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Given the quite amazing performance at the banquet all those years ago, Viktor had assumed that Yuuri was a lightweight. The kind of friend you take to a party when you know you’re going to need someone to get the party started. Flood some alcohol in their system and let them charm the masses into ridiculous drinking games and terrible, unspeakable acts that will only be remembered by SNS.
Viktor soon finds, however, that he had been completely, 100% wrong about this assumption.
It starts on the night of the banquet following Yuuri’s silver medal. Viktor lets them out of his sight for what feels like a meager five minutes, but it seems even that tiny slice of time is enough for Phichit to force feed Yuuri enough alcohol that they sway ever so slightly on their way back to Viktor.
“Vitya,” they sing, arms wrapping around one of Viktor’s biceps as they snuggle into his shoulder. “What’s it like?”
Viktor hums, looking away from their conversation with Chris to stare into Yuuri’s flushed face. “What’s what like, Yuuri?” He makes a promise with himself to insist that Yuuri start calling him Vitya more often. And then he makes it again, just so that he’ll remember it.
“Vitya,” Yuuri teases, leaning into Viktor so that they both sway slightly. Viktor has to shuffle his feet so that they don’t fall, but he can’t really say that he minds. “Vitya, you’re so silly.” Yuuri’s voice tapers off into soft, adorable giggles and Viktor has to force himself not to clench a hand into the fabric covering his stuttering heart. It’s just not fair.
Yuuri seems to forget what they were saying, muttering tidbits of Japanese into Viktor’s shoulder. Viktor smiles, turning back to face a smirking Christophe, but looks back down at his gorgeous fiancé when Yuuri whines, face drawn into a pout.
“Vitenka, you didn’t answer my question!”
Oh, oh my Viktor really should see a cardiologist about these heart palpitations. He hums. “What question, solnyshko?”
“You gotta tell me what it’s like, Vitenka,” Yuuri insists, face breaking into the biggest smile Viktor has ever seen, “being so cute!!”
Viktor blinks and… yep. Definitely seeing a doctor now.
Viktor doesn’t think much of cracking open a few bottles of wine for their one-year anniversary. Crazy, dance battle Yuuri was absolutely enticing and slightly tipsy but very clingy Yuuri was positively adorable. So when they’ve settled down on the couch, stomachs full of exquisite food and the mostly empty bottle of wine resting on the coffee table in front of them, Viktor expects for the night to pass with quiet, tipsy kisses and cuddles and maybe just a little bit more.
Instead, Yuuri starts bawling, and Viktor is entirely unprepared.
“Yuuri, darling,” Viktor murmurs, pulling Yuuri against his side as he sets both of their glasses down next to the bottle. “Myshka moya, what’s the matter?”
Yuuri sobs into Viktor’s chest, hiccupping around their words as they blurt out, “Vitya, I’m just so happy!”
Viktor is confused, for a moment, before he chuckles ever so slightly and pulls Yuuri into his lap. He runs his hands down their back and through their hair, murmuring gentle words into their ear as they wet the shoulder of his shirt with tears.
“There’s nothing wrong with being happy, my love,” he says. “But why does it make you cry?”
Yuuri wails at this, mouth pushed into the skin of Viktor’s neck as they tremble in his arms. “Because there’s too much!” they cry. “It’s too much happy!”
Viktor pulls away slightly, lifting Yuuri’s face so that he can brush away the tears that just keep coming. He smiles up at Yuuri, still as gorgeous as ever. “Too much happy?”
Yuuri nods, rubbing their fists into their eyes with clumsy, uncoordinated movements. “Mn-hmn,” they hum. “Too much happy to stay inside me. I’m too small to keep it all. Maybe if I got big, like you, I could keep it in me,” they pout, “but I don’ wanna get big. Don’t like getting big. Can’t skate when I’m,” they hiccup, “big.”
Viktor smiles, face soft, as Yuuri continues to ramble on about nothing, settling back into the crook of Viktor’s neck though the tears are still coming. “Maybe,” Viktor says, “you could share all the happy with me.”
