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Viktor knows that, objectively, it will not matter at all what his student’s secondary gender is. He’s already so ridiculously in love that Yuuri could say he’d emerged from the sea— honestly, looking at him and thinking of the way Venus was born, Viktor isn’t going to completely dismiss this idea—and Viktor would still be interested.
Viktor is also dying from curiosity. Yuuri’s scent is mild, a comforting breeze on a summer’s day, but he could be on suppressants. Then, three months in and established as his coach, they go to a doctor’s appointment together. All of his forms are labeled ‘beta,’ and even when Viktor picks up the Handling Heats packet and rifles through it two inches from Yuuri’s nose, the other man just gives him a strange, unflustered look and focuses on Instagram. Viktor switches packets. Regulating Ruts. Yuuri is similarly unresponsive.
So Viktor assumes the other man is a beta, like Viktor himself, and it’s oddly comforting. Being an alpha or an omega comes with… expectations. Before he’d failed to present, he and Yakov had made good use of those expectations, tempting the crowds with all of the potential things that Viktor could be—domineering, impossibly beautiful, an object of desire. Now, he’s just Viktor: the surprise of him is in his ability to surprise, despite his unexciting secondary gender.
Then, it happens.
From the dining area of Yu-topia, he can see Yuuri slip in from a quick trip to the store, greet a neighbor that’s come to visit.
“Did you get your medicine?” Yuuri’s mother asks him, according to Viktor’s translation handbook. Yes, yes, is Yuuri’s prompt answer. He looks up, meets Viktor’s eyes. Smiles.
Then Makkachin pounces, and the white paper bag spills from Yuuri’s hand onto the floor of Yu-topia’s entryway. A printed out medical prescription—and two bottles of what are unmistakably heat suppressants.
“Beta,” is all Viktor can croak as Yuuri stops kissing Makkachin’s head enough to start unceremoniously scooping the mess back into the bag. “But you’re a beta?”
“Hmm?” Yuuri says, eyes flicking to the pill label, “oh, these are for Mari?” He seems oddly unsure.
“I see,” Viktor replies, gathering himself together enough to sweetly wink at his student, “Mari.”
Yuuri just squints at him, tilts his head. “Yes, that’s what I said?”
Viktor’s mind is already racing. Viktor is intelligent—he can put things together, is ready to handle this. Katsuki Yuuri, the notoriously private top figure skater. No social media presence, few friends-- like he’s hiding something besides an ability to pole dance. Equality between all dynamics has been established for decades around the globe, but some social ideas about them linger.
Hiding a dynamic wouldn’t be unheard of.
Yuuri will probably have to come off his suppressants at some point, won’t he? And then he’ll settle into his childhood room, the one Viktor’s still barred from inexplicably and unfairly, and he’ll have his heat. Maybe he’ll need a partner. Maybe Viktor is already making a list of reasons why he’d make an excellent one. Betas can be attentive, and loving, and affectionate enough for omegas during a heat—and Affectionate is Viktor’s middle name.
But he’ll play Yuuri’s game, for now.
Yuuri hands the bag to Mari, who takes it and scrunches her nose at Viktor. Viktor’s student, so careful in his deception. The Russian’s heart goes out to him.
“Is it time for dinner?” Yuuri asks, completely normal, like he has not just upended Viktor’s brain.
“Not yet,” Mari replies, and with one last lazy upturn of her lip at Viktor she shuffles off. The ease with which Yuuri put on weight, his love of food, the softness of his eyes and skin, the dense flutter of his eyelashes—primarily omega-associated traits, and Viktor’s never been one to assume, but now they fall into place.
Any romance novel or action story that attains popularity has an omega posing as a beta, after all. Viktor is ready to tell the best of those stories.
“So this schedule,” Viktor says carefully, looking over their monthly plan, “is good for you?”
It’s a fine schedule—hours upon hours of training, with limited time designated for food and fun—but there’s no time where Yuuri is able to come off his suppressants and go into heat.
“Mm,” hums Yuuri. “Celestino usually gave me a two-day break every few months, but that’s… we don’t need to do that.”
“OH?” says Viktor, “WHY?” with all the gentle subtlety of a press mob.
“Yeah,” says Yuuri, and looks at the floor. “I had to…” there’s a stubborn set to his jaw, protective and private.
“You can tell me anything,” nudges Viktor, sweetly. Tell me everything about you, he does not say, because he’s already said that, with little success.
“One of my rinkmates,” Yuuri admits, a flush beginning to stain his cheeks, “didn’t, um, handle his… heats well? He needed company—“ Viktor tries to stifle the gasp that’s about to come out of his throat, but Yuuri can apparently sense it before it even exists, and finishes in a climbing, panicked voice “—NOT THAT KIND OF COMPANY, oh god, I just would come home with lots of water and juice and hang out in the apartment and, uh…”
Come home? Viktor thinks. Ah, Yuuri. I know it’s you.
It’s a minor slip, but Viktor is used to catching Yuuri’s slips, by now. The distracted way his leg occasionally goes lax, the tense trembling of his fingertips during certain motions. Oh, Viktor knows. He’s not ashamed to use his knowledge, either.
