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Viktor looked away for one second, just one second. Yakov called his name as he approached the rink, so he turned to answer. But before either coach said a word, the air rang with the scuffle of a skate and a heart-sickening crack.
Viktor whipped his head back to find Yuuri, who he should have been watching, lying face down against the ice.
He must have flubbed his jump and missed the landing.
Viktor’s stomach crawled up into his throat as he lurched toward Yuuri, lying motionless on the ice.
“Yuuri!” His voice was breathless with panic.
He waited a moment to see if Yuuri would pick himself up.
He didn’t move.
“Yuuri, nononononono-” Viktor skated to the center of the rink
Splinters of pain radiated from his knees as he threw himself down on the ice next to his husband. He only vaguely registered the sensation in the back of his mind. His whole body seized with heart-pumping panic.
He grabbed Yuuri’s shoulder and rolled him to his side, revealing a bloom of blood spilled across the ice.
All the air squeezed out of Viktor’s lungs. He choked on emptiness as he shook Yuuri’s body.
“Yuuri! Yuuri, wake up. Come on, wake up!”
No response.
“Yuuri, Yuuri, please!” Hot tears began pouring from his eyes. “Please, Solnyshko, wake up. You have to wake up.” He begged.
Preparing himself for the worst, Viktor pressed two fingers to Yuuri’s pulse point. When he felt a strong heartbeat, some of the tension released from his chest, but not much. Blood was still flowing out of Yuuri’s nose and from a cut over his eyebrow. Viktor could see his own reflection in the red pool it formed.
Gently the arm beneath his death-grip on moved.
“Yuuri?”
“Vi- where’s v-” Yuuri’s voice was soft and groggy, but it was there.
“Yuuri, open your eyes. Look at me. I need you to look at me.”
A distant, confused gaze met Viktor’s.
“Good, good, that’s good. Keep looking at me, okay?”
Yuuri lifted a shaky hand, moving it towards Viktor. The Russian met him halfway, clasping his husband’s hand in his own and kissing his knuckles.
“Vitya?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“What h-” the rest of his sentence was lost in unintelligible mumbles.
“What was that?”
He got more mumbles as a response. Yuuri closed his eyes again.
“No, Yuuri, stay with me. You have to keep your eyes open!”
“’m tired”
“I know you’re tired, love, but you have to keep your eyes open. Look at me.”
Slowly, Yuuri pulled his lids open.
“Good! That’s good. Stay just like that.” Viktor whipped his head over his shoulder, “Yakov?”
His coach was one step ahead of him, as per usual. He had teleported across the room and rushed towards the boards with one of the on-site physicians in tow.
Viktor could feel his heart beating in his eyes; small black spots pulsed in his peripheral vision. It felt like an eternity before the doctor actually reached them on the ice.
“Mr. Katsuki, can you tell me your full name?”
“Yuuri Katsuki”
“And who is this man here?”
“Viktor.”
“Good. Can you wiggle your feet for me?”
Yuuri did so.
“Do you know where you are?”
Yuuri paused. His eyes looked a million miles away, “umm, no.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I don’t know.” Tears began to well in Yuuri’s eyes, “Vitya? Where’s Vitya?”
“I’m right here, Yuuri.” The Russian squeezed his arm in reassurance. “What’s the last thing you remember, love?”
“Umm, leaving home for the rink? I walked with Viktor.”
Viktor looked to the doctor, “that was hours ago.”
Worrying his lip, he watched as the doctor poked and prodded. Asking Yuuri to move seemingly unrelated parts of his body, shining a light into his eyes until he finally said, “Okay, Yuuri, I want to get you off the ice. Can you try and stand with us?”
Yuuri looked around the rink, seeming to notice for the first time that he was on the ice, “umm yeah.”
It took both uninjured men to lift Yuuri and steady him on his feet.
Up on his skates, he was easy enough to push across the ice. Viktor kept one arm wrapped under his husband’s armpits, and held on like his life depended on it.
As far as he was concerned, it did.
Yakov helped catch Yuuri as he stumbled off the ice. The two coaches deposited him onto a nearby bench.
