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Yuuri’s flatmate is inhumanly attractive, and Yuuri is…Yuuri. He looks like a dumpster goblin on his best days because three hours of sleep and a diet mostly consisting of junk food can do that to a person.
That’s why he’s sure, in a distant kind of way that doesn’t douse the alcohol-induced, arousal-fueled fire simmering in his veins, that it’s not right that he gets to kiss Viktor, touch him, lick into the heat of his mouth, get drunk on his taste, and fall into bed with him in a tangle of flailing limbs. One elbow drives into his gut, and the sudden burst of pain makes Yuuri laugh, breaking the kiss to smother his giggles against Viktor’s bare, sweat-slick chest.
Fingers card through his hair, massaging gently, and Yuuri raises his head to find Viktor smiling at him, eyes bright and liquid, mouth red and heart-shaped.
He’s gorgeous.
“Hey,” he says, and Yuuri melts a little.
He kisses him, helpless not to, and Viktor welcomes him with a moan, fingers tightening in Yuuri’s hair, the other roaming down his back, both intent and aimless, the touch sending sparks up Yuuri’s spine. They kiss for what feels like hours, until Yuuri’s lips are swollen and numb, and Viktor’s pants turn to soft flutters of air.
And suddenly, Viktor stops moving. Yuuri makes a startled noise and pulls back, feeling a blend of amusement and indignation when he finds Viktor peacefully passed out under him, well-kissed and gently snoring.
Amusement wins out because Viktor’s just too cute and there’s something big and bubbly growing in Yuuri’s chest. He rolls over to the side, fully intending to make the trek to his own bedroom before he realizes that this is his bedroom and that his only options are the floor or Viktor’s bed.
It’s January and the floor is awfully cold, and leaving the bed seems hard all of a sudden.
Yuuri stretches his heavy limbs and sinks into the sheets, pleasantly aware of Viktor’s warmth beside him, and tells himself he’ll leave in just a minute.
He wakes up with someone’s heartbeat in his ears and his legs tangled with another’s.
He freezes; frantically rooting through his memories for what happened last night. He remembers Phichit dragging him to Chris’s party, reeling at the army of noisy people and taking solace in the bar, getting fucking sloshed, dancing with…Viktor.
Oh god, Viktor.
Yuuri gently untangles himself from the body draped over him, mourning the soothing heat of Viktor when he’s immediately hit by a draft of cold air. He squints at the window with aching eyes, grumbling when he finds it open. It takes all of his rapidly diminishing willpower to drag himself out of the bed, and he only regrets it more when he loses his balance and ends up on the floor, the cold tiles chilling him to his bones – except for his back which lies on something warm and soft.
He just stays like that for a moment, glad for his tolerance because he did consume a truly impressive amount of alcohol last night, but the only lingering effects this morning are a faint throbbing behind his eyes and a mouth that tastes like something died in it.
It’s the chill that finally makes him stagger to his feet and shuffle to the window, shuddering violently before slamming it shut. He goes stock still the next second, listening without turning around for any noises from the bed. Nothing.
He gathers the courage to look at Viktor and finds him sound asleep, curled up cutely in the spot Yuuri vacated and shivering lightly. Yuuri feels absurdly guilty and crosses over, intending to cover Viktor in blankets only to find that he’s sleeping on them, leaving no way of extracting any without disturbing his sleep, which Yuuri doesn’t want to do for more than one reason. But he can’t leave Viktor like this either, naked down to his hips and obviously cold.
He doesn’t notice the fur coat until he almost steps on it. He picks it up, marveling at the rich texture of it. This is what he fell on earlier, and it’s still warm and also thick, perfect to cover Viktor with.
Yuuri doesn’t remember Viktor wearing this last night, but well, the details are admittedly hazy. He remembers the way he tasted vividly.
He steers his mind away from dangerous waters and gently drapes the coat over Viktor.
Blue eyes flash open.
“Yuuri?”
“V-Viktor!”
Yuuri realizes belatedly that he must look very sketchy, leaning over Viktor’s formerly sleeping body, hands still on the coat and thus on Viktor. He leaps back, wincing when heat rushes to his face. A splotchy red face is just what he needs this morning. Then again, it’s not like there’s a chance that a sober Viktor would want to repeat what they did yesterday anyway.
Yuuri was just a – a something; something he can’t find the word for when Viktor is looking at him like that, all soft and sweet and wanting.
“Last night was lovely,” Viktor murmurs, clutching the fur coat to his chest.
Yuuri’s brain short-circuits, leaving his mouth free to spew whatever it wants.
“We should date,” is what comes out.
Viktor’s eyes go as wide as saucers.
