Chapter Text
The rest of the animal charity day went relatively uneventfully. Yuuri got to get back in his own, unflattering clothes, and mostly hide behind animals up for adoption at the mall. And if every animal he picked up found a home within minutes, well, at least his curse was good for something, right?
Yuuri figured once they’d been returned back to the cabin that he’d be in the clear. Even if he did have to room with Victor. They’d just be in the same room to sleep; it was a huge residence. He’d be fine.
Yuuri really needed to stop thinking that. It just tempted the universe to fuck him over harder. Like, how just as he’d started to close the door to his room, Victor wedged himself in and put his back to the door, breathing a bit hard and face flushed.
Blinking, Yuuri handed over the unopened water bottle in his hand. “Um, you look like you need this more than me. You okay?”
Victor beamed as he took the bottle, his thumb brushing Yuuri’s hand and leaving a wash of hot tingles behind. “Fine, zoloste.” Victor took a long draw of water before continuing, “Chris is just getting up to trouble, and I felt it wise to flee before I could be sucked into it. After all,” the smile slid from his face and his eyes grew serious, “it’s probably best we discuss the obvious...what is the phrase? Hippo in the room?”
“Elephant. It’s—wait. There’s an elephant?” Yuuri felt his eyes go wide. “Um, look, if I did something wrong, or I made you uncomfortable then I’m really, really--”
“Yuuri.” Victor put a finger gently to his lip. “Calm down. You’ve done nothing wrong. Seriously, nothing. And I’ve been watching very, very closely.” He sighed and let his finger slip from Yuuri’s skin. “I’ve never met a cambion quite so eager to not advertise, actually.”
Yuuri blinked. “Advertise? Advertise what? And what does ‘cambion’ mean? Is it another nickname? Zoloste is a nickname, right? You’re not secretly insulting me in Russian?” More words might have spewed out; babbling happened a lot when Yuuri got nervous, and he was definitely nervous with Victor touching him. Except Victor cut him off by bursting out laughing. Not cruelly or anything. In fact, it sounded….joyous.
“It’s more a...term of endearment. It means ‘golden’. Some use it something like ‘sweetheart’ is in English.”
“Sweet...” Yuuri’s voice broke as he reached octaves heard only by ghosts before coughing slightly and starting again. “Sweetheart? Why...why would you call me that?”
Victor laughed again. “I just told you I know you’re a half-demon, and you’re more startled by my choice of endearment that how I know? Truly, Yuuri, you are a constant and delightful surprise.”
Yuuri felt his legs give out as he fell to the floor. Victor knew. Well, he knew something. Not—not exactly the truth, but, something too close. He started shaking his head hard like a dog trying to shed water. “No, no. No, I’m not a….is that what cambion means? Half-demon? Cause I’m not.”
Settling to the floor with far more grace than Yuuri had, Victor sat beside him, one hand patting Yuuri’s own comfortingly. “It’s okay, Yuuri. I’m not going to harm you or tell anyone. I know I should, rules and all, but you’re clearly doing your best not to hurt anyone, and I can’t see what would be gained by turning you in. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Nothing in that little speech made a single bit of sense to Yuuri. “Turn me in to who? I...do you work for some Western church or something? I don’t...we have yokai back home not demons--” His hands shot up waving through the air as if he could somehow dissipate the words from the air. “Not that I’m a demon! I’m not! I don’t know why you would even think--”
“I’m nephilim, Yuuri. I knew exactly what you were the first time I watched you perform. It’s not exactly hard to spot. Though, I am very impressed how well you’ve managed to hide it outside of the ice. Very impressive. Really.”
Yuuri deflated. “I don’t think you do, Victor. I don’t even really understand this stupid curse my family has or why I got saddled with it--”
“Curse?” Victor lifted Yuuri’s chin and looked him in the eyes, searching. “Is that what they told you? That you’re cursed? Because none of this is your fault, Yuuri. You didn’t choose to be born the son of a demon any more than I choose to be born the son of an angel. Neither of us deserve to pay the consequences of our parents’ choices.”
Gaping, Yuuri took a moment to process everything Victor said. So, so many things needed to be addressed there, but first somehow Yuuri had to manage to pull himself out of the free fall into Victor’s eyes he’d landed himself in. Not that he really wanted to ever stop falling, but Victor kind of just insulted his parents and that needed to be stopped.
“My parents didn’t do anything wrong. They’re good people. It’s not their fault they ended up with the one-in-every-so-many-generations incubus. The fact they accept me anyway--”
“You’re an incubus? That’s what you believe?” Victor looked as if Yuuri had just declared himself the Flying Purple People Eater.
