Tag: au prompt

Victuuri Week 2018 – Day Three

Title: Forbidden Temptation

Author: Lainx

Rating: Mature Audience, Explicit

Warnings: NSFW, alcohol

Summary: It is tough negotiating with the yakuzas,
Victor knows. What is even tougher, though, is negotiating with one in
particular, one he can’t help but desire, one he can’t help but fall for – even
though everything in their world advises him not to.

Link to A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13556262

(

for clarification, Yuuri is a yakuza here, and for story purposes he uses another name, Tanaka Yuu, which is the one Victor knows him by)

The beat is mesmerizing. He can feel the
excitement, the smell of sweat, the deep-rumble of the music almost all the way
to his bones. After one flicker of his wrist, another drink appears on his
table. The woman serving him is scantily dressed and bites her lip while
staring at him. With a smirk, he slips another note into her back pocket, and
she goes back to the bar while swinging her hips.

On stage, several figures are moving sensually.
In accordance with his personal tastes, women and men mingle, passing, barely
touching each other, sending whiffs of delicious smells on the crowd gathered
around them. A low tingling of arousal sits lightly on his stomach – that is
his territory, his own little paradise on Earth. His favourite, shameful enjoyment
– seeing others lose themselves to the night.

“Make sure they are given access tonight, Murata.
If they do come.”

“Yes, boss Tanaka.”

He relaxes in his extra-comfy velvet seat and
contemplates his favourite dancers. A few months ago, he would have taken one
(or more) of them back to his turf. A few months ago, he would have enjoyed the
night without any care, drinking from their pliant bodies, snickering at their
urge to please him and taking, taking without thinking.

A flash of silver catches his eyes, and the
arousal that just has been fluttering about suddenly is thicker, headier. The
time seems to slow as three well-dressed men enter, drawing enough attention
that some raise their eyebrows at the foreign newcomers in interest. Others
seem to sense the danger and burrow into their drinks – low-classed yakuzas or
local footpads, not ready yet for an important brawl.

“So you’ve come. Courageous of you, Nikiforov.”

The silver-haired man who has walked to his
alcove smiles, flanked by two of his bodyguards. Yuuri is no fool; he knows
more of them linger around in the club, maybe even more than his own.

“Greetings, Tanaka-san.” said Nikiforov
answers. “I see you’re in no charming company tonight.”

Yuuri grins at that. Last time Nikiforov showed
up at his home turf, he had been rather…engrossed into living up to his
reputation of playboy. Or so it seemed. He likes to think this had maybe
displeased the other man.

“Do you wish to remedy the situation?” he
teases. “Want me to call one of my personal…performers?”

“And what if I said ‘go on’?” Nikiforov
challenges in his heavily-accented English, sitting next to him, his demure
guards remaining aloof and standing behind him.

“Don’t try to fool me, Nikiforov,” Yuuri
chuckles. “I don’t think there is a living soul in Russia – or in Fukuoka, for
that matter – who doesn’t know of your antipathy for women.”

“Touché.”

Yuuri takes a moment to settle further into his
situation. Nikiforov smells heavenly, as always. He inhales strongly, almost
tasting him on his tongue. His hands unconsciously clench in restrain. ‘No, you’re not allowed to,’ he thinks urgently.
‘Keep it professional.”

“So how is your evening going, Takana-san?”
Nikiforov asks, eyeing the number of empty glasses on the table warily. “Having
fun?”

Yuuri isn’t desperate enough to tell the truth –
that he has been waiting for the other man to come since the beginning of this
pathetic attempt of a private party. That he had thought of nothing more than
seeing his gorgeous blue eyes glinting at him under the psychotic lights of the
club.

“Always,” he croons instead, extending a hand
to stroke at the thighs of a passing server. “Even though I suspect you did not
come all this way only to ask me about my levels of fun-having. Come to the point,
Nikiforov – what brings you from your gilded tower?”

Victor straightens, and he swallows. Tanaka is
such an attractive man – even more so when he slips into his hardest persona. ‘Focus,” he tells himself. ‘Focus.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard of it already. The cargo
is set to pass next Friday – we just want to make sure there will be no problem
with your surveillance watchers.”

“Next Friday, uh,” Tanaka comments while
swirling his drink in his glass. “Seems like business is picking up. Wasn’t the
last pass less than a month ago?”

Victor does not answer, only sending him a
mysterious smile. He is pretty sure Tanaka knows the records as well as he
himself does. They are not here to discuss the well-going of the Bratva
informal commerce with China.

“All right,” Tanaka sighs, “I will make sure
nothing comes into your way. You know our prices, though.”

“We know them well”, Victor grits out.

“Now now, lighten up, Nikiforov. This could be
worse. At least you get to share a drink with me from time to time, and no man
suffers from it.”

Victor hates to admit it, but Tanaka is right.
Even if the Bratva is not happy with the generous commission the yakuzas always
end up taking on their exchanges, it still is
better than the first brawl they had over the transportation of the merchandise
in Japanese seas.

He knows he is supposed to use these meetings
with Tanaka to negotiate a better “custom fee” and that his guards watch him
closely, supposedly ensuring he does just that. Even before entering the club,
he had rehearsed it; how he would come in front of Tanaka, set his eyes on
anything but his gorgeous face, and demand negotiations – and win them.

But, of course, nothing of the sort had
happened. As soon as he had caught sight of Tanaka, the same swirl of desire
slash desperation had taken over his mind, and he finds himself gazing at the
man next to him, all words of duress forgotten. The dimmed lights of the club
create dangerous shadows on the other man’s face; his dark and pursed lips seem
inviting, almost welcoming.

“I’m sick of sitting there already,” Tanaka
suddenly announces. “You sure took your sweet time coming in tonight.”

“I…well…”

“I’d say you owe me a dance for my troubles”, the
yakuza suggests, a smirk on his lips while extending his hand to Victor.

He can feel the disapproving glare of his men
on his back, but his heart jumps in his throat when the cold fingers close around
his, and he lets himself be led to a secluded part of the dancefloor. Once
there, his partner sets his hands on his hips, and finally lets his body surrender
to the beat.

Tanaka is mesmerizing, as always. Victor has
seen him fighting, with his fists or his words. He has seen him clad in a suit,
his back as straight as a rod, during official meetings. He has seen him dishevelled;
his eyes screwed up in pleasure, a litany of swear words falling from his lips
as he allowed Victor to take advantage of his body during one of their
desperate and short encounters.

And yet, once again, the other man manages to
knock the air out of him, as they end up almost grinding against each other,
their breaths mingling, and their scents slowly but surely thickening the air
between them. The music is not even that good – a heavy beat with no meaning,
just enough of a rhythm to justify their moving. The atmosphere is rather
gaudy, no one apparently bothering with scent-blockers, and definitely dirty.

He finds himself wanting, wanting, wanting. His hands slide down, over the
ass of his partner, and he is not rebuffed in the least. If anything, Tanaka
shuffles even closer, gasping against his neck, his fingers clenching in Victor’s
hair.

It’s too much. Victor lets a moan out and
brings him flush against him. Against his better judgement, he starts nibbling
on his ear, dangerously close to his scent gland, and is rewarded with a low snarl.

“Come with me,” Tanaka orders, detaching
himself from Victor.

Helplessly, Victor follows him to a back-door
which opens on a private lodge. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t…

“You have your own room there?” he asks,
already removing his shirt.

“I own this place”, Tanaka answers carelessly, divesting
himself of his pants, underwear and shoes. “If I wanted to fuck on the
dancefloor, they’d just have to clear it for me.”

“Fuck,” Victor swears, a hot weight of arousal
in his stomach materializing at the mental image Tanaka induced in him. “Fuck,
fuck…”

Yuuri quickly loses his patience over the other’s
blundering words and moves on him, pushing his pants to his ankles and kneeling
before him. He is already hard, of course
he is. Foreigners really have no stamina.

Yuuri’s mind is cloudy with want as he rubs his
cheek against Nikiforov’s dick. He starts kissing him on his thighs, enjoying
the powerful musk there as the other man loses control of his scent. This sends
him into a frenzy and he gets up again, seizing the shoulders of his partner
and forcing him to face the wall of the lodge. With one hand he strips him of
his briefs and starts stroking his cock, while sinking his teeth into his nape.

Nikiforov answers with a loud moan and cants
his hips towards him, desperate for friction. What a sweet picture.

“I’m gonna fuck your thighs, Nikiforov. Stands
pretty for me,” Yuuri growls, sliding his knee between the other man’s legs,
which part obediently for him.

And to think Nikiforov is an Alpha. A
supposedly strong-headed, authoritative, malicious Bratva Alpha, second to no
one in the art of negotiation and threatening. An Alpha who turns into a submissive
lover between his hands, completely at his mercy. Yuuri feels powerful and strong,
exhilarated by the forbidden quality of their encounter. As always, they can’t
help it.

He licks his hand and sneaks it between
Nikiforov’s thighs, brushing against his balls and his sensitive scent-glands. The
other literally keens at this, thrusting into Yuuri’s fist even more insistently.
He can’t wait anymore, he needs to have him.

“Blyat,”
Nikiforov breathes heavily. “Please, please, just…”

Yuuri wishes they had more time. Yuuri wishes
he could love him better, maybe even take him for good, and leave him with his
scent on his skin for days after.

Instead, he slides between his thighs, and
starts fucking him in earnest, groaning between his pale blades, lavishing him
with kisses and nips. Nikiforov braces himself on the wall and takes it,
tightening his legs, encouraging him with high pitched mewls and meeting each
of his thrusts with one of his own.

“So good…so good for me, pretty boy, pretty
boy,” Yuuri hums in Japanese, feeling his control slips. “Will you come for me,
pretty boy?”

Nikiforov has obviously no idea of what he is
saying but his tone does not let much space for interpretation, and he responds
well to him, his breath quickening while he shudders, his cheek pressed against
the wall, his lips glistening as he moans.

