CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

-Drinking in the salty air of Barcelona! And some wine...-

There had been an unexpected downpour while the ceremony took place, but the sun shone brightly through the few remaining heavy, grey clouds. The wet, rocky roadway was practically glowing in its light. People slowly started to come out from their hastily-gained shelters. Birds flew down to splash in the puddles.

Yuri hadn't been able to see any of it though, too busy beaming over the sight of the marriage license in his hands. It was still so hard for him to believe it was really there. He sat patiently on a bench not far from the Town Hall. Victor was right there next to him, explaining something, but Yuri was off in his own little world.

"Are you listening?"

"Huh?" Yuri looked over at him, mentally coming back down from orbit, "Sorry...my mind wandered a little."

The Russian huffed a laugh at him, "I was trying to tell you how you can get your documents changed. Are you with me now? Back on Earth?"

"Yes, sorry..." He answered, and carefully put the paper back inside its envelope, making sure no corners were bent or torn as it slid back inside, "Go ahead...I'm listening."

"You'll have to start with the Court house." Victor started again, and pulled Yuri close to have him lean on him where they sat, "That's where you can do the legal name change." He started playing with that black hair idly, running his fingers through it as his arm curled behind the man's neck, "Then you take those papers to the Japanese Embassy. They'll issue you the new passport."

Yuri stared at the yellow envelope in his hands for a moment, "...Japan is one of those places where men nearly never have any reason to change their family name. I hope they don't give me any grief when I ask them to change mine."

"Maybe it won't be as big a deal in an Embassy." Victor suggested, "Let's not borrow trouble. We'll figure it out. Today is too beautiful to worry about something that may not be a problem. You ready to go?"

Yuri turned to look out at the bright sky, "The way the downpour came, it's like it washed away all the problems we've had for the last few weeks."

Victor nodded, and lifted his free hand to gently pull his husband's face around with a finger under his chin, "And maybe you can start to get your beauty sleep again." He teased, and offered a kiss, "If anyone in this world deserves it, it's you."

"Has it been that obvious?" Yuri wondered, brows furrowed slightly

"I didn't want to worry you more than you already were," The silver explained, and pushed himself up to his feet, then offered his hands down to bring his partner up as well, "As tender as my face was before, there were a number of occasions where turning onto my side at night would wake me up. Most of the time, I could see that your sleep was filled with fits and starts. I just hugged you tighter and hoped you got what you needed."

"Jeeze, even though all that you were still watching out for me..."

"Of course. It's my pleasure and my duty." Victor answered, and slid his hand around to thread fingers with his husband's.

Next order of business on their Barcelona Tour was a celebratory dinner. Their sight-seeing day before the Final had given them a list of places they'd wanted to go - had they more time back then - and they each knew just the place to look for.

Can Solé was all but directly on the coast of the Balearic Sea. It sat at the junction of a small corridor of streets, with its old-style arched wooden doorway book-ended by two quaint windows, filled with shelves of wine bottles and olive oils. The second floor was spacious despite its low square-footage, with pale yellow walls, blue-and-yellow striped linen curtains - pinned up the let the afternoon light in - lamps between each window-frame, with vertical pairs of framed pictures, mostly hand-drawn caricatures. At the head of the room, between two large windows, was a door-like panel that looked out over a narrow balcony with a thin, wrought-iron railing. A two-person table was set beside the glass, with dark oak chairs, a blue under-cloth and white over-cloth. Set between the men who were set there, two wine glasses - one for wine, one for water - as well as a cast-iron skillet of golden rice, mussels, and various sizes of shrimp. They'd gotten through a quarter of it before Victor's eyes widened in surprise over a mouth-ful.

"...What's with the look?" Yuri asked cautiously, "Bite something unsavory?"

Victor shook his head, fork still perched between his lips. He withdrew it and twisted in his seat, soon withdrawing his phone, "...Oh, it's Yurio."

"We never told him what we were up to."

"Mh." The silver nodded, and clicked to accept the call, "Hey."

"Idiot, where are you!?" The blond blurted, "You've been missing from practice for two days and Yakov's about to shit a kitten over it!"

Yuri choked back a laugh, pulling a hand up in front of his mouth.

Yurio hollered at someone off-camera for a moment, "Yeah, Victor finally picked up. He's not dead." He then turned back to face him, "Seriously. Where the hell did you go? People went by your place and said it looked abandoned. Everyone was freaking out."

"We did kind of abandon my place, so they were half right."

