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It felt like weeks since the last time Yuuri had gotten to spend an uninterrupted day with Victor.
Maybe it had been. Now that he thought about it, between teaching at the elementary school and Victor at the Academy, they barely had time to think, let alone take a day off.
But now.
But now.
Now it was summer, and the first year of Yuuri’s actual teaching job had come to a close. The Academy could survive without Victor for a day, especially on the weekend. Yuuri was sure that the students would be glad to have a day free of Victor’s optimistic persistence, a day free of his omnipresent bondmate, a day free of getting their asses kicked by the strongest pair to come out of the Seven Voices since Agatsuma and Aoyagi (once that bad business with Beloved had been taken care of).
Perhaps they hadn’t had an entire day together in longer than he could remember, but that didn’t mean they didn’t make due with the time they got.
He couldn’t believe that Victor had been his for more than a year already.
Yuuri rolled to the side and rumbled his satisfaction at finding Victor there within reach, the bare canvas of his pale back still painted with Yuuri’s marks from the night before, streams of silver hair tied at the nape of his neck.
Yuuri smiled to himself. Victor had always blushed so prettily, marked up so beautifully—
—but there was only one mark that mattered.
Yuuri scooted up behind Victor to press his half-hard cock against the swell of Victor’s ass, smiling against one purple bruise on his shoulder as he reached over their bodies to find Victor’s hand. The light was bright through the curtains with the vibrance of the summer morning, and Yuuri propped his chin up on Victor’s arm to look properly. Victor’s legs were still tangled in the blankets, naked and pale and limber. Stretched out before him, partially hidden by a sheet, was the name they shared written vertically down the back of Victor’s hand, ending above his fourth knuckle.
Fated.
When Yuuri reached over Victor’s sleeping body to twine their fingers together, they made a perfect mirror—two bodies with the same name, two halves of one unit. Shimmery opalescent letters bound them together tighter than any red thread ever could.
Yuuri nibbled his way across the crest of Victor’s shoulder, mischievous smirk pulling at his mouth. He lapped at the goosebumps that spread over Victor’s skin, nosed at the column of his throat, and waited.
Like it or not, now that Yuuri was awake, Victor wouldn’t be far behind. It was the nature of a habit—it was not easily broken. Nine months of their school year routine would not yield, even for the first day of summer vacation.
But Yuuri was looking forward to taking advantage of their free time.
Yuuri slipped his hand free from Victor’s in favor of tracing abstract shapes over the sensitive flesh of Victor’s abs, skimming low over the vee of his hipbones and through the line of silver hair that led to Victor’s dick. He was half-hard in his state of half-awareness, murmuring something nonsensical that made his throat vibrate against Yuuri’s lips. He huffed and arched into Yuuri’s waiting hand, seeking satisfaction, even in sleep.
Yuuri loved him like this.
When Victor woke up, it was all at once. His hips pushed forward as his head tipped back, blue eyes still blinking the haze away as he searched for Yuuri’s face over his shoulder. He licked his lips, slick and wet, and gasped as Yuuri kissed him.
Victor hummed against his mouth. Yuuri’s fingertips trailed around the base of Victor’s dick, skimmed the seam of his balls, and was rewarded with a bitten-off whine. “Yuuri.”
Yuuri smiled as Victor lapped at his mouth and hardened in his hand. “Morning, Vitya. Happy summer.”
Victor reached back with one hand to grip Yuuri’s hip, hard. Yuuri hoped he left some bruises of his own. “Nngh.”
Yuuri chuckled into Victor’s desperate kisses, punctuated with nibbles and languid sucking at his tongue. Victor was insistent, and it didn’t take long for him to decide that just a little was not nearly enough—he rolled in Yuuri’s arms until he was splayed across his chest. Victor anchored himself with his arms on either side of Yuuri’s head, neck craned low to chase Yuuri’s kisses until his hair created a silver curtain around them. Yuuri hitched his knees up around his hips, one hand still pressed between them, pulling moans straight from Victor’s chest in time with the slick pulls at his cock.
