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Maybe this was a bad idea after all.
You finally manage to ask for that well-deserved holiday after spending the last three years pretty much working every single day without a break - apart from the occasional long holiday or sick day. It wasn’t something you did on purpose per se; you are a homebody, the first thought of a weekend being that you are able to spend the whole day on the couch and relax while watching one of those popular reality tv shows where people argue over literally nothing but seemingly everything. It’s comforting to know that your life seemed pretty balanced in comparison.
So when your friends finally convinced you to take a small solo trip, at first, you hesitated. Maybe a group trip would be better. Who knows how boring it would be to just be by yourself for a week? Well, turns out everyone else usually plans their off-days and schedules with their partners to go on vacation together. Which led you to book that hotel for a single person stay instead.
Gold Wood city is known for its well-populated nightlife, but has quite a lot of tourist attractions available to visit during the day as well. Be it an incredibly large botanical garden with a vast variety of flowers, a large museum which would most likely take more than a day to actually see everything in, or the big amusement park at the far west of the city with thousands of visitors per year. And let’s not forget all the food you haven’t tried yet before; the local cuisine being praised for its diversity of spices only available here. You have bookmarked a few locations to pay a visit to already.
What was still quite an issue you hadn’t thought too much about (or at least tried not to think about too much), was the flight.
This isn’t your first flight. Definitely not the second either. You have flown for work or visiting friends and family before. But the thing is, you always travelled with someone else. Grandma, Tara, Zayne - someone, who helped you with that travel anxiety and fear of leaving the ground on a major airplane. Tara and Grandma liked to hold your hand usually. Zayne even offered his arm to hold onto last time you two went.
So, flying alone now? You didn’t think this through at all, didn’t you?
At present, you are sitting on a bench close to the gate, waiting to be called in to board the plane. Next to you, on a free seat, your duffle bag. You were texting some friends, telling them how nervous you were for your first time flying alone, to which they replied with cute, bubbly emojis and cheerful messages of how fun the trip was going to be and that you shouldn't worry too much about it.
A short glance at the clock told you that it was almost time. All of a sudden, the weird feeling in your stomach kicked in once again. Your legs feel like jello when you see one of the airport staff take place behind the counter, people lining up neatly with their passports.
You inhale sharply and exhale, reach for your duffle bag and walk to stand in line. And just silently pray that everything is going to be fine from here on.
The plane was pretty big, your seat somewhere in the middle of it. You don’t know what in your right mind made you book that window seat (Tara said something about enjoying the view from the window and being able to take pretty pictures), but you surely regret it now when you plop down the seat and want to scream in agony.
You close your eyes and decide the best and only thing to calm your nerves now is to do some deep breaths and just try to forget that it’s a three hour flight. Yes, that’s it.
The seats next to you were empty still when you were doing your breathing exercises, the seat belt already fastened over your body as tight as you were able to make it.
“You alright there?”
A deep, smooth voice you definitely were not expecting to be hearing makes you open your eyes and dart your head in the direction of its owner.
Standing in front of you, now slowly making his way to sit down on the seat next to you, is a handsome, silver haired man, who, sitting down, was still tall enough that you had to look up to him.
“Uh… what?”
He laughs. A pretty laugh.
“You looked a bit pale, breathing like that. Are you feeling alright? Want me to call someone?” he settles on his seat, leaning back and watching you with an amused smirk, arms crossed in front of his chest. You wonder if he has enough space on the seat with how broad his shoulders are. Must be a well-built guy.
Oh no. He noticed you staring.
“I, uh… yes! I’m… alright. Quite. Definitely.”, you give him two awkward thumbs up, before turning your face away and trying to find something interesting outside the window.
Bad idea. When you see the baggage handlers and other staff members walking around like that, all it does is fuel the drop in your stomach. Oh no. Please don’t be sick now.
You sigh, running your hands up and down your face. What did Tara say would help again?
You close your eyes, try to focus on your breath and count slowly. You try to ignore the sounds around you; the rustling and bustling of people walking by, people trying to get their bags in the overhead compartment, stewardess helping people get to their seats. And of course, people chatting among themselves. Friends looking forward to the flight, families talking about what movie they want to watch, strangers saying hello to one another.
The voices slowly got quieter, but at the same time, your heartbeat was getting louder. It’s kind of annoyingly loud now. Beating in your head like a headache. It doesn’t feel calming at all.
You feel a tap on your arm, gentle.
“I’m not asking to be annoying, but are you really alright?”
You open your eyes once more and see the silver haired man stare at you with a frown on his face. It seems he has been observing you, judging by the fact that he hasn’t moved from his spot to reach for his bag or has busied himself with his phone. You feel your face getting warm.
“I..”, you sigh, “Actually, I’m not. I’m pretty scared of flying. This is my first time getting on one alone without a friend or family. I’m just… trying to calm myself down.”
“And is it working?”
“Apparently not, given your worry.”
“My worry?”, he raises an eyebrow. You nod, “You wouldn’t ask me if I'm alright two times in a row if you didn’t worry.. right?”
The stranger laughs, “Yeah, you’re right.”, he nods to himself, “Just worried. That’s all.”
