Archive of Our Own

There’s a taste in Yuuri’s mouth like he’s been eating week-old leftovers out of a too-cold fridge and it hits all at once when he wakes up, sore all over, in someone else’s bed. Same hotel, but it’s a double bed—no, it’s bigger, a queen or a king—and Yuuri had only been able to afford a hole-in-the-wall single for himself. He opens his eyes and his vision swims. The light fixture teeters even though it’s not suspended from anything and that’s when Yuuri realises he’s still drunk.

It’s a long walk to the bathroom. He stumbles past his clothes on the floor and someone else’s clothes but he doesn’t want to think about that. He finds the bathroom, roughly where it should be, based on his own hotel room’s layout, and mercifully the bathroom is unoccupied—does that mean there was someone else in bed with Yuuri? He’s pretty sure he didn’t see anyone around the room.

He shuts the bathroom door behind him. Whose room is it? Yuuri takes one look at himself in the wide, spotless mirror and chucks up in the sink.

He doesn’t even make it to the toilet. Pathetic.

The next few minutes pass in a haze—Yuuri feels a little better, but he’s still drunk-dizzy, and it doesn’t help that he doesn’t have his glasses on as he runs the tap and desperately tries to clean the sink, wipe down the basin and the splatter on the mirror.

He isn’t wearing a shirt or anything. Just his underpants. There’s something sticky on his chest and a weird feeling settling alongside it. He’s been drunk before, drunk enough to ruin a party, but he’s never been so drunk that he’s forgotten the night before. Now, when he reaches into the recesses of his mind, he draws a blank.

Nothing.

Well, there’s only one thing for it. He’ll just have to go back out there, find his clothes, and disappear forever.

That’s what he would’ve done. It would’ve been so easy too, leaving the hotel room, forgetting any of this ever happened. Sobering up in his own time and his own place, catching the flight back to Detroit the next morning, retiring from international skating and living quietly at home in Hasetsu. Easy.

Yuuri does not take the easy option, because when he walks out of the bathroom he sees the sheets on the bed have shifted—it’s definitely a king bed—and that’s Viktor Nikiforov lying there. Yuuri is -3.00 in one eye and -4.25 in the other but he’d recognise Viktor Nikiforov anywhere, chiefly from the posters on his childhood bedroom’s walls, and also from the fact that Viktor is the most famous figure skater in the world and it would be remiss for Yuuri, a competitor, not to know what he looks like.

Then again, Yuuri thinks, there would be no reason for Viktor to know who he is, let alone invite Yuuri into his bedroom, let alone his bed. Yuuri presses a hand to his chest. It’s definitely still sticky. Is it possible he hooked up with someone else in Viktor’s bed? And then they left and Viktor returned to his room? It’s farfetched but Yuuri’s mind isn’t quite up to big logical leaps yet so it makes enough sense, and that’s enough.

The room tilts as he totters back towards the bed. He climbs on, stalking across it on hands and knees until he’s kneeling next to the bed’s current occupant, peering down at him with his eyes squinted to focus. It’s definitely Viktor Nikiforov. Yuuri’s heart beats out an erratic rhythm as he leans closer. He wonders where his glasses got to. Viktor is fast asleep. He looks almost human like this, messy hair and pallid skin and his chest rising and falling as he breathes, and what looks like a bite mark on his collarbone. Yuuri turns his head at an angle to see if the mark is the right size for him to have left it there, but when he opens his mouth his breath smells like bile and he shuts it again, nauseous.

Ordinarily, Yuuri would never dream of getting this close to Viktor. He certainly wouldn’t have acted on it. The alcohol surging through his blood tells him to keep going, get in closer, so he does, lightly brushing Viktor’s hair out of his eyes.

Viktor stirs. He groans. Yuuri freaks out and jerks away, falling flat on his back. The king bed cushions his landing.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Viktor says, “you’re awake.”

The first problem with this is that Viktor knows Yuuri’s name. They competed against each other, but even then… Yuuri didn’t think Viktor would go to the trouble of remembering anything about a loser like him.

He wants to say something like, “Yes, I’m awake, and by the way did we have sex last night?”

He says, “Who told you my name?”

Viktor laughs, and a second later he’s hovering over Yuuri with one corner of his mouth turned up in a wicked smile. “You did,” he says. “Although it’s not like I didn’t know who you were.”

“No, no, you don’t need to know who I am,” Yuuri says. “I’m not anybody. I’m a stranger.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Viktor says.

“Any chance I could still fool you?” Yuuri asks.

“I don’t think so,” Viktor says. “It’d be hard to mistake the beautiful stranger who danced so seductively at the banquet last night.”

Dancing. That would explain the ache in Yuuri’s bones. He bites the inside of his mouth. “I don’t remember.”

Right in front of Yuuri’s eyes, like something out of a dream, Viktor sucks his index finger and pulls it from his mouth with an obscene pop. Yuuri is caught off-guard and almost doesn’t notice as Viktor runs the finger down Yuuri’s chest. Yuuri shivers at the contact and feels his face heat up, a telltale sign of how much he wants whatever Viktor is suggesting, if Viktor is even paying attention.

“Anything else you don’t remember?” Viktor asks.

“All of it,” Yuuri admits. “Did we—?”

