Work Text:
Difficult to be confronted with the fact of yourself. Opaque
in the sense of finally solid, in the sense of see me, not through me.
—Richard Siken, “Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light”
Head back, cantilever. Hands to the ice and the speed makes his fingertips burn. Twist up to regain velocity. Kick into the flying sit spin and pull all your limbs close. The rink whirls. Viktor can hear Yakov shouting something but he isn’t listening. Sometimes when a door shuts you can only wedge it back open. Enough for a draft to slip through but not the gust itself. He will never again put up the numbers that he used to.
Afterwards he catches his breath. Sensibility returns slowly. When he skates everything narrows to that place where his blades touch the ice and no more. The rest of the rink bleeds back now. Yakov standing rinkside, his arms crossed, no longer shouting anything. Yuri mulish and belligerent beside him, tapping his foot. Down the hall towards the locker room Mila is laughing. Viktor picks his way over and takes the water bottle that Yakov offers him. Yakov doesn’t launch into a lecture. That’s how Viktor knows that things have changed. He is not the skater he was. He used to be the only one who knew it but everyone else can see it now, too. They sidestep around him because they are afraid to admit it. Don’t be, Viktor wants to say. I’ve been trying to tell this you all along. He downs half the water in the bottle and rubs the back of his wrist across his sweaty forehead. “Well?”
Yakov shakes his head, blustering up an argument. Good old Yakov. Yuri interjects before he can speak. “Looked like shit.”
Viktor smiles. “Thank you, Yura.”
“I will kill you."
Viktor pats him on his tiny head. You can always count on Yuri. “That’s the gist of it, anyway. I’m still sorting out some of the elements.”
“Where will you put the quad flip?” Yakov asks.
Viktor squints at him. “Somewhere in the middle, maybe?”
Yakov sniffs but says nothing. Viktor sits on the bench and starts unlacing his skates. God but that hurt. Did it hurt like that a year ago, before he left? It burns in all his joints. That’s all right, he reminds himself. It really is. No one will look him in the eye when he says it. “Where’s Yuuri?”
“FaceTiming his sister like a dork,” Yuri says.
Viktor wriggles out of his skates and sets them aside. “You’re just jealous that you don’t have a sister.”
“What would I want a sister for? Mila’s annoying enough. If I need any girly wisdom in my life I can just watch whatever you’re doing.”
This makes Viktor laugh. “I’m honored.”
Yuri marches onto the rink, kicking up ice chips. Extremely poor form, Viktor notes fondly; you’re supposed to leave the ice as clean as you can for the next skaters. Yuri never does. Yakov is expressionless as always but Viktor likes to think that he’s amused. “Well?” he asks him again.
“There’s potential,” says Yakov.
Viktor has never not skated to a sure thing before. Potential requires something left unrealized. He is chasing the unreachable. There’s something poetic about it: inevitable, too. What goes up must go down, after all. He watches Yuri effortlessly carve up the ice. “Look at the little monster. Do you think he even realizes how good he is?”
Yakov almost smiles. Viktor can see his face twitch. “Did you?”
Yes, Viktor thinks. I really did.
Twenty minutes later Yuri appears in the locker room where Viktor is changing after his shower. “Stop taking up all of Yakov’s attention,” he tells Viktor with no preamble. “He isn’t focused on anything I do.”
“Okay,” Viktor says agreeably.
“And stop making out with Katsudon in here all the time or I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”
“What?”
“What?” mimics Yuri. “You heard me. It’s annoying. Everyone’s saying it. And tell Yuuri too, since he won’t stop hiding from me all over the place.”
“How do you plan to beat the shit out of me, exactly?” Viktor asks. “You weigh fifty kilos soaking wet. Your voice hasn’t dropped yet. I don’t think you can even bench press the bar in the weights room.”
Yuri throws his dirty socks into Viktor’s face. “I will kill you for real.”
“Promise?”
Yuri stalks off.
Dressed, his equipment packed, Viktor wanders into the hallway. It is late afternoon, so the building is almost empty. Mila is still out there watching something on her phone with her earbuds in. When she notices Viktor she takes them out and smiles. “Does Yuri seem more prickly than usual?” Viktor asks her.
“He’s been like that since you left last year."
“He said he was going to beat the shit out of me.”
“He might be serious about that one. Every time he comes out of the locker rooms he looks like he’s going to throw up. I think he’s homophobic now.”
“Poor little guy,” Viktor says, which makes Mila laugh. “It’s a hard life for a homophobic figure skater, isn’t it?”
“It really is.” She jabs her thumb over her shoulder. “Your Yuuri’s outside.”
Viktor kisses the top of her head. “Spasibo.” She waves him off, putting her earbuds back in. Viktor traipses outside with his equipment bag slung over his shoulder. Yuuri sits on one of the benches by the building’s entrance. His phone dangles loosely in his hand as he watches the sky, which is flat and gray. Viktor sits altogether too close to him and puts his head on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Yuuri says. “Sorry I missed your practice.”
“That’s okay. How’s Mari?”
“Good.” Yuuri puts his arm Viktor’s shoulder and pulls him closer.
“Yuri is going to beat the shit out of us for making out in the locker room, by the way.”
Yuuri blinks. “We don’t make out in the locker room.”
“He’s sixteen. He thinks every kiss is making out.” Viktor presses his mouth to Yuuri’s in demonstration. “I do think he will resort to violence, though, if you don’t join his rink group chat.”
Yuuri’s nose wrinkles. “I’m too old for group chats.”
“What am I, then? Decrepit?”
Yuuri waves a hand. “You’re....” He wavers, not finding the right word in English. “You know.”
Vague and perfunctory, Viktor thinks, though he knows that is not at all what Yuuri means. No one can pin me down because I have no edges or borders. I’m bleeding into all the cracks. That’s why no one can see me. I have no outline; no substance. “Well, you should join it anyway. You can mute it if you’re going to be that old about it.”
Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Fine.” Viktor grins and pulls out his phone. He shows Yuuri how to mute and unmute the notifications. “Why do we even need this?” Yuuri complains. “We see each other every day.”
“Group bonding?”
“Yes, I love when Yuri threatens my life daily,” Yuuri says. “I don’t get enough of it in person.” But he’s smiling.
Viktor kisses him again. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
Together they wander off towards the bus stop, headed home for dinner.
[23 June 2017, 5:21 pm]
[Viktor Nikiforov has added Katsuki Yuuri to the group **YAKOV’S BOYS (AND GIRL!!)**]
Yuri Plisetsky: ew lol
Viktor Nikiforov: Seriously?
After all your complaining? For months?
‘Yuuri pleeeeeease join my group chat I’m so sad without you’
[pleading eyes emoji]
[5:22 pm]
Mila Babicheva: ^this
Georgi Papovich: Hahaha
Yuri Plisetsky: shut up the hell up baba
[5:23 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: See, this is exactly why I didn’t want to join.
Viktor Nikiforov: :(((
Mwah :*
Mila Babicheva: everyone be nice to Viktor’s special boy
Viktor Nikiforov: Thank you Mila <3
[5:24 pm]
Georgi Papovich: Viktor, have you decided on a theme for this season?
Viktor Nikiforov: Not yet.
Mila Babicheva: his theme is gay sex lol
Yuri Plisetsky: GROSS
Viktor Nikiforov: That’s a great idea, Mila. I love the way your mind works.
[5:25 pm]
Georgi Papovich: What about you, Yuuri?
Katsuki Yuuri: Gay sex as well.
