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Two days after Yuuri entirely loses control of his body and touches Viktor’s hair during practice, Viktor comes to his door with a request.
Okay, that’s not technically accurate; Yuuri is trying to download some Skyrim mod Phichit recommended (no, Yuuri, I promise it’s not a sex one this time—but you have to admit that was pretty funny, c’mon) when he hears something clatter just outside his door, followed by muffled cursing in Russian.
This strikes Yuuri as bizarre. He’s not so surprised by Viktor being outside his door as he is by Viktor not announcing his presence. Viktor isn’t the type to just… lurk.
He makes sure the mod is downloading to the correct folder, then goes to open the door. He’s met by the sight of Viktor looking more nervous than Yuuri has ever seen him, hands filled with several small bottles.
Before Yuuri can begin to think of a response to this, Viktor blurts out, “I can explain!” He proceeds to open his mouth, make a slight choking noise, and decidedly not explain.
Yuuri is tired. Practice today was gruelling as always, and he really wants to get back to his computer to check that the mod Phichit sent him is actually going to overhaul the nature textures, not turn all of the trees into hands. He’s pretty sure Viktor’s discomfort has to do with the bottles in his hands—all of their labels are borderline illegible, but Yuuri peers down at them nonetheless, trying to puzzle out this interaction.
“I… I need you to help me re-dye my roots,” Viktor says. He sounds slightly pained.
It’s probably good that Yuuri is as tired as he is. It’s probably also good that this isn’t happening to sixteen year old Yuuri; while he would have relished the chance to touch Viktor’s hair, there’s also a high likelihood he would’ve broken down into tears at the news that that hair was, in fact, not natural.
The Yuuri of now is only mildly surprised. He’s grown as a person. He can see the validity of the points on both sides of the Great Viktor Nikiforov Hair Debate.
“How—”
“Please don’t tell anyone!”
“—are your eyebrows the same colour?” Yuuri says. As an afterthought, he tacks on, “I’m not about to tell the media, Viktor. I hate the media.”
Viktor, for some reason, looks surprised. Surprised and somewhat pleased. And—embarrassed? A broad spectrum of emotions are currently displayed on Viktor’s face, and Yuuri doesn’t have the mental capacity to pick through every single one, however much he wishes he did.
“I dye my eyebrows as well,” he says, as though that should be obvious; which, in retrospect, Yuuri guesses it is. “You’re really not going to tell anyone? And I mean anyone, I didn’t even let Yurio tell his grandfather. It was in the NDA.”
“Wait, hold on, start from the beginning.” Yuuri thinks he can feel a headache coming on behind his eyes. “When did an NDA get involved? You made a fifteen year old sign an NDA?”
Viktor can’t flippantly wave a hand, given that they’re both full of bottles, but he gives it his best shot. “I just made him sign something that said not to tell anyone about it, it wasn’t a big deal. Mila and Georgi signed it too.”
Yuuri is solidly ninety percent certain that’s not how NDAs work, but he’s not about to quibble with Viktor when he’s looking so… un-Viktor Nikiforov. Now that he’s looking closely, he can see the slight discrepancy in colour between his roots and the rest of his hair. Beyond that, he’s wearing probably the ugliest t-shirt Yuuri has ever seen him in; though he’s not bright pink anymore, his flush is receding in a weirdly patchy and, honestly, ugly way.
He looks adorable.
For God’s sake, he can’t think that about his coach. He can’t think that about his… friend?
Well, you think I’m adorable, his inner Phichit points out. When he pushes that thought away on the grounds that this is completely different, mind-Phichit gives him a distinctly unimpressed look. He tells mind-Phichit to fuck off.
“Yuuri?” Viktor asks cautiously. Yuuri has no idea what his face was just doing, but judging by Viktor’s expression it can’t have been anything good.
He makes his mind up. “What do you need me to do?” he says, moving to take one of the bottles from Viktor’s hands. Viktor almost looks like he doesn’t want to let Yuuri touch any of them, but gives in when Yuuri gently pokes his arm.
The label of the one Yuuri picked is in French. He supposes that’s just the kind of person Viktor is.
“That’s toner,” Viktor supplies helpfully.
“Cool,” Yuuri replies, already out of his depth. “Should we go to the bathroom?”
“Ah,” Viktor says, as though this has only just occurred to him. “Probably.”
As they move to the bathroom, Yuuri absently notes that the temperature is starting to climb. He’s not sure Viktor’s bedroom has air-conditioning; he might have to requisition a fan from Mari so their guest doesn’t literally melt into the floor.
Viktor’s saying something as he sets down the bottles on the countertop. Yuuri is not listening, given that he is trying to figure out where Viktor will sit; if he sits on the toilet seat lid, Yuuri won’t be able to access the back of his head—the floor will be too far down, the countertop will be too high up… Yuuri’s running out of options when he catches sight of the small stepladder that inexplicably lives in the bathroom. He’s never been so grateful for its continued existence in his life.
He sets it up next to the sink, and tunes back into Viktor’s chatter. “... so Mila ended up helping from then on. She’s been the one doing most of the helping for the past few years, actually, because Georgi has almost messed up more times than I can count.”
“Wait, Mila’s been dyeing your hair? Hang on, sit down—how long has she been doing that?”
“Probably since she was thirteen?” Viktor responds.
“I can’t believe you outsourced that job to a child.”
“I mean, to be fair, that’s when I started dyeing it myself.”
“Imagine,” Yuuri says, “if you’d just gone to a hairdresser’s.” He stares at the instructions on the back of the bleach bottle. They are written in Cyrillic. He’s not sure why this keeps happening to him.
Viktor twists around in his makeshift seat and plucks the bottle out of Yuuri’s hands. “I can mix this up,” he says, which is a relief. Yuuri doesn’t know how or why he’s here, and he doesn’t know why Viktor is trusting him not to fuck up his hair—arguably the most important non-skating part of his public persona.
“Anyway,” Viktor continues, completely unaware of Yuuri’s internal crisis, “I couldn’t go to a hairdresser’s because the mystery became a part of my brand. Everyone wants to know the truth about whether it’s natural, which obviously means that no one can know.”
Yuuri is becoming painfully aware that Viktor has a few screws loose. In fairness, he himself probably does too; you don’t get to an international level in any field without being slightly out of your tree.
“How did you manage to do it yourself before Mila and Georgi found out?” He asks, watching as Viktor measures out bleach powder and some unknown, viscous liquid into a bowl.
“With great difficulty,” Viktor laughs, “It used to take me an entire evening. I was always terrified that this would be the time it went wrong, but somehow it never did. I was very lucky.”
“And Georgi…?”
“Georgi managed to spot an uncoloured patch and made fun of me for it. I bet him he couldn’t do a better job, so he tried, and then we just… didn’t stop. Then, like I said, Mila found out by accident; she asked if she could help, and it became tradition.”