“What a good rinkmate you are,” he says, nodding with understanding. “Well, can’t change the schedule you’ve had for years! We’ll take the two days off when you need them. Otherwise your muscles will be confused!”
“My… muscles,” Yuuri repeats, looking dubious. Then, he swallows down this information with an ease he’s developed from months of dazedly watching Viktor’s skincare routines and interactions with the public.
Western celebrity gold medalists can be peculiar, Yuuri’s face says.
“I am strange,” Viktor agrees. From the way his student goes red all the way to the tips of his ears, he knows he heard right. It’s making something heat in his chest, cinnamon, the scent drifting up from his heart. “Yuuri. You really can tell me anything, you know.”
A whole new battle starts anew on Yuuri’s face, and it’s unfair, how expressive he can be. Viktor’s face always feels ugly with emotion when he’s off the ice, but Yuuri’s—Yuuri’s…
“You don’t want that,” Yuuri warns, finally. “But if you tell me to I—I probably will.”
Viktor wants to gather him up, but he settles with an arm around his shoulder instead. Tense, a livewire beneath Viktor’s touch. “I’m looking forward to it.”
A mere two weeks later, Viktor sees a sign.
“I,” Yuuri says, voice nasal and eyes heavy, “I feel perfectly fine.”
Darling, Viktor wants to say, it’s okay. I would never judge you.
“You look sick. Absolutely dreadful, Yuuri, nothing like your usual--”
“Thanks,” comes the miserable reply.
“Why don’t we take a break, hmm? Let you recover. Do you need…” he makes eye contact, holds it, “two days?” If this is preheat, that should be enough time to have a heat and come back. Exactly enough time, and he’s sure Yuuri knows it.
“I couldn’t possibly take that much time off,” Yuuri protests, stubborn but incredibly ineffective, with the way he sniffles and sneezes immediately after.
“I insist!”
Like clockwork, Yuuri heads off to his room. Viktor knocks on it two hours later.
“Yuuri,” he says sweetly, mindful of keeping his distance from the door, even if as a beta he can’t smell what others might— and flips over the box in his arms.
Out tumbles the necessities: sports drinks, massive water bottles, protein bars, bags of salty snack foods. For mood swings, electrolytes, and to make sure with all the sweating and fluid loss he doesn’t faint.
“I’m sick,” says Yuuri, and Viktor presses a finger to his lips.
“Shhh,” he says, “I know. I KNOW. Yuuri, I understand.”
“I don’t think salty snacks are really on my meal plan or good for an upset stomach—“
“Let me take care of you.”
Two days later, Yuuri’s ‘cold’ is much improved, and they’re back to the daily grind.
Suspicions confirmed, Viktor thinks to himself somberly. Damn, I’m good.
Let me take care of you. This becomes Viktor’s mantra in all things.
When Yuuri’s in the shower, it’s scent blockers and neutralizing soap.
“VIKTOR, PLEASE GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM—“
“Why is this different than the onsen, Yuuri? Here, which scent do you want? I bought peach, Black Ice, and All-Natural.”
Yuuri sticks his dripping head out from behind the curtain. “I don’t need them!”
“Do you have your own? Oh, I’ll guess which one! Is your soap… strawberry?”
Ducking his head back into the shower with a scrunching up of his nose, Yuuri declares “no!”
Well, if Yuuri’s not going to make use of the soaps, Viktor might as well. He waits, for a few moments, listens to the patter of shower water and foamy slap of shampoo as it falls from Yuuri’s head. Also very present is Viktor’s desperate desire to be in there, with him, but that’s nothing new.
“What smell would you prefer on another person?” As much as a beta doesn’t exude a strong scent, it’s not as though they have no smell at all. It’s not like they don’t have noses, either. In a scent-based society, even betas pay attention.
“I like the way people smell naturally.”
The next words practically rocket from Viktor’s throat. “What do I smell like?”
There’s a long pause, the shower still running. “Cherries,” Yuuri concludes finally, “Western cherries and lavender.”
Are you attracted to that? Viktor wants to ask. Maybe on the first day, he would’ve whispered that phrase in Yuuri’s ear, dragging a finger down the curve of his jaw. But Viktor is plenty of locked doors and weepy evenings past day one. Plenty. Instead, he decides to file this question away for later, when it’s less obvious.
With a creaking of pipes and metal, the shower turns off. A white towel is snagged from its rack and then Yuuri is stepping out, shaking his damp, darkened hair from his eyes.
“Why are you so shy about me being in here, anyway?” There’s nothing in there that Viktor hasn’t seen in the public area of the onse—oh. “Yuuri, I’m sorry, I interrupted your private time.”
Yuuri’s head snaps up, his hand drawing his towel up higher across his hips. “Oh god.”
“It’s perfectly healthy,” Viktor asserts, “when I do it I—“
Yuuri nearly runs from the bathroom, front foot slipping so far on the tiles that he essentially enters the splits before scrambling upright again. Viktor claps, impressed at the rapid flexibility.
“Lovely Ina Bauer!” He calls to the disappearing flick of the towel rounding the bathroom door. In Yuuri’s wake is the smell of winter breaking into spring, and after giving him time to dress, Viktor follows it.