“Date,” he whispers, breathless and incredulous. He looks down at his coat, his fringe falling into his eyes and hiding the look in them. Yuuri desperately tries to find a way to salvage the situation and comes up empty. Viktor’s a perfect flatmate and a lovely friend, and fuck, Yuuri can’t mess this up just because his heart and dick gets ideas when–
Viktor looks up at him, and he’s beaming, bright enough to blind.
“You’re right, we should do this properly. We’ll date. I’d love to court you too, Yuuri.”
Something about that doesn’t quite ring right, but Yuuri’s too dazed by the fact that Viktor said yes, they should date, holy shit, to care much.
A week later, his newly minted boyfriend gives him an engagement ring.
What, Yuuri’s mind screeches.
“…What?” Yuuri mouth echoes.
“So let me get this straight,” he tells Viktor, who’s sitting on their couch and looking eerily like a chastised child. Yuuri’s in the armchair, curled up on himself like some desperate defensive mechanism. “You’re a selkie, that fur coat was your sealskin, and I proposed marriage when I returned it to you.”
“Well, you actually formed a spiritual bond with me, but yes, that’s the gist of it.”
Yuuri blinks and calmly contemplates the appeal of spontaneous combustion.
“I…see.”
“Don’t you feel it?” Viktor asks, so hopeful that Yuuri, who’s only grown to adore him more in these last few, wonderful days, feels his heart ache.
“Feel what, Viktor?” he asks softly.
“The bond. It draws us to each other, or well, it’s meant to.”
Yuuri manages to summon a small smile.
“Viktor, I’ve been drawn to you from the second we met. I wouldn’t be able to tell some magic bond apart from my own attraction. I’ve always wanted you.”
Viktor looks delighted and also somehow shocked, like it’s such a surprise that Yuuri would want him so much without selkie magic paving the way. It doesn’t make sense. Viktor’s the prettiest, sweetest man Yuuri has ever had the honor of meeting.
It’s more sensible that Viktor only wants Yuuri because of the bond, but well, he’s asked himself a thousand times already if their relationship is just a dream. Turns out it’s not but that it might as well be.
But Viktor, as always, shatters Yuuri’s expectations.
“Me too,” he says, the tips of his ears reddening. “I’ve adored you for so long. That’s why I was so happy when my magic chose you.”
Yuuri can’t do anything but gape, disbelieving but incapable of truly doubting the tender smile on Viktor’s lips or the sheer joy in his voice. He sounds like being married to Yuuri is something he wants.
It’s surreal.
“What – what happens now?”
Viktor ducks his head.
“We marry?”
Yuuri closes his eyes.
“Viktor, listen, I – I like you. I like you a lot. But we’ve known each other for maybe six months. We’ve been dating for just one week. We can’t marry.”
Viktor tries to hide it, but the devastation that sweeps across his face hits Yuuri like a sledgehammer.
Fuck.
“What happens,” he asks, swallowing the lump in his throat and soldiering on, “if we break the bond? How do we break the bond?”
The expression Viktor wears is stunned betrayal. Yuuri tells himself he can’t waver, that this is for the best, for Viktor’s own sake. He’ll find out, once the attraction simmers down and the bond is gone, that Yuuri really is nothing.
“You can break the bond,” Viktor tells him with an empty smile. “You just have to want it enough.”
There’s something about the way he says that which makes Yuuri ask what he does.
“And what happens to you if I do that?”
Viktor shrugs, looks away.
“I’ll turn into a seal. Not permanently. For a few decades at most. And then I’ll be able to take human form again.”
Yuuri gapes, speechless.
“….No.”
Viktor huffs a laugh.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll manage. Just warn me before you do it. I’ll need to be close to the sea.”
“But that’s not – Viktor, I–”
Viktor, brilliant law student and gifted violinist, has a bright future ahead of him. Yuuri can see that, anyone can see that. He can’t lose that just because of this one mess with Yuuri.
“What’s the alternative? What happens if we keep the bond?”
Viktor answers like he doesn’t really expect that to be an option, not anymore.
“As I said, we marry. There’s a ceremony. It needs to be done by the sea. Selkies mate for life, you see. You’d be it for me. Either my lifespan will shrink to match yours or you’ll become a selkie like me. I didn’t know if you’d be interested in the latter, but I was fine with turning human.”
It takes a long time before Yuuri can respond.
“What? Viktor, no, why would you do that for me?”
The look Viktor shoots him makes Yuuri feel like an utter tool.
“I chose you, didn’t I?”
“You were drunk.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Viktor says, a sharpness to his gaze that oddly makes Yuuri feel at ease. “Do you think I’d go around shedding my skin for every lucky bastard who drunkenly makes out with me? I’ve been yearning to give it to you forever, Yuuri. Make no mistake, that’s the only reason you got your hands on it.”
“Oh,” Yuuri mumbles, tempted to hide his face in his hands and just – scream a little. “That’s not how the stories go.”