“No, we didn’t,” Viktor says. He licks his finger again, swirling his tongue around it. “Champagne. You spilt it all down yourself so I brought you back to my room to wash you up, since I didn’t know where yours was and you were mostly speaking in Japanese by that stage. But you just passed out on my bed and I didn’t want to disturb you, so nothing happened.”

“What about this?” Yuuri asks, poking the red patch on Viktor’s collarbone.

“Birthmark,” Viktor says, almost apologetically.

Yuuri swallows, nodding his understanding. He considers saying something even more apologetic, making his excuses, finding his clothes, and hightailing it out of there, but, well, Viktor Nikiforov is right there, and Yuuri is still drunk, and really close to Viktor, and he doesn’t really want to move at all. Also, Yuuri is pretty hard, and if he moves there’s no way Viktor could miss it. That’s not a conversation he wants to have, especially since they didn’t.

“Do you want to?” Viktor asks.

“Want to what?”

Viktor shrugs. “I mean, we didn’t—but you’re here, and I’m here, and it seems like a pity to waste this opportunity…”

Yuuri narrows his eyes. “Are you propositioning me?”

It sounds stupid when he says it out loud. In response, Viktor licks his finger again, and then another, drawing down the edge of his letting them linger. He runs the other hand down Yuuri’s chest, just the right amount of pressure from his fingers.

Yeah. Okay. Viktor is propositioning him.

Viktor smirks.

“Well,” Yuuri says, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to stay a little longer.”

(The alcohol wears off and Yuuri stumbles back to his room in Viktor’s hotel-issue bathrobe and with his suit tucked under his arm. The next day, he gets on a plane and tries to forget all about Sochi.

In another world, Yuuri might have taken the easy option. Gone to Detroit, finished his degree, gone home, retired. But he doesn’t. Because he can’t give up just yet. Because he wants to keep winning.

Maybe, because he wants to see Viktor again.)

Worlds is in Canada and it’s early March but there’s still snow on the ground and Yuuri is freezing on and off the ice. He holes himself up in his hotel room when he’s not being hounded by reporters—with a gold at Japanese Nationals under his belt and a bronze at Four Continents, he’s a hot favourite for Worlds. But the last two events were in Japan and Yuuri has always felt more comfortable competing there than anywhere else. Here, he’s a fish out of water, and he’ll be surprised if he wins so much as a kind word from the judges.

He has a day off between the short programme and the free skate. His score was good enough for him to advance, but it does little to set his mind at ease. Nervous, out of his element, he had stayed up past four the night before and now he oversleeps. By the time he’s feeling presentable the ice dancing is nearly over and there’s nothing to do but get breakfast while everyone else is getting dinner.

Yuuri isn’t really friendly with any other skaters. There’s Phichit, but Phichit didn’t qualify for Worlds and he’s back in Detroit, too far, not close enough for him to give Yuuri the kind of encouragement he really needs. There’s Sara Crispino, who’s always been kind to him, but given the choice Yuuri would rather keep away from her and her brother, who come as a package deal. There’s Christophe Giacometti—Yuuri has been reliably informed that their dancing got a bit dirty at the GPF banquet, but they’ve never held a conversation that wasn’t laden with innuendo and winking.

There’s Viktor.

Yuuri still thinks about that sometimes, their one-night stand in Sochi. Or, technically it was a one-morning stand, but it had all the hallmarks of a one-night stand. Yuuri was sufficiently drunk that he remembers very little beyond digging his fingertips into Viktor’s shoulders and screaming loud enough to provide the hotel’s wake-up call service to everyone on the floor.

And that had been the beginning and the end of it. They’d screwed around and then they’d both gone home and that was that. It’s been months. Surely Viktor has moved on.

Yuuri quickly discovers that this is not the case.

He’s dressed in his Team Japan tracksuit and his hair is still wet from the shower and, since his Russian is atrocious, his best bet for dinner is the hotel restaurant. It’s not strictly fancy, but it’s a little more upmarket than wet hair and a tracksuit. He takes a corner table and eats alone. Halfway through a mouthful of side salad, Viktor joins him.

Of course, Viktor’s presentation is impeccable. He’s even wearing a suit. Yuuri is hit square in the face with all the glamour of someone he’s looked up to his entire life, which is stupid, because he’s also seen Viktor buck naked and panting and been balls-deep inside him. He can’t quite resolve the two images, so his brain settles on the handsome, intimidating Viktor currently sitting in front of him, and Yuuri, wet hair and a tracksuit and a piece of lettuce sticking out from between his teeth, is duly intimidated.

“I loved your short programme,” Viktor says, by way of greeting, and Yuuri seizes up. “Your step sequences have such flair. There’s a thing or two you could teach me.”

And really, how is Yuuri supposed to respond? The two answers on the tip of his tongue are: “Thank you,” and, “I don’t think I’m up to that.”

He says, “You think you’re up to that?”

Viktor leans forward, tongue darting across his lips. “Your room or mine?”

“It was yours last time,” Yuuri says, swallowing.

“Yours, then,” Viktor says. “You can show me the way.”

Yuuri wonders what his younger self would’ve thought about him now, abandoning his only balanced meal of the day in favour of getting laid. His younger self—maybe, six months younger?—wouldn’t even have realised getting laid was an option, that it was a real thing that happened to real people.

