Chapter Text
Evan and Madi are standing at the airport check-in. In front of them, an increasingly nervous Ilia is trying to find his passport in his chaotic backpack.
They had invited him on their vacation because he hadn’t managed to find a travel buddy, and his family didn’t have time for a holiday. They were flying straight from their last work event of the season to a small seaside resort somewhere no one knows anything about figure skating.
It was early in the morning, and all of them were still very tired. Evan and Madi watched as Ilia slowly began to panic.
After a few minutes—just before he might have started crying at the airport over his passport—Madi remembered seeing him put it into his bag earlier.
She stepped forward, quickly organized the chaos he had created around himself, and within seconds handed Ilia’s passport to the check-in agent. Then she neatly packed everything back into his bag and gently rubbed his back to comfort and calm him.
On the plane, before takeoff, they all settled into their seats. Ilia was sitting somewhere else on his own because, by the time he had been invited on the trip, the seats next to Evan and Madi had already been booked.
Ilia felt very uncomfortable. He was freezing in his sweater because he had forgotten to pack a jacket in his backpack. Next to him sat an older lady who wore a strong perfume and seemed a bit intimidating to him.
A few minutes after takeoff, Evan suddenly appeared next to him on his way to the food cart, but there was a bit of a queue, so he had to stop there.
At first, he looked down at Ilia, then he crouched down next to him so they were at eye level.
“You’re cold?” Evan asked.
Ilia felt caught off guard but nodded. It was embarrassing that he hadn’t even thought of packing a jacket and was now freezing.
Evan took off his sweater and handed it to him. Ilia felt bad, because surely Evan would be cold now too, but Evan reassured him that he was too warm anyway.
So Ilia pulled the far-too-big sweater over his own and immediately felt better.
“You okay otherwise?” Evan asked. “Someone must have canceled—there’s an empty window seat next to mine. You can come sit with us.”
Ilia didn’t want to admit that he did want to sit with them instead of next to the strangely scented and somewhat scary elderly lady.
But Evan seemed to read his mind. He had already taken Ilia’s bag out of the overhead compartment and guided him back to their seats.
The vacation hadn’t even properly started yet, and Ilia already felt like Evan and Madi’s little kid. He had tried often enough to know it was a losing battle not to end up in that position.
So for now, he simply let himself relax—sitting by the window next to Evan, looking outside, and eating his favorite snack that Evan had brought along, together with something to drink.