Work Text:
The first thing Victor Nikiforov does after buying his ticket to Japan is to go lingerie shopping. He wants to pack only the best underwear as he leaves on his international booty call, and so he wants to make sure he has a wide variety at his disposal.
(”Go with red,” Chris said. “You can’t go wrong with red.” But black looks better on his skin, and Yuuri seems to be more of a cool-tones kind of man, and Victor is facing a conundrum. The vivid fantasy of Yuuri praising his lavender underwear—"how did you know that’s my favorite color?" he’d ask—before them making sweet, passionate love all night until the break of dawn had basically made him decide on getting as many colors as he could get his hands on.)
If he’s getting his ass wrecked by the hottest man on earth, he might as well be wearing the most exquisite piece of underwear while he’s at it. It’s a way of showing Yuuri his admiration and how smitten he is, because he can’t hide how he’d been dreaming of that moment since the banquet, and he’s definitely had the time to plan for it.
It comes to a point where he doesn’t know which one he wants to wear first, and the fact that he impulse-bought a 12-colors selection when his extensive research on Yuuri’s favorite color was inconclusive... does not help him.
Turns out he doesn’t get the d. Not for a while, at least. So he only has the tiniest and not the most comfortable lingerie with him, which after weeks of continuous use makes him miss the old, large boxers he used to sleep in. Granted, he could go commando under his robes, but that isn’t exactly family friendly, and at some point Victor doesn’t know which is the least problematic—possibly flashing his ass in the dining room or letting everyone know what type of underwear he’s been wearing all this time.
(He could, technically, accidentally let Yuuri see it, but given the man’s skittish attitude in regards to Victor’s advances he knows that might not be the best flirting tactic.)
Laundry is... very awkward once he runs out of clean underwear. Mari doesn’t understand why he’s so adamant about doing it himself—they just throw everyone’s clothes in the washing machine, what’s up with this guy’s clothes that they can’t be washed together?
It’s embarrassing. She doesn’t understand he’s doing it for her sake, and he doesn’t want to try to explain it. Not to mention that the thought of his 7,500 ruble lingerie being carelessly thrown into the washing machine makes him feel something akin to dread.
But time passes. He learns to deal with the fact that the man he loves tells him that sexual love means some rice dish to him while his bedroom was covered (oh, Victor knows) in posters of International Hunk Victor Nikiforov not even a week ago.
That’s fine. Patience is a virtue, and so is not becoming a functional alcoholic, and Victor succeeds.
After a month of wearing thongs non-stop, he starts missing the ratty underwear he made the mistake of abandoning in St. Petersburg. It’s almost like his thongs are mocking him for the lack of action he’d so naively thought he’d get, itching at the most inappropriate occasions and getting far up his ass cheeks every time he follows Yuuri through his free skate program.
He gets the shittiest, least attractive pack of underwear that cost a hundred yen for five briefs the next day. It’s bliss even though they’re terrible, and the fabric feels like sandpaper after weeks of pure silk and lace. He’s never felt so free and comfortable. He soaks in the onsen late at night and slips the shitty underwear on and the fact he gets half hard from the freedom his nether-region experiences makes him question the man he’s become.
But Victor Nikiforov is a determined boy. Even after he’s certain Yuuri doesn’t want things to escalate as quickly as he’d assumed, Victor still makes sure to wear his nice underwear when he knows there’s a possibility that his crush will see him semi-nude, and he wants to make sure what Yuuri sees is A Thong. He didn’t spend all that money on underwear for nothing.
He’s pretty sure Yuuri knows about his underwear preference after the China incident. Not the kiss, of course (even though Victor is wearing a nice, baby blue lacy underwear that may or may not have been picked with the intention of matching Yuuri’s costume), before that. The incident where not only just Yuuri but a significant part of the skaters that happened to crash by the hot pot got to learn that what he’s wearing underneath all those brands is just as fancy. He’s glad he had the wit of wearing a neutral color for the occasion. Yuuri makes no comments on it.