On the way back to his room, Viktor asks, “Have you ever—the other way?”

Yes, but only with rubber and silicon, is the real answer, but that’s kind of embarrassing to admit, so Yuuri just shrugs. “Sort of.”

Viktor hums to himself, doesn’t say anything. He stands behind as Yuuri swipes his keycard, letting them into the hotel room. It’s nothing like the opulence of Viktor’s room back in Sochi and there’s only a single bed, but it’ll have to do. With any luck, this single bed will help Yuuri replace the glamorous Viktor with the filthy one.

“Oh, well,” Viktor says, “I didn’t bring any protection, so we can improvise.”

As it turns out, Viktor’s idea of improvisation is kissing Yuuri until he’s sore and manhandling him out of his tracksuit until he’s not wearing anything at all. Viktor is still in his suit because Yuuri can’t bring his hands to divest Viktor of it. It’s a nice suit. It would be a shame to get it wrinkled on the floor. Anyway Yuuri’s bed is comfortable and he’s fine just where he is. Viktor kisses his way from Yuuri’s lips to his earlobe and down the side of his neck, and Yuuri is so hard but he’s holding himself back, trying not to get anything on Viktor’s suit. It’s such a nice suit.

Viktor pulls away just a little. “I haven’t had dinner yet,” he says.

They make eye contact, and Yuuri lets out a laugh, equal parts amused and nervous. He gets it , but that doesn’t make it any easier to wrap his mind around. They hold eye contact as Viktor moves lower on the bed, positions himself above Yuuri’s dick, opens his mouth, and—oh, that’s something else.

Yuuri throws his head back, his mind blank, reaching for some sort of metaphor, something to anchor him. But the truth of the matter is that the way Viktor sucks dick isn’t like how he holds himself in public or even how he skates; it’s messy and enthusiastic and full of unrestrained passion which makes the glamorous Viktor seem like a beast on a leash. When Yuuri is stable enough to look back down, Viktor is smiling, dick in his mouth, grinning like all his Christmases have come at once, and how is that even possible? Yuuri closes his eyes. This is surreal.

Viktor pulls Yuuri apart piece by piece. This is all the more exciting because this time Yuuri isn’t drunk and he’s not the one whose gag reflex is being tested—unless Viktor was also nauseous that day, but Yuuri doubts that very much. This is all the more exciting because now Yuuri knows he’s not dreaming, that Viktor Nikiforov is a real person, not just his idol, and he’s the one who came to Yuuri for this. Viktor pauses to lick along Yuuri’s length, then retreating so only the head is in his mouth, and that’s it, Yuuri comes undone, hips jerking as he comes, falling backwards onto the soft pillows.

“Ah,” Viktor says, “Yuuri, you’re so beautiful.”

That, surely, is a lie, but Yuuri is too exhausted to argue. Viktor collapses beside him, head in the crook of Yuuri’s neck. He’s still fully clothed, and the thought is half-formed in Yuuri’s head—what about Viktor?—when he feels something hard pressing against his thigh, and, okay, yeah. That’s.

“What about you?” Yuuri asks.

“Well naturally I think I’m beautiful,” Viktor says. “Do you?”

“Not what I meant,” Yuuri says. He summons some reserve of strength and flips himself upright so that he’s straddling Viktor. Feeling bold, he puts his palm flat on Viktor’s torso, just above his belt. “I mean, what about you?”

Yuuri didn’t think it was possible, but Viktor actually blushes.

“Have your way with me, Yuuri,” he says, and it’s so shockingly polite that Yuuri doesn’t have any way with him for a good few seconds, just stares at Viktor like he can’t believe this is his life, because he really can’t believe this is his life.

He eases down the zip on Viktor’s suit pants and shoves in his hand without warning. Viktor yelps, and Yuuri can’t keep the grin off his face. He takes a moment to consider his options; sucking dick seems kind of intuitive, but Yuuri doesn’t want to screw up in front of Viktor so he sticks with what he knows. It does the trick—Viktor is easy, twisting beneath Yuuri, alternating between biting down on his bottom lip and chanting Yuuri’s name like a prayer. It takes him less than a minute to come.

Yuuri ruins Viktor’s nice suit after all.

This is a curious sort of power. Viktor lies by his side like a fixture and Yuuri thinks he could tell him to do anything right now, and he would.

“Good luck for your free skate tomorrow,” Viktor tells Yuuri as he leaves, suit jacket buttoned all the way. “I have high hopes for you.”

“People keep saying that,” Yuuri says. “They forget I’m up against you.”

Viktor smirks. “May the best man win.”

(He does—Viktor takes gold and Yuuri comes a respectable fourth. He’s beaten to silver by Christophe Giacometti and Jean-Jacques Leroy scrapes past him for bronze, but it’s a close thing. Next time, Yuuri thinks.

The night after the free skate, Viktor comes to Yuuri’s room again, and the night after that. On the last night, Yuuri goes to Viktor’s room and finds him wearing nothing but his gold medal. They don’t see each other again until summer.)

Yuuri gets back from his jog drenched in sweat and smelling like the sea-salty breeze. He pushes open the doors to the inn and nearly has a heart attack—not from exertion; from shock, as he’s tackled to the ground by an exuberant poodle. This dog is not Vicchan, but it’s close enough to make Yuuri freeze in panic.

