Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I paid my dues

I sold my soul

So tell me what is left for me

When I’ve given up everything

—mukanjyo

Ice skating has always been Yuri’s first love.

There are no ifs, ands, or buts in regards to that. Since the moment he learns what it feels like to glide across the ice he’s a goner. The universe as he knows it changes into a burst of blue and white and ice and cold and fire. Because even though his fingertips are cold, his core—his very being—is set into a blazing inferno. Improvement comes because he’s passionate about it, it comes because he wants it so, so much. In his younger years, it was about being better than the day before and as he grows the feeling shifts into being better than the people he competes with.

He burns for his passion so much, and so intently that even his mother leaving and never looking back—and why oh why didn’t she look back?—doesn’t deter him. (It hurts so badly but he pours his soul into the ice until he’s numb until the feeling is buried under the ache of his muscles and the taste of accomplishment.)

He has a one-track mind—a one-track soul and even Viktor’s empty promises don’t keep him away from the ice. (And yet another person that doesn’t look back. When this happens, something lodges itself in Yuri’s chest, it buries itself between his ribs, until it's ingrained into his bones and his flesh, and he can’t get it out. Is there something wrong with him?)

At this point, he’s become so accustomed to turning to ice skating when his world is falling apart around him that it’s no surprise to him that he buries his disappointment under the taste of snow and ice. His love, his fire, his inferno burns hotter. Brighter. So much more intently than it ever has before. It fuels him, gives him courage and boldness, and everything he’s ever longed for.

He wins and wins and keeps winning until he reaches Olympic Ice at seventeen and wins. He feels a surge of pride and all those hours of practice bear their fruit in the best way. Then, his grandfather passes away and he’s aimless for a while, but the ice—the ice calls to him and comforts him, gives him a reason to keep going. Ice skating is like a touchstone that resides at the center of his being that reminds him of who he is and when he loses his way, he trusts the ice to lead him back home. At nineteen, when he injures his ankle, his ever-burning love helps him come back—stronger, better.

He’s at the top of the world. Skating has given him everything. It has given him a stable income, it has given him a roof over his head, it has breathed life into him and given him love. And oh, how skating has given him love. It’s given him parental figures, fans, and people he cares about and love love—the romantic mushy crap from the movies. The heart-stopping, embarrassing, I-want-to-kiss-you-under-the-rain-until-I-can’t-breathe type of love.

He’s twenty years old and they ask him out on a date together. Like the dumbass romantics that they were—are and continue to be. They’d looked at him—really looked at him—as man, as an individual, as an equal. It’s more than he could ever ask for. (There’s still a little sting from way back when but he ignores it—thinking it’s fine now.)

Viktor and Yuuri make loving them easy.

Ice skating is his life and it’s their life too. It's a bit of an adjustment at first, they divide their time between Russia and Japan and Yuri can’t be with them all the time. It’d been fine at first—nothing to worry about, they talked often and when they were together they enjoyed every second of it. (Something stings though—do they love him as much as they love each other? Do they miss him when he’s not there? Is leaving him easy? After all, they’re married and he—well, he’s just the boyfriend they share. Fuck, Yuri thinks, wanting to tear his skin off, don’t fucking go there.)

But skating—skating remains his constant. There are no doubts there, it’s just him and the ice and his first love. He works harder. Until he’s flopping to bed passed out before he even hits the mattress. (And that way he doesn’t have to feel the coldness—a different type of cold from the ice—that has settled into the apartment Viktor had insisted they move into despite the fact that they’re not here all the time. Instead, it’s just Yuri and their pets, all lonely and aching and missing them.)

It had been easy before—before when they had made him no promises, when they had not kissed him sweetly and gently, and when he remained oblivious to the warmth they emitted when he laid between them. He watches them go every time, just waving and pretending that the coldness that would settle into him was something he could manage. (But that thing—from before, when Viktor left him the first time at fifteen—just keeps growing and growing and keeps festering inside him like miasma. And every time it want’s to burst open he shoves it back down into a box.)

But he has the ice.

At twenty-one, he’s a damned three-time world champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist now, and suddenly, suddenly the rug is being pulled out from beneath him. He doesn’t realize it’s happening. But if he had to pick a moment, he supposes it’s when the gold Olympic medal is being placed around his neck and he has to physically force himself to smile at the camera, when before this would come so easy, so naturally. It’s at this moment that he begins feeling that the box where he kept everything locked up had begun cracking at the bottom and the ugliness is seeping through.

Viktor and Yuuri don’t seem to notice because—because Yuri is putting so much effort into acting like himself that he halfway tricks himself into thinking that nothing is wrong. He has to be okay he can’t allow himself to not be okay. Over the next year things aren’t anything like they used to be, he has to forcefully drag himself out of bed for practice, he has to put effort into just being on the ice. Suddenly, coldness seeps into him easily when he’s on the rink, the fire in his core dwindling.

One unassuming day he wakes up and realizes he no longer has the ice. It’s a weird sensation, he’s hollow. Now every time he steps into what was once his refuge it makes him want to throw up. It makes his insides twist and churn nastily, bile climbs up his throat and he can barely keep the seems of his act from bursting and revealing all the things inside him. The pain, the doubts, the self-hatred, the anger, and hate, the weight of his father’s absence and his mother's abandonment, the agony of losing the only relative that ever gave a damn about him and Viktor leaving. And then Viktor and Yuuri leaving, constantly, over and over again.

During the next Grand Prix Final, he wins again and he’s barely keeping it together. Even after all the celebrations are done and over with he still feels on edge. Like the entire world is caving inside him, like his universe is imploding after the fire has finally gone out. He’s cold. So cold. It doesn’t help that he has to watch Yuuri and Viktor leave yet again.

They want him to come with them but he waves them off, says he wants to go on vacation for a while before returning to training. That’s our Yura, Viktor says, Always looking forward.

That last night, he loves them with everything he has, with everything he’s made of. He kisses them and tells them—after all these years—that he loves them. We love you too, they say eyes warm and Yuri doesn’t doubt them. Not this time. Or rather, he doesn’t give himself room to doubt them.

Still, he wants to cling to them and say: don’t leave me alone, but he holds his tongue, he has to bite the inside of his cheek until he draws blood and the need to beg pathetically eventually passes.

He breathes them in and, slowly, with reluctance and pain, breathes them out.

The last rays of the sun are making their way through the windows when Yuri hears the door to his hospital room burst open. Yakov, followed by Lilia, comes striding in, his face set into a solid, cold expression that tells of his years as the head coach of the cutthroat environment that is Russian figure skating. Normally, Yuri wouldn’t flinch at his outbursts, but today…today things are different.

Yakov stands before his bed, his jaw clenching, “Yuri,” He says, angry so, so very angry, “What’s the meaning of this?”

Yuri can’t meet his eyes—and when has the great Yuri Plisetsky acted like this?

He shrugs, trying to appear unbothered at the entirety of the situation.

This, more than anything seems to break the little control Yakov was displaying. “Stop being a child!” He shouts, “Speak up for yourself! Tell me! TELL ME!” Yakov moves to his side, his voice increasing in volume, “Why is Russia’s two-time Olympic gold medalist in this hospital? Tell me why my most brilliant student is here? In a bed? In a hospital in the remote edges of the damned Russian Caucasus? TELL ME!” His voice breaks and chokes. He takes in a steadying breath, and Yuri can’t even feel sorry for him, he thinks the older man will continue his tirade, but instead, his next words come out soft, broken, “Suicide? Really?”

A knot lodges itself in Yuri’s throat when Yakov reaches for his hand with trembling hands, there are tears in his eyes, seconds away from spilling over. Lilia, who had been standing a ways away, chokes on a sob but maintains her distance.

“Sorry,” Yuri murmurs. “I just…” He trails off because he doesn’t really know what the hell’s been going through his head for the past couple of days…weeks…months…

For a long time, no one speaks and the only sound in the room is the rush of the air conditioner coming in through the vents. Yakov grips Yuri’s hand tightly through it all, finally, the silence is broken by Lilia.

“I’m going to call Viktor and Yuuri.” She announces and those words are the ones that snap Yuri out of whatever trance he’s been in.

“NO!” He screams, “DON’T CALL THEM!”

He could not bear his lovers' disappointment, not now. They’re going to pity him, they’re going to think, Poor Yuri, he wasn’t as mature as we thought. Look at him, he’s still a child.

Lilia’s mouth sets into a tight line, “They deserve to know.”

“N-no!” He begs, doing his damnest to get up from his bed, “Please—don’t. I won’t do it again! Please!” He’s crying—he doesn’t even remember the last time he cried, his grandfather’s funeral perhaps—he can tell by the shocked faces of his coaches, of the people who cared about him and loved him like a son. “Please—please. I’ll do anything!”

Lilia’s face crumples in sadness, in disappointment, in all the things Yuri didn’t want to cause any more. “Please,” He pathetically cries, “Please. Please.”

Lilia turns away sharply and quickly walks out of the room without another word.

“Yakov—please!” Yuri shouts grabbing the man by the elbow, “I’m begging you. Please don’t tell them, don’t tell anyone. I can be better—I can be the skater you want me to be!” He uses the last remaining bits of his strength to pull himself up and grasps Yakov’s shoulders, “I can be good, I promise. I promise.”

He doesn’t know what happens next because soon the nurses are rushing into his room and trying to stabilize his erratic screaming. Yakov is told to wait outside, and even as he’s being sedated, Yuri continues to scream, “PLEASE! PLEASE!”

It’s been exactly eight days since his failed overdose attempt. After being released from the hospital, he was immediately evaluated by a therapist that concluded he was extremely clinically depressed. It comes as a shock to his coaches, to him…not so much. It’s not as if he set out to hide it from anyone, it’s just that he thought he could keep it under control. Besides, he couldn’t possibly be that depressed, it just doesn’t make sense. He’s in the best shape of his life, his career is soaring, he’s loved by not one, but two amazing men, and he has everything that he needs. He shouldn’t be feeling like the world is about to end.

And yet.

And yet he still purchased opioids through illegal means because there was something inside him that felt incomplete. For a long time now Yuri has felt nothing. An emptiness inside him he can’t seem to fill no matter how much he tries. No amount of gold medals or broken records seem to fill the void that he feels in his chest. He has no other way to describe it other than feeling blue. Even after surviving his overdose, he still feels nothing and it frustrates him because he would like to feel something, the urge to live, to see another day, to hope for the future, but he can’t. He just can’t.

He’s prescribed antidepressants. He would very much like to flush them down the toilet but Lilia had practically dragged him back to her house as soon as their plane landed and she makes sure that he takes them every single day. He drinks them to appease her but he does feel marginally better in some ways. Other days it’s as if the world could go to hell for all he cared.

Yuri had been in the hospital for two days and in those two days Victor and Yuuri had blown up his phone when he didn’t answer. He felt a little bad for their inconvenience, but he’d told them Lilia and he had spent two nights in the mountains and the signal was bad. They’d believed him and scolded him for not informing them sooner.

He feels grateful that the two of them were in Japan for the next six months, that way they don’t have to see just how bad his disgrace is. He’s not ready to tell them that they would have lost him days after he had finally told them he loved them. He would break their hearts. He can’t be honest with them, not yet, maybe not ever.

The last thing he wants is for them to find out about this. Because it would have been different if he had actually died—he wouldn’t have to explain what the hell has been going through his head for the past year but the way things are now he would probably worry them enough that they would drop everything and come to be by his side. (Which is what he so desperately wants but would never actually say out loud. He’d rather die (haha) than seem like he can’t deal with a long-distance relationship. He wants to do things how they want because he doesn’t want them to abandon him. He doesn’t want them to think he’s more trouble than he’s worth.)

It feels strange, to be alive past the date he had planned on dying. Because he thought for sure—for sure that he would have succeeded. He supposes maybe he should have gone about the whole ordeal a lot more…cautiously.

For starters, he shouldn’t have brought Lilia along his ‘vacation' but he wanted to leave with just a little bit of warmth in his heart, in a blaze of glory after winning the Grand Prix Final yet again just a week prior to his death. Instead, Lilia had found her son—because what was the point of denying it—passed out on his hotel bed, opioid pills in his hands.

He’s lucky she came when she did. They were supposed to each do their own thing that morning. Lilia was going to go to the spa, while Yuri took a run. But Lilia had ditched her spa date to come surprise him with a nice breakfast that wasn’t part of his eating plan.

And that word…lucky—luck? Wasn’t that the most hilarious fucking thing?

Because where was his luck? He didn’t even achieve his goal.

