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 2018 – Day One

Title: From Eros to Agape

Author: Lainx (CuchyLainx on AO3)

Rating: K+

Warnings: No warning

Summary: On a lazy summer night in Hasetsu, a
story is told and future unfolds.

Link to A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536993

They sat in the dining-area of the inn,
lingering after a well-deserved dinner and dessert. This was a regular
occurrence for them in summer, when everyone was finally able to catch a break
from their everyday, hectic lives.

“Tell me, have I ever told you the story of the
Seducer and his fair, fair Lady?”

There were a few chuckles and a prominent sigh.

“Yes, Papa, you did. You’ve told us a thousand
times already!” a rather grumpy and childish voice complained.

“Shh Natyusha shh! I wanted to hear it again!”

“Now now.”

Another voice came, definitely more adult and more
placating than the last.

“I’m pretty sure Papa can compromise for you
two” it declared.

“Mmh, maybe so, Otou-san.”

“When will you two ever stop flirting. That’s
becoming utterly ridiculous, I mean, how ol-“

“Hopefully never~!” – “Yura-oji, stop, they’re
in love!”

Some grumbles originated from said-Yura-oji, but
then silence settled again.

“Otou-san is right. I do have another story I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard before, my
loves.”

“But Papa, I wanted to hear the Seducer’s story…”

“Well, Masha, have you ever wondered what
happened to the Seducer after the end of his story?”

“Yes, of course! He and the Fair Lady got
M-A-R-R-I-E-D!”

“Oh? What makes you think so?”

“Papa,” answered the first voice. “You always
end that story with the gift of that “glorious and victorious gold relic”. That
is not hard to guess.”

“…”

“You grow up too quickly.”

“And thus Victor did realize he was getting,
indeed, so ooool-“

“Stop teasing, Yura…”

The deep voice was altogether commanding and
amused.

“Beka-oji is right. Let Papa go on.”

“Thank you so much for your support, solnyshko”
came the dramatic answer.

There is a brief moment when the two men just
smile at each other, before the oldest turns back to his audience. Five
beautiful people are – with more or less success – settling in to listen to him
speak. The remnants of their dinner are still sitting on the low table near
them – it would be cleared up later. All of the adults, minus one, whose arms
and lap are already heavily occupied, are now nursing hot cups of tea.
Delicious smells drift from the kitchens, where late meals are getting fixed
for unexpected guests. The noises from the TV are lulled, almost non-existent,
and the nightly song of the crickets is reaching them through the opened
double-doors at the other end of the room.

Victor knows, objectively, that he must have
had better, more exciting nights in his life. But his chest, gorged with
affection, refuses to let him think otherwise; he has never felt happier than
in this quiet moment with his family. He knows that he has told himself this
exact same thing the day prior, and that he will probably be thinking this
tomorrow as well.

As an arm slides behind his back, and he leans
into the warmth besides him, he can’t help but smile as he opens his mouth.
Tonight, he wants to tell a story on which he had been prettily busily working
on.

“Once the
Seducer had secured the eternal love of his Fair Lady through the gold gift,
people started to whisper. Of course, they said, the Seducer would soon drop
his title, right? After all, what need had the world of a Seducer who could not
even fill his role, for he was so obviously bound to another?

“But oh, how wrong was
the world. The Seducer had fallen prey to his own traps, but his Lady would not
settle for him to lose his colours. If anything, she felt even more besotted-“

“What’s besotted Papa?”

“It means “very in love”, dear”, her Otou-san
answered hastily.

“Right so. So, the Lady felt even more “very in
love” with her Seducer, seeing how beautiful, how breath-taking, how incredible–“

“Come on, come on, we get it old man!”

“Be nice, Yura.”

“- how absolutely marvellous his – I mean, her –
Seducer was being in his dances. She felt inspired by him. She wanted to meet
him where he was.”

“That’s so romantic, Papa.”

“Isn’t it?”

“What did the Lady do then, Papa?”

“Well, you see, the Lady had also been a great
dancer, once upon a time. And, as much as she fell for every show of seduction
from her fiancé, she knew that she, too, could seduce him.”

