Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Yuri!”

A voice, one that is overly bright and familiar, slices through Yuri Plisetsky’s thoughts like the edge of a blade. He loses concentration, an attempted quad Salchow relegating quickly into an inelegant triple. A stifled laugh reaches his ears as he lunges for the remote of the speakers to shut off the music, and his face feels like it’s trying to burn itself off of his body.

“I thought I’d find you here!” Viktor Nikiforov smiles and raises a hand in greeting. Yuri notes detachedly how he’s wearing the puppy patterned shirt he had given him for his last birthday.

“Yeah, well, here I am,” he grumbles, hoping furiously that he doesn’t look a panicked as he felt, even as he sets down the remote against the sideboard with a little too much force than necessary. “What do you want?”

Viktor clicks his tongue as he walks up to him, chin balanced carefully on the end of one finger in that annoying way that only he can seem to pull off. “That’s no way to talk to your mentor,” he says, and Yuri bites back a curse because he isn’t even looking at the man, and yet he could hear the pout in his words.

 “Came all the way here to tell me that?” He snatches a half full bottle of water and takes a long drink to clear his head. It’s just Viktor, for fuck’s sake, he yells inwardly and about a dozen arguments pop up in his head immediately. It’s never just Viktor.

Nothing is ever so simple with that bastard.

That bastard is the same one you’ve liked for three years, his mind adds helpfully.

He doesn’t notice that he’s drained the bottle and has been sucking on air for god knows how long until he catches Viktor watching him from the corner of his eye. He averts his gaze as he recaps the bottle, placing it beside the remote. “Whatever you have to say, spit it out,” he snaps. “I’m busy.”

Viktor studies him a moment longer before he shrugs, the corner of his mouth curled up just the slightest bit, like he’s found some sort of secret, like he knows. Yuri nearly shudders at the thought as he shuts it down. The floor might as well come to life and eat him whole if that happens.

At his next words, however, Yuri makes a mental note not to speak too early: “You’re not telling me something.”

He could almost feel his very blood freeze in his veins. A violent pulse roars in his ears and he very nearly bites his tongue trying—and marvellously failing— not to stutter. “I-I’ve no idea what you’re rambling about, old man.”

What gave it away, was I too obvious, was it something I said, he never should have found out not like this—!

“Oh, but you do!” Viktor singsongs. He’s definitely teasing him; he would recognize that wicked glint in those blue eyes from the next life and back. “I can’t believe you’ve managed to hide from me all this time.”

 The snark dissipates faster than a puddle in the summer and he feels bare under Viktor’s knowing gaze. No retort comes to him, not even a half assed jab or taunt, not even a lame excuse. He could almost hear Viktor pointing out all his feelings, laid raw against his pointed criticism; he could almost taste the rejection, feel its thorny fingers crushing his chest.

Viktor opens his mouth and he braces himself, shoulders wound so tightly with tension he thinks he’s going to break and— “You’re doing Agape again? Really?”

He blinks. Twice.

What.

And then, with a surge of relief so great he nearly doubles over, it hits him: He doesn’t know. Ignoring the pinpricks of disappointment in the backs of his eyes, he realizes that he could still make an excuse, he could still hide and no one ever needed to know, especially not Viktor.

The program that Viktor had made for him three years ago for his senior debut, Agape, had won him at least three separate medals at that time and made him the youngest overall champion for the men’s Grand Prix Final. It hadn’t been his favourite admittedly, but recently he had begun considering remaking in to suit his own tastes. He remembered asking Viktor, in a bout of frustration what Agape even was for him. His answer still echoed, crystal clear: It’s a feeling of course. Do you ever think about that when you skate?

He had already liked him, then.

This time, he wanted Agape to not just be a feeling. Maybe, when he’d mustered enough spunk to actually admit all that he’d been hiding, he wanted Agape to serve as his own sort of confession. And finally, with crowds cheering his name again, the spotlights and cameras flashing all around him, glinting off a gold medal around his neck, he’d tell him.

He’d tell him all of it, and maybe then, when he’s sure that he’s become someone Viktor could be proud of, maybe then the dread of having Viktor mocking him wouldn’t be so potent.

But for now, with the shadow of insecurity still lurking behind him despite all the medals to his name, he would keep his mouth sealed shut.

He swallows and makes his chin turn up. “Don’t let it get to your head old man.” He scoffs, “This isn’t the same as the one you made for me three fucking years ago.”

