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80. “How can you think I’m anything but hopelessy in love with you?”
It’s not the steady rumble of snoring or a rogue knee punching him in the ribs that pulls Viktor from sleep in the middle of a nondescript Thursday night but the absence of it. He rolls towards the center of the bed, blinks the sleep from his eyes until the shadowy figure looming over him transforms from a strangely nice-smelling—if mildly frightening—goblin to the familiar silhouette of his husband sitting up against the headboard, his head in his hands.
“Yurik?” Viktor exhales in a throaty, stuttered breath. He pushes himself up on his elbows and nearly falls from the bed in his scramble to turn on the bedside lamp. “Are you okay?”
“Frrmph,” Yuuri says into his palms.
Viktor touches Yuuri’s knee, leans in to try to catch a glimpse of his face through his fingers. “I didn’t quite catch that, dove.”
“I said I’m fine.” Yuuri pulls his hands away, sniffing. His cheeks are flushed with a deep cherry red but—Viktor is relieved to note—blessedly dry. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Nightmare?”
Yuuri tips his head back and swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Mm.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Yuuri presses his knuckles to his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, holding it. “You can’t laugh,” he says after a moment of deliberation, the stored air eeking from his lips with any remaining ounce of pride.
“Of course,” Viktor nods, tentatively touching Yuuri’s forearm.
Yuuri heaves a mighty sigh and slumps into Viktor’s side. “You—dream you—wanted to divorce me—”
Viktor’s eyebrows fly to his hairline, “Yurik, I would never!”
“—because you realized you were straight.”
Viktor closes his mouth. Blinks.
“You broke up with me with the lyrics of a Dave Matthew’s Band song—” Yuuri chews at the dead skin on his bottom lip. “Makkachin had been replaced by a rottweiler and you wouldn’t stop calling me ‘bro’ and ‘dude.’”
Viktor’s forehead wrinkles and he touches a finger to his lips—visibly working to recollect himself. “You”—he strokes Yuuri’s hair away from his temple and presses a kiss there—“will never be anything but my sweetest love.”
Yuuri closes his eyes and nods, pinching at the intersection between his collarbones. “You replaced your cologne with Polo Blue,” he continues, voice tilting up with panic, “you stocked the fridge with Coors Light and you insisted we go sock shopping.”
“Okay, you know what, that’s—” Viktor’s head darts around the room as though to find the physical manifestation of Yuuri’s nightmare—floating ominously over the bed in a mass of spectral cowl neck t-shirts and cargo pants—and exterminate it on terms of slander. “Your subconscious is lying to you and it’s tarnishing my good name in the process.”
Yuuri hides a smile into Viktor’s shoulder.
“I haven’t worn socks in over ten years.” Viktor tickles Yuuri’s calf with his toes.
“I know,” Yuuri snorts, pulling away, “I’m the one who has to smell your shoes.”
Viktor pinches Yuuri’s side. “You smell my shoes and you like it.”
“We don’t all have a foot fetish.”
“For the last time—” Viktor grabs Yuuri by the ankles and tackles him to the bed, pulling a flailing foot up to blow a raspberry into the curve of his sole. “I do not have a foot fetish,” he concludes triumphantly.
Yuuri smiles up at him—sleep-knotted hair curled against his forehead, chest heaving with laughter. “You know that does more to prove the opposite.”
“See?” Viktor lowers his body over Yuuri’s, his elbows framing Yuuri’s head on either side. “You’re this mean to me and I still don’t want to divorce you.”
Viktor kisses him then and their teeth clack together from laughing.
“Also, I’m super gay.” Viktor rolls over, releasing Yuuri from the husband compression suit of doom. “Super mega gay. I can’t even draw a straight line, my heart.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Yuuri says, settling against his pillow. “I’ve seen the v-necks.”
“Should I put one on now?” Viktor asks, joining him at the head of the bed. “I could put them all on if you’d like.”
“No,” Yuuri sighs and wraps his arms around Viktor’s middle, settles his head under Viktor’s chin. He closes his eyes and splays a hand across Viktor’s bare chest. “You’re perfect just as you are.”
Honestly? I couldn’t agree more. It’s beautiful how Linda went from forcing Louise into a slumber party and pressuring Gene into letting her into his cheerleading life, to literally breaking Louise out of detention to go for ice cream
and supporting her boy as he goes to his first sleepover with no smothering, but lots of vocal support and extra security maxi-pads (WHILE ALSO supporting the fact that he needs said maxi-pads)?
Linda has had nice growth. I love.
And as regards Bob
need we still specify
how great a dad Bob is
when his children are scared or in doubt?
Like, seriously
I love how those parents accept their children’s fears, likes and dislikes and genuinely support them through it all in such a sincere way. Unless their kids’ words or actions go against what they personally feel would be best for them, they listen to them more than they’d listen to anyone, and will freaking fight to defend them too if the situation really calls for it.
They knew Gene could make it through a sleepover, they knew it can be healthy for a kid to challenge their social boundaries and discover new environments that way. But they never FORCE him to go (it’s more like he reluctantly goes and internally begs for someone to stop him and it never happens and that’s okay), and they definitely ALL (parents and sisters included) give him tons of support to let him know he can make it fine.
God you know what I fucking wish I had this family growing up. Everybody should have this family. FUCK I rambled so much again but FUCK I love them.