Chapter Text
January 2013, Detroit, United States of America
Yuuri hadn’t wanted to particularly think about anything in a very long time. In fact, his mind very particularly numb at this moment, waiting in the freezing rain for the DDOT ordained bus to happen to arrive on time. It wasn’t going to happen. The bus was supposed have arrived ten minutes ago. Yuuri’s socks were wet. His nose was running. Overall, he was thoroughly miserable. Thankfully, Yuuri had picked up the ability to simply close his mind off to his surroundings years ago, and so when the bus finally clunked to a stop in front of him and Yuuri was able to drag his ice-beaten corpse to the back row, he settled into a good dissociation.
Things had been...well, rough to say the least since December when he bombed not only his first (and probably only) shot at the Grand Prix Final, but also frankly ate shit at nationals and failed to qualify for Four Continents. His careers had sunken to an all time low and he barely had any future prospects, but the shit train didn’t stop running there. His American university didn’t particularly care that Yuuri had just experienced a complete ego death over winter break, and so nearly as soon as he had managed to land back in Detroit and cut things off with Celestino, classes were starting. After a long talk with his advisor about potentially postponing his studies so that he could scrape himself back into something vaguely resembling a functioning human being, they arrived to the conclusion that if Yuuri took a semester off, there was no way he would graduate in the following semester given that the one class standing between him and a piece of paper that would guarantee that Yuuri wasn’t a complete failure in everything was only offered in the spring.
Ultimately, Yuuri had really had no choice but to just deal with it. Thankfully, alongside vivid dissociation, “just dealing with it” ranked pretty high on his skills list.
And so, there Yuuri was. Sitting on a dank bus in Detroit, heading back to the tiny apartment that he shared with Phichit conveniently next to Wayne State so that he could trudge back to this even tinier bedroom and eat his feelings in ramen noodles and chocolate covered pretzels. Thankfully, standing in the rain for so long had left his face dotted in water droplets and so it didn’t look out of place if Yuuri let a few tears slide down his face. He kinda wanted to go home. Probably would after graduation. He might not even walk, just have his degree mailed to him.
He thunked his head against the window he had leaning against. Why had he waited so long to fulfill the language requirement for his degree? He was Japanese he could have taken the proficiency exam in Japanese and actually passed without effort for once. But no , Yuuri had wanted to be different . Yuuri hadn’t wanted to take the easy route. Yuuri had come to the US to learn new things. So Yuuri had signed up for Russian of all things because Yuuri was a stupid, stupid, stupid boy with a stupid crush on someone who didn’t even know he existed--
The pounding in his head informed Yuuri that he had been thunking his head against the window for quite some time. And Yuuri was perfectly content to beat himself unconscious, but was stopped when a tiny hand suddenly shot forward and smacked his forehead furiously several times.
“Bye-bye boo boo!” A tiny voice called in that decibel that only small children could manage.
Yuuri flinched and turned to the tiny person sitting next to him with wide eyes. Suddenly, where once the entire back row of the bus had been empty, there was a tiny, blonde haired child sitting next to him. Yuuri gaped and shot his gaze around the bus, attempting to lock eyes with a concerned parent and or guardian only to be met with mostly empty benches. Where had this child come from? And where were his parents ?
Yuuri attempted to wrestle his thoughts away from the brink of a full of panic long enough to maintain a calm facade. If this kid got scared and started crying, then Yuuri was sure to start sympathy crying right there with him. Yuuri needed to stay calm.
“Where’s your mommy?” Yuuri asked in the calmest voice he could manage, attempting that sing-song tone that Yuuko had managed for the triplets. When the kid didn’t respond to Yuuri at all, he asked again, grasping at straws. “Your daddy? Where is your daddy?”
The kid just blinked wide green eyes at him, staring blankly as if he hadn’t understood a single word Yuuri had spoken. Yuuri could feel his heart attempting to beat right out of his chest and his lungs were beginning to tighten, but he had to keep a clear head. Who knew where this kid had come from or where his parents were. He didn’t even have a proper winter coat on to protect against the harsh weather. And his little cheeks looks chapped and red, likely from the wind.
Yuuri sighed, centered himself, and then stood with a nod. He picked the kid up in a firm grasp and began making his way through the rows on the bus, making sure to pause whenever the bus hit a particularly uneven part of the road so that he wouldn’t stumble. He went row by row, asking everyone he came across if they happened to be missing a blonde toddler and if not, if they had seen who the toddler had come onto the bus with. After a few minutes of this, Yuuri had exhausted his resources and still had no answers. Even the bus driver had seemed clueless.
He could see his stop coming up and so, not knowing what else to do, Yuuri set the kid down long enough to remove his own jacket, wrap it around the child, and pick him back up again. Once the child was secure, Yuuri ducked off the bus and began heading down the street towards his apartment as quickly as he could, making sure that the child’s head was tucked against his chest to prevent his cheeks from getting chapped from the wind further.
Thankfully, the walk only took a few moments and soon, Yuuri was juggling both the child and the key while he shouldered his way into the apartment, set the kid down on his secondhand couch, and then sighed, sinking to the floor.