Viktor Nikiforov: <33333
Yuri Plisetsky: UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
[Viktor Nikiforov has changed the group’s name to ~*GAY SEX ENJOYERS*~]
[5:26 pm]
Georgi Papovich: I’m not gay though?
Mila Babicheva: ^assigned gay by group chat
Yuri Plisetsky: i hate you all so much
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group ~*GAY SEX ENJOYERS*~]
Mila Babicheva: lol
[10:57 pm)
[Yuri Plisetsky has joined the group ~*GAY SEX ENJOYERS*~]
Georgi Papovich: Well, well, look who it is. Isn’t it past your bedtime?
Mila Babicheva: here to enjoy gay sex like the rest of us intellectuals?
Yuri Plisetsky: shut up. which one of you stole my hand warmers
Viktor Nikiforov: Why would any of us do that? We’re practically drowning in hand warmers day in and day out. They’re free at the front desk if you ask Oksana nicely.
Mila Babicheva: so of course Yuri never does
[11:01 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: Sorry, Yuri! I think I grabbed them off the bench by accident. I’ll bring them in for you tomorrow?
Yuri Plisetsky: i fucking knew it was you katsudon
“What is your theme this year?” Yuuri asks later that night. They are sitting side-by-side on Viktor’s couch watching tv. Yuuri plays idly with Viktor’s hair.
Viktor, half-asleep from Yuuri’s gentle touch, blinks a little bit awake. “I haven’t decided.” It’s sort of true. He knows what he wants his theme to be, but he doesn’t think that Yuuri will want to hear it. Viktor is twenty-eight years old. You can hold on to something for only so long when it’s already past time to let go. You can’t fight inevitability. Maybe Yuuri won’t understand that yet, but he will soon enough. Everyone learns it. You can’t make anybody meet you at that realization, though, if it isn’t their time yet. Viktor and Yuuri’s skating careers overlap in the middle but not at either side, at the beginnings and the ends. They don’t need to share everything concurrently. You can’t expect that, Viktor knows; you can’t ask that of life. But he has to admit that he is scared to go through this alone.
“What’s your theme?” he asks Yuuri, nuzzling closer to him. “I liked the sound of gay sex.”
Yuuri laughs. “I don’t think the ISU would. No, it’s....” He hesitates. “I’m still working on it.”
“Okay,” Viktor says. “You let me know.”
Yuuri kisses his forehead. “You’d be the first.”
[18 July 2017, 9:42 am]
Yuri Plisetsky: can we change the group name before otabek gets here for a month
Georgi Papovich: Why is he coming again?
Yuri Plisetsky: his coach is taking a vacation before the season really starts and he didn’t have anything else to do
now can we change the fucking name
please
[9:43 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: [.gif of Puss in Boots from Shrek 2 with big pleading eyes]
That’s you, my little Yurochka.
Mila Babicheva: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IT IS
and no
I’m still enjoying gay sex
[9:44 am]
Yuri Plisetsky: who even uses gifs anymore you old creep
fuck this
[Yuri Plisetsky has changed the group’s name to REAL Actual Skaters Plus One Stupid Fucking Dumb Asshole Who Can’t Land a Quad Flip Anymore]
Yuri Plisetsky: that’s you viktor
Mila Babicheva: ouch...
Georgi Papovich: Oh, shit.
[9:47 am]
Yuri Plisetsky: whatever. you guys better not act like this when otabek gets here
Mila Babicheva: you love us
Yuri Plisetsky: wrong
[10:01 am]
Mila Babicheva: Viktor? are you ok? you know he didn’t mean it
Yuri Plisetsky: yes i did
Mila Babicheva: seriously Yuri stop it
Viktor?
[11:17 am]
Viktor Nikiforov: Sorry, I was working on my quad flip. You know, since I can’t land it.
[Viktor Nikiforov has left the group REAL Actual Skaters Plus One Stupid Fucking Dumb Asshole Who Can’t Land a Quad Flip Anymore]
Mila Babicheva: YURI GET OVER HERE
DAMN IT
Yuri Plisetsky: come and get me babushka
[1:54 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: [.mov of Viktor perfectly landing a quad flip with both hands clasped above his head]
Eat your heart out, Plisetsky.
Georgi Popovich: OHHHHH shit
Yuri Plisetsky: what the hell did i even do
[Mila Babicheva has changed the group’s name to *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
[1:55 pm]
Mila Babicheva: fight fight fight
Katsuki Yuuri: I don't think that's helping, Mila.
Mila Babicheva: I’m not trying to help
[Yuri Plisetsky has changed the group’s name to A Normal Fucking Group Chat]
[Mila Babicheva has changed the group’s name to *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
Mila Babicheva: no <3
[1:57 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: i hate you mila
Mila Babicheva: is Viktor ok, Yuuri?
Katsuki Yuuri: Yes, he’s fine.
[Katsuki Yuuri has added Viktor Nikiforov to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
Viktor Nikiforov: Meet me on the ice in 20 minutes if you want an ass kicking, Yuri.
[1:59 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: no i’m going to the fucking airport to get otabek
idiot.
change the stupid group name before we get back
[Mila Babicheva has changed the group’s name to Yurochka’s Blessed Angels]
Viktor Nikiforov: !!!! I love it <3
Yuri Plisetsky: jesus christ fine
put it back
Mila Babicheva: I always win. never forget it plisetsky
[Mila Babicheva has changed the group’s name to *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
[2:32 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: nice flip btw Viktor
for a geezer
Viktor Nikiforov: Awwwwww, Yura <3
Yuri Plisetsky: stop.
[4:07 pm]
[Yuri Plisetsky has added Otabek Altin to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
Yuri Plisetsky: ignore the name
they are all so fucking annoying and won’t let me change it
Otabek Altin: Hi everyone.
Georgi Popovich: Hi, Otabek
Mila Babicheva: hi
Otabek are you gay or straight
everyone has to pick a side in the thunderdome
Otabek Altin: Um
Yuri Plisetsky: no they don’t
Mila Babicheva: cranky because you and Georgi are the only straight ones, aren’t you?
Yuri Plisetsky: I NEVER SAID THAT
BITCH
[4:09 pm]
Mila Babicheva: anyway he’s right, you don’t have to Otabek
I was just kidding haha
unless
[4:11 pm]
Otabek Altin: I’m bi, actually.
Mila Babicheva: whoaaaaa me too!!!!
we should kiss ;)
Yuri Plisetsky: SHUT THE FUCK UP MILA
Georgi Popovich: They should invent a group chat that’s fun to be in.
Mila Babicheva: you’re so right Georgi
[4:35 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: Hey, Otabek! I thought you did great in Worlds.
Otabek Altin: Thank you.
Viktor Nikiforov: Really kicked Yuri’s ass ;) He whined about it for weeks.
Otabek Altin: Really?
Yuri Plisetsky: WHY VIKTOR
Viktor Nikiforov: [kissy face emoji]
[4:38 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: Oh, Viktor, leave him alone.
Mila Babicheva: yeah listen to Mom and leave little baby Yura alone
Yuri Plisetsky: do you see what i have to deal with
do you see it, otabek
The whole world doesn’t want Viktor to quit. That’s what they say, too—“quit,” as if it isn’t predestined that every skater will age out and retire. It’s been happening to athletes since the dawn of time. You don’t get to choose your own image in professional skating and you usually don’t get to choose when you walk away from it, either. You're frozen out, you get injured, you stop winning and the podium climbs ever further away until you resign yourself to your fate. You just get tired. Why isn’t Viktor permitted to be proactive about it? Why can’t he make his own choice?