Now he sits on a nice, expensive leather couch with a woman sitting on a chair, a notepad in her hand. Because this had been the compromise. After screaming and crying to Yakov and Lilia to not tell his shame to anyone he’d promised he’d get help.

He doesn’t know what tactics his coaches and the FFKR used to keep the hospital and its staff deathly silent about the entire situation. But the media hadn’t caught wind of his attempted suicide because if they had…Yuri doesn’t even want to think about it. It’s one thing to let yourself down—it’s another to let the entire world down. Because that’s what he’d done, hadn’t he? Let everyone down.

He can only assume that the hospital was threatened with a massive lawsuit. Still, there’s a fear brewing in his heart about the inevitable moment when someone is going to slip up and his entire life will be scrutinized by strangers on the internet as they try to psychoanalyze his every performance and action.

He bounces his leg, tense and silent. The lady before him doesn’t make conversation so he doesn’t make an effort either. They pass the entire hour in silence, Yuri doing nothing more than stew in his own thoughts. When the hour is up he storms out of the room without so much as a glance back. His next session is similar and he’s really starting to get annoyed by the silence.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me how I feel or something?” He snaps, finally, in his third session.

His companion raises an eyebrow, “Do you want to talk about how you feel?”

“Fuck no.”

She smiles, “Well, then, what do you want to talk about?”

He clicks his tongue and resists the urge to roll his eyes, “Aren’t you the professional?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” She nods along as if remembering that she’s supposed to be helping him and not being a pain in his ass. “But you know, I can’t help someone if they don’t want to help themselves.”

Yuri takes in a sharp breath and then gripes, “I’m here, aren’t I? Doesn’t that mean I want to be better?”

She sets the notepad aside and looks at him in the eye, her gaze steady, “No. From my perspective, all I see is a person doing what he was told. Not because he wants to get better but because it’s going to make someone else happy.”

Yuri swallows thickly. Because damn, how annoying was she?

Silence befalls them again.

“You know, I’m supposed to report back to your coaches about our sessions.”

Anger flickers inside Yuri’s very core and he acidly spits, “So much for patient confidentiality.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” The woman says, smiling, “I’m only supposed to tell them if you’re trying, I’m not going talk to them about the content of our conversations.”

He huffs, upset that at his age someone is keeping tabs on him.

“Tell you what,” She starts, “How about we just talk?”

“About?”

“Anything. It doesn’t have to be about something in particular.”

“Like what?”

“Well…how about you tell me what your favorite food is?”

Yuri stares. And stares. And stares.

He wants to laugh because this woman is damned ridiculous. What the hell is she even getting paid for?

But if he plays nice, if he does as she asks, she’s going to give Yakov and Lilia good reports. And he can just bullshit his way through this and not have to tell a stranger his thoughts.

“Okay.” He says and starts ranting.

He meets with Dr. Ibragimov three times a week, a little excessive if you ask him, but no one is willing to compromise with him so he doesn’t miss an appointment. He knows to not take any of Lilia’s threats lightly.

In regards to his training, Yakov has been keeping him off the ice despite Yuri’s outbursts arguing otherwise. The man remains steadfast in his denial and Yuri curses to hell and back the fact he's alive. (But something inside of him—in the deepest, darkest places of his heart—he’s glad he doesn’t have to skate. He doesn’t want to skate and isn’t that the greatest joke ever told. A professional ice skater that doesn't wanna skate.)

He tries to keep up with all other aspects of his training though, his stretches, his strength training, and he practices his jumps at the gymnastics gym on the days he doesn’t feel like the world has no meaning. The holidays come and go with little fanfare and he spends the majority of his time scrolling through Instagram looking at memes. It’s all very uneventful.

As the middle of January approaches he signs up for in-person university classes despite it being cold as shit and Russia living up to its name of being a frozen tundra. He hopes that doing something productive will somehow help the feeling of helplessness he feels.

On January fifteenth—a month and two days since his suicide attempt—he concludes that he’s been at Lilia’s home way too long. It had been a bit of a showdown to get Lilia and Yakov to agree to let him go back home but he had set his foot down. It had been more than a month already. He couldn’t keep staying with her when he had his own place. It’d be a ridiculous waste of money.

The apartment is on the top floor of the building, big—way too big for one person—in the center of Saint Petersburg with access to the roof. Yuri had particularly liked it because the view of the City of White Nights was breathtaking, especially when it had snowed and the lights illuminated all the majestic buildings and grandiose cathedrals. But more than anything, he loved it because this was the home Viktor and Yuuri had acquired for them, the three of them—after Yuri agreed to live with them.

It was a solid representation that they wanted Yuri to be with them—that they wanted him there, in the place of their comfort. They had taken his opinion into account, they had asked him for his input, they called this place home. Here, where Yuri was.

When he walks in through the threshold, he sags against the door after he's closed it, feeling himself finally relax. He had not realized how tense he had felt over the past month until he feels the tension drain away. I’m home, he thinks to himself, even though it’s empty, I’m home.

The apartment is a mess, naturally. Before the Grand Prix, Yuuri and Viktor had stayed here with him and there are still traces of them littered around. The sweater Viktor flung over the couch as they hurried out to catch their flight, Yuuri’s favorite chopsticks on the drying rack, and some dirty laundry they never got around to throwing in the wash. He hadn’t been here since they left and it feels like a snapshot of the life before.

A layer of dust coats every surface and Yuri is already dreading the cleaning spree he’s going to have to go into. But—but this is home. The home he shares with the people he loves.

Yuri’s never been good at housekeeping but Katsudon had made sure to teach him the basics so he didn’t die under his own filth. So he gets out the cleaning supplies and gets to work, wiping down all the counters and flat surfaces, he picks up the things that aren’t where they belong and sweeps the floors. His pets are still at Lilia’s house because he feels the need to prepare the space for them, that’s his excuse anyway. The truth is, he just wants a moment alone. The past month he’s been under the careful watch of Lilia and Yakov so he just needs a moment to breathe without anyone looking at him.

For a moment, with his pills in his hand, he contemplates not taking them. He wonders what would happen then, would he go off the rails again and jump off the roof? Or try for his wrists this time? Or maybe he’d hang himself? Jump in front of a moving train? A car? Drown himself in the river? The possibilities were endless. Instead, he does the thing he least wants to do. He puts the pills in his mouth and swallows them down with water.

He goes grocery shopping because the fridge and the pantry have seen better days. Also, he’s starving. But he wants to do something a little different tonight. He wants to cook. Something people have advised him against because he has absolutely no talent for it whatsoever. But right at this moment, he feels the need for a challenge, and since he can’t skate this will suffice.

It’s nearing the evening when Lilia calls him—for the fifth time that day—he talks to her, reassuring her that he didn’t forget to take his meds and that no, he hasn’t made an attempt at his life. It’s fine. Then it’s nearing six when Yakov calls and he has to go through reassuring him as well.

He’s putting the groceries away when his phone rings. Its Katsudon and Viktor face timing him. He sighs deeply because he doesn’t feel like talking to anyone anymore but he’s not going to ignore them, so he picks up, and hopes his face doesn’t reflect how he off feels.

“Sup,” He says, casually.

“Hi! Yura!” Katsudon says, smiling. Viktor waves as he takes in Yuri’s surroundings.

“You’re home today?” Victor asks.

“Yeah, I’m kinda sick of staying with Lilia,” He responds, looking around at the groceries he still has to put up. He sets the phone upright on the counter and turns the volume up.

“What are you doing?”

“I just came back from doing some shopping,” He tells them moving around the kitchen, putting stuff away.

“You didn’t have dinner at Lilia’s?” Katusdon inquires.

“No…” He comes up to the phone, looking at them as they try to squeeze into the camera view. “Katsudon, what does it mean to season something to taste?”

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the same time Viktor incredulously asks, “You’re cooking? You?”

“Yeah me asshole.”

Viktor starts laughing and it’d be great if Yuri could reach into the screen and bash his face in but alas. He settles for rolling his eyes. He’d been looking at some recipes on his way home but it seemed like every recipe required a certain spice or a certain vegetable and Yuri didn’t know enough about cooking to be able to replace one thing from another. He finally found an easy pasta recipe but then the terminology just went over his head.

“Don’t burn down the apartment,” Viktor manages to say between giggles, “That’s my favorite one.”

“So Katsudon,” Yuri hisses, ignoring the older man, “What’s it mean?”

“It means to just add something until you like it.”

“How the fuck should I know that?”

Katsudon laughs, “Just taste it, and when you think it’s good, leave it.”

He grumbles, maybe this is gonna be harder than he thought. “Why can’t they give specific measurements? What am I supposed to do? Scream into the void and wait for it to answer back?”

Viktor is still laughing like Yuri cooking is the best joke anyone’s ever told him. He’s fallen back on the couch and Yuri can’t tell, but he thinks the bastard is about to fall to the floor in amusement. Katsudon is looking at his husband with a large grin pulling at his face—so much affection in his eyes. And suddenly—suddenly Yuri is overtaken by loneliness. It’s actually quite an ugly thing, his heart drops and a pressure settles in his chest. Heavy and oppressing. Tears sting at the back of his eyes and he has to turn away before either of them turn their attention to him and see him barely holding it together.

Fuck, chill out, he tells himself, taking in a deep breath.

“—Yuri?” Katsudon had been saying something but Yuri had missed it.

“What did you say?” He asks when he thinks his voice won’t come out wobbly.

But Katsudon isn’t laughing anymore, instead, there’s a little concerned frown on his face, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Yuri lies, easy.

The dark-haired man doesn’t look like he believes him but lets it go. And Yuri is thankful, not for the first time, that Katsudon isn’t pushy. But he feels his body betraying him, his shoulders sag, and he’s suddenly tired. So tired. He feels like he’s about to drop dead.

“I have to go,” He says, they haven’t been talking long and he knows that the hasty goodbye is going to bring questions. But he can’t bring himself to care. “See you guys later.”

He hangs up before they even have the chance to say goodbye and as soon as he’s sure the connection is cut hot, frustrated tears spill from his eyes. It’s overwhelming, this feeling of helplessness and not knowing how to fix it.

Fucking stop it, he tells himself, trying to control his breathing, You’re fine. Stop it.

He presses his palms to his eyes, hoping the pressure is enough to stop his tears. He breathes, shuddering, trying to get a fucking grip. He’s supposed to have his emotions controlled now that he’s getting help instead he feels like they’re all over the place and he can’t distinguish one thing from another. He bites down on the collar of his shirt until his jaw feels like it’s going to break.

Then the wave of—whatever the fuck that was—passes, as quickly as it came. He doesn’t bother putting up the rest of the groceries, instead, he turns off the lights, and falls on top of the mattress, not even bothering to change, and promptly proceeds to pass the fuck out. His last thoughts are that it really sucks being alone and makes a note to go pick his pets up first thing in the morning.

The next day, he wakes up groggy, as if he hadn’t slept at all. There are a few missed calls from Yuuri and two from Viktor’s phone, a call from Lilia, and about ten text messages.

Sorry, he types, I ate some bad food. Diarrhea sucks.

The excuse is embarrassing and ridiculous enough that they believe it.

“Do you have any hobbies?” The doctor asks in one of his sessions.

“I skate.” Yuri flatly says.

She hums, “Yes, that’s true.” She clicks her pen, “But do you have something you like to do, just for the sake of doing it?”

“Skating.” Expect that’s a fucking a lie and Yuri suspects that she knows it is.

“Have you done it recently?”

“No. How can I? I’ve been banned from the rink.”

“Really? Is this the first time they’ve kept you off the ice?”

He shifts in his seat because the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. “No.”

“And those times that you were told not to skate, did you keep your word?”

“No…I usually snuck in some skating in the mornings, before anyone got there.” His leg starts bouncing, they’re headed into dangerous territory.

“And have you done that this time?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know…” He answers, hoping that it satisfies her. But no, despite all his complaining she’s actually good at her job.

“Over the past couple of sessions, you’ve talked about a lot of things. You even went into great detail about how hard it is to keep your pets groomed during shedding season. You’ve rambled about things you like and things you hate but not once have you talked about ice skating.”

Really? Yuri wants to ask her, I wonder why.

Silence overtakes the room and Yuri feels like someone exposed a nerve he didn’t want touched.

“Do you like skating?” She questions casually.

“Of course I like skating!” He snaps, defensive because if he admits otherwise it’ll feel real, “I’ve been doing it for years. It’s been my entire life since I was six years old.”

“So if it’s such a big part of your life why haven’t you willingly talked about it?”

