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“Can I touch you?”
Viktor looks down at where their fingers are linked together.
“We’re holding hands. You already are,” he says.
Yuuri shifts on the hotel bed, drawing his knees up to his chest. When he speaks again, his voice is small and distant, like moonlight.
“Then, can I touch you more?”
It’s a request that Viktor hasn’t denied up until now, and firmly believes he never will. “It’s always yes with you, Yuuri.”
Yuuri chuckles. “You’re gonna regret saying that one day,” he quips, but toes the edge of the blanket off and pads over, settling down behind Viktor.
Leaning forward slightly, he wraps his arms around Viktor’s torso and rests his chin on the other’s shoulder.
They stay like that for a few glancing moments of time, nothing more than languid limbs and sleep-soft shadows, basking in the orange glow of lamplight. After a while Viktor feels, rather than sees, the nuzzle of lips into the side of his neck, the cotton puff of breath against his skin.
He sighs into Yuuri’s touch, tilting his head so the other can press a trail of kisses along the line of his jaw. Yuuri moves like he's leaving handprints in the snow, savoring each point and moment of contact like it’s his first. The gesture is so tender Viktor wants to cry.
He doesn't, though. He’s got everything under control. Totally.
...or maybe not. Yuuri’s soft, and warm, and he smells like hotel soap. Viktor notices because he spent a good five minutes appreciating the scent of milk and honey in the shower earlier. Also, because he's buried his face in Yuuri’s hair.
If he really strains his ears he can hear the sound of Yuuri’s heart singing in his chest. It's a comforting, consistent ba-dump, ba-dump. It sounds like home, like his.
They're not really that different, Viktor and Yuuri. After the formalities of ceremonies and photos and interview after interview after interview, after the cab ride back to the hotel where Yuuri nodded off on Viktor’s shoulder and drooled all over his coat and Viktor said nothing, after long, gratifying showers and toweling off each other’s heads, they're just two men— just Viktor, and Yuuri. Not the living legend and Japan’s ace, not expectations and ruminations, just tired. Very tired.
See Viktor has Yuuri by the hand but sometimes he thinks Yuuri has him by the throat. It might explain why he can't breathe as normally as he'd like to around him, though it's not a bad kind of out-of-breath, not really, just the sort that makes his head spin and his heart do the thing where it tries to jump out of the earth’s atmosphere. Viktor can't decide if he wants to glue himself permanently to Yuuri by the elbow or run as far away from him as he can— to the other side of the world, preferably.
Not that it matters much, now. Yuuri’s the one clinging to Viktor’s back like a baby koala (though he's much cuter, of course, and anyone who disagrees can fight Viktor personally on this), fingers sifting slowly across the fabric of his shirt.
Actually, he's laughing.
“You’re so much less of an asshole off the ice,” Yuuri whispers with childlike amusement. His mouth is right next to Viktor’s ear, but instead of surprise or unease Viktor feels more relaxed than he ever has in his life, a surge of affection that almost hurts.
“You're less of an asshole on the ice,” he counters affably.
Yuuri hums quietly, tightening his hold on Viktor’s waist by just a fraction. “Maybe. I still can’t believe you’re real though, sometimes. Imagine it— the king of the figure skating world— he likes coffee and hugs and sleeping in. Just like any normal guy.”
It's true. Viktor with everyone in the world is sunny smiles and perfect postures and mask after mask after mask. Viktor with Yuuri is an open palm.
“I'm only a normal guy for you.” Viktor brings a hand to the side of Yuuri’s face and pulls him in for a kiss.
When they break away, Yuuri’s smile is faint and lilting, but warmer than the sun, tickled pink with playful satisfaction.
“I love you,” Viktor tells him suddenly, just because he can, because he wants to.
Yuuri flips Viktor over and pulls him back down onto the bed with him in one fluid motion. “I know.”
A chaste kiss to Viktor’s forehead stops his sulking almost immediately, and he turns to his side to regard Yuuri with abject fondness.
Yuuri meets his gaze briefly, then presses forward and tucks his head into the crook of Viktor’s neck. His eyelids flutter like the beat of a butterfly wing.
Viktor pulls him closer in a gentle embrace. “I love you more than I love skating, I think,” he says, very, very softly.
Yuuri shifts. “Hmm?”
“It's nothing. Go to sleep.” One day, maybe, someday.
Yuuri’s arms around him feel like the most natural thing in the world.