Victor broke away with a shuddering breath and glanced between their bodies. He caught sight of Yuuri’s hand, of their shared name flexing around his cock with the curve of Yuuri’s fingers; and that sound, that gut-deep snarl, had sent Yuuri over the edge more than once.
But not yet.
Victor returned his attention to Yuuri’s jaw and worked his way down the column of his throat, leaving rosy red bites over the edges of the purple bruises that had already set in from the night before. He sucked incessantly at Yuuri’s pulse point, timing it with each push of his cock through the tight clutch of Yuuri’s palm.
Yuuri tipped his head back and moaned.
He had never been so glad that they had finally decided to get a place of their own. It had taken too many months of sharing his childhood bed to get them here, to a small apartment in a nowhere town halfway between Hasetsu and the Academy headquarters.
Here, they didn’t have to worry about privacy. Here, aside from the worry of irritating their neighbors, they could be as loud as they liked. Here, they could start the next chapter of their lives together. Yuuri wanted nothing more.
“Mmnn, Yuuri. Stop, stop,” Victor panted against his adam’s apple. “Go easy on me, love.”
Yuuri pushed lower to tease at Victor’s balls, to lightly scritch his nails over the insides of his thighs. Victor bit him hard at the base of his throat. It must’ve been harder than he intended, because he followed it up with ticklish, apologetic kitten licks. Yuuri grabbed him at the waist, hands skimming up his ribs and down his hips, repeating that path until Victor was shuddering.
“What can I give you?” Yuuri asked. He tried valiantly to ignore the persistent throb of his own erection lying thick against his belly.
Victor crawled up Yuuri’s chest for an open-mouthed kiss, filthy and wet as he straddled Yuuri’s thigh and rutted against him. He pushed forward in damp streaks that gave Yuuri some of the friction he desperately desired.
“I want,” Victor panted, turned-on but bleary with sleep, directed only by instinct and habit. “Um. I want—nnngh, Yuuri.”
Yuuri’s cheshire grin was wicked as he hid his face against Victor’s temple. His hands pushed back over Victor’s hips and ass until he could press his fingers against Victor’s hole.
“This?” He asked, and circled around the tender clench of skin, toyed at it with his fingertip—just a little loose from the night before. It would still take some loving attention to open Victor up for him again. But first, he had to be sure this was how he wanted it; this was their first day of vacation, after all. The options were endless. “However you want it, Vitya. Just tell me.”
Victor’s dick caught in the vee of Yuuri’s hipbone and fucked against it, his open-mouthed breaths wet and hot against the pink shell of Yuuri’s ear. Yuuri shivered at the phantom sensation of vestigial ears—domed high and soft and flexible at the crown of his head, catlike. Most importantly, gone. Gone, gone, as all child-ears dropped once children reached sexual maturity, and Yuuri had given them up for this. For Victor.
Victor whimpered and nipped at Yuuri’s earlobe. “Nnn, yeah, me first.”
He huffed out a breathy curse when Yuuri tugged at his rim. Yuuri smirked, but pressed a loving kiss to the apple of Victor’s cheek. “You’re lying on me; you reach the lube.”
Yuuri laughed at Victor’s blind scrabbling toward their nightstand, especially when Victor cursed and crawled across the mattress. He’d evidently realized they’d knocked the bottle off the table the night before. Even in arousal, Yuuri’s heart was in his throat at the thought of what was tucked at the back of the drawer, and was glad for their impatience last night. Victor groaned as he collapsed onto his belly and reached. “Yuuri, it got on the floor. There’s a puddle.”
Victor’s hair was in tangles, a flush high on his cheeks and his chest and his back as he cast a mournful glance over his shoulder, and oh—it looked like Victor had some scratches left from a few days ago. Yuuri made them while getting fucked within an inch of his life. He hadn’t regretted a single one then; he regretted them even less now.
