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For most of his life, if asked what people liked about him the most in terms of his appearance, Yuri would’ve easily answered with his face. Even as a child, he knew he was pretty, and he made damn sure to make use of that. Most times for the better, sometimes for the worse, always in service of a greater goal.
When it comes to Dimitri though, easy is rarely the answer. For someone who can be so straightforward and have such simple wants, taking the easier option rarely comes first for him. No, for all the intimacies they’ve shared together and all the times Dimitri’s made it clear just how Yuri pleases him, what he likes the most about Yuri physically is his hands.
“They’re warm,” he tells Yuri one day, one of the rare mornings where the king’s busy schedule isn’t so packed for once. The early sunlight filters in through the windows just enough to make Dimitri glow, his straw-blond hair golden like a halo. Paired with the soft, sleepy smile upon his lips, it’s one of Yuri’s most favorite sights to see. “And soft as well. You’ve always taken such good care of your hands.”
“I didn’t have much choice but to, y’know. Some days, these were the only things I could count on to get me through the day.” Yuri grins and waggles his fingers, his smile widening when Dimitri laughs. Growing up, his hands got him and his mother more meals than any hard-earned coin ever did, and maybe he shouldn’t have pride in that, but neither can he say he bears any shame in finding ways to make ends meet and survive.
Well, when it comes to swiping some loaves of bread or spare coin at least. Keeping his hands soft and pretty also fell into tools to ensure he lived another day via other people’s proclivities, but those unpleasant memories have no place here. Even now, he’d rather keep Dimitri’s attention on the more palatable aspects of his unsavory past.
Dimitri hums, slowly stroking the back of Yuri’s hand with his thumb. “Resourceful, too. It takes a good deal of skill to survive like that, I know.”
Speaking from experience, of course. Seeing him now, it’s still hard to imagine Dimitri living in poverty the way Yuri once did as a child. Hell, even back when they all reunited that fateful night at Garreg Mach, it felt hard to believe. He heard tales of the ferocious, monstrous madman roaming across western Faerghus over the years of the war, but not once did he imagine it to be the crown prince of the nation. Looking back on it, he probably should have. The way Dimitri snapped at the outbreak of the war, the inhuman strength that could’ve only belonged to the Crest of Blaiddyd…
Maybe if he had, he might’ve found Dimitri sooner, before he had to learn how to be so skilled with his hands in that way.
Another thing he’d rather not dwell on here. What-ifs have never done much good for him to begin with, and he’d like to think regrets have no place here in the comfort of each others’ arms. If nothing else though, it gives him the perfect sort of opening he’s always waiting for.
“Can’t say I disagree. If you put it like that though, does that mean you’ll finally concede that you’re not as clumsy with your hands as you insist?”
It’s a challenge, getting Dimitri to compliment himself and acknowledge his own strengths, but Yuri’s never been the type to back down from a challenge. Bit by bit, he’s had his victories over the years, and he counts this as another one under his belt when Dimitri sighs, his cheeks ever so faintly flushed. If he’s willing to describe Yuri’s sticky fingers as skilled, there’s no reason he can’t do the same for himself.
“Alright, alright, you may have a point there! We both have fairly skilled hands when it comes down to it, although that may be where the similarities end.” He looks down at their entwined hands, and Yuri knows what he sees, how they stand against one another in near total opposites. Dimitri’s hands are rough, scarred, thick and solid with his own hard-earned strength. In comparison, Yuri’s hands remain smooth, carefully maintained to stay slim and slender even with his calluses developed from sword-wielding. “As I said, you’ve always taken such good care of your hands. Mine are…” His smile dims, shrinking like a wilting bud. “Well, even if they’re skilled, I’ve used them quite poorly, and I’m afraid that shows. Actually, not even all these scars truly convey just how marred and stained they truly are.”
Now that? That, Yuri can’t stand for. He sighs, but his grip around Dimitri’s hands tightens. His husband is a little too prone to getting lost in his own head, but Yuri has no intention of letting things stay that way.
“Now you’re just being silly. Think about it, Dimitri—if anything, your hands are honest. I can see how much you’ve weathered through, how you’ve come out the other side all the stronger for it.”
Dimitri’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, and it bleeds for others far more than it ever does for himself. Yuri will protect his own through thick and thin, but that honesty is something he’s long since admired as something he could never do. No matter how marred or unsightly Dimitri’s hands might be, no matter what crime or sins they’ve committed, they’re proof of the strength it took to come to where he is now.
He chuckles quietly, grin a little lopsided. Really, if Dimitri wants to make comparisons, then all the blood in the world wouldn’t be enough to compete with just how stained with filth his hands are. “My hands might be softer, but that’s only hiding how dirty they really are.”
But he should’ve known better than to try and argue something like this. Dimitri huffs, dragging Yuri’s hands closer until they rest against his chest.
“You’re not hiding,” Dimitri gently chides in that too earnest, too genuine way only he could ever manage, but his gaze is as sure as his grip around Yuri’s hands. “They’re proof of your hard work, your strength. That no matter how ugly the circumstances surrounding you, you always found a way to rise above them.”
It’s almost hard sometimes, the way Dimitri can look right through him, how he seems to find something Yuri’s not entirely sure is actually there. For all his efforts in trying to steer Dimitri away from dwelling on the worst aspects of how he struggled to survive, Yuri knows he would never really forget. That’s just not the sort of man he is. Having lived underground for so long, hidden away from society’s eye by his own choice, Yuri’s still not always used to the way his darling can so easily take his hand and pull him up to the surface.
Just one of the many things he loves about Dimitri, of course. Still, that doesn’t make it any easier to take his painfully sweet and earnest feelings in stride.
He groans, and despite the way it makes Dimitri laugh, he does his best to keep his grimace in place even as the flush on his cheeks spreads farther. “You really are a softie for a king, doesn’t matter how rough your hands are.”
Before his husband can make a rebuttal though, Yuri shakes off Dimitri’s tender grip around his hands. Instead, he maneuvers Dimitri until his hands are all wrapped around him. Immediately, almost instinctively even, Dimitri pulls Yuri closer with his hands at Yuri’s lower back, just the way he likes.
“But that’s fine by me. I like your hands too, you know. Scars and all.”
No one’s ever touched him with such care, such warmth, such reverence the way Dimitri does. They’re the hands of the man he loves—really, what more could he want when he already has that?
And no matter how filthy his own might be, when he cups Dimitri’s cheeks and his smile blooms in response, Yuri knows it’s just the same for his darling. That his hands could be drenched in blood or covered in dirt, but Dimitri would love them all the same because they’re the hands of his beloved.
These hands are what led Yuri to Dimitri, and that’s enough for him.