Chapter Text
Yuuri has beat Viktor’s world record. It’s unbelievable—literally: he can’t quite believe it. People with microphones ask him about the record, and he mumbles incoherent platitudes about hard work and Viktor’s coaching until they leave him alone.
Viktor, meanwhile, is especially good at disappearing from press when he doesn’t feel like talking to them, and today is no different. When Yuuri looks around for him, he finds his coach—his former coach, now?—is gone.
“Viktor?” he asks empty air, looking about the hallway.
Viktor’s poodle tissue box is abandoned on an empty chair near the rink. Where could Viktor be? Is he with the other skaters in the viewing area? But then, why is his tissue box here?
There’s no time to find him before it’s Yurio’s turn, and Yuuri doesn’t want to miss seeing this performance live after yesterday. He races up to the viewing area to stand at the railing.
“Yurio, davai!” he yells. Yurio ignores him with nostalgically familiar hostility, and acknowledges Otabek’s call. Ah, youth, Yuuri thinks—but his eyes are glued to his young rival, excitement thrumming in his veins.
He wants to see what Yurio will be now, having beat a world record. Can he remain at that level? Will he flounder, betrayed by his own inexperience?
The music starts, and Yurio’s limbs seem to stretch and contract with the music rather than simply flowing. He morphs himself angrily from one pose to another, but instead of being ferocious it’s beautiful—like anger itself has come to perform for them all, made into flame and flesh. Yuuri watches in awe and enjoyment.
And—and a little bit of competitiveness. He can’t help it. Every flash of Yurio’s skates glancing off the ice challenges Yuuri. Are you ready to retire? Yurio’s fire asks. Do you really want to end it here?
Yuuri is breathing hard just watching. No. No—he doesn’t want to end it here. He doesn’t want to be rendered a spectator. His fists clench, warm muscles going stiff but—no. He decided.
I decided.
He thinks of Viktor wanting him to continue, and acid burns in his stomach. He wants the certainty of his decision, but watching Yurio fills him with longing. How can he ask for more from Viktor? How can his relatives be forced to put up with more of his eccentricity?
He thinks of them all gathered around the TV at the inn. Do they resent his desire to prove himself on the ice? If they did once then surely—now—surely now with the world record he set they accept…
With effort he shuts the spiral of thoughts down, focusing only on Yurio. There’s little to critique; Yurio’s flowing motions fill Yuuri with wonder and excitement. He finds himself imagining things he could use as inspiration, if he wasn’t retiring.
Damn you, Yurio, he thinks without heat.
It’s not Yurio’s fault he and Viktor have wrapped themselves around each other in a complicated series of promises. Viktor is coming back to the ice—but if Yuuri doesn’t retire, he’ll hobble Viktor’s glorious return. Maybe even ruin it. Why had he ever asked Viktor to be his coach until he retired?
But then—he doesn’t want to come back to the ice without Viktor as his coach, does he?
It’s the second half. Hang in there, Yurio. Here come the second half jumps.
Yurio falls almost immediately, like Yuuri cursed him with his good luck wishes, but he gets up right away. He follows with an amazing sequence of jumps, and Yuuri clasps his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking visibly. Yurio’s program feels like a private performance—like Yurio is challenging him personally. Yuuri’s heart soars with the passion in the performance.
Only one person has inspired Yuuri like this before, and Yuuri just beat his world record.
That’s not the only record you’ll have to worry about, Yurio’s flowing movements promise. This is only the beginning, Pig.
The hostile beauty of Yurio’s performance fills Yuuri with longing. Maybe…
Yurio finishes, collapsing in on himself, and Yuuri’s skin burns with heat. Excitement, maybe. He tries to hold on to the empty feeling he’d acquired after telling Viktor he’d retire, but it slips away from him. He tries to be hollowed out, but feelings fill him.
Viktor is coming back to the ice. Yurio is just beginning his career—and Yuuri wants to just end things? Here, now?
He’s quiet through the next bit, while media people swirl around him and acquaintances pour out congratulations. He doesn’t want to talk to people, particularly, and he’s happy when he gets to stand on the podium where no one can ask him how he feels. He bows to accept the medal, stomach squirming as he thinks of last year’s Grand Prix. It’s a world of difference, and the delinquent who came and kicked in the stall door to threaten him stands proudly on the podium beside him.
The medal the organisers hang around Yuuri’s neck is silver, not gold. It doesn’t seem to weigh anything. What would a gold medal have weighed? He won’t get to know.
Despite his regretful mood, he can’t resent the loss to Yurio, even as he skates back to an expectant Viktor. He stops at the edge of the ice, holding out the silver medal.
“It’s not gold, but…”
He’s not looking at Viktor, so he doesn’t expect the completely blasé way Viktor replies.
“I don’t feel like kissing it unless it’s gold,” Viktor says, bratty as Yuuri has ever heard him. Yuuri shocks back. “Man, I really wanted to kiss Yuuri’s gold medal…”
Viktor begins to move in on him, backing him up into the boards.
“I’m such a failure as a coach.” Viktor’s leg is between Yuuri’s, and he’s leaning in so Yuuri has no choice but to lean back, Viktor’s heat bleeding into him through the front of his costume. “Yuuri, do you have any suggestions? Something that would excite me?”
The longing look in Viktor’s eyes is unbearable. He looks greedy, like there’s nothing Yuuri can offer that he won’t take with both hands. Yuuri closes his eyes against a thought he doesn’t want to have, an impulse he doesn’t want to follow.
Doesn’t he?
“What did you think just now?” Viktor asks, seduction in his voice. It’s the last straw. How can Yuuri retire now, after that performance from Yurio? It would be unbearable.
“Oh, um… well…” He’s going to look idiotic, retracting his big announcement so soon, but—well. Screw it.
He pushes Viktor back and back, unbalancing them both until they fall. “Viktor!” he says. He lets himself hold on, the way he hasn’t for the past two days. Viktor is his.