“Isn’t he cute?” His mum is leaning over him, and she gentle prises the poodle away from Yuuri. “He arrived a few hours ago with a really good-looking foreigner.”

To distract himself from the fact that the really good-looking foreigner is almost certainly Viktor, Yuuri thinks about how long it might take to get a dog through customs. There’s probably a lot of red tape involved in that. Maybe Vi—maybe the dog’s owner had to stay in Fukuoka for a few days, waiting it out. Or maybe someone with a smile as charming as Vikt—the dog’s owner—managed to sidestep all of that and waltz past the quarantine laws with impunity.

“He looks a bit like that young man in all of your posters,” his mum says innocently, and Yuuri thinks he really will expire, then and there. The posters.

“And where is he now?” Yuuri asks.

His mum smiles. “In the onsen!”

This is how Yuuri will die. Viktor is here. Apparently hook-ups in hotel rooms aren’t enough for him anymore. He just had to follow Yuuri all the way to Japan, during the off-season.

Yuuri bites the bullet. “Mum, I think that is the young man in my posters. Um, his name is Viktor. We’ve met a couple of times.”

“Oh, how sweet,” his mum says. “Well, don’t just stand there! Go and say hello.”

Yuuri has never been able to refuse his mum anything, even at the expense of his own peace of mind. He wipes the dog hair from his shirt and trudges towards the onsen, grumbling. This is just inconvenient. How’s he going to explain Viktor to his family and friends? That this is his international event booty call? He can’t introduce Viktor as “this guy I’ve screwed a few times.”

He thinks about confronting Viktor, really, properly asking him what’s going on, but when he gets to the onsen, Viktor gets to his feet and suddenly his dick is staring right at Yuuri, and forming coherent sentences slips down in priority.

“Hey, Yuuri,” Viktor says.

“You’re here,” is all Yuuri can say.

Viktor shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I’m here.”

“Why,” Yuuri asks, “are you here?”

“To see you, of course!”

Viktor throws it out there so easily, nonchalantly, and Yuuri’s still standing there like a fish on dry land, his mouth hanging open. To see you, of course. There’s no of course about it. But how long has it been—months since they saw each other at Worlds, and Yuuri’s had to make do with jacking off to the posters of Viktor on his bedroom walls. He wasn’t even going to come home for summer, but Celestino had forced him to take a “well-earnt” break. How had Viktor known Yuuri was going to be here? Was he banking on luck? Is he just as desperate for it as Yuuri is?

Yuuri’s throat constricts; stringing together the right words takes so much effort. “Want me to show you around?” he chokes out.

A megawatt smile lights up Viktor’s face. “Yes, please! Give me the grand tour! I want to see the place that Yuuri Katsuki comes from.”

“Well, that’s my bedroom,” Yuuri says stupidly.

Viktor doesn’t seem to think it’s stupid at all. If anything, his smile gets brighter. And Yuuri wants nothing more than to show Viktor around the onsen and around Hasetsu, pointing out the tourist attractions and all the quiet places that shaped him as he was growing up, the ninja house and the Ice Castle—but right now he just wants to go to his bedroom and get Viktor on his back, posters be damned.

They only pause for a second so Viktor can get some clothes on, then Yuuri leads him on a winding path through the corridors of the inn, successfully avoiding any of Yuuri’s family or any guests. They pass from the guest rooms to the family rooms, to Yuuri’s room.

“Just one thing,” Yuuri warns. “I was—I still am—a really big fan of yours.”

He pushes the door open before he can regret it.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Viktor says.

The cadence of his voice suggests he might be about to say something else. He doesn’t. He shuts the door and kisses Yuuri soundly and for a very long time indeed. Yuuri makes a sound against his mouth, a kind of embarrassed whine, but Viktor doesn’t care, only pulls him closer, kisses him harder.

“This one time, I got really drunk with Chris Giacometti,” Viktor says, breaking apart. “It was maybe three in the morning and we were in a noisy club. Out of nowhere, he asked me if I’d fuck a clone of myself.”

Yuuri lets out a laugh. “What?”

Tracing a finger down the line of Yuuri’s spine, Viktor leans close in to Yuuri’s ear and whispers, “In vino veritas. I told him I would. I reckon this is the closest I’ll ever get.”

He’s probably not wrong. Yuuri takes Viktor by the front of his forest-green inn pyjamas and pulls him towards the bed. This is not the occasion for nerves, but Yuuri’s heart is working double time on weekend pay rates.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Viktor breathes. “Haven’t been with anyone but you since the Grand Prix Finals—no-one else is worth it—”

“You’re really attracted to me,” Yuuri says, wondering.

Viktor giggles, actually giggles, and it’s the happiest sound Yuuri’s heard in weeks.

“Oh no,” Viktor says, still laughing, “was it that obvious?”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” Yuuri says. “If you feel it, you should tell me. Don’t expect me to pick up on your hints.”

Suddenly serious, Viktor says, “Yuuri, we’re fucking. By this stage, I would’ve thought it was implicit.”

