Work Text:
This is how it happens:
Yuuri packs up almost all his belongings, boxed up and ready to go. Victor is already there, already settled back into his life in Russia as if he hadn’t just uprooted and spent almost the entirety of a year in Japan, and he spends the better part of two weeks in frantic phone calls with Victor, all of them ending with Victor saying, in such a soft voice even across the world: “I miss you, I can’t wait for you to get here.”
It feels like Victor is trying to convince him of something and doesn’t seem to realize that Yuuri is already convinced.
In Pulkovo Airport, he’s exhausted and hiding behind a face mask, and he doesn’t even get the chance to wonder where Victor is, because there he is, suddenly, a wall of safety and comfort and kindness, and it tips the edge of anxiety into a temporary lull, quietening the buzz at the back of his head.
“Yuuri,” Victor says, his voice so blissfully near and real and not a static, tinny thing in his phone. It happened over time and so gradually that Yuuri never realized the moment he felt wholly safe in Victor’s vicinity. Victor’s breath is even against the side of his head and Yuuri could fall asleep right here, standing with his head resting on Victor’s shoulder.
“Let’s go home,” Victor says and Yuuri thinks he might mumble something of an assent, but Victor could do anything to him right now. A hand sliding down his arm, long warm fingers weaving through his own, a kindness Yuuri has craved for years.
Wakefulness comes to him in a room he only vaguely recognizes from a terrible Skype connection, and he sits up, breathes deeply. His shoulders ache and there’s a tension in his jaw that he thinks might stay for a while.
He feels like a vase teetering precariously on the edge of a table.
“Oh,” Victor says from the doorway when Yuuri looks over. His face is a serenity. “I was just about to wake you up,” he explains and comes closer, cradling a mug that is warm to the touch when he hands it to Yuuri’s tired hands. His joints are complaining, but Victor’s hands are always welcome.
“Darling,” Victor coos, gentle and warm as he slides into the bed next to Yuuri, a presence that’s been missed. Are they codependent? “Is Russia not what you dreamt of?”
“I don’t know what I dreamed,” Yuuri confesses, his voice a gritty piece of sand paper, and Victor’s eyes flutter. “I feel like I’ve slept for too long.”
“We’ll wake you up,” Victor promises.
The first two weeks are spent mapping out routes for Yuuri to run in the mornings, routes he can run alone and routes for when Victor joins him. Yuuri prefers to run alone where he can clench his jaw and breathe deeply when it feels like he’ll never pull air into his lungs again.
His jaw aches.
Setting feet on the ice is a welcome home more than anything else, the ice a universal language Yuuri speaks fluently. His Russian is better than he’d thought it’d ever be, but he still enrolls in bi-weekly classes, because Victor tried valiantly to learn Japanese for him. He stumbles over the harsh, guttural sounds and tries to wrap his tongue around words without too terrible an accent and Victor’s face is worth it when he manages it.
Yuri teaches him all the best swear words. Victor’s face is definitely worth it.
Tipsy from too much vodka and good company, Victor breathes into Yuuri’s neck, a damp touch to his skin, and Yuuri swears colorfully when Mila knocks over her glass and it spills over his pants.
The table collectively quietens.
“Wow,” Georgi says at length, impressed. Yuuri feels his shoulders tensing, bunching, knotting up.
“I dreamed in Russian,” Yuuri says when they’re walking home. He doesn’t know why it feels so heavy in his mouth like a confession of sins. “Last night. And the night before that.”
Victor smiles, drunk and pliant, delighted in ways Yuuri is still mapping. “Was I in it?”
“Feature role,” Yuuri promises and tucks both their hands into Victor’s jacket pocket. “I think you’re the main character everywhere you go.”
Victor hums. “I’d like to think we’re co-leads, I can’t do anything without my leading man.”
When Yuuri smiles, the huff of a laugh he can’t control on his lips, Victor grins like it’s the best thing in his life.
“What do you dream of? What was your Russian dream?” Victor asks when they’re both tucked in as much under heavy blankets as in each other, and Victor’s toes are cold where they try to sneak up Yuuri’s calves.
Yuuri wonders if Victor knows what he’s really asking.
He hums, feeling blanketed and comfortable and warm (besides the cold pinpricks of Victor’s toes), and he tries to focus. He has trouble remembering his dreams, always. “There was something about a tide, I think. It was snowing and I was freezing. We were by the beach at one point.”
