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Viktor has Yuuri get into the back of the taxi with Makkachin while he stuffs the almost-forgotten suitcase into the trunk. When he slips in through the door on the other side, he murmurs the address to the driver and tucks himself close to Yuuri, hugging his belly and draping his arm across his shoulders to more comfortably play with his hair. Makkachin sits on the floor between Yuuri’s legs, silently nudging his nose against his stomach. Yuuri’s crammed up against the inside of the door and he need not be with all of that space on Viktor’s left side, but his shoulders slacken for the first time in twenty-four hours.
“You were wonderful, Yuuri,” Viktor sighs, pecking his hair. “You must be exhausted.”
“I’m just glad that Makkachin is alright. I… I’m so sorry.”
“About what, solnyshko?”
“Everything. How worried you were… my mistakes…”
Viktor presses even closer, somehow. He curls his hand around Yuuri’s and brings it up to his mouth again, pecking each of his knuckles. “I was so happy watching you, Yuuri. I missed you so much but I was so happy to know that we’d be seeing each other again soon.”
Yuuri turns his hand over, pressing his palm against Viktor’s, breathing deeply.
“Was Yakov nice to you? I told him to be gentle but he’s always been so awkward about this kind of thing; all of the practice he got with me seems to have gone to waste,” Viktor chuckles into his hair. Yuuri wants to ask, he wants so badly to ask.
“Hai. I think I understand now why you coach the way you do.”
“Oh? Yes, well, Yakov led by bad example.”
He tucks his chin further beneath the collar of his coat, cracked lips tugging upwards.
He doesn’t fall asleep in the car, not quite. Viktor mostly sits quietly, touching Yuuri’s hair and his face and rubbing his hands to warm him up. “Have a hot shower when we get home,” he says, “Mama Hiroko gave me some fresh towels for your room.”
Yuuri nods a little, loosely occupied by Makkachin’s freshly brushed curls under his fingers. He thinks about the shower and bed and Viktor all the way home.
Yuuri flicks the bathroom light on and leaves the door open as he steps inside, sliding his glasses down and off of his nose once he’s in front of the mirror. He leaves the door open, ajar for Viktor to stand in the frame of, to stand and watch him get ready to reset himself under the warm water of the soon-to-run shower.
“I missed you,” Viktor says again, crossing his arms and blowing his fringe out of his left eye. He’s soft all over, slack against the doorframe and tucking the curve of his relief beneath his top teeth. He’s behaving like a teenager, Yuuri thinks, and feels his own fingers itch shyly for that company anyway.
“Do you want to, uh…” Yuuri mumbles, looking down at his hands, fingers splayed on the bathroom counter. Only now that his glasses are off can he stand to tip his head towards Viktor and ask, “Can you stay?”
Viktor’s joy swells considerably, so much so that his cheeks almost eclipse his eyes completely.
“Of course!”
He lives in Yuuri’s space these days, so it’s not a problem for him nor a surprise to Yuuri that he helps Yuuri get his sweater over his head and his jeans down past his hips. He lingers there while Yuuri gets rid of his socks and underwear, and gets his arms around his waist—slender, and without the give of his usual summer body. It’ll come back, though, it always does.
Viktor keeps him held against his chest for a few long moments, sighing against his neck. Makkachin is already snoozing at the end of Viktor’s bed, down the hall.
They can’t let each other go, it turns out. Yuuri hardly wants to go to the shower and Viktor likely wouldn’t allow him to if he tried. So they find their compromise, all in slow breathing and rustling fabric, and then Viktor is stepping into the cubicle with him, minutes later.
It’s not built to contain more than one person, but that’s fine. Being cramped under the shower head means they don’t need to take turns with the water, Viktor giggles in between kisses along Yuuri’s shoulders and upper back. Yuuri, in all of his years watching Viktor wink at the cameras following him, hadn’t expected the pristine portrait to collapse away so quickly. Viktor is all limbs; coordinated to the nth degree, of course, but clinging, needing, wanting, all the same. Thrown out to welcome Yuuri in the small hours at the airport.
He can’t think of what else to say—maybe because he hasn’t slept for an entire day or because Viktor’s hands soaping up his stomach and chest are impeding anything of substance he can contribute to the quiet—but Viktor doesn’t seem to mind. He never minds, even when he doesn’t quite understand. Yuuri thinks he understands, tonight.
The hot water loosens the ache in his neck and his shoulders but it turns him incredibly drowsy, too. So much so that Viktor has to help him out of the cubicle when they’re properly rinsed and have him lean back against the counter while he towels him off. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he finds the energy to thank Viktor for his help. Viktor only squeezes him tighter, nudges his cheek with his nose.
It’s November and only an hour ago Yuuri was chilled to the bone, but they both make their way to his bedroom and collapse into his single bed, bare-skinned with only the duvet and one another to warm them. Viktor reaches up over Yuuri’s head to slide the curtains shut, leaving just enough space for the moonlight to crack through above them. Makkachin pads in and climbs between them at some point, a perfect weight atop their tangled legs.
Summer had been a long dance; Yuuri hasn’t ever felt a time so fleeting somehow still pace itself to point of desperation. But it all falls away, right there in bed. For the first time since he was a child, winter isn’t something to dread.