Yuuri rolled on his side and leveled Victor with a lazy, contented smile, chin propped in his hand. “Are you saying you’d rather clean it up right now?”
Victor paused, pupils fattening dark and wide until they overtook the blue. He looked fucked out already, nothing on his mind but the pleasure Yuuri had woken him for. It was a good look on him, if Yuuri said so himself.
“No,” Victor replied. “No, definitely not.”
Victor lunged for the lube and fumbled it in his slippery fingers, the cap still open from last night. Victor pushed it into Yuuri’s hands and pushed him down in turn, a slow grin spreading across his face as he situated himself in Yuuri’s lap. With one hand pinning Yuuri’s chest to the bed, Victor reached behind himself with the other, and—
“Don’t wanna waste it,” Victor murmured, and his eyes slipped closed as he pushed inside. Yuuri’s strained moan was a perfect echo.
Yuuri watched, rapt, the lube bottle tucked in his palm as he gripped Victor’s hips. He steadied Victor when he wobbled on weak knees. More important than watching Victor’s fingers was watching his face—the slack hang of his jaw, how his hair moved when his head fell back in ecstasy.
God, but Victor was beautiful. He always had been, he always would be.
He would look even more beautiful on his back.
Yuuri pushed up on his elbows, then up further—he pulled Victor’s wrist free and toppled him over. He grinned at Victor’s hiss as his scratches hit the mattress. He didn’t care if he looked smug. Yuuri dropped the lube at their side and dragged Victor closer by his hips, kneeling in the space between his legs and hitching his thighs up over his own.
Victor’s eyes dilated until all Yuuri could see was black. His flush spread in pale pink splotches down his chest when he realized how spread open he was, how thick Yuuri’s cock hung between his legs in anticipation of stretching him wide.
Yuuri pushed away their top sheet; they would only be getting tangled in it soon, anyway.
He drizzled a line of lube into his palm, tossing Victor a smirk as he wrapped his fingers around Victor’s cock to jack it nice and slow and wet. Victor arched into Yuuri’s touch, reaching over his head, hands fisting in their blankets. His lips parted on a strangled sound, a moan torn out between his teeth as his eyes closed tight.
Yuuri’s free hand splayed over Victor’s belly and pushed up over his ribs, then dragged his thumbnail over Victor’s nipple. It was the distraction he wanted, and Victor gasped when Yuuri pressed his fingers in, and pushed a puddle of lube inside after them.
Victor’s ass fluttered around his fingers and he arched into the feeling, panting and moaning at the slick squelch, and wasn’t that just a punch to the gut? Victor twitched as Yuuri pushed and curled and dragged his fingers over Victor’s prostate.
His head fell to the side, eyes glimmering through his shining lashes—wet with arousal, as shiny as he’d licked his swollen lips. He bit down until his mouth was bruised and puffy, and pushed himself back into Yuuri’s touch in blind search of the orgasm Yuuri ached to give him.
Teamwork, like always, in all things.
Victor kept one hand clenched above his head, but the other reached for Yuuri. He leaned down obligingly, lovingly, for a kiss that mostly involved Victor sucking his tongue the same way he sucked cock. Yuuri trembled as he held himself up, fingers working in short, sharp thrusts that ripped keening whines from Victor’s chest.
“One more,” Victor gasped against his mouth. “Yuuri, please.”
Yuuri couldn’t deny him anything. He pulled out entirely, savoring Victor’s aching whimper before he pushed in with three fingers, hard and fast and bending just so, until Victor arched and moaned and his dick left a sticky streak on his stomach.
“That’s so good, Vitya,” Yuuri murmured. He cupped Victor’s cheek with his free hand, met with adoration in turn. It never stopped surprising him. “I love your voice, Vitya. You sound amazing. I love hearing you.”