Please, please, let him be mine. His arms tighten around Viktor’s neck.
“Please stay with me in skating for one more year!” Yuuri pleads. He pulls back to look at Viktor, holding his shoulders. He owes this man. For everything. “This time, I’ll win gold for sure!”
Viktor’s eyes widen, and Yuuri expects a yes and a confident smile—but what he gets is much more. Viktor looks at him with shining eyes, a smile so bright it could power engines.
“Great!” Viktor says. “I love it! But keep going!”
Keep going? “What?” Yuuri asks, caught between excitement and horror. What crazy thing is Viktor thinking?
Viktor picks up the silver medal, offering it back to Yuuri. His manic energy dims; he looks like himself once more.
“Even I’m worried about making a full comeback if I’m also staying on as your coach,” Viktor says. His face doesn’t show any of the anxiety he admits to; instead he looks… perfect. And perfectly confident. Yuuri loves the way he says it nonetheless, in that low voice that has coached him through the past eight months of growth.
Viktor leans forward to put the rejected silver medal around Yuuri’s neck. “In exchange, I’ll need you to become a five-time world champion, at least.”
Five-time world champion. It’s unrealistic. It’s ridiculous—five-time world champion.
Five years of Viktor at his side, more if he doesn’t manage to bag golds. It’s an obvious ploy. He knows what it is Viktor is saying, and it breaks his heart and heals it in turn.
Stay with me always, Viktor’s sure gaze says. Yuuri could never have asked for this; he’s always tried to limit his greed. And yet here Viktor is, giving himself. Stay with me, don’t go.
Yuuri’s eyes are burning, and the emptiness is gone. The not-caring has vanished like snow under hot sun, turning into a warm and sparkling river, and tears splash down from his face to soak into his costume. He doesn’t care; he leans forward to put his arms around Viktor again, holding on tightly. He’s shaking.
“Yes, Coach.”
Viktor holds him with the same tight grip, strong hands like vices.
“Yuuri,” Viktor says. Not the start of a sentence—just a mumble of happiness. His face tickles Yuuri’s neck; it only worsens Yuuri’s shivering.
Viktor’s hand slides up and down Yuuri’s back, over the sequins of his costume. “You know I’ll have to punish you for the shock you gave me.”
Yuuri laughs wetly. “I’ll take it.”
“Mm. You will.” Viktor kisses his neck, his jawline. He nuzzles Yuuri’s skin until one side of Yuuri is covered in goose bumps. It becomes impossible to stay still, and finally Yuuri stands up. He holds out a hand.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
They head for the hotel, but they don’t manage to stay there for long. For a while all is quiet as Yuuri says—cowed by silence and new distance and a prickle of expectation under his skin—that he’ll shower. Then, partway through said shower, Phichit and Chris are banging on the door, demanding Viktor and Yuuri come out and party. There’s a rumble of a voice scolding them that indicates Otabek has been dragged along, and a high-pitched, angry voice that clearly belongs to Yurio.
Four skaters at the door, and all Yuuri wants is time alone with Viktor to explore this new arrangement between them. Yuuri doesn’t know what the intruders say beyond come out and their names, but Viktor lets them in. If Yuuri were capable of pulling him aside he’d ask why he hadn’t just kept them locked out—let them think they were somewhere else!—but Yuuri is butt-naked and alone in the shower, and he’s not about to go out there like this to chase their friends.
Somehow—Yuuri can’t hear the conversation well enough to know how—Viktor gets rid of them by the end of the shower. Yuuri turns off the water and dries off.
“I’m surprised you got them to leave,” he says through the door. He winds a towel around his hips and uses another to dry his hair, opening the bathroom door. Steam billows out into the hotel room’s entryway.
“We’re meeting them in twenty minutes,” Viktor says from by the window, where he’s looking out. He turns to look at Yuuri, and his eyes trail down Yuuri’s exposed body appreciatively—like they haven’t seen each other naked lots of times before. Yuuri’s skin warms, nipples going hard under Viktor’s gaze. He rubs at his chest to hide sudden awkwardness.
I’ll have to punish you for the shock you gave me, Viktor had said earlier, and Yuuri realises that could mean more than paying for dinner or putting up with Viktor at his poutiest.
Did he mean…? Yuuri wonders, arousal flaring. The cold of the room against his shower-warm skin becomes an assault on suddenly-inflamed senses; he wants to press himself against Viktor and find out what the threat meant.
Twenty minutes isn’t enough—but it’s a start, and they can always decide not to go. Yuuri steps forward, but he doesn’t get far before Viktor’s phone starts to ring.
“Let it—” Yuuri starts, wanting Viktor to ignore it, but Viktor sees the screen and accepts the call immediately.
“Yakov,” Viktor says, presumably for Yuuri’s benefit, before rattling off a greeting in Russian. Yuuri’s Russian lessons must be lacking, because he thinks he recognises the word for cabbage pie and nothing else; that can’t be right.
The conversation seems to go on and on. Eventually Yuuri battles his desire down and lies on the bed while Viktor chats away; Yuuri is half asleep by the time he hears a dasvidanya.
“Yuuri,” Viktor says. “Are you ready to get going? No—you’re still not dressed! Up!”
“I’m up,” Yuuri mumbles, rolling over. “What was that about?”
Viktor picks out clothes from Yuuri’s suitcase, tossing them onto the bed next to him.
“I don’t want to go,” Yuuri says.
“They have our hotel key. If we don’t meet them in the lobby they’ll just come up.”
“Why’d you give them our key?!”
“It was the only way I could get them to leave,” Viktor says. He stops throwing clothes onto the bed and stands up to loom over the seated, still towel-wrapped Yuuri. “You realise you set a world record today?”
“Yes,” Yuuri says. But I didn’t win gold. The happiness he feels has little to do with the record and all to do with Viktor’s demands. The record makes Yuuri feel just a bit more confident, like he has something of value after all and the world might see it—but it’s the aspect of the tall, Russian man before him staying by his side that has him feeling like he won a prize.
