A/N: Longest chapter to date for this story! Nearly three times the length of the others. But I couldn't find a goodplace to chop the story up in half so, I left it as is. Snuggle up with some slow music playing in your ears. It's a long, good read.
Caution: NSFW for the latter half if the chappie. Lemony goodness!
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Chapter 11: 5 Months Pregnant
"W...what...?"
"I'm sorry, Yuuri. Not the kind of news you need to hear mid pregnancy. But you'd have found out some other way...and...I figured hearing it third party would be worse..."
Vicchan. Gone. Put down as a mercy because the arthritis got too much for him to walk much more. The pain wasn't worth our selfish desire to keep him around for an eternity he didn't have.
It doesn't make it hurt any less.
I hang up on Mari despite her own clearly emotion-filled state. Her own voice sounded muted, stuffy. As if she'd just finished crying herself. Or was maybe crying now, and merely doing her best to keep me from hearing it. She always was good at keeping her emotions from us if mine were out of check. I wouldn't expect any less from my sister. After all, it was she who volunteered to stay by Vicchan's side as the deadly injection put the beloved pet to sleep...forever.
I should be more grateful. Tell her thanks for showing love down to the last breath. For telling me when even my parents didn't want to.
But I can't. I don't. It's not just a dog, it's Vicchan. And he's gone before I could ever see him one last time.
The guilt crushes me.
Viktor finds me an hour later, unmoved from my spot on the living room floor when he comes in from a modeling gig. By the look on his face, I can tell he already knows. Not as grief stricken as I am, but crestfallen. Whether he is that way from his own emotions or from my own, I can't tell.
My knees are drawn up to my chin, arms wrapped around my legs. I don't have energy to get up.
Viktor doesn't force me to move, instead removing his coat before opting to slide down the wall into the spot beside me. Wordlessly, a long arm reaches around my shoulders and pulls me against his still chilly form. My forehead drops to his chest, face buried in the smooth material of his sweater.
Eons stretch between us in perfect, but heavy silence. I'm afraid to speak, afraid that if I do I'll shatter like glass.
Viktor break s the silence first. "It's okay to not be okay. I'm here."
I'm here.
Permission that wasn't necessary, but taken anyway. I feel the warmth in my chest, in my face, up to my ears before the sound of heavy, staggered crying registers as my own.
I hadn't shed any the entire phone call, but something about the safety and solidity of having Viktor here, somehow assures me that he will be able to keep all my broken pieces together. Or at least glue them together like a living kintsugi project.
"Oh, lyubov..."
He kisses the top of my head, even as I start to hiccup. Even as the force of my sobs shakes us both, Viktor shifts to envelop me entirely against his form. He makes no effort to tell me it's okay, because it's not. He doesn't tell me to quell my tears. He simply lets me fall apart until my crying stops on its own, now de-escalated to slight hiccups as I attempt to catch my breath.
In the silence that stretches once more between us, Viktor pulls back to look at me properly. Long fingers carefully remove my glasses so as to wipe away at the tears on my face.
"Sorry," I apologize.
But already he's shaking his head. "Never apologize for crying. Especially not with me."
"But you're sad, too."
The glasses slide back onto my face, but I didn't need the lenses to see the taut emotion hanging at the edges of his face. As he makes no denial of how he feels.
"I am sad. But I knew you would be absolutely devastated. The same as when I lost Makkachin. You helped me through that, didn't you? When one of us hurts, the other provides support. We don't hide. We don't apologize. Yes?"
Yes. I nod in the affirmative and lean forward again, his forehead meeting mine in the middle. Of course Viktor understands. He was a mess when his poodle passed a few summers ago. He wasn't euthanized as Vicchan was. We simply woke up one morning to find the life, aged dog fairly cold and unmoved in its bed. One of the only times I've ever seen Viktor complete lose himself to grief.
"I didn't even get to see him one last time. I meant to. I'm such a terrible—"
"Don't. Don't you dare." Viktor gives me a stern look, pulling back to give me the full scope of his expression. "Do not blame yourself. He was in pain, Yuuri. And now, he's at peace. With Makkachin."