Victor’s eyes were half-open, bleary with affection, raw with pleasure. He moaned as his chin tipped back, exposing the pale line of his throat that Yuuri itched to leave bitten-red. His cock twitched against his stomach, still shiny with lube and dripping pearly beads of precome that Yuuri fucked out of him with each push of his fingers. “Anything for you—haah, Yuuri. M’ready, please. Yuuri, please.”
Victor tore Yuuri’s palm from his cheek and twined their fingers together. Fated, their hands said. A perfect match, just like them, just like they’d always been. Fighter and Sacrifice in resonant harmony, feeding each others’ needs in every way.
It didn’t matter that they were tied together by the twists of fate. Even before they’d known, there had never been anyone else.
Yuuri pushed in slow to the tight grip of Victor’s ass, dripping wetness that leaked down onto their sheets. He watched the shiver that shot down Victor’s spine when the head of his dick was finally sucked inside, and bit the inside of his own cheek until it almost bled.
Yuuri twitched at a sudden sound, head whipping up to find it, and—
—oh, Victor had pulled their fitted sheet off the corner of the bed.
And Yuuri couldn’t help it; he started to laugh.
Victor flailed in his direction, exasperated and amused and irritated and desperate, and his hand made a glancing, chiding smack off Yuuri’s side.
“Yuuuuuuri,” he whined.
And then he started to squirm.
Fuck, that really wasn’t fair.
Yuuri pinned his hips to the bed and grit his teeth. Victor glowered at him, and the challenge in his eyes was not something Yuuri could ignore.
So when Victor scraped his fingernails across Yuuri’s ribcage, the bloom of pain sparked behind Yuuri’s eyes. Something shifted, and they knew.
Partners though they may be, their bed was not their usual field of battle. Victor was his Fighter, a spellweaver, legendary in his own right and unmatched in skill. Yuuri was Victor’s Sacrifice, his voice of command who looked after his every need. They were bonded by a name, by battle, by magic—by fate.
Things that ran deeper than love alone.
And this… this ran deep.
Every time they did this was a little bit different. Sometimes they laughed their way through foreplay, sometimes Yuuri couldn’t stop running his mouth and Victor babbled in two languages, sometimes they twined so closely together that their sex was just slow thrusts and gasped breaths more than ambitious acrobatics.
This was one of those times when everything was close and hot and a little bit of pain was just enough. Yuuri pushed in until Victor’s body yielded, until Victor pulled Yuuri down to meet him because not having him near was unbearable, and Victor’s dick was pinned between their bodies. The bite of Victor’s nails on his back and his teeth in Yuuri’s throat were sharp, electric. He panted against Victor’s temple and dragged Victor back onto his cock, hips rolling sinuously as he made himself a home in Victor’s core.
He could do this forever, in every variation and permutation. As long as Victor was with him like this, Yuuri would always be satisfied. Victor may have lost his child-ears long before they met, but there would never be anyone else after Yuuri. The thought was immeasurably pleasing.
Yuuri was more possessive than he liked to admit, but he also liked to think he’d earned it with the trials they’d gone through. Having Victor finally here, having Victor finally be his and knowing that Victor loved him for life had been worth every heartache.
Victor kicked his legs up around Yuuri’s hips and locked him in. His lips dragged up Yuuri’s jaw, red and swollen and bruised with kisses, nosing and nuzzling as he sought Yuuri’s mouth. Their tongues met somewhere in the middle, panting together more than kissing.
Yuuri moaned as Victor squeezed around him. Fuck, he was hot, and so damn wet. It almost wasn’t enough friction, the piston in and out too smooth, Victor sloppy and squelching with lube. But Victor picked up the slack and worked his muscles in rhythmic clenches, his hands slipping on Yuuri’s skin with the thin sheen of sweat. His hair stuck to everything, still wild from sleep and caught all around them—under his body, under Yuuri’s arms, bracketed around his head—but if anything the tug made him moan more, toss his head more in search of that sharp sensation.
