Kinktober is the perfect time for people like me to do things we think about doing but probably wouldn't otherwise. This is dark but loving, have that in mind.

Thank you for the support, xoxo

Everything stopped. And then, it began. Again, only differently. Creating a reality unfit for them, unfair for them, uncompassionate for them. But they settled in that, somewhat, although it meant hours being spent on learning what was natural. Hours spent thinking, worrying, quaking about what was lost. Crying in each other's arms about what would never be found.

Initially, there hadn't been anything. Anything. Anything but chaos. Just two bodies trying to persevere. One forced to do more, one wanting to do more. But not together, not in synch. Initially, when tubes, monitors, IV-drips, catheters and visiting hours had become the new normal, there were no thoughts about what would come next. It was always the now. The thumping, relentless, debilitating now that was their focus. With one body forced to heal, one trying to do the same.

Later, everything that was invasive and forced disappeared. And with that, all the sleepless nights, the tattered mornings, the waiting in silence were exchanged. Turned into moments of push and pull, of physical support and emotional neglect, of discussions sometimes ending in tears and harsh words and sometimes in heartfelt understandings. And later yet, when the heated discussions became scarce, when the tears turned into frowns of determination and the now could be set aside, the time had finally come to focus on the future, the what-was-to-come.

That's where they started with the trying. Trying to adjust, trying to get back to all that was, trying to sort out the new hand being dealt in order to move forward. Being at home left them both with an ambiguous feeling, a feeling of being hurled into something without a reliable compass but desperately wanting to find the way. But also, there was a fear of failing each other, in aspects too many to count. With one of them caught up worrying how he was perceived and the other desperately trying to convey that it was still the same, only vastly different. Not that it mattered.

Like many nights before, all spent in this new circumstance, they were close. Underneath soft barriers against the cold with breaths caressing the other's face, bodies heating up, one heart begging but not telling and the other wishing but not daring. They had yet to act on that, fall recklessly into that. Something made that night different, though. It was a sentence that rocked them both, that made them understand that the future was there for the taking, ready to be reeled in to depict a now they both had been anticipating. Maybe even dreading.

"Yuuri?" Victor's voice was nothing but a whisper, but full of something old. Something almost forgotten. "I… I don't want to make you wait for the rest of my life. You know?"

There was a silence, one slightly too long before the response finally came. And it came after Yuuri sat up, to look down on him. Look into him. "Oh."

There was a lot to be read into that sound, the one syllable almost being breathed out instead of being spoken. There was relief in that sound, but also love and a not so well-disguised hint of trepidation. It was inevitable, this talk. The mapping out of their future life together, but after so many months, it felt unreal to even touch the subject. Like they were young, insecure and unknowing, and some that was true, in part.

And the sitting up, it carried with it a myriad of things unsaid. Yuuri did it, because he could. Yuuri did it, because it was hard-wired into him now. To sit up and look. To assess him. To find calmness in his heaving chest, in the fact that he could let the now go and start raising his gaze.

Victor knew that he wasn't any different in Yuuri's eyes then, not from before. With the duvet covering him up to his chest, he knew he could be seen as normal. Who he was. Who he once was. Maybe, that was good but it wasn't truthful. At least, not to him.

"Yeah," Victor continued. "I know it's different now. It'sㅡ"

"Yes. I know."

Of course, Yuuri knew. That thought had never once not plagued Victor's mind. How different it was. For himself. For Yuuri. Things being done to and by, things being enjoyed together, they were bound to shift, to transform, from hereon out.

"Do you still love me? Do you still, I don't know, see me in that way?"

Again, that look from dark eyes shadowed by even darker hair. That look that flipped through his heart and soul like they were pages of a favorite book, bringing out a smile remembering certain paragraphs and tearing down foundations in some the ones that followed. Their story being reread, remembered and rejoiced. Reevaluated.

"I do. Oh, Victor, I do."

"Then…"

"Can we?" A question asked with bated breath. Hands shivering when reaching in, wanting to touch. "It's… it's not too soon?"

It could never be too soon. But Yuuri didn't know that. In fact, there had been longing. Ever since the first touches ever happened at home. And they happened, when being carried back and forth, when being clothed, when being fed, when being washed. There weren't any moments together when Yuuri wasn't touching him anymore, not like before when their beings sometimes had to live through time apart and when touches sometimes could be considered mundane. But now, every touch had a purpose to sustain and with every touch, something sparked. Like every touch was the beginning of a question, set aflame by warm hands that still dared to feel, even places they probably shouldn't.

But Yuuri didn't know that, because he was never told. He was never told, because Victor was afraid. Afraid to raise the question, to make Yuuri know that he, still, had the need inside. It had never disappeared, it had just been dormant. Waiting for a moment like this when it felt safe, when a lacking confidence had been talked into trying, just the one time. When a heart yearned to reconnect and a mind needed to feel like nothing ever changed despite the fact.