“So…she started dancing with a bunch of women
too?”

The sceptic question from his oldest made
Victor smile.

“Something like that” he said while grinning
even more largely. “She tried to capture the hearts of her audience, and, of
course, most importantly, the one of her Seducer –“

“- aaand, she failed.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call a bronze at Worlds “failing”,
Yura, but whatever”, he icily answered his protégé who retaliated by sticking
his tongue out.

“He’s messing with you, Vitya, he doesn’t mean
it” Yuuri appeased him with a playful lilt to his voice.

“Yeah, don’t listen to Yura-oji, Papa, continue
your story!”

“At least some
people in this house do love me!” he fake-cried, before resuming his narrative.

“The
Seducer and the Lady had a lot of fun trying to keep seducing each other,
dances after dances. However, since they constantly had to dance their way
through the world, this life they had chosen for themselves was very tiring.
After a year, they were both so tired that they were worried the flame they had
carried between them all this time would fade away…”

“Oh, no, no, that’s terrible!”

“Beka-oji is right, Papa! How could they let
that happen?!”

“Well,” Victor chuckled, “of course they were
not going to let that happen. Listen.”

“For the
longest time, the Lady had dreamt of meeting the perfect person for her. Years
had passed and her dreams of love and family were, well, still nothing but
dreams. But when her Seducer had burst into her life, he had lit a new hope in
her. That’s why she decided, after this tiring year, to move from her palace to
his own, and she resolved to teach others to dance in her place.”

“What did the Seducer do then, Papa?”

“Hmm… It was a bit harder for the Seducer for,
you see, he has been thoroughly (that means “very”, dear) seduced by his Lady as
well.

“He was
very sad to see her settle for not dancing anymore, but as long as his Lady
promised to dance with him every now and then, and most of all every summer, he
would keep smiling, too. They would even invite their friends to dance at their
palace!

“And so they kept
their waltz of seduction for several more years, until, one day…”

“What happened? Did one of them die?” a rather
upset-looking little girl interrupted him.

“What? No, no god of course not, Masha! It’s a happy story, no one dies there, what the…”

“I think I can finish Papa’s story” Yuuri
intervened quickly.

“One day,
the Lady admitted she felt rather lonely in that big palace of hers. Her love
had been employed for seduction for so long! And now it yearned to be used for
something else. So she talked it out endlessly with her Seducer until, finally,
three little dancers came to live with them in their home. One of them would,
surprisingly, love dancing in the same way her parents did – the other two had
their unique, beautiful and promising way of doing it. The heart of the Seducer
had never felt so full, and so he, too, decided to stop dancing, except for
friends, arts, and his beautiful children.”

“Did he ever regret it?”

Yuuri shuffled closer to his husband, his eyes
fixed on the face of their oldest child. Of course, she was starting to realise
just how big, exactly, her parents had been in the athletic world. In a few
years, it would hit even harder for Masha, who was the one involved in skating.

“Never,” he asserted strongly. “Even if he had
taken a long time to understand it, this life filled with love and family is what
made sense to him.”

Satisfied, the children were soon coaxed into
going to bed. Yuuri did not know who moaned the more about it between Victor or
his actual children (and he would have to have a word with him about it,
again), but in the end he had Natyusha and Masha’s hands in his and were
leading them to the two beds set in his old room, while Otabek followed them,
carrying an already snoozing Hideyoshi to Mari’s room.

He had no idea why Hide-chan had taken such a
liking to the small and serious man, but he wasn’t complaining. Despite his
name, the kid could be a handful, especially since he was in this glorious
phase of childhood in which every action prompted a heart-wrenching “no!” from
him.

Well, not that either Victor or he would be
moved. They had already survived two of them, after all.

“You always take Victor’s stories so seriously,
Beka,” Yuuri tease while the made their way downstairs, where Victor and Yuuri
would surely been helping Mari and her friend clearing the aftermath of a busy
night at the onsen.

“He has a way of telling them. Also, Hide-chan
always gets so into it…”

“If I remember well, you already did that
before he came in, though.”

“Then, Masha.”