His hands dragged from Yuuri’s shoulders upward, pulling through the mess of Yuuri’s hair until they reached the crown of his head. Victor’s index fingers traced two curved, invisible lines over Yuuri’s scalp, and Yuuri buckled.
A moan tore its way through his teeth as Victor touched the places where Yuuri’s child-ears had been. Yuuri had them for so long, grown protective of them, and was already well into adulthood before he’d given them up, and—
—and it was Victor he’d given them to. It was Victor he’d given everything to.
Yuuri swiveled his hips. Victor’s head fell back, neck exposed to Yuuri’s sucking bites, and then he was more concerned with holding on for dear life than he was with tormenting Yuuri. “Ah, like that, Yuuri. Again, please.”
Yuuri’s hands curled around his hips and hitched him up, just that little bit of leverage that let him push past Victor’s prostate as he fucked in deep. Yuuri grinned as Victor squeezed around him, at the twitch of Victor’s untouched cock dripping precome toward his navel, as Victor’s arms encircled Yuuri’s neck hard enough to pull his back up off the mattress.
Yuuri pulled him up as he sat back on his knees. Like this, Victor was firmly seated in his lap, panting and clinging. Yuuri’s back twinged with the strain of supporting them both but—fuck, oh, when Victor finally had room to roll his hips, everything was worth it.
Yuuri took in the tight squeeze of Victor’s eyes, silver lashes against pink cheeks, the furrow of his brow, all screwed up with pained pleasure. Victor grappled at his shoulders, desperate for sensation—Yuuri brought him in and mouthed at Victor’s collarbone. “You okay?” He mumbled against Victor’s sternum.
Victor’s response was a long, low moan as he carded one hand through Yuuri’s hair. “I love you.”
Yuuri smiled against Victor’s skin and nibbled at the hollow of his throat. He reached down to trace the backs of his knuckles up the heated shaft of Victor’s dick. “And I love you, Vitya. Keep going?”
Victor tugged at his hair, dragging Yuuri’s head back to look him in the eyes. “If you stop now, I’ll throw the next match against Yura and you’ll never hear the end of it.”
Yuuri grinned at him and shuffled on his knees, jostling Victor on his cock and reveling in the gasp that had his lashes fluttering. He pulled his hand away and supported Victor’s back, pushing and angling him so subtly that he didn't seem to notice. “You want to bring Yuri up here? Now?”
Victor’s teeth sank into his lip and Yuuri pushed up again, hissing at the sharp smack of Victor’s ass against his thighs and the way he clenched when Yuuri was this deep.
“Fuck, Yuuri.”
He loved the noises Victor made; he wanted to pull each and every one straight out of his chest and feel them vibrate against his lips. Yuuri made himself busy sucking a collar of bruises across Victor’s throat that would leave a more visible claim than their shared name ever could. Yuuri spread his legs for better leverage and fucked Victor the way he liked—steady, rolling thrusts that made his body rise and fall like waves, Victor’s dick rubbing against Yuuri’s stomach in the space between them. “Have I ever left you unsatisfied?”
“Nnn—no.”
“You think I’d stop now?”
Victor’s whines crept higher up his vocal register, frantic and primal at the threat of losing this pleasure. “Yuuri, please.”
Yuuri slowed, smiling and gasping as he slowed to shallow, unsatisfying little pushes that tugged at Victor’s rim. He’d never given Victor anything but exactly what he needed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like to tease from time to time. “Please stop?”
Victor’s nails ripped down his back, and the lines of fire he made across Yuuri’s shoulders were close to drawing blood if they hadn’t already. “Yuuri.”
Oh, and there it was—the voice Victor used in the heat of battle, that undeniable command. Victor had bent reality under Yuuri’s say-so more times than he could count. It was the nature of Fighter and Sacrifice. Victor held more power in his hands than Yuuri could ever imagine; the only thing Yuuri held was Victor. It wasn’t often that Yuuri could flip Victor’s world upside-down, leave him teetering on the edge of something he couldn’t control.