“Huh,” Yuuri says. “How did Yurio get involved?” He has a terrifying thought. “Please don’t say you let him anywhere near your hair.”
Viktor laughs again; it almost sounds involuntary. It echoes around the bathroom, and Yuuri is suddenly hyper-aware of how small the space is. “Darling Yurotchka is not allowed within ten feet of bleach. He just likes to be included.” A pause. “And to laugh about how old I am.”
Yuuri snorts. That sure sounds like Yurio.
“I think this should be okay,” Viktor says, turning around to pass Yuuri the now-mixed bleach. “It is…” He checks his phone. “7:56pm right now, so we should probably try getting all the roots done by 8pm so we can wash it off at 8:10.”
Yuuri snorts again. “And by ‘we’, you mean me.”
“You’ll do great! At the very least, you can’t be any worse than I used to be.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Coach.”
Yuuri wakes up at 9:46 am on a Sunday, utterly tangled in his bedsheets. He slowly becomes aware of the light filtering through his curtains, Makkachin sprawled across his legs, and the fact that he’s… shirtless?
This seems slightly odd to Yuuri. He could’ve sworn he was wearing a t-shirt when he went to sleep last night.
Upon further inspection, he finds it tangled around his right arm. What, is his first thought, followed closely by, how. He’s frowning vaguely at his elbow when the door slams open; there’s a moment of silence, so Yuuri can safely assume that it’s Viktor. Mari would have already tried to drag him from the bed by the ankles.
Yuuri frees his legs from under Makkachin, turns over and confirms that yes, the blur standing in the doorway does in fact have silver hair. He’s still not talking, just—well, he’s facing in Yuuri’s direction, so he’s going to assume Viktor’s looking at him.
“What,” Yuuri says, barely awake enough to even phrase it as a question, and not nearly awake enough to properly remember who it is he’s talking to.
There’s a few more seconds of silence, then: “Good morning! You seem to be making the most of your rest day.”
As if 10am is an unreasonably late time to wake up. Yuuri will never understand how Viktor’s brain works. He feels around blindly for his glasses; it takes about ten seconds to find them, but it’s worth every one when he slides them on to fix Viktor with what he hopes is a truly disparaging look.
Viktor doesn’t seem cowed, but that’s because he’s literally the worst person Yuuri has ever met. Yuuri gives up on trying to make him leave, and instead focuses on getting his t-shirt back on.
It’s a losing battle. After what feels like five minutes of puzzling out which appendage should go where in the Lovecraftian nightmare dangling from his arm, he gives up and peels it off entirely, abandoning it on the floor.
Viktor, who has been watching this happen with an expression of deep amusement, raises an eyebrow and opens his mouth.
“Don’t you dare,” Yuuri mutters.
“Wow!” he says.
For all his grace and agility on the ice, Viktor is not quite so adept at escaping imminent mortal peril. He begins his retreat approximately three seconds too late, meaning that Yuuri’s tackle smacks directly into his legs—they fall in a tangle of limbs, elegant in the way that only two internationally ranked figure skaters can be. Viktor narrowly avoids braining himself on the doorframe.
Viktor’s openly laughing now. “How—how did you even manage to move that quickly?” He tries to wiggle free of Yuuri’s arms, so Yuuri simply clings tighter.
“Natural talent,” Yuuri replies, absolutely determined not to let Viktor escape.
This, of course, is when Mari appears from a door further down the hallway. To her credit, though, she barely reacts to the two fully grown men wrestling on the floor; with a slight sigh, she says, “You’re awake, then. Are you two gonna come and help out, or are you gonna spend the whole morning cuddling?” She then heads off down the corridor, barely sparing either of them a second glance.
Yuuri’s self-consciousness, which was apparently taking a brief sabbatical, barrels back into him with the force and speed of a Shinkansen. He quickly disentangles himself from Viktor’s legs and pushes himself into a sitting position, quietly begging himself not to start blushing.
Viktor is characteristically unfazed by the situation. “It’s charitable of her to call that cuddling,” he says, flicking his fringe out of his eyes. “Although, if you wanted…” He winks. Yuuri feels his face heat up. Goddammit.
Instead of replying, he stands up and offers a hand to Viktor. “You heard her,” he says, pulling Viktor to his feet, “We have to help out.” He doesn’t wait for a response before quickly grabbing his previously abandoned t-shirt off the floor, then slipping past Viktor and down the corridor, internally cursing himself for still not managing to be normal about this whole thing. Oh, yeah, be yourself, Viktor! Himself is still hazardous to Yuuri’s emotional wellbeing.
He’s almost at the end of the hallway when he realises Viktor isn’t following him. “You coming?” he calls over his shoulder.
A pause. “Yes!” Viktor replies. When Yuuri turns to face him, his expression is unreadable. He calls Makkachin to him, then sweeps down the corridor and past Yuuri, shooting him a bright smile as he passes.
Being himself, in Viktor’s case, also means being a bit of a weirdo. Yuuri determinedly doesn’t pay attention to any of his feelings about that.
In the thirty seconds Yuuri’s been looking away, Viktor’s somehow managed to break the cap of his Ramune. Yuuri can quite honestly say he’s never seen that happen before.
They’re sitting on the ground just outside the rink, taking a quick break from practice—well, it was meant to be a quick break, but the plan changed when Viktor caught sight of the vending machines in the locker room. Yuuri doesn’t know how Viktor didn’t fully notice them in the… wow, two months since he arrived, but here they are.
“Yuuri,” Viktor whines, presenting the mangled cap of the Ramune, “It didn’t work.”
Yuuri sips his water. “You know,” he says conversationally, “the plastic isn’t meant to shear like that.” It’s a stupid thing to say, because obviously; Viktor probably already thinks he’s an idiot, but here Yuuri is, giving him even more reason to believe that.
Fuck. Yuuri takes a breath, and tries to beat his Anxiety Brain into submission.
Viktor just rolls his eyes. “Be nice, Yuuri,” he says. He’s almost pouting. Yuuri, yet again, feels caught between the lingering image of five time world champion Viktor Nikiforov and this Viktor, his Viktor.
Aforementioned ‘Yuuri’s Viktor’ is definitely pouting, now. He is also looking at the juice bottle like it contains the secrets of the universe; after a few seconds of this, Yuuri decides to take pity on him, and holds out a hand.
“Let me try.” He receives the bottles from an entirely too enthusiastic Viktor, apprehensively places his thumb against the ball in the opening and pushes as hard as he can. He is fully, painfully aware that it’s going to be very embarrassing if this doesn’t work.
The ball doesn’t shift. Yuuri thinks he can hear Viktor muffling laughter.
“Oh, shut up,” Yuuri grumbles, “it’s not like you managed any better.”
Viktor stands up and looks around—it’s not entirely obvious what he’s looking for until he walks over to one of the walls, leans over it, and starts picking around for something in the lawn. Yuuri has a sudden, horrifying, idea of what he’s trying to find.