Yuri bites his tongue, trying to keep the confession from spilling out. But whatever he doesn’t say she must see in his face because her eyes are nothing but kind. It’s annoying.

“I’m going to suggest something to you,” She quietly says, as if speaking to a spooked animal, “I don’t know if it’s crossed your mind, but from what I see it seems as though maybe you haven’t considered the option. Why don’t you take a break?”

“A break?” He blankly parrots, not quite understanding what she’s saying.

“From competitive figure skating.”

And the words—the suggestion is absolutely preposterous. Yuri Plisetsky? Taking a break? From Ice Skating? The words can barely string themselves together in his head. It sounds completely stupid and wrong. It sounds like a disaster, a calamity.

“It’s just a suggestion,” She says when she notices that his thoughts are screeching to a halt, “You say that you’ve skated for years now and it seems to me like you’ve burned out.”

That’s one way of putting it nicely, Yuri realizes. Ice skating is his life. But—but he tried killing this life. Last month, he tried to end it. Can he even say ice skating is his everything anymore?

“Bu-but I—what would I do instead?”

“Anything. You could do anything you wanted.”

“But—what would people say?”

She raises an eyebrow like she’s realizing something about him. “That you’re taking a break.”

“Wouldn’t they be disappointed?” He’s worrying his lip, leg bouncing more anxiously. The thought has latched itself to his head now and it’s insane.

“And what if they were?” She asks firmly, her gaze steady, “It’s not about them. All that should matter is what you want. I’d even go so far as to say that no one has the authority to keep you from doing what you want. Not your boyfriends, not your coaches, and certainty not strangers on the internet. If you want to take a break, then take it.”

Taking a break sounds…not bad. Well, it is bad because he could lose so much but the suggestion isn’t as bad as he initially thought. It’s true he hasn’t stepped on a rink since December and it’s probably the longest time he’s ever gone without skating. Even when he had been injured he had snuck into the rink to get in a few laps, just for the sake of feeling his blades gliding over the ice.

Now he’s used every single excuse he can to not approach it. He hadn’t realized he was doing it.

The university he’s gonna be attending come February has a prestigious hockey team so they have a very nice rink. A few days before classes are due to start he dropped his name to one of the managers and in exchange for an autograph and a picture he managed to secure an hour on the ice without anyone there. No attendants, no security guards, no one but him and the ice.

He removes his skate guards and stands at the entrance of the ice with a bated breath, he’s not sure what he’s expecting being here after so long but the emptiness—the apathy—is not it. As he steps into the ice and skates towards the center of the rink his skin crawls. Not in a good way. He stands at the center, closing his eyes and trying to imagine what it felt like to be about to start a program.

Yuri transports himself to one of his many competitions and they all coalesce into a single performance that he’s not sure which one he’s actually remembering. He can feel the way the crowd waits, how they hold their breath unanimously, as they wait for the great Yuri Plisetsky to blow them away with his art, his passion. He feels their eyes on his skin and the way they seem to be waiting to swallow him up.

He snaps opens his eyes and the world feels as though it’s deconstructing before him. His ribs feel like they're caving in, piercing his heart, his lungs—he’s falling apart. His stomach rolls and the crawling of his skin becomes more intense, his hands shake, his ears ring, and his vision is fazing in and out of focus. What the fuck? He thinks. He’s not sure what’s happening in that instant but he’s slammed with nausea so debilitating that his knees buckle under him and he’s hitting the ice, hard. He barely manages to break his fall with his hands and the oxygen can’t seem to get to his lungs fast enough.

It all seems to be happening in slow motion, he heaves, and bile floods his mouth. He presses his hand to his mouth and forcefully swallows the acid back down. I have to get out of here, he tells himself, but his legs aren’t cooperating, he can’t seem to channel any strength to them.  Another wave of nausea hits and he swallows the bile down again as he drags himself towards the nearest boards.

The smell of the ice, the coldness seeping into his skin, everything is so revolting in that instant that he feels like he’s going to die here.

He manages to make it out and as he pulls himself over the boards as he falls to the floor, he finally admits to himself, I’m not okay.

Admitting it is at the same too hard and too easy. But as this thing passes he feels grief and relief simultaneously. He thinks maybe he should be crying because the ice—his first love—and he have become magnets that repel each other. But the tears won’t come, he doesn’t feel as sad as he knows he should. Try as he might, he can’t seem to make himself feel sorry for the fact that he can’t skate. It’s like he’s tethered between revulsion and indifference about his first love.

Ice skating has been his entire life, it’s been his past, his present, he was sure that when he retired it would also be his future. Even if he couldn’t compete there was coaching, or ice shows, or fundraisers, or anything really but the ice would always be there. For so long he had thought that skating was going to be his everything.

Now, here, recovering from what he’s starting to realize is probably a panic attack, he’s not so sure.

It really fucking sucks.

The worst thing about it all is that after he recovered and ran out of the rink he felt like there was no one he could turn to. Who would understand? All the people he knows, his coaches, his lovers, and all the friends he has love the ice, how can he tell them that he can’t even stand the smell of a rink anymore? How can he admit it without feeling overwhelming shame?

He feels lonelier than ever like it's just him in the darkness of space. Him and his hate and his sorrow. When did it happen? When did his first love turn into something that he wanted nothing to do with? How was he ever going to keep living? There was nothing left for him.

He’s drowning in his oppressive realization that out of desperation he turns to the one person that he knows won’t judge him. Despite it not being a therapy day, he schedules an emergency fifteen-minute session with Dr. Ibraginov and tells her what happened. “I hate it,” He confesses, not meeting her eyes, “I hate the ice.”

For a long moment, she looks at him but doesn’t say anything. It’s like she’s letting the words that he uttered sink in, take form, and become real in his head.

“It’s okay,” She says.

And those are the words that he needed to hear. Nothing else.

we need to talk

I have something to tell you

tell me when it’s a good time

What’s the matter?

just tell me when you can talk

dumbass

i wanna talk face to face

Is everything alright?

You’re making us nervous.

omg it’s not that deep

weeell

i mean, i just wanna talk about something

Are you breaking up with us?

what?

NO

i just wanna talk omg

how did you reach that conclusion?

you’re dramatic af

You can’t blame us, ur being cryptic.

And you said ‘we need to talk’

you know that’s code for a break up

when have i ever talked in code?

Right now??

i’m not talking in code i just wanna tell you guys something

just call me when you can

we’re not breaking up

Ok, Yura.

We’ll be home in about an hour or so.

*thumbs up emoji*

It shouldn’t be this easy. Yet somehow it is.

He’s laying on the couch, waiting for the call, and he beats his chest with his fist, hoping it will stir something in his heart, “Feel something, dammit.”

He has his laptop open, his phone on the coffee table, and his meds off to the side. The phone and the laptop both ring at the same time and he takes in a deep breath before sitting up and answering. He’s not nervous but he still feels like he needs to steady himself, there would be a lot of questions after all.

Thousands of miles are suddenly reduced to nothing when he sees Viktor and Yuuri sitting on the couch on the screen. He can’t stop the smile from stretching across his face, they both look a little winded, like they just came home from the rink and did nothing else but take the laptop and immediately call him.

“Yo!” He greets raising a hand.

“Hi Yura,” Katsudon says, smiling, while Viktor just frowns. “How was your day today?”

Yuri rolls his eyes because trust Katsudon to want to make small talk despite the fact that he’s dying to get to the root of the problem immediately. But Yuri will play along, if only for Katsudon’s sake.

“It was alright, and yours?”

“What do you want to tell us?” Viktor cuts in. His mouth strangely set into a serious line.

“Viktor!” Katsudon admonishes, “Don’t be like this.”

“It’s fine, Yuuri.” And Yuri realizes his mistake a little too late because he sees both of them tense at the use of Yuuri’s name. Suddenly both of them shift tensely. He wonders what type of frenzy they worked up between themselves.

“Okay, so,” He starts, “I’ve been thinking…about taking the rest of the season off skating.”

A beat passes and he sees them trying to process his words, the tension melts off and then is instantly replaced by confusion. They both start talking at the same time and Yuri is suddenly too tired to really register what they’re saying. So he lets them talk over him, responds only when he thinks they need him to, and he’s just all around distracted as they collectively lose their damned minds. Why? They’re asking and wouldn’t Yuri want the answer to that too.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I just wanna focus on finishing my university studies.” He says instead, hoping it’s a good enough excuse.

“Are you injured?” Yuuri asks because of course, he would think of the worst-case scenario.

“No,” Yuri responds, what he doesn’t say is that his mind has taken him on a wild, wild ride. Dr. Ibraginov has casually mentioned to Yuri that depression is a thing that strikes without regard to status or personality or fortune. Just because it might seem like he has nothing to be depressed about doesn’t mean the chemicals in his head won’t want to screw him over.

“Won’t you regret it?” Viktor interrupts his thoughts.

And man oh man, Yuri sure hopes so. He hopes he regrets it, maybe that would mean that skating was still his passion, his first love. He hopes that the year away from doing the one thing he once loved so much will remind him that he can’t live without it. He hopes he longs to be on the ice again rather than feel bile rising on the back of his throat. He hopes that he regrets, that fire is reignited at the base of his heart that will return his love again. He hopes the hate will turn back to love as easy as it had turned from love to hate.

He shrugs, “Maybe, but I wanna study.”

And something—something must read in his face because suddenly they’re looking at him strangely as if they both realized something.

“Okay, Yura,” Yuuri says, “If that’s what you really want, we’ll support you.”

He flushes, in embarrassment—no. Shame. He’s lying to them through his teeth and he hates that he cares about it. Come home, he wants to scream, don’t leave me alone. Don’t abandon me anymore. But he’s Yuri fucking Plisetsky and he has a reputation to uphold. Even though it’s been quite literally killing him.

“Yeah, I’ll tell Yakov tomorrow, and then the announcement should be made in about three days. I just wanted to let you guys know personally rather than you finding through the news.”

beka

i’m taking the year off

woah really?

why?

injury?

no.

just been going through it

wanna talk about it?

no, i’ll be fine.

just need some time off

wanna study

be smart and all that shit

i support you 1000% my dude

but i’m always here if you wanna rant

you a real one

January 28th is one for the books. The announcement makes headlines, of course it does.

He gets a bunch of comments and questions on his Instagram and Twitter that his phone is constantly pinging. He logs out both platforms after putting out a generic post that he’s thankful for everyone’s support but that for the next year he wants to focus on his studies.

Yakov had looked seconds away from popping a blood vessel when Yuri told him, Lilia had flushed red. Anger? Maybe. They looked at him like he was out of his mind and honestly, hadn’t it already been established since December thirteenth when he popped the pills that he was out of his mind? He doesn’t know why they’re surprised, it was the therapist they sent him to that suggest it and made him understand that it was okay to step back from it if it was making him miserable.

He wonders how that conversation is going to go when Dr. Ibraginov gives them his weekly report. In the weeks that he’s been talking to her, he’s quickly come to learn that she didn’t give a fuck about what other people thought so long as her patient did what they wanted to do. He likes that about her, maybe that’s why it’s been easy to talk to her and he’s beginning to trust her.

February begins and the Russian winter is just making his mood worse. He comes to the conclusion that depression sucks. Even though he came to admit that his relationship with ice skating had fractured the depression was still there. With seasonal depression added to the mix, it’s even more of a bitch to deal with. His routine changes once he’s in school, he goes to classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings then he goes home and lays down in bed until the world darkens and it's the next morning again and he goes to therapy.

On the first day of classes when he’s walking to his literature class, he looks up at the bulletin board outside the class hall there are flyers for every type of activity from cooking to mountain climbing to chess to tutoring classes. The one that catches his eye is one at the top left-hand corner. It’s orange and there’s a picture of a man and a woman in the middle of a waltz, he stares at it for about five seconds before shrugging and walking into class.

It’s still about ten minutes until the class starts so the hall is fairly empty. He chooses a seat at the very back and doesn’t bother removing his hood. He’s barely settling in when a voice comes, “Are you interested in ballroom dancing?”

Yuri almost lets out a squeak in surprise. He looks up to see a girl sliding into the seat beside him. She smiles and he resists the urge to let out a growl. But he’s not fifteen anymore and he’s certainly not an animal either. So he firmly says, “No.”

“Oh, well that’s too bad. We’re really hoping to recruit more people.” She extends her hand, “My name is Irina Teleshova and you are?”