He wants his prize now.
Viktor shakes his head, setting a hand to it. “Amazing. I’m almost offended.”
“Why?” Yuuri asks, thinking of the ‘ultimate diss’ Viktor had mentioned earlier. Viktor’s pleasure had been evident after Yuuri achieved his score; surely he’s not offended at being surpassed now.
“Because you beat me, and you don’t even want to celebrate.”
Huh, Yuuri thinks, trying to unpack that thought—but his efforts dead-end in a flush of physical awareness. Viktor’s suit is pressed and perfect at his eyeline, despite a full day of wear, and Yuuri looks down from a row of shiny buttons to the towel only just covering his own slightly spread legs. It’s hard to think of anything but the current and contrast between him and Viktor.
“I want to celebrate with you,” he says softly.
He doesn’t know whether he’ll be mocked or scolded or accepted, but Viktor is silent, so Yuuri raises his eyes. Viktor’s gaze burns him when he meets it.
Yuuri tries not to mind his own vulnerability, his own undress. He wants. He’s done enough hiding for a whole lifetime. Viktor asked for an impossible thing earlier, and Yuuri accepted.
He gets to be with Viktor. He needs to be with Viktor as soon as possible or the happiness inside him will morph into fear and insecurity, doubt.
Please, he thinks, his whole body begging.
Maybe Viktor reads the want in his eyes, or maybe he feels the same. Whatever the case, Viktor moves a hand to cradle Yuuri’s face, keeping their eyes locked. The pad of his thumb slides against Yuuri’s cheek in a caress.
“Yuuri,” Viktor says, long and slow. Then, deeply: “Turn over. Lie on your stomach.”
Yuuri blinks in surprise, but Viktor stares him down—and with his insides on fire Yuuri obeys. He’s half hard as he lets his naked body press into the blankets, heedless of the clothes Viktor laid out and the towel he’d been wearing. The different fabrics form a tapestry of sensation against his front, but they fall into the background when Viktor moves.
He doesn’t climb onto the bed like Yuuri wants. Instead Viktor sets a single, clothed knee on the bed and begins to run a questing hand down Yuuri’s back—first down his shoulder blades, to the dip of his waist, back up like he’s teasing—and then he moves the hand to the curve of Yuuri’s ass. He caresses Yuuri’s glutes, pushes at them so Yuuri can’t help remembering the times he’s taken Viktor. His hole is spread and vulnerable, then covered, but Yuuri remains aware of it. Viktor’s thumb works into the muscle of his glute.
Yuuri stifles a cry against the coverlet. There’s no ‘half’ about his arousal now. His mind goes blank with the continued teasing.
Viktor begins to caress his feet—Yuuri misses the contact further up—then his calves. There’s a sensation of cotton on bare skin, and by the time Yuuri realises what’s happening Viktor has pulled a pair of boxer-briefs up past his knees.
Yuuri moans, this time not with pleasure.
“Lift your hips,” Viktor orders, and Yuuri obeys because he’s not sure what else to do. He’s not sure he could disobey that voice, at least in this state. Viktor pulls the underwear the rest of the way up, trapping Yuuri’s leaking cock with the elastic.
“Do you want help dressing the rest of the way, or can you do it yourself?” Viktor asks sweetly. Yuuri wants to throw a tantrum, snipe—but maybe this was the punishment. He sits up, glaring at Viktor.
The tent in Viktor’s nice trousers takes some of the sting out. Yuuri looks back up.
“Well?” Viktor asks.
“I can do it,” Yuuri says, and Viktor stands back. Yuuri dresses with some difficulty while Viktor watches, his eyes like blue flame. They sear every bit of exposed skin they rest on.
“Was that my punishment?” Yuuri asks, once he’s dressed.
“Punishment?” Viktor blinks, the intensity about his stance fading—like the question broke him from a trance.
“For upsetting you,” Yuuri says.
“Oh!” Viktor huffs a laugh, and in a moment it’s clear he forgot he’d said anything about punishment. “I suppose. It wasn’t nearly enough, though.”
Yuuri looks down at his own crotch, where his erection is only now beginning to fade. “I agree.”
Viktor doesn’t look affected anymore. He’s tall and elegant, the five-time champion and indomitable coach. He smiles distantly.
“What was Yakov calling about?” Yuuri asks, remembering Viktor’s lack of an answer.
“Arrangements,” Viktor says mysteriously. There’s a knock at the door, and Viktor turns to face it. “Ah, here they are.”
Yuuri wants to complain more about not wanting to go—but as the architect of Viktor’s unhappiness the past two days, he hardly has the right to be needy. Maybe Viktor needs some time with the others; he’s more of a party person than Yuuri is.
Yuuri puts his complaints aside and gets up, opening the door to Phichit standing alone.
“Finally!” Phichit says, and motions for them to come out.
The sight of Phichit’s grinning face makes Yuuri just a bit less reluctant to leave, and he works on readjusting his mood so he won’t bring the party down. Viktor and Phichit chat amiably in the lift to the lobby, and they only have to stand around the hall a minute before Chris, Yurio, and Otabek join their waiting group—and then Mari and Minako and Celestino.
Oh no, Yuuri thinks.
“Let’s get going!” Phichit says, grinning widely. He links his arm with Yuuri’s and leans in close, pulling him along.
“It would be better if it was an engagement party,” Phichit stage-whispers within Viktor’s hearing. “Don’t you think? But you would have had to win gold.”
Yuuri laughs softly at Phichit’s teasing. If he’d won gold, what would have happened? Would he have retired? He’s not sure. Not if Viktor asked him not to, surely.
“He would have had to,” Viktor confirms, matching Phichit’s airy tone. “Gold for gold, right Yuuri?”
“I—right.”
