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.