Yuuri treasured these moments. He treasured Victor more than words could ever say—except for maybe one word that could sum them up in five letters, written in silver across the back of their hands.
Fated.
And they were.
“I know, love,” Yuuri murmured, placating and warm as he kissed up Victor’s neck, as he reached between them blindly and wrapped his hand around Victor’s cock at last.
It was a little sticky, a little too much friction, a perfect counterpoint to the seamless glide as Yuuri fucked through the mess of lube that dripped out of Victor’s hole and slicked their thighs. Everything was slippery, but Victor’s arms around him were tight enough to hold them together, Yuuri’s arm around Victor’s waist supporting him with all his strength.
Victor pushed himself down as Yuuri pushed up, fucking himself back against Yuuri as well as he could manage. Yuuri keened against Victor’s throat and looked down between them, at Victor’s dick leaking in his fist, at the glimpses of the place where Yuuri’s cock shoved in and out of Victor’s body, fast and hard and gleaming with lube.
Heat pooled low in Yuuri’s belly and he chased it, fucked Victor in loud, syncopated thrusts. “Fuck,” Yuuri bit out, and buried his face in the crook of Victor’s neck, mouthing at the tendon.
“You’re close, right?” Victor gasped, high-pitched and sweet and begging once more. “Yuuri?”
“Yeah.”
Victor’s breathless laugh turned into a whine that got stuck in the back of his throat. “Me too.”
Yuuri twisted his wrist on every upward stroke over Victor’s dick, swizzled his hips as he ground himself in deep, over and over and over again. “I love you. You know that? I—nnngh, Vitya, I really love you.”
Victor laughed again and squeezed his legs tight around Yuuri’s hips. “I know, Yuuri. You tell me, aah, every day.”
Heat and electricity were building, cresting, arcing and sparking between them to a critical point, but the thought of a little gray box lingered in the back of his mind. “I mean it.” Yuuri swallowed hard. “I want you forever. Vitya, Victor—”
Victor’s moans broke open as he clenched and squeezed and keened, grinding down and coming hard as Yuuri fucked him through it. The spurts of his come caught on Yuuri’s fingers, some painting their abs, and as Victor came down his body went heavy, languid, boneless.
He was all warm affection and sated contentment, nuzzled at Yuuri’s temple as Yuuri grit his teeth. His hole still spasmed and fluttered around Yuuri’s cock, and his voice was a sigh, high and satisfied, “I’m yours. Always been yours.”
Yuuri gasped, open-mouthed and humid. “Vitya, I—”
Victor squeezed weakly around him again, trembling. Deliberate. “Inside, Yuuri, let me feel you.”
Yuuri whined and clutched Victor close and thrust deep into Victor’s body, and—
—he came when Victor pressed kisses to that shivery place where his ears had been, packed with nerves and sensation, and Yuuri was lost.
Victor moaned with him, soft and shuddering at the iron clutch of Yuuri’s arms around him, at being used and owned and claimed and loved. He had told Yuuri a hundred times that he’d never wanted anything more than what they found when they'd found each other.
Yuuri had never wanted anything but Victor.
Yuuri whined through every breath as his cock went soft, as Victor pet his hair and showered him with love and praise. Victor squirmed with the last aftershocks of his orgasm, dipping his head to pant open-mouthed against the pink skin of Yuuri’s ear, kitten-licking over his cartilage. “I adore you,” Victor murmured, warm and possessive and pleased as could be.
Yuuri pushed his face against Victor’s shoulder, held him and let himself be held. Victor’s chest was still heaving against him, sticky with sweat in a way that should have been unpleasant. But Yuuri could only feel the loving drag of Victor’s hands through his hair, Victor’s lips behind his ear.