“That’s it, that’s it, come on,” Yuuri urges,
thrusting even harder against him.

Nikiforov tenses and a strangled moan escapes
his lips as he messily comes all over Yuuri’s fist, his knuckles whitening as
he seeks support from the wall against the waves of pleasure undertaking him.
Yuuri swears and slams into him with abandon, using his hands to keep his
thighs closed tightly around him, as he seeks his own pleasure. The smell from
his partner is overwhelming, so mouth-watering, and he ends up coming while
burrowing his nose against the other man’s neck scent gland, whimpering in his sweaty
and delicious skin.

They stay like that for a moment, breathing
into each other, until Nikiforov sloppily comments:

“You don’t smell that much like an Alpha, huh?”

Yuuri can feel his blood slowly freeze in his
veins, and the post-coital haze in which he was indulging quickly dissolves. He
disengages himself from the Russian man, and picks up his clothes, getting
dressed without looking at him.

“In Japan, it is not appropriate to let your
scent all over the place,” he answers curtly.

Nikiforov chuckles in answer, recovering some
tissues from his pants and dabbing himself with them.

“That must be why everyone here tonight had
heavy scent-blockers, right?” he teases, feeling light and careless, as he
always does when he indulges into his attraction to the yakuza.

Said yakuza shrugs, already clad again in his
tasteful ensemble. The warmth between them is already dissolving, and Victor
feels his stomach churning. He knows what is coming.

“As always, Nikiforov. Not a word of this, to
anyone that matters. And tries keeping
the mouth of your mutts closed.”

Tanaka leaves him on these words, slipping back
to the loud main area of the club, and Victor is left alone with his beating
heart and his watery eyes.

‘If only’,
he thinks, finishing dressing himself sadly. ‘If only…’

 

Yuuri goes back to his seat, controlling the
dance floor and ordering another glass of sake, the last of the evening. His
chest hurts, and each breath fills him with the scent that lingers on his skin.

‘If only…’
he ruminates, torn and yearning for something that can’t be. ‘If only…’

Victuuri Week – Day Seven

Title: Where Stars are Born
Author: Lainx
Rating: /
Warnings: /
Summary: 

Humans
have it good. They raise their faces to the darkened sky, and if they are
lucky, they can spot myriads of stars shimmering against the black canvas of
night. Stars seem a constant of their busy life, so busy they barely take the
time to admire them. And yet, somewhere, in another universe, stars die, and
stars must be reborn. 

Link to A03: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9701831

Please note!

The neutral singular pronoun “they” is used
here because the creatures depicted in the AU are genderless.

Snow shushes all sounds. The soft white powder
falls, falls, falls, in a never ending shower of big round flakes, and covers
every speck of ground. In this frozen realm, life is slow. At first glance, you
can’t even notice any living signs. All you can see is an endless valley of
night, in which only dimmed stars may find rest to.

But the Snow People do exist. For the longest
time, even when they only were lurking spirits in fertile otherworldly
imaginations, they had been living in the hard underground of this alter
dimensional planet.

Just like their kingdom, the creatures are slow
and ice-covered. Their eyes are big, accustomed to the feeble light of their dwelling,
and their hair is long, often tickling their shins. Their skin tones range from
the pearliest white to the darkest onyx. Some lucky beings sport delicately
colored skin, touched by puffs of blue, red, and even gold shimmers – and those
are called the “Tears of Stars”.

The underground is a very peaceful place.
Glittering caverns are used as public areas, while darker caves serve as
private zones. The walls are covered with diamond-hard stones, whose solidity
and thickness protect their inhabitants from the dangerously cold air of the
outside world. Said inhabitants mostly live in patient harmony, dedicated to
their task in the grand scheme of things; while their hearts are the home of
fallen stars and hopes, great lights linger in their inner frozen depth, ready
to be bestowed on new cosmic children.

Just like us, they experience joy, sadness and
anger. But such is their delicate composition that they are advised against
extreme feelings. Unless, of course, that they do have to send a new star to
the night sky.  

Silvery has been living in the underground for
the longest time. They are highly regarded as one of the finer star crafter of
their people. Giving birth to a star is no trouble for Silvery. Many Snow
People do risk their lives when trying to complete the task – but not them.
After years and years of practice, they finally learned exactly how to let the
right amount of their being melt, just enough for the bright light to escape
them and nicely turn into the prettiest star. The process is, in theory,
simple; as you, a Snow person, experience a relatively strong emotion, your
core warms and melts your unstable body, until the light of the dead stars you
have consumed before shines out of you and assembles into a new meteor.

The difficulty in fact lays in the intensity of
the emotion, and in the opening you allow to the light. Let yourself be
consumed by feelings, and your entire being may as well wilt away. Restrain the
light fissure too much, and the star created will be too feeble to survive,
thus wasting the precious stellar light gathered through millenaries by your
kind.

After losing way too many lives to the birthing
of stars, the Snow People had changed their approach. Instead of working as
individuals on their own stars, they would help each other through shows of
graceful movements – and personal birthing was outlawed. The shows were
carefully timed and choreographed to elicit just the right amount of emotions,
simultaneously in the performer and in their audience. Thanks to these leisure
dances, the celestial systems gradually filled with lights, and fewer and fewer
lives were lost.

Silvery had been one of the first Snow people
to master the art of dancing. Their incredibly measured movements, their
expressions as they glided on the freezing ground of the main public area – everything
about them was optimal for secure star birthing. They became parent to millions
of stars. They are as-close to legendary as they, creatures of the mind, can
get.

In the eyes of one Tear of Star, however,
Silvery was so, so much more. As soon as Sunlight Cup had seen Silvery dance,
they had been utterly mesmerized. Centuries were subsequently spent copying their
movements in the privacy of the darkness, the creature fighting all along to
remain unified, while birthing thousands of stars in secret. Sunlight Cup loved
to call them “Silvery’s children” – and they were their deepest secret.

Not all Snow People could perform. The honor
was reserved to the best dancers, in order to ensure the security of the whole
community. It took another several centuries for Sunlight Cup to dare setting
foot as a performer in the Main Area. Before doing so, they spent a long time
rehearsing, and grooming themself. Their long, dark and thick hair were
carefully pushed out of their face, and braided around their left arm. Their gilded
skin had been purified and massaged.

They must have repeated the moves a thousand
times. One of their arms reaches behind their head, the slow arch of the hand
brushing their black hair. They start spinning on themselves, crossing and
extending their arms with gusto, an inspired look on their face. They sink on
one knee and then twirl to another poised position. The dance really begins;
they reach towards the audience, launching themself in a series of stunningly
complex steps which airily brush the floor. Even when they jump, gravity seems
to be working with them, slowing their landings. And they spin, they spin, eyes
half-closed and skin sending glimmers on the walls, until they come to a stop,
arms crossed under their chin, a single tear escaping their huge unblinking
eyes.

A dozen illuminated orbs spirals around the
dancer, who lets their back arch, liberating their own inner light which flies
to rejoice with its siblings. A moment later, they disperse, leaving the Main
Area filled with unconscious Snow People who are gently carried one by one to
their private zones.

As Sunlight Cup feels themself slip as well,
they desperately search for the face of their inspiration, and melt a bit more
when they see them being ushered out of the room, as if severely touched by
their performance. A hint of pride adds to their weakness, and they finally
crumble to the floor, utterly defeated by fatigue.

They meet again, of course. Now that Sunlight
Cup is an appreciated performer, they often find themselves chatting or even
casually rehearsing together. Silvery looks fascinated with the shimmer of
Sunlight Cup’s skin, while Sunlight Cup longs to braid the hair of their idol
themself. Silvery is the first to ask if they could be allowed to style the
heavy tresses of their friend, and Sunlight Cup reciprocate by rubbing the dust
out of Silvery’s skin. If one of them decides to rest, the other follows – and if
only one of them is able to rescue the light of a dying star, they both refrain
from eating.

They do not admit how emotionally close they
have become until they find themselves in Sunlight Cup private zone, whispering
praises at each other while memorizing their bodies and facial expressions with
the tips of their fingers. Sunlight Cup’s fingers leave trails of gold in
Silvery’s thin strands of hair as they rub their faces together, their legs
strongly enclosing their respective hips.

“I could go on forever”, Sunlight Cup sighs,
shivering in pleasure. “Do you feel the same, Silvery?”

“You know I do”, the other coos, mouthing at
their partner’s neck. “I adore you so much, my Gold, I love caressing you and
seeing you dance and hearing you speak…”

They keep moving together in silence for a
moment, until Sunlight Cup starts speaking again, in an infinitely tender tone.

“There is something I need to show you,
Silvery. Promise me you will never speak of it to anyone.”

“I would never betray you, my Gold,” is the
firm answer that Sunlight Cup gets.

Freeing one of their hands from the curls of
their partner, Sunlight Cup vaguely waves toward the ceiling of their private
room. The dark rock waver and tiny specks of light appear. Silvery’s big eyes
widen in surprise at the stellar system he definitely
does not recognize.

“What are those?”

“I call them, ‘Silvery’s children’ ” Sunlight
Cup explains, bashful. “I birthed them all, before I got around performing.”

“ ‘Silvery’s…children…’ “ the other Snow person
repeats, their internal frozen core heating at an alarming rate.

“You have always been my greatest inspiration,”
the other says back, love saturating their voice. “I’ve always, always admired
you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I birthed my first star watching you.
I’ve been wanting you for so long…”

And Silvery loses it and dives in, their pale
skin blending with the other’s, noises of delight evading them as they try
ravishing their partner. Both of them have never felt so warm, so good before. They
just can’t stop. The feeling is too strong; their inner glows vibrate too fast,
as if an electric current was coursing through their bodies. This is by far the
fastest thing they ever experienced – even jumps and landings are not that
rapid.  

