Work Text:
Vika likes most things about living in Japan (like Yuri, and Yuri's family, and Yuri) but she does not like summer. There's cicadas screaming all the time. She gets sweaty and hot and her hair goes all limp and frizzy. The onsen building is very old and doesn't have air conditioning. She has to give up wearing a pushup bra off the ice, for the first time since she was fourteen years old, and wear a sensible cotton bralette instead. She can't get cool enough to sleep, and Makkachin refuses to cuddle because he's too hot, too. Yuri still won't let Vika put her head in Yuri's lap.
Vika is very hard done by, is her point.
She's thinking about all her wrongs, sleepily, and about the day of work they've put in, and what they'll do the next day. Her Yuri needs to work on her jumps, but maybe Vika will indulge herself and 'help' Yuri with her step sequence. Yuri looks so pretty dancing across the ice, with her dark hair tied up softly in a chignon on the nape of her neck. Maybe she'll wear a skirt and tights instead of leggings. That would be nice. Vika loves the way Yuri's skirts flare when she spins.
She turns her head and stares at the wall, and wonders vaguely what that spot on the wall was. Then she focuses.
Vika screams.
Then she flails around until she manages to turn on a light, and gets a better look, and screams again, more shrilly, and leaps from the bed to scream some more. The thing skitters across the ceiling and freezes in place as Yuri slams the door open and looks around wildly. "What - what --"
Vika hears steps on the stairs but Yuri is right there and Vika is a coward who wants to hide. Vika levitates from her spot and hides behind Yuri, huddling up to get all of her gangly self under Yuri's protection. "A - A thing!" she wails, pointing.
Yuri looks.
Vika cowers with 91% of her being, and smells Yuri's hair with the other 9%. Yuri's hair smells unfairly good for someone who considers paying 500 yen for combination shampoo and conditioner 'fancy'.
"Victoria," says Yuri finally. "That's a house centipede."
"LEGS," explains Vika. She clutches at Yuri's shirt. It's so thin and old that she's scared of ripping it if she clutches too hard.
"They're harmless! They eat cockroaches! They don't hardly even sting people!"
"Oh, god," whimpers Vika, even more revolted.
"You probably scared it more than it scared you," says Yuri, yawning. "It's not a Japanese centipede, it's okay."
"A what," says Vika, suspiciously.
Yuri pulls her phone from her bra and opens the browser. A few taps later, she shows a picture to Vika, who screams again. When they married, if they married, Vika vows, they were going to Russia, where bugs politely stayed where they belonged. Not this - this invasion.
Mari says something in Japanese, and Yuri turns to answer, and then yells, "MARI-ONEE, don't you dare --"
"Too late!" cackles Mari, and Vika turns to see Mari triumphantly brandish her phone.
"MARI-ONEESAN," shrieks Yuri. "I'LL TELL MOM!"
"Is she going to post it?" says Vika. She doesn't much care, because she's dressed in cute pajamas, but if Yuri doesn't like it --
"You'll be a hero!" says Mari evilly.
Yuri covers her face in her hands. Even in the dim half-light, her ears are bright red. Vika wants to kiss them.
"Anyway, at least this will prove you two are in separate rooms," says Mari, practically.
"Don't remind me," mumbles Vika, in Russian.
"Ugh," says Yuri, but it's not 'take it down' and Mari knows it. "I'm going back to bed."
"Not without me," says Vika, shrilly. "I'm not staying in a room with that - that -"
Mari takes off her slipper, squeezes past them, and goes into the room.
There is a fatal, horribly crunchy thwack.
"-- that thing's corpse!" finishes Vika, even more hysterically.
"There's really not enough left of it to be a corpse," says Yuri, almost apologetically.
"Oh Goddddddd," says Vika shuddering. "I'lll sleep downstairs. I'll sleep in the onsen. I'll --"
"If you think there's centipedes up here," says Mari, "I dare you to go looking under the rocks in the garden by the onsen."
"I'll sleep in Mari's bed, and she can sleep in here!" says Vika.
"No," says Mari.
"Oh, Victoria," sighs Yuri. "You're such a baby."
Vika genuinely does not care if she is a baby or not. That room is going to be scrubbed in bleach at six am tomorrow morning with Vika's own two hands, but in the meantime, there was no way she was staying in it with the smashed remains of a tiny demon of legs on her wall, where she will lie and stare at it all night. "Yuri," she says, pleadingly.
Yuri sighs. "You can stay in my room, and I'll --"
"I won't have you in this room with that - thing!" says Vika, voice climbing up another octave.
"Fine!" says Yuri. "Ugh."
They run into a little problem about the actual sleeping arrangements, though, since neither wants the other to take the floor. It's very sweet of Yuri, of course, but Vika is going to win. She can't have her poor Yuri injuring herself.
"There might be bugs," tries Yuri. "Spiders."
Vika shivers but says bravely, "As your coach, I can't have you sleeping on the floor --"
"I'm used to futons!" argues Yuri, which is clearly a lie: she spent five years in America and that bed looks at least twenty years old, so there's no way Yuri has spent more than a few months of her life on a futon. "I don't want you to hurt your knee if you don't have to."
Vika genuinely could not care less about her knee. She spent a year thinking about nothing but her knee, and she's tired of it. "You'll hurt your back!"
They stare at each other for a long minute, and then Yuri heaves out a deep sigh. "Fine!" she says. "Fine. But you better not hog the bed."
"What," says Vika, staring at her, and then her brain catches up to what her ears are hearing.