Yuuri hums, and Viktor continues. “If you’re not big enough for all your happy, then give some to me, and I’ll keep it for you.”
Yuuri sits up again, bleary eyes looking at Viktor in mild confusion but infinite softness. “You can take my happy? Don’t you have happy of your own?”
Viktor smiles, hand coming up to cradle Yuuri’s face. “Oh, Yuuri,” he murmurs. “Didn’t you know? All my happy comes from you anyway.”
Yuuri blinks, leaning into Viktor’s palm before beaming bright and ducking forward to press their lips against Viktor’s. When they pull away, their face is triumphant. “There,” Yuuri says. “I gave you my extra happy.”
Viktor wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like.
Viktor is surprised to find Yuuri in the bathroom, clutching his nearly empty bottle of ‘I need a drink’ vodka in one hand while the other rubs the tears away from their eyes.
Now, Viktor isn’t a stranger to the kind of days that deserve to be followed by a shot of quality vodka, and that’s exactly what that particular bottle is for, but Yuuri usually prefers to drown their sorrows in high-carb foods and warm cups of tea. Viktor isn’t sure what could have happened to make Yuuri grab Viktor’s vodka instead of their tin of soft-smelling jasmine tea.
“Zolotse,” Viktor says softly, kneeling down next to the lip of the tub and tugging the bottle away from Yuuri to set it to the side. “My darling, what’s wrong?”
Now Yuuri Katsuki has always been a silent crier. Viktor has known this for years and always keeps an eye out for the few things that Yuuri does that indicates that they need a good cuddle-cry. As far as Viktor can remember – though that’s really not saying much – this week hadn’t been out of the ordinary in any way. No extra Makkachin cuddle time. No lingering stares at their trophy case. No excess requests for takeout food.
So when Yuuri launches themselves into Viktor’s arms and proceeds to wail like a child taken away from their mother for the first time, Viktor is understandably concerned. “Zvezda moya,” he croons, gathering Yuuri’s shaky limbs into his lap, “tell me what’s going on?”
Yuuri buries themselves into his neck, sniffling and stuttering and sobbing and Viktor’s heart clenches in the most painful way. “Vitya,” they say in a trembling, broken voice, “Vitya I’m sorry.”
“Whatever for?” Viktor asks, rocking from side to side ever so slowly. His heart is pounding a frantic rhythm, desperate to fix whatever it is that is making his beautiful Yuuri cry so loudly.
Yuuri just shakes their head viciously, burrowing into Viktor’s arms and refusing to come out.
Viktor hums, voice soft as he sings into Yuuri’s ear. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” Yuuri sniffs and shifts but doesn’t stop him. “You make me happy, when skies are gray,” Viktor’s hand comes up to run through Yuuri’s hair. “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you,” Yuuri draws back enough to look Viktor in the eye and Viktor leans forward to lay kisses on Yuuri’s face until they giggle.
“Please don’t take my sunshine away.”
It takes him a few hours, a few glasses, and a slight buzz to finally figure out that the punch at Chris’ birthday party is spiked and by that point he’s kind of freaking out because Yuuri’s been drinking the stuff like crazy since they’d gotten there and they are nowhere to be found.
Tipsy Yuuri would have sought him out like a bloodhound and commenced to cuddly snuggles.
Slightly drunk Yuuri would have sought him out and burst into tears over the cuteness of Chris’ new kitten.
That leaves either ridiculously smashed “what are pants and why do I need them” Yuuri or “I’m kind of drunk and very sad” Yuuri which… given the fact that Viktor can see Chris’ pole and Yuuri isn’t on it means that Yuuri is probably hidden in some corner of the room sobbing their eyes out.
Viktor tells this to Chris – though he leaves out a few details – and Chris immediately leads him on a tour of his house’s best “crying corners”. Viktor would be concerned over why Chris knows this but then again Chris’ house is the go-to for anyone looking to get smashed and drunk people tend to end up sobbing in corners quite often.
“Yuuri,” Viktor calls over the thumping music and vibrant laughter as they walk around. “Darling, where are you?”
