Chapter Text
‘I—’ Yuuri squats down on his haunches, taking Viktor’s long-fingered hands in his own. Viktor’s skin is wet and nearly translucent, and there’s the faintest hint of webbing underneath Yuuri’s touch. His fingers splay wide, caressing Yuuri’s palms. ‘To be honest, I thought you were a hoax.’
Viktor tips his head to one side. Half of his body, rising from the clear water, is very naked; when Yuuri cranes his head slightly he can see the other half, blurring into soft and alien outlines against the rocks. ‘I don’t feel like a hoax.’
The voice Yuuri hears is low and very musical, another of the thousand sounds crinkling upon each other in the waves. It’s a voice with no age. They’re alone in the evening silence, and the sky behind them seems to rumble with the echoes of thunderstorms. Viktor’s eyes are a very bright blue.
Yuuri’s quite sure, although he doesn’t trust his vision much these days, that Viktor has feet. The rocks sucking at the tides gleam like rich jewels, and against the cliffs Viktor’s silhouette is the colour of sunset. He— ‘Are you?’ Yuuri asks before he can help himself. He bites his lip, but it’s too late to take back the words. ‘A he? I mean, I don’t know what to call you.’
‘I’m whatever you want me to be,’ says Viktor cheerfully. ‘I can change form, too. Do you want my skin?’
‘Your what?’
Those slender, faintly webbed fingers wrap themselves ever more tightly around Yuuri’s wrists. Viktor wants Yuuri to trust him, to strip off the human shoes and step barefoot into the tide and come closer, closer, closer. Yuuri does trust Viktor. Yuuri’s just trying to hold on to the remnants of his heart which are still his own. ‘My skin.’
‘Viktor, you’re confusing me.’
‘So you can keep me,’ Viktor explains with the sort of dreamy, unblinking patience Yuuri supposes one might develop from haunting the world’s oceans since time immemorial. ‘So I don’t run away from you. Have you ever heard of selkies?’
‘But you’re not a selkie,’ Yuuri says.
‘I don’t know what I am.’ Viktor lifts a hand and places it against Yuuri’s face; Yuuri turns his cheek into Viktor’s palm, closing his eyes. ‘We could try. It might work anyway. I’ve never done this before, you see.’
‘I don’t want to keep you!’ Yuuri drops to his knees. Before he can stop to think about what he’s doing, he kicks off his sandals and dips his feet into the foam—just the toes at first, then all the way up to the ankles, fascinated by the swirling eddies of sediment. At the sight, Viktor’s tongue comes out involuntarily to wet his own lips before he closes his mouth again. ‘I don’t want to hold you with me like—like you’re my prisoner. Viktor, this isn’t Scotland. You’re in Lake Superior. I study in Detroit. You know Detroit? Michigan. America.’
‘Yee-haw,’ Viktor replies pleasantly.