Fucking damnit, he thinks, this was the last thing he wanted. Someone recognizing him. For a split second, he thinks about giving her a false name but ultimately decides that that’s gonna be more of a problem in the long run. He stares at her hand for a beat too long but her smile doesn’t falter or crumple awkwardly. She’s still looking at him expectantly and he slowly takes it, “Yuri Plisetsky.”

Irina’s head tilts lower, trying to get a better look at him and when she meets his eyes her eyebrows shoot up and her face glazes over in that wonder that people often get when they first meet him. But she surprises him because she doesn’t immediately start asking questions or requesting an autograph. Instead, she says, calmly but still a little gobsmacked, “Oh. Wow. It’s nice to meet you.”

He nods, trying his best to just fade into his coat. It’s not that he doesn’t expect to be recognized but he was hoping to go a few days without anyone realizing that he was here. He supposes that’s too much to ask for.

“Soooo,” Irina says, trying to sound casual but failing, “You really wouldn’t consider trying ballroom dancing, like at all?”

Yuri almost snorts, if nothing else, he’s amused at her guts. “No, I’m busy with other stuff.”

She hums and fidgets in her seat and pushes. “But…not even a little bit?”

This time the blonde can’t help it, he snorts, loudly and can barely keep a straight face, “You’re really pushy.”

Irina hums, “I’ve been told that before…"

“Has anyone ever told you you’re annoying?”

“Oh yeah!” She says, nodding but not at all offended, “I hear that all the time but it doesn’t bother me.”

“Well it should,” Yuri murmurs under his breath.

Whatever she’s going to reply gets cut off by the professor making his way into the hall. He’s an old, grouchy looking man with white hair and a distasteful looking grimace on his face. As he begins talking about the expectations he has of them for the next semester and the books they’ll be reading, Irina slides him a note.

“This Saturday we’re having a show, you should come, just to watch. This is the address to the studio.”

Yuri takes the note and crumples it up, shoving it on the pocket of his sweater. Hopefully, that’s enough to get the message across.

February passes painstakingly slowly, it snows the second week and St. Petersburg looks like the winter wonderland of fairytales. Yuri’s feeling even more tired as of late, as if that was even possible. It has to do with the fact that he’s trying to keep sane under the depression that’s crushing him. It’s exhausting to keep in constant contact with people he doesn’t see regularly too.  So the texts between him and Mila grow more and more scarce by the days.

Dr. Ibraginov has been talking about how it’s more than just depression weighing him down at this point. Apparently, he has severe abandonment issues that he’s never addressed. Fucking perfect. He needs to talk to his lovers, she says, explain that the long-distance isn’t ideal for him. He’s like a puppy with severe separation anxiety and that just makes him want to not say anything even more.

He asks why’s it all coming to him at once, he’d been fine for years. “No”, she had said, “You’ve never been fine, you were just very good at pretending.” And wow, the old hag actually thinks she’s up to something. (She’s right, of course, but Yuri is nothing if not stubborn.)

Life continues, as usual, he goes to classes, and reads so much Russian literature he’s sure he can talk about it in his sleep. He doesn’t think of the ice or the panic attack. He’s even gone as far as stuffing his skates into the deepest, darkest corner of the closet where Viktor keeps Makkachin’s old toys. His medals too.

Irina is starting to wear him down though, so there’s that. She always sits next to him during his lectures and she always hands him a note with the dance studio’s address every time. It’s starting to get annoying because he has a bunch of notes littering the apartment.

“Come on,” She whines, trying to be cute but Yuri wants to tell her it won’t work on him because he knows what game she’s playing, “Just one time. Just once and I’ll never bother you about it.”

“Fine.” He finds himself saying, and what a bitch it is when your mouth moves before you have time to think. Because he was literally just thinking he wouldn’t be caught in her trap.

She smiles so widely he thinks her face is gonna break. “Tomorrow, at five. I’ll be waiting.”

He’s accepted the invitation on impulse and when the next day rolls around he wants nothing more than to text Irina and cancel. Then he realizes that he doesn’t even have her phone number so if he doesn’t show he’s gonna be standing her up. He shouldn’t care. It’s cold as fuck out but he’ll brave the frozen tundra if it means she’ll leave him alone for the rest of his miserable life. He takes his meds, pushes down the urge to stay in bed, and actually meets up with her outside the studio.

She’s surprised when she sees him and it’s enough to make him flush slightly. He wonders just how much she realized he didn’t want to come. Still despite everything, she smiles and greets him, “Hi! I’m glad you came.”

His hood is covering his head and he nods, “I said I’d come.”

They go in and set their oversized coats on a bench. There are other people there, already sitting along the walls surrounding the people dancing in the middle. He takes a seat by a corner, drawing himself more into his hoodie even though the studio is very warm. Irina takes a seat by him and he’s almost scared someone here is gonna recognize him. But everyone is focused on the people waltzing to pay much attention to him.

It’s nice to look at, he’ll admit. It’s a bit like skating—but not. The movements are all graceful and controlled, very artistic and beautiful. He supposes it’s not a bad way to spend the night.

Later on, someone shouts, “IRINA! YOU HAVE TO DANCE!”

“Ohhh,” Irina says under her breath, “I was hoping I wouldn’t.”

But she smiles and gets up from beside him, “I’ll be back,” She tells him and she sheds her hoodie. The other people hoot and clap.

“Wait!” He hears her say, “Not Standard! Latin!”

The people cheer as she shouts, “Where’s Sasha?”

A guy comes from the back of the studio, waving his hand in the air, the crowd cheers even louder. Yuri absentmindedly wonders if all the people here were here to see them.

“Samba!” The man controlling the music shouts. Sasha comes to take Irina’s hand and the music starts. Yuri doesn’t live under a rock, he knows about ballroom dancing, both Standard and Latin, once or twice he sat with Lilia as she watched a competition. But watching it on TV and watching it in person are two completely different things. From the moment Irina and Sasha start dancing, he’s instantly on alert, captivated. They move elegantly and effortlessly and their dancing is all hip movements and amazing footwork that it would make even Viktor jealous.

Holy shit, he thinks, I want to learn how to do that.

“Jive!” The man shouts again and the music changes and Irina and Sasha just switch over to a new type of dancing without stumbling for a second. Everyone in the room is cheering and laughing and egging them on and they just continue dancing.

And what catches his attention more than anything, is the way both Irina and her partner are laughing and enjoying themselves doing something they like. For the first time in a while, he feels like doing something. A hobby, Dr. Ibraginov had mentioned.  I can’t skate right now, he thinks to himself, but I can do something else.

And he wonders why this revelation hadn’t come to him sooner. Because right there beneath his love for ice skating lurked his love for dancing. The love of letting the music flow through him, a language that freed him.

He knows instinctively that Irina and Sasha are professionals, it’s in the way they move, the artistry they portray as the music washes over them fluidly. He takes his phone out and types Irina’s name into the search bar, and videos and articles are popping up.

“Holy shit,” He murmurs to himself realizing they share the same title despite the fact that it’s two different sports, “World Champion.”

“You have to teach me how to Latin dance.” He wastes no time saying when she’s done wowing the crowd and comes back to her spot beside him.

“Wow, you liked it that much?” She asks amused, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her forehead.

“Yeah,” He says, shrugging, trying to disguise what feels like giddiness rising in his stomach.

“Okay,” She says, and smiles.

As Yuri closes the door, he shakes off the last bit of chill that’s clinging to his spine. Tsar—a pure white samoyed that Viktor adopted after Makkachin passed away—comes bouncing up to him, tail wagging, Potya at his side. “Hello, my darlings,” He says in baby speak because he fucking loves his pets ok, even though it took a while for him to accept dogs. Makkachin and Tsar did a wonderful job worming their way into his heart so know Yuri will reluctantly admit that dogs aren’t all that bad.

Besides, they made really good running buddies.

It’s because he’s petting them, cooing, and all-around being grossly affectionate that he doesn’t notice the shoes by the door that aren’t meant to be there. For the past week, he’s been coming home later than usual, Irina has taken Yuri’s request way too seriously and she hunted him down and dragged him to the dance studio every day. His muscles ache in a familiar, satisfying way it’s enough to make him play nice with Sasha.

Because Sasha is a prick. But Yuri can’t deny that the man is good at what he does. He’s Irina’s dance partner and they have both taken to teaching him about Latin dancing. It’s…fun. Dr. Ibraginov is happy that he’s made friends outside of skating, outside the bubble he had been in for so long. She says it’s an improvement.

He takes off his backpack, his coat, and boots and makes his way inside. He picks up Potya on the way, she’s an old girl now so he doesn’t like making her walk if she doesn’t want to.

He abruptly stops when he looks up and the lights are all on. He didn’t leave any on except the one in the hallway. He tenses and doesn’t relax until Yuuri pokes his head out of the kitchen and gives him a wide, beautiful smile. “Surprise!”

His arms slack and Potya gracefully jumps away, off to find a place to sleep, Tsar follows.

“Katsudon,” He breathes, his heart in his throat because Yuuri is as handsome as he remembers. Actually, more. He doesn’t know if this is what nearly dying does to people because even though they spoke every day, faced timed constantly, he can’t help the surge of absolute delight and happiness that overcomes him at seeing him in the flesh. It’s like he’s falling in love with him all over again, except this time it’s at first sight.

“Where’s Viktor?” He asks, already taking a step toward him.

“He’s coming Saturday morning we didn’t want you to spend your birthday alone.”

His steps turn into a half jog half walk because suddenly he needs to feel Yuuri. He barrels into him, wrapping his arms tightly around his middle. Yuuri makes a surprised noise and stumbles but doesn’t let him go.

“Hey-hey, it’s okay. It’s alright.” Yuuri’s hands are petting his hair and pressing him close. He feels the metal of Katsudon’s wedding ring and Yuri shudders, his breath catching, and then he’s looking up, kissing Yuuri like it’s the last time he ever will. Emotions slam into him and suddenly the events of December are catching up with him at the worst possible time and he’s crying, Yuuri pulls away and looks at him, worry lining every bit of his features, “What’s wrong, Yura? What’s the matter?”

“Missed you,” He says, close to sobbing, “Missed you so much.”

And then he’s kissing him again pulling him towards the bedroom.

“W-wait, dinner,” Yuuri says between kisses.

“You first,” Yuri answers, already working on his shirt.

Whatever Yuuri might want to say about his condition Yuri swallows it down, not letting him go for even just a minute. They fall into bed—the too large, too cold bed Yuri has been sleeping on for months with Potya and Tsar on either side of him and still feeling lonely—naked and flushed. Yuri reaches into the bedside drawer and gives Yuuri the lube, “Wanna feel you inside.”

Yuuri chokes because it’s rare for Yuri to ask rather than just show. The dark-haired man immediately gets to work and it takes a while until Yuri’s ready because it’s been more than two months since he was last with them. When Yuuri pulls his hips towards him and they slot together in delicious relief Yuri tears slip down his cheeks.

Yuuri wipes away his tears and murmurs softly, “It’s okay, Yura. I’m here now.”

He starts moving and Yuri’s toes curl in delight because as Yuuri thrusts into him, as he loves him, as he clings to him, he realizes that he’s glad. For the first time he’s glad he’s so, so glad he’s alive and he’s breathing and this man loves him.

They have a very late dinner afterward and when they’re done they sit on the couch, cuddling.  Yuri’s eyes are rimmed red and he knows that after that he can’t lie about it, can’t brush it away, or laugh it off. Especially not to Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri plays with his hair and Yuri just wants to stay nestled between his arms forever.

“Yura,” The older man says, after what seems like eternal comfortable silence, “We’ve been very worried.”

Yuri buries his face into Yuuri’s shoulder, “Why?”

He sighs deeply and explains, “A lot of reasons, you’ve been acting strange since before the Grand Prix Series. We were hoping you would eventually tell us about what’s been bothering you. Then Yakov called us and asked when we were coming back. We wouldn’t have been so weird but then Lilia called, more than once, asking the same thing. We thought maybe you were injured and just didn’t want to say. And then suddenly you say that you’re not skating this year and we were even more confused. Just last week Lilia called us again and she was very upset and told us that we shouldn’t be leaving you alone right now.”

Yuri groans, because yeah, that sounds like his coaches alright. Even though they didn’t tell them his secret they made it more than obvious that he had one.

“Something…happened.” He says, reluctantly, because he’s tired and just…doesn’t want to lie anymore. He lifts his head and Yuuri is looking at him expectantly, “But…can we talk about it until after my birthday? I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Yuuri doesn’t look appeased but nods, “Okay, Yura.”