He has to remind himself that no one is actually holding him hostage. It only feels that way because he wishes that the decision were easier. He won the Grand Prix Final five years running, and nearly every Nationals, Four Continents, and Worlds event in between. He has two Olympic gold medals. After a while you stop wanting to be the best. Every new medal is less validating than the last. You grow interested in what other people can do. You stop looking over your shoulder terrified that someone is coming to take your place and start wishing that they would hurry up already, damn it, how long do you have to sit here alone at the top? What’s six Grand Prixs compared to five? What’s four? When do the numbers stop mattering, the scores and records? When do you take off the skates and look around at what else there is in the world to do?
He had thought that twenty-seven might be it. He really had. He would have stayed on just as Yuuri’s coach if Yuuri hadn’t wanted him back on the ice. That was reason enough for one final lap around the rink. Everything goes in loops, just like in a skating routine. It makes a pattern. Eventually you get to step off the loop. But not yet. Yuuri wants to go around again with Viktor one more time. So Viktor puts on his skates. He gets back on the loop.
He wants to see Yuuri win gold. He desperately does. But he is not who Yuuri needs to beat, or skate against. Didn’t Yuuri break Viktor’s record already, skating all of his free program jumps better than Viktor did and even later in his program, outpacing Viktor’s endurance? “If you were skating against us you would have won,” Yuuri insists. “You choreographed the programs that Yuri and I beat you with.” That’s different than skating them, Viktor wants to say. All I had to do was wind you up and watch you go. Like little ceramic ballerinas in a music box. All I did was turn the key. You’re the ones who got on the ice and danced.
No one believes him when he says that he is at peace with that. That he wanted that. Not even Yuuri. “You’ll come back?” Yuuri asks after the Grand Prix Final. He is crying, from happiness and shock and concern. He cries often and easily, for which Viktor envies him. “You’ll compete again next season?”
He can’t tell Yuuri no about anything. What's one more year? So he’ll be twenty-eight—twenty-nine, actually—instead of twenty-seven when he retires. Not so much is different about that after all. What's a few more months, in the grand scheme of a life?
He hadn’t expected to lose his quad flip. He lands it only about two-thirds of the time now. And he hadn’t expected it to hurt so much, physically hurt, every time he gets off the ice. He is calloused and bleeding and sore. Sixteen-year-old Yuri wouldn’t know anything about that, not even when he scrapes himself or falls trying to nail a quad Salchow with both arms raised and bloodies his nose. He is still young enough to get right back up. Viktor needs more time to catch his breath. And more ice for his aching body.
Yuuri catches him in the ice bath one day at the rink after practice. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at Viktor. Then he leans down and presses their mouths together like he’s trying to kiss warmth into Viktor’s cold face. “Are you hurting?”
“Ah....” Viktor shrugs. “A bit.”
Yuuri touches Viktor’s shoulders. His hands are hot. “I’ll put the ice packs in the freezer when we get home.” He kisses the back of Viktor’s neck.
“I would appreciate that.”
“What else might you appreciate?” Yuuri speaks right next to Viktor’s ear. Viktor can feel his breath. “A massage, maybe?” Viktor shivers, not from the bath. “I could work all your tension out.”
“I’m not tense,” Viktor protests with great reluctance. “I just...hurt.”
“My Vitya.” Yuuri kisses Viktor’s earlobe. The Russian diminutive in his accent flusters Viktor, and he knows it.
“I think this is the sort of thing that Yuri was talking about when he threatened to do violence to us,” Viktor says, half-joking, half-breathless. He doesn’t want Yuuri to stop.
Yuuri scrapes his teeth gently against Viktor’s neck. “This is still not making out.”
Viktor laughs. “It might be worse.”
“Then let’s go home,” Yuuri says. “I will take care of you.”
They do. And Yuuri does.
[22 August 2017, 1:19 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: If Yuri can add Otabek, can I add Chris to the chat?
Yuri Plisetsky: no
Mila Babicheva: no
Georgi Popovich: No.
Viktor Nikiforov: >:’(
Yuri Plisetsky: this is for skaters at OUR RINK ONLY. idiot
Viktor Nikiforov: But Chris is so funny.
Yuri Plisetsky: *annoying
[1:20 pm]
Mila Babicheva: i think otabek muted us all anyway
Yuri Plisetsky: you deserve it
Otabek Altin: I didn't mute you, Mila.
Mila Babicheva: hiiiiiiiiiii :)
Yuri Plisetsky: wretched woman
[2:27 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: Would it be all right if I added Phichit, maybe? I haven’t been able to talk to him that often lately.
Georgi Popovich: Sure.
Mila Babicheva: yeah, we love Phichit
Viktor Nikiforov: COME ON.
Yuri Plisetsky: don’t you dare katsudon
[Katsuki Yuri has added Phichit Chulanont to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
[2:31 pm]
Phichit Chulanont: hiiiii :3
Yuri Plisetsky: he’s like eight time zones away
you guys are so stupid
Phichit Chulanont: :c
Yuri Plisetsky: .....sorry phichit
Phichit Chulanont: :D
Yuri Plisetsky: ugh
Phichit Chulanont: why is this called homophobic thunderdome???
[2:32 pm]
Mila Babicheva: Yuri is the world’s most homophobic figure skater <3
we’re so proud
Yuri Plisetsky: i am NOT
Mila Babicheva: name one skater more homophobic than you
Yuri Plisetsky: jj
Mila Babicheva: damn you’re right
we should add JJ now lol
Katsuki Yuuri: Please don’t.
Mila Babicheva: hahahaha
[2:34 pm]
[Viktor Nikiforov has added Christophe Giacometti to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
Christophe Giacometti: Bonjour
Yuri Plisetsky: great. you guys ruined everything forever
Mila Babicheva: what the hell I’m adding Sara then
[Mila Babicheva has added Sara Crispino to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
[2:35 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: why don’t we just add every skater in the fucking world to this dumb chat while we’re at it
Mila Babicheva: grumpy
Sara Crispino: Sheesh. does anybody in this thread smoke weed?
Yuri Plisetsky: dumbass we all get durg tested like once a month
shit
DONT
Mila Babicheva: durg lol
Christophe Giacometti: durg
Viktor Nikiforov: durg
Phichit Chulanont: durg
Georgi Papovich: durg
Katsuki Yuuri: durg
Otabek Altin: durg
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
[2:36 pm]
Mila Babicheva: ahahahahaha
gottem
[Otabek Altin has added Yuri Plisetsky to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
Yuri Plisetsky: no
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
[Otabek Altin has added Yuri Plisetsky to the group *~Homophobic Thunderdome~*]
Otabek Altin: Yes.
[2:41 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: You can leave the group chat when you win gold.
Yuri Plisetsky: so right after my first event?
fine then
[gold medal emoji]
[gold medal emoji]
[gold medal emoji]
all for me
Katsuki Yuuri: Is getting gold all it takes to escape this?
Viktor Nikiforov: You are stuck here forever with me, solnysko.
Yuri Plisetsky: i hope the rink blows up tomorrow and kills you all instantly
except otabek i guess
Otabek Altin: Thank you.