Viktor sat down next to him and pressed a tissue to his husband’s nose, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Oww!” Yuuri reeled back, wincing.
“Sorry, sorry.” Viktor hesitated before reaching out again, gently pulling Yuuri into his arms to hold his wobbling body.
Yuuri fell against him, but his body was still stiff.
“Vitya?”
“I’ve got you.” Viktor tried to sound reassuring, but his voice wavered like an earthquake. Very delicately, he pressed the tissue back to Yuuri’s nose.
This time, the smaller man accepted it without complaint.
Placing gauze over the bleeding forehead wound, the doctor wrapped a stretchy band around Yuuri’s head until he looked like he had just returned from war.
“I recommend taking him to the ER, just to be safe. It looks like he has a concussion, nothing too serious, but he should get checked out. It’s possible that nose is broken, and he’s going to need proper bandaging on this cut over his eyes, but I don’t see any signs of more serious neurological damage.”
“He said he doesn’t remember skating. It’s been hours since we got here.” Viktor tried to keep his voice calm.
“Short-term memory loss is common with concussions. It’s not something to worry about unless it gets worse.”
Viktor was definitely going to worry about it. He could feel sweat drip down his back as his heart still hammered hard in his chest.
------------------------------------------
Yuuri felt like his thoughts were locked behind a glass display. He could look at them, reach for them, but never grasp them. He, meanwhile, was closed on his side with only his anxiety, which still boiled and raged, even if it didn’t know what to rage at.
When Viktor pulled him into his arms, he clung to him, gripping fistfuls of his shirt so they couldn’t be separated.
Yuuri had no idea what was happening, but if Viktor was here, it would be fine. Viktor wouldn’t let anything bad happen. He needed Viktor, so he squeezed tight.
Immediately, he felt stupid. He was being too needy. He should let go. He was being a burden.
People don’t like things that burden them.
Vibrations from Viktor’s chest hummed against the side of Yuuri’s face. His voice wrapped beautifully around the skater’s ears and settled gently in his chest.
It was calming, for a moment, until he imagined that voice irritated and frustrated.
God, Yuuri, give me some space. Figure it out yourself, it hissed through his head.
Scenes from that pointless fight in Barcelona played out in his mind.
Things they both said choked his throat as tears pricked his eyes.
How could he have been so stupid to treat Viktor like that? He was amazed that he didn’t break up with him on the spot, and here he was, being needy again.
Just a confused Yuuri, ready to fuck everything up again.
Hot tears finally broke the line of his eyelids and started pouring down his cheeks.
Those soft chest vibrations hummed in his ear again, and the sweet sound brought a new wave of desperation crashing over Yuuri.
He wanted Viktor, needed Viktor.
He wanted nothing more than to bury his tears in his husband’s shirt and have them soothed away, but he couldn’t.
That would be too much. Yuuri was too much, and God, he was just so tired.
At war with himself, it was a while before he realized someone was talking to him.
“Yuuri? Solnyshko?”
“Y-yeah”
“Everything is going to be okay, but we have to go to the hospital. Can you try to stand?”
Yuuri nodded, tears still streaming down his cheeks. He could stand. He could ease the burden he was putting on his husband.
Yuuri couldn’t resist lifting his gaze to look at Viktor’s face. He clung to the hope that it was soft and loving, the way Viktor looked when he first woke up, but when he caught his husband’s eyes, they looked scared. A fake smile smeared across his face. Maybe it was meant to be comforting, but it just shattered Yuuri’s heart.
He had done that to Viktor; he made him wear that fake, sad smile.
“S-sorry, I’m sorry.” He sobbed.
Viktor used his sleeve to dry Yuuri’s cheeks, “It’s okay. You have nothing to be sorry for. This was just an accident. Everything is okay. I’ve got you.”
Subconsciously, Yuuri leaned into the touch, drawing shuttering breaths.
“Davai, time to go.” A gruff voice barked to his right.
Yakov? How long has he been there?
Yuuri stumbled to his feet, immediately pitching and falling forward. Four large hands caught him before he could hit the ground.
Viktor mumbled something under his breath in Russian then, a moment later, Yuuri felt his body flying again. The room spun around him, and when it finally stopped, he realized he was in Viktor’s arms, being carried out of the rink.