“Viktor,” he calls, “are you going to try opening your Ramune by hitting it with a rock?”
A pause. “Maybe,” is the response.
Yuuri feels laughter rising in his chest; he doesn’t think Viktor deserves the courtesy of him trying to tamp it down.
“Viktor,” he says in what he hopes is a disapproving tone.
Viktor, seemingly having found what he was looking for, stands up and returns to where Yuuri is sitting. He unceremoniously dumps a handful of small rocks in Yuuri’s lap—which, rude—then sits down directly in front of him, nearly smacking their heads together as he does.
He holds out a hand expectantly. Yuuri isn’t sure why he’s enabling this, but also knows with absolute certainty that he isn’t giving up a chance to watch five time world champion Viktor Nikiforov attempt to open a Ramune bottle with a rock. He selects one at random and hands it over.
Viktor presses the rocks against the ball with all of his not inconsiderable strength. It slips, and the ball doesn’t budge.
Yuuri completely gives up on suppressing his giggles.
“No, this is—this should work!” Viktor exclaims. He tries again, then again; the plastic around the ball is gaining a good number of scratches. The ball itself? Not so much. “Maybe I need to use a different rock.”
“I don’t think…” Yuuri passes him another rock, slightly longer and thinner, “I don’t think this is going to be the answer. I think you might just have messed up.”
“Such a lack of trust! I thought—” the rock slips, and Viktor somehow overbalances and crashes face first into Yuuri’s shoulder.
“You thought?” Yuuri prompts, now laughing even harder.
Viktor sits back up. “Why don’t you try, then,” he huffs, pushing the bottle at Yuuri. Yuuri is under no illusions as to his ability to open this Ramune with a rock; he tries anyway, if only to make Viktor feel a little better about his own inability.
The rock slips on attempts one through seven. Viktor leans in to look closer, and his bangs obscure Yuuri’s own view of what the hell he’s doing.
“Can you please,” he starts, then thinks better of it and just tucks Viktor’s hair behind his ear himself. Sadly, the Ramune is now fully visible. He thinks it’s laughing at him.
“Can we give up?” Yuuri asks instead.
“Absolutely not,” Viktor replies, snatching the bottle back. “I will not lose to a bottle of juice.”
“Yeah, you won’t. It’s a bottle of juice. There’s no ‘winning’ in this situation.”
Viktor point-blank ignores him. Yuuri is starting to properly see why he’s a five time world champion. He’s also starting to see why Coach Yakov went grey prematurely.
After two more attempts, Yuuri says “I’m just going to smash the neck of it,” and makes a lunge for the bottle. Viktor rolls backwards and and away from him in an objectively ungraceful fashion and mutters some barely audible Russian at him.
“You get two more tries,” Yuuri says, after a brief standoff, “then I’m throwing it away.”
Saying this must galvanise Viktor, because on his next attempt Yuuri hears a quiet pop, then a clatter, then Viktor looks up at him with one of the most triumphant smiles Yuuri has ever seen. He’s not even sure Viktor’s looked that happy on the podium.
At a loss for anything more eloquent, Yuuri simply says, “Wow.”
“I win!” Viktor says. He then takes a swig of his juice—or tries to anyway. He tips the bottle too far back, and the ball pops right back into the opening.
Yuuri lets out an indescribable noise and lapses back into hysterics.
Yu-chan chooses this moment exactly to come and check on them. She freezes as soon as the doors open; Yuuri can’t imagine how they must look. Viktor is staring at his Ramune like he’s been personally victimised by it, and Yuuri himself is lying on the floor, laughing so hard that he thinks he might be crying.
“Are you two… okay?” She asks tentatively.
Yuuri sits up and tries to pull himself together enough to reply. Viktor beats him to the punch, though.
“Yes!” He says, a wide smile in place, though he looks slightly dead behind the eyes. He braces the bottle against his stomach and presses the ball in with his thumb.
Yuuri can see that Viktor doesn’t expect the ball to move. Yuuri doesn’t expect it to move; it took several minutes and an assortment of rocks to open the bottle the first time. Yu-chan hasn’t had to witness the absolute travesty of that last few minutes, but Yuuri can see that even she’s regarding Viktor with skepticism.
Opening it the first time must’ve weakened the seal, however, because the ball pops back into the bottle, and juice sprays absolutely everywhere. Yuuri is peripherally aware of Viktor swearing viciously in an assortment of languages as he rights the bottle before it loses any more liquid.
“How did that even happen,” Yu-chan asks, awestruck.
If he thought about it, Yuuri could probably slap together some explanation about the pressure from the carbonated drink and the fact that they’d been jostling the bottle semi-continuously for a good amount of time. In the moment, though, all that he thinks to say is, “Natural talent.”
Viktor looks at the Ramune, forlorn. “I don’t think I’m going to buy one of these again,” he says.
It’s one o’clock in the morning, and Yuuri is still very much awake.
There’s probably a few things he could blame this on; the heat, the ambient noise, insomnia, anxiety—the list truly is endless. It’s not particularly useful to find things to blame, though. He’s just keeping himself awake by thinking about them.
He checks his clock again, and ugh, it’s now 1:12am. Brilliant. Rather than continue to lament his situation, he resolves to go get a drink. Sometimes that tricks his brain into shutting off. Occasionally. If he’s lucky, he’ll pass out on the kitchen floor. Maybe someone’ll even take pity on him in the morning and drag him into the dining room.
He doesn’t want to turn any lights on; too much effort, and he’s probably already going to disturb someone with his footsteps. He settles on widening his eyes more, imagining that the moonlight seeping under the doors is illuminating more than it actually does. He takes the stairs slowly, though muscle memory aids his descent more than he’d expected. Apparently five years isn’t enough to lose the knowledge of your childhood home, even in pitch-darkness.
He’s almost in the kitchen when he registers that the light is on, which probably means there’s a person in there. Or a burglar. Whatever, Yuuri thinks, steadfastly ignoring the way his mind starts spinning into overdrive at the thought of a potential intruder. He tries very, very hard to put the thought out of his mind before stepping into the kitchen. The ‘intruder’—well.
Viktor, for his part, was obviously not expecting company. When he catches sight of Yuuri in the doorway he visibly jolts in surprise and makes a noise that Yuuri would usually expect from one of Makkachin’s toys.
Yuuri pauses in the doorway. “Hi,” he says.
“Good evening,” Viktor responds. “Wait, what time is it?”
Yuuri yawns. “Something like… sixteen minutes past one?”
Viktor rubs the heel of one hand over his left eye. “Very specific; good morning, then. Why are you awake?” He waves his other hand, which has a—hm, a dark coloured something in it. His phone, probably. “I was… consulted. About boys. Milotchka seems to have forgotten about the time difference, tragically.” Viktor wakes the phone up and peers at the screen. “Wow, 1:16am. How about that.”