Yuri Plisetsky: yw
Yuuri’s new free skate program is beautiful. Even when Viktor has other things to work on while Yuuri practices he sneaks away to watch him skate it. “See how you cannot coach and skate, Viktor?” Yakov says disapprovingly. “Splitting your time like this will leave you dissatisfied both ways.” He’s probably right. Viktor’s quad flip is slipping away from him as the season progresses, not returning. And the Salchow wants to go with it. He can land them, mostly. He can skate them. But not like he used to. The one that Yuuri recorded to send to the group chat might be the last time that Viktor ever lands a quad flip perfectly, with full GOE, and it wasn’t even during a competition. It was midday on a Tuesday in their little rink in St. Petersburg with only one camera on him and only one person watching. But midday on a Tuesday with Yuuri is all the audience that Viktor wants. He has performed enough public events for a lifetime. He wants to claim a private refuge. For twenty years he has offered himself up to the world on a platter. He is ready to put the dish away.
Yuuri’s numbers keep creeping upwards. Viktor tallies them in his head as Yuuri skates. You never quite know how the judges will react, but Viktor usually has a good idea. The only times that he ever guessed far too low was at last year’s Grand Prix, when Yuri and Yuuri both broke his records and Viktor hadn’t been ready for it. “You’ll break them again next year,” Yuuri had said that night, pressing kisses down Viktor’s spine. Viktor didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Swept up in Yuuri’s touch. The way he was moving inside him.
“That’s what you want to talk about right now?” he asked.
“You’ll do it,” Yuuri said, ignoring him. Making love to him slowly. “I know you will.”
Viktor closed his eyes. “And then you’ll shatter whatever record I set?” And if not you, then Yuri. And if not him, then whoever comes after. The rearguard coming in to sweep up after my opening salvo. They don’t know the pleasure that comes from seeing someone else take up the mantle that you’ve set down. They will someday. But because they’re not there yet they think that it is the greatest indignity, a horrible sacrifice. They’re embarrassed to come in behind you and hoist the flag.
Yuuri kissed between his shoulder blades. “If you want me to, I will.”
“Please,” said Viktor. He wasn’t talking about skating anymore. “Yuuri, please.”
Yuuri, taking Viktor into his hand, knew it. “Go on then, sweetheart.”
Yuuri’s skate hits the ice. Go on then, ljubímyj, Viktor thinks. Yuuri has finally married his technical and presentation scores. He hasn’t under-rotated a jump in weeks. His edge control is the sharpest that Viktor has ever seen it. His free leg is always deliberate and perfect—he has been watching Yuri and sneaking lessons with Lilia. Viktor loves watching him. This is what I was missing, he tells himself. This is what was not there anymore when I left to coach you. The joy in it. That thing which you can’t earn or keep, but Viktor will be damned if he ever willingly lets it go.
Yuuri skids to a stop, panting, his hands folded over his heart. Then he looks up brightly, pink-faced, and smiles at Viktor. Viktor holds open his arms. Yuuri skates over to him. Somewhere from across the rink Yuri heckles them to Otabek. Viktor smiles and tucks Yuuri against his chest, holding him as he breathes hard.
“I know my theme.” Yuuri presses his face to the crook of Viktor’s neck.
Viktor runs one hand through his sweaty hair. “Yes?”
“Devotion,” says Yuuri.
Viktor tightens his arms around him, an instinctual twitch. “Isn’t that a little close to last year’s?” But his heart is pounding.
“It’s different,” Yuuri says. “It’s not the same at all. You’ll see.”
Viktor watches Yuuri put on his skate guards and drink his Gatorade. He should have some advice about the program, some kind of coachly guidance for his student, but in this moment he has nothing to say. “You’re really something,” he says. “Do you know that?”
Yuuri laughs. “Me?”
Yes, gorgeous, you.
[3 October 2017, 6:01 am]
[Mila Babicheva has changed the group’s name to GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
Mila Babicheva: you all know what fuckin time it is
Yuri Plisetsky: and kings?
Mila Babicheva: that doesn’t rhyme
Yuri Plisetsky: neither does this??
Mila Babicheva: it’s a slant rhyme
where did everyone get placed for the qualifiers?
[6:02 am]
Viktor Nikiforov: It’s six in the morning, Mila.
Mila Babicheva: answer the question
Viktor Nikiforov: Skate America and Cup of China.
[6:03 am]
Christophe Giacometti: Ooh, two of the early events.
See you at Cup of China, Viktor. ;)
Yuri Plisetsky: i got skate canada and rostelecom
like you care
Mila Babicheva: bitch how did you get Russia AGAIN
I never get Russia
I got Cup of China and France because they hate me and want me to do two events right in a row
lms if u cried
[6:07 am]
Sara Crispino: I got America and Russia
Mila Babicheva: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
it’s not fair
[7:11 am]
Otabek Altin: I will be at Skate Canada and NHK.
Yuri Plisetsky: oh thank god
i can’t face jj in canada alone again
i won’t do it
[8:33 am]
Phichit Chulanont: skate america and france for me!!
@Yuuri?
Viktor Nikiforov: He’s sleeping.
Yuri Plisetsky: so wake him up
Viktor Nikiforov: You are so disrespectful, my little Yura. You know us older skaters need our rest.
Yuri Plisetsky: rest when youre fucking dead
where was he assigned
[8:35 am]
Viktor Nikiforov: France and NHK, you ungrateful nosy wretch.
Yuri Plisetsky: damn it
do i seriously have to skate against jj and only jj both times
AGAIN
Otabek Altin: I said I’ll be at Canada.
Yuri Plisetsky: you don’t count
Viktor Nikiforov: Don’t worry. Yuuri will see you on the ice again at the Final <3
Yuri Plisetsky: fuck off and die nikiforov
[8:36 am]
Viktor Nikiforov: (ง'̀-'́)ง
Yuri Plisetsky: what even is that
text normally you ancient freak
Mila Babicheva: OwO
\(≧∇≦)/
(=^・^=)
haha that one looks like Yuri
Yuri Plisetsky: blocked
“We’re not in any of the qualifiers together.” Yuuri sounds disappointed.
“That means I won’t have to miss any of your skates,” Viktor points out.
“But I won’t be able to go to yours. I can’t lose the practice time. Not if....” Yuuri trails off.
“Not if you want to beat little Yura?” Viktor kisses the tip of Yuuri’s nose. “I think I can fend for myself out there.”
Yuuri blushes. “I don’t want to beat Yuri.”
“Mmm. Did you know you're his rival?”
“What?”
“He idolizes you. He wants to beat you more than anything, but I think he also wants you to make him work for it. Like you did last year.”
“Yuri could not possibly care less about my skating,” Yuuri says. “There is absolutely no way. He skated like that last year to get you back in the sport.”
“Do you really think so?”
Yuuri looks away. “Maybe.”
They are sitting on the couch in Viktor’s apartment. He had sublet it for eight months while he was in Hasetsu and has still hardly moved his stuff back in. It doesn’t seem worth it. He wants to find a new place with Yuuri, but he hasn’t brought it up yet. After the Grand Prix is over, I will, he tell himself. After Yuuri wins gold. Viktor can be patient. He has mastered the art of waiting, of self-denial. He spent five months in Hasetsu the previous year without so much as kissing Yuuri, though he had wanted to every day. He'd wanted to since before his plane hit the tarmac. He gets up and straddles Yuuri on the couch, pushing him against its back. He pins his thighs on either side of Yuuri’s hips. Yuuri looks up at him, wide-eyed. His beautiful warm whiskey eyes.
“I came back,” Viktor says, “because you wanted me to.” He puts his hands on Yuuri’s face and looks at him seriously. Yuuri’s mouth works, but he says nothing. So Viktor kisses him.
Yuuri blushes more deeply. “That can’t be the reason.”
“Why not?” Viktor toys with the buttons of Yuuri’s shirt. “It’s the best one I’ve ever had.”