One deep breath.
Maybe two.
And then, it hit him.
Holy shit .
Did he just kidnap a child? What had he been thinking? Well, the answer was pretty obvious. He hadn’t been thinking. And that would explain why he picked up a toddler from the public bus and took him home . He wasn’t even sure what his next step was supposed to be. Wasn’t even sure that the kid was old enough to even speak properly. At what age did kids start speaking? What if the kid’s mother had actually been on the bus? What if Yuuri was now involved in an international kidnapping case? What if the kid was a figment of his imagination and now, he really had lost it? What if everyone on the bus had been too polite to inform Yuuri that this strange, blonde child wasn’t real? What if--
“Woah, whose kid is that?” A voice suddenly interrupted Yuuri’s panic spiral. He flinched at the sudden sound and turned his eyes towards Phichit, who was surfacing from his own bedroom. “Yuuri are you okay?”
Oh. Yuuri was hyperventilating. Well.
“Phichit I stole this kid from the public bus!” Yuuri cried, eyes filling with tears. “Help me!”
Phichit’s eyes grew wide and he blinked rapidly in shock. “Y-You what?” He glanced towards the couch where the small blonde child was rolling around on the couch and staring at his own toes. Oblivious.
Yuuri buried his face in his hands. “I’m a no good kidnapper.”
Suddenly, Yuuri felt a tapping on the top of his head. “Bye-bye boo boo!” He looked up from his hands to see the child standing before him, cheeks chapped and brows furrowed in determination. Comforting Yuuri when he was the one who had been abandoned on the bus and then kidnapped by some stranger.
The act of kindness made Yuuri’s eyes water all over again and he gathered the child close to him, tucking the blonde head under his chin. “I’m so sorry I kidnapped you!”
Phichit sighed and moved closer, sitting cross-legged beside Yuuri on the floor. “Okay, why don’t you back up and tell me the whole story.”
Yuuri tearfully nodded, ignoring the way that the child had moved on to sticking the strings of Yuuri’s hoodie in his mouth. “I was having a breakdown on the public bus and all of a sudden this baby is sitting next to me, and when I tried to find his parents, no one on the bus seemed to know where he had come from. I didn’t know what to do, so I just brought him here.”
Phichit nodded sagely. “As one does.” He turned his gaze to the kid. “Look, Yuuri, we need to call the police department. His parents might be looking for him. Maybe they just...I don’t know...forgot him on the bus?”
They both winced at the thought.
Eventually, Yuuri nodded, accepting that that was the best plan. “Alright. First, we should probably get him out of these wet clothes and we need to put something on his face for his cheeks. What do you even put on a baby’s skin for chapping? Lotion? Neosporin? Oh, God, Phich, there is an entire, human child in our apartment--”
Phichit patted Yuuri on the back and motioned to his cellphone. “Dude, just chill out. Everything is going to be fine. We just have to survive for however long it takes for the police to figure everything out. We’ll just google whatever we need to know.”
Yuuri let out a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense.” He turned his attention to where the kid was making a valiant effort to swallow the string of Yuuri’s sweater. Yuuri tugged it free from his mouth and made to stand up, tugging on the kid’s hand to get him to follow. “I’ll find him a t-shirt or something if you’ll google what we should put on his face.”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” Phichit cheered, turning his attention to his phone while Yuuri made his way to his room.
Thankfully, the kid seemed to be relatively calm, though Yuuri still wasn’t sure if he knew how to really speak, yet. Yuuri tugged him to his small dresser and started shuffling around until he found a worn-soft t-shirt from freshman year when Yuuri had been a good three sizes smaller. He inspected it with narrowed eyes before deeming it good enough for the kid to wear temporarily. Maybe they could even wash the clothes he already had on. Could you use regular detergent for kid’s clothes? The cheap stuff that he and Phichit regularly used couldn’t be good for children. Yuuri wasn’t even sure it was good for adults.
He took a deep breath. Okay. He needed to keep it together. It wasn’t like he was the kid’s parent. He was just a caretaker until he got instructions from the police. Okay. He could do this.
He moved to tug the kid’s shirt over his head, making note of how the kid started to shiver once his bare skin was exposed to the relatively cool air of the apartment. Yuuri would make sure to get him under a blanket, soon. His blond hair was hanging limply around his tiny face and it looked like it was desperately in need of a trim. Maybe Phichit would have a rubberband or something lying around that they could use to tie it away from the kid’s face. It couldn’t be easy to see with it the way it was.
Yuuri moved to tug the kid’s pants down, as well, but blinked when his hand brushed something that felt like paper against the kid’s back as soon as his hands brushed the waistband. Confused, he turned the kid around so that his back was exposed. There, tucked into the back of his waistband, was a bundle of papers, folded flat against his back. Yuuri tugged it free, set it aside, and got the kid into the t-shirt as quickly as he could. That done, Yuuri turned back to the papers, ignoring the way the kid started tugging on his arm and jumping around, happy to be in dry clothes.