“Why’d you ask me for the time if you had your phone?” It was a mistake not to bring his glasses, Yuuri decides. The fine details of Viktor’s face are utterly lost to the space between them.
“I didn’t want to move.”
“Oh.” Yuuri doesn’t really know what to say to that, other than, “Fair enough.”
Viktor drops his phone back into his lap. “Well? Are you going to sit down, or just hover there?”
Yuuri yawns again. Sitting down sounds nice. “Sure.” Viktor’s features have come into perfect focus by the time Yuuri’s on the floor next to him, which is nice. He’s got a pretty face. It’d be a shame not to be able to see it, even in the dull lighting of the kitchen at this ungodly hour of the night.
Viktor’s looking at him—expectantly, Yuuri realises. He struggles to remember what was happening before he sat down. God, he really is tired.
Oh! That’s it. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says to Viktor, who grimaces sympathetically.
“Too hot? Or something else?”
Yuuri waves a hand. Well, more like he vaguely flops his hand around. It’s definitely not the most graceful gesture he’s ever made.
“A load of things,” he says, “It would probably be quicker to list what wasn’t keeping me awake.” Viktor’s expression takes on an edge of genuine concern, at which point Yuuri realises how what he just said might’ve sounded. “No, not like—bad things, just—” At a loss, he just scrunches his face up and sticks his tongue out. “You know?”
Viktor laughs. It’s so easy to make him laugh, Yuuri’s realised. His face seems to want to be smiling.
“Oh, I understand.” His bangs fall forward to obscure one eye; Yuuri’s gaze catches on the motion of his hand as he pushes the hair back behind his ear. “I always—”
“How do you make everything you do look so elegant,” Yuuri blurts out, more frantic than questioning. He’s barely had the time to register he’s said the words, let alone feel embarrassed about them, when Viktor somehow infiltrates his mind and figures out exactly what he meant.
“Oh! You mean, with my hands?” Viktor holds out a hand in front of himself, fingers outstretched. “I think it’s because of my terrifying spider fingers.”
Yuuri can’t help it—he snorts. “Your what?” He asks.
Viktor is, for once, the one that seems embarrassed. It’s probably wrong of Yuuri to take some kind of satisfaction from that; he assures himself that that satisfaction has nothing (nothing!) to do with the adorably hilarious shade of pink Viktor’s entire face has turned.
“I—well, that’s what Georgi always called them—Yuuri! Don’t laugh!” Yuuri’s definitely not going to stop laughing anytime soon, but he tries to be slightly less loud about it. “Seriously, though, look.” Viktor holds up the same hand next to Yuuri, fingers still outstretched, and nods towards Yuuri’s own hand.
When Yuuri takes the hint and places his palm against Viktor’s he finds that… wow, his fingers are very long.
“What the hell?” Yuuri says.
“See?!” Viktor replies, triumphant.
The last joint of his fingers is almost against the ends of Yuuri’s own. “You definitely aren’t that much taller than me,” Yuuri says, eyes narrow in utter bafflement.
“And my wrists are weirdly thin, as well. I can actually…” he trails off as he takes his hand away from Yuuri’s and wraps it around his own wrist; his thumb and pinkie fingers neatly overlap. “I think I just have strange body proportions.”
“Huh,” Yuuri says, eyes still fixed on Viktor’s hands. “So you’re telling me that the answer to all those debates about your unearthly grace is just… that you’re tall and have weird hands?” He frowns. “I guess it’s more believable than you secretly being a fae prince. Less fun, though.”
“People really thought that?” Viktor asks, grinning.
“People think anything and everything about you, Viktor,” Yuuri says. “You should know that by now.”
“I suppose so…”
The conversation grinds to a halt. Yuuri’s not sure where he stepped wrong, but he’s tired enough to, for once, truly believe that he can set it right again.
“My weird body thing is way more boring,” he says—quietly, apparently, because Viktor looks over at him with a small “Hm?”
“It’s just,” Yuuri says, holding out his hand. When Viktor frowns at it in confusion, Yuuri laughs. “Your hand, please.”
With clear suspicion, Viktor gives his hand to Yuuri, who wastes no time in placing Viktor’s fingertips on the joint at his jaw. He’s been stressed all day (and all night), so it should be pretty easy to…
The joint gives a satisfying, yet painful, pop! as Yuuri opens it just a little bit wider than it wants to go; Viktor jumps and makes another high pitched squeaking noise as it does.
“What on earth was that?” He asks.
“The doctor said it’s… tension, I think? Too much tension in my neck and upper shoulders. I think it goes up into my jaw and makes it do, uh. That.”
“Wow!” Viktor says. “That’s not good at all!”
Yuuri smiles wryly. “I’m aware.”
Viktor finally removes his hand from Yuuri’s face; the place where his hand was resting suddenly feels approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun.
“On reflection, I don’t have too much to complain about,” Viktor says, smiling slightly at his own hand.
“I, um,” Yuuri says, ostensibly in response to Viktor’s own statement. He’s forgotten what the conversation was about. “Yeah.”
Viktor laughs, again. “Okay, I think it’s time for bed.” He stands, then offers a hand to Yuuri. “Come on, up.”
Without skates, Yuuri’s eye level isn’t quite parallel with Viktor’s; it’s annoying, because it gives Yuuri less of an excuse to analyse the exact colour of his eyes, but also nice, because it leaves him a good view of Viktor’s nose. It’s a nice nose.
“Mmhmm,” Yuuri says. Viktor gives him a weird look.
“You really need sleep,” he says, starting to tug Yuuri back to his room by the wrist. Yuuri yawns. He’s probably right.
“Will you let me have a lie-in, Coach?” He asks, although he already knows the answer will be—
“Absolutely not! With any luck, you’ll be tired enough to get a real sleep tomorrow night.”
“Ha. Unlikely.”
Viktor draws them both to a stop outside Yuuri’s room. “You don’t trust me to tire you out enough? Maybe I’m being too lenient with you.” He’s still smiling, somehow. Despite it being… hm.
“Is it 1:37am?” Yuuri asks.
Viktor lets go of Yuuri’s wrist, wakes up his phone and hisses in a breath of alarm. “It’s… 1:38am Yuuri how did you do that.”
Yuuri pats him lightly on the cheek. “I’m magic,” he says, “Maybe I was the fae prince all along.”
“I could believe it.” Viktor’s voice is both far quieter and far gentler than Yuuri could possibly have expected. It’s too late for this, he thinks.
“Okay! Goodnight,” he says, quickly opening the door to his room and stepping inside. “I hope you get some sleep as well.”
Viktor blinks.
“And, uh. I do trust you. I’ll get a good night’s sleep tomorrow,” Yuuri says, and God he’s said too much, he has definitely said too much. “Goodnight,” he says, again, uselessly.
He closes the door.
After a short argument with his own psyche, he decides to postpone all thinking until 7am; he stumbles over to his bed, sprawls atop the covers, and falls asleep in minutes.