Yuuri shifts towards the back of the bed. This really is like something out of a dream. Viktor is in front of him, knees either side of his, dressed in one of his family inn’s pyjama sets, haloed by posters of him on and off the ice, all throughout his career, flimsily tacked to Yuuri’s bedroom walls. The posters have a much longer history with Yuuri than the real Viktor does.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, his voice so low it makes Yuuri feel like it’s reverberating through him, “let me treat you as beautifully as you deserve.”

He reaches out and slips Yuuri’s shirt over his head, throwing it sideways and onto the floor. He’s about to go further, but Yuuri puts one palm flat on Viktor’s chest The skin and fabric meet under his press, and he nudges Viktor away.

There’s an opportunity here, and it’s too good to pass up, no matter how much the thought of it makes Yuuri blush. He remembers late nights where the posters were only visible by the moonlight—he could draw those lines from memory, paint those colours. Back then, all Yuuri had was his imagination.

Now, he doesn’t need to imagine anything, but he wants this moment etched into his memory anyway.

“Wait, let me—”

He unzips his pants and watches with no mean satisfaction as Viktor’s eyes widen. Yuuri takes himself in his palm and starts with long, lazy strokes, running his thumb over the head and his eyes around the room, taking in the panoramic view. Viktor promised to treat him beautifully. There’s nothing more beautiful than this.

Viktor leans forward, lips pursed for a kiss, and Yuuri pushes him back again with his free hand.

“No. You have to wait.”

“Cruel, Yuuri,” Viktor breathes. “Not to let me touch you.”

“Or yourself,” Yuuri reminds him, which he thinks might be unnecessary, and genuinely a little cruel, as opposed to Viktor’s complaints. It gets a reaction, though, and Yuuri likes that—it gets him harder. It’s the power thing again, and Yuuri thinks he really ought to examine this side of him in detail sometime, but Viktor’s not complaining so neither is he.

He quickens his pace, his chest heaving, vision blurring.

“Condoms,” Viktor says—he hasn’t done anything and already he sounds close . “Where do you keep them?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Move. Don’t move.

Viktor closes his eyes, sighing, smiling. “Okay. You’re in charge. Tell me what to do.”

Would if he could, but Yuuri isn’t in any fit state to be telling anyone to do anything. Unless—

“Bottom drawer,” he says. “Lube, too.”

Viktor nods, and as he moves off, Yuuri keeps his eyes trained on him, on the posters. He pauses in his motion—only for a moment, and although it’s torturous, he likes the idea of delayed gratification—and takes off his pants and underpants. When Viktor returns, Yuuri is naked, and he should feel vulnerable, but it’s power, only power, that courses through him as he extends two fingers to Viktor, and Viktor gets the message, coating them in lube with a kind of attention to detail that can only be described as tender.

Yuuri goes in for the kill, pushing both fingers into his entrance right away, and he’s rewarded for his efforts when he comes a moment later, loud and messy. When he opens his eyes, Viktor—an object of worship at the centre of the shrine—has stripped off his clothes and is unrolling a condom over his flagrantly hard dick.

“How’s your stamina?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri thinks of all the jumps he’s ever saved for the second half of his programmes. “Incredible,” he says honestly.

Delayed gratification, but well worth the wait. Viktor pushes into him and Yuuri lets out a yell, halfway between pain and pleasure and resolutely ecstatic. He grabs onto Viktor’s back as Viktor thrusts, head pounding, heart racing—and for the first time, he starts to believe that this is happening. Viktor kisses him too, makes him feel, well, beautiful. It’s like skating a perfect jump and never landing, only soaring.

Viktor is a quiet, reverent lover. It’s in stark contrast to the persona he projects everywhere else, all exuberance and sly smiles. He gives no warning that he’s close, just comes all at once slumped against Yuuri’s chest, the two of them still tangled together, sticky with sweat and the summer heat. And where Viktor seems exhausted, Yuuri finds himself energised—he could do this all day, all week if he had to. When Viktor pulls out of him, he realises just how hard he is.

“Hey,” he whispers, because that’s all the voice he can manage, “ready to switch?”

“Anything for you,” Viktor says.

(Afterwards Yuuri asks Viktor, “Did you come all the way to Japan just to fuck?” Viktor shrugs, which is a yes. He is shameless. Conveniently, Yuuri is beginning to discover that he’s shameless too; he shows Viktor off to his family like a gold medal and he can’t bring himself to care about the very specific way Viktor’s hair is mussed or the noises he knows he made, in a small town where sound and rumour carry on the wind. If he had the sort of money Viktor does, he would almost certainly be blowing it on trips to Saint Petersburg for regular weekends of debauchery. As it is, they have two weeks in Hasetsu. They’re the best two weeks of Yuuri’s life.)

From the other side of the room, Yuuri’s laptop pings with a Skype notification. It’s one of his rare afternoons off and he really should be doing something constructive with his time but instead he’s lying on his back, on the floor, and staring at the ceiling.

He has four—no, five—contacts on Skype, and it’s late at night in Japan so that counts out three of them. Phichit has class now so he’s out too, leaving just one person who could be Skyping Yuuri. What time is it in Saint Petersburg? Eleven? Midnight?

Yuuri crosses to his desk and picks up the call.

“Hey, Yuuri!” Viktor greets him with a bright smile and a wave. “I’m so glad I caught you!”