The darkness is but an old memory in this tiny
cavern. Both creatures are gloriously glowing, dashes of white and gold
mingling amidst the blinding spectacle. Distraught congeners arrive, sensing a
dangerous raise of temperature, and, dumbfounded before the display, they halt
at the opening. Some quiet sobs can be heard as they witness their two best
performers lose themselves into each other. Fragile Snow people are sluggishly
pushed behind the mob in an attempt to protect them from the aura of love and
passion emanating from the giant orbs of light busting through the low ceiling.

The twin suns leisurely dance around each
other, all the while steadily rising in the skies. Their combined rays of light
explode in millions of colors on the glistening snow covering the ever-frozen domain,
turning falling flakes into iridescent flimsy gems. As if saluting their
audience for the last time, they separate for a moment, stilling the world in
an instant of everlasting magnificence, before joining the firmament, where
they will glow together in Eternity.  

Victuuri Week – Day Six

Title: Tie the Knot, Despite Everything
Author: Lainx
Rating: /
Warnings: Metaphor for homophobia
Summary: In this world, soulmates are a rare occurrence.
They say that it is unfair, they say that it is unnatural. For some, the solution is easy – just pretend
you don’t have a soulmate, you’ll be fine!
…
They obviously don’t know how painful this is. 

Link to AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9675017

As soon as Victor had been able to dream, he
had seen them. Three beautiful ribbons, woven together, softly moving as if
rustled by an invisible wind. One was yellow; it shone the brightest and was
the widest. Another was silver, and was nicely balanced by the larger brown
ribbon completing a frayed rope. Sometimes, the rope would randomly appear in
his day musings as well, carefully glowing and twisting on itself.

When he asked his parents about it, they had solemnly
told him, voices wavering, that somewhere, a bride was already waiting for him.
In another words, that he was one of the rare people on Earth to have a
soulmate. And immediately after, that he should never, never speak of it again.
 

As a child, Victor did not give much thought
about the term “bride”. Girls were other children just like him, playmates at
best. When he started skating, he started applying the label “light skaters” to
them as well.

But as the time passed, and that he started to
envision his future after pointed questions from overly curious journalists, he
thought again of the lonesome rope still haunting him. Instead of considering
it an expected element of his dreams, as he had for years, he tried to decipher
its meaning. From the information he read online, your soulmate (or soulmates,
it appeared) would also be seeing the same rope during the night, and only when
you met would the ribbons be fixed.

Before, it had been nearly impossible for
someone to find his soulmate before their deaths. Ropes would stay frayed, and
hearts would stay empty, despite the partner you would finally chose to love –
if you were able to choose one at all. Truthfully, it was as much a curse as a
blessing.

The Internet revolution changed these lonely
destinies, though, and matches were more frequent. Soulmates became an object
of jealousy, the rarity of the phenomenon fueling the resentment. Organizations
appeared, protesting the logical value of the process – how could such a
relationship, in which nothing made sense, even exist? What presided to the
pairing of two beings previously unknown to each other?

Others thought soulmates were purely and simply
lying about the visions of their ropes. They considered them as psychologically
sick and unstable. They would try to “beat some sense into them”.    

Hence why, despite their best interests, people
with soulmates waiting for them rarely publicized it. Sometimes, people would get
aggressed if they decided to announce it – the world was a bitter, bitter place.

So Victor was concerned. He was concerned
because, even though he spent hours on obscure soulmate identifying websites
each week, his rope’s appearance and colors were never matched. He was also concerned
because his parents seemed sure a bride
was destined to love him, and while he liked girls well enough and could even
be intimate with them if he wished to, he could not picture himself ever marrying
one. He was concerned because destiny seemed to have given him a harsh choice
between solitude and dread.

So he prayed. He prayed that his soulmate would
be a boy, and that they would meet in a secure place; and he did not care if
they were a skater or not, or if they lived at the other side of the world, or
even if they could not love him romantically. He just wanted them to reunite,
and to be wealthy and courageous enough to protect each other.

The thought of his soulmate became somewhat
obsessing. He would stay up at night, thinking about his broken rope, his face tense
as he gulped back the urge to cry. He yearned for a face he had never seen, he
longed for a hand he had never touched. During the days, he would find himself
glancing to his left, as if to meet the eyes of his companion.

It came to the point he choreographed a whole
routine to express his pain. “Stammi Vicino, Non te Andare” was a desperate
plea for his soulmate to come to him. Twenty years were a long time to go
without your other half.

It happened the night after his fifth medal
awarding. He prepared to leave the venue with his coach and young Yuri
Plisetsky, when a timid-looking person stared right through him as he asked if they
wished to take a picture with him – the intensity with which he had been ogled
at had made him think the person was a fan of his.

However, instead of a picture and a smile, he
got a warm punch in the stomach which brought him to his knees, while the
stranger’s eyes widened and their hand flied to his chest. Fear and despair
flashed on their face, while they stumbled backwards and frantically glanced
around.

But strangely, Victor did not care if media saw
that. So what if people learned he had a soulmate? He would be happy barricading
himself in his basement as long as his partner would be willing to stay with
him.

It was incredible how much his heart had
expanded in a timeless second. A moment before, he was Victor Nikiforov, Russia’s
pride and hero; but now he was nameless, his whole being changed allegiance.

So when the stranger scurried away, sadness
etched on their features, Victor felt like dying. His soulmate obviously knew
him – and they looked repulsed by the very idea of having him as a soulmate.

Why? What had he done, what could justify the
stranger’s disgust toward him?

He was ever-so grateful to Yakov, who took the
matter in his own hands in a matter of seconds. No, Victor is okay. It must be
fatigue. Haha, yes, even legendary skaters got low on sugar if you keep them away
from food for too long. He would bring him to his room; let him rest before the
banquet. Yes, he would be available to answer questions the next day, thank you
so much for your comprehension.

His coach half-carried him to his hotel room, while
Yuri Plisetsky sneaked in the direction the stranger has fled in. As he entered
a restroom, loud sobs startled him. Someone was heavily crying in a bathroom
stall, their breath hitching and their nose obviously running.

Revolting.

He took it on himself to startle the
dark-haired person out of his crying, by delicately smashing the bathroom stall
door with his right feet. The stranger opened the door, a wary expression on
their face – as if they were readying themselves to fight.

“What…” they began, stunned.

“What was
that, idiot! You’re Yuuri Katsuki, right? I saw you flubbing your entire
routine earlier. Why did you leave Vitya hanging?”

“Who?” Yuuri muttered, his heart heavy.

Too much. It had felt like too much. First, his
dog died. Second, his binge-eating got him sick before skating. Third, he “flubbed
his entire routine”.

And fourth, his soulmate was apparently his
life-long idol who did not even recognize him, even if they had skated at the
same event. His soulmate had been exposed before cameras because he could stop
himself from gazing at the – in his opinion – most handsome man ever. He had
only met him and already he had put him in danger.

How embarrassing. How stupid of him.

He had to flee. That had been the only option
at that point.

“Vitya. Victor Nikiforov. Whatever!” the
teenager before him fumed. “You know what, Yuuri Katsuki? Tonight, you will
come to the banquet, and make sure he understands you want him! Is that clear?!
I don’t want this idiot doing anything stupid, like crying, or worse, retiring!
Who cares if you guys are soulmates? People just gotta pull that stick out of
their asses, for once!”

The blond boy, Yuri Plisetsky, then stomped
away, an angry scowl on his strangely angelic face. Yuuri stood for a while
longer, emptily staring at the absence of the younger skater, pondering.
Something roared inside him – ever since he had looked in the blue, oh so blue
eyes of his soulmate, he had been fighting against himself to prevent him from
running back and shouting words of love at the man.

He sighed, feeling his resolve giving in. He
could not stay away from him any longer – it already hurt.

Ah, at least Celestino would be pleased to
learn he had decided on going to the banquet, after all.

 

The champagne had been a bad idea. Victor knew
that drinking while you were upset always was a terrible idea – but not even Yakov’s
gruff protests could have stopped him. He deserved it, he thought in a haze,
while gulping his tenth flute of the night. Even his gold medal could not save
the awful day.

When he started to challenge people to dance
with him on imagined rhythms, Yakov forced him to sit, putting a glass of water
in his shaking hands.

“Vitya… that’s enough, don’t make a fool of
yourself, that won’t help. You know what
they…”

“Excuse me… Mr. Feltsman?” a timid but
determined voice interrupted him. “Could I talk to…mmh…Victor?”

Yakov turned on his heels, coming face-to-face
with a dark-haired person wearing a stuffy-looking suit with a horrible tie. His
nostrils flared, and he was opening his mouth to object, when:

“You!” Victor suddenly exclaimed, almost launching
himself to his soulmate. “Why did you leave me?!” he accused, clutching the arms
shaking under his weight.

Then, with a bit of anger in the voice, he
yelled:

“Dance with me! You owe me a fight!”

Yuuri immediately understood his soulmate was
completely inebriated, and he gently took him into his arms, chuckling. Fear inexplicably
seemed to ooze out of him at a steady rate, replaced by bravery and love.

“A fight?” he remarked, grinning. “Of course, I’ll
dance with you.”

They stepped a bit away from the other mingling
skaters, Yuuri keeping the dance tranquil and slow so that even drunk Victor
Nikiforov could follow his steps. Gradually, as they danced together, anger
faded from Victor’s face, replaced with wonder. Their movements grew swifter,
more gracious, as Yuuri eased them into a mock-tango that had Victor laughing as
he impersonated a bull charging at his matador. They both wished the dance
would never end.

But after a while, Yuuri dipped his partner,
both of their expressions radiant, and they giggled together in happiness. Tenderly,
Victor put his hands to Yuuri’s hair, brushing them backwards. His eyes
widened, and he murmured, awed:

“Wow… Katsuki Yuuri… He’s so pretty!”