If Victor was conscious about his underwear before their first kiss, he is much more after that. Yuuri is cautious, of course, always taking it slow and more often than not being a tease—and Victor learns the hard (hah!) way how uncomfortable thongs can truly be—so once Yuuri tells him he doesn’t want to rush it Victor relaxes a little. He’s waited all this time for Yuuri. A few more weeks wearing comfortable underwear should be easy-peasy.
And so, he always lets Yuuri lead, lets him know explicitly what he’s in the mood for, and even when it’s just hours of slow and passionate making out on his bed Victor feels like he’s in heaven. Yuuri likes to take his time—not that Victor hadn’t noticed it before—so before anything spicier happens in first few weeks Yuuri always draws a line. It’s a bit maddening, but it reels Victor right in.
At this point, he already knows Yuuri doesn’t have a specific favorite color, but his guess about cold tones had been right all along (and Victor is so proud of himself), and he learns Yuuri tends to pick boxers as his underwear preference—there’s nothing particularly outstanding about them except how wonderfully cozy Yuuri seems to feel when he’s wearing them. They’re a good choice for him, but then again Yuuri could be wearing half a coconut for his underwear and Victor would still think that’s the hottest thing he could ever wear and would still want Yuuri to bang him senseless.
Victor tries to find a pattern on their schedule in order to predict when it’s more likely that Yuuri might want to take things further—between rigorous sessions of skating and dancing practice, it’s complicated to tell if they’ll be doing anything other than kissing and cuddling in the time between competitions.
They do, though. But it’s in the dark—they should have gone to sleep at that time, but Yuuri surprised him by asking to sleep in Victor’s bed and they stayed up for a bit longer—and it’s more of an accidental thing than anything, with spooning turning into making out and the next thing Victor knows is that Yuuri is slithering his hand into his underwear. He never got to appreciate how it looks, but Victor really doesn’t mind that. It’s wonderful.
When they fly to Russia for the Rostelecom cup, Victor makes sure to get some of his old underwear. He misses them, and part of him can’t stand the hundred-yen underwear, a self-deprecation purchase, not even ironically at that point. And while it’s true he’s been wearing those less often, there’s always some worry nagging at the corner of his mind that Yuuri might find him wearing sandpaper underwear the day he decides to take things one step further. It’s the least sexy thing he can think of.
It’s silly. A part of him knows that worry is not necessary at all, but he is desperate to please Yuuri, to give him his best. Victor has dreamed of it for so long he is sure Yuuri would appreciate it if he decided to tell him his secret.
He gets his hands on his old underwear and the next thing he wants to do is a backyard fire to burn the ugly hundred-yen monstrosities. He doesn’t, of course—there’s no way he could actually burn them without raising a bunch of questions—so he tucks those in a safe corner of his wardrobe in Hasetsu, hoping to never come back to them. He now has a much more comfortable option to wear when he knows Yuuri is in the mood for some soft cuddling or an “innocent” kissing marathon.
But Yuuri has him walking on eggshells at all times. That boy is unpredictable—and very much insatiable, Victor learns. He knows he should have been more careful with what he’s wearing around Yuuri after Rostelecom, especially when they decide to add mouths to their repertoire. Yuuri doesn’t give him much of a chance and tackles him after dinner one night, and Victor almost can’t save Yuuri from catching a glimpse of his old, bleach-stained briefs that have a hole on the waistband seam (what can he do? It’s the most comfortable underwear he has).
It’s a close call. But they enjoy themselves regardless of how fancy their underwear is. Yuuri could be naked under his sweatpants, for all Victor knew.
But deliberately not choosing his old, comfortable underwear is a harder task than Victor had previously thought, and with training sessions getting increasingly tougher on Yuuri he thinks they might not be getting any action for the time being—or, at least, until the Barcelona GPF banquet night.
Victor learns he is a fool.
He goes through his evening routine like usual—bathing, blowing his hair dry, slipping on his robes and getting cozy in bed to watch the latest episode of the most predictable Russian soap opera with subtitles (in case Yuuri wants to join him).