The skaters and their hangers-on are like a tide breaking across the streets of Barcelona. Every bar they visit lights up, and an hour passes without dragging, their group ballooning to include charming strangers. They order anything and everything that sounds interesting, including—in one place—spicy grasshoppers. It’s not a competition night, but Yuuri refrains from drinking even when Minako tries to insist. She sets her sights on Celestino instead—and Yuuri looks across a candlelit, high table in the second bar to see Viktor watching him, noticing his sobriety.
Viktor’s own drink is clear and red, in a short glass. It looks like a cocktail, and Yuuri walks over, curious. When he holds out his hand Viktor presses the cold glass into it wordlessly; Yuuri takes a sip.
Soda water and cranberry juice. No alcohol. Yuuri looks up at Viktor.
“You’re not drinking?” he asks.
“Hmm,” Viktor says.
“Hmm?”
“I haven’t decided to drink.”
“Why?” Yuuri asks. Viktor is always up for a party, but tonight he seems subdued. Why, when things are good between them again?
Viktor raises a hand, letting his long fingers trail up Yuuri’s too-warm neck, then along his jaw to tilt his face up.
“Why aren’t you?” Viktor asks with a smile. It isn’t a sharp smile—not that I’ll-kill-you-later smile he has when Yuuri is late for practice—but…
It’s a strange smile nonetheless, for Viktor. Yuuri shivers under it, despite the warm air inside the noisy bar.
“Look at that,” someone says, too loud. “Unfair.”
Yuuri glances over, and sees Chris watching them. An unfamiliar man sits next to Chris; ostensibly that’s who Chris was talking to. When did the man join them? He’s at the table, but Yuuri didn’t notice his arrival, and they haven’t been introduced.
“What’s unfair?” Yuuri asks.
“Your underhanded methods,” Chris says, sighing. “Do you know how long I struggled to get Viktor’s attention? And then you come in and steal the spotlight through—well.”
He gestures at Yuuri and Viktor, Viktor’s hand still on Yuuri’s face, and Viktor smiles.
“Sorry, Chris,” he says.
“You should be,” Chris says, but he’s smiling too—at both of them. “If you leave I won’t tell the others. You clearly have somewhere else to be.”
Viktor holds out a hand. “The extra room key, then.”
Chris laughs while the man beside him raises a sardonic brow at him, amused at Chris’s antics. Eventually Chris finds the key in his pockets.
“Two is the loneliest number, you know,” Chris says as Viktor puts a hand between Yuuri’s shoulder blades and steers him to the door. Viktor acknowledges his statement with a wave, but he doesn’t stop steering until he and Yuuri are inside a taxi back. The world outside is shut off with the closing of the car door, trapping Viktor and Yuuri into intimate space as a stranger drives them to the hotel.
“How did you know he’d have the key?” Yuuri asks into the quiet.
“It’s Chris,” Viktor says. “He loves to be invited.”
Yuuri doesn’t understand for a moment—and then he does. “You mean he’d come in and join us?!”
Viktor glances at him, a smile pulling at his lips. “I don’t know if he’d actually do it, but it’s better to be sure.”
They arrive back at the hotel, and Yuuri’s heartbeat kicks up. He thinks of Viktor touching him earlier, his skin going tingly at the memory. Before he indulges the impulse to jump Viktor, though, he ought to—ask. See why Viktor didn’t party it up. Ask what Viktor’s feeling.
Yuuri realises he’s not the best at asking these things, always afraid of the answers. He follows Viktor into the quiet lift and makes a list of questions in his mind. Or does Viktor want apologies? Yuuri glances at Viktor’s cheerfully neutral face, wondering.
Viktor made him cry; he made Viktor cry. Are they even?
No, he thinks, very certain.
They make it back to the room, and Viktor sighs like the door closing behind them is a relief. He hangs up his coat and scarf, then turns to help Yuuri with his like it’s habit. When their shoes are off—the difference in their heights seems emphasised; are Yuuri’s soles thicker?—Yuuri can’t stand it anymore. He takes a step forward and wraps his arms around Viktor’s waist, planting his face in his neck.
Viktor always smells so good; that masculine aftershave overlaying the natural scent of his skin is borderline criminal. Yuuri shivers and holds on hard. He could have lost this if he’d continued being pigheaded.
“I’m sorry, Viktor,” he says.
“What’s this all about?” Viktor asks, surprised. He pats Yuuri’s back. “You seem more sorry now than you were then. I’m fine, Yuuri.”
“I’m still sorry,” Yuuri says, not letting go.
“I should have known you were hiding something,” Viktor says thoughtfully.
“I wasn’t. We agreed: until the Grand Prix Final.”
“Did I ever seem like I remembered that agreement?” Viktor asks. He tries to pull back to look at Yuuri’s face, but Yuuri doesn’t let him. “Like I was waiting for that?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
Fingertips skim through Yuuri’s hair, brushing it back. “I was in one-hundred percent. I still am.”
“How can you know that? How can you be sure?”
“Sometimes you have to jump in,” Viktor says. “Board a plane to Japan, no matter what Yakov says.”
Finally Yuuri leans back to look at Viktor. No matter what he does, he can’t get used to the thought of his idol boarding a plane to an unknown country for him. Or staying, for that matter, when he realised the confident version of Yuuri he came for wasn’t the real one.
“Remember,” Viktor says, gaze intense, “five-time world champion.”
“I remember,” Yuuri says. He fights a wave of emotion, not wanting to cry again, and clears the block in his throat. He steps away.
“I meant it,” Viktor reiterates, grabbing Yuuri’s chin.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Viktor's hard stare doesn't relent, and neither does his grip on Yuuri's face. Yuuri tries to straighten his spine and meet Viktor stare for stare, but his resolve feels soft, his heart weak. He just wants to be with him.
“What do you want me to say?” Yuuri asks, smiling slightly. He looks away. “I told you yes. I mean yes.”
“Show me,” Viktor says. His eyes are bright.
“What? On the ice?”
Viktor's gaze heats to a smoulder. “There too.”