Yuuri lost it then, letting them topple to the
floor in a tangled mess. He peppered kisses on Victor’s face, only half-shocked
at his boldness, mumbling “Oh God, you are so, so stupid!” in his skin.

Later, Yuuri and Victor would talk about their relationship,
and how to protect themselves from the world. Yuuri would have a fit over banquet’s
pictures and videos of them making out on the floor, while Victor would learn
not to crush his soulmate to death in his arms out of affection.

Later, they would reminisce about this night,
and on how it had been one of the most beautiful moments of their lives.

For now, though, as they huddled in the same
bed, under the same covers, their dreams finally matched. Gorgeous and healthy knotted
threads of colors drew patterns of love behind their eyelids, forcing smiles
out of them even in their sleep.

Love would win. They were sure of it.    

Victuuri Week – Day Three

Title: Le Héros d’un Autre

Author: Lainx
Rating: /
Warnings: Blood, fights, violence
Summary: 

Superheroes
are beings of great powers. They have the ability to save the planet, to keep
lives from being crushed by the forces of evil.

But as they fight against the legendary enemies
of mankind, can they save their own existences from the throes of darkness?

In which the most dangerous and powerful being
may not be the most evident one – or how it takes another hero to help fend off
the shadows of the soul.  

Link to A03: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9641318

My name’s Victor Nikiforov. I’m tall, handsome,
Russian. My eyes are of an incredibly attractive blue. My hair is silver – born
like that, never going to dye it. I love discovering new people and new
countries. My favorite things in the world include ice-skating, great food and
my adorable poodle, Makkachin. I have been working as a choreographer for three
years.

And I’m a superhero.

Superheroes used not to be common things, my
mother told me. Before, the world was a safer place – a bit less enchanted,
sure, but safer nonetheless. No megalomaniac supervillains ever tried to
overthrow the governments, no crazy cold-hearted beings attacked civilians just
“because they could”.

A simpler time, she would say, stroking my hair
affectionately.

My powers started to show very early. I was
having a nightmare, and the last thing my parents knew, my room got covered in
a strange and solid substance, very slippery. They thought it was ice, at first
– but as it did not melt, and did not exude cold, they had been forced to admit
that the heater was still working fine and that their son definitely was not a
regular human being.

Since then, I have learned to control this
power of mine. I grew strong, and fast. The substance I could create by the
sheer force of my will became thicker, more refined. I learned to build precise
paths with it, paths on which I ran and slid at an incredible speed. I
practiced making it so thin I could see through it, but so solid even a bullet
could not shatter it. I became able to jump highly through the air, coming down
graciously, supported by millions of tiny bubbles of “incky” (the name I gave
to my production).

The possibilities were endless. I could
extinguish a fire just by projecting incky on the flames. I could secure
falling bridges, stop collisions between trains, and restrain violent villains
in massive incky bubbles.  

I used to get bullied at school for my silver
hair and my feminine looks – but after a while, the sneers stopped, replaced by
whispers and awed looks. I began being called for help by citizens. The
government offered me a financing program. I started being recognized in the
streets, people would send me presents.

Life was pretty good, I admit. I could have
easily stopped going to class or even, later, working, but instead I chose to
leisurely do a job I really loved, not afraid of taking time to choreograph just what I wanted – my other activities
would cover all my expenses anyway.

My feelings started to change after a series of
fights against several villains, all working together. I had not been the only
superhero dedicated to the task – but I have
been the one to terminate six of them. I knew I had been working for the
greater good, that it was one life against hundreds, but it still was a harsh
action.

The last fight took place in Tokyo. A grandiose
city, one I had longed to visit. People were screaming in fear before the
thirty meters tall monster menacing them. Flames were burning in its mouth and
each of its steps was a threat to the lives of the Japanese citizens. My job
had been to protect those under its mammoth feet. A swarm of villains were
surrounding their creature, ready to wreak havoc on the streets.  

It was the most violent fight I ever took part
in. Blood was pouring from everywhere. Crowds were running, shouting, hiding
under cars. I kept throwing incky weapons at my opponents – my favorite and
most reliable method was to conjure incky inside of them, and then form a
bubble with it. It was swift and radical. I was desperate to end the fight as
soon as possible – civilians were dying, the number of victims already seemed
way too high to me.

I had to set myself loose. Become a flood of
pure power. Not think anymore.

From the moment I decided to let my power
explode, the fight turned in our favor. My eyes were glowing, my long hair
seemed alive around me. I shifted so quickly I seemed to be flying. Dozens of
people shattered before me, while I threw waves after waves of incky at the
monster, finally stopping its course. One of my side-kicks, Christophe
Giacometti, unleashed a deluge of flames at the titan, which skin detached from
its bones. With a conjugated effort, several heroes ended up cutting its head,
putting an end to its unnatural existence.

The spectacle was horrible. We looked so
terrifying – heroes or villains could not be set apart anymore except for their
outfits.

And then it was over, and the monster head was
neatly put on the ground next to the hundreds of restraint attackers. My wilderness
wouldn’t abate, however, and I kept jumping from one incky construction to another,
surveilling for remaining survivors or enemies.

That’s when I came across the most beautiful,
artful and out of place thing ever.

Next to a broken lamppost, a little child was
sitting, bellowing in fear, their cheeks covered with big, fat tears, while
they were clutching a battered school bag. Something tugged in my chest, and I
reduced my speed, ready to comfort them. However, as I started making my way toward
them, they shouted in fear, hiding behind their bad and cowered.

I was going to try explaining who I was, but a man beat me to it. Dressed in an
elegant dark blue superhero suit, he knelt in front of the child, cooing all
the while.

“Hey, hey, now, look at me, look at me. It’s
over, it’s over. Look at what I can do, isn’t it pretty?”

As he was talking, the man was moving his
hands, forcing glitter out of his fingers. The child immediately stopped
shivering, fixated on the patterns the glitter was sketching in the air. I
could faintly hear the music and the sweet smell it generated. Startled, I
recognized an ice-skater dancing, laughing and jumping. His red and gold suit
complimented his dark skin, and the friendly love emanating from the illusion
made my throat close up.

“Victor is not evil, see? He stopped shining.
He won’t hurt you.” the stranger reassured the child. “Ah, isn’t that skater magnificent?
How about I give him a friend?”

I could not, for the life of me, look away from
the lovely image, on which another skater, closely resembling the man himself, positively
glowed on the ice. I was filled with so many perceptions at the same time – the
image seemed to create a sugar-like taste in my mouth, and the colors sang to
me.

Who was this man? What was his power? How could
he stop the beast inside me so easily, just by a flicker of the wrist?  

As it turned out, I was not able to get his
name, nor his contact info, on this day. The fight was over, and I was called
for a recap with the authorities. As for the man, he ended up taking the child
in his arms and walking away.

Back in Russia, however, I did not lose any
time looking for him. He had an official suit, which meant he must have been
appointed to the fight by the UN authorities – and that meant he necessarily
had been recorded on the operation.

When I found him, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
He was listed under the “after care/support/defense” section, with a succinct
description of his power.

Psychological power.
Ability to make people experience synesthesia. People are forced to watch the
illusion until the subject decides to stop using his power. No particular
restraint.

The taste of his mind still lingered on my
tongue, the music of his power still resonated in my ears. He had utterly
bewitched me.

I had to find him back.

My name is Katsuki Yuuri. I am twenty-three
years old. I was born a superhero, but my power is not much – I can only make
people see some things long enough to calm them down and escort them to secure
places during fights. My favorite place to be is in the rink near my home – the
cold calms me.  I love eating katsudon.

And a few months ago, one of the most powerful
superhero in this world came barreling into my tranquil, well-established life.

When Victor appeared in my parent’s onsen, with
his charming smile and luscious long silver hair, I thought that, one: maybe I
had drunk too much during dinner and was having a stroke; two: surely my power
finally got so out of control that I managed to fool even myself with my
wistful desires.

It turned out Victor had just been charmed by
my work as support in the Gigantic fight of Tokyo, in which he had almost
single-handedly saved the city from a sure destruction.

“Mesmerized, I was
mesmerized by your power, Yuuri, so beautiful!”

Since then, he had insisted on sharing my everyday
life, jumping on all the possible occasions to ask me to use my power on him.
In exchange, he promised to choreograph me something simple to skate to.

Truthfully, I was starting to run out of ideas
to entertain him. Victor especially liked when I poured music in the movements
of the characters I made him see – characters that were, most of the time, at
his demands, either me, or him, or his dog, or his protégé, or his best friend…
I started to create a tiny story in which we were all ice-skaters, which
delighted him.

The man was a lot to take in. I had followed
his exploits years after years, blown away each time by his splendor and his
strength. Compared to me, lumpy and weighty Katsuki Yuuri, he had been a
far-off mirage, glimmering and haunting my childhood – and adolescent – dreams.

And still, he seemed so…normal. He liked rolling
around on the floor with his gigantic dog. He would challenge my former
ballet-instructor Minako-sensei to drinking contests. He dragged me to all these
events, festivals, concerts, or just walks on the beach on an everyday basis.
He looked at me like I was brightening his day just by confusing his mind with
my illusions.

After a while, I had to admit I was helplessly
falling in love with the man. I found myself leaning on him, accepting his hugs
and caresses. We could talk for hours, or just sit in companionable silence,
him choreographing, me playing video games or catching on my best friend’s life
an ocean away.

My heart would hurt when he would decide to go
back to Russia.

Despite what it may seem like, though, I did
have a real job in Japan. My power gave me some opportunities which I gladly
took after completing university, having no general idea of what I wanted to do
of my life. I was currently employed in several hospitals of the region, in
which I would visit bedridden or dying patients. Using my power, I would make
them experience what they wanted to see or what could make them smile. As
several doctors explained to me, making the patients feel good, even for a few
minutes, could tremendously help their recovery – or their passing, I suppose.  