Fuck. He couldn’t even walk right.
“Sorry,” he mumbled into his husband’s collarbone.
“It’s okay. You’re okay.”
------------------------------------------
Yuuri didn’t remember much of the drive to the hospital. But he knew Viktor didn’t let go of him the whole time. He held him close in the backseat. Yuuri wasn’t sure who was driving, only aware of the occasional erratic turn.
He tried his best to be strong, occasionally pushing his body away, trying to give Viktor personal space. But he always ended up leaning back in. He couldn’t help but grab for Viktor’s hand, squeezing a little too tight. His husband’s arms felt like a dry shelter in the middle of a raging hurricane. He just wanted to relax into them and forget about the fuzzy static in his mind.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay.” Viktor’s voice whispered in his ear, fingers gently threading through his raven tangles.
At some point, Yuuri realized his face was buried in Viktor’s shirt. He didn’t remember doing that, but it felt too nice to pull away.
He was keenly away that every moment he clung was a moment closer to losing Viktor. A moment closer to driving Viktor away with his needy bullshit, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go.
Viktor whispered, “It’s okay. I know you’re scared, but everything will be okay.”
“I’m okay” Yuuri tried to sit up straight and respond, but it came out sounding more like shuttering syllables than words.
“It’s all right, moy dorogoy. Just relax. Let me take care of everything.”
When Viktor’s tight grip didn’t loosen, Yuuri gave up, relaxing all his muscles and letting his full weight fall against his husband.
And then Yuuri was in a hospital bed.
------------------------------------------
Yakov offered to stay, but Viktor insisted he go back for Mila’s lesson. Yuuri was quickly given a room, an exam, a few stitches, and was whisked away for an MRI. Despite all the doctor’s assurances that she didn’t expect to find anything, Viktor couldn’t stop his legs from shaking.
He was left sitting alone, Yuuri’s wedding ring safely tucked in his hand (no metal allowed in the MRI).
Guilt wracked his body. If he had just been watching Yuuri, he could have stopped this. Maybe he could have yelled not to jump because the take-off was wrong or corrected his form enough for him to catch himself on the landing.
Viktor gently rolled the gold band around the tip of his pointer finger and then pressed it to his lips, willing its good luck to reach Yuuri however many meters away he was.
Eventually, he slid the ring onto his own finger so it rested above his matching band. He tried scrolling through Instagram as a distraction, but after a few minutes, he realized he couldn’t remember a single image from his feed.
It felt like an eternity before Yuuri was wheeled back into the room, fast asleep.
“We gave him a mild sedative to help with anxiety during the imaging, so he might be a little out of it. It should wear off in a few minutes.” The hospital tech locked Yuuri’s bed in place, “the doctor will be by with the results soon.”
“Thank you,” Viktor said in a cheerful tone he didn’t feel.
Not wanting to be apart for another minute, Viktor pulled a chair up to the bedside and held Yuuri’s hand while he waited.
A large purple bruise was forming on his forehead, and his nose looked like it lost in gladiatorial combat. It had finally stopped bleeding but still bore red and purple swollen skin.
The rest of his face was peaceful, mouth slightly parted, hair disheveled and pointing in every direction, almost like he looked before waking up this morning.
Viktor always woke up before Yuuri, and every morning without fail, he got to spend a few minutes watching his husband sleep, making adorable little sounds every time he shifted. Viktor could listen to his heartbeat from where he laid, his face buried in Yuuri’s chest. The familiar rise and fall of his breath had become a comforting rhythm. One that felt like home, no matter what hotel and what country they fell asleep in.
It was a good thing Yakov returned to the rink, because Viktor would never have lived down what he did next. Pulling his chair as close to the hospital bed as possible, he laid his head across Yuuri’s heart. Closing his eyes, he felt the soothing rhythm of rise and fall.
His embarrassing desperation was worth it when warm hands came to rest on the top of his head and threaded through his hair a few minutes later.
“Vitya?” Yuuri’s voice was groggy.
“Hey,” Viktor cooed softly in response, raising his body and laying one hand across his husband’s cheek.
“Where are we?”
“In the hospital.”
