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“You’re watching that old thing again?”
Yuuri tried not to show how he’d been startled, but his elbow met the corner of their entertainment center with a swift uppercut motion nevertheless. He quickly scrambled for the television remote, pushing buttons at random until he heard the playback rewind, fast forward, rewind, then finally pause to blessed caught-out silence.
“I guess I may have been, uh… just happened to be watching, um… an older…” Victor waited patiently with a placid smile on his face. Yuuri crumbled. “...Yes. But it’s not weird or anything!”
“Did I say it was?” Victor’s smile stayed as implacable as it usually was, which was quite often. Through the deer-in-the-headlights stare Yuuri could make out one corner of it slightly ticking upwards. “Should I be asking that instead? Like, ‘Hey, Yuuri, why are you sitting on the living room floor in the dark, with the lights out, watching a dusty old video of me from a thousand years ago? Are you being weird?’”
The pause lasted less than ten seconds before Victor guffawed, more than he thought was strictly necessary for a joke at Yuuri’s expense. This was what he signed up for when he said until death do us part, he thought begrudgingly. “Okay, alright, fine. But I seriously wasn’t looking for it or, or…”
“Or…?”
“Victor! C’mon, stop laughing already!”
“I am! I’ve stopped!”
“I can see you laughing at me, I’m directly in front of you!”
Victor finally settled down long enough to at least give a more than passing attempt at not laughing outright at his dear and loving husband. “Okay, okay, I’m done! And I’m not really laughing at you, I’m just happy that you still want to watch that one, given it’s been so long…” Here his eyes adopted a glassy wistful veneer, but in one blink it was gone and Victor’s sharp blue eyes were turned more seriously to the present. “And it’s more than a little bit cute, you know.”
Yuuri had half a mind to be offended at that. Not the cute part, but the- “Of course I would want to watch that one, are you crazy? The live shot footage of a seventeen year old prodigy at his first Olympic showing? The only thing that’s appeared to have faded in all this time seems to be your-” In a brief pause to take a breath, Yuuri could see the amusement start to crawl back all over Victor’s pretty, punchable face. “Don’t make me say it.”
Victor suddenly appeared, quite satisfyingly, very humorless. “Yuuri… you wouldn’t.” A brief yet charged look was shared. Yuuri crossed his arms. Eyebrows were raised.
The tension broke when Yuuri stepped forward and used both hands to ruffle Victor’s definitely-not-receding hairline into an irreparable bee hive. “Yuuuuri, no, stop! I spent an hour on this look!” Despite his protests, Victor couldn’t help but giggle, especially when Yuuri moved on to tickle his neck instead. “You devil!”
“I’ll show you a devil, you...you-” They took a brief tumble when Victor retaliated with a bear hug that became dead weight. Two grown men landed on the living space throw rug, narrowly missing the edge of the entertainment system that still left a twinge in Yuuri’s elbow. The TV remote bounced to the floor with them from the force of their landing, surreptitiously starting the playback on the screen once again.
“Entering Victor Nikiforov, age seventeen, in his first olympic season…”
The sound stopped them in their tracks, the roar of a distant and muffled crowd a backdrop to Yuuri’s silent groan of dismay. Victor never took his eyes off of his face, playful gaze becoming soft, softer. He leaned in closer from his crouched position, a hand gently cradling the side of Yuuri’s face. And even though he saw it coming from a mile away, even after all of the years they’ve spent together doing just this, the collision of their lips sliding, then catching, then staying… the sensation blew him out of the water like it was day one. Victor released him after a moment with a soft smack, smiling at Yuuri’s dazed expression. “You are very, very cute. And I love you.” Yuuri blushed fetchingly, began to smile back, to lean in- “Especially when I find you watching videos of me when I was a teenager.”
Yuuri’s dismayed groan wasn’t nearly so silent that time. He pushed Victor away with a hand to his chest and tried to scoot away but he was too slow, hand caught and held against a warm, beating heart. He didn’t struggle nearly as much as he’d like when he was drawn into a hug, Yuuri’s head resting in the crook of Victor’s neck, pouting. Trying to pout. Because damnit, Victor smelled so fucking good.