“It’s good timing,” Yuuri says. “Usually I’d be training around now. What’s up?”

Viktor rests his chin in his hands. “Does there have to be something up? Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice, Yuuri.”

Yuuri feels his face heat up, and he looks away from the camera even though there’s nowhere to hide, except maybe back on the floor. “And now you have to see me too,” he says flatly. “How lucky for you.”

“Don’t talk yourself down like that,” Viktor chides. “Besides, I’m incredibly unlucky. You are eight hours in the past and a whole ocean away, and I’m so bored without you! It’s been over a month!”

“We’ve been for longer without seeing each other,” Yuuri says.

He doesn’t expect the effect his words have on Viktor.

“That was then!” Viktor wails. “This is now. I can’t bear to be apart from you, Yuuri. It’s like—like you complete me. I haven’t felt like this before. Please, tell me you’ll let me call you more often.”

Yuuri really doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s not used to such impassioned declarations. He’s not used to passion, full stop. He has a lot of feelings but he never knows how to express them, let alone what to do when someone else is expressing them around him. Towards him. So Yuuri does the only thing he knows how to do: he diverts the conversation before it can go any further down that track.

Licking his upper lip, he says, “We can fuck over video call, if you want.”

Viktor honest to god whimpers.

“Distance doesn’t need to be an obstacle,” Yuuri continues. He slips the top button of his shirt out of its buttonhole, slowly. “I train most days, but otherwise… call me whenever you’re free. Even if you have to wake up in the middle of the night for it.” He pauses, breaking eye contact. “I’ll complete you.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, and it’s only then that Yuuri realises Viktor is already palming himself, somewhere out of the frame. “You’re not going to make me wait again, are you?”

“Shouldn’t have asked that as a question,” Yuuri says. “Now I have to make you wait.”

Where he gets these bursts of confidence, he’ll never know. Viktor is flushed, pink spreading from his cheeks across the pixels that represent his state-of-the-art webcam. Yuuri won’t be as clear on Viktor’s screen. He imagines what Viktor might be thinking, sitting there in his room while it’s dark outside, watching the image of Yuuri fluctuate in and out of focus.

Yuuri undoes another button.

This time Viktor rolls against himself—Yuuri only catches half the image, but it doesn’t matter. Viktor’s head dips backwards, lips parted, and Yuuri trails his eyes down the long line of Viktor’s neck, to his shoulder, to his arm, to where it disappears offscreen.

Viktor is taking it slow, and Yuuri matches his pace. He unbuttons his shirt haltingly, pulling back every now and then to keep his impatience at bay. Between the fourth button and the fifth, Viktor’s shirt comes off, and Yuuri doesn’t even notice. It’s a one man show now, a real striptease. Something very visceral convinces Yuuri that it’s a could idea to climb onto his ergonomic chair; his face is out of frame now, which makes it easier. He can’t control his reactions. He likes knowing Viktor isn’t looking. That Viktor can only see Yuuri as a body, present purely for his pleasure. And the way it looks in the top right of the screen, showing the view from Yuuri’s webcam, goes straight to Yuuri’s head like sixteen flutes of champagne. Yuuri starts to unzip his jeans, toying with the button at the top. He watches rapt as Viktor tilts his webcam downwards, cutting out his face but perfectly framing his dick, hard and leaking against his chest.

Yuuri can only take it so slow.

“What are you doing to me,” Viktor breathes. His fingers twist around himself and his other hand comes into frame, straying low to his balls. “When—when will I get to do this to you—”

“Soon,” Yuuri says, vague, half a promise. The Grand Prix series is starting soon. They’re not assigned to the same events, which significantly raises Yuuri’s chances of making it to the Final, but there’s no room in his mind for thoughts of competition and rankings with Viktor repeating soon to him, soon, soon, like a mantra.

Since Viktor is otherwise occupied, Yuuri ducks away from his desk to take his jeans off properly, without having to manoeuvre around his chair, and while he’s at it he rushes to his bedroom and gets down on his knees, retrieving the shoebox he keeps under his bed. Lube and six inches of translucent pink silicon—about Viktor’s size, not that Yuuri could’ve known that when he bought it. Now it feels like another poster in his collection, a facsimile of the original.

He gets back to his desk at just the right time. Viktor is close—Yuuri likes that it’s something he can pick up on.

“Hold on a little longer,” he says, and positions the dildo in front of the webcam.

Viktor gasps, and comes.

It takes Yuuri a second to wrap his head around it. “I didn’t even get to—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Viktor says. He leans forward, but not enough that his face comes into view. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Yuuri laughs—there isn’t really anything else to do in this situation. He hears Viktor huff, but there’s no annoyance in it.

And then, like the final nail in the coffin to ruin the mood, Yuuri’s phone buzzes with a text from Phichit on the screen.

a little birdy told me you haven’t been eating very well so i’m bringing you papa phichit’s homecooked finest! be there in 5

“Oh, shit,” Yuuri says, scrambling back to his feet. He finds his pants where he discarded them and pulls them on sloppily. “Phichit’s going to be here soon. Sorry, Viktor, I’m really sorry, I have to go, I didn’t—”

“Yuuri, it’s fine,” Viktor says. He readjusts his webcam, and Yuuri is almost blinded by the warm smile on his face. “We’ll pick up where we left off another time.”

