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The weather was absolutely perfect for a jog: cool enough for Victor to see puffy mounds of white appear like magic from his own breath just in front of his nose, but warm enough to allow for a heavy long-sleeved shirt without a coat and gloves. Spring would come soon enough, but Victor really liked the trickling end of winters in St. Petersburg. He found that he could the savor the warmth of his fiancé contrasting the crisp chill of the early mornings and evenings surrounding their time at the rink. Yet in the afternoons, they could wander around without feeling like their noses might fall off from frostbite.
Things started growing in March, too, and not just flowers and trees. Little sprouts—probably weeds, really—would start popping up in the pavement like clockwork on his favorite jogging route. The ground would thaw, the sun would feel a little heavier on Victor’s back, and yet frosty weeks would return and plunge the world back into winter again.
March was fickle and tough on anything trying to grow, but the weeds in the sidewalk never seemed to be bothered. They poked their heads out of the irregular cracks, not remotely concerned about growing too early in the season. They always had, without fail, ever since Victor had first wandered that part of town after a particularly frustrating day on the ice, when he was only twelve and probably shouldn’t have been out alone, in hindsight. Victor would always be careful not to tread on the tiny plants as he passed by, no matter how distracted he could be by other, bigger things, like buildings and people and programs and far-off competitions.
But those little resilient weeds were special, somehow. Steady. And somehow, kind of adorable—sometimes they even bore little yellow flowers. If they weren’t so small and so low to the ground, and if Victor didn’t have too much pride to be caught lowering his face into the dirt, he would have probably stopped years ago just to find out if they were fragrant. He loved seeing them every year—looked forward to it, really—and now…
Well, now he got to share this experience, this secret route of his, this fleeting reprieve from the bitter cold, with Yuuri. It put an extra spring in his step, for sure. It made him brush his teeth with a little more gusto. But it also made his chest feel a little funny, a little tight…
Maybe he was a little scared.
It wasn’t a particularly scenic route, after all. It offered no grand views of…well, anything. It didn’t run by any particularly interesting structures or bookstores or coffee shops…or anything of interest to anyone, really, he figured. There were run-down apartments and tiny old homes with leaking roofs and ratty patchwork drapes in their windows. There were always elderly ladies gossiping together over their tea and young mothers discussing the prices of potatoes and cheese. Sometimes there were stray cats slinking around the shadows, fur matted but eyes bright and inquisitive whenever Victor passed by.
Victor loved it, in a weird way.
But what if Yuuri…
Didn’t?
Victor felt something akin to nervousness bubbling in his veins that morning, when he’d suggested a light run to his fiancé over the coffee he had graciously made. It had only been two months since Yuuri had moved in, and yet he’d already become a pillar in his apartment, his home.
Hmm, maybe not a pillar so much as…a window, perhaps?
Yeah, that made better sense. Yuuri brought so much light into the space. Made it feel less like four walls and a bed and more like a refuge. More like somewhere that fit the descriptions of warmth and family that Victor read about when he was younger.
So Victor…well, Victor didn’t want to upset the apple cart, so to speak.
They’d already made some pretty big strides in their relationship, and they’d both opened up so much. Yuuri proved to be the slightly more competent cook of the pair, and Victor…well he didn’t mind dish duty if it meant getting to watch his fiancé spoil Makkachin rotten in the living room, cooing in what was probably the Japanese equivalent of baby talk. Beyond adorable.
They shared a bed now, too. Their sheets always smelled like lavender fabric softener and Victor’s shea butter body cream and Yuuri’s vanilla-and-cinnamon-scented shampoo. Yuuri let Victor use his chest as a pillow each night; he’d nod off, bundled up in the younger man’s arms, lulled by the oh-so-slow and steady rhythm of Yuuri’s heart, and tickled by soft huffs and not-quite-snores puffed into his own silver hair. It was great. It was wonderful.
It was also a bit unnerving at first, sharing a space and all the intimacies of beaten-up feet and headaches, of whose turn is it to clean the bathroom and oh God, is this what a panic attack looks like in the middle of the night?, but now Victor was starting to feel so comfortable with it all. With Yuuri. With waking in Yuuri’s arms to sloppy kisses and greetings in blurred Japanese; with sharing coffee and breakfast before walking to the rink together; with holding hands on their way home; with snuggling on the couch after dinner; with bathing Makkachin after the pooch would prance in a mud puddle they hadn’t spotted in time. Even in the adjusting of their sleep schedules and reconciling their differing methods of grocery shopping, they’d found a rhythm here. They had a routine. It was steady. It was great.
So why was Victor going to—maybe, just maybe—upset all that?