“Well, yeah. Why else would people...notice me...like that? I mean, I’m not exactly anything special, and--”
“Not---Yuuri, you are beautiful. Stunningly, inhumanly so. And I have little doubt that one of your parents is, in fact, an incubus, but you—“ He flailed, waving at Yuuri’s body. “No horns, no tail. And tell me, Yuuri, how many people have you fed from? Do you kill them? That kind of thing gets around in our circles, and according to Chris--”
“What does Chris have to do with any of this?”
Victor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Damn it. Can we forget I mentioned him. Not my secret. My point is, Yuuri, incubi have very obvious features. Ones you, as a cambion, do not have. Ones I would be able to see even if you used magic to hide them because that’s what I do. You are not an incubus. At least not a full-blooded one. But, seriously, it is important. How do you feed? Each cambion is a little different in what needs that they inherit. How did your folks deal with it when you were a kid? Or did you live with the demon until you came of age---no, you were in juniors, so it wasn’t that. Tell me, my Yuuri, please. I want to help you.”
“I just….eat. My folks run an onsen. It has a restaurant. But, it’s not like special magic food or anything, just...food.”
Victor blinked. “Well, yes, but I meant the...other kind of feeding. How often do you need to...seduce someone?”
Yuuri felt his entire body turn red with the force of his blush. “I...no...I don’t. I...haven’t….” His eyes widened. “You think I was doing that when I was a kid? The hell, Victor!”
“No, I didn’t mean—usually it hits a little later—but there are still—ways cambion harvest soul energy outside of the inherited means. But if you’re—father? Mother?--was an incubus then by the time you reached puberty--”
“My father cooks and my mom cleans. They are human. Completely, one hundred percent human. Please stop insulting them like that.” Yuuri knew he’d lost a little bit of control of his expression by how Victor suddenly turned deep pink across the cheeks and his eyes dilated, but Yuuri didn’t care right that moment. His parents were practically saints. They did not deserve to be maligned, and he’d be damned—more than being a demon already had him, he guessed—if he didn’t make that perfectly clear to Victor.
Victor’s eyes flashed a luminous, glowing blue, visible even behind his closed lids, as the man got his breathing under control. “Are you adopted?” Victor asked, eyes still closed.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I look a lot like my mom, so yeah, pretty sure.” Yuuri took a deep breath and also closed his eyes, flopping so he rested on his back on the floor. “Look, what I was told was that it happens sometimes. Rarely. Someone in our family is born...different. It sets in at eighteen, grows stronger for a while, and then kind of settles. I was just unlucky to be the one that ended up with the...weirdness. But, I swear, I don’t feed on people. Mostly, I just try to ignore it the best I can. I mean, other than having to wear ill-fitting clothes and too big glasses, it’s not that bad. Really. Just a nuisance. Nothing we need to tell people about or--”
“Shh.” Victor’s hand grasped Yuuri’s. Maybe Victor had laid down, too. Yuuri had no clue because he refused to open his eyes. But the hand felt nice on his. Cool, comforting. “No one is being told anything. I just want to understand. This...what you’ve said, that’s not how this works usually. You should have...needs. And there should be physical signs of your nature aside from your lovely face, but I’ve yet to see your eyes flash red, no vestigial tail or oddities in your limbs--”
“I have weird toes.”
“What?”
Yuuri opened his eyes. Victor sat beside him, gaze soft and fond as he looked down at Yuuri.
With a sigh, Yuuri sat up, turning so he could rest one foot on Victor’s thigh. He wiggled his toes. “Prehensile toes. Is that a thing that...cambion...have?”
Victor looked down at Yuuri’s foot, eyes wide, and cheeks red. His mouth fell open, but no sound came out. One hand drifted down, almost as if against Victor’s will to rest on the instep of Yuuri’s foot. Long fingers slid against the skin, a sound almost like a keen escaping Victor’s throat before he seemed to find his words again. “Um, not...not that I am aware of, no. But, how prehensile exactly are we talking. Can you...lift things with them?”
Yuuri shrugged. “Kind of. I can peel a banana. It’s a party trick Phichit makes me do sometimes. Big crowd pleaser, that one.” Yuuri said with a roll of his eyes. He expected Victor to laugh.
Victor did not, in fact, laugh. He made a strange, strangled noise and collapsed bodily into Yuuri, arms wrapping around him like an octopus. “Yuuri!” It came out pleading.
And then someone knocked on the door.