Chapter Text
The first time they share a bed it’s an accident.
There was a muddle with the hotel, and by the time they checked in all other rooms had been booked. There was no swapping. And so there they were, stuck with a double bed instead of twins.
The room was nice enough. The window looked out onto water that glistened like damp eyes in the starlight; it danced. Yuuri loved every aspect of ice, and looking out of that pristine window it was easy to remember that ice came from water. It was Yuuri’s job to give the ice the lyrical fluidity that it had in its former cycle of life. The walls and furniture were like something out of a high-end paint chart – a million different shades of white. The walls were sea foam, the bed was freshwater pearl, the plush carpet overnight snow. Victor kicked off his shoes and wriggled out of his socks. He sighed out in silver as the soft carpet stroked between his toes like sun-warmed sand. Everything smelt fresh, new, like an overpriced department store on ribbon-cutting day.
Victor peeled off his clothes unabashedly, digging through his hold-all for some pyjamas. Yuuri backed away into the pristine en suite, shutting the door hard behind himself. He had found Victor’s self-confidence intimidating at first, the way he was so at ease with himself, but now he found it endearing. In fact, he adored it. Victor was happy with himself, with who he was both physically and mentally, and it was something Yuuri was fundamentally happy about. Victor loved himself, just as he should. Victor saw himself as everyone else did, and Yuuri was glad; he deserved to know how loved he was. And then it hit Yuuri, something he’d perhaps already known but never really considered: his chief concern was that Victor was happy.
This revelation bought a blush to Yuuri’s cheeks and he tried (unsuccessfully) to wash it off with by splashing cold water on his face. Finally giving up on the enterprise, Yuuri padded back through to main area of the room.
This was where the trouble started.
Victor was already sound asleep. Totally out for the count. Which would have been fine, if only he didn’t sleep spread out in star shape, like he was trying to break the world record for the most surface area covered by a human being. He’d stumbled across a fallen star. It wasn’t like he could stop himself – Yuuri just stood in the en suite doorway gazing at Victor. At the whisper of his breathing. At the hug-soft rise and fall of Victor’s chest. At how he’d buried his cheek into the marshmallowy pillow. At the gentle slice of a smile on the older man’s face. He looked open, content, earnest. But still; he was taking up roughly 95 percent of the bed space.
Half hating himself for disturbing the angelic vision before him, Yuuri gently poked the centre of Victor’s head. The lines of Victor’s eyes crinkled but didn’t split into a sunrise. Yuuri poked again, a little bit harder this time. No reaction at all. He raked a hand semi-gently through Victor’s hair, and he got a purr in response. A purr.
Thus, red-faced, Yuuri found himself curling up into a tight bean shape in the limited space between the splayed limbs on Victor’s left side. Ignoring the painful cramping in his tightly folded legs, Yuuri managed to fall into something like sleep.
When Victor woke up it was that sticky space between latest night and earliest morning. And he was cold. No. Not just cold. Freezing. He reached to pull the duvet tighter around himself, only to find that no duvet was present.
Rubbing confusedly at his hair, Victor sat himself up and reached to turn the bedside light on. He flinched at the sudden brightness. Once his eyes adapted he instantly clocked where the missing duvet had gone; Yuuri had parcelled himself tightly in it. He tugged, but it wouldn’t come. Victor tightened his hands around the edge and pulled as hard as he could. Still, nothing. If he hadn’t known better he would have suspected Yuuri of having superglued the blanket to himself. He would have to get Yuuri to apply this surprise steely strength to his skating.
“Yuuri.” Victor whispered. He plunged his hand into the mass of blanket and found Yuuri’s shoulder. He squeezed, gently. Whilst part of him didn’t want to wake his protégé, didn’t want to disrupt the peaceful calm or break the slight curve of Yuuri’s lips, the rest of him was feeling extremely cold. “Pig-in-blanket.”
When Yuuri didn’t so much as stir, Victor rolled his eyes and pressed a kiss to Yuuri’s cheek. Like Sleeping Beauty, Yuuri’s eyes flickered open, his eyelashes feathering in smudged black halos.
“Yuuri!” Victor beamed at him. Yuuri squinted, his vision somewhat limited anyway without exhaustion pulling at his canthi. Slowly, he unfolded himself, blinking around the way a baby does when it is woken up by a loud noise.
"S’it morning already?” He rubbed at his eyes, the action sluggish. Without his glasses, he couldn’t quite decipher the quirk of Victor’s lips, the pastel glow of Victor’s eyes, the overall adoring softness.
“Nope. But you are hogging the blanket.” Victor reached out and snatched it away before Yuuri had chance to react beyond throwing him a profoundly troubled pout. “That’s better.”
“Victor.” Yuuri crossed his arms over his chest. Sleepy, pouting and grouchy, he very much resembled a toddler up past his bedtime. Victor committed the image to memory. “I’ll get cold. And you were hogging the whole entire bed.”
“Hmm.”
No sooner had Victor’s look of deep thought been swapped for a look of elated delighted than Yuuri found himself being pulled and moved and then bandaged up by a blanket. Not just by a blanket, but by two strong, sturdy arms. There was something solid pressed to his back, and with a jolt he realised that it was Victor’s chest. He would have sworn that he could feel the steady pulse of Victor’s heart.
“That better?” Victor asked, poking his head over Yuuri’s shoulder. “Spooning is good, yes?”
“Y-yes.” Yuuri could feel heat chasing up his cheeks. “Much, better.”
Victor was snoring before Yuuri had even finished talking, his nose pressed to the younger man’s cheek. Yuuri was suddenly hyper-aware of everything around him; the silken puff of Victor’s breath against his skin, the place just above his belly button where Victor’s hands were knotted together as though scared Yuuri would fall off the face of the planet if he let go of him, the cold spike of Victor’s ankle against his heel. Everything was Victor. Victor Victor Victor Victor. All around him and everywhere. He was suffocating and he wasn’t entirely sure that he minded. Victor smelt of peppermint. Why did he smell of peppermint?
Great, Yuuri thought, how am I supposed to sleep now?
But then. Then. Victor’s thumb started to draw half-moons on Yuuri’s stomach and the younger man found himself melting. And then he found his eyes shutting. And then he found himself thinking home and warm and yes this is exactly where I’m meant to be.
And then his eyes were opening to the angel feathers of morning sunlight falling down, tickling his eyelids.