Yuuri nods. “Sorry.”

Viktor says something in Russian and all Yuuri can tell is that it’s fond, familiar. Yuuri shuts down the Skype call and says to his empty screen, “I am not catching feelings from you.”

Perhaps it’s too little, too late.

Phichit is there in four minutes. He has a key to Yuuri’s flat in case of emergency and lets himself in, so it’s just as well Yuuri saw his phone in time. After he’s stocked Yuuri’s fridge with stacks of tupperware he sits down on the worn armchair across from the desk and puts his feet up, making himself at home without being asked. He never needs to ask, but Yuuri is still half hard as he sits back in his desk chair, turned facing away from the desk. He crosses one leg over the other. There’s a thin layer of uncomfortable over everything.

“So,” Phichit says, “did you catch the livestream of the press conference this morning?”

Yuuri sighs. “You know I’m not as savvy as you. Which livestream, when?”

Mock-horrified, Phichit puts one hand over his mouth. “Yuuri! It was the FFKK press conference, and Viktor announced his theme for this season! Granted, it was early in the morning our time, but I’m surprised you would miss a Viktor Nikiforov press conference! You’re slipping!”

Yuuri forces himself to stay cool. “I guess I’m not such a big fan anymore,” he says, which is certainly one version of the truth.

“Alright, well, get this,” Phichit says. “His theme is…”

“Is… ?”

Phichit trails off, his gaze drifting. “I don’t want to make this weird but, uh, you know there’s a dildo on your desk, right?”

Without looking behind him, Yuuri sticks his arm straight out and swats right where he knows the dildo is. His hand connects, and the offending object falls to the carpet with a dull thud.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Oh my god, Yuuri.” Phichit pauses to cackle. “You really don’t strike me as the sort to leave these things lying around.”

“Yeah, well, you gave me short notice,” Yuuri says, and if Phichit has any more questions about why the desk, of all places, he doesn’t ask.

“Moving right along… Viktor’s theme. Take a guess.”

“How would I know,” Yuuri says. “Is it really something so shocking?”

“Sort of,” Phichit says. “It’s love. Everyone is speculating that the last of the famous international playboys has found someone and settled down at last.”

The thing, Yuri knows, is that Viktor has found someone, and settled down too, after a fashion. Yuuri believes Viktor when he says that he cares about Yuuri and that he doesn’t want to be with anyone else. But love? That seems a bit much. There must be some sort of misunderstanding.

“Maybe he’s referring to his family,” Yuuri says, after a moment.

That’s all it takes. Phichit jumps on his hesitation all too keenly. “Oh my god, Yuuri, you know something I don’t know, don’t you?”

“Um,” Yuuri says.

“You do, you do!” Phichit claps his hands together in excitement. “You have to tell me! How did you get this information? Was it on a fansite? Are there photos? Who’s Viktor dating?”

Phichit pauses.

“Yuuri. Why exactly was there a dildo on your desk?”

(Yuuri does try to explain it away but in the end he caves and tells Phichit the truth. Phichit laughs so hard he starts crying. Well, Yuuri has to admit, it’s pretty funny. In fact it’s more than funny—it’s downright absurd that someone like Viktor would be hooking up with someone like Yuuri, and then choreograph his skating to the theme of love. Phichit ends up staying for dinner and asks Yuuri for all the dirty details, which Yuuri does give him, in abridged form. And once he’s gone, Yuuri powers up Skype again and wakes Viktor in the middle of the night so that Viktor can watch while he finally, finally, fucks himself with the dildo.

They don’t talk about love.)

“You skated so well today,” Viktor says. “Unbelievable—really deserve your place in the finals.”

“Tell me again,” Yuuri says, “tell me which parts of my routines you liked best. Again.”

Viktor’s grip on Yuuri’s ass tightens and he lifts his hips, pushing himself in further. Yuuri responds with his palms flat on Viktor’s chest, manhandling him flat onto his back.

“Tell me.”

“You landed your quad sal—beautifully—smooth—better than every other time you’ve—Yuuri—attempted—it—”

Yuuri stops—he sits back, burying Viktor’s dick deeper inside him. Viktor lets out a breath, but Yuuri stays where he is.

“You’ve watched my performances?” Yuuri asks.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Viktor laughs. “I guess you could say I’m a fan.”

“Embarrassing,” Yuuri says. He begins moving again. “Why would you—”

“Funnily enough, I like to know things about the people I date,” Viktor says.

Yuuri stills again, but this time Viktor keeps going, harder and faster. Absently, Yuuri shoves him down again. When he’d insisted, “Let me ride you,” Viktor taking control was not meant to be part of the deal.

“I didn’t,” Yuuri says, raising himself slightly, “think we were—”

He goes down again and it hits him right where it feels the best. Viktor catches on immediately, shifting just right so that it happens again—a second time, a third.

“—dating,” Yuuri gasps.

“What would you prefer?” Viktor asks. Mercifully, he stays where he is. “I can say we’re in a relationship.”

“Sounds like Facebook,” Yuuri says, grimacing. “Anyway, we’re not. We’re just.”

“Fucking,” Viktor says.

There’s something accusatory about his tone. Yuuri gulps. He nods.

“That’s really all this is to you?”