Yuuri searched the ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe before asking, “why?”
“You feel during practice and hit your head. Do you remember that?”
“Umm, maybe? A little? Did… did Yakov drive us here?”
Viktor laughed, “Yeah.”
“And… did he almost hit a guy on a bicycle?”
He laughed a little louder, “Yes, he did. He’ll be glad to know that’s the one thing you remember from the ride.”
Yuuri blushed lightly, “Well, that’s not the only thing. I remember you too.”
Viktor brushed disheveled black bangs off Yuuri’s forehead, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thank you,” Yuuri said, blushing a darker red, “for taking care of me.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that, Solnyshko. I vowed to do it forever, remember?”
“Still…” Yuuri trailed off, not finishing the sentence, casting his eyes down to the blankets. He was quiet for a moment before changing his tone entirely, “Viktor, where’s my ring?”
“Oh, I have it.” Wiggling the band off over his knuckle, Viktor reached across the bed and picked up Yuuri’s right hand. “The doctor said you couldn’t wear it during your MRI.”
“Oh. It feels weird, not wearing it.”
Viktor kissed the back of Yuuri’s hand and then slid the ring back on, just like he did that night in Barcelona. “There. All fixed.” He said gently. “I kissed it for good luck while you were gone.”
“Thanks.” Yuuri lowered his eyes and laughed almost sadly, “too bad you didn’t do that earlier. I might not have fallen.”
Guilt rode up Viktor’s throat and glued itself in the back of his mouth. It was entirely his fault that Yuuri fell. Yuuri was just too nice to say that.
“Yuuri, I’m s-” he was cut off by a knock on the door. A nurse poked her head in.
“Yuuri, we have one of our therapy dogs here visiting patients. Would you like to see her?”
“Yes, please!”
Viktor immediately forgot about his apology as a fluffy white cloud on legs walked into the room, tail wagging with joy.
Yuuri and Viktor squealed simultaneously, and The Cloud’s handler coaxed her up into Yuuri’s bed. Soon both men were sitting side by side on the bed, enjoying puppy kisses and cuddles.
“This is Asya.” The handler said.
“Asya, you’re perfect, aren’t you? Are you a perfect little cloud? Yes, you are.” Yuuri’s eyes light up as he buried his face in Asya’s fluffy mane. He was breathtakingly beautiful, maybe the most beautiful thing Viktor had ever seen.
“Look at her, Vitya! Isn’t she so good?”
“Perfect.” He said, not prying his eyes from his husband. Not until a sloppy tongue dragged across his cheek did he turn to look at the dog again. Yuuri was right. She was a perfect little cloud.
Asya thoroughly enjoyed the four-handed belly rub she got. Both men tried to be mature adults and not whine when she had to move on to the next room.
A smile still traced the line of Yuuri’s lips when Viktor wrapped an arm around him and tugged him back to lay in bed with him.
“It’s like being back in Hasetsu.” The Russian remarked, “trying to squeeze into your little bed at night, after everyone had gone to sleep.”
“I think this bed might actually be a little bigger.”
Viktor chuckled, “I think you’re right.”
Yuuri smiled warmly, “I still remember that first night you crawled in bed next to me in the middle of the night because you were afraid of the thunderstorm.”
“Okay, that wasn’t just a thunderstorm. That was a hurricane.”
“Mmmm, maybe a small one.”
“It had a name and everything.”
“I don’t think they named it until later when it got bigger.”
“It looked big to me.” Viktor pouted, “We don’t get storms like that here in St. Petersburg. Besides,” Viktor, with a mischievous grin, tapped his finger to his lips like he was thinking, “that might have been the first night I came to your room, but I seem to remember you being the one who started our late-night cuddle sessions.”
Yuuri blushed pink, just like he had on the night Viktor was talking about.
Viktor continued, “I remember you coming and getting in bed with me a week before that hurricane.”
“Thunderstorm.” Yuuri corrected him. Viktor waived the detail away with his free hand. “And I didn’t see you complaining about it,” Yuuri added.
“Oh, I definitely wasn’t complaining.” Viktor ran one nail up and down the length of Yuuri’s arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“Mhmm, did I ever tell you why I came to your room that night?”
