Work Text:
I'm lookin' to the sky to save me
Lookin' for a sign of life
Lookin' for somethin' to help me burn out bright
And I'm lookin' for a complication
Lookin' cause I'm tired of tryin'
Make my way back home when I learn to fly high
Make my way back home when I learn to fly
Make my way back home when I learn to
“Now boarding, Flight 223 to Mondstadt at Gate A6!”
The sound of the airport’s PA system has Scaramouche lifting his head, before he surveys his left and right. Lo and behold, Kazuha is neck deep in work on his laptop, while Heizou has his headphones on and softly snores.
“Kazuha,” Scaramouche grumbles, tapping his shoulder. “Our plane is boarding now. Heizou-”
“I’m up!” The detective suddenly says, startling awake and taking his headphones off. “What’s goin on?”
“Our plane is-”
“Relax, Princess,” Kazuha interjects, teasing Scaramouche. “They give us, like, an hour to board. Plus, I gotta pee.”
“Oh! Me too!” Heizou says, jumping to his feet. “I’ll be quick, promise!”
Scaramouche grumbles to himself as his husbands take off towards the restroom, chasing each other like kids. He really can’t be too mad at them, their usual antics were to be expected. Though Scaramouche’s travel anxiety was struggling, and the fact that they were about to board a plane didn’t help one bit.
One minute passes. Then two. Then five.
Then ten.
And then twenty.
After thirty minutes of waiting, he gives in.
“Ugh, where are they!” Scaramouche says, his restraint snapping. Luckily, the restroom was right across from their gate, so he quickly marches over, his carry-on in tow.
Entering the restroom, all the stall doors are open and seem unoccupied, but he hears commotion from the furthermost one. Sighing, he overhears Kazuha and Heizou arguing.
“...I still don’t get how you clogged it!” Kazuha sighs angrily.
“It just wouldn’t flush!” Heizou whines, trying in vain to convince Kazuha he’s in the right.
“So you mean to tell me that toilet’s just suddenly get clogged for no apparent reason?”
“What’s going on?” Scaramouche sighs, opening the stall door all the way, before gasping at the mess of toilet paper. “What the fuck did you two idiots do this time?!”
“Uh… haha. Funny story, actually,” Heizou begins. “Would you believe that-”
“I don’t care!” Scaramouche yells! “You two spent over half an hour in here! Let’s go, now .”
“But-”
“No buts!” Scaramouche quips, cutting Heizou off.
“Oh shoot, has it really been that long?” Kazuha asks, wincing.
“ Yes ,” Scaramouche seethes, showing them his phone’s clock. “And you two know I have travel anxiety.”
Both men duck their heads, shame spread across their faces.
“Sorry, Scara,” Heizou says.
“Yeah,” Kazuha agrees. “We’ll make it up to you when we get to Mondstadt.”
Pinching his nose and sighing, Scaramouche turns around to leave.
“Let’s just go.”
“But the toilet-”
Before Heizou can argue any further, Scaramouche marches into the stall. Pressing a random button, the toilet suddenly flushes, taking with it the mess of toilet paper.
“...”
“...”
“...I really did marry not one, but two dumbasses,” Scaramouche says. “Archons help me.”
“I thought it was automatic…” Heizou whispers.
“Use a urinal like I did next time!” Kazuha scolds.
As Kazuha and Heizou start arguing, Scaramouche drags them out of the restroom, and to the gate. Scanning all three boarding passes, they finally make it onto the jetway.
Just as he’s about to step onto the plane from the jetway, Scaramouche takes a long, deep breath, and closes his eyes.
Suddenly, he finds warmth in both of his hands. Opening his eyes, he sees Kazuha and Heizou each take a hand and squeeze.
Smiling at them, they step onto the plane together.
Taking their seats, Scaramouche sits in the middle. Heizou takes the window and bounces in his seat like a child. Kazuha puts all of their carry-ons up and into the overhead compartments, before taking his seat on the aisle.
Looking across from them, Scaramouche sees a blond man around his height, with a blonde child next to him, looking out the window excitedly as she also bounces in her seat, like Heizou. On his other side, a taller man with blue hair and an eyepatch sits, reading a book with one hand while holding the other man’s hand.
Looks like it was another family.
“Alright everyone, take your seats!” A flight attendant calls out, a blonde woman with gold eyes.
Another flight attendant comes around and takes passenger’s drink orders, another blond who looks eerily similar to the other flight attendant, but his long, gold hair is braided.
Kazuha and Heizou follow his line of sight, before they also spot the blond flight attendant. Jabbing their elbows into Scaramouche’s sides, they waggle their eyebrows suggestively and snort laughs.