“Viktor?”
Viktor’s eyes snap to the source of that voice and he’s really quite concerned by the fact that Yuuri looks absolutely fine, sitting in a cushy armchair a few feet away from the dancefloor. Viktor rushes at them, hands running over their face and eyes scanning them for any signs that they’d been crying. There are, surprisingly, none.
“Darling are you alright?” Viktor asks urgently, and Yuuri’s bewildered eyes are answer enough really. “The punch is spiked,” Viktor explains. “How much did you drink?”
Yuuri blinks once and then twice, looking down at the cup full of punch on the table next to them. “Oh,” they say. “No wonder it tasted kinda fuzzy.” They reach for the cup and take a few more swigs, eyes rolling over Viktor’s face. “What’s wrong?”
It’s Viktor’s turn to blink, surprised. “Uh, I was just worried about you. What have you been doing over here by yourself?”
Chris wanders off to join the dancing mass of humans as Viktor settles into Yuuri’s side. “Thinking,” Yuuri says.
“About what?” Viktor asks, throwing his legs over Yuuri’s lap and tucking his head on Yuuri’s shoulder so that the two of them can fit on the chair.
Yuuri hums. “Well,” they say, eyes lingering on Sara and Michele Crispino. “Have you ever thought about the fact that the first person to have twins must have been so confused?”
Viktor hums, head tilting into Yuuri’s shoulder. “Not really,” he says, “though I can imagine that it would’ve been very odd to have two when you were only expecting one. Is that all you’ve been thinking about?”
“No,” Yuuri says, and Viktor is just now noticing that their voice is very floaty sounding. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. Like how we’re all aliens, but we’re just living on our home planet. Or how,” they hiccup, “how languages are just sounds smooshed together and given meaning. Like. What even?”
Viktor’s eyebrows draw together because… huh.
“And, and,” Yuuri shifts slightly, voice picking up as they take another gulp of the punch. “When you die in a dream do you wake up because you don’t know what comes after death!? And how come the number buttons on phones and calculators are reversed?!”
Viktor blinks and… oh, wow.
“Yuuri,” he says. “Are you drunk?”
Yuuri nods into their red solo cup. “Uh huh,” they say, “very much so.”
Viktor hums, heart pattering pleasantly as he snuggles into Yuuri’s side. “Tell me more.”
After that, there are no surprises. Well, that’s not true there’s always surprises when it comes to Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov, but for the most part Viktor’s got this much figured out.
Whenever Yuuri drinks just a little bit Viktor makes sure to hug them close and let them giggle into his neck like the little angel they are. It’s a little difficult to get them to go to bed afterwards but the promise of a nice, long cuddle and waffles for breakfast usually does the trick.
Whenever Yuuri drinks more than just a little bit Viktor makes sure to kiss the happy tears away and pet their hair until they fall asleep on his lap. The hangovers after these kind of nights are usually quite terrible because of all the crying and the fact that Yuuri actually remembers what they did, so Viktor makes sure to be extra super-duper gentle the next morning.
When Yuuri drinks enough to be considered “drunk” by other people’s standards Viktor makes sure that they know he loves them by singing lullabies and love songs into their hair until they fall asleep. There’s never anything wrong specifically whenever Yuuri gets like that, just anxious and sad, but they never remember it the next day. Viktor makes sure to hug them extra close anyways.
On the nights when Yuuri is sober-drunk Viktor likes to tuck himself into Yuuri’s lap and listen as they ramble about things that Viktor never quite thought to question. Can atheists be insured for acts of God? Does fuzzy logic tickle? What does Makkachin call us? Viktor quite enjoys being awash in Yuuri’s soft, awestruck voice. If he thinks about some of these questions for weeks afterwards then that’s nobody’s business but his.
Of course, the nights where Yuuri gets absolutely smashed are a sight to behold. His darling is so beautiful and wonderful and absolutely sinfully sexy in ways that make Viktor’s heart pitter patter like nothing else. They dance together like they can’t stand to be apart, speaking with their bodies in a language that no one else understands but the two of them.
Viktor wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.