“Were you drawn by my charisma and beauty?” Viktor teased.
“If that alone was enough to get me into your bed, I would have been there the first night.”
Now it was Viktor’s turn to blush.
Yuuri knew how to reduce his husband to a puddle of a man, and Viktor loved it every time. He prodded for more, “tell me, what do I have to thank for bringing you to my room that night?”
“@LoveVitya42”
“What?” That was not the answer Viktor had been expecting.
“I anonymously posted a question about you on a fan forum.” Yuuri looked painfully embarrassed by the admission.
“About me? Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I couldn’t ask you! I was trying to figure out,” he cast his eyes down, “what kind of skating you found sexy. It was right after that regional competition. I was trying to seduce you.”
“And you thought a fan website was a good place to find that information?”
“I realize what a stupid idea it was now. I was just… very out of my element back then. I was desperate.”
“You didn’t need any advice. You seduced me the moment you pulled me into a tango at the Sochi banquet.” Viktor purred.
“Well, I didn’t remember doing that,” Yuuri said sheepishly.
Viktor smiled, “So, what did LoveVitya42 say?”
“I don’t remember exactly, but their response was so condescending. They acted like they wrote the encyclopedia set on Viktor Nikiforov; like they knew you better than anyone else in the world. And I got so mad because you hadn’t spent the entire summer flirting with them. They didn’t get to have dinner with you every night or get to see you when you were acting like yourself, really like yourself, not just how you act for the cameras. They weren’t the one you were putting lip balm on with your bare finger…” Yuuri dropped his voice to a near whisper, “you were mine.”
Viktor pressed a kiss to his husband’s scarlet red cheek. “Completely and utterly yours.”
“Anyways, it made me mad. I wanted to prove that you were mine, but it’s not like I could respond with all that. Everyone would want to know why Katsuki Yuuri was posting questions about how to seduce his coach on a fan forum, so I just got in bed with you instead. LoveVitya42 didn’t get to sleep cuddled up with you. Only I got to do that… besides, you’d asked me to sleep with you so many times, I didn’t think you would kick me out.”
“I’m going to have to send them a thank you card. They gave me one of the best surprises of my life.”
Yuuri rolled his eyes but it didn’t hide the smile on his face.
“Did anyone give you any good advice?” Viktor asked.
“What?”
“On the fan forum. Did anyone give you any good suggestions for seducing me?”
“Oh, no. It became clear pretty quickly that all of them had their own ideas about who you were, but none of them really knew much about you. So, I came up with my own plan.”
“It worked.”
Yuuri responded with the most dazzling smile.
“And you thought you had to seduce me? With a smile like that?”
“It’s nothing compared to yours,” Yuuri said batting his dark eyelashes.
“No. I don’t think that’s right.” Viktor teased.
“All the evidence says it is, though.”
“Your evidence is wrong.”
“It can’t be. It’s peer-reviewed. All your fans agree with me.”
“You just told me a story about how wrong all my fans are.”
“I’m in the hospital. I’m the patient. The patient is always right.”
“Hmmmm fine. For today and today only, I’ll let you be wrong.”
“Wow, how generous of you.” Yuuri sarcastically responded, leaning his head into Viktor to soak up his warmth.
“I have been called one of the kindest skaters currently competing.”
“You just love quoting that article, don’t you?”
Viktor gasped with fake offense, “Yuuri, are you saying I’m not kind? After I so generously offered to let you be wrong?”
Yuuri snickered, “You’re such a dork, Vitya.”
Viktor hummed with contentment, rolling onto his side, and pulling Yuuri into his octopus embrace, “But I’m your dork.”
------------------------------------------
Finally, the doctor came back and diagnosed Yuuri with a moderate concussion and a bruised nasal bone. She discharged him with instructions to rest and stay away from screens for a while. Viktor didn’t realize how much weight he’d been carrying on his shoulder since the accident, not until he heard Yuuri would make a full recovery, and it all lifted off him.
Well, almost all of it.
During the cab ride home, he couldn’t help but remember how none of this would have happened if he had just been a better coach.