Otabek blushed a little, before closing his
mouth for good. Yuuri smiled privately but did not comment on it. After all, if
he had any say in the matter himself, these stories were pretty good.

They entered the dining-room, where Yuri was,
predictably enough, sprawled out after clearing the table, halfway to sleep
already. Yuuri could hear Victor’s voice in the kitchens, probably chatting
with his sister-in-law.

“Another kid to put to bed?”

“Fuck you, Beka. The old ass did not drill you almost to the bone for hours today.
So much for ‘come to vacations in Hasetsu it’ll be fun and the kids miss you.’ ”
Yuri grumbled in return.

“You know how he gets” Yuuri amended. “Summer
does not mean slacking up, especially not with him.”

“Easy for you to say, everyone knows you just
had to flaunt your ass to get him to bed if you wanted to catch a break-“

Yuuri should be past embarrassment at this
point. So what if it was a well-known fact in the skating world that he liked
to bed his husband to escape anxiety and utter tiredness?

As Victor’s arm came creeping around him and
Yuri’s poor face slowly turned to a rosy-colour, he realised he probably should
not have said that aloud. Even more so when Otabek and Mari, who was standing
in the kitchen entryway, simultaneously commented “TMI!” – “But you were always
stressed out.”.

Victor’s boisterous laugh warmed his neck, and
suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore.

“Let’s get to bed, you” his husband suggested,
well-aware of the lack of Yuuri’s filter when tired.

After bidding everyone goodnight, and checking –
“One last time, I promise” – on their slumbering children – “Hide-chan sleeps just
like you, have you ever noticed that?” –, they made their way to their room,
where they got ready for the night.

He knew Victor would most likely fall asleep
almost immediately, and they both knew Yuuri would probably keep browsing the
Internet for at least an hour instead of sleeping, but that did not deter them
from crawling under their thin covers and cuddling, as much as the summer
night-air allowed them.

“So…no regret, right?” Victor mumbled against
Yuuri’s naked chest.

“No regret,” he confirmed.

And as Victor easily fell into sleep, Yuuri
slowly closed his eyes and kissed his husband’s thinning hair.

“How could I ever regret this life with you,
silly,” he fondly murmured in Japanese.

He smiled widely while holding him even
tighter.

“Silly Victor.”

Victuuri Week – Day Five

Title: Lazy Winter Day
Author: Lainx
Rating: /
Warnings: /
Summary:

A look
at one of the mornings in the Katsuki-Nikiforov household, set nine years after
their first (unofficial) meeting at Sochi.

Link to AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9664424

Yuuri has been a father for two years now.

Father. The word still sounded foreign in his
mouth, like a constant surprise. “Father. I am a father. A papa.”

Even more surprising were the words “Victor is
a dad, too” which usually followed his wonder.

They had decided on adopting as soon as they
got married, two years after meeting each other. They knew the processes would
be long, and counted on that time to prepare themselves. In the end, they
launched them after Yuuri’s retirement at 26, and only received the precious
confirmation three years later.

They had been blessed with a little baby –
given their ages, they originally aimed for an older child. But Lyosha had
arrived, grumpy and already filled with energy and spite

There are nights Yuuri just can’t sleep – or go
back to sleep after waking up. Before, when he has been living alone or with no
immediate husband in the bed, he would have started a late-session of gaming,
or maybe even have got up to clean a bit around, starting his day in advance. Now,
his possibilities ranged from staying calmly cuddled with Victor in the bed, day-dreaming
until dawn, to leaving their bedroom to lounge in the living-room with a book
or his music player. He would check on his son, too – he loved watching this
tiny, tiny person snore and grumble like a grown man, all while looking so
adorable it would sometimes bring the strongest urge to pick him up and cover
him in kisses. He refrained, though. The only thing worse than a hungry baby,
he learnt pretty quickly, was a sleepy and disgruntled one.