YOU GET TO SHARE THE BED WITH YURI, WHO IS SOFT AND WARM AND SMELLS NICE, screams her brain. DON'T FUCK THIS UP.
"I'm great at sharing beds!" says Vika, immediately fucking it up.
Yuri kindly does not say anything about this obvious reference to the time Vika and Christine Giacometti were photographed sleeping like naked puppies in a narrow Swiss hostel bed, and crawls under the covers.
It takes some shuffling and some shoving of Makkachin, who clearly thinks that both of his favorite humans in the same bed is a present from the Dog Gods, but they manage to fit into Yuri's narrow bed. Yuri insists on taking the inside edge, her back toward Vika. It's clear that Vika is supposed to face the outside edge so only their backs are touching, but Vika can't sleep with her face toward the room. It's fine, she reasons, it's not like they're really spooning. Not unless Vika puts her arms around Yuri's waist or something, and Vika would never do that if Yuri didn't like it. So she turns around gingerly and tucks her arms against her chest, rabbit-wise, so her arms are against Yuri's warm back, but she's not really holding her.
It's really nice.
Vika tries breathing in and out, deep and slow, like she was taught. It doesn't really help. Yuri smells so nice, a little sweaty, a little earthy. Very feminine and good. It makes Vika feel all heavy and sweet and liquid, like she wants to melt into Yuri and soak in all her loveliness. Her heart beats, hard and heavy, against the cage of her chest.
"Victoria?" says Yuri, as if she thinks Vika could sleep with Yuri this close.
"Yes?" says Vika.
"You're shaking. Are you all right?"
Yes. No. Vika doesn't know. She rolls over and faces the room, even though it feels weird and uncomfortable to face the open air.
"Sorry," she says.
"What for?" Yuri sounds like - she sounds like she doesn't know what Vika has to be sorry about.
Vika's sorry she's so pushy. She's sorry that she wants so much. "Just - sorry."
There's a long silence, so long that Vika begins to hope that Yuri's fallen asleep. That's good. Maybe Yuri will think she dreamed it.
Yuri's hand touches Vika's bare shoulder, right by the strap of her camisole. Vika's skin burns all the way from where Yuri touched her to her fingertips. "Victoria," she says.
"I'm a lot," says Vika, all in a rush. "I'm too much. Aren't I? I'm too much."
There's another silence, and then Yuri turns over, and puts a hand on Vika's shoulder to coax her to turn around to face Yuri. The space between them is warm with their breath. It feels like anything Vika confesses will just find a place into Yuri's heart, safe and warm. Vika wonders if Yuri feels like that. She hopes she does. She wants to take every secret Yuri has ever carried until it made her too tired to go on, and carry it for her.
"You are a lot," says Yuri.
Vika closes her eyes. It's fine. She's used to it.
Yuri puts her hand over Vika's sharp cheek, so different than the dear curve of Yuri's. "I like it, though," she says, very quietly. She strokes Vika's hair. "I like it when you're a lot."
"Really?" says Vika. She dares to come in closer, to put her arm around Yuri's waist. Yuri shifts and Vika's head lands on Yuri's shoulder. She wants to use Yuri's chest, soft in her night bra, as a pillow, to sleep with their fingers twined up together. She wants to wake up with Yuri in her arms and Yuri's hair in her mouth. "Really, truly?"
Vika can feel Yuri's fingers sift through her hair. It feels so lovely. "Really, truly," says Yuri.
Vika's so happy she has to turn her head and bury her face in Yuri's shoulder for a minute, soaking in her warmth while she clutches her tight, tight.
"Victoria, your chin is so sharp!" complains Yuri. She makes like she's going to push Vika off, but she mostly puts her hand on Vika's back.
"No," says Vika, childishly. "I don't want to move." She snuggles in with a vengeance. "I'm very comfortable, you know! You're so soft and cute."
"Victoria!" says Yuri, giggling. She sounds flustered, but in a happy way. "I won't be able to sleep with your chin digging in like that."
Vika makes a considering sound. "I'll move," she says, and then quickly, before Yuri can say anything else. "But you have to call me Vika!"
It goes quiet again, and Yuri says, "Just once?"
"Forever!" says Vika. She holds her breath. The moment stretches out.
"Vika," says Yuri. "We should go to sleep."
Vika puts both hands around Yuri, her Yuri, and her head on her sternum, and squeezes tight, just for a minute. Maybe she's imagining it, but she thinks Yuri kisses her, just a tiny touch of her sweet mouth on Vika's hair. "All right," she says.
Vika doesn't want to sleep, but Yuri is so warm and dear, beloved, that she closes her eyes to soak it in, and when she opens her eyes again, it's daylight, and Yuri is still asleep.
(the next day:
"'Tall Russian lesbian cries and hides behind tiny Japanese girlfriend'," says Pichitra Chulanont's tinny voice from Yuri's iPhone. "'when bae protects u from the spider laughing crying face, laughing crying face, laughing crying face'."
Yuri's face is buried in Makkachin's fur, but she still lets out a moan of despair. She's so cute. Vika can't decide if she wants to cover her neck with kisses until she sits up again, or take a thousand pictures to post gloatingly on Instagram.
"Hahaha 'when you realize you're the hot girl in a horror movie', 'okay but where did Victoria Nikiforov get that shortie set and does she dress like that every night or just when she's with her girlfriend? I need to know. For reasons.' Then the next comment says 'yes but who cares Yuri Katsuki is in boxers and a rainbow cake shirt and her hair is in braids, in other news I am extremely gay'. Truth!"
Yuri sighs.)