------------------------------------------
When they got to their apartment, Yuuri took a shower, hoping it would soothe away some of his anxiety (“a very common response to a concussion of this type” the doctor said) but it didn’t feel common. When calming himself down didn’t work, he tried just crying it out under the hot water, but rather than bringing relief, it just made his already aching head pulse with agonizing pressure.
By the time Yuuri dropped on the couch, he was exhausted and barely holding the pieces together. He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing, trying to keep his emotions in check.
Viktor, in his endless thoughtfulness, brought dinner to the living room.
Yuuri accepted his bowl, eyes still closed, with a “hmm” of thanks. On his first blind bite, Yuuri knew exactly what Viktor had made. It was the soup his mom always cooked when he was sick. And God damn it if Viktor hadn’t nailed the recipe.
He must have called Okasan and asked for it.
The tears he’d been biting back welled in his eyes. He didn’t deserve all this. Yuuri had been nothing but a fuck-up today and Viktor was still treating him like royalty.
He cinched his eyelids even tighter, maybe the tears would flush away before Viktor noticed them. He’d dealt with enough of Yuuri’s emotions today. Yuuri wasn’t going to burden him with these ones too.
The couch dipped as Viktor sat down on the other side.
“I hope it’s okay. I tried to follow Okasan’s recipe as closely as I could. It won’t be as good as hers, but hopefully, it will do for tonight.”
Yuuri couldn’t respond. The moment he opened his mouth, all his anxiety was going to come spilling out.
“I thought since we can’t watch TV for a while, we could try an audiobook? There’s one Chris recommended that I’ve been meaning to listen to. I downloaded it while you were in the shower. Do you want to try it?”
Here was another kindness Yuuri didn’t deserve. He bit his lip to stop it from quivering, but he couldn’t hold back his tears any longer. They spilled down his cheek.
“Yuuri, what’s wrong?” A pause and then a tentative hand fell on Yuuri’s shoulder, like Viktor was afraid to touch him.
Yuuri, and all his neediness, had managed to regress their relationship back to how it had been the first few months. Back before Yuuri ever crawled in bed with Viktor on that late summer night.
That was the thought that finally broke him.
Yuuri half doubled over against the power of his sobs, but shook his head, trying to communicate that he was okay; that Viktor shouldn’t worry about him.
But when he opened his mouth to say that shuttering, sobbing breaths were the only thing that came out.
“Yuuri, I’m so sorry!” Viktor pleaded next to him, “I know this is all my fault!”
Wait, what?
Yuuri half-startled out of his panic spiral.
Viktor kept talking, “I should have been watching you. I wasn’t paying close enough attention, and then you fell on a jump, and now you can’t skate for two weeks, and I’m so sorry. Please, talk to me. Just tell me what’s wrong. I’m trying to help, but clearly, I just keep fucking things up and pushing your boundaries, and…please just tell me how to fix this. I’ll do anything.”
It took Yuuri a moment to process the words as they tumbled out of Viktor’s mouth. “I… wait, you weren’t looking?”
“I’m so sorry. I was a terrible coach… You should just fire me.”
“Honey, I’m not going to fire you. Ignoring the fact that I don’t want to fire you. You’re the best coach I’ve ever had.”
Viktor sighed and looked down at his ring, nervously twisting it around his finger.
“Then I guess I’m just a bad husband.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve been nothing but kind and thoughtful all day. And what do you mean you were pushing my boundaries?” Yuuri tried to make his voice soothing and soft, but honestly, he was just confused.
“I could tell you didn’t want to be held and I did it anyways. I’m sorry… I was just so scared when you hit the ice. I just- I felt like I could keep you safe if I held onto you. It was selfish of me.”
“Oh, Vitya,” Yuuri closed the distance across the couch and wrapped Viktor into his arms, “I wanted you to hold me. I wanted it so badly. I was just worried I was burdening you. I was trying not to be too clingy.”
Viktor knitted his eyebrows, “why would you think that? You’re never a burden to me. I love you and I want to support you… Besides, I love it when you cling.”
As soon as Yuuri heard the words in Viktor’s voice, he knew they were true. He’d always known they were true. “Now that I say it out loud, it sounds stupid.” He admitted.