Viktor is inherently a neat person, which is why his immediate response to dropping off a stack of fresh laundry in Yuuri’s room is leaning on the doorframe and clutching at his heart. Yuuri’s not horribly messy, having spent his life cleaning up after an inn of other people, but still. A used tea cup and plate sit on the desk. Papers with brainstorming litter it, and one has fallen unnoticed to the floor. Only his ballet flats and skating gear are stored properly, reverently placed in his closet. Like Viktor, he prefers a wax warmer over incense to decorate his room with scent. Finally, Yuuri’s bed is made, but sloppily, with clothes strewn across and piled—
OH.
“He’s nesting,” Viktor whispers. He probably does not need to whisper this. Viktor is completely alone, and lucky to be so. If Yuuri was in here, he’d get kicked out. It’s only Hiroko’s serendipitous timing with the laundry, while Yuuri is away at Minako’s, that has brought him to this wonderful realization.
He shouldn’t look. Nests are private. If Yuuri smells him on it, there might be trouble.
Viktor’s not really sure. He’s a beta with a very short relationship résumé, and he’s never had to worry about omega heats before. But this is Yuuri, who Viktor loves, and he has to be respectful. He’s going to turn around and leave, but his eyes catch on the pile again, thinks of Yuuri cuddled up in it.
It’s just looking. Completely normal. Respectful of privacy. Viktor Nikiforov: obeys all physical boundaries, definitely, so I absolutely will not touch—is that my shirt?
Before his brain can start spouting off warnings—the Warning Voice in Viktor’s head that always sounds suspiciously like Yakov—Viktor moves forward and snatches it up.
It is definitely Viktor’s shirt. Something warm and trembling unfurls in Viktor’s chest, white hot. An omega would want his clothes, his scent, only if he wanted Viktor, too.
There’s no other explanation. Yuuri likes him, if only a little. While he’s having this epiphany, clutching still at the shirt, Viktor spots the grey sleeve of one of his hoodies, peeking out from beneath an inside-out shirt.
Maybe Yuuri likes him twice as much as Viktor thought.
“Agh,” comes suddenly from the doorway. Viktor should be ashamed; Viktor should put his shirt into the nest and back away, hands up.
“Yuuri!” He says instead, delighted, and then the object of his affections is doing everything but physically tossing him from the bed and pile of clothing.
“Those are unorganized, oh god, I know Mom probably asked you to pick things up but you don’t have to—“
He’s tugging at the shirt still in Viktor’s hands, stretching it between them. With a stressed whimper, Yuuri realizes exactly which one. Drops his hold on it, like it’s burned him—and maybe it has. There’s a full body blush, rushing over his soft cheeks and even down to his forearms.
“Yuuri,” Viktor begins, soothing and welcoming. Tell me.
“You, uh,” Yuuri says. “You brought that in with the clean laundry… right?”
Viktor could be generous and kind, could let Yuuri off the hook.
Viktor is petty and desperate. “Nope.”
“So strange, I—I don’t know how that got here! The laundry mixups in this onsen, I’ll have to talk to the owners.” Viktor raises an eyebrow.
“Your parents.”
“Well, I’d better—“
“Did you take my clothes, Yuuri?”
His student visibly wilts, presses his palms into his eyes and tucking in his elbows too tight.
“Maybe… I thought they were mine.”
“You thought,” Viktor clarifies sweetly, feeling like a wolf on the hunt, “that this three hundred euro designer shirt was yours?”
Yuuri nods for a few moments firmly, blisteringly confident, before his mind clicks the exchange rate into yen. “Are you serious, how is it three hundred—okay, I wore it. If I stretched it out or, or got my scent on it and that’s unbearable, I’ll do my best to buy you a new one.” He ducks his head. “I’m sorry, Viktor.”
So apologetic, and so unnecessary.
“It’s okay, Yuuri,” Viktor half-sings, leaning in and letting the shirt fabric drift over Yuuri’s arm. “I know exactly what you were doing with this shirt. Why you needed it.”
“You—you do?” The blood seems to drain from his face. “Then are.” He swallows, squeezing his eyes shut. The next words are a pained whisper. “Are you going back to Russia?”
This is a startling change in conversation topic. Well, Yuuri was hiding his secondary gender, so maybe not so startling. “Of course not.”
“…Really?”
“I’ve known for months. Did you think you could keep it from me?” I don’t care if you’re an omega. I don’t care, darling. “Did you think it would drive me away?”
The color seems to come back into Yuuri’s face all at once—cheeks rosier, eyes shining.
“It’s not driving you away,” he says, and the realization is coming over him. “Is it.”
“Never.” Viktor taps him on his round nose, realizes he’s beaming at Yuuri long after he’s already started. “And you can use my clothes however you’d like. They’re yours. Like I am.”
Yuuri sucks in a deep breath. Is it scenting? Viktor hopes it’s scenting. Okay, no, it might be a little more like hyperventilation. Maybe not so good. This is not how he envisioned Yuuri’s official ‘reveal’ of his omega status. As cliché as it might be, he’d kind of been hoping to have to rush Yuuri through public on the brink of his heat, Yuuri smiling gratefully up at him and the public all staring, before depositing Yuuri into a carefully prepared, plush bed. Cozy and warm and overflowing with twenty pounds of snacks and bottled water, perfect for leaving Yuuri in to wait it out. Viktor wants him taken care of. Viktor wants him happy and strong and alive and open with himself, confident in his status. Like he knows Yuuri can be.
