Saving Larry [A Larry Stylinson + One Direction Story]

Ch. 11 - Heathrow and Galerie des Moments/Sanctuary

Lexi’s POV

I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder and hear a voice saying, “Excuse me, Miss”, as I blink my eyes open and place my sunglasses up on top of my head, I see one of the flight attendants kneeling down next to my seat. “I just wanted to let you know that we are about an hour away from arriving at Heathrow and will be serving coffee and tea in a few moments. Would you like a beverage?”

“That would be very much appreciated. Coffee with extra cream and enough sugar to make it taste like coffee ice cream, please”, I replied.

The flight attendant looked amazed at my request, so I just added, “I am going to need quite a bit of caffeine and a sugar rush to keep up with these lads on my first day working for them.”, while gesturing to the group in the rows in front of my seat.

To which she responded with a knowing smile, “They can be quite a handful on occasion, but it is always a nice and enjoyable flight when they are onboard. It’s nice to have first class passengers that appreciate what we do and don’t try to run us around catering to their every imagined whim.” She responded with a genuine smile, and I remembered that her name is Trina, from when she greeted our group upon boarding. “Thanks Trina, that makes me feel more comfortable accepting this placement for my college internship.” She smiled, nodded and replied, “I’ll be back shortly with your coffee, Miss.”

After she had made her way pass my seat, I stretched and then stood up and made my way to the lavatory. Not paying too much attention to the rest of the first class passengers as they were all asleep, except for one. I caught Paul’s eye across the cabin and pointed to where I was heading. I got a quick nod of acknowledgement from him as I made my way to the front of the cabin area.

Opening the lavatory door, I stepped in and slid the lock closed which engaged the occupied sign on the outside of the door. I took a good look at myself in the mirror and noticed that my lack of a good night’s sleep for the past few nights had started to show.  My eyes were looking dry and red, giving me a frazzled nervous look. I luckily keep a bottle of soothing dry eye drops in my blazer pocket while traveling. Pulling it out, I apply two drops to each eye and blink a few times. That felt a wee bit better, as the soothing relief of the drops relieved the dryness that wanted to make me rub my eyes. I finish up with my other morning call of nature and head back into the cabin.

I walked over to Paul’s seat and noticed that the couples were still asleep and that Zayn’s seat was empty. The two couples either had one head on the other’s shoulder or had hands that were intertwined. It was sweet to see such affection being shown to each other, even while they are asleep.  I hunkered down next to Paul’s seat and quietly asked, “When do the lads need to be woken up?”

“They’ll wake up as soon as Trina and the other attendant bring around their coffee or tea”, he responded in a hushed tone. This was an interesting facet to add to my research. Did they travel so much that all the first class cabin attendants know their morning beverage preferences, or did they only fly on certain nights and flights? I make a note to ask Paul once we are in the van heading to the lads’ new temporary residence.

“Paul, from what I have read or seen, I thought Zayn was the least likely to already be up and about?”

Paul responded, “It depends Lexi, he surely does have the hardest time with overcoming Jet Lag. I wouldn’t have expected him to be up either. Maybe more of a call of nature than being functionally awake?” I heard the other lavatory door open and scuffling footsteps and I look over my right shoulder and see a sleepy Zayn drop into his seat and pull his blanket up and in a matter of seconds begin to softly snore.