“Sounds good to me. I like beaches. And then what?”
He shrugs. “I can’t remember.”
Victor shuffles impossibly closer, legs sliding through Yuuri’s and hooking them together. His arms are a welcome vice around his ribs and waist. “What was Russian about it? Were we in Russia?”
“No,” Yuuri admits. “I don’t know where we were, but we were speaking Russian together. That’s what it is.”
Victor doesn’t say anything, just presses his face into Yuuri’s throat and squeezes his body, his arms a broad swipe down his back. Yuuri loves him.
In the very early morning, his shoulders ache and he slips from the warmth of the bed and the sheets, careful not to dislodge Victor’s even breath, and he runs. The air is cold and crisp and it burns through his throat into his lungs, making his breath shorter but heavier, more real and easier to bear. The street signs are starting to look familiar, the gritty concrete beneath his feet feels known, his legs a boiling point to the serenity he’s reaching for.
His exhales are white and harsh in front of him.
The vase wobbles but stays.
When he returns, he tries to be quiet, but Victor gets up from his seat on the couch and walks to the kitchen when he gets in, and smiles. “You’re up early,” he remarks and Yuuri wonders if he should have woken him and asked if he wanted to come run with him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Yuuri says and gratefully takes the glass of water Victor offers him. It soothes his raw throat. “Thanks.”
Victor’s hand is a brand on his hip, the other reaching up to take the empty glass from him. Victor’s kisses either sets him on fire or settles him in ways Yuuri can’t explain. They’re a joy, a song and a dance on his heart, and he’s never felt so vulnerable or so safe with someone before in his life as when Victor looks at him.
“My love,” Victor says, his warm hands coming up to cup his face. “Are you alright?”
He knows his honesty will be best received. “I’m not sure.”
So close, Victor’s eyes are startlingly blue and he’s always been able to see right through him, right from that grainy video that made Victor see something in him that Yuuri never believed in on his own. He’s sure he has never fit, and will never fit, as well with anyone else than he does with Victor.
“I don’t expect of you to be happy all the time,” Victor says and tenderly tucks some hair behind his ear. “I want to see you smile, forever always, but it’s okay to be sad sometimes, too.”
Yuuri’s shoulders feel like they’ve been tensing around his neck for weeks, months, years. It’s a story that keeps repeating itself forever in an endless loop in Yuuri’s head, and it’s new, still, to be so close to someone and admit these things and not be turned away – the fear of it is still there and he’s not so naïve to think it’ll ever go away completely, but he trusts Victor with it.
“I don’t know why,” he says, because it’s true. It could be a multitude of things setting him off and not often just one single thing.
“That’s okay,” Victor repeats.
He spends a morning sitting on the bathroom floor, door closed but not locked because Victor fears waking up to find that Yuuri has fainted from an anxiety attack and unable to reach him, and he tries valiantly to remember how it feels like to breathe.
Saint Petersburg is beautiful but cold. It’s a different cold to the winters of Hasetsu; they were almost friendly, enticing him to come out and play. This Russian winter is harsh and unforgiving, chilling to the bones, closing off the city to bystanders, and all he can do is hang on. The rink is a solace even if it doesn’t feel like his home rink yet, and the sound of skates on ice is always going to soothe his nerves and runaway thoughts. He skates figure loops for warm up and turns up the music in his ears.
It’s always easier to forget when he’s skating for himself.
In between songs he passes Victor and only hears a snippet of conversation – “- I know, he’s lovely – ” and he has to close his eyes briefly, such a rush of fondness rising in his throat that it feels like he could choke on it. The next time he passes Victor he meets his eyes and offers a smile and gets a blinding one in return.
He loses himself to the ice for some time, feels the movements, feels the music, feels it settle under his skin and in his bones like a thrum, pleasant and buzzing and intoxicating, god, it feels – there’s only feeling.
When he becomes aware again, freshly out of a spin, he’s panting as he holds the pose for a second longer, two, and then when he opens his eyes, there’s Victor and Yakov, and when they stay by the barrier, he takes another round, another loop to cool down. When he reaches Victor, there’s another smile for him and Yakov leaves with a curt nod and a mutter.