“So you made it for somebody this time?” Viktor chuckles, and in his embarrassment, Yuri fails to notice just how strange Viktor sounded, how other. “Have you found your agape now, Yura?”

Yuri wants to scream and cry at the same time. You have no fucking idea. He turns back to the rink, afraid of how much his eyes might give away. “Yeah. Yeah I have.”

“That’s great, now, isn’t it?” Viktor chuckles again, softly. Yuri listens to the scuff of his shoes against the floor. “It’s past lunchtime, by the way and you really should eat. Don’t overwork yourself.” Viktor pauses before he adds: “I’ll be at the usual place.”

Yuri hears him turn and then walk away. The doors close behind him on silent hinges and Yuri wonders with mixed feelings of nausea and relief, if he might’ve done something wrong.

Chapter Text

The ‘usual place’ turns out to be a quaint restaurant settled between a commercial building and a high rise apartment complex, a few blocks away from the rink. He manages to catch up to the silver haired man just before he left the rink, and they fall in step quietly, and without another word.

The entire walk there, Yuri keeps his dark shades perched on the bridge of his nose and a thick scarf pulled up to his mouth. He catches himself glancing at Viktor sometimes. The idiot didn’t bother with covering up, instead choosing to wave enthusiastically at those he passed by, utterly disregarding the possibility of a fan jumping him or being swarmed by paparazzi.

It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, Yuri thinks sourly.

But then the sunlight catches the light strands of his hair and Yuri looks away, the image of Viktor’s smile burned behind his eyelids.

He doesn’t admit it to himself, but he cares less about being caught and crowded, and more about what exactly he could do, if only to see Viktor smile like that again.

***

Yuri’s spent the entire time so caught up in his own thoughts that he barely registers how they’ve entered the restaurant, ordered and ate, until they were back outside, making their way to the rink once more.

He stamps down the panic that rises in his chest and quells the urge to run to never let his dumb, dumb heart take over his instinct ever again. But the thing that stops him: He’s a Plisetsky.

Plisetsky’s do not run, his grandpa would tell him.

Yuri figures he wouldn’t feel so ashamed right now, if he hadn’t spent the last months doing just that; running away. From his own heart.

Renewed by a fierce determination he doesn’t know the source of, he sticks out his hand, and before he could think of it better, he tells his brain to stuff it and grabs hold of Viktor’s wrist.

“Yura?”

“Hurry it up, old man,” he grumbles, burying further into his scarf.

He could hear the amusement in Viktor’s voice as he says, “Are you that excited to show me your new program?”

He tugs at him harder in response and pretty soon they’re sprinting back towards the rink, suppressing the bubbling laughter that’s escaping them to no avail. At some point, Viktor turned his hand in his until their fingers laced together, holding tight as they ran.

For a fleeting moment, breathless moment, Yuri feels fifteen, with the sunlight on his face, and the breeze whipping back his hair.

There’s a dizzying sense of déjà vu as he realizes how deeply he’s fallen in, but this time, he makes a resolution within himself.

He’s done with running away.

***

Yuri ties on his skates and steps into the rink, skateguards clattering gently as he sets him down on the sideboard. The spotlights blind him, but it’s nothing compared to the expectant look in Viktor’s gaze, one that he doesn’t want to taint with disappointment.

He sees his long, pale finger hover over the button of the remote, ready when he is. Yuri gives him a slight nod as he pushes off to the center.

Above him, the familiar cadences of Agape begin to blare through the speakers, like a welcoming, haunting melody.

He raises an arm above his head and lets his mind go blank.

***

They spend a few moments in silence before Viktor whistles out a slow breath. Yuri wipes the sweat trickling down his forehead before looking up at him, hoping he doesn’t come off as too expectant. But Viktor’s gaze is unfocused even as he stares at Yuri, and unlike during his performance, where there was nothing but empty silence to ensconce him, now there was only hyperawareness, and it made him twitch subtly all the way to his fingertips.

Suddenly it becomes too much to bear and Yuri’s drawing himself up, chest heaving with a pride he can’t be completely sure of, not until he hears it from Viktor. “What do you have to say?”

“Your program was beautiful, Yuri,” he says and Yuri loves how wistful he sounds like and hates just how damn happy it makes his heart that it wants to burst out of his chest in sheer joy.