But then again, Yuuri…Yuuri seemed so happy with the idea of jogging somewhere new. He’d seemed so curious to hear about Victor’s favorite route. Excited, even.
Was this what it felt like to open up? Victor should know by now…he sort of did, from the past two weeks. From the past eight months of knowing Yuuri, really. Everything was so new with Yuuri, and not always easy, but he’d always been able and willing to let Yuuri in, somehow. It was just that this…well, this felt even more…more something than anything before. It wasn’t reducing Victor to tears or stealing his breath or making his throat tighten and hands shake uncontrollably. But this thing…whatever it was, it was tingling beneath his skin and scratching at his ribs, and it wouldn’t go away.
Victor took a long breath as he locked up the apartment—their apartment, he reminded himself, hoping it would loosed the grip of whatever that thing was—before turning to face his fiancé.
Yuuri was breathtaking, really. He was dressed in his simple black and blue striped track pants and a long-sleeved white shirt that matched Victor’s—an extra, stolen from Victor’s side of the closet. He had a sushi-printed fleece scarf snaked around his neck: a gift from a fan that had been tossed onto the ice at Rostlecom that Mari had rather violently insisted he take with him to Russia.
Yuuri’s eyes were bright and curious and warm behind his glasses, almost as warm as his hands, which reached for Victor’s and gave them a gentle squeeze once they’d found one another. He smiled, that shy little smile that Victor loved so much, the one that said I trust you, and I can’t believe we’re actually sharing a bed, and most recently I really wish you’d put some clothes on before making breakfast, but whatever.
Victor felt a little better, a little stronger, after drinking in that smile.
They started with a slow pace, barely more than a walk, until they got to the run-down part of town where Victor’s route actually started. He glanced over his shoulder, realizing that Yuuri had fallen behind a couple of paces to look around. “Ready?” he asked, a bit afraid to find out what was running through Yuuri’s head at the moment.
Well, he’d been afraid until he glimpsed Yuuri’s face: he wore a perfectly open expression, full of bright curiosity, and a wide smile that brought his cheekbones up to caress the rims of his glasses. “Mmhmm!” he hummed, with the same tone he used when sinking into a particularly crispy piece of mu krop, and his eyes crinkled shut accordingly, too. “Lead the way!”
Victor felt the tension in his bones drop out in a rush, replaced by something so fond and so much warmer than any amount of hot sake in his belly could ever be. Victor returned Yuuri’s eager grin, and off they went.
Victor, out of force of habit, still avoided stepping on the budding weeds and flowers in the sidewalk cracks. When he glanced over to Yuuri, who seemed to be scanning his surroundings like a hungry fox, he couldn’t help but be a little mesmerized. Pure white clouds of breath kept puffing up into his face, not quite fogging up his glasses. Yuuri’s strides didn’t quite match the easy, fluid pace he usually kept, and Victor felt his brows furrowing in concern for a split second, until he noticed that Yuuri also kept looking down. So, he looked down, too, and well…
Yuuri wasn’t stepping on the cracks, either. He was very obviously being very careful not to.
Something in Victor’s chest seized, but not in a bad way. At least, he didn’t think it was bad. Maybe uncomfortable. But not bad. Nope. He wouldn’t let it be bad.
If he dwelled on the feeling, perhaps that thing might sneak back. Not happening. Nope.
After a couple of minutes, Yuuri’s pace smoothed out, finding the exact rhythm and span he needed to avoid the cracks. Victor started zoning out, losing himself in the sounds of his and Yuuri’s feet pattering together in unison on the well-worn pavement, and that of his own panting, just a little quicker than Yuuri’s, and the random household conversations that bled into the street. He occasionally glanced over to his fiancé to take in the unbridled joy on his face, and a jolt of surprise would run through his nerves each time. He could feel the thrum of his pulse, steady and strong in his chest, and the rhythm of his footfalls, and the light chill of the air on his face. He felt like a well-oiled machine. It was just like old times—so incredibly, wonderfully normal—save for the new company of his fiancé, and even that started to melt in almost seamlessly with the routine of everything else in that moment.
It was great.
They rounded another corner, and a little girl tumbled out into the street ahead of them. She was nothing more than a bundle of marble-pale skin and long blonde hair, loosely braided at her nape, and a smile too big for her face, all swallowed up in a loose, off-white cardigan. She giggled, the sound like the bubbling of a tiny fountain, like joyful larks and rustling birch leaves in summer. She waved at the pair of jogging men with stubby hands, and then she was jumping into the tiniest puddle Victor had ever seen, probably left over from the rain earlier that week. Or maybe it was just melted frost. Either way, the she didn’t seem to care. As Victor and Yuuri came closer, a tall, waiflike woman came darting out from around the nearest corner, and within three swift paces she had reached down and swept the little girl up into her arms.