“He’s pretty hot,” Kazuha offhandedly comments.
“Yeah, our Kuni does have pretty good taste.” Heizou adds on. “It’s been a while since we had a-”
“ Enough! ” Scaramouche snaps, covering his red hot face with his hands.
As the flight attendant gets their drink order, Heizou and Kazuha shamelessly check him out. Accordingly, Scaramouche gets himself a ginger ale to try and quell his horrified embarrassment.
“I can’t take you two anywhere.” He sighs.
They get their drinks as the plane's engines roar to life, and Scaramouche startles at the sound.
Two hands take his own as he tries to calm his breathing. Luckily, it works like a charm.
“There you go, hon,” Heizou coos, patting his knee.
As they taxi and take off, Scaramouche keeps their hands interlaced. Heizou and Kazuha think some of their fingers might break from Scaramouche’s death grip, but they don’t mind. For Scaramouche, it was more than worth it.
Turning the seat’s entertainment screen on, Scaramouche navigates to the flight path tracking screen. Spotting the estimated flight time, he groans. Fifteen hours. He forgot how long the flight from Liyue to Mondstadt was.
“Better buckle up,” Heizou hums. “Wanna watch movies together?”
“Sure!” Kazuha hastily replies, turning his own screen on. “Oh, how about Zhenyu’s film, A Legend of Sword: Part Twenty Eight?”
“They made twenty eight parts?” Scaramouche gapes.
“Actually, there are forty.” Heizou informs. “The airline only goes up to part twenty eight.”
“Jeez,” Scaramouche breathes.
Together, Kazuha has them all start their movies at the same time, in sync. Scaramouche opts to focus on the movie, and lets time fade away from him.
In the midst of their seventh movie, the flight intercom stops them, capturing Scaramouche’s attention.
“Hello passengers,” the Captain’s stoic voice greets. “We are twenty minutes away from Mondstadt, and will begin our descent now. Please fasten your seatbelts.”
“Well that was quick!” Heizou remarks.
Kazuha hums in agreement, and Scaramouche feels the calmest he has felt during the entire duration of the flight. Almost there. Less than twenty minutes.
Suddenly, the plane lurches forward, and flight attendants scramble forward. There’s a commotion at the front of the plane, and Scaramouche feels his panic flare.
“W-What’s going on?” He says, trying to get a peek but failing.
“The cockpit door is open,” Kazuha informs. “This doesn’t look good.”
“What do you mean ‘this doesn’t look good’ ?!” Heizou screeches.
Across from them, the blonde girl starts crying, as other passengers begin to panic. In the aisle, the blond flight attendant comes forward, panic etched into his face.
“Everyone, d-don’t panic, but… does anyone here know how to fly a plane?”
Simultaneously, thirty or so people start screaming.
While everyone is busy panicking, Kazuha unbuckles his seatbelt, and stands up. The blond flight attendant, who Scaramouche now knows as Aether, thanks to his nametag, has hope dwindling in his gold eyes.
“You sir? With the white and red hair? Can you fly?”
The entire plane cabin goes silent, all eyes on Kazuha.
“Nope.” Kazuha says, popping the ‘p’. “But someone has to try.”
“...We’re all gonna die.” Scaramouche says aloud, gripping his hair tightly.
Kazuha rolls his eyes, and chooses to make his way down the aisle and to the cockpit. Not knowing what else to do, Scaramouche and Heizou get up and follow him, with Aether in tow, who bites his knuckles.
Entering the cockpit, the other flight attendent, Lumine, who was Aether’s sibling, tends to the two pilots. Who are both incapacitated.
“This really doesn’t look good.” Kazuha says.
“Can you fly?” Lumine asks, her head snapping up and her gold eyes boring into Kazuha.
“...No. But I’m gonna try.”
Lumine sighs, and turns back to the pilot. “Zhongli is out, but Itto seems to be in and out of consciousness.”
“I’ll get Itto, you get Zhongli.” Aether tells his sister.
Lumine nods, and drags the captain out of the cockpit, while Aether takes the co-pilot. Taking the captain’s seat, Kazuha grabs the yoke while Heizou sits down next to him in the co-pilot’s seat. Scaramouche opts to stand behind them.
Finding a headset, Kazuha puts it on and scans the plane’s dashboard.
“Do any buttons look like a radio?” Kazuha asks, his face pinched in a frown.
While he and Heizou look around, Scaramouche sees an interface, which reads: 18,000 FT. And it’s decreasing quite quickly.