“What about my quads? The step sequence?” he continues, just because he wants to hear it again, and again that Viktor liked his program, that it held his attention fully the entire time they’ve been here.

If only the same thing was true for him—

“I loved every minute of it,” Viktor says a small smile playing on his lips and Yuri wants to smile back so badly his jaw begins to ache. “You’ve improved so much, Yura.”

“Fuck yeah,” he says, one of his many unorthodox ways of showing thanks. His cheeks feel hot as he runs his hands across his face, hiding a grin behind the thin layer of his gloves before rakes up the strength to meet Viktor’s eyes again.

What surprises him was the flash of sadness he saw there.  But it was tamped down so quickly, he starts wondering if he had imagined it. Then Viktor speaks. It is the softness of his words that give him away, almost as if he were thinking to himself: “They must be so lucky,” he says.

Yuri waits with bated breath and the feeling is back in his chest again, like he’s been running a hundred miles with no hope of stopping unless his heart gives out under him. At this rate, with those goddamn beautiful eyes studying him like he was the most intricate puzzle ever made, it probably would. “The one whom you made that program for I mean. They’re… very lucky.”

His mind draws a blank before the adrenaline roars in his ears mere seconds later as the pieces connect and he realizes what Viktor was going on about.

“You’re doing Agape again?” Viktor’s smile was endearingly foolish and Yuri wondered how it must feel like to have it widen beneath his own lips. “Really?”

“Don’t let it get to your head, old man.” He said, turning away. “This isn’t the same as the one you made for me three fucking years ago.”

A moment and then, “So you made it for somebody this time?” Viktor laughed. “Have you found your agape now, Yura?” It should’ve been natural, but the easygoing lilt was gone from his voice and the only thing it was now was strange.

Yuri grit his teeth, uncaring, and his mind is screaming at him to stop but the answer spilled out before he even finished the thought. “Yeah.” He said. “Yeah I have.”

A sense of déjà vu washes over him as his thoughts escape his grasp and it is as it was before when he hears himself say, “Are you though?”

Viktor blinks, “What?” Yuri sees something spark in him, and hopes that he’s on the same page as him; he isn’t backing down, not after all this time, not after two years, fuck it, because yes this is happening.

He swallows the lump in his throat, forces the words past it. “Are you lucky?”

Viktor could only gape at him, and he stares, unflinchingly, back. He is quiet for so long that Yuri thinks that surely he must be crumbling right now, buried in his embarrassment and topped with an extra bit of shame.

What the actual fuck, Yuri Plisetsky, do you have any fucking clue what you just pulled out of your ass, this isn’t a competition, you don’t have anyone you need to surprise what the fuck fuck fuck—

“Yuri—”

“We better be on the same fucking page, old man—” he interrupts, squeezing his eyes shut. His world was probably falling apart and he did not have the energy to watch it do so. His voice wavers and he doesn’t know how much from anger, how much from mortification. “Because I fucking swear to god—”

Warm fingers threading gently through his hair stop him from saying anything further. “I’m more concerned with whether this was real or I got too drunk again.”

Now it is Yuri who gapes at him, choking on his disbelief and yeah, his heart has definitely taken off without him. “You—”

He nods simply, and his smile is so bright that Yuri considers it a miracle he hasn’t gone blind. But his vision has certainly become blurred and there’s something wet on his cheek—oh god.

“Aw, Yura, don’t cry,” Viktor embraces him and he sinks in, grateful that he doesn’t have to look anymore even if he still wants to tear Viktor’s head off. “Believe me, I should be the one in tears.”

“’Cause you’re a dumbass like I am, apparently,” Yuri’s arms hold onto him tight, basking in his warmth, the breath ghosting down the side of his face, the hand still threaded in his hair, everything.

Viktor pulls back the slightest bit, “You know this wasn’t quite how I’d imagined myself coming clean.”

Yuri snorts, fist thumping lightly on Viktor’s chest. “This wasn’t how I’d imagined it either. So I guess…” He looks up at him through his lashes, voice muffled in Viktor’s chest, “Surprise?”

He sees Viktor’s face flush and then he’s choking out a strangled laugh, Viktor following after. He feels him shake his head as he pulls Yuri closer to him. “Almost a dozen years on the ice,” Viktor says, and Yuri hears his heartbeat, loud and fast like his own, “And you, Yuri Plisetsky, are the best surprise I’ve ever had.”