At first, Victor didn’t really noticed my work.
He just assumed that, several days in the week, I left the onsen to do
god-knows-what out of town, while he visited the town and close touristic
attractions.

When he learnt about it, his eyes filled to the
brim with unshed tears, and he held me tight for a solid minute.

“You are so
beautiful, Yuuri. The most beautiful person I ever met.”

After that, he insisted on coming with me each
time, even if he was not always allowed to follow me in the patients’ rooms,
and even if I protested – what appeal could a dozen of visits a day in a hospital
have to him?

But he stayed by my side, faithfully, and weeks
started to turn into months as we steadily grew closer and fell even more in
love with each other.

Living with Yuuri was the best thing ever. I
could spend the time just playing with my Makkachin and my new favorite person
if I wanted to. I had fun learning Japanese and eating Yuuri’s parents’ otherworldly
dishes. Every person surrounding him seemed gentle, compassionate, and filled
with love for this unassuming boy.

But as I felt myself slip into the tender
embrace of love, I started to worry.

I started to worry because Yuuri was,
obviously, a gift of God to humanity. His kind face, his warm eyes, his
dedication, made him the most loveable creature ever. Oh, he did have his
faults, of course – such as an amusing pettiness and an infuriating tendency to
put his own self down – but it made me appreciate him even more. He was
remarkably human.

In other words, he was everything I started not
to be after the beginning of the Gigantic fights. Each night I would hold him
in my arms and remember the faces of the people I had killed. Each day I would watch
him enchanting suffering patients and be reminded of the looks of terror on
civilians’ faces when I faced them after a fight.

I was terrified. It was clear Yuuri loved me
back, he made no secret of it, but I couldn’t shake the fear that soon he would
realize I was far from being good enough for him and leave me for someone
worthy of his defining benevolence. It made me jealous – it made me clingy.

The cat finally got out his bag one day Yuuri
went out – without me – and I snapped. We were both shocked at my outburst, but
he was the first to get angry.

“I don’t need your permission to go out,
Victor!”

And I, of course, instead of behaving like a
sensible human being, instead of apologizing for my shitty behavior, just
crossed my arms and sneered:

“I don’t even go where you went. Or with who.”

“How does that matter to you? I still have a life
on my own, you know?!”

A life on his own. Potentially a life without
me. It hurt so much, in the moment.

“Alright, so if you “still have a life on your
own”, I guess I’m not much needed around here, right? I could just go back to
Russia, take back my vigilante work there and live MY life, while you could
find someone else, uh? That’s what you want, right!“

I had shouted, and he recoiled slightly from
me, his eyes wide. The silence between us grew thick, until his breath hitched.
Horrified, I watched his eyes cloud, full of ache. Oh no no no no…

“Why are you like this, Victor?” he whispered,
sitting on the bed. “Did I ever…you know I don’t want you to go!”

He sounded sad and angry at the same time. My
next words flew out of my mouth, unrestrained and wounded.

“You should, though. I am nothing good for you.”

He choked, curling on himself, his face down.

“Weren’t you happy, here, Victor? Didn’t you
see…why do you want to make that choice for me? I constantly feel like you want
me to… You come close to me, and the moment after I can feel that you’re
distant, but, Victor, that doesn’t
make sense…”

Then, after a moment of pained silence, he
shattered me.

“Is it because of me?”

I rushed to him, falling on my knees, my arms
around his waist. I started to sob in his soft and wide belly, hiding my eyes.

“I am nothing like you, Yuuri. You…you help
people. You bring magic and happiness in their lives. Me? Me, I just…I just
destroy. I destroy what threaten them, but still…there is this part of me, each
time I fight, which is violent and dark, and there is nothing, nothing like this in you, oh, Yuuri… You
are much too radiant for me.”

And Yuuri starts to laugh. Really hard. So hard
I begin to worry he would choke. As I try to disentangle myself from him, he
pushes me against his stomach again.

“Radiant, me?” he mumbles, digging his fingers
in my shoulders. “You don’t know what I am capable of. What do you all think?
That I can only make people look at butterflies and listen to lullabies while
they feel honey glide on their tongues? If I can do that, then obviously I can
make the exact opposite.”

He pauses for a moment, seemingly reflecting on
something.

“Do you want to experience that, Victor? Will
it convince you I’m no better than any other skilled person? Do you want to
know how it feels to be unable to look away from your worst nightmare, to
suffer as if you were thrown into flames, to be forced to listen to the strident
sounds of alarms, all of that at the same time?”

I can feel warm drops falling on the thinning
crown of my hair.

“What make people become villains, Victor? What
do you think? It’s all a matter of choice. When I was a child, some kids were
afraid of me. Very afraid. Just because they refused to give me a lollipop, or
because they pushed me a bit to forcefully while playing. The only reason I did
end up okay is because my own mother is skilled, even if she doesn’t know it.
However hard I tried to subdue her, she would keep smiling at me and loving me.
And so I believed adults were immune to me.”

Yuuri’s voice is very quiet. His hands are
toying with my long hair, vaguely braiding them. It feels nice.

“What is the real extent of your power, Yuuri?”

He sighs. His thighs close around me, keeping
me grounded.

“I can target several people at the same time.
I tried, once, just a tiny illusion – about a hundred people were affected. And…”
he hesitates, searching for words. “I can make people lose their minds. I am
quite sure of it. I never pushed it that far, but there is no real time-limit
to the illusions I can create. I could keep torturing people for hours before
needing to rest.”

He bends over me, laying his wet cheek on my
head. I embrace him tighter.

“Out of the two of us, who’s the real monster,
Victor?” he brokenly asks.

“I’ll tell you what. Let’s get better together.
Let’s make the choice, again and again, to be heroes.”

“Is that what you really want, Victor? It’s a
life-long commitment, you know…” he answers, a hint of tease in his tired voice.

I smile blindly in his shirt. Life-long sounds
so good, when it comes to Yuuri.

“I’m positive I’ll never get tired of that battle,
Yuuri…my love.”

 

Our names are Victor Nikiforov and Katsuki
Yuuri. We are respectively twenty-eight and twenty-four years old. We love to
travel between Russia and Japan, flaunting our engagement rings at our fellow vigilantes
and spending time with our loving families. We dedicate ourselves to a life of
choices and fights.

And we will be superheroes, for as long as we
stay together.

Victuuri Week – Day Two

Title: Winning Over Time
Author: Lainx
Rating: /
Warnings: Some tame gore mentionned
Summary: 

In
a distant future, brutal fights using time-jumping technics become legal. At
age 23, Victor Nikiforov, actual Planet Champion of Lapsing, has been winning for seventeen years straight and has not yet met his equal. That is, until some
well-known Katsuki Yuuri steals his title – and maybe his heart, too, if he can
bring himself to admit it.

Link to A03: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9630083

Some precisions on the “sport” played in this AU:

– Players are called “lapsers”

– The purpose is to jump through time to put an object (usually a sort of ball) in YOUR hoop (10 points). The movements through controlled time-lapses are incredibly quick.

– The different moves:

// collision (jerking the opponent back to present-time if done properly / if not, the lapser usually ends up exploding through the strata of time)

// graceful moves (1 spin = 1 point, 1 jump = 1 point, 1 spin+1jump = 5 points (so for example a triple-spin = 15 points))

– This is a commoners’ sport, cruel and dangerous and violent. The unskilled player may be jerked out of time forever or severely disembodied.

– People are doing it because:

1. It generates lots of money

2. When a talent is found, it may be exploited by unscrupulous bookmakers if the person is weak, poor, and/or if the country is a dictatorship

3. It feels like a drug for the competitors (even non-benevolent). Once you start lapsing, if you are good enough to even manage flying through time consciously, the feeling is so exhilarating you can barely think about stopping

– After a while, though, the body becomes not stable enough = either you stop before exploding through time-lapse or at least seriously injure yourself (losing a limb), or you continue and starts defusing

– Length of one match: 2 minutes

Here is the fanfiction ^^:

Nikiforov grabs the
ball. He jumps to the right, and…oh, quadruple-spin! That’s 20 points more for
Nikiforov, I believe! Ah, he ducks out of Giacometti lapse… He reappears near
the blue barrier – the blue barrier, field of Katsuki, one of the most
challenging opponent for Nikiforov, and…collision! Katsuki collided with
Nikiforov, steals the ball back, and – wow, that’s three spins and a
triple-spin, 18 points for Katsuki, he’s so close to his hoop, he lapses once
more and…yes! 10 more points for Katsuki! Nikiforov doesn’t seem hurt – he’s
laughing, haha. The ball gets back to the middle, and Chulanont is already
lapsing to it – such an exotic style of spinning, no wonder the public adores
him and – oh, god, Nikiforov! Stop those quadruple-spins already! That’s 40
points more for Nikiforov, how does he even manage… The only opponents now able
to catch up with Nikiforov are Katsuki, Giacometti and Leroy! Who will manage
to close up the 20 points at least gap between them and the ever-champion? Only
forty seconds more to go! The ball is back to the middle. Leroy collides with
Giacometti! … No one is hurt. But… KATSUKI! KATSUKI! OH GOD!!

The clamor is deafening. He doesn’t know where
he breathes anymore. Is he even in the present? Who knows. He swirls, swirls,
swirls. Jumps, jumps, jumps. He can feel Nikiforov coming for him – a gentle
collision, as always. But not this time.

Yuuri barrels out of the time fabric with an
unearthly grace, launching himself in his favorite move – triple-spins. One,
two, he catches the ball, elapses…the speed is exhilarating. He never wants to
stop.

