(AUTHOR NOTE: Previous chapter has been edited so the time-skip hasn't happened yet. The following chapter takes place immediately after the end of the wedding party. Time-skip will happen in Ch91 and I'm gonna tweak it a little.)

CHAPTER NINETY

The search for the new Nikiforov residence began in earnest within days. With skating practice relegated to late afternoon and evening due to an uptick in interest for daytime youth skating lessons, it left the pair with little else to do but seek out places to move. Bikes were ridden halfway across Hasetsu and back again as each new potential location was scouted over the weeks, but each time...

"...No..."

"...No...not this one..."

"There's not enough light."

"The doorways are too narrow."

"Too small."

"No..."

"Nope."

"Are you sure this is the right address?"

"VIKTOR..." Yuri blurted, exasperated. He pushed back outside, going right past the confused realtor who was too scared to stop him, and looked at the sight of the house from the street and compared it to the photo from the listing page, "This is the right place! What's wrong with this one?"

Viktor stood in the doorway and pointed dramatically to the southwest, "That."

Yuri turned and gawked in the direction his husband had indicated, but saw nothing, and turned back, "What?"

"We can't even see Hasestsu Castle from here."

"Of course we can't, there's buildings in the way." Yuri thought he was being clever.

Viktor just quirked his brows and waggled his finger to make the shorter man come closer, then pointed again, grabbing Yuri's head from behind to put him in the right spot, "There. That's where it's supposed to be."

Yuri squinted, but realized that from the doorway, it was, in fact, possible to see through the spaces of the building across the street. From that vantage, he noticed that he should've been able to clearly see the castle, but from their distance, it was just a white speck on a green-brown hill.

"It'd take an hour to bike there from here." Viktor explained, "And since you rejected the first listing I showed you when we were still in Russia for this very issue..."

"...Ahhh I didn't realize we'd gotten so far away..." Yuri sighed, closing the app on his phone and turning back around, "This is harder than I thought it would be. What should we do? There's so few places to pick from to begin with...and we've been looking for almost a month already."

The Russian nodded, putting one hand on his hip as the other came up to finger his lip in thought, "...Maybe we should hire someone to do the scouting for us. Draw a circle on a map around the castle and say not to bother showing us anything beyond the line."

"...Can we afford one?"

"We were going to pay for the place in full with the money my uncle paid for my house in St. Petersburg...what's a little extra?"

"You said you didn't want to touch your settlement though."

"I'm not going to." Viktor shrugged, moving back to where they'd left their bikes near the curb, "I'm pretending it doesn't exist. But we got some pretty good deals with the photo book we did after our wedding, and since you finally agreed to do one on your own...we could just move the funds we got and will get into a dedicated person to find our house."

Yuri nodded reluctantly, still feeling a little awkward about the prospects of a solo photo shoot, "...Maybe."

The Russian could hear the change in tone, and set his bike down to go back the way he'd come, reaching out to stroke Yuri's cheek gently and kiss his forehead, "...It's not your fault. I'm being difficult."

"Let's just go to the Ice Castle for a while. By the time we get there, I'm sure we won't have to wait long to get the rink to ourselves."

Viktor nodded, feeling a little bad about having rejected yet another location, but followed his husband with his eyes as he dismissed the Japanese man who'd unlocked the doors for them and turned back to their bikes.

By the time they got back to Yu-Topia to get their skates, another hour had passed. Half the trip was spent in silence as it really dawned on them how far away they'd had to go trying to find a place. Yuri's mother was just inside the sliding doors as they came inside.

"No luck again?"

"No..." Yuri sighed, "We're thinking of getting an agent to look for us so we can stop."

"This came in while you two were out." Hiroko said, "Maybe whatever it is will cheer you up?" She moved under the counter to withdraw a decently large box.

It was Viktor who got excited though, rushing over and grabbing it to check the sender's address. Confirming it, he took Yuri's hand and pulled him to the common room, "I've been waiting for this! Come on!"

"W-...V...Viktor!"

The box was set on the top of a table and Viktor clawed his way in, then paused abruptly, "Yuri, close your eyes."

"Hah?"

"You always do that! Just close your eyes!"

"Okay okay!" He finally did as told, sitting quietly with his eyelids down, listening intently to the sound of paper and foam peanuts being pulled out of the box. Finally, he heard the sound of plastic, a ziplock closure being breached, and the clinking of metal being set on a wooden surface in front of him, "...When can I look?"

"Now."

One eye opened first, catching a tease of what was before him, but then the other opened with a start, "...Wow!"

"You like them?"

Yuri reached his hands forward and took the dark boots with gold-plated blades in his hands, "...Th...this is great! They're just like yours!"

"Mh!" Viktor nodded happily, "Sorry they took so long to get here. I actually hoped they'd be here by the end of the wedding party, but apparently, someone who's name shall not be mentioned decided to forget to update his home address and the box sat in front of a recently-sold house for like 2 weeks before that certain unnamed person's uncle went by and found it."

Yuri looked over the new skates, "What was Mikhail doing at the house?"

Viktor slouched across the whole of the table-top and smiled awkwardly, "Inventory. Like...full check-list on a clip-board, taking notes, photos, the whole bit."