And sure enough, Yuuri joins him a couple of minutes later, still toweling his hair dry, wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. Those are not we-are-about-to-bang clothes, but then again Victor learns how big of a fool he is when it comes to Yuuri’s taste for surprising him. They cuddle—like it’s become their habit—with Victor’s arm draping around Yuuri’s neck, keeping him close as Yuuri rests his head on Victor’s chest.
Yuuri is supposed to be tired. A full morning of skating, afternoon packed with off-ice exercises and dancing and later taking Makkachin to a walk by the beach should have gotten his energies depleted. Victor, who had just done the bare minimum that day, was feeling pretty worn out, but he made the mistake of underestimating his boyfriend’s stamina one last time.
The episode in question is pretty boring (the antagonist is alive, and no one seems especially surprised about her surviving the car crash) which may be the reason why Yuuri starts kissing Victor’s neck, innocently, but nothing about Yuuri’s lips is innocent. Too soon, Yuuri is kissing the dip of his collarbone, sliding his hand under the slit of Victor’s robe and pebbling his nipple, pressing his thigh between Victor’s and nipping his jaw.
Victor’s focus on the soap opera evaporates. He doesn’t know where Yuuri is going, but there is nothing in this world he’d rather be doing than kissing Yuuri at all times, and so when their lips meet Victor’s mind goes blank. Yuuri straddles him, his round, wonderful ass doing an amazing job at getting Victor hard in a matter of minutes.
It’s when Victor remembers he is wearing one of his rattiest underwear ever, one he knew he should have left behind in St. Petersburg. Not the bleach-stained one, thankfully, but one just as bad and possibly the least sexy thing he could be possibly wearing for their so anticipated first time. He doesn’t want to panic—not now, when he’s dying in the best way possible with Yuuri’s lips on his neck, his ass grinding on Victor’s lap—but a part of his mind is very upset about his choices.
Sure enough, Victor forgets about that meaningless detail once Yuuri begins undressing him, too busy, addicted to his lips, wanting to kiss every inch of his skin to care about whatever layers Victor has on him. He doesn’t even remember he’s supposed to be upset when Yuuri starts sucking him through his underwear, eyes locked on Victor’s, making sure Victor understands how much he’s enjoying himself. It’s just too wonderful to think of anything else.
Once they’re done, Victor spots from the corner of his eye the cursed piece of underwear twisted like angel wings on the floor, almost as if laughing at him. To his surprise, he’s not feeling embarrassed, or even ashamed for things not having turned out perfectly the way he’d planned, having put so much effort into looking sexy for his first time with Yuuri just so it would happen while they’re wearing what are potentially their least sexy clothes.
But there’s something about it that’s oddly endearing—how it’s happened so naturally, kisses leading to something else much more intimate and trusting than whatever Victor could have expected to happen. He thinks back on his struggle for getting what he thought to be the perfect underwear for Yuuri, and how funny life was that it really didn’t leave him a chance to get things the way he wanted.
He loves everything about how it happened. He wouldn’t change a thing.
A couple of weeks later, Victor ends up telling Yuuri about his personal underwear-related saga for the past months. Yuuri laughs, of course—that is such a Victor thing to do, he says, and Victor is not entirely sure what he means by that but takes it as a compliment—and says that the last thing he was worried about was what Victor was going to be wearing the moment where they decided to do it for the first time.
“It’s not like I’d dump you for wearing beige underwear, Vitya,” Yuuri chuckles, kissing his cheeks, and just then Victor notices how silly his worries had been. Yuuri is an angel.
“Still...” he shrugs, wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s waist. “I wanted to be wearing something nice for you. I wanted to see your reaction when you undressed me and found… silk, or lace.”
Yuuri rolls his eyes, kissing him softly.
“I like how it happened,” Yuuri says, threading his fingers through Victor’s hair. “It was authentic. And you can still wear your fancy underwear for me,” Yuuri says, demure, blushing to the tip of his ears. His smile, though, has nothing of innocent. “I have a feeling I haven’t seen half of them.”
And even after months Victor still has no clue which of his fancy underwear he wants to wear for Yuuri first. But it doesn’t matter—all he knows is that Yuuri is sure to love each and every one of them.