KATSUKI PUTS THE BALL
IN HIS NET AFTER A GLORIOUS SEQUENCE OF TRIPLE-SPINS-SPIN-DOUBLE-SPIN-SPIN AND
WINS THE COMPETITION, LEADING AHEAD OF NIKIFOROV BY 3 POINTS!!! INCREDIBLE
KATSUKI YUURI! HE JUST BUSTED THE WORLD RECORD LONG-HELD BY VICTOR NIKIFOROV!!!
THE CROWD IS IN FRENZY, BOOKMAKERS EVERYWHERE ARE GOING CRAZY, THIS IS
INCREDIBLE!

More. More speed. He can do even better. The
field pulsates around him – he can feel them. Phichit, Giacometti, Leroy,
Nekola, Popovich…and Nikiforov. He knows their presences by heart, can
recognize them within an instant. Giacometti’s is the strongest, but Leroy’s is
the most aggressive – even if nothing can match the aura of Yuri Plisetsky in
terms of aggressiveness. Phichit is a familiar aura to deal with – playful, but
infinitely threatening if you don’t really watch out. Nekola and Popovich have
highly emotional, technical auras – but Nekola’s more solid than Popovich’s.
And then…there is Nikiforov’s aura. The brightest of them all, the purest, the
one he has always sought and fought against.

He wants to collide with him again. He wants to
fight with him again.

More, more, more! It’s never enough, it can never be enough, and he can already feel
himself slipping in the fabric of time again, and…

TRANSFER THROUGH TIME: ALL PROCESS STOP.

The voice echoes through the arena, supplanting
the cheers and the whooping. The equipment Yuuri bears brutally stops sticking
to his skin and his feet are liberated from the blades anchoring him to the
short-present time. He falls to the ground, covered in sweat and panting
harshly.

It’s never agreeable to come back to the
present. Gliding through time and touching the aura of your opponents is so
adrenaline-charged – most of them never want to stop at the end of the match.
Hence the security system at the end of it, forcing the entrants to give up
their time jumping equipment.

A dark-skinned hand appears before his eyes,
and he gratefully grasps it. Phichit is crying – of course he is, Yuuri just
won the Planet Championship of Lapse, against its long-term winner. Three
points are not much – but in this world, three points mean at least years of a
full belly and warm home to spend their nights into.

“Yuuri.”

The voice is soft, and a bit amused. Victor Nikiforov
is here, considering him with a wide grin on his handsome face. Phichit
tactfully heads away to congratulate the other competitors, not without winking
at Yuuri, whose focus is abruptly fixated on his greatest opponent.

“That was an impressive spin-sequence,” Victor
comments, a finger on his thin lips. “I never imagined someone could win
without any quadruple-spins.”

“You mean, “win over you”, right,” Yuuri
deadpans.

His body is still tickling in every direction.
He aches to be back in motion.

“Is that not rather “win me over”, though,
Yuuri?” Victor teases.

Confronted with Yuuri unimpressed look at his
bad flirting, the former champion laughs heartily. They’ve been challenging
each other for years; he finds out he can’t really feel sad or angry his title
has been stolen from him. He is mostly amused, and slightly still reeling of
the beauty that has been Katsuki Yuuri in the arena.

“Come on, let’s go to the stabilization room,”
Yuuri mumbles, edging away swiftly.

Victor breaks into a tiny run behind him,
grabbing his hand and swinging it between them like a child. How Victor can
still be this enthusiastic after such an intense fight is beyond Yuuri (what he
doesn’t know is that, unlike him, Victor will most-likely fall asleep in the
stabilization room, then grouch for all rest of the day because of his
artificially-induced responsiveness to journalists).

“Oh, my Yuuri, won’t you wait for me!” Victor
falsely cries, still swinging their hands together.

“Idiot,” the Japanese lapser says.

He still sends a fond smile his way, though. He
doesn’t want to take back his hand – not now, not ever.


They seem to be
working together, this is a style of lapsing we’ve never seen in the arena,
now, have we? Oh, look at this, Nikiforov just threw him in a collision with
Chulanont, and it does work! Are they even competing against each other or is
it just about having fun to them? Betcha the bookmakers won’t like that, oh no
they won’t! What lovely spin-sequences it allows, though, look at these gorgeous
triple-spins, it’s obvious Katsuki and Nikiforov utterly dominate their
opponents, their scores are over the top!

Yuuri had never lapsed like this. Before, he
always sought collisions with other lapsers, especially Victor, because he was good at them; enter the aura-sphere, push
them in the present, steal the ball, and fly.

But now, Victor invites him in. He pulls him
within his sphere and they share the same time for the briefest moment. The
speed is even better, the sensations are even stronger. It’s almost like making
love through the fabric of time – for the first time, Yuuri understand how
someone like Chris can take actual
pleasure from lapsing.

He disentangles himself from Phichit easily,
sending a cocky grin his way, and sets himself for a triple-spin sequence. He
is close to lapsing through time when an aura suddenly appears before him. It’s
the red, furious and elegant lapsing of Yuri Plisetsky, who has recently taken
an extreme interest in him – as a rival, mostly. Yuuri knew he was going to try
blocking him, and had extensively studied his collision methods. He technically
knows how to avoid his trajectory. He technically knows how to reverse the
collision to his advantage. He practiced it.

That’s why he doesn’t expect to be thrown out
of focus, his legs horribly bending under him. His blades shake, and the
irreparable happens: one of them rises in the air.

Immediately, Yuuri loses his grip on the
short-present time. His breath is caught, and fear courses through him at a
lightning speed. He desperately tries to grab the fabric of time back, to just stop moving, already, but the haste with
which he had been moving is unforgivable – with a sharp cry of agony, he gets
sucked in the short fissure he used to jump through time not a second ago, and
disappears from the arena.

In the same second, all the lapsers are stopped
in their course, their equipment fall to the ground, and an eerie silence fills
the stadium. Even the announcers are silent.

The familiar music begins, prompting people to
rise to their feet, while the lapsers dumbly get on their knees. The waiting
begins.

Disappearance of Katsuki Yuuri, current Planet
Champion. No detection. Chances of survival: 10%.

The first sobs start. Disappearances are
frequent – after all, playing with time is
risky – but rarely does the Planet Champion themselves disappear. What’s more
is that Katsuki Yuuri, all shyness and modesty, has been a very likeable Champion.

The lapsers are in sickened shock. Phichit’s
hands are scrambling on the floor, like he’s trying to go through it or to
anchor himself. Yuri Plisetsky’s eyes are wild, his breath comes in tiny puffs
of panic, as he stares incredulously at the point where Katsuki Yuuri slipped
through time.

And Victor… Victor’s face is contorted in
pain.  

It had happened to him time and time again.
Friends, enemies, acquaintances…either they were willingly lapsing or brought
to the arena by ravenous bookmakers, they ended up fading away. One misstep is
enough to never see the light of present ever again. He had sworn, again and
again, that he would never let himself come close to a mediocre lapser. All his
“friends”, now, were among the very best.

Never had he thought he would let himself have
a lover. Never had he thought that said brilliant lover, who proved to be even
better than him, would fall during the fight as well.

A distinct screeching is bouncing through the
stadium. The cameras, ever so rotten, focus on Victor’s heavy cries. The
audience ratings are going crazy as the news spread around. Christophe stumbles
until he is close enough to his friend to embrace him. All the lapsers feel
like they’ve been punched in the guts. Throughout the last years, the
blossoming and adorable relationship between Victor Nikiforov and Katsuki Yuuri
had been a glimmer of hope and optimism in the dull and cruel world of lapsing.
The couple had even started to play with the idea of marriage.

“Ask for it,” the deep baritone suggests in
Victor’s ear. “Everyone will understand it.”

But Victor is too shaken, is in too much pain,
he can’t bring himself to open his mouth. He desperately clutch at Christophe’s
suit, frantically trying not to fall apart.

“I request the permission to conduct detection
manually.”

Yuri Plisetski’s voice soars over the
surrounding noises, loud, clear, and terrified. His hands are fisted so tightly
his knuckles are white and his arms are trembling.

“No!” “Yurachka, no!” “Yuri, don’t be stupid!”

The protests are unending. From fans, mostly,
but also from some lapsers, who somewhat consider young lapser Yuri as a little
brother. And you don’t usually let little brothers voluntary jumping through
time in order to search for the tiniest glimpse of a lost man.

Permission granted.

Immediately, Yuri’s gear begins glimmering,
indicating it has been reactivated. Sporting a grim and solemn face, the young
boy adjusts his parameters.

Suddenly Victor looks up, shaking his head at
him in denegation. Don’t do it. I don’t
want to lose you as well.

“I fucked up, Victor. I have to try.” Yuri
comments with a watery frown.

And then
he tenses, and then he jumps, and then he disappears. 

The space between times is suffocating. There
is a reason you don’t actually stay long in it during competitions. The green
and black pulsing and rubbery fabric can be teared for a second – but as soon
as you tread through the opening, it closes back behind you, protecting events
and lives.

Yuri can’t give up yet. He can faintly feel
Yuuri’s aura – always the most beautiful one in the arena, if he has any says
in it. He had spent years following this aura, trying to learn all the
magnificent and sharp ways of it. He is clutching at straws, but he needs to,
he needs to find him, or it will never be okay anymore.  Victor will never smile again. He will have to
resign from competition – how could he continue to collide with other lapsers,
if each one of them would, obviously, think of the disappearance he caused each
time it would happen?

He tears and tears, works against the time
restraint, clasping his gear. His hands, armed with the time tearing blades,
brusquely hit something very hard, and he yells at the sting. He lifts up his
head sharply, and his breath catches.

He is currently facing a sort of cocoon. The
surface is not smooth, and Yuri is hardly able to see through the material
composing it. He tries to tear it again, more softly this time, and watches in
amazement as the dent he leaves in the surface quickly resorb in another bump.

This is an example of time being distorted – he
knows, he can feel it. As he lays his bare hand on the hardened fabric, a soft
hit answers him.

“Hey, Yurio…”

And Yuri could cry, because before him Katsuki
Yuuri appears, suit slightly battered and lifeless, and definitely stuck in a
time distortion.