Yuuri clung to him until Victor tapped him on the shoulder; Yuuri loosened his arms obligingly, though he was sure his hands would shake without Victor to hold on to. Victor moaned softly as he pulled up and off Yuuri’s cock, collapsing back heavily onto their lube-stained sheets with enough force that he bounced. He reached his arms over his head and stretched, his legs spread on either side of where Yuuri knelt between them. Victor’s pupils were still blown, eyes half-lidded, cheeks flushed as his breathing began to slow and he stared up at Yuuri.
And Yuuri’s eyes drifted down the planes of Victor’s body, sweat-stained and come-smudged, marked and bruised. Yuuri’s hand started at Victor’s sternum and slid slowly down—over the ticklish skin of Victor’s belly that made him squirm, skimmed over Victor’s soft cock laying wet against his thigh, between Victor’s legs to catch the drip of his own come on his fingertips and push it back inside the red rim of Victor’s hole.
Victor keened softly, his eyes rolling back and fluttering shut, trembling around the pads of Yuuri’s fingers. When Yuuri pushed a little deeper, rubbed his fingers against the swell of Victor’s prostate, the sound he made was positively tortured. His hand shot down, fingers curling around Yuuri’s wrist, neither helping nor hindering him—but when Victor opened his eyes, they were wet with overstimulated tears, his dick twitching helplessly against Yuuri’s onslaught of pleasure.
Another drop of pearly fluid beaded at the head of his cock and dripped down Victor’s foreskin. Pulled by an urge more primal than Yuuri could ignore, he bent to lick it away, and Victor sobbed.
“Mercy,” he begged, squeezing Yuuri’s wrist. Yuuri’s eyes shot to his, surprised at his own boldness, worried at Victor’s reaction—but Victor didn’t seem upset. Instead, he’d tipped his head back, teeth bared in a visceral smile, his free hand clutching at the sheets. “I yield. Yuuri. Please, love, mercy.”
Yuuri hummed his agreement as he pulled his fingers free, wrinkling his nose at the faint zing of the lube that had remained on Victor’s cock. If it weren’t for the taste of the lubricant, Yuuri would have had no qualms about licking Victor clean.
Still. Yuuri nosed at the base of Victor’s dick and pressed a chaste kiss against him, then made himself busy kissing his way up the rest of Victor’s body. Yuuri wiped his hands on the sheets—they would have to be cleaned anyway, if they could be salvaged at all—and crawled up Victor’s chest, into his waiting arms.
Victor moaned softly with satisfaction as Yuuri leaned down to kiss him properly—though Yuuri noted with some amusement that Victor made that same face at the taste of the lube. He seemed willing enough to ignore it though, and guided Yuuri’s face down to rest in the curve of his neck, his face buried in Yuuri’s hair.
They breathed deeply as they came down together, as the sweat cooled on their bodies and Yuuri began to shiver. Victor was spared the chill of the air, bundled underneath Yuuri and absorbing his warmth.
“You should have been called Merciless,” Victor mumbled warmly against his temple. “You stamina monster.”
Yuuri’s lips curved in a slow grin, and he pulled free of Victor’s hair that was sticking to his lips. “Or Relentless? Maybe it runs in the family.”
He hovered over Victor, arms bracketed on either side of Victor’s head, grinning at Victor’s scandalized expression—but this time, when he lay on Victor’s hair, Victor definitely noticed. He hissed and swept his arms behind him, pulling his locks out from under Yuuri’s weight and tossing them back, a silver flame around his face that dangled over the edge of the bed.
Moment broken, Yuuri lowered himself back down until their bodies were pressed flush together again. He ran his fingers through the strands around Victor’s face in gentle apology. Victor watched him with soft eyes and a besotted, heart-shaped smile. “You don’t need another name. I like you best when you’re mine.”
Victor’s heartbeat had started to slow, but Yuuri felt his kick up to double-time.
He had never wanted anyone before Victor, and Yuuri knew without a doubt he would never want anyone again. And though Victor had been raised on the mythos of Fighters and Sacrifices, Yuuri hadn’t grown up in that world the same way. It was the life he lived now, but—
—there were certain things Yuuri had grown up wanting, and he wanted them here, now, with Victor.
