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The Antiva City International Airport is quiet at three in the morning, empty aside from a few weary travellers collecting luggage from the baggage carousels. Vero checks their phone, and then the overhead screen that displays the incoming flights. Flight AA 321, arriving from Minrathous—now landing. Viago’s flight was delayed, he was supposed to have landed more than two hours ago, which means Vero has had that long to consider all the ways in which their presence here is absurd.
Viago has not asked them to come get him. They didn’t discuss it at all, in fact. For all Vero knows, his driver is already here, ready and waiting to take him home, making their impulsive gesture completely unnecessary. And yet. And yet Vero cannot bring themself to regret coming, because it has been two weeks since they last saw him and they want—need, perhaps—some reassurance that whatever was growing between them before he left has not been altered by the time apart.
So they wait. It’s another twenty minutes before the first passengers emerge from customs, carts stacked high with luggage. Vero drums their fingers against their thigh, then checks their phone again, then finally gets to their feet. Viago would be in first class, so he should be among the first to deplane, he should be—
There.
He appears from behind the frosted glass doors, pushing a cart that creaks beneath the weight of his bags—hockey equipment and carefully packaged sticks, his personal belongings. Like most of the arriving passengers, he looks tired, slightly rumpled from travel. His dark hair is curling out of whatever attempt he made to style it, and his pointed beard still tidy but perhaps less immaculately groomed than they’re used to seeing it. Vero’s heart lurches uncomfortably when they see him notice them, a brief moment of terrified uncertainty before he smiles.
“Hi,” Vero says, walking to meet him midway.
If Vero still harbours any doubts that he might not appreciate their spontaneous appearance, those evaporate entirely when Viago releases his baggage cart and steps forward to reach for them. They move into his embrace as if pulled there by gravity, resting their head against his shoulder as his arms close around them.
It is not the first time they have hugged, but this is still new enough to feel extraordinary. It is also the first time they have done this in public and not on the ice in the moments after a win. The exposure should make Vero nervous, and maybe it does, but whatever anxiety they feel is easily eclipsed by the sheer relief they feel at seeing him, at breathing in the familiar cedar-vanilla-clove notes of his cologne mixed with the smell of recycled airplane air.
“Hello,” he replies, holding them for another beat longer before, regretfully, he pulls away. “This is unexpected.” There’s a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, obvious pleasure at seeing them.
“I know. I just, I thought—I thought maybe you’d need a ride?” They didn’t think that, not really. It’s not as though he doesn’t have other options for getting home. Viago probably knows it’s a flimsy excuse, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“I was going to get a taxi,” Viago admits. “I told Antonio not to bother, since my flight got so delayed.” He pauses then, looking at them, and his blue eyes are soft despite his obvious exhaustion. “I … found myself hoping you might be here.”
Vero feels something in their chest crack open at affection so obvious in his voice, the confession that he had wanted them here, at three in the morning in an airport terminal.
The words feel almost impossible to say, but Vero manages. “I missed you,” they tell him, simple and honest. They leave the rest unsaid. Viago must know what they mean, though, because he reaches out and squeezes one of their hands in his. The simple touch of leather, warmed by his body heat, is a reminder that there’s something growing between them that they have yet to name, tentative and inevitable all at once.
“I missed you too,” he says, and he keeps his grip on their hand for a moment before releasing them once more.
Vero fails utterly to suppress their smile, their usual reserve difficult to maintain in the fact of such a confession from the famously stoic goaltender. Viago smiles back, smaller but no less genuine, though the tender moment is interrupted when he yawns.
“Come on,” Vero says, still smiling. “You’re dead on your feet. I’ll take you home.”