Yuuri’s started looking forward to his and Viktor’s grocery runs; though they’re not so much fun as they are comfortable. There’s something quietly affirming about telling Viktor that a ten-pack of double A batteries probably isn’t necessary to buy every week.
On the surface, this week is no different; Yuuri is, however, peripherally aware that Viktor isn’t stopping to talk to as many people as he can in his stilted, broken Japanese. Practice, he’d call it.
Once he’s noticed the first absence, it’s easy to find the rest. His movements lack their usual easy fluidity, and he’s barely talking to Yuuri, let alone the other customers. Yuuri finds himself feeling more and more uneasy as they approach the till and pay for their groceries.
When they leave the store and Viktor’s wide smile falls from his face in the blink of an eye, Yuuri realises that there, that’s the most glaring absence. Viktor hasn’t been smiling.
Well, he... has, but not really, not like he meant it. Yuuri wonders when he started noticing the difference. He doesn’t have much time to wonder, though, given that Viktor still isn’t smiling and Yuuri hasn’t got a clue what to do about it.
Seeing Viktor’s face without even an attempt at a smile on it is a singularly strange experience. Or—maybe not? Yuuri doesn’t feel as anxious as he feels he should. He just really, really wants to give Viktor a hug, which is weird in itself; Yuuri’s generally the one being looked after. He largely finds that kind of behaviour incredibly obnoxious to be on the receiving end of, but... it sounds nice, to take care of someone else.
Yuuri spends half the walk back home trying to think of the best way to ask Viktor if he’s okay, and the other half worrying that he’s missed his chance to say it. They turn right at an intersection. Yuuri knows the onsen will be in view within two minutes. Viktor’s not-smile has gradually transformed into something resembling a grimace, or even a frown.
“Hey, Viktor,” Yuuri says. He then thinks better of it—too late, because Viktor’s already turned slightly to face him. He’s still not smiling, and Yuuri feels suddenly daunted by the amount of trust Viktor is placing in him. Don’t fuck this up! Says Yuuri’s brain.
“Are you… good?” Says Yuuri’s mouth.
A beat, then the corners of Viktor’s mouth creep upwards. Abort! No! Try again!
“I, uh, mean, are you okay?” Yuuri asks. Viktor is fully smiling now, and Yuuri feels like a complete shitheel.
“I’m okay,” Viktor replies, his tone level. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t—you don’t have to smile, you know,” Yuuri says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out quite so pathetically. “Why are you smiling?”
“I’m not… hm.” Viktor looks down the road, where home is just coming into view. His expression slowly, carefully folds back into something quieter. “I’m tired, I think.”
“Oh.” He’s not quite sure how to respond to that, for some reason.
There’s silence for a little longer as they reach home. Yuuri feels his heart rate speeding up. There’s a question he wants to ask, and he knows he’s going to ask it, but there’s a gap between his mind and his chest. There’s a lag time between what he knows he’ll do and what he thinks he should do, and it’s all tangled up and twisted. It’s what he wants. It’s going to happen.
They get home. They take off their shoes. The handles of the bags in Yuuri’s hands press into the flesh of his fingers and make him triply aware of his heartbeat. The question is there, and it’s going to come out of his mouth soon.
Viktor sighs.
“Can I give you a hug?” Yuuri says, meaning it so much that his jaw almost locks.
Viktor looks at him levelly, and opens his arms.
Yuuri inhabits himself in fits and starts, sometimes; awareness of something happening occurs before permission is given by his brain. He wraps his arms around Viktor’s ribcage and feels Viktor’s arms settle around his shoulders; his chest feels grounded but his limbs are tingling with some irrepressible energy. He represses it nonetheless as he feels Viktor’s head drop into the juncture between his neck and right shoulder.
Everything feels slightly swimmy. Yuuri can feel and hear Viktor’s breathing, and feel it again in the movement of his ribs. He suddenly feels near tears.
“We’re still in the foyer, you know,” Viktor says into Yuuri’s neck.
“Too bad,” Yuuri replies, “We’re not moving for at least five minutes.”
The sensation of someone laughing against your chest, Yuuri finds out, is… a lot. He’s suddenly so in his body he doesn’t know quite what to do with himself; the energy in his limbs suffuses through the rest of his body, most likely making him blush horrendously. It’s truly incredible how little he cares.
“Do you…” Yuuri trails off as Viktor exhales and presses himself impossibly closer, face almost fully hidden in Yuuri’s neck, now. “Is this okay?” he asks instead, only halfway sure of the answer.
Viktor exhales. His hands twitch on Yuuri’s back, then shift slightly inwards.
“Yeah,” he says, reply muffled into Yuuri’s collarbone.
“Good,” Yuuri says uselessly, wanting to be holding him more. He feels overheated; Viktor’s hair is tickling his nose, but he doesn’t want to move an inch from where he is. He settles for sighing out his next breath, revelling in the feeling of it fluttering against his skin.
Viktor, somehow, takes this to mean the hug is over. He tries pulling away, which—no, absolutely not. He only manages to escape about ten centimetres before he realises Yuuri’s not letting him go.
“No?” Viktor asks. He seems to think his mask is still up, but this close to his eyes Yuuri can plainly see the hope he’s trying to hide.
“No,” is all Yuuri can think to reply. He carefully draws a hand out from behind Viktor, to tuck the hair that’s forever falling in his face behind his ear; it lingers on Viktor’s cheek for about five more seconds than it should.
“I’ll—whenever you want,” he continues nonsensically, “just ask me. I want to be here for you.”
The expression on Viktor’s face is so different to anything Yuuri thinks he’s seen before, almost indecipherable, so Yuuri doesn’t attempt to decipher it. He just keeps looking, keeps his hand on Viktor’s face, keeps trying to somehow get across to Viktor exactly what he can’t quite verbalise.
“Okay,” Viktor finally responds.
And then, because Yuuri’s emotions seem to have taken his rational thinking brain out the back and shot it with a handgun, he uses his free hand to grab one of Viktor’s own and tangles their fingers together.
Viktor smiles properly, this time. Well, Yuuri thinks, I was probably going to lose my mind at some point. I’m glad it’s at least for a good cause.
They’re just quickly picking up some groceries for Kaasan after practice when Yuuri sees it.
The hairband is bright pink plastic. It is covered in tiny Hello Kittys. There is a medium sized, crumpled fabric flower slightly to the left of its apex. It is ¥250.
“It’s perfect,” Yuuri says, out loud, with God and Viktor Nikiforov as his witnesses.
“Hm?” Viktor says from two aisles over. If Yuuri doesn’t stop him, he’s liable to buy the exact wrong kind of tea. Again. Mari might actually kill him if that happens.