He doesn't flinch anymore to say his old dog's name. It will be okay. He wasn't, and now he is. That can only mean I will be, too. Eventually.
Just not today.
"I didn't cook dinner," I admit. I got too caught up in...this...to get it all prepared before Mari called with the news. All the produce sits on the counter, unchopped and uncooked. "Sor—"
"You're not apologizing are you? What did I say?"
My head ducks. I don't deserve him. And I love him all the more for it. "Can we have a cheat day?"
Viktor smiles softly. "You mean can I have a cheat day. No more dieting for you."
He's not wrong. So I nod sheepishly. "We can order in pizza..?"
Two slices of pizza and a hot shower later, both he and I are snuggled on the couch, watching the late night news. A ritual we've seemed to take up the last few weeks now that I'm home all the time. Before that, whoever got home first would usually get dinner ready or, if it were too late at night, merely meet the other in bed. Now it was just mostly me meandering and waiting for him to come back home to men so we could spend our time doing mindless activities.
His head rests on my stomach while I lazily scratch at his scalp in between tousled hair. "Haircut soon, Vitya?" It was starting to ghost his neck now. Another few weeks and it would definitely be shoulder length.
"Hm. Perhaps not? I was thinking it growing it out again. You did always like it long..."
My hands pause their ministrations at the admission. "For me?"
"Well, and for me too. I look younger with long hair."
He can't see it, but I'm sure his chuckle tells me he guesses at my rolling eyes. Ever so focused on his age, this guy. Even when I tell him the age difference never bothered me. Besides, the only time our age gap presents itself is when it comes to taste in music. But it just about ends there.
"You don't look old, now, Victor."
"I know. I do miss my ponytails, though."
I don't retort anymore, merely continuing to play with the silvery locks. I always did adore the color far more to my boring black hair. Not for the first time, I hope our child will inherit more of his genes to mine.
Viktor keeps his head on my stomach, as he rests between my legs, one hand idly rubbing at my thigh. An innocent motion he'd been doing most of the night. He's always been a handy man, his love language being that of physical touch. But the longer this goes on for, the more I feel the heat pool in my gut...among other places.
I'm trying to keep a straight face. After all, I like being snuggled with him like this and don't exactly want this moment to be ruined. But my body has other plans, and by Viktor's eventual chuckle I know he soon feels my body's betrayal poking him in the shoulder.
I can't help the blush that settles on my features. "Sorry. We don't have to do anythjng..." I start.
Viktor chuckles again but is already shifting to face my stomach directly, lifting my shirt to place a single, chaste kiss there. The abs are still there, if not softened. "I know, lyubov. I'd like to, though. If you're willing."
I don't answer yet, completely distracted by the second, longer kiss in the same spot that is followed quickly by a languid tongue. But my breath hitches in anticipation, and when Viktor finally looks up at me, I can only let out a strangled affirmation.
I expected Viktor to meet me for a kiss firstly. But instead of doing so, he simply continues to tease my midsection with open mouthed kisses that begin to trail further and further down until he reaches the hem of my pajamas. Blue eyes peer up at me as he slides my pants down just enough to free my arousal. And without breaking any eye contact, slowly takes me into his mouth until his nose is buried into the sparse fuzz of my pelvis.
My mouth slowly falls open as my head falls back to the cushion behind it, Viktor's name whispering across my lips. His movements are slow and well timed, his tongue lapping over the most sensitive tip each time his head rises, his throat hugging upon every descent. Heaven knows it takes every single bit of willpower I have to resist the natural inclination to thrust up into to wet, warm goodness.
"Hah...fuck..." I am going to be so sad once my belly becomes too large to enjoy the view.
Swearing doesn't usually take up residence in my vocabulary but it only seems natural given how amazing Viktor's work feels. I can feel the slick already stating to seep out of me in preparation of what's to come.
Speaking of coming... "Vit..Vitya, stop," I warn as I feel the coil wrap tighter in my gut. If he kept this up, I was certainly going to cum right then and there.