Yuuri’s hand comes between them and touches Viktor’s chest, holding him back. “Be serious.”
“I am. Deathly so.”
He can see the anxiety and doubt turning in Yuuri’s head. Yuuri catastrophizes—he is, Viktor thinks, a bit of a fatalist, especially regarding his own worth. People have the tendency not to take anything that Viktor says at face value. They read their own intentions into his words, project their own assumptions. When will you come back to skating, Viktor? Don’t you want to win the Grand Prix again, and 4CC and Worlds? Don’t you want to add more gold to your dusty pile of medals, Viktor? Surely you do. Surely you must. Yuuri knows Viktor and sees him, truly, but sometimes even he indulges in assumptions about what is going on in Viktor’s head. You could just ask me, Viktor thinks—but of course that’s not fair. It’s not as if he offers up his own thoughts freely. He tries to, for Yuuri. If there is anyone on Earth whom Viktor wants to see him entirely, with no pretense, it’s Yuuri. And he almost does. They’re nearly there. Please come with me all the way there, Yuuri. Please meet me here where I am waiting for you. “Take me at my word,” Viktor says. “I’m not unhappy. I am not doing anything against my will. Please believe me when I say that I’m all right.” I’ve never been better.
Yuuri searches Viktor’s face. He has put his arms around Viktor’s waist, holding him close but also apart. His anxiety still turning, that self-defeating impulse. Viktor wants to take that impulse and crush it between his hands and drown it in the Neva River. Leave him alone, he demands of it; leave him be. You can be free of this, Yuuri, just like I’m learning to be free from who I was.
At last Yuuri swallows. His arms tighten around Viktor’s waist. Viktor sighs and bends his face towards Yuuri’s, closing his eyes. “I’ll try,” Yuuri whispers. His voice is thick, as if he’s holding back tears. “I promise I will.”
Viktor takes his face in his hands again and kisses him. Yuuri really is crying now, though silently, and Viktor is not quite sure why. He brushes the tears away with his thumbs and kisses Yuuri’s damp eyelids. “Yuuri?” He toys again with Yuuri’s buttons, playfully, until Yuuri whispers something and Viktor’s hand goes still. “What?” But he heard him.
“I love you,” Yuuri says again.
Viktor blinks down at him. He’s floating. “You love me?”
“Yes.”
Viktor buries his face against Yuuri’s neck. His hands tremble. Stupid traitorous body. It can’t land a flip and it can’t keep steady when it matters. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Viktor.”
If Viktor could have had his way, he would have told Yuuri that he loved him a month and a half after arriving in Hasetsu last year. He has thought it thousands of times since then but never said it. Why didn’t I say it? he wonders. Why did I make him wait so long? I was scared. Silly. Meet me where I am, I ask you, and then you meet me where I didn't even known I was waiting.
“I love you, too,” he says. Of course I do. Of course I love you. “And I know what my theme is.” Whispering now. “It’s ‘thank you.’”
It’s “goodbye,” really; goodbye to skating, goodbye to the ice. But with gratitude. With love. Thank you says it best. Thank you for taking me all the way here.
Yuuri holds him close for a long time, until both of them stop shaking. “Look at us.” Viktor laughs, embarrassed. Yuuri doesn’t say anything. He just holds on to Viktor more tightly, not letting him go.
[22 October 2017, 11:42 pm]
Phichit Chulanont: does anyone want to watch the emperor’s new groove in rabbit with me right now
i can’t sleep
too nervous about skate america tomorrow
Sara Crispino: YES
Drop the link
Mila Babicheva: ^^^^^^^
Phichit Chulanont: :D
http://rabb.it/6673238_786>
thanks guys
[25 October 2017, 6:46 pm: Skate America]
Sara Crispino: CONGRATS ON SILVER, PHICHIT!
Mila Babicheva: you were so good omg! I’m crying
Katsuki Yuuri: Your free skate was perfect, Phichit<3
[6:50 pm]
Mila Babicheva: and congrats Viktor!
slow and steady wins the race!
Yuri Plisetsky: lmao he got bronze
that doesn’t even count
[6:52 pm]
Christophe Giacometti: Why bother trying hard at the season’s start? That’s what I always say ;)
Yuri Plisetsky: go away giacometti
what the hell are you still doing here
Christophe Giacometti: Having fun.
Gathering blackmail material.
Yuri Plisetsky: kys
Christophe Giacometti: Yeah, that one’s going in my screenshot folder.
Congrats, Phichit!
[7:51 pm]
Phichit Chulanont: :DDDDD thanks guys
i can’t believe it
still shaking lol
so proud of emil for getting gold
and you too viktor<3 what a comeback
[10:11 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: congrstsa on sliver phichit<333
your rly comindg into ur own
so proud
Yuri Plisetsky: youre not his fucking dad
Viktor Nikiforov: wh y not :(
Phichit Chulanont: thank you dad <3
Viktor Nikiforov: yayyyyyyy
[10:12 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: are you drunk?
Viktor Nikiforov: <33333
Myabe
Shhhhhhhhhhhhsh
don’t tell Yuuri
Mila Babicheva: he’s in the chat, Viktor
he’s just going to read this
Viktor Nikiforov: ohhhhhhhhh rihgt
sory
[10:15 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: Remember to drink water, Viktor. Maybe you should go to bed?
Viktor Nikiforov: you’re sooooo good t me ,<3
i love you
Katsuki Yuuri: I love you too <3
Mila Babicheva: [hearteyes emoji]
Yuri Plisetsky: [nauseated emoji] [vomiting emoji] [poop emoji]
Viktor Nikiforov: hahha u vomited a poop
Yuri Plisetsky: [middle finger emoji]
Yuuri calls Viktor on the hotel room phone that night. “Hello, my love,” Viktor says, bemused. “How on Earth did you get this number?”
“Yuri.”
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
“Your phone was busy.”
Viktor glances down at his phone, which is lying screendown on the bed. He turns it over to see that it is in the middle of a thirty-four minute phone call with a number that he does not recognize. “Ah.” He turns the phone off. “Sorry.”
“Did you drink any water?”
“Loads of it,” Viktor says. “Positively. I missed your voice, my love.”
Yuuri laughs. “It hasn’t even been twelve hours since we spoke earlier.”
“Yes, I know.” Viktor sits delicately on the edge of his stiff hotel bed and looks around. It is every hotel room that he has ever stayed in and the déjà vu almost knocks him out of time. The years telescope on both ends and he is thrown ten, fifteen years into the past, before he was anybody, when he was about to be somebody, when he was desperately, childishly lonely. He is rapidly sobering up, which brings heaviness. He’d had to sit alone in the kiss and cry, all the cameras trained on him at once. This is his first real competition since his leave of absence. The announcers kept saying his name and listing all his titles after it, reveling in the long list like it was a spell that they were trying to cast and that wouldn’t work unless they pronounced every word of it. Silly boy, they were saying; look what you tried to run away from. No one gets to choose their time to go. And Viktor had to sit there, still like a statue the way Yakov trained him, because nail biting and crying and shaking in the kiss and cry was unbefitting a skater at the top of the world even if it was what he wanted to do. If Yuuri were there he would have held Viktor. He would have taken off Viktor’s gloves and kissed his knuckles and pressed his hands between his own to hide them shaking. “I missed you.”
Yuuri exhales. “I should have come with you. I could barely focus at all at practice today. I popped every jump, I think.”
Viktor sniffles, laughs. “Did you?”
“Miserably. Yuri wanted to clobber me.”