Yuuri is now holding the hairband; he’s not entirely sure when that happened, but he’s not particularly sad about it, either. He checks whether Mari’s boy band magazine is in stock (it’s not, and probably won’t be until Saturday), then brings the hairband over to Viktor for… approval? He’s definitely going to buy it even if Viktor hates it, so it’s more for a reaction than anything else.
Viktor is, predictably, looking through the selection of teas.
“Not sencha, Viktor,” Yuuri says, for the hundredth time this summer. Viktor’s hand moves fifteen centimetres to the right and takes the correct kind of tea, saving them both from a grisly fate at Mari’s hands.
“Thank you,” Viktor says absently. His hand is still slightly outstretched when he catches sight of the hairband; he freezes in place, eyes going wide. Yuuri can feel himself grinning, despite his efforts to maintain a neutral expression.
“What is that,” Viktor finally asks.
“The solution to all of your problems,” Yuuri responds. He knows he probably looks unbearably smug right now, but thinks it’s justified. This hairband is the best thing he’s ever seen. God’s perfect creation, his inner Phichit remarks.
Viktor narrows his eyes at Yuuri. Yuuri smiles unrepentantly at Viktor. The silence between them is broken only by the whirring of the air conditioning units overhead.
“You’re expecting me to wear that,” Viktor finally says, with deep resignation.
Instead of responding in words, Yuuri steps forwards and pushes the hairband into Viktor’s hair, sweeping his bangs back out of his face as he does. It probably takes a lot of restraint on Viktor’s part not to move—Yuuri’s glad his hands are occupied with groceries, or it might have been slightly more difficult.
He steps back to admire his handiwork. His hands unconsciously come up to cover his mouth. Viktor looks completely emotionless, though Yuuri is certain that he saw the corner of his mouth twitch upwards momentarily.
“Wow,” Yuuri says, “you look amazing.”
“I’m sure I do,” Viktor replies, without a hint of sarcasm.
“We’re buying this.”
Viktor sighs. “Of course.”
Yuuri gently removes the hairband from Viktor’s head; Viktor shakes his bangs out almost the second that it’s gone. The hairband sits, benevolent, in Yuuri’s hands.
“Imagine a world where I hadn’t seen this,” Yuuri says, awestruck.
Viktor has already turned away and started moving towards the checkout. “What a bleak world that would be,” he replies. Yuuri trails after him, still spellbound by the Hello Kitty hairband. He’s tempted to call it ‘one of a kind’, though the brittle, crunchy feel of the material suggests the exact opposite.
Yuuri jolts back to reality just moments before they leave the shop. “Are you sure we have everything?”
“Eggs, tea, and chicken,” Viktor replies dutifully. “Though, I won’t complain if you want to stay here a little longer.”
As if on cue, the door to the shop opens and a wave of heat rolls in. Viktor doesn’t quite manage to contain his expression of discomfort; Yuuri raises an eyebrow.
“Do you need to stock up on cold before we head out?”
Viktor raises his free hand dramatically to his forehead. “Just leave me here, Yuuri. I’ll start a new life in one of the freezers.”
“Okay, iceman, let’s go. It’s only ten minutes. I promise you won’t melt.”
“Easy for you to say.”
It takes thirty seconds—a new low—for Viktor to start complaining about the heat.
“It’s just… humans weren’t meant to survive at these temperatures.” They turn down a side street, Viktor automatically drifting into the shade.
“I’m pretty sure we’re both still alive. In fact, everyone in Hasetsu seems to be managing just fine.” Yuuri is overheating slightly, but he’s well and truly committed to teasing Viktor about this, now. He can’t admit defeat now.
Viktor sniffs haughtily. “I was built for a different climate,” he says, “it’s the secret to my success. I was engineered to be able to live permanently on the ice.”
“Sure.” They turn down another road, and Yuuri shades his eyes against the sun. “Have you ever considered wearing fewer clothes?” Hm. That’s not quite… “Okay, that’s—I didn’t mean it like—”
Viktor makes a noise like he’s been punched in the stomach. “That’s a new one,” he says incredulously, already turning his megawatt smile on Yuuri. It would be pretty ironic if Yuuri was the one to melt before they reached home, to just dissolve from embarrassment and float away down a storm drain.
“I meant,” Yuuri says, determinedly continuing through his ever-increasing flush, “you’re wearing jeans right now. That’s—you could probably at least wear shorts.”
“No, don’t worry, I get the idea,” Viktor says, half laughing his way through the sentence. “I just really didn’t think you’d ever be asking me to wear less clothes.”
“Really? Never?” Yuuri isn’t sure why he’s digging this hole deeper. He’s going to hit the earth’s molten core at this rate. The temperature of his face probably already rivals it, he doesn’t need to literally throw himself in.
Viktor’s eyes somehow go even wider. He’s sadly—sadly? no, this is a good thing for Yuuri’s sanity—not able to tell if Viktor’s blushing, given that he’s already flushed from the heat. Yuuri wants to die, a little bit. Melting would probably be a great idea right around now.
“Forget I said that, oh my god, I’m not—” he wants to cover his face. He wants to evaporate. “Help?”
“Oh my god, Yuuri,” Viktor says. He’s still laughing, albeit slightly strained. At least one of them is enjoying this.
“Do you… want the hairband?” Yuuri asks.
“Now?”
“For,” Yuuri gestures vaguely, “for the heat.”
Viktor considers it for a moment. “That’s actually a great idea. You should be my stylist!”
Yuuri manages a smile. “We both know you don’t mean that.”
“You never know.”
“The thing about zambonis,” Viktor says, both unprompted and strangely melancholic, “is that they’re kind of like special cars.”
They’re sitting together looking out at the rink; practice today was, as usual, long and exhausting. Yuuri doesn’t have the energy to try and make his way home yet, so he hasn’t tried. Viktor seems to be feeling approximately the same. By some tacit agreement, they hadn’t been attempting conversation until—well.
“I mean, I guess?” Yuuri replies, brain still somewhat on autopilot. “They’re pretty much just cars that can… only drive on ice.” He feels laughter building somewhere below his ribcage. “Just super, super not-useful cars.”
Viktor makes an affronted noise. “No, they are useful. They do fulfill a very distinct purpose, it’s just that that purpose is not transportation. It’s important for the ice to—”
“Yeah,” Yuuri cuts in, “but if we’re saying zambonis are special cars, then they’re not great at, you know, being cars.” He gestures vaguely at the length of the rink. “You get in the special car and travel what, sixty metres? Then you get out the car and… and need a different car.” He must’ve knocked a few brain cells loose on that last fall on the quad sal, because he’s definitely sniggering now.
“Okay, wait, I didn’t say zambonis are special cars,” Viktor says, clearly intent on defending the honour of zambonis around the globe, “I said they’re like special cars. We can’t judge them like they’re designed to be cars.”
“But what if I’m saying they’re special cars? Then I’m right, because the area of ground you can drive the special car on is very low.”
“Not in Russia, probably.” Viktor considers for a moment more. “Maybe.”