You raise an eyebrow, confused. “What do you-”
“Good morning, everyone and welcome aboard on our flight to Gold Wood city. If you may look to our stewardess over here so we can go through the safety procedures-”
You pause, immediately sit upright on your seat and feel your hands get cold. Your whole face starts to tense up, your teeth tightly pressed together as you start to feel your body tremble. Maybe you should grab that hoodie you put away in your bag.
Next to you, a quiet voice whispers: “Hey, it’s alright. Just the safety protocol. Nothing you haven’t heard before, right?”
You turn your head almost robotically. The man next to you chuckles. You nod slowly, his words finally registering in your brain. “...yeah.”
He stares at you for a moment, “Still nervous?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cold?”, he notices you shivering.
“Yeah.”
You want to ask him if he could let you through so you can get something to put on from the overhead compartment, but before you can do that, he takes off his coat and hands it to you. “Here.”
“You don’t need it?”
“Honestly? I’m feeling a bit warm.”
You stare at the fabric held in front of you, then up to him. Then back to the coat. It looks cozy. Pretty high-class as well. Must be expensive. But this is literally a stranger. You don’t even know who this man is, so why would you-
“I’m Sylus.”, he says, as if able to read your mind, “May I offer you my coat?”
Before you can embarrass yourself any further with an attempt at replying, you simply introduce yourself to him and take his coat. It’s big on you, but perfect against the shivering. Smells nice as well. Like a very deep, woody perfume.
Once the flight attendants are done with their explanations, it’s finally time for the plane to take off. Just when you thought you managed to calm down for a bit, the voice of the captain sounding from the speakers makes you feel nervous once again.
There are so many sounds. People talking, the weird beep of the sign telling people to put their seatbelts on - it’s kind of too much. You feel sick. Why is it suddenly so hard to breathe?
Sylus puts his arm out, close to your own, so it’s touching yours. “You can hold onto me.”, he whispers, “And if you still feel unwell, I can call someone.”
You look at him, blink, then slowly wrap your hands around his arm. There is a small relief, having someone to hold onto. He is warm. Sylus leans a bit closer to you, so his shoulder is close to your head, offering you to lean up against him as well. You decline. For now.
There is this funky feeling in your stomach, when the plane starts tilting upwards. You start gripping harder at the fabric of Sylus’ sweater, probably leaving a few marks on his skin underneath with how tense you were. The plane just keeps accelerating more and more, the force of gravity pressing you against your seat.
You try breathing slowly, gulping frequently to get the pressure out of your ears. There is so much to focus on, for a moment, you forget you are holding onto a total stranger as if your life depended on it. In fact, you were so immersed in breathing properly and trying to keep calm, you barely notice how Sylus slowly drags your hands to hold his hand instead. You only truly realize, when his fingers close around the back of your hand and squeeze gently.
“How are we feeling?”, he asks softly. His voice is definitely too smooth to be real.
“I…”, you blush, “...better. Thank you.”
His other hand, he slowly runs up and down your lower arm and with some almost rhythmic squeezes of your hand, he encourages you to breathe along. It works like a charm somehow.
You don’t know how long you keep holding his hand. You are pretty sure, the plane is already in the air and cruising, but Sylus doesn’t seem to bother moving away.
Your breathing finally started becoming even and the pressure in your ears was easier to manage, but he still keeps you there, in his safe and firm grip.
He tells you to go and watch a movie or listen to some music. When you proceed to put earphones on, he lets go of your hands for a second, only to wait for you to hold his hand again. He doesn’t say it per-se, busy scrolling on his phone with his free hand, but his left hand has its palm facing up. As if eagerly telling you to hurry up and grab it again.
And although embarrassed, you do.
You barely talk for the next hours; only some small conversations when he asks if you want to drink something or has to get up to go to the toilet. Everything that pretty much involves having to let go of your hand for a moment.
There was a different kind of nervousness now, rather than the anxiety of flying.
During the landing, Sylus tells you to increase the volume for the movie you are watching. He also tells you to close your eyes. You feel his hand squeezing yours, thumb brushing against your skin to tell you it’s going to be alright.
You try your best to ignore the feeling in your stomach. The pit that just kept getting deeper the steeper the incline. With Sylus next to you this time, the movie playing loud in your ear, you feel like you can get over it this time.
-
“...Um, I don’t know how else to thank you, but.. uh, thank you so much. You really were a life saver back there.” Standing together at the luggage claim, you cannot help but think that the usual distance between strangers definitely didn’t apply for the two of you anymore. Sylus is holding onto your suitcase for you which got here pretty early, even though you told him repeatedly that he didn’t need to. He insisted on it. But you two were still waiting for his luggage to arrive.
Sylus smirks, looks over to you whose face is colored light pink. “It’s nothing. I just helped out a troubled pretty lady, that’s all.”
“A what?” “You heard me the first time.”
He suddenly goes to grab his luggage - the same one that has been circling around in front of you for the past ten minutes and to which he definitely said 'not mine' when you asked him if it’s his.
“Wait a second-”
“Tell me, when your flight back is”, he suddenly says, handing you a small card - it has his name and number on it as well as his companies' name, “I’ll make it in time to accompany you again then.”
Sylus turns around and slowly starts walking to the exit. You run after him, confused, “Wait, are you really just leaving like that after giving me your number…?”
He laughs.
“Silly you”, he says, gesturing to your suitcase he was still carrying along, “I’m dropping you off at your hotel first.”