Viktor rolls his eyes.
“Humans have an active imagination and a superiority complex, that’s all.”
That makes Yuuri laugh, even if the sound comes out dry and ragged.
“You…really want to marry me?”
“Yes,” Viktor says gently, face softening. “I didn’t realize I’d left room for doubt.”
Yuuri thinks the inside of Viktor’s head must be a very interesting place.
He slides out of the chair, standing on shaky legs.
“I, um, I need to think about this. Excuse me.”
Viktor nods, a hollow smile flickering across his lips. Yuuri doesn’t miss the sadness in his eyes when he tips his head back and closes them. He looks resigned, like he knows what Yuuri will decide and that it won’t be what Viktor wants.
Which is strange because Viktor seems to be telling him that what he wants is to marry Yuuri.
He can’t think of any universe where that makes sense. Viktor is beautiful and brilliant, and Yuuri’s just a dime-a-dozen dance major striving to make ends meet in between rehearsals and nervous breakdowns.
They’re not even twenty-five for fuck’s sake; they can’t just jump into marriage. Well, maybe Viktor can because everything he’s saying implies that he’s kind of immortal or at least very long-lived, and who knows how old he really is. And he wants to give all that up for Yuuri who can’t even comprehend–
He stops a foot away from his bed, spins on his heels, and all but runs back to the living room.
He finds Viktor as he left him, splayed on the couch like a lovely, cold painting.
“Viktor!”
Viktor starts, blinking bemusedly at Yuuri, and suddenly, he’s not cold at all.
Yuuri walks over, takes Viktor’s face between his hands, and kisses him soundly. Viktor is still and unresponsive for a second but then jerks into motion, mouth parting under Yuuri’s, hands coming up to grasp his arms. It’s tempting to lose himself in Viktor’s familiar warmth, but Yuuri forces himself to pull away, staying close, tucked between the V of Viktor’s legs.
“This whole, uh, sea-marriage thing. Is there a time limit on it?”
Viktor blinks, dazed. Yuuri waits until comprehension and tentative hope crawls into his eyes.
“As in, does it need to happen immediately after the bond is formed?”
Viktor solemnly shakes his head.
“No,” he murmurs, so low that Yuuri has to strain to hear. “You can wait for…a few years, at most. Two, or if you push it, three.”
Yuuri nods, nervousness and determination both warring inside him.
“Okay. That’s – that’s doable.”
“Yuuri,” Viktor sighs, smiling a little. “What are you talking about?”
“Three years is enough time to make you fall in love with me.”
Viktor gasps, and Yuuri greedily drinks in the sound.
“B-but I already am.”
“No, no you’re not, you can’t be.”
“Yuuri–”
“But you will be,” Yuuri promises. “In love with me; not with the idea of me or the idea of love, but with me. We can do it, Viktor. Please give me a chance.”
“You have it,” Viktor says, hands fluttering up to touch Yuuri’s cheeks. “Oh, Yuuri, you’ve always had it.”
“Good.” Yuuri bends to rest his forehead on Viktor’s. The skin under his thumbs turn wet and he wipes away Viktor’s tears while blinking against his own. “You know you might decide a few decades in the sea is better than spending your life with me.”
Viktor almost violently pushes Yuuri back.
“Never,” he says fiercely, blue eyes burning.
And Yuuri – for a moment, Yuuri believes him.
“Three years, he said. Might change my mind, he said,” Viktor grumbles, straightening his perfectly straight cuff. “Joke’s on you, because you’re my husband now and it’s only been two years.”
Yuuri, clad in a matching white suit with Viktor’s sealskin draped over it like a fashionable but incongruent accessory, only smiles as his fiancé pouts up a storm.
He waits until Viktor looks away and then kisses him, licking away the pout. When he draws back, Viktor is smiling and flushed.
“Technically, we’re not husbands yet. But very soon. I wholeheartedly admit I’m a fool for ever thinking otherwise.”
“Good,” Viktor says primly, expression severe, before breaking into a grin that still makes Yuuri’s heart skip a beat. “I’m so happy, my Yuuri.”
Yuuri grins back, echoing the sentiment.
Viktor’s mother, a selkie who looks remarkably like her son except with grey eyes instead of blue, beckons them over from her spot on the altar.
There’s only the three of them here. There will be a bigger ceremony later, with all their friends and family, human and selkie, attending. This is the one that matters though; the moment that will bind them together for the rest of their lives.
Viktor gives Yuuri a look, one full of gentle concern.
“You ready?” he asks, extending his hand towards Yuuri.
“I love you,” Yuuri answers, and he doesn’t think he ever wants to get used to the way those words make Viktor go pink and soft.
Their hands grasp and entwine, warm and firm.