His voice was muffled when he said “I found it when I was looking for one of Makka’s old toys for Lulu to play with, that one squeaky teddy bear,” at the mention of Makkachin the embrace became tighter, closer. A cold nose burrowed into Yuuri’s hair. “Yeah. But I found the box of old tapes instead. And I just…. Had to watch it. And then I got distracted and never found the bear and then you walked in and had a lot of fun embarrassing me.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say A LOT of fun, maybe more of a medium amount of- Ok, ok, I’m done, I swear.” Yuuri’s tickle ready hands creeped back down to normal hugging areas. “For the record, I think it’s very sweet you wanted to share something of Makkachin’s with Lulu. She’ll love it whenever we end up finding it.”
“Oh it’s we now, huh?”
“Yes, this is a family affair now. Even Lulu will help. Right, Lulu? Come here sweet girl!” A mid-sized poodle puppy stirred from her cozy spot in the master bedroom and came running at high speed to the living room, skidding to stop but still sliding gracelessly into them, caught laughingly into a group hug. Happy yips and tail wags and doggy kisses were had all around. “Haha, you silly lady Lulu! Lulu, you want to watch the TV with papa Yuuri, right? And then we’re going to get you a new toy!” Lulu was very interested in that second part, made apparent with a loud bark and enthusiastic snuggling. The group hug was nearly sprawled across the floor from the momentum. Yuuri was laughing and smiling and agreeing before he realized he should be a little reticent about that, but couldn’t find it in himself to be anything but happy about it.
“I mean, yeah, we can watch it together. I don’t mind.”
Victor turned, puppy settled in his lap, grin reaching from ear to ear. “Good. Then I don’t, either.”
--
The three of them settled upon the couch, throw blankets tucked around and a plate of snacks nearby on the coffee table while staying a puppy-safe distance away. Victor elected they restart from the beginning and Yuuri agreed instantly, blushing at the knowing look he received. It was the only way to watch Victor Nikiforov’s Olympic debut, after all. Start to finish, no pauses, no skips.
He pressed play.
Yuuri must have watched this routine hundreds, even thousands of times since he first saw it as a young struggling ballet student. The boy skating the routine that shattered records, shattered his heart and then remade it the next moment. The boy that changed his life, forever. It was a wonder that Yuuri felt gutted watching it even now. Like a kiss from someone who loved you endlessly, the feeling it inspired in you never gained wear from the passing of time. It took roots and grew inside you, getting stronger, making you stronger, too. Seeing it now all of these years later, Yuuri could only feel thankful. He was immensely grateful, humbled, and so in love it felt like a kind of pain.
He was silent during the viewing, eyes glued to the screen, yet he could feel Victor’s eyes on him throughout. He wondered what Victor saw on his face that was so interesting. A hand reached out to his underneath the blanket, grasping and threading and squeezing. It was a tiny anchor of assurance in the sea of emotion Yuuri was tumbled about in.
Yuuri was such an open book about this particular subject, and to Victor he may as well have been a billboard. He guessed that was why he was embarrassed to be caught in the first place. He wasn’t feeling embarrassed right now, though. Not even a little. He squeezed back.
When the routine ended and the roar of applause and yelling of commentators drowned out the last strings of the arrangement, Victor turned the screen to black. They both knew the score already. “Yuuri…”
“Yes?”
“Look at me.”
He did. And then he couldn’t look, because two hands were sliding along his face and into his hair and he was being kissed spectacularly. Passionate with a starving underbelly, Victor kissed him for what felt like an age packed into one minute. A little nip and bite had Yuuri pulling away to gasp for air, and was struck dumb, dumber, by the look of reverence all over Victor’s face. Was that what he had looked like? A spontaneous kiss made a world of sense then; he only felt more drawn to him, the shiny pink of his mouth a temptation he only barely resisted. Instead Yuuri leant forward to rest his forehead against Victor’s and breathed a long cooling breath. It gave him enough calm to chuckle and say, “It did end up being a little weird, right? Making out after watching a tape of a teenager dancing around in a skin tight outfit with a back cut-out?”
Victor sat back and was silent for two seconds before he smacked Yuuri in the chest, giggling and exclaiming, “Oh my god, Yuuri!” They both started up like a riot after that. Lulu, who had displaced herself five minutes ago, wandered back to jump on top of the loud wriggling mass of her masters. It did not serve to calm them down in the least.
Hiccupping and sighing out a final laugh, Yuuri lay back against Victor’s chest. There they rested, delighted and warm on the couch, in the dark, puppy resting at their feet.
“I love you so much.”
“I love you so much, too.”
And there was nothing to be ashamed of, in the light of that old yet always new feeling.