Viktor is supposed to get to Saint Petersburg on the morning of Yuri’s birthday but that’s still two days away. So in the meantime, they spend the days exploring the city, going out to eat, and Yuri even takes Katsudon to the dance studio and he watches as Irina and Sasha try to teach him how to Jive. In between all this, however, he tries to gather his thoughts, tries to come up with a plan. He’s going to break their hearts, he just knows it.

There’s no easy way to say it, hey yeah, I tried committing suicide, failed, and oh, I can’t skate anymore and also, please never leave me alone because I can’t function as a human being without you.

He’s dreading every single moment of it. He keeps his meds hidden but doesn’t stop taking them. Because his life seems to finally be going on an upwards slope. He figures that this isn’t the worst thing…he’s alive and not dead, right? That has to count for something.

The night before his twenty-third birthday Yuuri spends it between his thighs, making him cum with his mouth, his fingers, and his cock. It’s great.

So on March first, when Yuri opens his eyes he feels very relaxed, more relaxed than he’s felt in the entirety of the past year. The sheets are still warm so he knows Yuuri hasn’t been awake for long. In hindsight, he should have remained true to his Gen Z nature and checked his phone the moment he opened his eyes that way he could have been prepared for the shit storm that was about to hit the fan.

But his stomach is rumbling and despite the fact his hips ached pleasantly right then he needed to take painkillers before it got worse. He pulled on his boxers and his shirt from last night and walks out of the bedroom. The television is on and Yuri wonders if Katsudon is making breakfast.

He’s in the hallway when he hears something falling and shattering. He picks up his pace and when he comes to the living room, Yuuri is looking at the TV, his hand to his mouth, and horror lining his every feature.

“What’s wrong?” He asks. And then Yuuri’s horrified gaze is turning to him and Yuri finally manages to focus on what’s playing on the news.

YURI PLISETSKY’S OVERDOSE VIDEO MAKING THE ROUNDS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

“—Early this morning, at exactly 12 AM on the dot an anonymous Twitter account uploaded a video of internationally acclaimed figure skater Yuri Plisetsky. In the video, it clearly shows him being revived by the paramedics after what was an alleged suicide attempt via overdose. As of this moment, the Yubileyny Sports Club has not made any statements on the matter and—”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Yuri,” Yuuri says, tears spilling and coming to grab him by the shoulders, “Tell me it’s not true.” Yuri turns his eyes away, “Yu-Yuri, please please tell me it’s a lie.” Yuuri is sobbing now, his words barely understandable, “Yura, Yura, Yura.” He throws arms around Yuri and he hugs him so close it feels like he’s trying to absorb him into his skin. “My Yura.” His legs give out from underneath him and they fall to the floor and Yuuri won’t stop crying, won’t stop trembling and kissing him and crying and roaming his hands all over his back as if he’s making sure he’s alive. As if trying to assure himself that Yuri is real and here.

“I was going to lose you!” Yuuri brokenly wails, “I was going to lose you and I didn’t even know.”

Yuuri doesn’t calm down for a long time. He holds Yuri close, not caring that his phone is ringing off the hook and that his legs are cramping. He cries and cries, like a child. “I’m sorry,” He weeps, pressing kisses to Yuri’s face, “I’m sorry Yuri—I’m so sorry.”

Yuri clings to him, tears have been quietly spilling because he’s making the older man suffer. He shakes his head, “It’s not your fault.”

They cling together for what feels like hours. Then the door is practically flying off its hinges and Viktor comes storming in. He sees them on the floor and he drops everything he’s carrying and runs to them, gathering up in his arms.

“My Yurochka.” He sobs into Yuri’s hair, breathing him in, “I am so sorry.”

And Yuri wonders—why are they apologizing? He’s the one that fucked up. Yet here they are, apologizing as if they're the ones that are at fault.

But they’re here, with him and despite everything, for the first time in a long, long time he feels as though things will be alright.

Chapter Text

Everything is alright

Since you came along and before you

I had nowhere to run to

nothing to hold on to

I came so close to giving it up.

But I could never find the words to say

Stay with me

—Stay

There is a memory that despite the years remains clear and sharp in Yuri’s memory. He’s seven years old and the skating academy is holding a showcase. All the kids in his age group are expected to participate, they’re performing a song so the parents can see their progress. Yuri is placed front and center because he’s the one that practiced the most, the one who knows the choreography perfectly and the one who will be doing a solo part. And he’s giddy, a little nervous—but giddy more than anything. His mother had promised she would be there.

She hadn’t attended any of his other programs because she was always so busy, but today—today she would be there. She would be there and she would see just how hard Yuri works and she’ll be proud. That’s all he can think about, she’s going to be so proud. She’s going to smile at him and her eyes are going to light up in pride and he’ll forgive her for all the other times she wasn’t able to make it.

He performs with everything he has and the showcase is a success. He’s even given a round of applause when one of the instructors publicly congratulates him for his hard work. Afterward the parents of the other children give him compliments and he flushes under their attention but thanks them shyly. He tries looking for his mother in the crowd but he can’t seem to find her.

His heart sinks a little—maybe she didn’t make it after all. But it’s okay, there’s going to be another showcase in two months, she could come to that one. He’s a little upset, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened so he’s…okay. He goes home with a bouquet of flowers the instructors had given him and his skates in his hands.

He opens the door to the apartment he and his mother live in to find it completely devoid of anything. For a second, he doesn’t know what to think, did he come into the wrong building? But the key worked so that can’t be right. He calls out, Mom? Where are you? But there is no answer. He looks for her in every room, in every closet, he looks for her in the bathroom, and in the kitchen. He even goes as far as checking the cupboards, despite the fact that it’s a little ridiculous, but his mother is nowhere to be found.

He sits on the floor of what used to be his living room and waits. Surely his mother will realize he’s missing and come back for him. She’ll apologize, I’m sorry I left you, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your showcase. And then she’ll take him to their new home since nothing is here anymore.

But the hours pass. And they pass. And they pass.

His mother does not return for him.

He waits for her, but she doesn’t return. Not that week, not that month, and not even the years afterwards.

Instead, he’s found by the landlord when he’s showing the apartment to another family two days later and he’s completely caught off guard when Yuri is still there, waiting for his mother—starving and cold. The authorities are notified and his grandfather is immediately called and when Yuri asks him, Where’s mom? His grandfather cries and holds Yuri close, I don’t know, Yurochka.

That’s okay, Yuri remembers thinking, She can come to my next showcase when she comes back and I’ll forgive her.

There’s another memory, too.

Though this one isn’t as clear since he doesn’t tend to think about this one much. The details are blurry around the edges but he remembers the core of it.

He’s fourteen and he’s in his grandfather's house for the holidays. He only has a week left before he has to go back to Saint Petersburg and he’s been quite bored. His grandfather had worked that morning so he’s alone and he gets the bright idea to sort out his mail. The kitchen table is flooded in envelopes, letters, bills, and newspapers all accumulated during the months Yuri had been away. He beings sorting them by importance, throwing away all the trash and old newspapers. The hours had passed unnoticed by him until he reached one unassuming envelope.

His grandfather's name and address was on the front, the handwriting neat and orderly, but there was no return address. He opened it only to find a picture of a baby inside swaddled in a blue blanket with dark as midnight hair and disturbingly familiar eyes. There was no note or letter but when Yuri turned the picture around, his breath had cut. Your grandson, Ilya. 11/17/20XX

And that’s about all he remembers after that. From there, he thinks he argued with his grandfather when he came home but he can’t remember about what, he thinks he cried and screamed and raged, maybe. All the details are unclear but what he does remember was having the awful realization that his mother would never come back and that from the looks of it she already had a life without him.

But he’d buried those thoughts of self-pity deep inside him, he would show her, he would show the entire world that he didn’t need her, that he could live without her just as she could live without him. Next year he’d be making his senior debut and Viktor had promised to choreograph him something. He would succeed, go above and beyond what anyone expected of him. He didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone.

But Viktor’s promise had been a lie, too.

He’d been so furious, so heartbroken that they’d been so desperate to get away from him. Why, he had asked himself, do people always find happiness away from me?

Whoever leaked the video must have been someone who clearly didn’t like Yuri too much. The caption was filled with too much contempt, Congratulations to Yuri Plisetsky for making it to twenty-three after trying to kill himself on Dec. 13th. LOL. What a drama king.

The video itself was actually quite disturbing and he’s kinda sorry people had to see it. It’s shaky and zoomed in to show him sprawled on the hotel floor as one of the paramedics injected something into his arm. Naloxone, he later learned, to reverse the effects of the opioids but Yuri’s heart rate had taken an unexpected plunge and he went into cardiac arrest. The paramedic immediately began to perform CPR but his body had been unresponsive for fourteen long seconds. For a while, it really looked like he wouldn’t wake up but the paramedic didn't give up, he kept compressing and the video feed clearly caught him saying, Come on, kid, live, live, live. And after what feels like an eternity Yuri jerks, taking in a deep breath and then the video cuts.

Truly not the greatest thing to wake up to on one's birthday.

The week following the video leak is about as serene as one would expect—that is to say it’s a complete shitshow and Yuri doesn’t have five fucking seconds of peace. After Viktor and Yuuri had calmed down enough to speak to him the phone calls started. From Yakov, from friends, and the FFKR. He’s called into the office of a lawyer to be advised about how to address the leak and what measures he should take if he wants to sue. The media hound other skaters he competed against and rink mates in order to get a statement or opinion.

It doesn't help that Worlds is literally two weeks away and the entire skating sphere and beyond has lost its mind. So yeah, the situation has convoluted itself into a steaming pile of shit which really wouldn’t be such a big deal normally, except the pile of shit has gained sentience. Which only does wonders for Yuri’s temper and already diminishing sanity.

He’s trending on Twitter and even though the social media platform deleted the video there are countless copies of it being distributed on other sites. His fans are getting into fights for his sake with trolls and there’s even death threats being thrown around. Then the rumors start, the conspiracies, and speculations as to what caused him to attempt suicide, there’s an entire thread on Reddit about it. His every move for the past year is being scrutinized by people expecting to find something worth drawing attention to.

The FFKR’s public relations department is living their nightmare come to life. It was like the time when Viktor announced he was getting married. To a man. Yeah, that had also not gone over well with...Russia.

Otabek calls and Yuri has to spend an entire afternoon talking to him about a lot of stuff. His dear friend wants to fly in but Yuri manages to convince him to focus on preparing for worlds. Viktor and Yuuri are here, he tells him. The best thing you can do for me is focus on winning gold. Because the last thing he wants to do is compromise Otabek’s focus more than it is already.

Mila and Georgi come by every single day to the apartment trying to understand, just like everyone else in the entire world. And Yuri’s grateful but he just wants to be left alone. There’s a reason he didn’t want this mess all over the place. Now it’s all coming back to bite him in the ass. He has to miss classes because there are reporters on campus grounds waiting for him like ravenous vultures. Everyone wants a piece of his already cracked soul—a story to tell about him.

He’s grateful Irina sends him copies of her notes and is nice enough to submit his work for him. He even has to stop going to therapy because he can’t compromise Dr. Ibraginov’s other patients. She sets up video calls instead but it’s not the same because he’s not alone. Even though he shuts himself in the bedroom for the sessions he can still hear everyone else in the living room. He can’t speak freely for fear that they’ll overhear just how badly he wants to be left the fuck alone.

Finally, the FFKR makes a statement and threatens lawsuits to all parties that don’t respect his privacy. He’s instructed to not make any social media posts or comments and let everything pass, hopefully, worlds will take the spotlight off him. Though Yuri doubts it since he’s probably going to be the topic of a lot of conversations. He tries to keep his word though because everything that’s happening is like a really bad rash that he just wants gone.

Things settle into tense normalcy for a few days. He knows Viktor and Yuuri will have to leave soon since they have skaters that will be participating in Worlds. He knows it’s only a matter of time before he’s given a few days to breathe so he’ll keep a lid on the rage that’s been brewing beneath his skin for just a little longer. Except, Viktor and Yuuri get into an argument of spectacular proportions with Yakov. They talk over him like he’s not even there, throwing insults and sharp words at Yakov for not informing them sooner and Yakov spits back that they should have kept a better eye on him.

“JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Yuri screams when he’s had enough. “JUST SHUT UP!”

They all turn to him, shocked.

“Get out if you want to argue!” He tells them all.

“Yur—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” He interrupts, holding up a finger to halt whatever sentiments they want to spit out, “I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired. Just shut up or leave. I don’t care. Just. Shut. Up.”