Wordlessly, he takes Kazuha’s hands, and lifts the yoke upwards, causing the plane to even out. The interface stops descending at 15,000 FT.
Kazuha and Heizou stare, astonished at him, while Scaramouche points at the interface.
“We’ve stopped descending.”
Before either can respond, a crackling sound can be heard, before a spritely voice starts talking on a speaker.
“Mondstadt Tower to Anemo Air 223, do you copy? You’ve lost a bit of altitude. Is everything okay?”
While Kazuha frantically looks for a button to respond, Scaramouche presses a ‘CALL’ button on a panel in between the two pilot seats.
“Uh… hello?” Scaramouche says. “I’m a passenger on the plane, but both of our pilots suddenly became incapacitated. We need help.”
“ WHAT?! ” The controller says frantically. “Are they okay?”
“We don’t know,” Heizou butts in, “And we don’t know how to fly a plane.”
“Okay,” the controller says, audibly distressed. “One moment.”
In the background, he hears the controller call out, “Xiao! Come here!”
“Hello?” A new voice over the radio says. “This is Xiao, a controller at Mondstadt Airport. My coworker, Venti, says your pilots are unresponsive?”
“Yes,” Kazuha confirms. “We’ve stopped the plane from losing altitude, b-but we don’t know how to fly.”
Xiao sighs, and he and Venti murmur something unintelligible to one another, before they return.
“Alright, stay calm. You’re currently 19 miles south from Mondstadt Airport. Luckily, you seem pretty centered with the runway, but you need to slow down. Can you locate the throttle control? It should be between the two pilot chairs, and look like two levers labeled ‘1’ and ‘2’, for each engine.”
While Kazuha and Heizou fail to find it, Scaramouche taps Kazuha’s shoulder. Turning around, Kazuha frowns at Scaramouche, confusion etched into his face.
“L-Let me sit,” Scaramouche starts to say. “I think… I think I know what to do.”
Having known Scaramouche for so many years, and being one of his husbands, Kazuha trusts him entirely. Nodding, he gets up and lets Scaramouche take the captain’s seat without question.
Instantly, Scaramouche sees the levers, and pulls them back to 50.
“Ok,” Scaramouche says to the radio, “I’ve reduced the throttle to 50.”
“Ok, good,” Xiao murmurs. “You’ll need to slow down later, but that’s good for now. Right now, you need to lose altitude.”
“Alright, should I push the yoke up?” Scaramouche asks.
“Yes.” Xiao says.
Astonished, Heizou and Kazuha watch as their husband pushes the yoke up, and the plane slowly dives down, beneath the clouds. The lights of Mondstadt’s city at night illuminate the ground far beneath them.
“I can see the runway!” Heizou chirps, pointing at a long rectangle with lights around it in the distance, directly in front of them.
“Woohoo!” Venti says in the background. “I’ll get some binoculars and get a visual on them.”
“Great,” Xiao breathes. “Now, using the gear lever, pull it down, so you can use your landing gears. Also, find your flaps setting and set them to thirty.”
“Got the landing gear!” Heizou says, pulling the lever. The plane groans as the hydraulics work to release the landing gear.
“Gear down!” Venti confirms through the radio.
“Here’s the flaps,” Kazuha says, switching them from ‘10’ to ‘30’.
Scaramouche pulls the throttle back some more, and as the ground comes closer, he pulls the nose up.
“Awesome, keep going.” Xiao instructs. “Emergency personnel will be waiting for you. Just be easy with it.”
Following his instructions, Scaramouche eases the plane down, not releasing his breath till he feels the front landing gear hit pavement.
“Now pull the flaps back and switch to reverse thrust.” Xiao says.
Before Heizou or Kazuha can even begin looking, Scaramouche already has it done.
Slowly, the plane comes to a halt as red and blue lights come onto the runway and sirens ring out.
“...I thought you said you couldn’t fly.” Five voices simultaneously say - Heizou, Kazuha, Xiao, Venti, and even Aether , who just came into the cockpit from the main cabin.
“I…” Scaramouche begins, looking at his hands as if they’ll have the answers. They don’t.
“...Adrenaline?” Scaramouche tries, plastering a smile on his face though it looks much more like a cringe.
In response, five smacks ring out as everyone slaps their forehead.
“Well, I won’t complain,” Heizou huffs. “You did kinda save all of us.”
“Yeah,” Kazuha agrees. “Good job, Kuni. Nahida would be proud.”
Scaramouche groans. The next few hours and most likely days were gonna be fun .
Though in the end, he couldn’t be too mad.
He finally grew his wings, and learned how to fly.