Yuuri's mouth drops open. He glances past Viktor at the bed and bites his lip.
“Is that permission?” Yuuri asks.
Viktor's smile is radiant, and that is permission. He wants to be wooed? Yuuri can try. He bats Viktor's gripping hand away from his face—it falls, finally—and steps forward to put himself and Viktor chest to chest. Viktor looks down at him, noses almost brushing, and Yuuri stretches, heels coming up off the floor. He brushes Viktor's mouth with his, grazes his thumb against Viktor's cheek. Then—like he's confident, like he's secure, now, in this thing they have—he kisses Viktor. Not deep, at first, but hard. He tries to push all his relief and frustration into the kiss, as if he can make Viktor taste his sincerity if he kisses him with enough care. He'll certainly try.
Viktor's exhale is a soft caress against Yuuri's face, uneven, and Yuuri grabs him by the back of his neck. The kiss deepens. Viktor leans into him, grabs onto his back to keep him close. Yuuri’s back becomes an arc; Viktor is dipping him without meaning to, and Yuuri is clinging close.
Confidence begins to take shape inside of Yuuri. He needs to show Viktor all the things he still struggles to say.
He needs a place to put all his gratitude.
Viktor pushes him into a wall. For a moment Yuuri lets himself be pushed, enjoying Viktor’s passion, the urgency of his kiss—and then, suddenly, it hits Yuuri.
He set a world record. He, Katsuki Yuuri, set a record. He beat Viktor Nikiforov, the man he idolised his entire life—and as if that wasn’t enough, that same Viktor is still here kissing him, pressing into him like he never wants to do anything else. Wearing the ring Yuuri gave him. Yuuri has to stop kissing because he’s grinning too hard.
“What?” Viktor asks, pulling back with glazed eyes. “What? What’s the joke?”
Yuuri pushes him silently, backing him slowly into the bed where he teased Yuuri earlier. Yuuri is still grinning when he climbs onto Viktor’s lap to straddle him.
“Nothing,” Yuuri says. “I’m just happy.”
Viktor’s eyes narrow theatrically, but he seems incapable of not smiling back. “I don’t believe you.”
Yuuri rises a little over Viktor’s lap so he can look down at him better, setting a finger below Viktor’s chin to tip his head back.
“Hey, Viktor,” he says. He looks into Viktor’s eyes without shame or self-consciousness, almost lazy with the time he has now—warmed through and through with Viktor’s words, his intentions.
“Yes, Yuuri?”
“I set a world record today.”
Viktor’s smile goes sharp. “I can’t tell if you’re telling me as your coach or your rival.”
“I’m telling you,” Yuuri says. “Aren’t you both of those things?”
Yuuri knows he shouldn’t tease. He set a record with the program he and Viktor choreographed together, to the music Viktor gave him the confidence to revisit. He owes his victory to Viktor—but he owes it to himself too, and at this particular moment he wants to roll around in the triumph he feels, challenge Viktor here the same way he challenged him on the ice. He’s still grinning.
Viktor smiles back mildly for a moment—and then he grabs Yuuri around the hips and flings him down on the bed, climbing on top of him to pin him. He’s smiling, but he’s more concerned with trapping Yuuri’s struggling limbs than he is with looming ominously. He looks a full ten years younger, a teenage boy concerned with besting a friend, laughing whenever Yuuri almost gets the drop on him.
Yuuri’s stomach hurts from laughing as he wriggles, rubbing up against Viktor, trying to tickle him along the ribs, to buck him off, to leave an arm limp until Viktor forgets then move it suddenly—but no matter what he tries he doesn’t get free.
After a minute or two they’re both winded, laughing, and Viktor is looking down at him with a grin while straddling him, Yuuri’s wrists trapped in his large hands. His large, talented hands Yuuri has admired for as long as he can remember.
Is this my life? Yuuri wonders, halfway to heaven.
“What was that about beating me?” Viktor asks.
“I’m just letting you think you won.”
“Prove it.”
Yuuri turns his head to admire the ring on Viktor’s finger. “I definitely won.”
Viktor follows his gaze. For a moment he’s still as a statue—and then he draws back his hands slowly, left cradling right, to look at the ring himself. Yuuri doesn’t know what he sees there, but after he looks at it a while Viktor leans forward, cupping Yuuri’s face before kissing him with a slow passion that melts Yuuri’s bones.
Yuuri is meant to be the one expressing his gratitude, not Viktor. Viktor got jerked around; Yuuri needs to make it up to him, to dispel that image of Viktor still and upright and crying. The fact that Viktor looks beautiful when he cries only makes the memory more heartbreaking.
For a while Yuuri lets Viktor kiss him. He can’t stop it, really; it feels too good, makes his body liquid and light, a burning warmth beneath his skin. When he bucks up his hips and heaves to roll them, though, Viktor’s earlier resolve to remain on top is gone. He lets Yuuri take charge but keeps pushing into him, like he can’t stand a single centimetre of space between their bodies. Yuuri is okay with that; he pushes Viktor down into the coverlet and moves like the tide: in waves falling and cresting, pushing down into Viktor with a body that burns hotter with every second.
They’re fully clothed; it’s becoming a problem.
Yuuri sits up, and Viktor pulls him back down. “Not yet,” Viktor mumbles against Yuuri’s mouth.
“Your shirt should be off,” Yuuri says reasonably. He moves so he’s kneeling between Viktor’s legs, still pressed into him but with some freedom of movement. He sets to unbuttoning Viktor.
Viktor hooks an arm around Yuuri’s neck, making everything more difficult. “Only if you stay here.”
Yuuri has to half lay on Viktor, but he manages. He pulls Viktor’s shirt open and runs his hands over smooth skin overlaying hard muscle. A sigh of pleasure escapes him, gusting against Viktor’s face.
“This body still wins all the records,” Yuuri says, filled with possessive joy. Everything about Viktor is so classic—from the way he dresses to his haircut to the perfectly sculpted body beneath Yuuri right now. He’s a work of art.
