Work Text:
Yuuri stares out the darkened plane window, relief rinsing down his spine when the reflection of his husband leaned against his shoulder becomes suffused with the familiar orange and white constellations of home.
“Vitya,” he whispers when the pilot announces their impending landing and the interior lights flood back, hollowing out his tired eyes with harsh yellow light. Viktor doesn’t stir, and Yuuri tries very hard not to be bothered by that fact. They’re both exhausted—wrung out by press appearances and competing and probably too much celebratory alcohol—and then there’s the cold Viktor’s been fighting since the previous evening.
“Just allergies,” he had waved off Yuuri’s concerns after the first sneezing fit. Yuuri had maintained that it was a cold at best, a point Viktor had been forced to concede when he woke up the next morning to snowfall and a nasty dry cough.
“Vitya,” Yuuri tries again, brushing Viktor’s hair from his forehead. He tries not to let his fingers linger there, to obsess over the amount of damp heat radiating off Viktor’s skin and whether or not it’s normal. Yuuri’s spent the majority of the flight dipping into anxiety mind and desperately clawing himself out again.
‘Is Viktor’s flush normal? It looks dark but it could be the lighting. Isn’t it too dry in the cabin? The recirculated air can’t be good for him. What if he catches something else on top of this? Did he ever get his flu shot? I know I told him to get it but did he? Oh god, what if he ends up with pneumonia? What if—’
Then headphones, music, closing his eyes, mentally performing his routines on loop until he’s almost able to convince himself that he’s forgotten about the sorry state of his husband, currently dampening his shoulder with mucus.
Viktor finally stirs when the wheels touch down. He leans away from Yuuri, towards the window, and crackles a loud, dry cough into the crook of his arm. “Good morning, lovely,” Viktor smiles when he’s caught his breath, as though he hadn’t been hacking up a lung seconds earlier.
“Morning,” Yuuri says instead of, ‘how are you feeling?’ “You slept through the flight,” he says instead of threatening to drag Viktor to the doctor like he really wants to.
Viktor nods and stretches his arms over his head before crumpling and coughing again into his hands.
“You sound worse,” Yuuri observes, shaking his foot like he always does when his nervous energy has nowhere to go.
Viktor unbuckles his seatbelt, pats Yuuri’s knee to stop him rattling their chairs. “It always gets worse before it gets better,” he reasons.
Yuuri moves into the aisle and slings Viktor’s carry on over his shoulder before reaching for his own. “Let’s stop off at the pharmacy.”
“We’ve got stuff at home,” Viktor waves him off. He scoots into the aisle seat, tries to take his bag from Yuuri but gives up when Yuuri moves it to his opposite shoulder. Viktor can’t see Yuuri’s eyes through the striplight gleaming off his glasses, but he can imagine his look to be somewhere in the vicinity of ‘don’t even think about it.’
“All we have are expired cough drops and tea.” Yuuri steps back to let Viktor in front of him when the crowd starts shifting forward.
“Sweetheart—” Viktor links his arm with Yuuri’s when they’re finally free from the packed fuselage and able to stand shoulder to shoulder without casualty. “it’s late. I’m tired. Let’s go home and worry about it in the morning, hm?”
“We don’t even have tissues.” Yuuri steers them to the baggage claim, unblinking.
Viktor’s mouth tips into a half smile. “Who needs tissues when I have a perfectly good husband to wipe my nose on?” He asks, nuzzling his nose into Yuuri’s shoulder.
“Vitya,” Yuuri whines but doesn’t pull away. Viktor tries to laugh, but it gets bunched up in his lungs, tumbling from his throat in a series of shoulder-rocking coughs.
“Swallowed wrong,” he croaks with what Yuuri thinks is meant to be a self-deprecating smile but looks more like a grimace.
Yuuri doesn’t fight him, mostly because he doesn’t want him to wreck his voice further by talking. He does insist on driving when they exit the airport and the frigid evening air settles like a stone in Viktor’s chest—folding him in half with sharp, gasping coughs.
“Dry out tonight,” Viktor says on the way home after his fifth coughing fit. His breathing is shallow and painful-sounding, catching on the constricted border of his lungs, burning fire in his irritated throat.
Yuuri holds the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip and doesn’t comment.
When they get home, Yuuri sets about tearing their house apart for the humidifier while Viktor stretches out on the bed fully clothed, calling for Yuuri to leave it, to come cuddle him and Makkachin to sleep.
Yuuri follows Viktor to the bedroom a half hour later with the humidifier under his arm, a steaming mug of tea in his hand. “Tea,” he says, handing the cup to Viktor—his bottom lip stuck between his teeth.
“Bed,” Viktor rebuts but takes it, anyway.
“Just a minute,” Yuuri says. He sets up the humidifier with practiced ease, then plants himself at the foot of the bed and starts untying Viktor’s shoes, slipping them from his feet along with his socks.
Viktor sips on his tea and watches silently. For once, lets himself be fully immersed in the comfort of being taken care of so thoroughly, so tenderly. He dozes off at some point, lulled to sleep by the wet whirring of the humidifier and the feeling of Yuuri’s deft fingers, kneading up his calves.
It takes a few long moments to orient himself when he wakes. He’s dressed in pajama pants, propped up against something warm and soft with a wet cloth on his forehead and the smell of menthol burning his nostrils. He tips his head back, surprised to find Yuuri staring down at him.
“What time is it?” He tries to say, but the words grate molten hot on his tonsils, plunging him into a wheezing coughing fit.
Yuuri traces the outline of Viktor’s spine with his fingertips till he’s able to catch his breath again, red-cheeked and exhausted, swallowing convulsively around the urge to cough. Yuuri picks up the washcloth—fallen in Viktor’s lap during the fit—and rewets it in the bowl next to the bed. He smooths it over Viktor’s forehead, rubs his other hand into Viktor’s chest. “We’re going to the doctor in the morning,” he says. “No arguments.”
Viktor closes his eyes and leans his forehead into Yuuri’s neck. He’s miserable and feverish but also safe and loved. He doesn’t have the ability to voice it to Yuuri at the moment, so he presses a kiss to his collarbone, enjoys the grounding reminder of Yuuri’s heartbeat against his shoulder.
He’s never been one to give in to sickness, usually content to power through it—deny it until he can’t. But for the first time, despite the concrete in his chest, the acid lining his tonsils, he can’t help but think, ‘maybe this isn’t so bad, after all.’