He locks himself up in the bedroom with Potya and Tsar for the rest of the night, frustrated tears running down his cheeks because everything is just out of control and he can’t take it anymore. He sleeps in the large bed all alone—like all the lonely nights before—because everyone is treating him like glass, like he’s about to break, like he can’t take care of himself. They all say sorry sorry like he’s supposed to forgive them.

The way things are, he’s lost all the will to talk to them sincerely about everything that’s been happening to him. If he were to tell Viktor and Yuuri all the things that are wrong they’re going to try to fix him. But as Dr. Ibraginov said, he can’t be fixed unless he wants to fix himself and he’s trying. Damn it all, he’s been trying so hard. He’s keeping up with his meds, he stepped away from the thing that was making him miserable, he was even about to pick up a hobby. But in moments like this, it feels like he hasn’t made any progress whatsoever and its frustrating, it makes him feel like there’s really no way out of this damned pit that he’s fallen into.

At four in the morning, he texts Irina, she’s the only one that can hide him, because she exists outside the bubble that is skating. Meet me at the studio?

Despite it being so early she texts back almost immediately, right now?

Can you? He replies back

See you in fifteen.

He sneaks out of the bedroom with sock-clad feet, his boots in his hands and his backpack on his shoulder. Viktor and Yuuri are sleeping on the couch and Yuri feels a little guilty because that couch is not the best thing to sleep on. He writes them a note and leaves it on the counter.

Don’t freak out, I’ll be back later. I’m going to the studio. Katsudon you know where it is. DON’T COME NEAR IT.

When the door is shut behind him, he pulls his hood on and slips his feet into his boots and runs. For the first time that week, he feels free and as he runs down to the garage he feels like he’s coming up for air. It’s not as though he’s not grateful for everyone’s support but he’s not in his best shape right now. He knew this was going to be hard and yet it’s left him much more exhausted than ever. He wants this to be over, he wants things to go back to how they used to be, when people weren’t treating him like a ticking time bomb.

It’s early so the streets of Saint Petersburg aren’t busy so he arrives at the studio within fifteen minutes. Irina is already there so he makes his way inside, trying to get away from the cold and chill of the early morning.

“You’ve seen better days,” She casually remarks as a greeting when she takes a look at the nest in his hair and the bags under his eyes.

“And you’re still annoying.” He shoots back, squinting.

Irina shrugs, “A matter of perspective.” She gives him a once over, “I have a comb if you want to…do something about it.”

He nods, “Yeah, just let me get changed first.”

He goes to the changing rooms and quickly strips of his heavy winter clothes into more suitable dancing clothes. Afterward, she hands him the comb silently and he works through the tangles and manages to pull his hair into a french braid.

“So,” Irina begins, shuffling discs in her hands as she makes her way to the music player, “What would you like to dance today?”

“Anything,” He responds.

She hums and slides in a CD into the slot, “Okay then, the Viennese Waltz it is.”

“I don’t wanna waltz,” He shoots back, wrinkling his nose. “I wanna dance something more…interesting.”

“Too bad, you said anything. So arms up.”

“No.” Yuri protests, “You are not leading.”

“Stop being a baby,” Irina says, already moving to place her hand on his hip, “Just let yourself be handled.”

“Handled? What the fu—”

“Trust me.” She says, “And be glad you’re not in heels and a dress.”

Yuri grumbles angrily but complies since he is the one that called her here at four o’clock in the morning. The music starts and its slower than what they generally blast through the speakers, its calmer, more relaxed. It’s not classical music and thank heaven for that, but it’s peaceful. He leans his head back and lets Irina take charge and it’s almost easy, she leads and he follows. He’s glad she’s not taller than him because he’d seen some of the girls on their tippy toes when their partner was a head taller than they were.

It’s a little mindless, to be honest. He’s no professional so he knows Irina is only leading him through the more simple poses, over and over. He almost feels like closing his eyes and just letting the music and Irina’s hands lead him. After a while, he does.

He lets his mind wander and he feels his shoulders relaxing, he thinks about nothing and just listens to the music. He doesn’t know how much time passes but his partner doesn’t say anything and they just dance through one, seven, thirteen, twenty songs. Then the CD finally reaches its end, they hold their poses as the last notes of the last song are fading into silence.

Irina drops her arms and he stands straight, looking at her he gives her a small upturn of his lips, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

She laughs, “I told you. Sometimes it’s nice to just go with the flow.”

He supposes that makes sense, he isn’t used to letting other people do stuff for him. Yuri’s sport is heavily individualistic. It’s based on the merit, strength, and talent of the individual. So for him, it’s always been about what he can do, what he can achieve. Of course, there’s support from coaches but the moment he stepped into the ice there was nothing they could do to help him. Maybe that’s why this feels like such a different thing because it’s not just him, but someone else is there together with him. It’s an…alright feeling. Though he wouldn’t make a habit out of it.

He takes a seat against the mirrors, already dreading the ache his shoulders are going to be in for the next couple of days and Irina hands him a water bottle as she takes a seat, too.

“How have you been?” She asks, not looking at him.

Yuri sighs heavily, “Tired.”

“I bet.”

Silence passes between them and then Yuri surprises himself by saying, “Everyone is walking on eggshells and it pisses me off.”

“They’re just concerned,” She tells him, huffing a laugh.

“Yeah, but it still pisses me off.”

“I’m sure things will get better.”

They slip into silence and Yuri contemplates what he wants to do next. He wants to speak honestly with Viktor and Yuuri, but even now, he doesn’t think he has the guts to tell them everything. He especially doesn’t want them to know about his abandonment issues and how they relate to his mother and Viktor. After all, he’d never told them what exactly happened with his mother and why Viktor leaving had affected him so greatly. Thinking about it now, there’s been a lot of things he hasn’t told them about, important things, things he probably should have told them about.

But still, it’s too soon, he can’t talk about it without feeling like he’s going to drown. He doesn’t want to tell them about his inability to skate either. Both Viktor and Yuuri had retired because they couldn’t skate anymore because their bodies couldn’t keep up with the things they wanted to do and here Yuri was, healthy, but unwilling to set foot on the ice. It would be like a slap to their faces. So no, he can’t tell them about it.

Not yet, someday. Just not right now.

One thing at a time, he tells himself.

For the next hour, Irina and he sit around the studio just listening to music and stretching and talking about the lectures he’s missed. They even get into an intense argument about the significance of the theater performances the inmates from Dostoevsky’s Notes from a Dead House put on during Christmas. It concludes with neither of them seeing eye to eye but it had been a little amusing arguing for the sake of arguing. All too soon the world outside starts to pick up as the sun rises and he has to say his goodbyes since Irina has to get to class.

“Text me when you wanna dance again,” She says as she locks the studio.

“Thanks.” He says, the for everything isn’t said but he thinks she understands.

“Anytime,” She waves and she’s off.

He sits in his car outside the apartment for about ten minutes, trying to gear himself up for whatever Viktor and Yuuri want to discuss today. When he thinks he’s finally ready he gets out and goes up.

When he opens the door, he finds the light of the living room on but neither of his lovers are there. He takes his boots off and makes his way in. Potya comes to him, meowing pitifully for breakfast. “Sorry, princess,” He tells her as he pours her breakfast out into her bowl. He figures Viktor probably took Tsar out on a walk since the fluff ball hasn’t come to greet him and the apartment is strangely quiet. So he also pours Tsar's breakfast into his bowl, figuring that they won’t be much longer.

He looks around and sees the half-packed luggage on the living room floor. Well, he supposes he was expecting them to leave. His heart stings a little though, as it usually does every time they leave. But it’ll be fine, he’ll be fine for a few days until they come back since he’s sure they won't leave him for a few weeks after Worlds. He hears murmuring from the bedroom and soon Yuuri is coming into view. He’s talking to someone on the phone and he looks as tired as Yuri feels.

“Morning,” He mouthes when Yuuri notices him.

“Good morning,” Yuuri says, his eyes lighting up and he comes up to him and presses a kiss to his forehead. He continues talking in Japanese to whom he assumes is his mom but pretty soon he’s saying his goodbyes.

“What time do you guys leave?” Yuri asks.

Yuuri clears his throat, “Well.” He stops and starts again, “I’m leaving in six hours.”

“And Viktor?”

Yuuri gazes at him for a beat too long and he slowly says, frowning, “Yura. We’re not leaving you alone.”

“But-but you guys are coaches?” He says as if that was a good response.

“I’ll be fine by myself.”

And Yuri stupidly responds, “So will I.”

Yuuri purses his lips. “You’re not staying alone.”

Yuri opens his mouth to respond something quite rude but Viktor chooses that moment to walk into the apartment. Tsar comes bounding up to Yuri and licks his hand, “Good morning, your highness,” He greets, petting his head.

“And good morning to you,” Viktor says, shrugging off his coat.

“Morning,” Yuri mumbles. Tsar gives him one last lick before he leaves in search of food.

“So are you all packed up?” Viktor asks Yuuri as he takes a seat on the other end of the couch.

“Mostly,” Yuuri says, flickering his eyes to Yuri and back to Viktor, “Now I was just about ready to get into an argument with Yura about you staying here.”

Yuri bristles, on edge, because now he’s sure they’re going to lecture him, “You have to go to Worlds.” He says looking at Viktor, “You guys are attached at the hip and if Katsudon shows up by himself people are going ask questions.”

Viktor shrugs, “People are going to be asking questions anyway.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” He says and the older man mutters under his breath I’m the idiot? “You have to go.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You have kids counting on you, you can’t bail out on them to stay with me.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Viktor says in that carefree way of his that has always managed to piss Yuri off, “You forget, little kitten, that we—” He points between himself and Yuuri “—are a team. I don’t have to be there.”

“He’s right, Yura,” Yuuri says, “I’ll take care of everything.”

“But I don’t want you here,” Yuri blurts before he can stop himself.

They both look at him with thinly disguised hurt and Yuri refuses to feel guilty about it. Viktor sighs deeply, “I’m staying. The decision is final.”

And fuck it all, Yuri can feel his hackles rising. “That’s fucking rich. It’s never been an issue before.”

Viktor seems to be losing his patience too because his knee is starting to bounce, “Yes, well that was before.”

“Yeah,” Yuri says between his clenched teeth, “Before what?”

“Before you—” The older man starts but snaps his mouth shut, unable to finish his sentence.

“Before I what?” He cruelly says, “Before I tried to off myself? So it’s different now?”

“Yura—” Yuuri begins.

“You don’t need to treat me like a child.”

“Well you’re certainly acting like it.”

“Oh, fuck you both.” He spits, standing, “I was doing fine before you came, I’m not—I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Is that what you’re calling us now?” Yuuri cuts in before Viktor can say anything, his voice strained, “Your babysitters? Instead of—Oh I don’t know—your boyfriends? That are concerned and love you and just want to be there for you when you’re having a hard time?”

Yuri wants to tear his hair out and tears sting the back of his eyes. This isn’t how he wanted this conversation to go. He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, he can feel their eyes on him, “You’re only doing this because you feel the need to ‘take care of me’” He spits, “But I’m fine. I’ll be here when you both come back, there’s no need to go out of your way for me.”

Viktor shakes his head, looking away from him, “Anyway, Yuuri,” He says, ignoring him, “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Don’t fucking ignore me!” Yuri shouts.

“You’re not staying alone.” Yuuri tells him, his gaze leveled and his voice taking on a hard edge, “Nothing you say will change our decision.”

Yuri feels like screaming because they’re only doing this because they feel guilty, not because they want to stay with him. They’ve never had a problem with leaving him before and now because of this mess they think he can’t handle himself. Through his teeth, he hisses, “I don’t need you. I don’t need either of you.”

He hears Yuuri take in a sharp breath and the words he said finally registers in his head. Regret instantly clings to his heart but he walks away from them and goes into their bedroom. He takes his meds and flops down on the bed, and at some point, he must fall asleep because he only wakes when Yuuri comes into the room to say his goodbye, he kisses his forehead, “I love you.”

Yuri doesn’t answer him and just lets the words hang unresponded in the air. Yuuri doesn’t seem to mind his silence because after a few seconds he continues talking, “I’ll see you next week and I’ll make all your favorite foods. We didn’t really get a chance to celebrate your birthday so we can buy a cake, too. Please don’t kill Viktor while I’m gone.”

He hugs Yuri close and presses a chaste kiss to his lips, “Yurayurayura,” He sighs, his breath hot against Yuri's cheeks, “I love you so much.”

And then he’s gone.