All thought is lost when Yuuri reaches for the hem of Viktor’s sweater. The brush of his fingers against the high ridge of Viktor’s hip has him shivering. His voice comes out low, and heated, and feels like another touch.
“You said your clothes were mine.” Brown eyes dart up to catch his. “Want me to do what I did with your jacket and shirt?”
THROW ME ON THE BED and CLAIM ME, Viktor’s brain screams. “Yes,” Viktor’s mouth says, deceptively calm.
Then Viktor’s sweater is up and over his head. The air is cool, goosebumps trailing after Yuuri’s deft fingers. He reaches for Yuuri, to even the score—no clothes is a state Viktor wishes he and Yuuri were in, all the time, every day, the onsen doesn’t count—but instead finds… his own sweater?
Yuuri’s put on his sweater. Yuuri is wearing his sweater.
“Um?” Questions Viktor, eloquently but also completely lost. The shy smile on Yuuri’s face wobbles for a few moments, before disappearing altogether.
“Oh,” he breathes, sounding like Viktor has slapped him. His lip is trembling, his eyes taking on a misty sheen. “No, of course, I should’ve realized this would look stupid, that was really forward of me. I shouldn’t have… I’m going to…” He scrabbles with the hem of the sweater, but it catches on his own shirt and Yuuri struggles to separate them as they cling.
Viktor watches, utterly entranced, even as Yuuri’s elbow catches in the sleeve and he wrassles the shirt, failing to tug it past his nose.
“Yuuri,” he finally says. His only response is Yuuri managing to tug the sweater up past his eyes with his one free hand. “Yuuri!”
“What,” Yuuri replies, managing to sound both aggravated and frantic all at once. The neck of the sweater is tight around his forehead—Viktor thinks of other things he’s seen wrapped around Yuuri’s forehead, and feels so warm.
“I like you wearing my clothes. I like you.” When you wear my clothes, it makes me—
“It makes me feel,” Yuuri muffles out, through the fabric of the sweater, “like a boyfriend.” Please, Viktor thinks, I want to see his face. Obliging, Yuuri tugs the fabric back down, tremblingly tucks the neck of the sweater beneath his chin. “Like, um. Your boyfriend. I know we’re not!” He is quick to assert, and the following silence is too long.
It’s now or never.
“If wearing my clothes to feel like my boyfriend is a fun activity for you,” says Viktor, “might I suggest becoming my actual boyfriend?”
“Oh.”
“I can’t promise it will be as fun as wearing my clothes,” Viktor rambles on, because Viktor doesn’t know when to stop. “That’s a very comfortable sweater.”
Sometimes, Viktor wishes his response to stress or nervousness was more obvious and less calculating, wishes he wasn’t so optimistic. Maybe if he was shaking, if his voice was trembling, he’d be more convincing. More revealing of what he wants.
Someone that Yuuri wouldn’t doubt.
“You mean it,” Yuuri says, and Viktor’s not sure if it’s a question. Yuuri makes statements into questions and questions into statements, it’s impossible to understand. Viktor has been in Hasetsu for four months, has needed Yuuri for nearly eight. He’s been naked and desperate and has outright asked what Yuuri wants them to be, and after all that Yuuri has never agreed to be in a relationship.
“Yes.”
Somehow, in Yuuri’s messy room at the end of a summer, fresh from rambling about his overly expensive clothing, two feet from Yuuri’s nest—this. This is the time when Yuuri decides to take the jump.
“Then we can be,” Yuuri says, “boyfriends.”
What does one do, with a new boyfriend? He probably shouldn’t push his luck, is what Viktor decides. He reaches out his arms.
In Yuuri goes, hug tight and warm, and nothing else matters.
Some time later, drowsy and thoroughly kissed and having relocated to the floor, of all places, there comes a slight noise.
“Viktor?”
“Mm hmm.”
“I thought you said you knew why… I wanted your clothes? And then you didn’t.”
“Well,” Viktor draws out, clicking his tongue at the end, “I thought it was for a different reason.”
“Oh. Oh, no. No.” Yuuri rolls away, leaving Viktor’s chest exposed to the air, and it’s so much colder. He wants Yuuri closer, pressed up against him.“Viktor, I’m not a creepy enough fan to sell your clothes on the internet. The triplets aren’t even doing that.”
“Oh, but Minako is,” Viktor says offhandedly, and Yuuri splutters. “Don’t worry about it. That’s not what I assumed. I thought you needed my clothes for…” He winks, quite obviously.
Yuuri just stares.
Viktor winks again, a little harder this time, gestures towards Yuuri’s nest.
“Is this,” Yuuri says slowly, “a bad attempt to change the subject and get me in bed?”
Viktor stares right back. “Is that what I’d have to do to get you in bed? Just… point at a bed. And wink.” Viktor has not been approaching seduction correctly. He doesn’t know how he’d missed this, for the whole four months he’s been here. “Wait. Are you saying you’d want to sleep with me?”