Victor forgot to breathe for a moment.
The girl babbled something Victor couldn’t decipher, and threw her arms around her mother’s neck, squealing like a piglet. The woman looked so relieved, closing her sapphire-brilliant eyes and leaning back against the nearest building as she clutched her daughter against her chest. She hummed some vague tune only loud enough to be heard as they passed by her, almost brushing shoulders in their proximity.
Victor nearly tripped, but he caught himself and kept going.
In his distracted state, he’d probably stepped on a crack.
Ha! Of all things to be concerned about. Of course, Victor. You’re such a child. Twenty-eight years old and still such a foolish child with childish priorities.
Victor looked straight ahead, neck stiff, the world suddenly a silent, grey blur. He focused on his footfalls and which street to turn down next, as if those things weren’t second nature by now.
He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to remember anything. He wasn’t a fucking child anymore, damn it.
By this point, it even took conscious thought to breathe properly.
Shit. What was going on?
He didn’t want to think about it.
He didn’t want to think about much of anything.
Someone grabbed his elbow.
He almost tumbled from the change in direction. His felt his face contorting into some sort of a snarl, wondering for a split second what kind of stupid thug would seriously try to bother Victor Nikiforov in a place like this—
Oh, wait; that wasn’t a stranger grabbing him. It was Yuuri.
He’d forgotten all about Yuuri.
Shit. What kind of a person simply forgets about their own fiancé? Victor Nikiforov, a shitty excuse for a human being, apparently.
Victor tried to silence his own thoughts, right as they may be.
Victor had no idea what his face looked like as he came to a rolling stop. He glanced around to see that Yuuri had tugged him into a rather dingy alley between two houses. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Yuuri just yet. He didn’t want to think about why, not with his chest so tight and his knees feeling so loose. He let his gaze focus ambiguously on the broken streams of light that filtered onto the nearest wall.
“Victor?” The voice that called to him was small. Careful. Not quite hurt, thank God. At least Victor hadn’t completely screwed up yet.
Victor wanted to smile at his fiancé and say Nothing’s wrong, dorogoy! Let’s keep going, I have so much more to show you! but that would be a lie, Victor; there wasn’t much to show him anyway.
Oh, and Yuuri hadn’t actually even asked anything.
So what was Victor supposed to do?
A pair of warm arms circled around his middle, and his breath caught in his throat.
“Yuuri?” he managed to croak.
“You looked like you needed a hug,” Yuuri said simply, tightening his grip.
Victor couldn’t speak, not when there was so much. So much to feel, between the quick, exhilarated pace of Yuuri’s heart thumping firmly against his own and his fiancé’s hot breaths fanning across his own collarbones, long and even, and the simple way their bodies fit together. It was a little overwhelming.
Maybe more than a little overwhelming.
Yuuri wiggled one leg between Victor’s to let them press even closer, somehow, and something in Victor snapped loose.
“Did you see her?” Victor asked suddenly, breathless from more than just physical exertion. The patches of sunlight were still there, unchanging no matter how much Victor stared at them.
“The little blonde girl?” When Victor hummed assent, Yuuri added, “She was adorable. And she looked really happy, didn’t she?” He sounded casual, calm.
“Yeah, she did.” Victor felt himself shudder a bit. Yuuri tightened his grip, lowering his hands from their place against Victor’s shoulder blades to the small of his back, and pushed Victor backwards a step and a half until Victor’s back was pressed against the nearest wall.
“Did she remind you of something?” Yuuri sounded gentle, curious, maybe a little cautious, though his hold was insistent. Steady. Strong. Just like the beat of his pulse, gradually slowing down against Victor’s breastbone but no less present. No less grounding.
The thing was nowhere to be found for the moment.
“Yeah, she did,” Victor said again, heaving a long sigh and finally returning the embrace, albeit a bit awkwardly. He closed his eyes. “Her mother looked a lot…” He swallowed. “A lot like mine used to.”
Yuuri hummed. His grip tightened where his hands were locked together against the small of Victor’s back, but he didn’t speak.
Victor still didn’t quite want to think about it, about the memories flooding back into his brain, but he babbled anyway, his tongue slack and dry. “My mother used to scoop me up too, just like that, whenever I got distracted and wandered too far.”
Yuuri hummed again, more softly that time. He didn’t move, just taking a slow breath that Victor felt more than he heard.