Yuri starts crushing on Yuuri first but by that time Viktor and Yuuri are already halfway through planning their wedding. He’s pretty sure the entire ISU had a crush on Yuuri at some point so he doesn’t think much about it. Besides, he’s had crushes before and they generally went away after he ignored them long enough. Viktor doesn’t really hold his romantic attention—he did, once, before he up and left him—because in Yuri’s mind Viktor is synonymous with abandonment. So no, his puppy love for Viktor had been stomped down the moment Yuri left Japan the first time.

But, you know, he does have eyes and they are very attractive to him. He doubts they even think of him as an adult though, so there’s that nasty sting in his heart that reminds him what a stupid child he is.

They marry the summer of his eighteenth year and he’s happy for them. He really is, it’s not like he thought about acting on his crush anyway. He figures it’ll pass eventually, and it does, mostly. He doesn’t think of them much since he keeps busy. He takes some online college courses because his grandfather insisted he get an education and he’s doing endorsements of multiple sports brands on top of his skating. There’s not much room or time for thinking about crushes in general.

Things change when his grandfather dies and they’re there for him even though he wants to be alone. He had appreciated it though and then he got injured and they had been there with him through the worst of that, too. Even though he griped about it he was sure they were doing it out of some sense of responsibility. (He also knew they did it because they cared—or whatever.) But he didn’t think it was because they liked him. Like that.

So they catch him completely off guard.

“Would you like to have dinner with us?” Yuuri asks one day after he’s done with his evening practice. They had already been in Russia for two months by then and he’s used to their presence at the rink and occasionally going out for dinner.

“Sure, Katsudon,” Yuri answers, taking a seat on the locker room bench and pulling off his skates, quickly making up his mind about what he wants to eat, “I want Italian.”

Yuuri blinks in surprise and then glances nervously at Viktor who’s shifting from one foot to another beside him. He turns back to Yuri, “Oo-oh well, actually, maybe we could—we could cook for you? And then—and then maybe watch a movie?”

Yuri paused, looking up at them, noticing for the first time how...not themselves they were. He raises an eyebrow, “A movie?”

Yuuri nods, his cheeks tinted pink, “Ye-yeah, whatever you want.”

“Well, I can’t stay long I have homework I have to finish.”

They glance between themselves again and Yuri is starting to get irritated at the silent conversation they’re having over his head. Viktor sighs, “I don’t think you get it.”

Yuri scowls, “You’re asking me to come eat with you guys and watch a movie, what’s not to get?”

“The intention,” Viktor says, flatly.

“What intention?”

“A date!” Yuuri exclaims, “Like...a romantic date.”

“You guys wanna have a romantic date with me there?” He asks, wrinkling his nose.

“Yes.” Viktor stresses, “With you. We’re asking you out on a date. With us, together.”

It finally clicks in Yuri’s head and he flushes red, he can feel it down to his chest. For aimless seconds he’s speechless, his mouth opening and closing because he doesn’t know what to respond.

“Wait-wa-wa-wait.” He stutters out, undignified. “You’re asking me out? On a date? Together?”

Yuuri nods and smiles nervously, “Would you like to?”

Would he? He doesn’t fucking know. The last time he was on a date it was a publicity stunt with one of the gymnasts from his gym so it would be established that he was Normal ^TM . And now, here these two married dumbasses were, asking him out on a date to add more fuel to the fire they had set Russia on.

They must notice he’s freaking out because Yuuri takes a seat beside him and lays a hand on his shoulder, “It’s okay, you can say no and we’ll never speak about this.”

“I-Is this like some...kink? Do you guys just...wanna—” He motions with his hands hoping they get what the fuck he’s trying to say even though he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say.

“No, Yura.” Viktor says, calmly, kneeling before him and placing his hand on Yuri’s knee. And oh, fuck they’re both touching and looking at him and Yuri’s face feels like it’s about to set itself on fire. “We’re serious.”

He wants to cover his face with his hands because he just knows his face is making weird expressions. “Could I—Can I just—Can you—” He clicks his mouth shut because he’s blabbering and he doesn’t need to add to his embarrassment. He clears his throat and swallows the knot that’s growing there. “Give me time?”

Viktor gives him a sincere smile and Yuuri squeezes his shoulder and says, “Take as long as you need.”

The time he takes is exactly two days and seventeen hours, give and take some minutes. One day to think about all the cons, another to think about all the pros, and then seventeen hours to just say fuck it all and jump ship. They’re in the locker room again after practice and he asks, casually, “So, about dinner?”

The smiles he got in return are forever recorded in his memory.

He refused to go public though. Even now, it’s a badly kept secret since wayyy too many people know about it. It hasn’t leaked so there’s that. He knows that the people that do know have his back but Yuri’s starting to think that with the way his luck had been lately it was only a matter of time before that too was smeared all over the news.

It’s not that he’s ashamed or wants to keep it a secret but his life is already scrutinized enough as it is. He wanted to keep that aspect of his life private for as long as he can.

Besides, he refused to go public and deal with the aftermath unless this thing they had going on was for the long haul. Not to mention that Viktor and Yuuri had a cult following and their fans would hound him forever if he came in between the perfect golden couple. There’d be no point in dealing with all the hate, death threats, and scorn if this relationship didn’t last more than five years. If they didn’t work out, the one with the short end of the stick would be Yuri. They’d stay married and he’d well—he’d be all alone again.

Despite the fact that people were a little more lenient on same-sex couples the world still wasn’t progressive enough to easily accept their—fucking whatever—threesome? Gross. That sounded like something out of a porno. On top of that, he knows his age is going to be a major component, especially since he’s known Viktor since he was a fucking prepubescent kid. People enjoy regulating other's choices and usually Yuri would say fuck it all and just go for it but this is something he cherishes. This is his first serious, committed relationship and he knows this could be it for him. Sometimes, he sure feels like it is.

Except right now.

“So, I fucked up.” He says as soon as he sits on Dr. Ibraginov’s couch. He managed to sneak into her building without anyone seeing because he just could not bear the online appointments anymore.

“Elaborate,” She says, taking a sip of tea.

“I-I said some nasty things to some people.”

“And?”

“I instantly regretted it. I wasn’t expecting the conversation to go that way.” He rests his elbows on his knees and cradles his face in his hands. “I got defensive and then said things like ‘I don’t need you.’” Oh, he feels like throwing up, “Do you think they believed me?” Then he asks quietly, “Do-do you think—they’ll leave me?”

And fuck. Asking that out loud makes his nipples want to invert.

“Not if you apologize.”

He sighs and tells her about his mom. He just starts monologuing about the moment he came home and she wasn’t there, “Sometimes, I feel like everyone is going to do that.” He confesses, “One moment they’ll be there and the next they won’t. They’ll think I’m a nuisance and just up and leave.” Then he tells Dr. Ibraginov about the brother he has that’s walking around somewhere in Moscow and how he was the one his mother chose. He tells her about how Yuuri was the one Viktor chose. Tells her about how sometimes, with the exception of his grandfather, he can’t help but feel like a second place to everyone who he’s ever loved.

“And I-I just want them to stay with me.”

“Have you told them that?” She asks.

He shakes his head, “All I seem to be good at is pushing them farther away from me.” There are tears running down his cheeks and he wipes them away. “I want to tell them to stay but I—I just can’t.”

His session ends with him going home with the puffiest eyes he’s ever had. When he walks into the apartment Viktor is sitting on the couch, watching something on his tablet. He greets him but Yuri doesn’t answer. That’s how it’s been since Yuuri left, he’s ignored Viktor and refused to speak to him but the older man has taken everything in stride and just gone about his day like its business as usual. Today though, instead of just going to bed like usual, Yuri walks up to him and Viktor worriedly assesses his tear-stained face and his sniffles.

Yuri doesn’t even bother explaining before he’s falling into his arms and hugging him tightly. Victor doesn’t ask anything and just runs his fingers through Yuri’s hair. “It’s okay, my Yurochka.”

He shakes his head because it’s not okay. His anger isn’t an excuse to be an asshole and it’s not fair to Viktor and Yuuri that they keep trying to help him and he doesn’t have the decency to apologize.

“Sorry,” He murmurs into the skin of Viktor’s neck. “Sorry.”

The rest of the afternoon Yuri stays close to Viktor relishing in his warmth and his presence. He lays his head on his lap and Viktor plays with his hair, he wants to tell him about how hurt he’d been when he’d left him, years ago, but Yuri still can’t bring himself to say anything. So he just closes his eyes and lets himself drift off to sleep.

The week Yuuri is away passes slowly, though he does call often, but Yuri can’t wait until he’s home so he can apologize properly. Yuri doesn’t stay in the same room when Viktor is watching Worlds though. He and the ice are still at odds with each other and Yuri doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Soon, Yuuri is home to them and Yuri kisses him and says, “I’m sorry I was an asshole.”

Yuuri smiles, and kisses him back, “You’re already forgiven Yura.”

The following weeks they stay with him, they don’t go out much since things are still a little heated so they spend a lot of time just being...together. They watch movies, cook, play board games...have sex. Lots and lots of sex because they’re both perverts and Yuri refuses to admit that he’s the one with the insatiable libido.

And Viktor has this fucking thing that drives Yuri up a wall. He likes to take videos of him—yeah those types of videos—and it’s him in specific because Yuuri just shrugs unfazed and says he doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with Viktor’s head. He picked up the habit when Yuri let him take one video for them to use when he wasn't with them. But it was only supposed to be one. Viktor has a fucking series now and Yuri wants nothing but to set the man’s laptop on fire.

“Sorry, Yura,” Yuuri says, holding the laptop away from him, “But I like them too.”

“Both of you are fucking perverts.” He grumbles into his pillow.

“Only for you, Yura,” Viktor says, kissing his temple.

He tries to kick him away but Viktor grabs him by the ankle and only laughs at his expense.

He jolts awake, blinking back tears, his heart pounding and scrambling for something to hold on to. The last bits of his dream are fading and he feels like he’s short on air. He has not dreamed of his mother in years.

“Shhh, ssshhh, you’re okay, you’re alright,” He hears someone say as they wipe away his tears with their thumb. His gaze finally seems to focus and Viktor is looking down at him.

He feels the tension drain away from him but he still feels frazzled. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

Viktor shakes his head, “No, I was just about to go walk Tsar.”

He runs his hands through his hair, “I just had a bad dream.”

Viktor looks like he wants to ask about it but instead, he gives him a lopsided smile and just whispers, “Go back to sleep.”

He nods, scooting closer to where Yuuri lays sprawled out. The Japanese man makes a soft noise before he unconsciously wraps his arms around Yuri and pulls him close. Viktor leaves soon after and Yuri mulls.

For the past month, they’ve stayed here, but he knows that this set up won’t last forever. They have responsibilities in Japan so they can’t keep being here. He supposes sooner or later the conversation will come up but in the meantime, he’ll just enjoy being with them.

As it turns out, the solution they come up with is totally impractical and expensive but they refuse to listen to reason and Yuri keeps his mouth shut because he doesn't want a repeat of what happened last time. They’re going to tag-team it, it seems. One of them will stay with Yuri for a month and a half while the other goes to Japan and then they’ll switch.

So the next few months pass in such a fashion. He’s grateful, he can’t deny it, but the arrangement isn’t the best thing for anyone, still, neither Yuuri nor Viktor complain about it. Otabek comes to visit for a few days and they go out with Mila and have fun doing stupid shit like taking pictures with the statues at Alexander Park. He spends time with Lilia and Yakov trying to repair the fracture he created in their relationship.

He’s been dancing with Irina a lot too and he’s gone to see her and Sasha at dance competitions. They still argue about the books they’re reading for class but they’ve managed to form something resembling a friendship. He even went with them to see the Moiseyev Ballet a few times and as a fellow student of ballet and ice skater, it fuels his competitive spirit watching the dancers just kill it during their performances.

He goes as far as posting on Instagram for the first time since his video leak. It’s a compilation of videos of Sasha, Irina, and him trying to master the Kalmyk dance. He captions it, Gonna learn how to folk dance even if I break my ankles. Can’t let @withloveteleshova win since we’re on even ground with on this.

He gets a lot of likes and comments but he refuses to go through them. But little by little he starts posting more and more, on his story mostly.

The media asks a lot of questions to Viktor and Yuuri about their strange arrangement. They smile and say that they’re going through some adjustments with their skaters. They also ask them about Yuri, how is he? When is he skating again? What are his plans for the future?

But the response is always the same, We’re not making any comments at this time.

Yeah, because Yuri hasn’t stepped on the ice for literal months now. Viktor and Yuuri notice but he tells them he’s just enjoying his break. He’s talked to them about his depression but his abandonment issues and his problems with the ice still remain undisclosed. They mostly leave it alone since he’s still keeping up with his training and his routines...just not on the ice...