“Why are we even talking about zambonis, anyway?” Yuuri asks; Viktor simply points over to where Yu-chan is driving the zamboni onto the ice. “Well, okay, fine. I guess that answers that.”
Viktor snorts, tries (unsuccessfully) to pass it off as a cough, and then starts laughing anyway. Yuuri is genuinely unsure why he even bothered.
“Do you know how zambonis work?” Yuuri asks, trying to tune out Viktor’s continuing laughter. He doesn’t get a reply, so he pulls out his phone and looks it up himself.
He’s three pages down Google images when Viktor finally manages to get himself under control and leans in to see what Yuuri’s looking at; Yuuri manages to curb the impulse to angle his phone away from him, instead showing him the screen.
“Nice search term,” is Viktor’s highly relevant and considered input. Yuuri is of the opinion that ‘how do zambonis work??????’ is a perfectly sane thing to search to find out how zambonis work. The question marks serve a practical purpose.
Yuuri clicks an image with the highest resolution and the clearest labels he can find. For a moment, he and Viktor hunch over the phone in complete silence, both scanning the diagram intently.
“I really love the word ‘squeegee’,” Yuuri admits.
“My favourite part is definitely the horizontal screw and the vertical screw,” Viktor says, “they’re matching!”
“It’s like one of those ‘tag yourself’ things,” Yuuri replies, “you know, which one of the couple is the vertical screw and which is the horizontal screw.” He’s not sure why that sounds like a euphemism, but he’s probably got bigger things to worry about. Chief among those is—
“I’m the vertical screw,” Viktor says.
At the exact same time, Yuuri says “I’m the horizontal screw.”
This is, of course, when the absurdity of the entire conversation catches up with them; Yuuri ends up feeling almost sick from how hard he’s laughing, while Viktor has his face pressed into his knees and is just flat out cackling. It’s one of the most deeply unattractive noises Yuuri has ever heard; he wracks his brain for an idea of how to keep it going.
“Where do zambonis even come from,” Yuuri asks. Well—he’s not sure whether it’s actually phrased as a question, because he’s still slightly out of breath.
Viktor seems to be having a similar issue. He’s borderline gasping when he says “Heaven,” which is such a nonsensical answer that it sets Yuuri off all over again.
“So there’s, what, the angelic hordes of zambonis?” Yuuri says. “No, this is—you can’t just say things, Viktor.” Viktor is still laughing, like this is funny (which, okay, it kind of is). In lieu of any logical course of action, Yuuri throws his phone at the side of Viktor’s rib-cage, zamboni diagram and all.
He probably needs a moment to collect himself, to be honest. He stares at the exposed vents on the ceiling and attempts to arrange his thoughts into something even vaguely similar to coherency. Next to him, Viktor scoops Yuuri’s phone off the floor and types something Yuuri can’t see into the search bar.
“I can’t believe a zamboni is just a special car,” Yuuri says, having told Viktor he can’t just say things not two minutes ago. Well, whatever, it’s not like he’s going to call himself out on it.
“It really is just—” Viktor cuts himself off with an appalling wheezing noise that is very nearly a squawk. “Oh my god, there’s a photo of one on—no, look—”
Yuuri looks at his phone. On it is an image that he can’t quite parse, until he puts together that there’s a fire on an ice rink, and they’ve been talking solely about zambonis for the past five minutes.
“WHY IS IT ON FIRE?” Yuuri ends up shouting, for no other reason than this is an image of a zamboni, on fire, in an ice rink with living people in it.
Viktor tries to say something, fails to form any words around his hysterics, and ends up sliding off the end of the bench and collapsing in a pile on the floor.
“Are you two okay?” Yu-chan calls out to them as she drives past them in her perfectly normal, not-on-fire zamboni. Yuuri thinks that maybe his classification of the zamboni as such might mean that the answer to that question is ‘no’. He takes several deep breaths.
“I don’t know,” he replies instead. It’s still a fairly truthful answer. Beside him, Viktor finally manages to catch his breath and rolls over, back against the floor.
“Wow,” he says to the ceiling, “zambonis.”
Yuuri nudges Viktor’s leg with his foot. “Are you recovering? Do you need more of a rest?”
“I’m—” Viktor inhales and then exhales loudly, “I’m fine. I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
“Aww, Yuuri…” Viktor grins up at him, “Thank you for caring.”
Yuuri snorts. “Yeah, love you too.”
The words that just came out of his mouth register with his brain a split second too late. He feels his face prickle with heat; Viktor’s smile has frozen on his face.
“Well!” Yuuri says, loudly enough for it to echo around the entire rink. He winces. “Time to go home.”
He turns to go, but—well, he can’t just leave Viktor on the floor like that. He offers Viktor a hand and pulls him to his feet, carefully avoiding looking him in the eye the entire time.
Right before he lets go of Viktor’s hand, though, he feels Viktor squeeze his fingers, just once.
It’s enough.
The triplets are, if Yuuri puts it diplomatically, a handful.
“Victooorrr,” Axel says from her perch on Viktor’s shoulders. “Let me do your hair!”
Yuuri watches Viktor’s brow scrunch slightly as he mentally translates the words; the triplets’ English is pretty good, but he asked them recently not to speak it around him. It’s sweet how much of an effort he’s putting into learning another language.
“Of course,” he responds in Japanese, “I don’t really have enough hair, though.”
Lutz giggles from over on the sofa. “That’s not true! Your bangs are so long.” She slumps sideways and peers up at Yuuri for a long moment. “You should have long hair,” she says very seriously, “so we can do yours as well.”
Yuuri smiles. “I’ll think about it,” he says, somewhat truthfully; he’s not sure anyone could think properly while watching Viktor Nikiforov get accosted by two six year olds.
Viktor’s sitting on the floor now, Loop and Axel leaning over him with identical expressions of intense scrutiny on their faces. Viktor tilts his head slightly further forward, hair falling completely into his face. Yuuri privately thinks that he looks like one of those… Muppets? that Phichit showed him once.
Yuuri turns back to Lutz. “Aren’t you going to help them?”
“No,” she says, “I’m tired.” She opens her arms and reaches up to him.
Yuuri, of course, picks her up. As soon as she’s being held securely, Lutz wraps her arms around his neck and mashes her face into his shoulder. Yuuri resigns himself to the fact that he’s going to be carrying an entire six year old for the foreseeable future.
When Yuuri looks over, he sees that Viktor is in the same position as before, save for the fact that Axel has now climbed onto one of his legs and started braiding a small section of his bangs. It’s looking very goofy so far, so Yuuri leaves them to it.
“Missed you, Yuuri,” Lutz mumbles from somewhere under his chin.
He hitches her slightly higher in his arms. “I’ve been home for months.”
“Yeah, but still…” she wriggles a little, enough that she can look up at him. “You’re not allowed to leave for that many years ever again.”
Yuuri smiles at her. “Promise.”
