The title comes from this line from Yuri! on Ice: "When I open up, he meets me where I am."

They're lying next to each other in bed in a companionable silence, Viktor scrolling through Instagram while Yuuri reads an article on his phone, when Viktor asks, "Yuuri?"

Yuuri hums. "Yes, Vitya?"

"Why don't you ever wear contacts?"

Yuuri puts his phone down, since he wasn't actually paying much attention to the article about how his old college football team won some big game, and frowns at Viktor. "I thought you liked my glasses."

"I do," Viktor assures him quickly, rolling onto his side, "but you don't always wear your glasses. You don't wear them when you skate."

"I don't want them to get broken if I fall," Yuuri replies, which is a completely reasonable excuse for not wearing glasses while skating. Viktor isn't always good at being reasonable, though, so Yuuri doubts Viktor will drop it.

"Yeah, but you could wear contacts," Viktor counters, proving Yuuri right. "That's what Chris does."

"Chris has glasses?"

"He doesn't wear them much. Wait, I'll find a picture." Viktor scrolls through his phone's photos impossibly quickly before stopping on one. He holds out his phone. "Here."

Chris is lying in a hotel bed and is probably naked, although the sheet artfully draped across his lap makes it impossible to know for certain. Knowing Chris, Yuuri can make an educated guess. He's wearing round wire-rimmed glasses and is rolling his eyes.

"I've never seen him in glasses," Yuuri remarks, handing the phone back to Viktor. He doesn't mention that showing your fiancé a picture of another naked man is strange, because it's not really that strange when it's Chris, and Yuuri knows the picture is old anyway. He knows that Viktor and Chris had some sort of thing over the years - they were never very good at being subtle - but he doesn't really mind. It's over, Chris has a boyfriend of his own, and Viktor insists that they were never serious anyway.

"He doesn't like to wear them out," Viktor replies. "He wears contacts all the time."

"I don't like contacts," Yuuri admits. "I tried them once, but I couldn't get used to poking myself in the eye all the time."

"You get over it," Viktor offers helpfully. "Or, that's what Chris said. He used to hate it, but he's gotten the hang of it now. Anyway, you don't have to wear them all the time, but you could do it when you can't wear your glasses. You can't see anything without your glasses."

Viktor knows this because he's tried on Yuuri's glasses before. He snatched them off the table once and perched them on the end of his nose, trying to look coy, and then proceeded to blink repeatedly as his face grew more and more shocked. "Oh my god," he murmured as he pulled them off.

Yuuri, who's had people steal his glasses many times and react the same way, just said, "Yeah, they're pretty strong."

"I thought I was going to go blind, Yuuri."

"I don't really care," Yuuri replies. This conversation is edging towards dangerous territory. He can feel his anxiety beginning to toy with his insides. This is Viktor, and he knows that he can tell Viktor anything, but he's also fairly certain that Viktor won't get it, and he doesn't want to talk about it.

Viktor doesn't get the hint, because Viktor can be terrible at picking up hints. "But wouldn't it be nice to be able to see while you're skating? We could try contacts just for skating, and then you could-"

"I don't want to wear contacts, Viktor," Yuuri interrupts, his voice much sharper than he meant for it to be. Viktor's full name slips out instead of the usual fond Vitya.

Viktor blinks twice, hurt in his eyes, before his mask comes slamming down. He smiles, the sort of painfully fake smile he sometimes gives reporters but almost never gives Yuuri, and tries too hard to sound cheerful as he replies, "Alright! We don't have to worry about it, then."

Shit. Yuuri messed up.

Viktor picks his phone back up and tries to look like he's looking through Instagram, but he's scrolling too fast for Yuuri to be fooled. Yuuri looks at his right thumb and can see the telltale trembling that always tips him off to when Viktor's upset. It never ceases to amaze Yuuri how insecure Viktor can be about their relationship, and it never ceases to horrify him when he accidentally does something that makes Viktor feel insecure. He has to fix this.

"I tried wearing contacts at a competition once, and I hated them," Yuuri says into the silence in the room.

Viktor looks over at him, curiosity on his face. The mask isn't completely gone yet, but it's wavering. "Why?"

"I don't want to be able to see the crowd," Yuuri adds. "When I don't have my glasses on, I know they're there, but I can't really see them. I don't want to see them."

Viktor rolls back onto his side, his mask gone. "Why not?"

This is the hard part. When he told Celestino he didn't want to wear contacts at any more competitions, he lied and said they irritated his eyes. He told Phichit the same thing, and then neither of them ever really brought it up again. No one else has ever asked why he doesn't wear contacts to skate, probably because most people assume that either a) he does, or b) his eyesight isn't as horrifically bad as it is, so not wearing glasses isn't a problem. But Viktor knows better, and Yuuri's going to have to tell him the truth. Cognitively, he knows it'll be alright, but his anxiety doesn't always pay attention to rational thought. He takes a deep breath, tells his anxiety to shut up, and goes for it.

"Because I don't want to see the looks on their faces when I disappoint them."

"Yuuri," Viktor breathes, looking heartbroken.

"If I can see the audience, I can see what they think of my routine," Yuuri adds. He can't let Viktor derail him yet. If Viktor does, Yuuri won't finish what he's saying, and he kinda wants to finish. "The one time I wore contacts, there was this one person in the fourth row who was on their phone, and I kept focusing on them so much that I fell on a double toe-loop. A double toe-loop, Vitya. I can do a double toe-loop in my sleep."

"There's always people who aren't paying attention in the audience," Viktor replies, trying to sound soothing. "I remember, a few years ago at Worlds, there was this one woman who was in the first row who was talking on the phone so loudly that I could hear her when I skated near her end of the rink. I think the woman next to her was ready to kill her."

"She was on the phone during your performance?" Yuuri demands, because when he was live-streaming Viktor's skates in his Detroit dorm room, he didn't even let Phichit breathe too loudly.

Viktor chuckles. "The person she was on the phone with must have asked if she was doing anything important, because I heard her say that she was at a little ice dance competition but it wasn't important and she could talk."

"Worlds is a 'little ice dance competition'?"

"That was what I thought too!" Viktor shrugs. "I'm pretty sure I saw a guy sleep through one of my competitions too, but I'm not sure how he did it. I want to be able to sleep that deeply."

"You'd never wake up for your alarm, though," Yuuri grumbles, because he tends to sleep deeply, and it leads to him being late all the time. He used to have to set three alarms to get up for classes, and sometimes Phichit would still have to jump on his bed until he got up.

"Yes, but then I'd get to sleep in," Viktor counters, because he is always utterly unfazed by Yakov's curse-filled yelling when they're late to practice.

"It's not worth it," Yuuri replies, shaking his head. "Trust me."

Viktor hums noncommittally. "Thank you for telling me why you don't wear contacts. I know it probably wasn't easy."

Yuuri shrugs awkwardly. "I was overthinking it."

"I'm sorry I pushed."

"I'm sorry I snapped."

Viktor sighs and scoots closer to Yuuri, draping one arm over his torso. "I love you."

Yuuri kisses Viktor's forehead, wrapping an arm around him and squeezing gently. "Love you too."