Birth Certificate
This certifies that
YURI PLISETSKY
Was born to
ANFISA PLISETSKAYA and ___________________
on MARCH 1 2009 at 4:13 AM
weight 6.8 LB length 20 IN
at DETROIT RECEIVING HOSPITAL
in DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Signed _____________ ________________
Yuuri blinked in confusion at the paper in his hands. He flipped to the next document only to see an immunization chart. Behind that was a copy of his social security card and an infant passport. But why would this kid, Yuri, have his birth certificate and immunization record tucked into his pants? Had his mother intended to leave him on that bus? Yuuri could feel his blood beginning to boil and he could hardly hear anything besides the ringing in his ears. He glanced down at the kid, Yuri, he reminded himself, and took in his wind-bitten cheeks and limp hair. Remembered that he hadn’t had a jacket on. Remembered that his clothes had been soaking wet. It said on his birth certificate that he was only three years old and it didn’t appear that he had a father. How could someone just leave their child behind like that? Anything could have happened to him!
Yuuri turned the forms forwards and backwards, as if flipping them enough would give him the answers. However, just as Yuuri was about to slam the documents down, he noticed another, smaller piece of paper folded inside of the passport. He shakingly tugged it free and unfolded it. It was a request form to add a parent to a birth certificate. Already filled out with the mother’s information consenting to the request. Yuuri’s hands began to shake even more than before. Anyone could have found Yuri. Anyone could have just filled out the second half of this form and be registered as Yuri’s birth parent. Why would his mother do this? Did she really not care what happened to her child? Yuuri’s own parents would have died first.
A knock on his door frame interrupted his train of thoughts. He turned his attention to where Phichit was waving a tub of petroleum jelly. “The internet said that we could put this on his face.” Phichit’s eyes moved to the papers Yuuri had clenched in his shaking hands. “What are those?”
Yuuri moved his eyes back to the kid, watching at Phichit moved closer and smoothed the petroleum jelly on his chapped cheeks. The kid obediently allowed Phichit closer only fussing slightly as the cool salve hit his warm face. Yuuri’s heart was actively breaking for him.
“Uhm...It's his birth certificate. And shot records. And passport. And…” He swallowed and took a single, shuddering breath. “Well, and a request form to add a parent to a birth certificate.”
Phichit’s brow furrowed and his eyes darted back to where Yuri was playing with his fingers, oblivious. “W-What? And you just found him like this on the bus?”
Yuuri nodded, throat dry. “What should we do?”
It was quiet for a moment while both of them allowed the news to sink in. Finally, Phichit spoke. “I still think we need to call the police station. I’m not sure what else there is to do…”
Yuuri sighed and tugged his phone free from his back pocket. “Yeah, I guess you’re right…” He quickly searched up the number for the local police station and keyed it into his phone. He pressed the phone to his ear and nodded thankfully when Phichit started babbling to Yuri about nonsense in order to keep him occupied. He had remained relatively calm so far, but there was no telling when that would come to an end.
“ Hello, you’ve reached the Detroit Police Department Eleventh Precinct, how may I assist you? ” Came an even voice from the other line.
Yuuri centered himself and paused before speaking. “H-Hi, I’m calling because I believe that I have found a toddler on the bus. I can’t seem to find his mother and he has identifying information on him. What should I do with the kid if I can’t find his mother?”
The voice on the other end paused before answering. “ If his mother can’t be found, you can bring him by the station and we will secure emergency foster housing for him while we attempt to locate her. If we fail to locate her, it is likely that the child will be submitted to the foster care system unless a relative can be reached who can offer care. ”
“A-Ah...I see…” Yuuri murmured. He turned his attention to where Phichit was tickling Yuri, the small child giggled and shrieking happily at the game. What would happen to him in the foster care system? Yuuri didn’t know much about how the system worked in the US, but what he did know wasn’t good. Would he grow up there? Would they be able to find a relative to take care of him? He didn’t have a father to speak of and his mother likely didn’t want to be found. What kind of life would Yuuri be handing him over to?
At the prolonged silenced, Phichit turned to him and rose a single eyebrow, nudging Yuuri’s knee, hissing a quiet “What’s the hold up?” The action prompted Yuri to follow suit, pushing at Yuuri’s knee roughly and giggling “Hold up, hold up!”
“ Sir? Are you still there? ”
Yuuri Katsuki was a dime a dozen figure skater who was attempting to recover from the biggest career flop of the century. His dog was dead and he was thousands of miles away from his family. He hadn’t been home in five years and he had ruined every possible chance to meet his idol. He had lost nearly every sponsorship deal and therefore nearly every reliable source of income at his disposal following nationals, and he had been living off of ramen noodles and Phichit’s good will for nearly two weeks now. He suffered from an anxiety disorder that led to late night binges and made him question his every move. To put it simply, Yuuri Katsuki was an absolute train wreck of a human being who had no business managing a small child when he could hardly take care of himself.
But still.
The thought came back to him, intrusive and insistent. What kind of life would I be dooming him to ? If something happened to him, would I be responsible?
And suddenly, the words were tumbling out of his mouth before he could properly reign them in and demand they stay put.
“ Sir? Hello? ”
“I’m sorry but there’s been a mistake.”