They look at each other, sadly beaming. The
greenish darkness surrounding them is soft in its rubbery quality…almost warm.
They have been in there for a long time, standing in the fabric of future.

“I’m waiting for you, you know. One, two, three
years, more, it does not matter to me.” the dark-haired man says.

His fiancé answers with a grin tainted with aching.
He is not so worried about it either – he knows that even time is not able to
separate them.

“It’s just…so strange. Being here, stuck in a
still-point of future, waiting for you to age and come back to me, all while
being able to watch you’re already aged-up version trying to live without me…
It barely feels like I’m living at all.”

“Now, don’t say that”, the other man
interjects. “You are, my dear, very much alive to me.”

The dark-haired man, graciously spinning on
himself, giggles. It’s so easy to tease his lover – even on such a grave
subject. He never expected to reach that level of familiarity with him – and
still here they were, relationship strong as ever, able to joke and laugh at
the face of their misfortune.

“I’m not sure what to call me. I stopped aging.
I stopped needing to eat or drink.”

“It doesn’t mean that you’re dead, solnishka.”

He sighs, extending his hand towards him. Four
years is a long time to wait until he can touch his lover again. Especially
since his body will slowly become less stable and thus less liable to jump
through time. When you have already spent seventeen years lapsing in
competitions at 23, you can’t expect to go on for much longer until your body
gives up (such an elegant term for the actual process of exploding at the
molecular level).

“It just means you’re stuck”, he continues.
“And I’ll come to you. Old and wrinkly, but still.”

Yuuri guffaws before him. Oh, how he longs to
just…hug him and kiss him already.

“Don’t worry, I’ll still love you.”

“You will, won’t you, Yuuri?” Victor echoes
with mischief.

“Baka”, his lover mumbles back teasingly.

They stare at each other for a while, before
brusquely coming close to the surface of the time cocoon simultaneously,
desperately pressing themselves as close to the other as possible.

“I miss you, Yuuri, I miss you so much,” Victor
breathes. “Everyday life is nothing
but a chore without you. I can’t believe… I just can’t accept I’ll only be able to see you every two months, for four years, and how…how will I…”

“Shh, shh, Vitya, shh…” Yuuri coos, his heart
painfully squeezing in his chest. “Don’t cry, don’t cry…”

“I love you, Yuuri-chan…”

“I know, Vitya, I love you too… Don’t cry,
love, don’t cry…”

The red light is already shining around
Victor’s shaking shoulders. Time is up; he is called back into the present.

“No, no, Yuuri, my Yuuri…”

“Take care of you, Vitya! I’ll wait for you!”
Yuuri calls as he watches his lover’s silhouette evaporate. “I love you!”

The words however only address the green night.

When turning 24, Victor Nikiforov spends his
birthday crying on his own, unable to withstand the loneliness.

When turning 25, Victor Nikiforov is dragged to
a birthday party by his best friend who retired a year after him, eats lovingly
baked piroshkies and drinks so much he ends up [sleeping in his chair].  

When turning 26, Victor Nikiforov adopts an
extremely big puddle which bright eyes and happy barks makes him laugh truly
for the first time in years.

And when turning 27, Victor Nikiforov is able
to slip in the time fabric to spend a few precious minutes with his fiancé.

“Can you believe, Yuuri… In little less than a
month, time will release you.” Victor beams, one hand casually laid on the
bumpy surface of the globe he came to know so well.

“I can’t wait,” Yuuri answers in Russian.

During his four years in the still-point, he
actually learnt quite a lot. In order to prevent him from going crazy, Victor
and their friends had sponsored the installment of a vocally operated teaching
station (that had been slightly modified to allow other activities). Yuuri had
thus taken the time to thoroughly learn the language of his fiancé, but also
the one of his best friend and the one of his fiancé’s best friend (which he
knows Victor also speaks).

Still using the same language, Yuuri goes on:

“I want to meet Makkachin.”

“It’s not even me, it’s the dog, isn’t it?”
Victor jokes.

“Shut up…”

“You don’t mind that.”

Yuuri sticks his tongue at him.

“No, I don’t. I don’t think I can ever tire of
hearing your voice, honestly. I never want to go on without it again.”

“Yuuri…”

“Ah, I’m getting a bit extreme, aren’t I,”
Yuuri stammers, slightly blushing.

“If only you knew how much I want to kiss you
right now…”

Yuuri has no idea why each of their
conversations dissolve into sweet nothings until Victor is dragged back in the
present, but he won’t complain.

The remaining month compared to the last years
should have appeared rather short. And still, the contrary happens; Victor
drives everyone around him literally crazy and Yuuri wallows in impatience in
his temporal jail. It seems like their whole beings can feel they are soon to
be reunited – as if their atoms, in remembrance of the days they spent
intertwining their auras, yearned to mix together once again.  

The specialists of time-calculations were able
to pinpoint the day of Yuuri’s liberation, but the hour. So in the early
morning, the arena begins to fill with all kind of people – long fans of
Katsuki Yuuri, onlookers, some journalists… A perimeter of security has been
drawn around the place Yuuri is supposed to reappear in, just to be safe.
Around the red line sit the lapsers. It is not the first time someone makes it
out of time distortion – but the phenomena is still so rare, so undreamt of,
that even new lapsers who have never met the former champion came to witness
it.

The forefront, though, is reserved for Yuuri’s
family and friends, and, of course, fiancé. Said fiancé is slowly breaking
apart, shaking in anticipation. The atmosphere is febrile – the miraculous man
could appear at any moment. Phichit, still a competitor at 24 years old,
despite the trauma his best friend loss caused, stands straight, his eyes
twinkling. Christophe is glancing at Victor, an easy smile on lips, while
hugging his dark-haired boyfriend. Katsuki Hiroko is tightly embraced by her
husband and her close-friend, Yuuri’s old mentor, Minako-sensei. Yuri has a
hand on Yuuri’s sister’s back, his other one tightly grasped in the hand of his
best friend, Otabek Altin. He can’t wait to introduce Yuuri to him – he talked
about him each time he visited Yuuri and he knew the man was curious.

Victor is on the edge, barely restraining
himself from running around the arena in agony. He bounces on his feet
impatiently, scratch the head of his dog, bounces a bit more, shakes his arms,
sits, stands, bounces again… He can’t wait, he can’t wait, he can’t…

Slowly, a wave of uneasiness attacks the
spectators. The air seems to mold, troubled. The ground of the arena flashes,
vanishing for a second, making a few people scream.

A loud crack bursts through the air,
frightening and dreadful, before a hideous flash of green distort present time.
Several shrieks of terror arise from the bystanders, while the lapsers, all
used to the revolting form of the fabric of time, eagerly search for a trace of
life among the chaos.

Suddenly, with a gracious movement, Katsuki
Yuuri emerges from the mess, still dressed in his old blue and transparent
glimmering suit, blades on his feet, and the biggest smile ever on his
face.  

And then the time flows again. Both lovers
waste no time in running to each other.

“Victor! Victor, you are here! Victor!” Yuuri
shouts, his whole body leaning towards his love.

He does not stop gliding on the smooth ground
when he meets Victor, but it is no concern, because Victor is here, because
Victor is all but throwing himself at him while crying of joy.

Victor kisses him hard. So hard they topple on
the ground, arms and legs tangled, desperately clutching at each other. He can
faintly hear the giggles and the gasps of their friends and family, but his
only thought is “So warm, so warm, so
good, oh god, so GOOD!” and he does not
plan to stop any soon.  

After a few minutes of kissing and rediscovering
the feeling of their bodies touching, barks and whines interrupt them. With a
laugh, they separate just enough to allow a big brown poodle to sniff at
Yuuri’s hair and clothes, before deciding to lick his entire face in
excitation.

“Makkachin, noooo,” Yuuri falsely complains,
heavily petting his new child. “Noooo!”

Victor is peppering kisses on his neck, his
clavicles, his body shaking with happiness. This is univocally the best day of
his life.

As if Makkachin had given them permission,
other people start arriving on them, losing their inhibitions. It is Yuri
frantically yelling “Fuck fuck FUCK!”, it is Phichit helping him to his feet
and hugging his back (Victor still refuses to let him go), it is his family
touching him, making sure he is unscathed and real, it is the roar of the
crowd.

Looks like Katsuki
Yuuri is alive and well!! Our 2XXX Planet Champion is still ever-so graceful,
did you see that entrance – or, well, departure? Will he fight for his title
back?

KATSUKI YUURI, LADIES,
GENTLEMEN AND SUCH. THE MIRACULOUS CHAMPION!!!

As he watches all his loved ones gathered
around him and hears the expressions of joy of the crowd and announcers, he
knows.

It is love.

Victuuri Week – Day One

Title: How to Fix Hearts
Author: Lainx
Rating: /
Warnings: Car accident, hospital setting
Summary: 
“In a different universe, Victor Nikiforov is not the ice-skater prodigy we all know – instead, his genius saves lives. What hasn’t changed, however, is how much Yuuri still admires him. As he finally gets to approach the “Fixer of Hearts”, will he be able to connect with the man whose career has always inspired him?”

Link to A03: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9619433

Music: The Fray – How To Save a Life // Psapp –
Cosy in the Rockets // Rilo Kiley – Portions for Foxes // Lifehouse – You And
Me // James Blunt – High

“What do you mean, he’s even more handsome that
what you thought? Haven’t you seen enough pictures of him to realize the man is literally…”

“Phichit…” he interrupts, smiling dazedly.
“It’s not the same. You should have
seen it. The way he just…is. The man is an absolute genius, and still you’ll
hear him whine from the other side of the hospital if the self-canteen doesn’t
have his favorite brand of yoghurt…”

“I’m pretty sure only you would characterize it
as “being handsome” though,” Phichit teases him. “You’ve got it sooo baaad!”