“It’s late,” Victor says and when Yuuri looks at the watch, he realizes it’s been much, much longer than he thought. “You looked like you needed it.”
It’s new for Victor, too, and Yuuri has to remind himself of that sometimes. It’s difficult for Victor to not have all the answers and all the solutions, and Yuuri’s mind is one of the things he’ll never fully learn to navigate flawlessly. Yuuri himself doesn’t even know what to do with his mind a lot of the time, but he thinks that between the both of them, they can manage.
Victor makes a long arm for him and they slide together the last inches until Yuuri fits right under his arm.
“You looked beautiful,” Victor breathes into his hair. “No one skates like you do.”
“Flatterer,” Yuuri mumbles despite knowing perfectly well that Victor means it. It’s never not astounding.
“You are,” Victor says and pauses as if he’s looking for the word, “quite stunning.”
“Victor.”
“Only when it’s deserved,” Victor concedes and tugs him impossibly closer, and the cold Russian winter holds nothing against the warmth of Victor’s body and the way their angles fit together. In all their patchwork glory, their pieces line up.
There are good days, lots of them. Most of them are good, if he’s being honest, days where the sun is sharp but pleasant and a welcome friend on his winter skin, days where the laughter bubbles over in him and he smiles because he can’t not. Days where Victor shows why he’s Yuuri’s favorite and will forever stay his inspiration and dream, and where Victor looks right back at him and Yuuri feels it. He can land all the quads in the world and it’ll still be second to Victor’s gift of presence.
Sometimes, Yuuri looks at him and loses his breath. It’s not just on the ice, either, but his very existence where Victor seems to breeze through life with envious ease. Yuuri knows better, they both carry the bruises and the scars from the lives they’ve chosen to lead.
It just so happens that Yuuri gets to see him. It’s never been about just sex between them, but all kinds of physicality and the presence of it in the smallest of ways. Like, Victor’s hands finding his hips or his heartbeat or the back of his neck in the night, or waking up breathing into Victor’s hair, or Victor’s nails digging possessive marks into his skin, or Victor coming up to him in the kitchen, hands sliding around to rest on his abdomen, or tucking his feet under Victor’s thighs on the couch. The unexpected intimacy that had loomed so frightening when he didn’t know Victor is a source of comfort now, even when he doesn’t know what to do with his touch; when it feels like anything, any simple, small touch will be enough to set him off.
Some days, he wakes and he’s jittery, can feel everything vibrating inside him, tension and restlessness, and it takes courage he never knew he had, the first time he wakes Victor with him in the early, pink hours of the morning and says, “I need to run,” and actually gives Victor the knowledge and the choice.
Victor, who is more of a morning person than Yuuri with his night-owlish tendencies has ever been, only needs about five seconds to process before he’s up, shoving the blankets and sheets out of the way. He drags a hoodie over his head, ready in record time, and he somehow knows that he doesn’t have to say anything, that he shouldn’t say anything, because Yuuri doesn’t know what to say.
When they get back, more than an hour later, the static in his head has receded and he can think clearly again, and Victor pushes his hair back, lets his fingers linger on his scalp.
“Shower,” he says and when he pushes, Yuuri folds and follows. Showering together is never faster.
It would be so easy for Victor to spread him out like only he can, but he doesn’t. After their shower, he tucks Yuuri in properly, Makkachin pushing his way into the bed, and Yuuri feels, above everything else – safe. Precious.
“Mom called,” Victor says, but Yuuri mostly hears the rumble in his chest. The breathiness tells him that Victor is being playful, whimsical, and that when he says mom like this, he means Yuuri’s mother. “She wants to know when we’re coming home. She also said to tell you that she’s happy that one of her sons picks up the phone.”
Yuuri laughs, more of a hiccup that gets lodged in his throat. “Liar.”
Victor concedes the point but punctures it with playful fingers on his ribs. “But she did call me – you know.”
She would, Yuuri thinks. He’s never been without his family – even when he ran to Detroit and stayed for far too long, he always knew they were there, always knew he had something tangible and someone to rely on even if he didn’t want to see it for what it truly was. He doesn’t understand fully why Victor yearns so much for a family – or, that is inaccurate. He understands, of course he wouldn’t want to be without, but Victor hasn’t told him flat out. Instead, Yuuri gets the story in pieces; their patchwork will be complete one day, as complete as it can be with all their additions and extra pieces that will be sown on over the years.