"No, it's…" Victor exhaled, sighed maybe. How to explain without sounding like an anomaly, without sounding off-putting. He didn't know how to, so he just said it as simply as he could. "My body says otherwise."

And then, he was rewarded for his candor. Hands daring to touch his face, just like before. Lips meeting his, just like before. It was the first time since that time, he realised. When they had said goodbye unknowingly, and everything ended only to jump-start anew.

"I'm sorry," he heard Yuuri whisper against his lips, foreheads touching. "Does it hurt?"

"Hurt? No, whyㅡ"

Of course he would think that, because tears had been telling him that, time and time again. That there was hurt, on both the inside and the outside. But this time, it didn't hurt. It healed. It soothed, and in some strange circumstance, that was even more painful. On both the inside and the outside.

"So," Yuuri breathed as he alternately wiped and kissed, as his hands and mouth dried what was escaping, "how?"

It was a sob of joy that escaped Victor then. One that couldn't convey what he felt inside hearing that, that offer so simply presented like it was normal. The tension that ripped through him when it dissipated made him touch too, made him use what was left in a, at least to him, awkward embrace.

"Can we go slow?" Yuuri spoke into the side of his neck. "Just for now?"

Anything, Victor cried inside, but voiced nothing. He just nodded, shaken by the explosion in his heart. Shattered by the fact that he never should have worried. Shocked by the revelation how easy it was. But then again, that was life with him. With Yuuri. Even though times were hard.

"Good," Yuuri cooed as he sat up to take off his t-shirt. "Tell me if it's uncomfortable, okay?"

"It can't be," Victor sighed. "Never with you."

Yuuri's fluttering touch against his cheek felt exactly like the laugh that escaped him. Unhindered and warm, purposeful but brief.

"We can start with what we know, and go from there. Oh, you want it on?"

Victor let out his breath in a stutter. Seeing himself exposed underneath the duvet had made him hold his breath, like it would make it any different. Like it would ground him, prepare him for the unearthing of what he knew was hidden. He doubted it ever would.

"No, it's… it's fine, love."

"Are you sure?"

Seeing Yuuri leaning in, duvet in his hands, ready to cover him again made him dare. Made him believe, at least for a beat, that it didn't matter. That the moment was theirs and theirs alone, there in order to create a new normal. To lead them by the hand to make it so.

"We'll start with what we know," he recited, finding strength in Yuuri's words.

It really was a first time, in so many ways. Feeling Yuuri's hands on him, like that. Like a whisper from before. Touching him with the sole purpose of making him submerge himself, asking him to give in to things waiting beneath the surface.

"Okay?" Yuuri posed the question, almost soundlessly, as his hands caressed Victor's thighs.

"Yes," Victor breathed, eyes closed and lost in sensations rekindled with Yuuri between his legs. "It feels like you're touching my shin. Now my calf."

He had expected Yuuri to stop, and he didn't judge him for it when he did. This was new and things being new creates questions. But he wanted to be honest, candid with his new experience of his body to make Yuuri understand how it responded to his touch.

"Victor, I… I just… Don't know what I'm supposed to say," Yuuri said, his voice low with hands placed just above Victor's knees. "Should I respond to that? Shouldn't I?"

"Love, I… I don't know," he said solemnly. He was starting to lose his edge, his sudden burst of confidence. "All I know is that it can't be wrong. Nothing can, not now."

"Oh. In that case, can I... touch you? There, I mean?"

"It's not what we know."

"I know. I'm sorㅡ"

"Can you kiss me there?" It just came out of him. His innermost need, his most coveted dream dressed into words. The need to feel accepted, loved despite what he now was.

If you only could, Victor thought to himself, then you would make it easier. Easier to be me.

He had prepared himself that it would be a silence. A too long and too awkward a silence that would end with an answer, uttered with a hesitant aftertaste. But they never came. Not the awkward silence, nor the tortured answer. Instead, it became a vision of divine proportions as Yuuri dragged his lips across the inside of his thigh and kissed him where his leg tapered off, where it ceased to be just below his knee, before he treated his other leg with the same reverence.

It was soft, the way his lips moved. The way they opened and closed, again and again. The way his tongue left a battle in its wake between hot and cold, a battle feeling like a sensory overload on one leg, then another.

"Aaah, Yuuri… You…"

"Does it feel good? Vitya?"

Words couldn't describe it, what Victor felt in that moment. How nerve endings bundled up together in an unnatural way could create something so sensational within him, so exquisite. So arousing. With every nip, every lapping motion, every sucking caress, it dawned on him that he was indeed accepted. That he was seen as normal. That nothing had ever changed between them.

"You are more than these," Yuuri mumbled into his skin, "you are still just as amazing. You're still you."

"Touch me," Victor moaned, feeling himself swell, throb, leak in tune with Yuuri's unending caresses and lavish words. "Yuuri, make me come."