Yuuri rolled to the side and reached for the bedside table.
He noted with some amusement, as he fished through the drawer, that the lube bottle had ended up exactly where it had begun—back on the floor, making a mess.
God, all of this was a mess. Yuuri was a mess. But he wanted to be Victor’s mess, and wanted Victor to be his.
His fingers closed around the box.
Victor pushed himself upright, distracted and grimacing at the drip of come and lube and really, Yuuri could have chosen a better time. He had planned for this to be at a better time. But he knew without a doubt as he crawled across the mattress that his moment was now, and no matter how messy their lives got, this was the only one he wanted.
So as Victor sat himself upright against the headboard, Yuuri crawled into his lap and sat atop his thighs and lifted Victor’s hand and pressed the gray felt box into his palm. Yuuri absorbed every second of the starstruck wonder in Victor’s eyes as he stared at it, then stared at Yuuri.
His eyes were still wide as Yuuri leaned in for a kiss, just one, simple and chaste and adoring. And Victor looked just as stunned as Yuuri pulled back and opened the box for him, though he was sure they both knew what it meant.
Two bands on the inside, one sized for each of them, glimmering gold. Yuuri pulled them out and cast the box aside, the rings tucked into his palm as he pulled Victor’s hand to his chest and bent his head to kiss the backs of his knuckles, over each of the letters that descended in a vertical line from his wrist to his ring finger.
“I spent my life waiting before I even knew what the hell I was waiting for,” Yuuri murmured against his skin. “I’m yours, Victor. I’ll always be yours. And I want everyone to know—not just the people who know what this means.”
Yuuri lay his forehead against the letters, his heart thundering in his chest. He knew the answer, but that didn’t mean this moment hadn’t eaten at him for almost a year. He would have never bought two rings if he didn’t know for certain, but he did.
And Yuuri had been ready to ask before he knew, anyway—ring or no ring.
Victor’s other hand found Yuuri’s cheek and cupped it in his palm, guided him up as Victor searched for his lips and met him in a kiss. Slow. Soft.
There had never been any doubt, but anxiety was an unreasonable force of nature, even between soulmates.
“My only regret,” Victor said as he pulled back, his hand parting from Yuuri’s skin to tentatively touch the top of his own head, “Out of everything I’ve ever done and anything that’s ever happened is that I didn’t wait for you.”
Yuuri met Victor’s watery smile with one of his own and reached out, fingers tracing the line of where Victor’s ears would have been. They had already been gone by the first time Yuuri had seen him on the grainy television screen, sixteen and ethereal, before he disappeared from the public view forever. Yuuri had never known anything different than Victor just as he was. It didn’t change anything. “Twenty-seven years would have been a long time to wait. I think you've waited enough.”
Victor shivered under the touch of Yuuri’s fingertips and leaned in for one more kiss. “I should have waited twenty-eight.”
Yuuri huffed out a laugh against his lips. He touched their foreheads together and glanced down, rolling the rings in his palm as he took Victor’s hand and turned it over in his own. “Let’s get married and call us even, okay?”
Victor huffed softly and nuzzled at his cheek. “Yeah. Yes. Let’s get married.”
Yuuri had never felt satisfaction quite like sliding the ring onto Victor’s finger, a circle of gold the final punctuation mark at the end of a line of silver. And when his own ring sat snug against his fourth knuckle, Yuuri finally felt like he could breathe.
They still had a mess to clean up. They were still filthy, smelling of sex and sweat, mottled with bruises and scratches and every mark they’d left on each other. All of them would clean up but one.
“You should only get into what you can live with,” Yuuri murmured. Victor’s heart-shaped smile was knowing and warm.
“I can live with this,” Victor replied, and pulled Yuuri’s arms around his shoulders. He pressed one pale, soft ear against Yuuri’s heart.
Those words had been meant as a warning, once. Now they were a promise.
And everything had been worth it.
Everything.