Chapter Text
Anton was not looking forward to this trip. He’d never claimed to be a traveler. He was happily at home in the forests of Wellington, not traipsing around looking for trouble. His sister was the one that had longed to travel as a kid, always saying that they were ‘going on a journey’ when really they were just going to the park. It didn’t surprise him that she’d ended up halfway across the world.
As much as he loved his kid sister (and he did , no matter what she said,) getting married in Spain was incredibly rude, never mind that her fiance was from there. And that they were going to live there. And that most of the wedding party was Europe-based. She had not thought about the fact that her older brother, her only family, was flying from Wellington aka literally the opposite end of the world. And, considering he wasn’t made of money, the travel alone was going to take roughly 36 hours.
Riri better really love him.
In an attempt to make it easier to sleep on the plane, Anton had spent the night before staying up as much as possible. He’d let his packing go until 10 PM (definitely by choice and not out of distraction and procrastination), before popping in Lord of the Rings with his roommate Stu and then watching the entirety of the trilogy (non-extended edition) after Stu had fallen asleep on the couch an hour in. Okay, so maybe he fast-forwarded a bit during some of the long battle sequences but he was there for Frodo and Sam and if he missed a bit of Helm’s Deep, so be it.
At 9 AM, he woke up Stu to drive him to the airport. Stu, pleasant as always, nevermind what had to be a bit of crick in his neck, dropped him off with a smile and so, it began.
Stu : The package has been delivered
Nathan M : Have a good trip, Boss!
Clifton : I expect a decent souvenir from Spain.
Anton: You know I’m going for my sister’s wedding and not as a ‘buy the rugby boys a present’ holiday, yes?
Dion : Pretty sure it’s both, mate.
Check in was easy, at least. He’d checked his bag and just had his backpack as a carryon. The first flight was just up to Auckland and the larger airport so it was easy enough to get through security, grab a quick coffee (decaf, unfortunately) and a croissant, and then wander off towards his gate.
Anton : Hello from Wellington Airport!
Riri: Hello! Stop texting me, it’s midnight~
Anton: Your fault for falling in love with a Spanaird.
Riri: Honk shoo mimi, as the children say.
The trouble with the first flight was that it was only about an hour altogether, Wellington and Auckland being rather close. The trick was to not fall asleep on this flight, or, if he did, not fall into a deep sleep because that needed to be saved for the long hauls. With a grimace, he boarded, pulled his headphones on, and started a podcast he’d been meaning to catch up on while staring blankly at a sudoku.
The next thing he knew, the plane was taxiing to the gate in Auckland and he had a massive sleep hangover. So that had gone well. With a growl, Anton bundled up his headphones and shoved them into his backpack, completely unaware of the eyes watching him from the back of the cabin.
He had an hour and a half layover which was actually the perfect amount of time to make his way over to the international terminal and grab another bite to eat, this time at the correctly named Best Ugly Bagels, and relax a bit before the first of his two long hauls.
When he’d booked this trip, he had looked with some interest at the airports he’d be flying into. He didn’t choose the flights he had because of that (he’d chosen because doing it this way was the cheapest option by a few thousand dollars), but he was curious about the world, if he had to be flung out into it. Munich, where he was set to spend five hours later, looked a bit boring but Singapore, where he was about to be headed, had (apparently) one of the nicest airports in the world. If he could get a few hours or so on the next flight, maybe he could hit up the underground carnival, whatever that was.
Soon enough, it was time to board his second flight. As he sat at the gate, they announced they’d be boarding by row number, something that was increasingly rare it seemed but always made the most practical sense to Anton. Maybe this was one of the better airlines? He hadn’t paid that much attention when he’d booked, more focused on the price than anything else, but this was definitely a point in the airline’s favor. With almost 11 hours on a plane ahead of him, fingers crossed it stayed positive.
Being at the back of the plane had been fine with Anton—he had a long layover once the plane landed—so he was one of the first to be called to board, his close-to-last row number getting him something this time around.
Anton : Boarding! Text you when I land in Singapore.
Riri: What part of honk shoo did you not understand?
As he made his way down the aisleway, Anton counted the row numbers, looking for 34A. At least he had a window seat. There was barely anyone ahead of him and soon enough he found himself a row away, waiting behind a very confused old woman with, apparently, very little English. But that wasn’t what had grabbed his attention.
On the other side of the old woman was a flight attendant that was attempting to help her, though attempting was the key word. He was being polite, as one would expect, but judging by the way his hands were flapping as he tried to gesture to the woman where her seat was (and oh fuck, it was the middle seat in Anton’s row) and the way he bit his lip as he tried, again, to get the woman to just take a few steps out of the aisle, it wasn’t going well.