“We’re boyfriends,” Yuuri says, and Viktor can see his entire frame winding up with tension, “isn’t it… pretty common to want to sleep with your boyfriend?” Something dawns on his face, hands flying up as he swings into a sitting position. “Unless—oh, Viktor, it’s common but some people don’t feel that way and I didn’t mean to say that it was only normal if—“
“Two out of two,” Viktor interrupts. Clamping his mouth shut, Yuuri flushes and looks at the floor, hands curling up in his lap. “Two out of two men I’ve interviewed today want to sleep with their boyfriends. Someday. The only two that matter in this relationship.”
“That’s a pretty small sample size,” Yuuri mutters.
“Nothing small about us,” Viktor replies cheerfully, and Yuuri finds a pillow that has also relocated to the floor and smacks him gently with it. In the resulting playfight and cuddle session, anything— besides soft skin and ticklish spots and that hidden place behind Yuuri’s ear, which smells warm and smoky—is forgotten.
But Viktor takes what he’s learned about his beloved Yuuri’s dynamic, and stores it away for the future.
“So,” Minako says one afternoon after the Cup of China, when Yuuri’s out of earshot, “have you two talked about your neck thing yet?”
Viktor flips through his internal catalog of past injuries. “I’ve never had a neck thing.”
“Shameless about everything else but protective of that, hmm. You know, liking necks isn’t that uncommon, especially in Japan.”
“What,” says Viktor, at the exact moment that Yuuri yells, harried,
“Minako!”
“Caught,” she snorts, “but don’t act like we didn’t have this conversation. Is that why you cut your hair? So your dates could see your neck, bare?”
Viktor processes. “It was at twenty-one, when I was sure I wasn’t going to present.” No need to tease a glimpse of his collar through silver strands when he didn’t need to have one. Viktor was a proud beta, and—“you think I have a neck fetish?”
Well, he’s been accused before, but not of this one.
A neck thing makes no sense—except the curve of Yuuri’s neck, especially when there’s a whole free program’s sweat trickling down it, shining…
Sure. Viktor could have a neck thing, if it was Yuuri’s neck. God knows he kept trying to sneak glances at it, regardless of his turtleneck sweaters and the teasing mesh neckline of Eros, because—Yuuri’s mating gland was highly important. How else was Viktor supposed to know what kind of lace collars to put on his wedding Pinterest board? Yuuri could have a high or low gland, and luckily Viktor’s collar can match him because he doesn’t have a gland to cover at all, so—
“It’s like his mind’s gone back to Russia,” Minako is saying.
“Don’t say that,” Yuuri responds, sounding oddly miserable. “Minako, don’t say anything else, please.”
“If he didn’t know he was staring, then someone had to tell him.”
“It doesn’t even make sense,” Yuuri says faintly. “Why would he want to?”
Viktor has dealt with this question a lot, coming from Yuuri. Why would he want to come to Japan? Why would he want to coach me? Why would he want to sleep with me?
Viktor’s a simple man in some ways, so all these questions have the same answer. Viktor came chest out, neck out, everything out when he arrived.
“Yuuri, if there’s one thing I’ve taught you, it’s that every part of a dancer’s body can be erot—“
“I don’t have one,” Viktor interrupts, decidedly. “A neck fetish.”
“Sure,” Minako smirks.
“Okay,” Yuuri agrees, nodding too rapidly.
Viktor sighs, and wonders if maybe he’s worn too many v-necks when in the public areas of the onsen. Then he realizes that this isn’t possible. No amount of v-necks are too many, Viktor loves his v-necks—
So does Yuuri. He comes to Viktor’s door that night wearing one, roomy on him, dipping far past his collarbones.
He doesn’t wait for Viktor to invite him in.
“You can mark me,” Yuuri says, “if you want.”
“Yes. I will pay you back in as many hugs as I can manage.”
“No. I want to mark you up,” Yuuri barters, determined.
He drives a hard bargain. Viktor still feels like he’s the one cheating in the deal. Yuuri backs him into his bedroom, kicking the door shut, eyes fastening firmly on the slope where Viktor’s neck meets his collarbone.
“You first,” Viktor manages, breathless. This wasn’t wise—Viktor never thinks things through, with Yuuri—because it ends with three hickies and Viktor’s legs wobbling. He feels like a fumbling teenager, tracing down Yuuri’s face and pressing for the heat of the gland.
He’ll find it to avoid it. Just because Viktor’s fantasized about them forming a bond doesn’t mean it’s a good idea today.
Yuuri nips at his neck again, whispers in his ear. Viktor moves his planned marriage and mating date up by a week on his internal calendar. Too much more of that, and it will happen tonight.
So he presses deeper, shifts his fingers down and around.
“What are you doing?” Yuuri giggles, breathy and low.
“What do you think?” A kiss to the juncture of Yuuri’s shoulder. If he was an alpha or omega, Viktor thinks bitterly, he could scent it out. For not the first time, he feels a wave of inadequacy about his secondary gender. Yuuri’s an omega—wouldn’t he want someone who could really appreciate his scent, someone who could take a mating bite in return?
A glandless, virginal beta becoming balder and farther from the peak of his athletic career by the day—why would Yuuri want that?
“No, really,” Yuuri interrupts his thoughts then, sounding slightly more serious. “Viktor, what are you looking for?”