Yuuri smiles bashfully at the pixelated video
of his best friend who’s currently taking a short break from his day-long shift
at the veterinary emergencies. Phichit had always loved tiny pets (like
hamsters) – and now he’s fearlessly taking care of animals almost bigger than
him. At least he’s happy in the job he found, Yuuri thinks, biting his lips.

Is he
happy as well? Sure, he newly got appointed to this prestigious hospital after
years and years of gruesome internships, and is able to see
Victor-perfect-Nikiforov, the worldly praised heart surgeon, pouting at the
lady in charge of desserts to steal “another piece of pumpkin pie, pretty
pretty please?” on an everyday-basis, but something is still…off.

Yuuri has admired Victor Nikiforov for the
longest time. The man had coined a whole new way of operating heart surgery and
is currently the greatest surgeon alive on hearth, whose knowledge he
abundantly teaches and provides to the world. Ever since Yuuri had heard of the
“fixer of the hearts”, he had known he would do everything he could to become a
skilled surgeon as well. Even if it meant spending hours and days studying,
even if it meant leaving Japan and his family behind to move into America and
learn under the best.

He knows that technically he, as well, is one
of the best. He saved countless lives, even as an intern, he has been working
in hospitals for years now – and his hands are as sure and precise as ever. So
why, why on earth can’t he even bring himself to speak to Victor?

Maybe it has to do with the fact the surgeon
hadn’t even recognized him when they were formally introduced, even though
Yuuri had already at the time taken part in numerous high-risks surgeries and
meetings. He doesn’t feel like he can ever go past that.

“Yuuri! Yuuri, you’re ignoring me!”

“Ah, sorry, Phichit…  I was just thinking… Do you think one day
I’ll be able to come even close to Victor?”

His best friend frowns. Raising his hands in
the air in a grand way, Phichit declares, rather loudly:

“You ARE close to him, Yuuri! You did
everything right! You are even close to mastering technics of surgeries only he knows, and that’s why you’ve been accepted
in his hospital, just so you could
learn! How much more incentive to go talk to him do you need, Yuuri?”

And rationally, Yuuri knows Phichit is right.
And if only he doubted himself a bit less, he would have already go and ask the
talented doctor…well, maybe not on a date,
but at least if he wanted to sit with him at the self-canteen.

As highly-demanded doctors, that was pretty
much the only time they had to see each other, after all.

A beeping sound pulls him out of his thoughts
and regrets, and he mechanically checks his beeper. Nothing.

“Oh, Yuuri, I’m sorry, I have to go back! But
that’s not the end of this conversation, I tell you! Bye!”

“Bye…” Yuuri sighs to a blackened screen, as
Phichit runs towards the poor furry patient someone suddenly brought inside his
office slash animal hospital.

It’s only a matter of time until his own beeper
does manifest itself, and he rushes
out of the restroom, already slipping into his surgeon-persona. Today, not one
would die under his hands. No one.

It happens a few days later. Yuuri still hasn’t
talked to Victor – Victor is still blissfully unaware of the quiet and
efficient work of the other heart surgeon in the hospital.

The family is brought in an ambulance. It’s a
horrific road accident. Everyday life for Katsuki Yuuri.

What isn’t
everyday life, however, is Victor Nikiforov being restrained by nurses, cooed
at by Christophe Giacometti, their neuro-surgeon, and overall being a mess of
panic and anger. Yuuri freezes. He had never seen the usually radiant man looks
so out of himself.

“Katsuki! What the hell are you doing! Get
moving, your surgery team is already waiting for you!”

Yuuri turns away from Victor, who is, as he
notices now, bellowing broken pleas: “Let me do it, I’m the best, let me do it,
let me do it!”

“Recap.” he orders curtly, already mentally
prepping himself.

“The patient is two years old, has been thrown
against the front seats of the car of their parents. Shards of glass…”

The intern’s words are suddenly stopped as a
heavy arm grabs Yuuri’s shoulders and forces him to turn around. Victor stands
before them, huffing, his eyes half-crazed.

“You better not fuck this up. They won’t let me
save Pasha, but you…you’re not enough. I don’t even know…”

Yuuri immediately pushes Victor’s hand and
words away, gently but firmly. The man clearly is not in a stable state of mind
right now.

“Victor. Let me work. I am going to the operating
room, and every second you spend restraining me is a wasted one. I don’t know
who this child is to you, but I will do my utmost. I always do. Now stay put.”

Then, Yuuri turns away, running
towards his patient, listening to the recap of the intern – Victor’s face all
but a blur in the back of his mind. Right now, the patient is what matters
most.

“Victor…you are not supposed to be here.”

A sigh.

“Where else am I supposed to be then? They
won’t let me do anything.”

The man sits beside the shivering surgeon.
Yakov spent a long time directing this hospital and he knows all his surgeons
by heart. His last decision before retiring had been recruiting Katsuki Yuuri,
currently third best heart surgeon in the world, to make him train along
Victor.  

And he knows Victor definitely shouldn’t be
here, watching the open-heart surgery of his baby nephew.

“No one ever attempted this kind of surgery
before me,” Victor brusquely says. “I knew…I knew there was another surgeon
working on it. I watched his recorded surgeries on prototypes. I remember laughing
at his blue puddle-covered cap, and being in awe of the delicacy of his hands.”

“Vitya, don’t tell me…”

“I never made the connection. It’s so stupid.
He has been literally working next to me for months but I’ve just…not made
time. Who doesn’t sympathize with other surgeons of their same specialty?
Victor Nikiforov, that’s who. Damn! He probably thought I was a dick!”

Yakov is about to say: “But, Vitya, you are a dick,” but he ultimately refrains,
figuring he could chose a better moment to sass his former student. Instead, he
shakes his head, and puts his hand on Victor’s knee.

“Vitya…”

“I just want him to succeed. I don’t care I’m
not the only precious surgeon able to do that anymore. I’ll teach him
everything I have.”

“He has already learned so much, though,” Yakov
answers. “He postulated here for this very reason, and has already spent hours
upon hours watching you operate. I’m sure he’ll pull it off.”

Victor doesn’t say it, and neither does Yakov.
Yuuri has to pull it off – or the
tiny baby being operated on won’t make it. Victor has never been so tense in
his whole life – not during his first solo surgery, not after his first
failure, never. He knows his sister is getting surgery in the other room, that
his brother-in-law is still under watch, but those two will be fine. They
didn’t get the worst of the shock, after all, since the car had been hit by
behind.

Victor lays his head on Yakov’s shoulder, tears
silently rolling on his pale cheeks. His former mentor puts his right arm
around him, and together, in silence, they watch the operation.

“I’m not taking my eyes off you, Katsuki Yuuri. Save him.”


When Yuuri steps out of the operating room, all
he wants to do is go take a shower and crawl into bed. He hates when late
emergencies keep him in the hospital at night. He is always afraid his fatigue
might put him at risk of an error; even if, ironically, he is universally praised for his ability to carry through extremely
long surgeries without breaking a sweat.

“Yuuri!!! Yuuuuuuuuri!!!!!!!”

Ah. Someone is screaming his name.

A warm body collides with his, and he stumbles
and barely catches himself with the wall behind.

“Oï, Vitya, be easy on this poor boy, he’s had
a long day,” comes the gruff voice.

The weight put on him eases slightly, and he is
able to look up in the blue eyes of Victor Nikiforov, whose face is so joyful
he may as well be glowering. Yuuri blinks, not so sure of what he did to
deserve such an expression.

“Victor… Please, I need to go see the family of
the child I just operated, they must be terribly worried, and I…”

“I’m right here, and I’ve notified his parents
right away,” Victor interrupts with a grin. “I watched it all, Yuuri, oh, that
was incredible! You did it, you really did it!” he finishes with a bubbly
laugh.

Yuuri looks at him for a moment, before abruptly
remembering the events prior to the surgery – Victor shouting, Victor clutching
his arms to tell him…what?

“You’re not enough.”

Oh.

Yuuri decides he has to address this, right
now, before he loses his bravery.

“Look, Victor… I know I’m not…you… But I did do everything I could for this child, and I’m glad he’s gonna be
okay. I may not be that great of a
surgeon, but you can’t just call someone…”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Victor suddenly
cries, engulfing him in his arms once again. “You saved him, you saved him, you beautiful, stupid human being!
Today, you…you kept a family from being broken beyond repair… If, if my nephew
had not made it…I don’t know…”

The tears are abundant now, and Yuuri feels
them on his shoulder. He suddenly realizes that, in this moment, Victor is not
the best heart surgeon in the world. He’s not the medical pioneer inspiring
dozens of aspiring doctors.

He is just a scared uncle, he is…the family of
the patient.

So Yuuri does what he always does with the
families of his patients. He pats his back, tells him that as a surgeon he did
all that could be done, and finally that the child – Pasha, he remembers now –
is alive and well, that he’ll soon be allowed to visit him.

Victor does calm down after a while, but his awed
look does not fade. Yuuri starts feeling more and more awkward – this is his
crush keeping him in his harms, this is his crush looking at him like he’d just
moved mountains, this is his crush…

“Yuuri,” Victor croons. “I am going to see Pasha. But you have to promise me you’ll make time
to speak with me about how you mastered
the technics I spent years perfecting.”

Something burns in Yuuri’s chest.

“You mean…like, I don’t know…”

“How much do you like Italian food, Yuuri?”

Yuuri looks at him, out of breath and slightly amazed.

“I…never had it.”

“Then…let me introduce you”, Victor winks while
fumbling inside Yuuri’s medical blouse right pocket, before releasing him and
presumably going to his nephew’s room.

Yuuri slips a hand in his pocket, finding a
folded piece of paper.

202-555-0157 / This is
my private phone number. V.

Yuuri makes his way to the restroom, quietly
giggling to himself, clutching the paper to his chest.

What a day, he thinks. What a long, tiring, beautiful day.