But apparently that's exactly what he has in mind. Viktor not only continues doing what he's doing, but increases speed and pressure of his mouth. My lips are drawn between my teeth as my hips finally jerk upward a single time, and with a sharp cry I finally fall over the edge of bliss.
Chuckling darkly, Viktor pulls up to kiss me with an empty mouth—he swallowed, the devil! I can taste myself on his tongue when he pushes into my mouth. The force of our kiss already has my lips throbbing in time with my still semi-hard length. It's messy. It's sloppy. Full of need. Well, it has been a few days since we last were intimate. Maybe Viktor wanted this more than he let on, but for my somewhat decreased sex drive of late, didn't push the issue.
God, I love this man.
Impatient, I already start tugging at his t-shirt, grumbling in mild irritation that I can't get it off in one go without stopping our kiss. But once it's off, I pull Viktor down to my lips again by the nape and anchor him there.
"Needy aren't you?" he chuckles against my lips.
"Hurry up and fuck me, please," I rasp in turn.
Viktor obliges. I don't bother with pulling my shirt off, too eager to be filled up by him to care about full nudity. I let him drag me lower into the couch and prop my legs over one of his shoulders, followed quickly by him sliding into me with such force I can't help but moan his name with volume. I'll never get used to his size.
I don't think I ever want to.
The angle is specific, hitting that hard to reach spot perfectly with each slow, but deliberate thrust. The force of it jolts my body each time, and each time it rips a yell of pleasure from me. Sometimes English, sometimes Japanese. A weird slurry of both.
My head swims from the stimulation.
Viktor let's go of my legs in favor of wrapping this around his waist, and I lock my ankles behind him to anchor him close, my arms following suit to wrap around his shoulders. His face is buried in my neck, his mouth doing devilish things to the lobe of my ear. Sometimes he nips, sometimes he sucks. Then he repeats the ministrations to my neck, sucking with enough force I know I'll have a blooming love bite come morning.
Viktor's breathing becomes ragged, his grip in my hair to tight I know he's near the edge himself. "Yes...so good," he purrs hotly in my ear.
That, and the friction of our bodies against my length sandwiched between us brings me to my second orgasm of the night. Viktor only needs a few more pumps himself before he follows close behind with a strangled, muffled swear against my ears.
We stay like that a while, two sweaty, flushed, sticky men, very much out of breath. Neither one of us has the heart to move. The afterglow was always as good as the love making itself. Viktor remained slumped against me, my legs now relaxed on either side of him while I rubbed circles on his back.
But eventually, Viktor shifts and reminds me of the sticky goo on both our abdomens. I scrunch my nose in distaste. Perhaps the only part of sex I didn't like was the clean up of semi-dried semen. Catching my expression, Viktor let's out a hearty laugh and finally slides out of me.
I feel immediately empty without him in me.
"Come, my love. We're filthy. Shower time."
Understatement. "Bath instead?" I ask.
Viktor raises a brow and looks at the clock on the cable box which reads 22:57. "It's late..."
"Pretty please?" The heat of a hot bath while cuddled up with him was always appealing to me, no matter the time of day. And we hadn't done it in a while. Not since we had that big argument and I accused him of cheating.
His lips purse in a moment of rebuttal, but he relents when I resort to puppy eyes. He can't resist that face! "Only if you promise to be good. Just a bath, yes?"
I don't answer the promise with affirmation. And for good reason. We make love a second time before the bath is over.
"You promised," he muzzles against my damp hair when we finally make it to bed, clean and exhausted.
I chuckle and entangle my feet with his. "No, I ran upstairs before I could."
"Troublemaker."
A light, tired tap to my backside earns a giggle from my end, and then all is quiet between us. Viktor's breathing deepens, and then his grip slackens around me as he falls immediately to sleep. In the glow of the light emitting from our clock, I watch his sleeping face in wonder, admiring each feature there for the nth time. Handsome. Mature. But when asleep, there's something so soft about his looks. The longer hair helps with softening what was already there.
Perfection. And mine. The last thought trailing my thoughts is how lucky I am to have this man as my partner.