Yuuri had confessed to being inexperienced, but surely he knows? Even the books Viktor has read all mention this. Suppressants should reduce the possibility of an accident, but Viktor firmly believes it’s up to both partners to protect against that.
“Sweetheart, I don’t want to prematurely give you a bond bite.”
Yuuri pulls back, tilts his head to the side.
“Oh,” he realizes, eyes brightening. “We’re roleplaying. Like some stereotypical alpha-omega pair?” A sweep of his hand through his hair. “Like Eros. Or—like I’m some poor Victorian omega sneaking around with his rich lover, to the shock of regular society. Okay. Er,” he leans in, “sir. Please. If we are, uhm, caught away from the ball… if you accidentally graze my mating gland…”
Flustered and off balance, Viktor falls back on what Victorian romantic literature he’s consumed. “Of course not, sir, whatever would society think if I were to… impregnate you? Our affair would be… the talk of the town. We’d simply have no choice but to marry and continue our… illicit love. Forever.”
Viktor wants to smack himself, expects Yuuri’s perfect brow to furrow, those lovely eyes to judge. Indeed, Yuuri squeaks and turns a deep red, burrowing his face in his hands. Embarrassed to be dating someone as awkward as Viktor, probably. Someone who thinks talk of marriage belongs in foreplay with their fairly new boyfriend.
“I—Viktor—“ His voice is a whisper, makes Viktor lean in—he bridges his fingers above his eyes, peers out from beneath them. “How did you know?”
“Know?”
“Everything that I—like,” Yuuri implores, hissing hotly, and if that doesn’t kickstart Viktor’s pulse, the way he hurls himself forward into Viktor’s arms would certainly be enough. “If this is a game where you tease me, Viktor, you’re going to regret it, I play to win—“
By the end, Viktor’s sure he’s the one who gained the most, regardless of who won. He hadn’t been asking for roleplay, looking for Yuuri’s gland like that… but he can’t exactly complain.
In all the happy rush, he forgets again.
As in any dramatic story, the Grand Prix Final is where the final piece of Yuuri’s reveal comes into place. Viktor knows this on the first practice day, when Yuuri—pale and fidgeting, sniffing the air—grabs his sleeve and declares:
“I have to go to the locker room. Please don’t come looking for me.”
Viktor has never followed directions well, but his Yuuri asked him. Privacy, Viktor reminds himself impatiently, privacy, privacy, privacy—
“Oh dear,” Christophe murmurs, just as Yurio’s nose scrunches. Viktor would ask, but even with his less sensitive nose he’s suddenly blasted in the face with it.
Hormones. Bright tones layered over them: lemongrass and hay, shockingly sweet.
“Someone’s suppressant dose is screwed up,” Yurio complains. “It smells like omega in here.”
“That’s rude, Yurio,” Viktor corrects automatically. Competition can aggravate even the most stable person’s body, especially the newer skaters. As the most senior beta, Viktor is usually the one who tries to get them aid, bring them extra suppressants. His feet are already walking. The most private locker room in the stadium is closed and—locked? “Yuuri? Yuuri! Is everything alright?”
He raps at the metal door (doors, always doors, Viktor’s greatest nemesis).
For once, the door cracks opens by an inch. But Viktor would recognize his Yuuri from a single centimeter of his skin, and beneath the swell of sweetness escaping the doorway is him. Like minerals, and spices his mother uses in cooking, like fresh ice— familiar. Good. Home. The way he always smells. “Viktor, please, I told you not to follow. Now isn’t a good time.”
“I’m here,” Viktor says, carefully. He won’t push Yuuri into revealing it, but this isn’t—right. Isn’t safe. “Let me help you.”
Tell me, he pleads, internally.
“I—you can’t,” Yuuri says. “Will you get Celestino?”
Viktor’s jaw drops. “Celestino? Who’s your coach, again?”
The door slams shut. Viktor’s heart wavers with it. “Yuuri.”
“Get Celestino!” Comes muffled through the door.
I’m your coach, Viktor wants to beg. I’m your lover. Why won’t you trust me with this? All of these months, and I still can’t know?
Viktor is stubborn, and Viktor knows he can help, and Viktor—
Viktor loves Yuuri, always loves Yuuri, and does what he asks. When he guides Celestino to the locker room, knocks on the door twice, it cracks open again.
“I shouldn’t have left him alone, even for a few minutes,” Celestino says, immediately, sounding guilty. Viktor squints at him.
“What?”
“It’s his first GPF, I should’ve known this might happen. I brought his bag and extra suppressants. Thanks for watching out for him, I’ll help from here.”
“Are you… regretting losing Yuuri as a skater?” Viktor blurts. “From last year?” And Yuuri called for him. What does Celestino have as a coach that Viktor doesn’t? Besides critiques that aren’t so blistering they’re practically a human rights violation? Besides his grasp of Italian, which Viktor has only achieved Duolingo’s Crown Level 13 in? Italian, the language of love, hah! Skating is the most romantic language.
It must be the hair, Viktor despairs. His luscious, flowing mane of hair.
The door opens wider, and Celestino—after an extremely confused and slightly judgmental glance in Viktor’s direction—disappears inside.
But Yuuri’s traded places with him. This… does not fit Viktor’s narrative. Viktor is good at narratives.
“Yuuri?”
