listen—you have to reopen the boarding again! This is vital!"

"Sir," the employee said tiredly, "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. The boarding's already closed, the plane is about to take off—"

"If it hasn't taken off yet, what's the problem?"

The employee massaged her temples. "If we made it wait for you now, that would cause a delay of at least fifteen to twenty minutes," she said, "since you'd still have to go through all the security checks. And that doesn't even factor in the takeoff schedule, which would get messed up and cause even further—and he's not listening anymore. Can someone just take him aside or something? He's holding up the line."

Pushing past a line of outraged would-be passengers, Zeke made his way over to the front. "Neo!" he called out loud enough for the entire hall to hear. "What's going on?"

Neo spun around, trying his hardest and failing to kill him with a withering look. "What do you think is going on?" he yelled back. "We've missed our fucking plane!"

Almost colliding with an old lady with a stroller, Zeke came to a skidding, stumbling halt.

"What?"

~ ~ ~

In his defense, Neo had set an alarm. Several, in fact. All the alarms his phone would allow him.

That was right, he thought irritably as he was getting ready that morning, hastily throwing on the first clean clothes he found and making quick work of his hair. It wasn't his fault that he had overslept by over an hour and a half; something was clearly wrong with his phone, or he wouldn't have slept through all these alarms. It probably hadn't rung at all, that treacherous piece of metal and plastic, or else it had been too quiet. Backstabbing piece of technology. The moment they landed in L.A., he was going to look for a replacement. That usually scared the old device into working like new again.

And sure, maybe last night had been a bit long, to say nothing of all the drinks he'd had. And women. And drinks with women. Whatever. The point was, a good alarm should be able to wake the dead, and his was clearly useless in that department. And now he had to go out there with circles under his eyes, actual eyebags like some common noob, and he didn't even have time to cover them with makeup. Could this morning possibly get any worse?

The morning, however, seemed to have heard him and taken offense. The hotel breakfast had just closed when Neo got down, and he had to choose between going hungry and grabbing something from the coffee shop across the street, which just had to be crowded to oblivion when he got there, and he had to choose again between standing in line or miserably starving to death.

He got in line. How long could it possibly take, five minutes? Ten?

Twenty minutes later, he was still standing there.

At some point during his teens, Neo had mastered the art of the death glare. It had saved him a great deal of time in various lines and crowded places; but here it proved utterly ineffective, as the dithering middle-aged lady in front of him didn't spare him a single glance. Someone should invent an improved death glare, Neo thought irritably as he watched her try to decide between various identical-sounding beverages. The kind that also worked without eye contact. Was there such a thing? If there was, he would pay good money for someone to teach him.

"Excuse me," one of the giggling teenage girls behind him spoke up, "has anyone told you you look like Neo from The Heist?"

Oh no. Fans. Great. With a herculean effort of will Neo forced the death glare off his face before turning around. "Lots of people," he said, flashing them his signature backwards, sideways peace sign. "Who is that guy? He sounds handsome."

The two girls gasped, then derailed into squeals. "Oh my God, he's real," they said over and over again. "You're really the real thing? Can we have your autograph?"

Neo smirked. "If you have something to write on," he replied with a cautious glance at the lady in front of him, who still hadn't moved. His nerves were already smoothing over. As far as he was concerned, being fawned over was better and cheaper than therapy.

"Oh my gosh, I still can't believe it," the taller of the girls gushed, fanning herself and laughing. "You're so hot in real life too! How are you even real?"

Her hand was on his arm, and Neo subtly pulled away. He had a vague feeling where this was going, and he didn't like it one bit.

They, however, didn't get the hint. The shorter girl stepped close. "Hey," she said in what she probably thought was a sultry voice, "is it true that you like to mess around with your fans sometimes?"

Neo took a step back. Of course that was true, as he was never one to say no to beautiful women—emphasis on women, as in, consenting adults. As in, adults capable of consent.

"Let me stop you right there," he said, his voice still smooth, still suave, covering up his discomfort. "How old are you girls, anyway?"

"Eighteen!" the taller one said in the tone of someone who definitely wasn't.

"Totally," said the shorter one, affirming they couldn't be a day older than sixteen.

"Nice try," Neo said with a wry smirk. "And how old are you really?"

They looked guilty. "Seventeen!" said the shorter girl. "And a half! That's basically eighteen anyway, don't worry about it!"

Neo barked a humorless laugh. "You tell that to the judge," he said. At that moment the lady in front of him finally left, and he hurried to order a bagel and a black coffee, glad for the distraction. Not that it distracted the girls. They were still glued to his back, trying to cling to his jacket and touch his arms.

"Can we at least have a hug goodbye?" one of them pleaded too close to his ear.

A smooth response had already rested on Neo's tongue, but now he simply brushed past them, muttered something about having to go, and booked it out of there. Teenagers, he thought as he got into a cab and sped off, scared the living shit out of him.

Well, and the rest was history. Of course the cab had been stuck in traffic the one time he was in a terrible hurry, and of course the driver took him to the wrong terminal at first, and of course he dropped his wallet as he was trying to pay and had to crawl under the seats to retrieve it. And then he sprinted through that horrible mass of an airport, looking awful and feeling worse, only to arrive at the check-in counter and find his flight already closed.

And that brought him here.

"Neo!" a familiar voice called, loud enough that he wished he could simply make this kid his alarm. "What's going on?"

Oh no. Thank goodness. But also, oh no. He appreciated not having to deal with this lunacy alone anymore, but out of all his bandmates, did it really have to be Zeke?

"Okay," Zeke said when he had gotten the gist of the situation. "So the others have left us behind, huh? That sucks!"

Neo rolled his eyes. "That's one way to put it," he replied. "We're stuck here with no plane and a storm warning and all you have to say is 'it sucks'?"

Zeke made a face up at him. "You're right, you're right, it doesn't just suck," he admitted. "It also swallows."

Groaning, Neo sent him a death glare, but Zeke had always been strangely immune to his glares. "So what do we do now?" he went on. "We need to get to L.A.!"

"Flights are out," Neo mused, trying to keep a cool head in front of his junior and doing a half-convincing job of it. "We don't know when the next one will be. Thanks to this stupid punk bitch-ass storm warning…"

"What about the tour bus?" Zeke suggested.

Neo scoffed. "That's already halfway across the country, stupid," he shot back. "You wanna try to call it back? Is that what your plan is?"

Huffing, Zeke finally shot him an irritated glare, his cheeks puffing up a little like the face of a midly annoyed pufferfish. "What, do you have any better ideas?"

Over the top of Zeke's head, Neo let his gaze drift to the rent-a-car counter a distance away.

"I think," he said, "we're going to need a car."