"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

Victor just smiled deviously, "Give me two minutes, then check my Instagram."

"What!? Vict-"

The FaceTime session was cut short, and Victor motioned for his husband to come closer, "Get out the paperwork."

Yuri nodded quickly and grabbed his chair. He slid it around to Victor's side of the table and pulled the envelope carefully from his backpack; he made sure there was nothing on his fingers, and withdrew the precious paper. Victor curled up close around him, and held his phone out in selfie-mode. With a kiss to his beloved's cheek and a wink to the camera, Victor clicked the 'shutter' and pulled the phone back to check the image. That done, he quickly went over to post the pic online while his husband put the paper back into safe keeping.

"Set location...Barcelona... Hashtag #CanSolé, #JustMarried, #Victuri!" Victor was nearly cackling with satisfaction as he posted it. Then, he paused, "Wait for it... Waaaaait for it..." He teased, and leaned in shoulder-to-shoulder with his partner to wait for reactions.

Yuri's stomach was tight from excitement, and he checked his own phone to refresh the feed and see the new picture from v-nikiforov. It already had 37 reactions and 8 comments by the time he got there...one of which stood out, and made Yuri snort with sudden laughter.

yuri-plisetsky: ...fucking seriously.

Victor's phone blew up again, but this time it was Yakov, and the Russian held it to his ear tenderly even as Yuri could hear the older gentleman yelling as he took his chair back around, "Yes...yes we are... No, not entirely sure yet. We're going to meet you all at Worlds. ...No, probably back to Hastesu, at least for a little while. ...Obviously! We're way overdue for a visit with Clan Katsuki!"

Yuri's own phone started ringing while that conversation went on, and he smiled to see that it was Yuko behind that FaceTime request. Unsurprisingly, she and her girls were in the frame when he clicked it on, "Hey guys."

"Congratulations!" They all said together; the triplets had their own phones in-hand with the Instagram feed showing the photo.

They were in their pajamas, and Yuri suddenly realized how late it must've been in Japan, "I hope none of this woke any of you up."

"Only a little bit." Yuko admitted with a weak laugh, "Axel was the first to see Victor's post, and it just went crazy from there."

"Is Uncle Victor still there!?" The girls asked in unison.

Yuri nodded happily, and turned his phone around to show the Russian sitting back against his chair, still being yelled at by his coach but smiling anyway. When he saw the familiar faces, he pulled the phone away from his ear temporarily to wave at them, "Heyyyy~!"

"You guys finally did it!"

"Yes~!" He confirmed, and winked at them merrily, "Just today. It's only been about an hour since we got our license."

"You have to let us arrange a big party!" Lutz said, getting in the front of the field, "You're coming back after Worlds anyway so it's perfect!"

"We'll set it up at the Ice Castle!" Loop agreed from behind her sister.

"It'll be a huge deal, like Hot Springs on Ice!" Axel pulled up on the side, trying to get into the frame but only managing the top of her face.

Victor seemed excited for it, and threw an arm into the air, "Yeah!"

Yuri was already getting nervous, watching them making all their plans.

"We'll see you in a couple weeks! Do svidanija!" Victor told them before finally breaking away again to listen to Yakov.

Yuri turned the phone back to show himself, "Don't make it that big a deal...okay? We're already going to have some explaining to do when people ask why we did this without inviting th-"

"Are you kidding!? Yuri! You just got hitched to Victor Nikiforov. How can you not want to brag about it to everyone on this planet!?" Axel called out excitedly, "It's already huge!"

"Well, sure...but..."

"No buts! We're gonna have a massive party!" Loop agreed.

"...Guys!"

"We've got this, don't worry!" Lutz finished.

"GUYS!" Yuri blurted between clenched teeth, trying not to get too loud while in the restaurant. They finally went quiet and started listening, "I know you mean well and everything, and what you want to do is really nice, but...I don't really want the entire universe to show up in Hasetsu."

Yuko saw the worried look on her friend's face and pulled her kids close, "Yuri's not the sort to advertize, girls. Remember? We can always make it an exciting small party."

"The big crowds are what I see at competitions." Yuri pointed out, "And everything's different since Victor became my coach; it's all bigger and louder and crazier than it ever used to be. But that's only okay in skating...this is my life, right? I don't want a huge deal made over somethi-"

He was cut off as Victor suddenly pulled the phone from his hands, and turned it to face him, "Yuri only likes the lime-light when he's putting on a show. This whole thing is a little more personal, so let's just have a small gathering, okay?"