Viktor lies back against the pillows and puts his arm over his eyes. “Tell me more.” So Yuuri does, until Viktor has nearly fallen asleep. “Yuuri,” he says, “when I get back—”
“Shh,” says Yuuri. Warmly and gently. “Go to sleep.”
[1 November 2017, 5:59 pm: Skate Canada]
Mila Babicheva: wowwwwww Otabek!!!!!! gold!!!!!!
and Yuri silver!!!!
you guys kicked JJ’s ass
gay rights!!
Otabek Altin: Thank you, Mila :)
Yuri Plisetsky: whatever
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
Mila Babicheva: what did I say wrong? :(
Viktor Nikiforov: He’s just upset. He’ll be okay.
[6:02 pm]
Phichit Chulanont: I thought you both did incredible
@Otabek @Yuri
Otabek Altin: Thanks, Phichit. I’ll tell Yuri you said that.
[Otabek Altin has added Yuri Plisetsky to the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
[Otabek Altin has added Yuri Plisetsky to the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
[6:05 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: thanks phichit
there. leave me alone
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
[Otabek Altin has added Yuri Plisetsky to the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017]
Sara Crispino: lmao
[8 November 2017, 7:12 pm: Cup of China]
Otabek Altin: Wow, did any of you see that coming?
Mila Babicheva: omgggg Seung-gil was amazing
I know one of you has his number
give it to me, I need to congratulate him on his gold
Katsuki Yuuri: I’ll DM you.
[7:13 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: And what about your gold, dear Mila?
Congratulations <3 You’ve been working so hard.
Katsuki Yuuri: Yes, you have! You deserve it.
Mila Babicheva: <3333
stop I’m going to cry lol
thank you
you did great, Viktor
bronze then silver? gold will be next!!
[7:15 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: Ah, well. You know me.
[8:21 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: good job mila
Mila Babicheva: YURIIIIIIIIII ;______; <333 *holds u*
Yuri Plisetsky: don’t do that
[8:23 pm]
Sara Crispino: You can hold me, Mila.
Mila Babicheva: *HOLDS SARA*
[pink sparkle heart emoji] [two swirly pink hearts emoji] [two women skating emoji]
Sara Crispino: *is hold*
[14 November 2017, 2:40 pm: Internationaux de France]
Mila Babicheva: hey Yuuri
Katsuki Yuuri: Yes?
Mila Babicheva: what mascara do you use?
Katsuki Yuuri: What?
Viktor Nikiforov: My Yuuri doesn’t need mascara to be this pretty <3
Mila Babicheva: WHAT!!!!!!
fuck my whole life
[2:42 pm]
Phichit Chulanont: yuuri doesn’t even know what mascara is lol
Katsuki Yuuri: Yes I do.
I have a sister. I’ve worn makeup before.
Viktor Nikiforov: WHEN
[eyes emoji]
Katsuki Yuuri: I’ll tell you later.
Sara Crispino: I can send you some recs Mila babe
[2:43 pm]
Mila Babicheva: it’s not the same. I’ll never look like this
[.jpg of Yuuri from his short program competition]
like COME on
and you have perfect italian eyelashes Sara, so what do you know about any of it
nobody talk to me
Otabek Altin: Are you okay, Mila?
Sara Crispino: She missed a couple points on her PCS.
she’s convinced it’s because she’s not pretty enough
an insane statement.
Mila Babicheva: NO IT’S THE ONLY EXPLANATION
FIGURE SKATING HATES YOU IF YOU’RE NOT THE PRETTIEST PERSON OUT THERE
fuck my life
[2:45 pm]
Otabek Altin: If that were true, Mila, surely you would get full points every time.
Yuri Plisetsky: stop this
stop enabling her
Mila Babicheva: you’re so sweet <33333333
too bad I will never skate again
Sara Crispino: What?
Mila Babicheva: I’m just kidding let’s go get food Sara
see you downstairs in 10
[3:07 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: Sorry, why was that picture of me relevant to this discussion?
Viktor Nikiforov: Babe. Beloved. Love of my life.
[.jpg of an extreme close-up of Yuuri’s eyelashes during his short program]
LOOK at you.
Mila Babicheva: he’s hopeless Viktor. don’t even bother
I’m homophobic now too
Yuri was right all along
Sara Crispino: But you’re bi?
We’re dating?
Mila Babicheva: irrelevant
Viktor holds Yuuri in the kiss and cry in France while they wait for his free skate score to go up. “I missed being with you here,” he says. “I was lonely at Skate America and China. All I had to look at on the video screen was my hairline receding before my very eyes.”
“It’s not receding,” Yuuri insists bravely.
“You’re so sweet,” says Viktor, “but such an awful liar. See, this is why I have to retire.” He points at himself onscreen. “Look at me. It’s embarrassing.”
“So vain.” Yuuri sounds faint. He keeps staring, waiting for his score to go up. His leg is jittering up and down. Viktor kisses the tip of his ear, which turns red. “You’re not retiring.”
Viktor decides to leave that conversation for another time. “Look, Yuuri.” The score flashes across the screen. “Second place. Another silver for me not to kiss. How long must I wait?” But he smiles and pulls Yuuri in by his collar to kiss him thoroughly instead. Cameras flash and pop all around them.
“Exhibitionist,” Yuuri says, dazed.
“Like you’re any better,” says Viktor. “Come on, let’s shake hands.”
[15 November 2017, 10:23 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: fuck you katsudon
Katsuki Yuuri: ????
Yuri Plisetsky: don’t think youre winning the final
youre not getting gold
so don’t even bother
Katsuki Yuuri: I didn’t say anything about that?
[10:24 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: but you’re thinking it
i see your mind
Christophe Giacometti: Yuri, you are by far the scariest teenager I know.
Yuri Plisetsky: thank you
[22 November 2017, 7:21 pm: Rostelecom Cup Russia]
Mila Babicheva: THAT’S OUR BOY!!!!
YURI!!!
[gold medal emoji] [handshake emoji] [gold medal emoji]
Viktor Nikiforov: Where did you run off to, little Yurochka? You can’t hide from us. We will find you.
Phichit Chulanont: yuri congratulations! you were incredible!
a well deserved gold <3
[7:23 pm]
Katsuki Yuuri: I think he went out through the back of the building.
Mila Babicheva: Yura come back
we just want to love you
[7:41 pm]
Otabek Altin: Why are you hunting Yuri down, precisely? He won’t stop frantically texting me.
Yuri Plisetsky: i’m not doing that
[7:42 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: He wouldn’t let us hug him for getting gold :(
He ran away after the podium.
Otabek Altin: ...Right.
He’s by the bus stop trying to get a ride back to the hotel.
Yuri Plisetsky: OTABEK
WHY
Mila Babicheva: LET’S GOOOOOOOO
[29 November 2017, 6:49pm: NHK Trophy Japan]
Mila Babicheva: Otabek, what a gold!!!!!!
And silver again, Yuuri! you made it to the Final!!
[gold medal emoji] [silver medal emoji]
[Mila Babicheva has changed the group’s name to GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN]
Yuri Plisetsky: who cares
did jj make it?
Mila Babicheva: yes
Yuri Plisetsky: god damn it
[6:52 pm]
Phichit Chulanont: i can’t wait to see how seung-gil does
his first final :D
and mila I really think you could win ladies this year
Mila Babicheva: omg don’t jinx me [crying emoji]
I’ve never done this well
I’m scared
[9:15 pm]
Christophe Giacometti: Yuri, Otabek, Yuuri, Seung-gil, JJ, and Viktor in the Final? Well...we all know who will win men’s this year. Again ;)
Yuri Plisetsky: yeah
me
Christophe Giacometti: It’s cute that you think that.