Yuuri leans on the metal, looking oddly defensive. “I told you not to follow me. Viktor, why—“
Before he can continue, Viktor whips himself out of his coat and wraps it about Yuuri’s shoulders. “Everyone can smell that your suppressants aren’t working the way they should. Even my beta nose. Tell me where your bag is, darling, we’ll get you settled.”
“…Viktor?”
Viktor is too busy beginning to button up his coat around Yuuri’s slim frame. “Are you cold? Thirsty? I’ll get you water to wash down the pills with. I want to help, Yuuri, please.”
“What are you doing?” Yuuri sounds baffled. “Pills, suppressants, what are you—mmmmmlffff.” Viktor buttons over his mouth in his haste, unbuttons it once he realizes.
“I know I should let you tell me when you’re ready, but this—I need to take care of you. I thought you liked that; why won’t you let me?” His voice lowers. “What am I doing wrong?”
There’s a long silence. Maybe the list of Viktor’s faults takes an extended time to sort out, in Yuuri’s head.
“Viktor,” Yuuri says at the end of it, “do you think I’m an omega?”
Yuuri is outside the locker room, and Celestino is inside, and the overwhelmingly sweet scent has lessened. They’re in a back corner of the rink before the competition has started in earnest, alone.
“You’re… not,” Viktor realizes. Slowly.
“How long have you thought I was one,” Yuuri questions, but it’s flat. Flat enough to conceal what Viktor knows, from experience, must be happening: panic.
Racking his brain, all Viktor can manage is: “a few months.”
“Before or after we started dating.”
“Before.”
“Before or after you had me skate Eros.”
“After?”
“Before or after, Viktor. Please, did you—“ he cuts himself off, and Viktor realizes with a start that there are tears welling. “It wasn’t me, it was never me. It was my omega status. I don’t even have that! This is why you were convinced I could do Eros. This is why you think I’m capable of being some sex god, why you let me do weird things like flail all over your bed in v-necks and roleplay being married and steal your clothes, why you were fine with—“ he gestures vaguely, wildly, down at the body Viktor knows better than his own, cares about more than his own. “—this.”
“I have been fine with this,” Viktor rushes out, “since this dipped me and did a pole routine, Yuuri! I moved across the ocean to be with you. All I needed was to know you better, and every detail, every surprise, was a pleasure. Katsuki Yuuri is the man I love. Always.”
One tear slides down Yuuri’s face, his mouth still open, softly, bottom jaw working. With this in the open, maybe he’ll embrace Viktor, let him in more. Maybe he’ll answer every question Viktor has ever had. Maybe he’ll—
“I,” Yuuri says, like a secret, like Viktor’s wishes are all about to come true, “have no damn clue what the first part of that meant.”
What. WHAT.
“But the second part,” Yuuri continues, and now he’s flushing. “We’ll talk about that after my practice time today.” Those beautiful brown eyes close. Two deep breaths. “One last thing.” With a glorious, confident hand gesture, he reels Viktor in, lips to Viktor’s ear.
Viktor whimpers. “Yes?” For him, he’ll move mountains. Viktor will smelt his medals and drape him in spun gold.
“If you tell anyone,” Yuuri whispers fiercely, “that Phichit is an omega and having issues with his suppressants right now, I will never do that thing you like again.”
“Phichit?!”
A conversation is had when they return to their hotel after practice. First things first.
“Is Phichit okay?”
“He’s fine,” Yuuri says, waving his hand. “I think he just got nervous—another few pills, and he was okay to practice. You saw. It’s his first GPF. He… he puts a lot of pressure on himself, being the representative for skating in Thailand. He doesn’t want anyone distracted with his… dynamic. He wants people to see Thailand’s pride, when they look at him. Just that. So he keeps it private.” The perfect adventure narrative and dynamic reveal, Viktor thinks, and it was someone else's story. That's fine. Viktor likes the way his narrative is going just fine. The man Viktor loves presses his lips together, hums. “Viktor. If I was an omega, I’d tell you.”
Viktor swallows. “There are plenty of things you didn’t tell me, when I came to Hasetsu.”
“What was I supposed to say? Hi, I’m Yuuri, I’m a beta and dime-a-dozen skater who’s wanted to mash our faces together since I was prepubescent. As a bonus, I’m stubborn and unpredictable and I’m going to push back on half the things you tell me— while crying. Welcome to Hasetsu!”
“That would’ve delighted me,” Viktor pouts, honestly. “Except for the dime-a-dozen part. And… the crying part. Those aren’t remotely true. Why didn’t you say the rest besides that?”
“Aghhh, Viktor.”
“Yuuri, I regret nothing we’ve had. I just… thought you were an omega. You thought I wasn’t eccentric and clingy. Now we’re close, and we know better.”
“See, I have no idea why you thought I was an omega in the first place.”
“I had my reasons,” Viktor says, trying to be enigmatic (and also trying to save face). From the scoff Yuuri makes, he knows it was unsuccessful.
“But I don’t smell good,” Yuuri protests.
“Yuuri, I know when you enter a room from twenty feet away, and I’m a beta. I love your scent. Do you not think I smell good?”