"You can help." Yuuri was hovering on top of him now, covering his chest with kisses, wet and urgent.

The sting inside almost took his breath away, brought on by words so malplaced. Victor felt a different heat now, one caused not by understanding and rousing actions. It was anger that fuelled him, lit ablaze by that thoughtless comment.

"You know I can't! Look at this!" He hated that he couldn't think of the words he just heard any differently, but it was impossible. To him, Yuuri's words felt like a slap across the face, tearing away what had been built up during months of wanting, wishing and dreaming. A heartless disregard to what it meant being him, now.

Yuuri's eyes widened, but only by so little. "Victor," he said, blinking away his reaction when he understood how his words were perceived, continuing softly and shakily, "I'm not talking about the left. I'm talking about the right."

"You know I can't move it! Why, Yuuri?! How could you?!"

"Victor, I never meant what you think I did."

He watched as Yuuri sat up and freed himself from his pajama bottoms and underwear. Seeing his reaction, his natural reaction, as he stood bare in front of him made Victor feel like a fool, although his emotions still flared.

Yuuri wanted him too. Still. Despite.

"Sit up," Yuuri said. "You can do that. Use your left arm. Good, then push back. No, against the headboard. That's it. We've done that a thousand times now."

"Yuuri, Iㅡ"

"Shh. Don't. I'm going to sit on top of you, just like we know how to," Yuuri prompted. "Then, you're going to help me. Okay?"

Victor couldn't look at Yuuri when he spoke to him like that. So vividly, so calmly. Softening even more when he himself sharpened. He was disarming when he did that, meeting him with another kind of energy, with nothing but kindness and care in mind.

"You know I can't use my right arm, love," he replied, eyes finding some insignificant crease on the sheets to preoccupy himself with instead of daring to meet his lover's eyes.

"It'll come." Yuuri placed himself on his lap, hands touching his face. Trying to make him meet his eyes. "You need a little training, that's all. Just like they said."

"You're too good to me."

"What's that?"

"You're too good to me, I said."

Blue eyes finally dared to meet brown, and thus, made amends. Wordlessly, like they used to do now. Especially when the shame inside became too great and threatened to voice itself with words he'd already been told were forbidden.

Instead of words to acknowledge his tentative excuse, he was offered a smile instead. "Here. We'll place your left arm around me like so, okay? You can hold on a little more if you'd like to. Just like usual."

Warmth against himself. Slow and consoling breaths travelling down his shoulder. Something to hold on to. Yes, it felt like before, like usual. He tried to calm himself when his body started to react, when it understood that he could still be offered the closeness he's been longing for, the release he no longer could give himself, the support he thought he'd used up many degrading outbursts ago. That wasn't who he was. This felt more familiar.

"Then," Yuuri continued, bringing him out of the indignity he felt for ever doubting, "I'll take you hand, like so. You feel this, Victor?"

"Mm," he said, almost under his breath. "I feel the pressure. Around my wrist."

And just like that, Yuuri's lips were on his, breathing life into what had disappeared moments before. Fanning the small embers of need and want by soft pressure and slow exhales into him.

"I've missed you, Victor," Yuuri said between the kisses, "I've missed this."

"I never thought we could have this. I've wanted it for so long and Iㅡ"

"You only needed to ask. Ready?"

Victor kissed his response onto Yuuri, heated and deeply, with nothing more than a sigh acting as his 'yes'.

"So, your right hand goes here, good. Around the both of us. I'll add pressure and motion. Just focus. Remember how you did this before."

He remembered. Inside him, he knew how to. He knew how to grip with the right amount of pressure, move with the right muscles engaged, find the right kind of pace, but the knowledge couldn't find its way. Like there was a roadblock somewhere, between his brain and his shoulder. But in his mind, Victor moved. Pressed himself and Yuuri closer together in his hand and made them race together, by adding friction and momentum.

Although Yuuri's hand was around his own, and in truth dictating and commanding, it felt like before. When he could satisfy Yuuri and not ask for anything in return. When revelling in the expression of Yuuri's love, when dark eyes closed themselves, when his head tilted back and his lips parted became satisfaction enough. When Yuuri's hands tangled themselves up in his hair and invited him to join in the climb.

"I'm so glad," Yuuri panted as he sought the support of his shoulder, a sign of him being close.

"For what," he gasped, intently focusing on trying to bring out the pressure and the motion, break through the prison his body had made for himself.

"That you can still wear your ring, on your finger. Oh, Victorㅡ"

"No, no. No, Yuuri. Not like this. Like we know how to. Please."

And with those words, he swallowed the cries of Yuuri's small death delivered into his mouth. Only to return them, a few heartbeats later.

-xoxo-

They drifted off, during the moments that followed. Words, they found, weren't necessary to them. But nonetheless, words were uttered, just the three. Spoken at the same time before a body broke free of its prison by tracing a pattern along the cheek of another.

-the end-