Complete with the two of them, with room for more.
“Mari will put you to work,” Yuuri says, less jittery, more settled. “Mop the floors, stay out of the kitchen, man the front.”
The content hum from his throat suggests that Victor wouldn’t mind at all.
At the rink, Yuuri stops for a sip of water while Victor and Mila are arguing.
“Yuuri would save me from the zombie apocalypse!” is what Victor says and Yuuri doesn’t know what it says about his life that that is probably one of the least ridiculous things he hears any given day at training. Also, Yuuri is not sure how zombie apocalypse is in his Russian vocabulary in the first place, but he’s sure Victor will be thrilled regardless.
“I’m just saying that Yura would be more aggressive,” Mila argues. “No offense to Yuuri, but he’s too nice for the zombie apocalypse.”
“Yuratchka would kill me,” Victor despairs. “I’d rather have Yuuri.”
“Glad to hear it,” Yuuri says in Russian and hands his water bottle over. If Victor’s hand lingers, then, well.
Victor beams. “All for you,” he replies in Japanese.
“Pathetic,” Yuri scoffs as he skates past. In English.
They go out for dinner that night, because Yuuri is too tired to cook and Victor can burn down the kitchen by considering stepping into it, and Victor probably waits until Yuuri is trying to chew something that is way too hot, before he says, “I’m really glad you’ll save me from the zombies.”
Around the venison Victor lured him into ordering, Yuuri tries to reply. “Uh, you’re – welcome?”
Sometimes Victor does this thing where he doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t really have to. He just looks – quietly happy. Sometimes it overwhelms him, sometimes it doesn’t. Victor, he knows, is afraid of not being enough, of his gigantic, kind heart simply not being good enough, and Yuuri is always afraid of being too much. Too much effort, too much trouble, too much anxiety, tears and just too much. Yuuri knows he’s too much at times, it’s nothing new and he’s learned to work around it even if he’s still learning the best ways.
He is possibly too much of a pragmatic for it to be entirely convenient, but when considering the fact that he lives with, loves and is going to marry someone who doesn’t really think things through (uprooting his life and flying to Japan based on a viral video and a drunken dance, for one), maybe it’s a good thing.
“You’re tired, my love,” Victor remarks and is already starting to push away from the table. He’s not wrong. “Let’s go home.”
“I’m sorry,” Yuuri apologizes. He tries to, at least, because Victor won’t hear it, just hushes him and says it’s alright. He’s realizing that he apologizes a lot less than he used to.
“Don’t apologize,” Victor says. “Unless it’s for banning me from my own kitchen.”
“I stopped you from burning down the building.”
“And that’s why I don’t need the apology, even though it would be nice,” Victor sniffs, but he still holds out his arm and waits for Yuuri to take it. “Up, up, come on, we still need to walk Makkachin.”
Off-season makes his mind more difficult to navigate, but it’s easier with Victor.
The vase falls.
He wakes during the night, and oh god, he can’t breathe -
Something is holding him –
He can’t move –
“Breathe,” Victor says, distantly, as the haze clears and – he’s completely wrapped up in the sheets, he’s sweating and crying and he’s such a mess –
“Can I touch you?” Victor asks, even as he very gently and very carefully unwraps him from the sheets.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” is all Yuuri can manage, but apparently that’s good enough for Victor, who folds around him. “I’m so, so sorry – ”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Victor says fiercely, “for anything at all.”
In the morning, Yuuri wakes again and feels trapped, again, but this time it’s in Victor’s hold and he relaxes. He feels tired and wrung out, but calmer than he’s felt in a while. “Yuuri?”
He breathes. The tension in his jaw has lessened, he doesn’t feel see-through and ready to break. “I’m alright,” he says and he feels it, finally. “I’ll be alright.”
Victor’s heartbeat is steady and calming. Victor doesn’t want or need his apologies, he just wants to be enough for Yuuri, and he is. Maybe Victor spent a year trying to figure out how to get Yuuri to open up, but Yuuri spent a year learning Victor’s tells. Victor has given him everything, the least Yuuri can do is give him the choice.
He knows which choice he’ll keep making.
“Do you want to go run with me?”
Victor smiles and puts the vase gently back on the table and slides it further away from the edge.
*