"I--" Yuuri swallows, looks up from beneath his eyelashes. "Lavender and cherries are my favorite." Anyone less obsessed with every word that falls from Yuuri's lips might not understand, but Viktor does. Yuuri pinches the bridge of his nose. “But back on topic. I never have heats?”
“I thought you were on suppressants! And you had one.”
“When. Also—I have no mating gland?”
“After a certain amount of time spent worrying bruises into your neck, I was too embarrassed to bring it up. An alpha or omega would have found it so quickly, and I… couldn’t. I thought it was a myth or one of those—those romance novel things, where the gland was only easy to find in fiction. Like their lies about how good sex is all the time!”
Yuuri blanches. “…you think good sex is a lie?”
“Well, obviously not with us. But we’re not exactly average, are we?”
A laugh is all he gets in response, arms thrown around his shoulders, until Yuuri is close. “We’re both betas,” he says, right into Viktor’s neck. “That is the average, in our society.”
“Again: the only thing average about us,” Viktor confirms confidently. He snuggles his face into Yuuri’s shoulder, rubs his ear against Yuuri’s soft hair. “I really do love you, no matter what. You work so hard, you make every motion effervescent, you… you’re my inspiration. I’m sorry if I scared you, with my foolishness.”
“Viktor,” Yuuri breathes. “I’m glad we talked about this. Honestly, this is only going to help me when I perform my short. I always was… a bit unsure about it, being a beta and plain as I am, like I was just pretending to be alluring. Knowing you think I’m Eros, that I could be any dynamic to you and it wouldn’t matter, just… This is a revelation. I can’t imagine another revelation like this.”
Viktor feels like there’s another question he should ask. Another major misunderstanding to clarify—now, he’s too hazily satisfied. Best left till another day.
After Yuuri takes gold at Worlds, other people are the ones misunderstanding.
“Will you knock it off,” Yuri hisses, “nobody wants to see you and Katsudon basically having his heat in public.”
Viktor laughs, shakes his head. “Yurio,” he says, “Yurio, we’re both betas.”
Yurio’s jaw drops. “No.” He gestures out towards the ice. “You think I can’t see the lovebites on your mating glands?”
“Anyone can give a lovebite on a neck.”
“You think we don’t see you two making out on the ice and hugging on each other no matter what other innocent soul is around?”
“Yuuri kisses better with his skates on,” Viktor argues. “He feels more confident.”
“You both can’t stop wandering through baby stores!” Yuri shrieks. “Yakov thinks you’ve knocked Katsudon up!”
“We just have baby fever,” Viktor sighs. “We’re engaged, you know. Adoption talk is how we spend our Friday nights.”
“You’re telling me that all of this ridiculousness is you two being normal? That you’re NOT being overrun by unstoppable secondary gender hormones?”
“Just two betas in love,” Viktor confirms.
Yuri looks like he’s going to rip out his own hair, the way he clutches at it. After he’s pulled for a few moments, he clearly decides against it and decides to rip out Viktor’s hair instead.
When Viktor comes back from the grocery store during the summer, a paper bag in each arm, he sees Yuuri on the living room floor.
Disheveled, chest heaving, cheeks pink and eyes closed, hips going up and down while he balances on his feet and shoulders. Viktor drops both bags, eggs cracking and an onion rolling across his apartment’s wooden tiles.
“Yuuri?” He ventures, “are… are you all right? Are you sick?” Yuuri’s already looked up at the sound of the bags crashing to the ground, brow low. He huffs out a breath, one that Viktor would call amused if he wasn’t already so concerned with the situation.
“Viktor,” Yuuri gasps, arching, “I—I think I’m presenting.”
Viktor chokes on air, scrambles to his side, tripping through broccoli and boxes of crackers. “Are you—are you okay? Isn’t presenting so late in life dangerous? Darling, what do I do, how do I help you?”
He leans over his fiancé, who’s still got a dark heat in his eyes and his hips propped up, but they quickly drop, letting Viktor lean further into his space. This is when Yuuri strikes, his legs wrapping around Viktor’s torso and dragging him down, breathless laughter sounding in Viktor’s ear as he crashes, an ungainly pile of long limbs.
“You fell for it.” He presses a kiss to Viktor’s cheek, laughs again.
“Yuuri.”
“Mm. You caught me after a run, I was just doing some floorwork.” He winks, and Viktor collapses forward onto his chest with a puff of embarrassment. “Still a sexy, sexy beta.”
“Luckily for me—your stamina during a heat or rut would be impossible to survive. Ahhh, Yuuri. I can’t believe you would trick me.”
“Not tricking you,” Yuuri promises, “just… using your very active imagination.”
“There are better uses for my active imagination, I promise you.”
“In making skating programs,” Yuuri confirms, “definitely.”
“I’m trying to seduce my beautiful fiancé, and you still tease me! Twice!”
“I’m going for a world record in it.”
“I’m going to tease you first,” Viktor insists, “I’m going to kiss every bit of you, and tell you why each tiny part is perfect.”
“That’s—“ Yuuri blushes. “I don’t think you understand what teasing means.”
“Oh, by the third hour you’ll realize I understand perfectly, darling.” Viktor presses a kiss to his forehead, to start their evening off right. “You’ll be begging. But I’ll take my time, because you’re worth it. Every part of you is precious, just as you are.”