“It’s been…a long time. Since I last saw her. I was probably that girl’s age. Maybe a little younger. I had almost forgotten about it, it’s been so long.” Victor opened his eyes again and almost started to huff some wretched semblance of a laugh, but stopped.
Yuuri’s lips were on his, not in a true kiss, but just there. Soft and cold and a little chapped but just…there. Present. Steady. Yuuri’s forehead was pressed against his own as the younger man reached up on his tiptoes.
Victor expected an I’m sorry or a That’s terrible or something along those lines. Pity. He hated pity.
“She must have been so beautiful, then,” Yuuri said, instead, surprising the Russian and sending prickles of something foreign deep into his bones, because that’s simply what Yuuri did. “But of course she would have been beautiful—we’re talking about your mother, after all.” There was a smile at that last bit that could have been lighthearted, even teasing, but somehow wasn’t. Not with the raw-edged concern swirling in Yuuri’s chocolate eyes and the warmth of his breath on Victor’s lips and the steadiness of his heartbeat continuing to make its way to Victor’s own through two identical cotton shirts.
Victor blinked. Yuuri thought…Yuuri thought he was beautiful, then? He didn’t have time to let that sink in, because Yuuri was nuzzling their noses together and raising a chilly hand to Victor’s cheek.
“And she must have loved you so much,” he added, planting another not-quite-kiss on Victor’s gaping lips.
“She would have loved you, too,” Victor murmured suddenly into Yuuri’s mouth, without really thinking about it.
Yuuri kissed him harder, then, trembling just a little.
Victor managed to catch his breath, finally, somewhere in the gaps between Yuuri’s feverish assaults on his lips. Or perhaps during them, in the moments where something in his heart settled, curling up like a young Makkachin in a new dog bed, the figurative ear-scritches provided by the firm press of Yuuri’s body against his own and the possessive almost-growls that escaped his fiancé’s mouth.
Yuuri drew away after so long, but yet all too soon. Victor felt satisfied, sure, but he wanted so badly to yank his fiancé close again and dive back in. Something in him knew that things were safe and comfortable when they kissed, ignoring the world with eyes closed and without words passing between them.
He didn’t know what to expect, now.
Something was starting to itch under his skin, again.
Yuuri’s gaze was warm, as warm as his lips had been, as warm as the breath puffing out in lamb-shaped clouds between their faces, as warm as the arms that still caged Victor in, as warm as the simple smile that adorned his lightly battered lips. He looked like he wanted to ask something long the lines of Are you okay? or How are you feeling right now?, but instead he blinked once, deliberately slow, and asked, “Is there a reason you don’t step on the cracks in this part of St. Petersburg?”
That thing, which was tight and frosty and made Victor want to run and lock himself in a corner earlier that morning wanted to come back, to creep into his chest again through the spaces between his ribs and keep him silent. To keep reminding him that You’re being silly, Victor, and You’re so childish, Victor, and You make such big things out of nothing, Victor, and These little things aren’t important, Victor and especially You’ll ruin what little you actually have, Victor. But those thoughts halted when Victor looked down—really looked down—into Yuuri’s mahogany eyes.
They weren’t judging him. They were…curious, maybe?
Yuuri wasn’t talking at him, pressing him for an answer. He waited, patient, breathing softly within the circle of Victor’s arms.
The thing that wanted to slink back into Victor’s chest simply couldn’t. Not quite. Not with Yuuri looking at him like that. Not with Yuuri holding him, steady and stable, in some back alley between a pair of ratty houses with dappled sunlight falling around them in lacey not-patterns.
Yuuri would take whatever Victor gave him. He would meet Victor wherever he was.
He’d almost forgotten that, somehow.
Stupid, stupid thing.
“Habit.” It wasn’t untrue, but it wasn’t really what Victor had wanted to say. Stupid thing. Go away. Even if he wasn’t thinking, the thing was still keeping him quiet. What the hell?
Yuuri hummed, though, and Victor dropped his arms, releasing his fiancé as his own heart dropped like a stone into his gut. Yuuri backed away from him, and Victor could feel the thing cackling against the back his neck for a moment, murmuring things like See, it didn’t matter anyway, Victor, and You’re so childish, Victor, until he looked down at what his fiancé was doing, perplexed.
Yuuri crouched down low, then knelt, heedless of the damp, musty earth he was sure to get on his knees. He was touching something, and Victor had to bend down to get a glimpse of what.