Tonight, at 6am, when it becomes clear he will
not get any more sleep however hard he tried, he leaves his bed with
precaution, and heads for the couch. His mom had just sent them her latest
creation – a modern craft book, one of the newest stuff that came out. As he
absentmindedly pets the cover, his dog, a Labrador, comes sniffing at his feet,
before jumping to settle next to him on the couch. Victor’s dog, another poodle
he had finally got around to adopt, years after Makkachin last sleep, raises
his head just enough to notice the human, before curling back on his dog bed,
sighing.

Yuuri shakes his head, slightly smiling. The
dogs are technically theirs, but they
did choose their masters, alright.

He plugs his headphones in the back of the heavy
book, before softly opening it. “Welcome to our family, Aleksey!” is written
with big, bright letters, while recordings of Yuuri and Victor’s friends and
family wishing welcome to the little boy resound in multiple languages in his
ears.

With a brush of his index, various pictures
appear. On most of them, a fair-haired baby is either crying or beaming at the
adult holding him. He scans the faces of his relatives; his mom and Victor’s reeling
at Victor holding his son and obviously cooing at him. His father comfortably offering
his arms to a snoozing baby while his sister stroked his soft cheek, a tender
smile on her mouth. His best friend, Phichit, dark circles under the eyes from
his late trip to Japan in the middle of skating season, half-hidden under the
gigantic hamster plush he got for Lyosha. Whenever pictures were taken, the
onsen inn appeared in the background, colorful and homey.

Soon after, the setting changes to Victor and
his house in Russia, and the pictures fade, revealing a video.

“And here is Kin-kin!”
Victor voices says before the video focuses.

His husband appears,
sitting on the floor with their baby on his lap. The comparatively huge black Labrador
is shaking her tail extremely fast, her mouth opened. The baby is very still,
his eyes huge.

“Easy, Kin!” Yuuri
hears his own voice orders firmly.

The dog sits, trying
to appear as non-threatening as possible, while her tail keeps hitting the
floor behind her, betraying her suppressed excitation. Very softly, all the
while glancing at Yuuri, she leans toward Lyosha who is still in awe. When she
is close enough, she cocks her head, puzzled as to why this human looks so small
when her papa and her honorary papa are way bigger. Suddenly, Lyosha extends
his plump arms, touching the warm fur. He then starts to “oooh-s” at the
softness of the creature before him, pointing her insistently to his dad before
resuming the careful pats. His smile is eating half of his face.

Yuuri can’t help but laugh quietly at the scene
– and he can hear his past self laughing too while the camera shuffles closer.
Lyosha was just so cute.

A warm hand falls on his head, stroking his
hair, before sliding to his neck. Yuuri shifts until he is able to stare at his
husband, whose hair is, admittedly, a mess.

“Can’t sleep anymore?” Victor asks while
yawning, leaning for a kiss.

The faint taste of the strawberry syrup water
Victor keeps next to his bed to drink out during the night lingers in his
mouth, and Yuuri instantly craves for more. He twists his body to face him, and
Victor slides his fingers in his dark hair, getting a better angle to kiss him.
The Russian man lets out a definitely pleasured sound, always happy to see his
husband so responsive, feeling his arms sneak behind his back as Yuuri brings
their bodies closer. Their breaths start to come quicker as their bellies fill
with the familiar tightness of desire.

“Let’s…let’s…” Yuuri pants, palming his lover’s
ass and squeezing softly. “Vityaa…” he moans, feeling the man mouthing at his
earlobe, which almost pushes him into frenzy.

“PaaaaaaPAAAAAAAAAA!? PAPA, PAPA, PAPAAA!! PaaPAAA!?”

They separate with a huff, instinctively
turning their heads toward the corridor, from which the calls emanate.

“Haha, I guess Lyosha decided to start early as
well” Victor says, amused.

Since the calls are more inquisitive than pressing,
Yuuri takes the time to give another deep kiss at his husband before climbing
off the couch, heading towards the door hiding his son’s room.

Lyosha does not always wake up and call for him
– Victor has his load of “DiiiddYYY” as well – but when he does, it is usually
because he woke up in a good mood, and had probably been awake for a while
before deciding to call on someone. The two years-old tends to call on Victor
when his need of company is more urgent, because the man does get out of bed quicker than his spouse.