Oh.

Yuuri doesn’t have his glasses on but he’s pretty sure there are tears beading in the corners of Viktor’s eyes and dripping down his face. Yuuri leans in closer, swipes his thumb along one of Viktor’s lower eyelids. Yeah. He’s crying.

“Do you want me to leave?” Yuuri asks, very softly.

“I—” Viktor frowns, moving Yuuri’s hand away from his face. “I want to finish first.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Of course. Sorry.”

Just fucking, huh? That’s what Yuuri had thought. Now he’s not entirely sure. Viktor’s theme is love. He thought he and Yuuri were dating. Yuuri isn’t so stupid that he can’t put two and two together, but he feels like a prize idiot that it didn’t click sooner.

And now he’s screwed it up.

So he gives it his all. He moves slow to get them back into the groove, rubs his thumb in circles on Viktor’s cheek until he’s certain Viktor isn’t crying so he can pick up the pace. Viktor doesn’t hold back either; Yuuri lets him move—he bends far enough forward that no-one’s riding anyone anymore, just two bodies moving in time to soundless music, keeping each other warm in the middle of a Russian winter.

“Tell me one last time,” Yuuri says, right in Viktor’s ear. He knows he’s pushing his luck. “Tell me how good I was.”

“Yeah,” Viktor says. “Flawless. Yuuri—I never thought so seriously—what if someone could beat me? If we were—skating at the same events—that maybe you could win gold in the finals—”

“I only have two quads,” Yuuri says. He doesn’t have enough of anything to beat Viktor—jumps, style, control.

Viktor brushes his cheek against Yuuri’s, leaving the ghost of a kiss by his ear. “It would be a privilege to be defeated by you.”

That does it for Yuuri—the friction of his cock against Viktor’s stomach, Viktor’s words—he comes, and Viktor follows moments after, still inside Yuuri. They stay like that, entwined, for even longer, both of them obviously reluctant to move.

“I don’t want to break up with you,” Yuuri says. He feels very heavy, like a stone dropped on top of Viktor, only weighing him down.

“I thought we weren’t dating,” Viktor says.

Yuuri shifts, tilting his head in an attempt at a nod. “Right. Do you want to?”

“Go out with you?” Viktor clarifies. “Obviously.”

“It wasn’t obvious to me,” Yuuri says, and a second later it occurs to him that he might have put his foot in it again, but Viktor laughs it off.

“I guess I'll have to romance you more comprehensively, then,” Viktor says, the familiar teasing tone returning to his voice. “Take you out on dates. Buy you flowers. Tweet about you.”

“Please, no,” Yuuri says. He buries his head in Viktor’s neck. “I fly out tomorrow. There won’t be time for any of that.”

“I can tweet while you’re not here,” Viktor says.

“Not if I take your phone—”

Yuuri scrambles up and pulls himself off Viktor, snatching Viktor’s phone off the bedside table before Viktor can do anything about it.

“Hey!”

“What’s your passcode?” Yuuri asks.

While he waits for Viktor to respond—or tell him off, either way—he opens the camera app and takes a photo of Viktor like this, all messy and debauched. That way, Yuuri can zoom in and see all the detail he’s missing without his glasses, the sweat and tear-tracks down Viktor’s face, every hair skewed out of place.

Viktor doesn’t give Yuuri his passcode or even tell him off. He lifts the phone out of Yuuri’s hands and unlocks it, flicking his fingers across the screen.

“I’m glad this worked out,” Viktor says. “It would’ve been awkward otherwise.”

“How come?”

“I picked my theme for the joy I felt being with you.” Viktor sighs, eyes still on his phone. “Maybe I overestimated the degree of, hmm… of reciprocity.”

“You didn’t,” Yuuri says without pause. “I mean. You did. But only the degree of what I knew I felt. Not what I actually felt.”

“Cute,” Viktor says. He pulls his phone down to his chest. “I already tweeted about you, you know.”

“What?” Yuuri tries to grab the phone from Viktor's unyielding hands, fails. “Show me!”

Viktor takes his sweet time, but he does it. He flips his phone over and on the screen is what appears to be a quoted retweet of a question from a fan: @v-nikiforov what inspired LOVE as your theme? Viktor’s reply is: someone very dear to me ♡♡♡

“Oh,” is all Yuuri can say.

“You really didn’t work it out?” Viktor goes back to pouting. “We’re bad at this, aren’t we?”

“The worst,” Yuuri agrees.

Viktor puts a finger to his lips. “You know what we’re the best at?”

Yuuri humours him. “What?”

“Sex,” Viktor says, smirking. “Ready to go again?”

Well. They are very good at it.

(Later, there’s something more unambiguous. Accompanying an image of Yuuri landing his quad salchow, Viktor tweets, congrats @ykatsuki, rostelecom cup bronze medallist! see you at gpf xx. Yuuri thinks that’s as bad as it’ll get, but then Viktor posts a follow-up: one silver, one bronze, wonder what he’ll go for next?

In the end, Yuuri gets another bronze, behind Viktor and then Yuri Plisetsky. The theme is even clearer when Viktor bends down from his place on the podium and kisses Yuuri on the lips.

When Yuuri looks back, six months later, he will be able to pinpoint that as the exact moment he chose his theme for the next season.)