"...He's taking the move more seriously than we are."

"So let's hire someone! I kind of want my couch back."

"...All right..."

Viktor crawled around the table to get closer, then kept going to tip Yuri over and onto his back, lying on top of him like a big dog that was unaware of his size, "I know you wanted to do it yourself, but you're getting too stressed about it."

"You've rejected literally every place."

"It's a house, Yuri, not dessert." The Russian pointed out, lazily setting his chin on his husband' chest as Yuri's arms went out to the sides to make room for him, "If it's not perfect, it's difficult to do take-backs and try somewhere else."

"I know..."

Viktor tilted his head a little at him, only the one eye visible under his bangs. He wedged his arms under his husband's lower back and then rolled them over, flipping their positions until Yuri was upright and sitting on his stomach. He casually lifted one foot to set his heel against the top of the table, and then loosely crossed his arms over his chest, "You did a good job, I promise. I'm just super-extra-special picky. It makes me the problem, not your selections."

"What is it about the places we've been that you don't like tho-"

"VIKTOR." Hiroko's voice suddenly came, startled and distressed.

The pair looked up immediately with wide eyes, seeing the short woman in the doorway in a panic. Neither moved though...

...Except for Viktor, casually slipping his foot off the table-top to lie flat on the floor. They continued gawking at one another nervously in abject silence, unblinking.

Hiroko was all smiles after that though, "Better. Carry on."

The Russian winked at her from where he was still 'pinned' under her son, "Sumimaseeeeeen!"

The woman passed through the room to go towards the entrance way like she'd planned, leaving the pair alone again. Viktor glanced up at his husband, noticing he'd hardly even blushed at the sudden interruption by his mom.

"It's nice to see you getting used to this."

Yuri looked down at him, "What do you mean?"

"Only a few weeks ago, your whole head would've been beet red for anyone walking in on us like this. But just now, your own mom walked by and you hardly got color in your cheeks at all. I wonder what else I'll be able to get away with in the future?" Viktor smirked devilishly, reaching up to slide his hands up his husband's thighs where they'd parted over him, settling on his hips.

That was enough to finally get the color to rise on Yuri's skin, even moreso as he felt Viktor moving under him, sitting up and forcing him to slide back directly into his lap. He hardly had half a second to think about how embarrassing it would be to get walked in on then when Viktor leaned closer to nibble on his neck.

"V-Viktor...!" Yuri protested.

He felt the man's fingers come in under the back of his shirt though, and cold skin made him contort backward, falling back down to his side dramatically before swiveling back to being straight, ending up sliding into the shadow of the table and staring up at the bottom of it. He could hear his husband laughing at him, wanting nothing more than to continue the teasing, almost hoping someone else would walk in just to see what would happen. It didn't take long.

"Yuri, why are you under the table?" Mari asked unexpectedly, stepping in with a basket of laundry in her arms.

"N-Nothing!" He answered, entirely unconvincing given where his legs were still visible, parted closely around his husband's waist, no space between them. It was only a second more before the same cold hands that had put him down on the floor came forward to slide under his shirt again, this time from the front, going in fast enough that they got across his stomach and onto his chest too quickly for him to protest.

Instead, he just twitched and whacked his forehead against the underside of the table.

Mari winced, "...You okay?"

The younger sibling just flailed pitifully in embarrassment, whining in defeat. He could only imagine the entertained grin on his husband's face. Feeling the man's hands roam across his front only added amused insult to hilarious injury, and he eventually gave up.

.

.

.

Viktor was grinning the whole trip to the Ice Castle, incredibly pleased with himself.

"You enjoy tormenting me." Yuri said quietly, deadpanning him despite his best intentions.

"Of course I do. I have to make up for the fact that Yurio isn't around to embarrass with our antics." The Russian answered, "Your own friends are too proud of you to get red-faced when I get all lovey-dovey with you around them."

"So the new challenge is to see how long it'll be before I stop getting flushed when you do that?"

"I actually hope you never stop." Viktor mused, leaning in to nose his husband's cheek as they walked, "Maybe I should be more careful with how often I try to tease you."

Yuri sighed and laughed, slipping his arm around Viktor's back, "I can only wonder what it would take to embarrass you in front of my friends."

"I don't think you could." The Russian answered proudly, "I'm too happy with the situation to be red-faced about it."

"I guess married life suits you."

"Would it sound weird if I said it didn't feel like much had really changed since we got married?" The taller man said curiously, "We've been together longer than that, we've lived together for a while already, been intimate with each other since after the Grand Prix...making it official seems more like a declaration for other people than for us."

"...I guess so."

"Maybe it's different for you since it took so much longer for you to come around to the idea." Viktor pondered, "Do you think I went too fast?"

Yuri shook his head, "I would've stopped you long ago if I thought that. You practically made me promise I would, remember?"

Viktor just smiled, "...Sure I do."

The younger man deadpanned in his mind, He forgot...!