As Yuuri sets foot in the darkened room, two
round eyes and a standing little boy in blue and purple pajamas await him,
clutching the bar bed and swaying his hips.

“Papa?” he asks, simultaneously smiling and
hiding his face under the bar bed.

“Yees, Babyboy! It’s mooorning!” Yuuri
enthusiastically coos before scoping him up.
“Did you sleep well, Lyosha-chan?”

“Papa!” Lyosha answers with glee, nuzzling his
face in his father’s neck.

Yuuri brings him out of the room and into the
corridor, where Victor is leaning on the wall. The Russian man moves to embrace
them both, making noisy kisses on his son’s head and neck while playfully
swinging them from right to left, much to the delight of the little boy.

“Who’s my favorite baby? Who’s the most pretty
baby??” he gushes, enjoying the good mood of his son as much as he can.

He unfortunately knows all about babies’ mood
swings by now. That’s why he reluctantly detaches himself from them, ready to
start on the family breakfast while Yuuri heads to the bathroom. First things first,
after all.

The day is a lazy winter Sunday. They have
nothing to do, and no will to do something. Usually they would go visit one of
their rink mates, or a park, or their favorite café. Today, Yuuri’s only wish
is to stay in their home, wrapped up in a thick plaid and taking turns playing
with his baby. Of course, he is aware that the dogs eagerly pacing around
Victor as his husband sets up the table will need to be walked through the
pinching and freezing wind, but he determinedly intends on it being the only
outing of his family today.

“Say, Yuuri…” Victor starts when they are all
seated at the kitchen table with a warm drink, dogs happily snuffing at their
food a few meters away. “What do you say we stay here, today? I know you wanted
to teach Yurio how to make curry but…”

Yuuri grins at his partner, all to ready to
give in.

“I’ll text Yurio later” he says back, sipping
at his coffee. “And if he doesn’t want to cancel, he can very well come here.”

“True. How come we are growing this lazy, my
Yuuri? Is it because we’re becoming old?”

“Pff”, Yuuri scoffs. “Talk for yourself. I
think I just want a calm day. The last weeks have been crazy, what’s with the
ice show repetitions and Lyosha-chan’s cold…”

They both shiver at the memory, mechanically
checking on their child who is contently sipping at his bottle, not too fussy
for once.

“I hate it when he’s sick”, Victor confides,
stirring his warm chocolate maybe a bit too fast. “I feel so guilty.”

Yuuri nods, keeping his gaze on his son. The
first time Lyosha had been sick, they providentially still had been living in
Japan, and Yuuri’s family had been of a great help. Old family remedies and
emotional support got them through it, but Yuuri does not think he can ever
forget the expression of pure misery on Victor’s features as he watched his
baby struggles.

Victor, he learned, was good with their sweetheart. He would have never pictured it when
they met and Victor had still been the flamboyant five time gold-medalist ice skater.
But he got to witness him successively grow into a husband, and then into a
father. He got to see Victor with drool stains on his tailored shirts, Victor
patiently waving a spoon in front of a stubbornly closed little mouth for what
seemed hours, Victor terribly humming to calm a flailing baby, Victor sobbing
out of exasperation as said baby had been crying non-stop…

“Come on, Yuuri, your coffee is growing cold.”
Victor gently remarks, extending his arm to touch his spouse’s knee.

After breakfast, they settle back on the couch,
letting their son frolic in his play area before the turned-off television.
Lately he has been very fond of getting random objects, bringing them to his
parents or even to the dogs, before running off somewhere else and crash on the
carpeted floor. He immediately sets to work, filling the house with loud noises
and babbles.

Yuuri leans his head on Victor’s shoulder, both
huddled together under the plaid, as they watch the little boy enjoy himself. He
sighs, suddenly filled with warmth. At
this moment, he is sure that he is right where he is supposed to be, right
where he wants to be.

“You know, Yuuri…it’s so perfect, like this,” Victor mumbles.

He hoists their hands up and kisses his husband’s
ring finger with his plump lips. As he loses himself into his partner’s blue
gaze, he can only agree.

It is a loving, relaxing and perfect lazy
winter Sunday.

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.