Yuuri was ever so gently fondling a little plant: a weed. It had the beginnings of a flower bud at the tip. He was smiling the kind of smile that he gave Makkachin while filling the poodle’s bowl after a long walk. The kind of smile he tossed Victor after finally landing a quad in practice. The kind of smile he wore after a long shower as he slid between the sheets of their bed and would shyly reach for Victor’s hand in the dark. His eyes were glimmering, like he was on the edge of discovering something very important. Victor’s breath caught in back of his throat.
Something about it felt like Barcelona all over again, just…a little more terrifying, somehow. He didn’t have the faintest idea why.
But maybe he did. Maybe the thing knew, because it gripped at Victor’s shoulders, making them stiffen like clay in the sun. So small, Victor; you get worked up over such small things, Victor.
“Is it these?” Yuuri asked, voice buoyant, and a tad bit excited, but so, so soft, like he was trying to not wake a sleeping Yurio on the train.
Victor breathed, barely. He spoke before the thing could protest too much. He had to. “Yeah. I’ve always looked forward to seeing the flowers in the sidewalk cracks. Ever since I was kid. I’ve only ever seen them in this part of town. They were just always there, every spring. I could never bear the thought of stepping on them. The frost will be too harsh for them in a week or so, but they always show up when we get warm spells in March.” I like them, he thought, but the thing stopped him at the last second, prodding at his spine.
Yuuri beamed and abruptly leaned over to plant a wet, sloppy kiss on Victor’s cheek. The older man found himself spluttering at the sudden action, but Yuuri was laughing—
Wait. Laughing at him? At Victor? He didn’t quite think so. The sound was soft, hushed, like it was a secret Yuuri was whispering to him in the middle of a grade school class. Yuuri had tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, which were crinkling the way Victor loved so much.
Okay, this was downright weird. Victor’s mind was blank.
Yuuri’s laughter subsided into quieter giggles. “Victor that’s so cute!” the Japanese man exclaimed. “And they’re cute too—just look at them, they’re so tiny! Oh, the one over there, with the open blossom…doesn’t it look like it has a face? They must be so tough, though, to live in a place like this, without much sun and with all the foot traffic…I guess they’re kind of like Yurio, in a way. They’re pretty incredible, aren’t they?”
Victor was glad he wasn’t standing upright at that moment; he would have surely crumbled like a tower of blocks as Yuuri prattled on about—
About Victor’s little sidewalk weeds.
Weeds. Weeds that would disappear in a week.
Small. Insignificant. Temporary. Weeds.
Weeds. Yuuri was talking about weeds.
Like they were something…important?
“I can see why you like them so much,” Yuuri said, a little more forcefully, lifting his head to catch the Russian’s gaze. He was still smiling. God, he was still smiling. “I’m so glad you shared them with me, Victor.”
Wait. What the hell? Victor’s brain was stuck on repeat, like a stubborn record needle.
Because, come on. Weeds?
They were…important?
Important enough for Yuuri to get his pants dirty just to see them properly? Important enough to touch them like they were something precious? Important enough for Yuuri—Yuuri, who doesn’t prattle about little things and counts his words and lays back quietly on the couch, humming responses to his Instagram feed instead of actually replying—to talk about?
Victor wanted to bundle Yuuri up right then and there. He wanted to cry, just a bit. He wanted to kiss him, long and hard and breathless to cover for the lack of breathing he was doing at the moment himself. But Yuuri was standing now, a hand extended in welcome to invite Victor to stand again, ready to resume their jog. The younger man was tossing him the most wonderful look, and it sent warmth racing through each one of Victor’s veins, from the apples of his cheeks to the tips of his toes.
Yuuri’s hands were cool but soft. His grip was firm, and Victor could feel the understated strength of his body as he hoisted Victor to his feet. His gaze was steady, as familiar as the daily cup of coffee that they looked like.
And his smile was quite possibly the best thing Victor had seen in a long, long time. It felt like a hug to his core, to his heart, to the furthest, dustiest corners of his brain.
Victor couldn’t really process much beyond that.
The next thing Victor knew, he was lost again in the steady slap of two sets of feet on the pavement, strides in unison, avoiding each crack together like clockwork. He was surrounded by the sound of soft pants a little slower than his own, and the rush of his own pulse in his ears, and the chatter of young mothers and their children and of old women gossiping. He would glance to the side every so often to catch the look on Yuuri’s face, and marvel at how similar it looked to how he felt himself: exhilarated, curious, and filled to the brim with ridiculously childlike joy.
He wished he could hold Yuuri’s hand, but he knew he’d have plenty of opportunities later, and the thought made him smile uncontrollably.
The thing was nowhere to found, left behind somewhere in a sun-dappled alley between two houses. Victor couldn’t even be bothered to think about it.
The weather was perfect for a jog, after all.