“Do you want it to beat your record from today?” Viktor asks, lifting his hips to push up against Yuuri.
“Yes,” Yuuri whispers, tantalised. Yes, he wants Viktor to grind him into dust—and then he wants to get Viktor back for that, over and over. He knows logically that time will run out for them, eventually—no one can be at the top of their game forever—but he won’t accept it just yet.
He gets Viktor’s trousers unbuttoned, but he can’t get Viktor to let go of him long enough to get any of the undone clothing off. He thinks back to earlier, when Viktor had tricked him into getting dressed.
Can Yuuri manage the reverse?
Viktor had been sneaky, and he’d used Yuuri’s eagerness. Right now Viktor is eager, wanting to touch and be touched, so Yuuri feeds into it—he rubs his hands up and down Viktor’s thighs, up his sides, caresses and kisses and moves his own hips in heedless waves that send sparks through his veins. When the kiss stops for a moment, Yuuri leans to one side of Viktor, pressing down and across until he has Viktor on his side, at least, and manages to guide one of Viktor’s arms to freedom. A minute later he has the other arm free too, the shirt slightly tucked but mostly off. Unfortunately, that still leaves Viktor’s legs, which are locked around Yuuri’s hips like a vice.
Yuuri had presumed Viktor was innocent, caught up in a wish to stay close, but when he pulls back and catches a glimpse of Viktor he sees the look Viktor wears—smug, superior, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“You’re doing this on purpose!” Yuuri says suddenly.
“Doing what?”
“Making it hard for me to undress you!”
“I’d think the world record holder of the men’s Free would be able to manage,” Viktor says, and after that it’s no more Mister-nice-Yuuri. Yuuri tickles and bites and pins until he has Viktor’s clothes off—all of them.
And then he looks down, and sees Viktor naked and achingly hard below him. He bites his lip, still wearing everything he was earlier, right down to his socks. Viktor doesn’t look put out; he’s never been embarrassed by his own nudity, not like Yuuri is.
“Viktor,” Yuuri says slowly. “You really should be illegal.”
He touches a hand to Viktor’s cock. It’s just as perfect as the rest of Viktor, warm and hard against the palm of Yuuri’s hand, wet at the tip. Yuuri sighs with pleasure, ignoring the throb of his own body. He feels like he’ll explode—come just like this, just looking—but he breathes through it.
“Why are my clothes off, and yours on?” Viktor asks pleasantly. Yuuri looks down at himself. Earlier, when he’d been butt-naked and Viktor was fully clothed, the difference between them had turned him on. He’d felt vulnerable, like he was just waiting to be ravaged and couldn’t wait—but being naked doesn’t make Viktor feel vulnerable.
Of course not. Viktor knows exactly what he looks like.
Yuuri wets his lips, annoyed and pleased all at the same time. Yuuri can be seductive on the ice, but it’s a struggle to work up that confidence—that zest for performing—when there’s no audience. Viktor seduces Yuuri standing fully clothed across a crowded room. How can Yuuri ever get him back?
“You haven’t answered me,” Viktor says.
“Do you never feel shame?” Yuuri asks.
“Not really.” Viktor smiles. “Are you getting shy again, Yuuri?”
“No,” Yuuri says. Kneeling between Viktor’s legs, he starts to unbutton his shirt. His fingers are anything but nimble, but he manages—and Viktor doesn’t help. He just watches appreciatively.
“Mm,” Viktor says. He sets his elbows down behind him to see better as Yuuri shucks the shirt and undoes his trousers. The added scrutiny makes Yuuri’s hands shake, and he stops undressing to glare.
“What is it, world record holder?” Viktor asks innocently.
Yuuri flicks his eyes at the drawer with their stuff. “Prepare yourself,” he says, “or I’m not taking anything else off.”
Viktor gasps in delight. “You’re giving me orders?”
“Yes.” And Yuuri will probably die if Viktor doesn’t obey. He doesn’t have to worry, though; Viktor wants it at least as much as he does. Viktor’s eyes keep roving Yuuri’s exposed skin, Yuuri’s half-undone trousers with his cock tenting the boxer-briefs beneath. By the look on Viktor’s face—the way he wets his lips—it’s the most seductive sight in the world.
Yuuri has his doubts about his own appeal, but he’s glad Viktor has odd tastes. He’s even more glad when Viktor grabs the lube and begins to work himself over, fingering himself with slick fingers, still totally unselfconscious. The performance is… breathtaking. Literally. Yuuri forgets to breathe.
“You’re illegal,” Yuuri wheezes. He watches Viktor’s fingers, tantalising, teasing both himself and Yuuri. Yuuri lubes up his own fingers, joining Viktor in the endeavour. He needs to feel this too, to be that bit closer. Viktor’s smile is smug.
“Impatient?” Viktor asks, but his smile is replaced moments later as Yuuri pushes his fingers into him harder—fucking him, imagining it’s a different part of himself inside of Viktor’s gorgeous body. Yuuri is still speechless, his breathing ragged, but he can do this.
His cock burns.
Viktor’s head falls back. A flush appears on his chest, and his bottom lip is caught between his teeth. His silky hair is a mess across his forehead.
“Yuuri,” Viktor says. His ring-adorned hand finds Yuuri’s, stills Yuuri’s fingers’ frantic thrusting. “Hold up your end. I want to see you.”
Yuuri groans. He doesn’t want to stop; if he thinks hard enough, it’s like he can feel Viktor around his cock—but a deal’s a deal. He smears lube on his trousers in his haste to get them off, pulling off the underwear in one so his oversensitive cock is freed without fuss. Viktor ruins him by licking his lips again.
“Stop it,” Yuuri whispers raggedly. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Doing what?” Viktor asks, not looking away from Yuuri’s cock.
“Licking your lips.”