“No, it’s not stupid.” Viktor kissed the unbruised part of his forehead, “but it’s not accurate either.”
“I know.” Yuuri said gently, “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I was just panicking. And none of this was your fault. Even if you had been watching, there was nothing you could have done about it. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You don’t need to apologize, love. It was just an accident… It was no one’s fault.” Viktor said it like a realization.
Yuuri finally gave in to his urge to nuzzle into Viktor, leaving all his anxiety behind. Enjoying having the warm body pressed against his own.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, relaxing in each other’s arms.
“Vitya?”
“Yes, love?”
“You- you really weren’t looking when I fell?”
“No. Does that bother you?”
“No,” Yuuri answered honestly.
Viktor lifted his head and gently thumbed at Yuuri’s cheekbone.
“Was it an impressive jump?” He asked playfully.
“Oh, umm,” Yuuri sighed and closed his eyes. Pink blush bled across his face, “I didn’t fall out of a jump... I tripped on my toe pick.”
When Yuuri opened his eyes, Viktor was staring at him with dumbfounded confusion.
“What?”
“I had been taking off for my jumps from the same spot all day, and I must have chipped a hole in the ice over time because when I skated over it, my toe pick got caught and- and I fell on my face.”
Viktor just looked at him,
in silence,
mouth slightly open…
Yuuri wasn’t sure who laughed first, but soon they were both in a fit of giggles, double over each other on the couch, bodies tangled together.
“Yuuri, you tripped on your toe pick?”
He hid his face in his hands, still laughing, “Yes.”
“Yuuri, you’re one of the best skaters in the world-”
“I know!”
“You jumped twelve quads today and landed every single one, and then you got a concussion tripping on your toe pick?”
“Vitya-” he whined lifting his head.
“No, no, you’re right. It happens. I’ve tripped on my toe pick before. I was like six, but-”
Yuuri buried his face into his husband’s shoulder “stop, it’s embarrassing.”
Viktor brought one hand to cradle the back of Yuuri’s head, “if you didn’t look so cute when you were embarrassed, I’d stop doing it all time.” He teased.
Warmth swelled in Yuuri’s chest. He lifted his head and pulled Viktor into a kiss. Claiming ownership of his lips, body, and soul in the process.
Pulling away, he mumbled “eat your soup,” with an embarrassed but smitten smile.
Viktor didn’t bother untangling his body from Yuuri’s as he picked up his bowl again, he said, “You know, two weeks without skating I can accomplish, but two weeks without sex…” Yuuri involuntarily bit his lip as Viktor sighed, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“That better be a really good audiobook,” Yuuri responded, flashing his Eros eyes.
“You’re going to kill me, Yuuri.”
The younger man leaned into his husband’s ear and whispered, “But just think how good it’s going to be in two weeks? All that pent-up want and desire. Two weeks of holding you at night, running my hands over your body, knowing I can’t have you yet…”
Viktor whimpered.
Grinning his most devious smile, Yuuri dropped a kiss on his husband’s cheek and went back to eating his soup, business as usual.
“This is going to be a long two weeks.”
“Mhmm, maybe you can finally take me sightseeing around St. Petersburg.”
When Viktor didn’t respond, Yuuri looked up from his bowl to find the most beautiful, eye-shimmering smile looking back at him, “I’d love that.”
They sat in smitten silence for a few minutes, sipping spoonfuls of soup. Yuuri broke the silence first, “let’s try that audiobook Chris recommended.”
Viktor pulled it up and hit the play button. His tiny phone speakers sprung to life.
“Chapter one: Satin Sheets. Noah’s cock bobbed with arousal and excitement.”
“Ugh!” Both men threw their heads back against the couch.
“We should have known-” Viktor started
“Chris!” They said in tandem.
Turning to look at Yuuri, Viktor bit his lip, eyes wandering the length of his body, “maybe I should just sleep in the guest room.”
Yuuri gasped in his best impression of his husband, “Never!” He said pulling Viktor’s head into his chest, where he pillowed it every night, “you’re stuck with me.”
“Mhmm, promise?” Viktor smiled.
Yuuri dropped a kiss into the threads of silver hair, “forever.”