Yuri Plisetsky: thanks idiot
where’s katsudon
@Yuuri
@Yuuri
@Yuuri
@katsudon
[9:38 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: Yuuri’s phone died. But don’t worry, I have been dutifully relaying all of your kind words about his performance <333
Yuri Plisetsky: more like you were off kissing his skates again
seriously what’s wrong with you
[9:39 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: You see, when two adults love each other very much...
Yuri Plisetsky: they make it everybody else’s problem forever
yeah i’ve noticed
charge his phone i need to talk to him
Viktor Nikiforov: About?
Yuri Plisetsky: how is it any of your business nikiforov
[9:41 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: When you ask me to distract my boyfriend from celebrating his well-deserved accomplishment that he’s been stressing about nonstop for the last several months, that tends to be something I want some justification for.
Yuri Plisetsky: fine i’ll call him tomorrow
dick
Mila Babicheva: ????????
[30 November 2017, 7:09 am]
Katsuki Yuuri: Why do I have 7 missed calls from Yuri?
Yuri Plisetsky: finally
Katsuki Yuuri: Why are you still awake?
Isn’t it 2 am in St. Petersburg?
Yuri Plisetsky: none of your business
answer your phone
please
[9:31 am]
Mila Babicheva: please????
The Grand Prix Final is in Marseille, two weeks after Yuuri’s silver in Japan. Everyone from the St. Petersburg rink bundles off to the airport together: Yakov, Viktor, Yuuri, Yuri, Mila, Lilia, their families and friends, their assistant coaches. Mila is jittery and nervous, pacing around while the luggage is loaded into the cars. There is ice on the ground already and Viktor resists the parental urge to warn Mila off of it. He looks around for Yuuri. He is on his phone with his parents, and his hands are bare, turning pink in the cold. He never remembers his gloves. Viktor makes a note to buy a few extra pairs to keep in his equipment bag. After a few minutes Yuuri says goodbye to his mother and hangs up. Viktor holds his cold hand with his gloved one. “Nervous?”
Yuuri shrugs. “I don’t like flying that much.”
“Hellish profession you’ve chosen, then.” Viktor takes off his gloves and offers them to Yuuri. “Are you cold?”
Yuuri shakes his head. He toys with his ring absently. “Did you see what Yuri is wearing?”
“Yes.” Yuri has somehow found a tiger print bomber jacket with a huge snarling tiger face embroidered on the back. He has further adorned the jacket with several enamel tiger pins and is wearing a tiger-eared hat. He seems to think that this outfit makes him look defiant and rebellious. “Kids these days.”
“He called me after the NHK."
“I remember.” Viktor hadn’t asked about it then, because Yuuri had been troubled and it felt rude to pry. “Was he all right?”
“He sounded really scared. I think he isn’t doing as well as he thought he would this season.” Yuuri does take Viktor’s gloves now. He slowly puts them on. He is watching Yuri from across the parking lot.
“Nobody intimidates a skater better than themselves,” Viktor says. “He’ll be all right.”
“He will. But....” Yuuri gestures vaguely. “I don’t want him to be like me. He left me a voicemail that night, crying in the bathroom. He wasn’t even competing that week. It was like he was me, two years ago. Just like me.... He has so much confidence. I don’t want him to lose that. It can be awful skating without it.”
It can be awful with it, too, Viktor almost says, but doesn’t. It’s not the same, and he doesn’t want to minimize what Yuuri is saying. “What did you tell him?”
“That he could do it,” Yuuri says. “He could win the Final again.”
“Hm.” Viktor looks over at Yuri. He is kicking gravel in the parking lot with his hands stuffed into his tiger jacket pockets. He is taller than he was this time last year, but not very. “I think you should tell him that you’ll kick his ass.”
“What?”
Viktor shrugs. “It’s what he really cares about.”
“Why?” Yuuri looks bewildered. “Why would that matter to him more than beating everybody?”
Viktor scratches his head. “Sometimes it’s easier to skate for one person. Certainly it’s better than skating for a crowd.” The luggage has all been loaded up, and Yakov is ordering people into their cars. “Come on, Yuuri,” Viktor says, and takes him by the hand.
Later that night in their hotel room in Marseille, Yuuri corners Viktor after his shower. “You want to retire, don’t you?”
“Can I dry my hair before the interrogation, please?” Viktor asks. He sounds flippant but he feels scared. “Do you really want to talk about this now?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” He dries his hair and puts on his robe and returns to the bedroom. Yuuri sits on the bed cross-legged. He is wearing one of Viktor’s shirts. Viktor is taller than Yuuri but Yuuri is stronger, and it shows, distractingly. Viktor sits beside him.
Yuuri looks at him unhappily. “Well?”
Where to begin? Viktor hadn’t expected to have this conversation yet. “I’m turning twenty-nine in two weeks, Yuuri. You’re always saying that you’re not sure how much longer your body will hold up. How do you think mine feels?” It’s not precisely what he wanted to start with. Viktor isn’t as good a skater as he used to be but he’s still among the best—his qualification for the Grand Prix evidences that. He isn’t too tired to compete. He has skills that other skaters don’t. But competing has lost all of its flavor. He would rather seek life’s sustenance elsewhere.
“We haven’t even skated together yet.” There are tears in Yuuri’s eyes. Viktor hadn’t noticed until now.
“We’ve been skating together this whole time,” Viktor says. “I felt that we were.”
“Not in competition.”
“Fuck the competition.” It’s too sudden and Yuuri flinches when Viktor says it. “There is nothing that can give me now that I don’t already have. Please, Yuuri. I mean it.”
“What about what it can give me?” Yuuri sounds angry. He sounds almost panicked, that self-immolating fire burning inside him again.
Viktor wants to reach inside his chest and snuff it out. Set a cleaner fire burning, one that purifies instead. It seems presumptuous to think that he can do that. “What’s that, then? What can it give you?”
“You,” Yuuri says. “Forever.”
He’s crying, silently. Viktor doesn’t want to touch him because he is afraid of making the situation worse. He doesn't know what Yuuri means, for once, and it scares him a little. “I don’t understand.”
“I want to skate with you forever. That’s the only way I can hold on to you. I don’t want to let this go.”
“So don’t,” Viktor says. “I’m not going anywhere, Yuuri. I’m right here. I’ve always been right here.”
Yuuri wipes at his eyes. He twists his hands together in his lap. “I still haven’t won gold.”
“So?”
Yuuri stares at him. “What?”
Viktor gets off the bed and kneels beside it. Yuuri looks down at him, blinking. “I don’t need that. I’ve never needed that.” Viktor takes Yuuri’s anxious hands between his own and smiles at him. He can cross this last expanse left between them. He can bridge the gap. If not now, then when? Come on, Yuuri, Viktor thinks; let’s. “Will you marry me?”
Yuuri says nothing for a long time. Viktor lifts his hands to his mouth and kisses them. “Well?”
“If I win gold?”
“No.” Viktor squeezes Yuuri’s hands reproachfully. “If you win gold, if you win silver, if you don’t place in a competition ever again for the rest of your life—will you marry me?”
“I....” Yuuri trails off. Staring at Viktor. Then he laughs. “I wanted to ask you that after I won. Really ask you. Not like last year, when I was too afraid to say it.”