Viktor looks up, shocked—then barks a laugh. “Yes, Yuuri. That’s on purpose. I’m doing it to tease you.”
The heavy sarcasm in his voice goes straight through Yuuri. If it’s not on purpose, if it’s not to tease Yuuri, then it’s—genuine. Real, true, whatever. Viktor really does want it that much.
It might be true, but it’s hard to believe.
“You didn’t grab a condom,” Yuuri accuses childishly.
“You don’t need one. I’m clean and your first. Unless you want…?”
Yuuri sucks in a breath. “No! No, that’s fine!” Skin to skin with Viktor, not a scrap of anything between them? The triumph from earlier flushes him again. Viktor is so beautiful and he’s—his. He wears his ring. He wants him.
He cried when he thought of losing him.
“I’m ready,” Viktor says. He lifts his hips temptingly, cock swollen against his abdomen, chest flushed. “I thought you wanted to show me something?”
It’s tempting to lube himself up and just go for it—but that would only prove his own voracious appetite, and he’s done that plenty already. Instead Yuuri takes his time. He kisses Viktor all over his body without nipping him, without bruising or sucking. Viktor’s body is an altar, and Yuuri is the supplicant. It’s obviously not what Viktor wants, and that only pleases Yuuri more. Yuuri likes the way Viktor writhes, the way he tries to catch Yuuri’s mouth in a kiss or grind against some part of him.
“Cruel,” Viktor mutters, but he’s smiling. Yuuri runs a hand down Viktor’s abs.
“Mmm.”
“No sympathy for an old man.”
Yuuri laughs outright at that, and then he can’t bear it. He can’t perform, can’t wait; he needs to be as close to Viktor as humanly possible, to claim this unbearably vivacious man who’s held his heart since he was a child. He coats himself with lube, wiping excess on the sheets, heedless of future comfort. Viktor doesn’t look like he cares, either. He watches Yuuri with a kind of smug expectation that drives Yuuri wild. They haven’t done it like this before, falling into patterns, and Yuuri should be worried about living up to expectations but he’s not.
Something about Viktor’s body, or Viktor in general, convinces him they fit together. He lines himself up, and when he pushes into Viktor it’s like nothing else. Viktor’s body resists for a moment—and then it welcomes him, pulling him in to the hilt. Yuuri makes a noise of surprise while Viktor lets out a sigh of pleasure.
“Yuuri,” Viktor says. He pulls Yuuri in again, by the neck, while Yuuri gasps with the sensation. It’s too much. He’s seconds into the act and it’s too much. He can’t move for fear of embarrassing himself, but that doesn’t stop Viktor from moving against him—and with Viktor’s hips moving Yuuri can’t stop himself from rocking to meet them, the smallest movement met with a sharp collision between their bodies, a full and deep sensation that nearly sends Yuuri off the deep end. Yuuri is gasping, muttering prayers against Viktor’s mouth.
“Japanese?” Viktor asks, sounding breathless but amused. His strong legs clamp around Yuuri to keep him close.
“No,” Yuuri lies, and then their mouths catch. It’s a desperate, gasping kiss until Yuuri remembers his earlier triumph—his own cocksure gloating after he beat Viktor in at least one way. He acquires some confidence with the memory, and his body becomes a tool instead of a maelstrom of impulses. Viktor had looked at him like he was desirable, so he’ll act like he is; he’ll dip into the feelings he has when he’s on the ice and use them for something. It becomes possible to roll his hips, to trap Viktor’s arms, to make love without losing himself completely.
The look Viktor sends Yuuri when Yuuri draws back is—for a moment—startled.
“Yuuri?” he says breathlessly. He quivers at the next roll of Yuuri’s hips, biting his lip briefly, eyes half-closing. Then he blinks them open, remembering his surprise. He looks at Yuuri with something almost like worry.
Yuuri smiles down at him, ungripping one of Viktor’s arms to trail a hand along his face. “Don’t worry.”
Viktor sighs a breath. “Yuuri…”
Viktor seems so weak, just now, too overwhelmed to assert his will. His skin is flushed, his eyes keep falling shut. The silky hair blown across his forehead is painfully charming. Yuuri wants to conquer him utterly, to make it so good Viktor never even thinks of another man again.
“I’ll take care of you,” Yuuri says, unsure where that sentiment comes from—except that he’s imagined this enough to feel he’s been here before. He uses the hand not holding Viktor’s arm to quest over Viktor’s skin, caressing softly before pinching at his nipples, making him shudder.
Viktor had said Yuuri was sensitive; Viktor seems just as sensitive, at least when he’s like this. Yuuri is overcome with everything—not just the sensation, but the realisation that Viktor wants to be taken care of. He wants to be swept off his feet, to let go and let Yuuri take charge.
His shuttering blue eyes beg for it.
Yuuri is done watching, at least for now; he has something else to do. The memory of what Viktor looks like totally overwhelmed and gagging for it is enough as Yuuri leans down, adjusting so he has a solid stance when he sets a hand at the small of Viktor’s back, lifting his hips to improve the angle. Viktor gasps a breath, legs pulling tight enough to hurt, and Yuuri rolls his hips in reward-punishment. More gasping tells Yuuri it was mostly reward.
“Yuuri.” Viktor’s lips are at Yuuri’s ear, nipping at the shell of it. It sends shivers down Yuuri’s spine. “Yuuri, you’re amazing. Amazing.”
It would sound like encouragement if it didn’t sound like begging. Yuuri takes the advice Viktor isn’t giving: don’t stop, keep going, don’t slow down. He’ll do anything to please.
Viktor isn’t loud, normally, but the usual patterns of his breathing that indicate when he’s close become keens and moans instead of the usual hitches. He’s lost the ability to keep himself in, and down, and quiet, and Yuuri relishes it—relishes pushing Viktor farther than he normally goes. He isn’t even touching Viktor’s swollen cock when he feels a spurt of wet against his stomach. Viktor is gasping into his shoulder, one hand coming down between them either to stroke himself or catch the mess, and Yuuri doesn’t care which it is; Viktor is pulsing around him, so strong and maddening it catches Yuuri by surprise.