“Yay!” Lutz yawns. “Can we go get some juice?”
They move through to the kitchen. Lutz squishes herself back into Yuuri’s neck, which leaves him to get her a glass of water with only one hand; the glass is slightly slippery when he hands it over to her.
“I wanted juice,” she grumbles.
“It’s almost 8pm, Lutz. I think your parents might kill me if they got home and you lot were bouncing off the walls.”
She frowns and takes a gulp of water. “I wouldn’t let them kill you,” she says, adorably determined.
Yuuri grins. “My knight in shining armour.”
“I’m a princess in shining armour,” Lutz replies, frown deepening.
Yuuri shifts her higher in his arms again, then grabs his DS as they pass it on the table. “Sorry, your majesty.”
With a haughtiness befitting someone many times her age, Lutz sniffs. “Thank you.” She nudges his cheek with her glass. “I finished it.”
Yuuri’s almost back at the sofa, but he sighs and swings back around to put the glass on the table. He’ll remember to clear it up later, probably.
“Yuuri!” Loop calls from behind him. “Look how pretty he is now!”
No rest for the wicked, Yuuri thinks to himself. He turns, looks, sees that Viktor’s bangs have almost entirely been sectioned off into tiny braids. It doesn’t look… great.
“Oh,” Yuuri says, at a loss for words.
Viktor is glaring at Yuuri, as if to say, Don’t you dare.
Yuuri smirks. “Wow!”
Viktor’s eyes narrow. Luckily, neither Loop nor Axel notice this.
“He can be a princess with me,” Lutz announces from her position directly under Yuuri’s chin. “A wizard princess!”
Loop gasps. “How come he gets to be a princess and I don’t?!” She spares a glance at Axel, who looks equally outraged, then tacks on, “And Axel too! We should both get to be princesses, if you are.”
“Yuuri, what do you think?” Lutz kicks her leg against his abdomen, which probably hurts more than it should.
“When did I become the princess-maker?” Yuuri protests. Unfortunately, Loop and Axel already have their best pleading looks locked on him, and they aren’t letting up. Viktor is also looking at him, but with slightly more malicious satisfaction. At Yuuri’s questioning look, he very clearly mouths ‘karma’.
Yuuri gives up.
“Yes, you’re both princesses as well—you’re triplets, after all.”
Loop looks satisfied, but Axel persists, “What kind of princesses? Viktor gets to be a wizard and Lutz is…”
“A knight,” Lutz completes smugly.
Viktor finally rescues Yuuri. “I think you’re bedtime princesses, actually.” He’s met with two groans of complaint, but continues. “I know, but how are you going to…” He frowns, and switches to English. “How are you going to attend to your royal duties if you’re all tired tomorrow?”
“Magic?” Loop suggests.
Yuuri cuts in, “Nope, it’s not gonna work on us. Upstairs, now, you know the drill.”
Lutz is already half asleep by the time they make it to the bathroom; her tiredness seems to catalyse her sisters’, and by the time they’re settling down in bed they’re the calmest Yuuri’s ever seen them.
“I’m so proud of us,” Viktor says to Yuuri in a quiet voice as he turns out the light. Yuuri thinks he agrees. He goes to close the door, but—
“Yuuri,” Lutz says sluggishly, “you’re a princess too.” She blinks at him, eyes dully reflecting the light from the hall. “You can be a sparkle princess.” She yawns softly and rolls over. “Goodnight, sparkle princess.”
“Goodnight.” Yuuri closes the door. Viktor raises an eyebrow.
“I think I’m offended that I didn’t get to be the sparkle princess,” he says as they walk back downstairs.
“Sure,” Yuuri replies, “says the wizard princess. How come you get to be magic?”
“Want to trade?”
Yuuri snorts. “Not a chance.”
“But Yuuuuuriii!”
“We don’t get to choose what princess we are, Viktor. That’s something only Lutz can do.”
“Wow, that’s so insightful.”
Yuuri rescues the DS from where it was abandoned on the floor pre-bedtime routine. “It’s almost like you don’t want me to play Pandora’s Box with you.”
Viktor mimes zipping his lips shut, then holds up both his hands.
“Good,” Yuuri says. He collapses onto the sofa and gestures at the space next to him.
“Now, c’mon.”
“I still think it’s time travel,” Viktor says obstinately as they load up the game.
From Yuuri’s vague memories of the plot, it is very much not time travel. Honestly, knowing Professor Layton games, time travel is just too simple a solution to the puzzle. The theorising is, however, key to the appeal of the games, so he just hums noncommittally.
“What does that mean?” Viktor says. “Yuuri. Yuuri, is it time travel.”
Yuuri yawns in response.
“Viktor throws his hands up in defeat. “Fine! Keep your secrets. I bet I’m right.”
Yuuri smiles at him. “Sure.”
The dark colour palette of the game and its quiet, repetitive music is more soothing than Yuuri expected. Within a record ten minutes Viktor has liberated the DS from Yuuri’s grasp, and Yuuri’s fully slumped into Viktor’s side as he slogs through puzzle after puzzle.
“We have so many coins,” Yuuri mumbles, half to himself.
“They’re not too difficult to find,” Viktor replies. “I feel like being an adult probably helps with that.”
“Don’t use too many,” Yuuri says.
He doesn’t quite catch Viktor’s response. He doesn’t quite catch himself drifting off, either. All he knows is that he comes awake slowly, horizontal, and to the sound of voices.
“You know how hard he’s been working,” Viktor says, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.
“Let him sleep, Yuuko.”
“So long as he doesn’t hurt his back…”
Viktor snorts. “He would manage that even in his own bed.”
They all laugh. Yuuri will not stand for this—although, if he’s going to fight these baseless claims, he should probably open his eyes first, which seems like a chore.
“Mmgood at sleeping actually,” he says without moving so much as an eyelash.
There’s a soft intake of breath, followed by more muffled giggling. Yuuri frowns, opens his eyes, and realises that his glasses have disappeared from his face at some point, likely through Viktor’s intervention. He’ll probably be grateful for that in the morning; at the moment, all he feels is vague annoyance that he can’t direct his glare directly into either of the Nishigoris’ eyes.
It’s too bright for him to keep his eyes open for long, though. After about four seconds, he gives up on trying to intimidate the Nishigoris into not teasing him—it hasn’t worked in fifteen years—and turns his face into Viktor’s stomach, to avoid the light entirely.
He feels rather than hears Viktor laugh. “Are you sure a bed wouldn’t be more comfortable?”
“You’re comfortable enough,” Yuuri says. It doesn’t really translate into intelligible words, given that he’s speaking into the fabric of Viktor’s sweater, but it’d have to do.
“I don’t think he’s going to move,” Takeshi states, ever observant.
Yuuri tunes them all out. He’s tired, and Viktor is comfy; he shifts a little closer, and lets the soft feeling of Viktor’s breathing lull him back to sleep.