The triplets sighed audibly, but agreed, "Yes, Uncle Victor..."

"Don't look so glum!" He said cheerfully, "Quality over quantity. If it's only a small number of people, it'll be better for everyone! I know you can do it!"

They let themselves start to get excited again, and Victor returned the phone to its owner. Yuri was a bit surprised at him, but he decided to wrap up the conversation before addressing it, "I'll let you guys go back to sleep then. We'll see you after Worlds, okay? We'll be coming straight there, we promise this time."

"Bye, Yuri!"

"Goodnight!"

He clicked off the conversation, and saw the pop-up messages that several other people had tried to call him while the previous conversation was active. Minako, Phichit, his parents, even Chris. He just put the phone aside - face-down and set to mute - and looked up again to see Victor just smiling at him.

"I guess I got a bit over-excited." The silver said, "Nishigori told me once that you had a hard time putting yourself out there, and that you were something of a recluse growing up. I guess I forgot."

"I don't mean to be a buzz-kill..." Yuri said with a sigh, "It's not like I go to skating competitions because I want all the attention. You saw how fast I fell apart when I was in the lead at Cup of China..."

"...Then why did you get into skating competitively?"

Yuri leaned back into his chair with his wince-glass of ice water, "I started in ballet. Minako-sensei suggested I try out figure skating. Then Yu-chan told me about you, and that's why I got into competition; I was enthralled."

Victor leaned onto the table, perched on his elbows over his plate, and gave a sultry smile, "And after all the work you put into your skating, you've enthralled me. How does it feel?"

Cheeks flushed, and Yuri reached across the table to finagle a hand loose from its chin-cradle. He pulled it over the table-cloth and rubbed the man's fingers, "Like I won something far more precious and amazing than any Gold medal the ISU could ever give. I always thought it would be the most incredible thing if I could just talk to you without freaking out. It never even crossed my mind that we'd ever be compatible as friends...never mind spouses."

Victor beamed, and pulled that hand closer to kiss his beloved's knuckles, "Maybe it was meant to be, ever since that first day Yuko told you about me."

"...Since I was twelve?"

"My destiny was revealed when I was twelve." Victor teased, and huffed a laugh before seeking for his fork again, "Who knows?"

"Maybe there was a red thread connecting us all that time."

"...A red thread?" Victor echoed, a spoon in his other hand now as he went about finding the meat in a mussel, "I don't get it."

Yuri found his cutlery as well, "It's old Japanese folklore...Chinese, too. It suggests that people who are destined for each other are connected by an invisible red string of fate, which disregards time, distance, circumstance, and other people. The thread can bend and twice, but it will never break."

"So if it's invisible, how does anyone knows it's red?"

That just earned a weird face, "Because Fate said so."

"So it's like soulmates then."

Yuri's face went even redder then, "Y-yeah basically."

"I can't think of anything more romantic." The silver swooned, "I never thought love could be like this. My other attempts were very different."

"I'll have to take your word for it," Yuri puffed, and forked at the rice in front of him, "My first attempt has been pretty great so far."

"A resounding success?"

"Just like my skating...it took a really long time to get off the ground, but once I started, I soared."

"And just like that, you'll soar to the top of the podium at Worlds~!" Victor cheered happily, "It might be the only time in my life where I'd be content standing on a lower tier."

Nearly dropping his fork, Yuri balked slightly, "Why in the world would you want to be on a lower tier?"

"Because you're the only person in the world that I like being under."

Yuri was practically on the floor after that, nose bleeding everywhere.

Victor just laughed, "See? Now you have to win Gold," He taunted, incredibly amused by the whole thing, and stepped out of his chair to help put his husband back into his own, "Just so I know exactly what's going through your mind when you step up there."

"Never mind what's going through my mind right now?" Yuri pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the flow.

"Well, it is our wedding night..."

"Oh, I'm not going to make it that easy for you." He challenged, giving Victor quite the look, and reached his hand to return the gesture, cupping the man's face lightly to rub his thumb against the man's lower lip.

"Yuri, stop that; we're in public."

"Everything on the ice is love, isn't it? Why not off the ice, too?" He reached to grasp his fingers lightly around his partner's wrist, and pulled that hand up to place it over his heart, "So...seduce me."

Cool blue eyes stared forward, practically in disbelief of what he heard. He turned away only for a second to raise his hand.

"Check please!"