Viktor smiles at him. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
Yuuri touches the side of Viktor’s face with one hand. He looks sad, and fond. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Months and months,” says Viktor. “Years.” Yuuri, my love, you have no idea. I can be patient and I don’t mind waiting but I don’t think I can do it any longer. And Viktor is tired of the teasing, the promises banked upon Yuuri winning a gold medal that will hang on the wall and forever after that only gather dust. The medal is a symbol that has lost all its imbued meaning for Viktor, a signifier with no content, Chekhov’s smoking gun that has never been fired. It was a stepping stone, a crutch, a way for them to reach this place and they don’t need it any longer. “Won’t you let me hang it up, beloved?”
Yuuri laughs, cries. “Let you?” He pulls Viktor into his arms. He is trembling but he looks, thank God, happy. He looks relieved. “Yes,” he says. “All right. I will.”
“You’ll marry me?”
“Of course.” Yuuri kisses him. “Of course.”
[10 December 2017, 8:07 am: Grand Prix Final Marseille, day 1]
[Phichit Chulanont has changed the group’s name to GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017: SHORT PROGRAM DAY]
Phichit Chulanont: today’s the day!!!!
good luck yuri, yuuri, otabek and viktor!!! (and mila tomorrow!!)
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ take my energy ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Yuri Plisetsky: what the hell is that
Mila Babicheva: his energy
thanks Phichit<3
Phichit Chulanont: :D
[8:10 am]
Katsuki Yuuri: Good luck, everyone!
Yuri Plisetsky: youre the one who’s going to need it
Otabek Altin: See you on the podium, Yuuri.
Yuri Plisetsky: what? him?
you think so?????
what about me??
hello???
[8:14 am]
Katsuki Yuuri: See you there, Otabek.
@Yuri If you’re wondering, I’ll be the one standing in the middle.
Mila Babicheva: WOWWWWWWWW
Phichit Chulanont: :O :O :O
Viktor Nikiforov: <3333!!!
[pink sparkly heart emoji] [gold medal emoji] [two men skating emoji]
[kissy face emoji]
[smiling face with hearts emoji]
[8:15 am]
Yuri Plisetsky: what the hell is going on
[3:59 pm]
Mila Babicheva: YUURI
O
M
G
Yuri Plisetsky: whatever
he didn’t even touch my record
Mila Babicheva: he was .07 points off....
Yuri Plisetsky: like i said
untouchable
[Yuri Plisetsky has left the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017: SHORT PROGRAM DAY]
[4:02 pm]
Mila Babicheva: has he ever been in fourth before?
Viktor Nikiforov: Not since Juniors.
Mila Babicheva: uh oh
:(
[12 December 2017, 9:10 am: Grand Prix Final Marseille, day 3]
[Yuri Plisetsky has joined the group GRAND PRIX QUEENS 2017: FREE SKATE: THE FINAL SKATENING]
Viktor Nikiforov: And on the third day...
Yuri Plisetsky: what?
Viktor Nikoforov: Don’t fret yourself about it <333
Yuri Plisetsky: can you tell katsudon to meet me downstairs
please
Viktor Nikiforov: Of course, Yurochka.
Yuri Plisetsky: stop.
Viktor stands rinkside, paralyzed, before his free skate. People are waving banners with his name and face on them. Yuuri plucks at Viktor’s costume: smoothing the shoulders, picking off bits of fluff. “Are you nervous?”
“A little,” Viktor confesses. He is skating second, which is a sort of relief; he cannot remember the last time that he wasn’t the last or second-to-last skater to get on the Grand Prix ice. At least it will be over quickly. His free program doesn’t have as many jumps as it would have had three years ago. And there’s the quad flip in the first half that he is still not sure will stick.
“What shall I tell you before you go out there?”
“Anything.”
“All right.” Yuuri smoothes down Viktor’s collar. His hands skim over sequins. He is quiet and serious, not smiling at all. He meets Viktor’s gaze frankly and then holds him pinned in it. “I’ve been skating for you all this time. Now it’s your turn.”
Yuuri stands on tiptoe—he hasn’t put on his skates yet, so Viktor positively towers over him—and puts his arms around Viktor’s neck. Now he smiles, looking up at Viktor, oblivious to the way that the crowd screams louder. Viktor cannot help himself. He whirls Yuuri around in his arms and dips him deeply.
“Show off,” Yuuri whispers.
Viktor kisses him. “Don’t ever take your eyes off me.”
“I won’t,” says Yuuri, flushed. Viktor sets him upright again. “I promise. I see you, Viktor.”
He does. See me, not through me, Viktor thinks—and Yuuri does, sees him completely, sees all of him at last. They have reached the summit. There is nothing left to prove.
Viktor takes to the ice. He spreads his arms wide to greet the crowd and the lights, cold air rushing past. He loops the rink once, then stills in the center of it. He is supposed to be thinking about gratitude and thanks. He is thinking about Yuuri. Same thing, he decides, and he takes up his starting position.
He saves the flip until the end: his final jump. It’s how Yuuri would skate it, pushed to his limits. Yakov will berate Viktor for moving a risky element to the end of his program when he is already struggling with it in the beginning, but Viktor doesn’t care. It’s not about the points. He touches down on the ice with one hand during the landing. A sudden shocking scrape; the rough swift ice pinks his palm. Then it's all over and the crowd is screaming, the lights blinding him. Viktor looks for Yuuri. He has his hands clasped over his heart, his eyes sparkling. I love you, he mouths. Viktor skates over and throws his arms around him.
“Your turn,” he says.
[8:11 pm]
Mila Babicheva: CONGRATULATIONS YUURI, YURI, AND OTABEK!
[gold medal emoji] [silver medal emoji] [bronze medal emoji]
what a podium!!
[.jpg of the podium: Yuri holding a silver medal, Yuuri in the center holding gold, and Otabek holding bronze]
Viktor Nikiforov: Congrats yourself, gold medalist Grand Prix Queen <3
Mila Babicheva: :’))) <3 !!
are we hitting the banquet?
Viktor Nikiforov: You know it.
[8:12 pm]
Christophe Giacometti: Congratulations all and especially you, Yuuri.
Another broken record under your belt and your first GP gold...I’ll have to work much harder next season.
Yuri Plisetsky: whatever
it was still the most impressive when i did it last year
[8:13 pm]
Viktor Nikiforov: How’s that?
Yuri Plisetsky: i was youngest
and my score was highest
so its like it doesn’t even matter that you and katsudon did it
Viktor Nikiforov: I’ve done it five times. [thinking emoji]
Yuri Plisetsky: and?
i’ll do six
Viktor Nikiforov: Do you promise?
[8:15 pm]
Yuri Plisetsky: stop being weird
is katsudon coming
Viktor Nikiforov: Of course.
It’s his party, after all.
After the interviewers finish congratulating and questioning the podium skaters—Yuuri flushed and happy, Yuri belligerent but also mystifyingly, privately pleased, Otabek calm and snarkily funny—a few of them make their way to Viktor (five-time Grand Prix Final champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and current fourth place Grand Prix finalist), and ask him how he feels.
“Overjoyed,” Viktor says. “And so grateful. I want to thank each and every person who has supported me for all these years. I tried my best to thank you all tonight. I’m very proud of my career and of my performance this season. I’m proud of my fiancee, Katsuki Yuuri, for winning his first Grand Prix Final with an unforgettable performance. I’m proud of Russia’s rising star Yuri Plisetsky and hope that he understands what a gift it is to be imperfect. This will be my final season as a competetive figure skater.” Several of the interviewers gasp. Cameras flash from all sides. Yuuri, sitting beside Viktor, puts his arm around him. “This time, I mean it.”