He groans, caught by intense heat, by the pulsing welcome of Viktor’s body. He could never have even—imagined—his idol…
Yuuri’s mind goes more than a little blank, and when the high-pitched screech between his ears goes down he starts to come in thick and angry spurts. Inside of Viktor, because Viktor is clean and doesn’t care—maybe even likes it, like Yuuri likes it. Yuuri gasps as he thrusts, near tears with the intensity. Viktor’s crushing embrace makes it hard to move, but Yuuri doesn’t struggle out of it. They’re both breathing hard, bodies entangled, still moving in mutual aftershock.
Eventually—after a long, long time—Viktor laughs softly.
“You made me wait for so long,” he says, tangling his fingers in Yuuri’s hair.
“I did?”
“Mm.”
Yuuri moves so he’s lying mostly beside Viktor instead of on top of him, catching his gaze. Viktor is smiling, and Yuuri smiles back. After a moment Yuuri’s smile becomes a grin; he’s too giddy to just smile. Set a new world record. Just had sex with Viktor Nikiforov. Only a saint could pretend to feel modest after that, and Yuuri’s no saint.
“Yeah,” Viktor says. “That’s the man at the banquet I fell in love with.”
“Hey! I’m not drunk.”
“Unflaggingly confident, painfully charming—”
“I saw the pictures. There’s no way I was charming.”
“You were very charming,” Viktor protests. He looks up at the ceiling like it holds his memories, gazing fondly. “You made me feel like the only person in the world. When you weren’t dance-battling with others, I mean.”
Yuuri moans. Is Viktor doing this on purpose, to grind his ego back down? “You’re famous. People bug you all the time.”
“Hmm,” Viktor says. “Not like you did. You wanted to have fun together. You picked me.”
“Anyone would pick you. I just got lucky that you picked me back.”
Viktor smiles at him. “That’s how I feel about you. Even though you’re an awful person at heart.”
Yuuri bursts out laughing.
Viktor isn’t done berating him. Viktor continues: “Competitive, uncompromising, just does as he pleases…”
“Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
Viktor grins. He slides out from under Yuuri’s legs to lie on his side, laying a hand against Yuuri’s face. “We deserve each other.”
He reaches away from the bed for a moment, but it’s only to grab a shirt to wipe them both off. After this ritual—it seems like a ritual, from the small, knowing smile Viktor wears—Viktor inches and writhes until he manages to get them both under the covers. Viktor’s endeavours by this point have woken a sex-sated Yuuri back up, and Yuuri finds his grin is becoming permanent; he’s going to look like a smug asshole for the rest of his life.
He can live with it.
Viktor moves a last, negligible amount to lie opposite Yuuri again, their hands held between them beneath the blankets. Viktor’s eyes are bright blue and earnest.
“How do you feel about moving your home rink to Russia?” Viktor asks, and Yuuri wakes up a little more. Right. Viktor is Yuuri’s coach—but Viktor has a coach too, and that coach isn’t moving to Japan.
A shiver of excitement passes through Yuuri as he remembers Viktor is returning to the ice, and they’ll be competitors again—but that’s for later. He thinks about Viktor’s question long and hard.
“I hadn’t thought about it much,” he says. “I guess it’s inevitable, isn’t it?”
Viktor’s hand on his tightens. “I’d like you to feel like it’s your choice.”
“My choice?” Yuuri echoes. His gaze falls to the ring on Viktor’s finger. “Staying with you is always my choice.”
Viktor’s expression goes soft. He wets his lips, smiles. “Yuuri…”
Yuuri doesn’t wait for more; he rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “St. Petersburg! It’s so much more a city than Hasetsu. I can’t even imagine… but then, I was in Detroit for ages. I guess that was mostly travel between my housing and the rink. Maybe St. Petersburg will be too.”
“I’ll miss Hasetsu like crazy,” Viktor says.
Yuuri laughs. “And they’ll miss you. I wonder—where should I stay? Is it expensive to stay near the rink, in the city? Or will there be special housing…?”
He moves to look at Viktor only to find Viktor pouting. Viktor reaches across to squish Yuuri’s cheeks between his hands.
“What?” Yuuri asks through fat rosebud lips.
“You’ll stay with me!” Viktor says.
“Really?” Yuuri’s voice goes high with surprise, and joy gurgles in his stomach. With Viktor, in Viktor’s house?
Viktor, meanwhile, looks offended. “Where else!”
“That was what I was asking,” Yuuri says sheepishly; Viktor lets go of his face. “You’re sure you want me to live with you?”
Yuuri is… not the best housemate. What if Viktor goes off him, living with him as his partner in chores?
“Yes,” Viktor says, sounding very sure.
“I’m a terrible housemate,” Yuuri says carefully.
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Of course! What if you stop liking me because—”
“You want to live with me?”
“Yes! More than anything!”
Viktor surges forward, grabbing Yuuri around the middle and hiding his face in Yuuri’s chest. “Then say that, Yuuri!”
“Ha?” Yuuri asks, laughing slightly. Why is Viktor overreacting so much? He’s crushing Yuuri’s naked body to him, squishing his face to his chest, and after a moment Yuuri starts to pat his head. Viktor’s happy noise of response tells him it was the right thing to do.
Yuuri curls around him, smiling. They lay like that for a long time, and when Viktor surfaces his eyes are bright.
“I can’t wait to live with you, Yuuri.”
“We already kind of do.”
“Not in the same way.” Viktor grins. “You, me, Makkachin.”
Yuuri allows his excitement to balloon at the thought. Mornings and nights with Viktor, going to sleep together and waking up together. It’s more than Yuuri could ever have asked for, and he’ll work hard to be worthy of it.
He’s no stranger to hard work. “It sounds perfect,” he says, meaning it—and pulls Viktor back in.