The other thing was that he was gorgeous . Not that Anton had any intention of objectifying a man who was just doing his job but come on . If it weren’t for the air steward’s uniform, Anton could picture him on the cover of one of the Regency romance novels his sister had been obsessed with as a teen, some foppishly dressed dandy wandering the moor to save the sweet maiden. Of course, Riri had eventually decided she was looking for a maiden herself and well, maybe that’s why the fop was left for him.
If he hadn’t been zoning out, waiting for his chance to apologize and make the old woman get up again to let him in, he wouldn’t have missed the way the steward’s eyes widened at the sight of him.
The woman finally seemed to have realized where her seat was and she gingerly made her way into the row. Anton hated to make her move again and he caught the eye of the handsome flight attendant.
“I’m afraid that’s my seat,” he half-apologized, pointing past the woman towards the window. He waited a second for the steward to sigh, maybe to go ‘that’s alright’ and try to usher the woman back out.
What he didn’t expect was for the flight attendant to smile, eyes bright like a Disney prince, and go “No, it’s not.”
“...I’m pretty sure it is,” Anton blinked, reaching to pull his ticket out from where he’d stuffed it into his passport.
“Nope!” The steward said with an infectious grin. “Follow me!” And he pushed past Anton and headed back up towards the plane. With no clue what was going on, Anton followed.
The attendant stopped at the emergency exit rows and did a little ta da pose. “Here’s your seat!”
“...which one?” Anton asked. He knew sometimes a person could get chosen to sit in the emergency exit rows but had kind of figured you either had to pay more or get lucky. He supposed he’d gotten lucky.
“Any of them!” the man answered with a goofy smile, gesturing around at the four different rows he had to choose from. This seemed a little against protocol but who was Anton to look a gift horse in the mouth? WIth a shrug, he scooched past the attendant and took the window seat on the left.
“Anything that doesn’t fit under the seat in front of you should go in the overhead, ja?” the steward, gesturing to the chair in front of Anton, a hint of an accent curling at the edge of his words. Luckily, with it being an exit row, there was plenty of room for him to stretch his legs out and his backpack fit perfectly underneath. Things were looking up. He grabbed his phone.
Anton : Cute flight attendant just upgraded me to the emergency exit row. *thumbs up*
Nathan G: Score.
Clifton: Do you have to share it with anyone?
Anton: Not yet.
As the rest of the plane continued to board, Anton tried not to look as interested as he was about if he was getting a seatmate. Another attendant had given a middle aged Asian couple the emergency exit row across from him and a third had let a young man in his early twenties at the oldest have the row ahead of him. Did they all get to pick a random passenger? If so, he was going to let getting picked by the cute guy go to his head, thank you very much. Nice to have a little confidence boost.
As he fiddled with his phone, checking his email one more time before he’d have to turn it on airplane mode, Anton saw the cute flight attendant walk back up the aisle and stop right next to him. He glanced up, more than happy to give him his attention.
“Thanks for agreeing to sit in the emergency exit row,” the man smiled. “I just have to go over a few things, alright?”
“Go right ahead,” Anton agreed, setting his phone in his lap.
“So, in case of an emergency, you’d be one of the people who’d have to help everyone get off the plane, okay? You’d just have to open this door right here.” With that, the flight attendant leaned completely over Anton to grasp at the top of the door on Anton’s left side. Well, that had been unexpected. Anton tried to concentrate on what the man was saying and not that he smelled like rose petals.
“You just grab the handle and push it in and then down,” he faux-demonstrated, pretending to push the handle. “It might be a little tough at first but you’re clearly strong so you’ll be fine.”
Was .. was the flight attendant flirting with him?
Anton glanced up at that and was dazed to find the full force of that slightly goofy smile turned on him from much closer than he was anticipating. It was blinding. It was oddly comforting.
“You have to say yes.”
“Hmm?” Anton blinked. Oh shit, had he missed something?
“You have to agree that you can do it,” the flight attendant smirked, clearly amused at catching Anton unawares. “To sit in the row. Verbal confirmation.”
“Oh! Yes, of course,” Anton nodded. “Happy to open the door, get people out, the whole, er, rescue thing.” He ignored his weird impulse to salute.
“Excellent!” The flight attendant clapped his hands. It was strangely adorable. “Then you’re all set. I have to go help with flight preparations but if you need anything, just let me know, okay? My name’s Viago.”
“Sounds good,” Anton agreed. “Thanks, Viago.”
Viago grinned again, gave him a little wave, and walked away.
Anton was fucked .