"It was after I had formally asked you to marry me." Viktor went on, wracking his brain for the memory of it, though trying to make it seem like he knew it by heart, "When I was still trying to get you used to us actually being a couple, rather than just together in the same place. Everything we did in public after we'd gotten to Barcelona for the Final was hardly unorthodox, even for people who were just very good friends, but you seemed to back off a little after our rings got everyone thinking we were married already."

Yuri listened quietly, watching the Ice Castle getting closer with each step.

"You were trying to keep things the same as they had been since before then, almost trying to regress our relationship to the moment right before I'd kissed you at the Cup of China. I was really worried that you were trying to back out entirely when you told me the night before the Free Skate that we should 'end it.'"

The younger man felt a flurry in his gut at the memory of it.

It was the first time I'd ever seen Viktor cry... He really took it hard... I still feel bad about it.

"I couldn't understand why you would say something like that after giving me this ring." The Russian continued, holding that hand out in front of him and splaying his fingers to get the best look at the gold band, "That was the moment I knew you didn't accept us as actually engaged. Then, right before your last Free Skate, when I was sure you were about to kiss me...only to slip by my face and go for my shoulder instead, I practically cried more for the missed opportunity than I had for the anxiety of seeing you off for your last performance. I struggled to reconcile my interest in coming back to competition because it felt like if I did, you would've actually sent me back to Russia over it. But when I saw you skate, and then heard your score...I thought, maybe this will be enough to keep you in the game alongside me. If you won gold, you wouldn't want to stop, so I said I'd come back to encourage you to want to keep going."

"...Mh..."

They were finally at the base of the concrete steps that leads up to the Ice Castle's outer doors.

"So even after you had gold stolen right out of your hands after that, I could think of only one way that would solidify it in your mind that I wasn't just going to leave you over some skating thing. I had to convince you that we were really engaged...that we would actually get married, and be true husbands, not just SkateHusbands." Viktor went on, remembering more of it as he told the story of his perspective, reaching up from where he'd had his arm behind Yuri's shoulders to run his fingers through the younger man's soft black hair, "That's why I wouldn't kiss you again until you kissed me first, and then spent the next couple weeks getting you used to the idea of us really being a couple before I ever dared to do anything more. I wanted to be sure you were willing because you wanted to, not just because you were too scared to say no to me."

Yuri reached out for the door to push it open, and they stepped inside the Ice Castle, spotting Yuuko on the other side of the counter just beyond the second set of doors. Viktor paused though before they could set off the motion sensor and cause them to slide apart.

The younger man looked back at him.

"I slowly acclimated you to the idea of being my true fiancé, to the point where I could get you to want to be intimate with me, by assuring you I'd never step over the line and do something, or make you accept something, that you weren't willing to. So even though it took weeks and months to get to that point...it was only because I made it clear that I would never intrude on your feelings, make you feel unsettled, and give you reason to push me away."

Yuri knew what the man was referring to, and nodded slightly. The words rested in his mind, giving him pause for a moment as he reflected on them. Viktor could tell the wheels were turning, and waited to move again. It didn't take long though, as he watched his husband turn to face him, and rise up slightly on the toes of his shoes to kiss him. He felt his husband's right hand come up to gently rest against the side of his neck, so he slipped both of his own hands to settle on the shorter man's sides, enjoying the kiss immensely.

"...Thank you, for that." Yuri said finally, close enough to still feel Viktor's lips as he spoke, "I know it must've been frustrating for you to wait so long for me to catch up."

"It was worth it."

"...And yet, it isn't over yet, is it?" Yuri said, slipping back down off his toes to stand normally.

Viktor blinked at him, but then realized and smiled, "You still have a shred of Philos that makes it difficult for you to get past your old views of me. Maybe it's because I'm overall slightly bigger than you are and it just seems awkward...maybe it's because I'm more of an extrovert and you an introvert, or maybe it's because your Philos just doesn't want me to stop being who I used to be to you, but...eventually, maybe...you'll be more comfortable. I'm not setting a timeline for you though. Even if it takes 20 years for you to want to take me the way I take you, that's fine. I want you to be happy, and do what makes you happiest, even if that means you never want to have me that way. Some people are content to never go that far, and if it makes you uncomfortable to even think about it, who am I to say you're wrong? All I can tell you is that I hope you're willing to consider it again one day, and forget the mistake I made after asking you to take me that first time, and then acting like it was nothing after. Trust me, it wasn't nothing. I may not have thought it felt good at the time, but how long did it take for you to think it did?"

"...That one time on the couch back in Russia, when I asked what you did differently..." Yuri admitted, "Maybe it was just the position, but...I've never felt something so intense before. I haven't felt anything like it since though, so I still don't know what you did."

Viktor smiled at him, "Thinking back, I know what it was." He leaned in close and whispered it into his husband's ear, then leaned back again, "I'll do my best to make it happen again, and I want to feel it too some day, okay? Only you can help me do that."

Yuri's face was red, and he was about to say something, but felt a sudden buzz in his back pocket, completely derailing his train of thought. Viktor just laughed at it, and watched as his partner pulled the device out reluctantly to see what had so rudely interrupted him.

[Are you guys going to come inside or just stand in the entrance hall all day?]

Yuri looked up in confusion, but then glared through the door to see Yuuko waving at him.