It’s May now and he knows that pretty soon he’s going to have to come clean about his problem. And honestly, he does kinda miss ice skating. Just a little bit. Like, a grain of salt little but that’s something right?

Dr. Ibraginov had told him the reason he reacted so badly to the ice was probably because he subconsciously related it to his suicide attempt. He’d made the ice the center of all his problems and his body reacted in panic since he associated the ice with dying. She says he should try building up his tolerance little by little when he mentions that he’s been thinking about skating again.

He starts by doing something simple, watching videos on YouTube. Not his though, because yuck. It’s still not the time. He starts with Yuuri’s infamous video and it’s okay, it’s good. He’s not losing his shit and he can even see what Viktor saw years ago so that’s a plus. So he watches all of Yuuri’s performances and then Viktor’s, Otabek’s, Mila’s, Georgi’s, Minami’s, he even watches one or two of fucking JJ’s. (He’ll never admit it to that bastard though.)

By the end of it, he’s feeling pretty alright. His stomach doesn’t feel like it wants to regurgitate every single thing it’s ever eaten so, an improvement. So on a day when he knows Viktor will be substituting for Yakov at the rink, he stops by. He stands outside the Yubileyny looking at it with disdain, his skin is already starting to feel itchy. But it’s fine.

Yuri walks in all fake bravado, trying to contain the contents in his stomach where they fucking belong. He has his hood pulled on over his head and hopes no one focuses too much on him. He lingers at the top of the stands for a few minutes, just watching the skaters and feeling the crawling on his skin get a little more uncomfortable. After a while, he slowly descends the steps, glad that no one is paying attention to him still. He takes a seat and watches as Viktor instructs one of the girls to lift her leg higher for her Beillmann spin. Unconsciously, his leg starts bouncing.

Finally, Viktor notices him. His eyes light up in surprise and he calls for a break as he skates out of the rink and puts on his skate guards. The kids disperse, glad to have a moment free. Viktor smiles at him, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

Yuri shrugs, not opening his mouth because he feels the acid stirring inside him. He’s bouncing both his legs nervously now and Viktor raises an eyebrow, “Are you okay?”

The crawling on his skin has gotten unbearable, he’s really going to throw up. Shit, shit, shit.

“I-I’m going!” He exclaims and presses his hand to his mouth as he literally takes off running because he’s going to be sick. He doesn’t pay attention to Viktor’s expression of surprise and quickly makes his way to the restrooms. He barely makes it to the stall before he spills bile into the toilet. “For fucks sake.” He murmurs when he’s finally done, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yuri,” Viktor says, and Yuri jumps because he wasn’t expecting him to be there. But of course, that was his dumb thinking. “What happened?”

“I can’t skate,” He whispers, confessing his secret, “I can’t.”

“What?”

“Viktor can’t you see? I can’t—fuck—Viktor, I can’t skate.”

“But what does this have to do with skating?”

He pulls down the collar of his shirt, showing the older man the angry red blotches on his skin, “I haven’t—I didn’t even step on the rink and yet I—I fucking broke out into hives. I wasn't even in there for five minutes before I—shit.”

“Bu-but why?”

“I relate the ice to fucking dying. Can you believe it?”

Viktor seems to be trying to wrap his head around the information that he’s receiving. He opens and closes his mouth and Yuri would think it’s funny if it wasn’t for the fact that he feels like crying. “Yura,” Viktor finally says, “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yes it fucking is. I shouldn’t be reacting like I’m going into anaphylactic shock just because I decided to go to a rink. It’s degrading,” He says, his voice trembling, “to every skater that can’t skate because of something serious. It’s degrading to you, both of you. I’m fine and yet I can’t—I can’t fucking do it.”

Viktor scoffs, “You’re being stupid.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are. You’re not Yuuri or me. The reasons we can’t skate like we used to are our own, just like your reasons are your own.”

“But-but I—”

Viktor’s voice softens, “Don’t compare yourself to us. We haven’t gone through what you’ve gone through, I don’t understand much of what’s happening to you, but,” He reaches over and takes his hand, “We would never look down on you because of this. And we would never look down on you if you ever decided to never step foot on the ice again. We love you and we only want to see you happy. Nothing else matters.”

Yuri chokes in a sob and Viktor pats his head, “Come on, let's get you cleaned up and then you can go home.”

So now that that’s out, another weight lifts itself off Yuri’s shoulders. He tells Viktor and Yuuri the things Dr. Ibraginov had told him and he tells them about his efforts to desensitize himself from the ice. They nod, not fully comprehending his situation but promising to help him nonetheless.

In June he goes with them to Japan and enjoys Hasetsu to the fullest. He eats whatever is offered to him, not bothering to count calories or keep a strict eating regimen. He visits the castles and hikes all three mountains, he goes to the parks and the only companion he has is Tsar since Yuuri and Viktor are busy. But it’s great because he really does enjoy the self-discovery journey—or whatever the fuck. He doesn’t post anything on social media though, because he doesn’t want people to know he’s there. At night, when he makes it back to Yuuri’s family home he takes long soaks in the hot springs and it’s almost enough to make him forget how terrible this year has been.

One morning, he wakes up and feels something he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

He wants to skate.

He doesn’t know how well it’s going to go over since he still can’t last more than fifteen minutes in the stands before he feels himself want to scratch his skin off. But he wants to try anyway.

“Katsudon,” Yuri murmurs in his ear, “Wake up.”

“Uhh?” The Japanese man mumbles, blinking his eyes open and squinting, “What?”

“Let’s go skating.”

It takes a moment for Yuuri to process the request but when he does he blinks at Yuri, wide awake. “Please,” Yuri shyly requests.

Yuuri blinks faster but says, “Okay.”

They sneak out of the apartment quietly, making sure to not wake up Viktor, and Yuri feels nervous energy strumming through his body. He’s glad Yuuri is trusted enough now that Yuuko has given him a spare key to the rink since that’s where they coached. They make it there soon after and as Yuri laces up the borrowed sakes he feels a wave of nausea come over him but he doesn't let it deter him.

He takes in a deep, steadying breath and steps on the ice. It’s been months, but this has always come naturally to him, so he glides on the ice and he swears he could cry. He smiles instead because—because he has missed the ice. He has missed his first love. He’s too focused on skating that he doesn’t notice Yuuri looking at him with tears in his eyes.

He only skates five minutes. That’s about all he can take before his stomach is rolling nastily but Yuri doesn’t feel frustrated this is—this is progress.

“Katsudon!” He exclaims as if he had just won another Olympic medal, “I did it!”

“Yeah,” He says, hugging him, “You did.”

“Maybe—maybe we can come tomorrow?”

“Yeah, we’ll come as many times as you want.”

Classes are about to pick up again in August so Yuri has to return to Russia, Yuuri comes with him this time and things are quite on an uphill climb for him. It only makes sense that fate throws him a tripping stone because that’s just how the universe works.

He hasn’t been back for more than a week when one of the lawyers from the FFKR calls him into their office. Yuuri doesn't go with him since he figures that it’s something in regards to the video leak. When he gets to the office though he’s not expecting to meet with anyone else but a woman is there, she’s dressed in a suit and she greets him with a hesitant smile.

“Hello, my name is Tatiana Kunitskaya. I’m a caseworker for the Krasnogorsk orphanage.”

Yuri stares at her blankly completely confused, “How can I help you?”

“Right, well,” She begins, clearing her throat, “We’ve actually been looking for your grandfather but we recently learned he had passed away a few years ago. But then we found out about you and I tried contacting you but the situation was a little, ah, complicated.” She digs around her purse for something, she pulls out a paper and hands it to him.

“You see, about a year ago a child was dropped off at our orphanage and we were looking for any close relatives he might have.”

Yuri’s ears are ringing. The paper was a photo. A photo of a kid that he remembers only vaguely from a picture he was never even supposed to see. The boy looks no older than ten years old, his face solemn, and his eyes the same vibrant green as his and his grandfather’s. And now that the boy is older he can see the similarities even more clearly, like the delicate curve of his jaw and thin neck, the shape of his eyes, and the rosy color of his cheeks. It’s like looking at a fucking picture of himself and Yuri feels his knees weakening.

“I know this must come as a shock—”

“Where is she?” He interrupts.

“Your mother—”

“Don’t call her that. That woman doesn’t have one maternal bone in her fucking body.”

“We have no idea. There’s reason to believe she left the country.”

For a long moment, he just stands in the middle of the office, just trying to somehow—understand?

What the fuck is he supposed to now?

Chapter Text

The world breaks everyone

and afterward, some are strong

at the broken places

— Ernst Hemingway

Loneliness is a thing Yuri is intimately familiar with.

Most people don’t notice since he does a stellar job at stuffing all his unwanted emotions into a box. But the box had gotten way too full, though. He’d stuffed it with all his hurt, all his agony, and all his heartbreak that he hadn’t noticed that the box was getting too jam-packed and it had started cracking. Still, even though the box wasn’t as functional as before, it still kept the worst of his...short comings still in its confines. For a while, this is something he can live with.

Unfortunately for him, the box breaks open completely when he least expects it and everything spills into the biggest disaster of Yuri’s life.   

When Yuri woke up on the morning of December thirteenth, the world looked as dull and muted as it had looked for the last year. It had been quite early, maybe six or seven o’clock, and he sat out on the balcony of the hotel room feeling his breath crystalize and watching the sun rise. The morning had been quite cold and the tips of his fingers had turned red almost instantly but Yuri hadn’t felt it. There wasn’t much he felt in those moments. In the distance, he could see the white mountain tops and the entire little town was covered in last night’s snowfall. It was quite a beautiful sight and Yuri thought that it wasn’t a bad view to die to.

He’s not sure how much time passed as he held the bottle of pills tightly in his hand, he just sat there, looking out into the distance, waiting—waiting for something but not knowing what. The Vicodin pills would do the job quite well, he assumed, since the last time he took hard pain killers was more than three years ago when he injured his ankle.

He just wanted—well. He doesn’t know what he wanted. To stop feeling like he was perpetually submerged underwater, maybe. He felt like he was in a lake with a thick layer of ice preventing him from breathing. What was the point of living if he couldn’t…feel? How could he fill this emptiness inside him that tormented his every waking moment? Did it matter? Should it matter?

At the time, Yuri didn’t think so.

When the cold had settled deeply into his bones he finally went inside, closing the veranda door behind him. The hotel room was warm—almost unbearably so. He flopped down on the bed, face-up, and thought about finding—relief?

It’s hard to remember now, it’s like watching himself do something without really understanding what he was doing, like an out-of-body experience. It had been a little bit like ice skating. When he was on the ice, he didn’t think about the movements his body was making, he just did it. It looked beautiful afterward, but in those moments when he was performing—delivering part of his soul to the world—he wasn’t thinking.

He wasn’t thinking then, too.

He doesn’t even remember how many pills he took, all he remembers is one moment looking up at the ceiling and then everything slowly fading to black. It had all seem so final, in those last moments when he was losing consciousness. He’d close his eyes and they would never open again. But—but.

But Yuri had lived.

The box and its contents laid out in complete chaos after that day and he could no longer ignore the weight of their burden. It’s actually taxing going through the box because he has to face all the things he’d been avoiding for years, all the fucking baggage that had been weighing him down. However, it’s not easy.

The biggest, most annoying, most debilitating, and prevailing dilemma is the loneliness. The intense feeling of there is no one here but me. It begins, as the majority of his issues tend to, with his mother. It begins when he’s in that apartment for two days, alone, waiting and waiting. It’s in that apartment that he first understands and becomes intimately familiar with loneliness. He understands the stillness and void a place has when it has no human inhabitants. He understands what it’s like being in a room devoid of the warmth it once had. He feels the shadows twist around him and leaving strings behind.

It’s reinforced when he has to live away from his grandfather when he starts training with Yakov. He doesn’t notice it then, since he’s busy trying to get better, trying to make his dreams come true. But the loneliness is there, after practice when he doesn’t have friends to speak to, it’s there after dinner when he’s alone in his room, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. It’s there, silently eating away at him without his consent, without his notice.

It sharply stings when he’s on the plane back to Russia after the whole fiasco with Viktor. But his frustration is bigger than the feeling of the hollowness that’s growing in his heart. So he stuffs the ugly feeling in the box, where it’s supposed to belong. Where it stays for years.

For some time, the loneliness is there but he can deal with it.

But when his grandfather dies, the loneliness comes back to haunt him with a vengeance. Nothing can make a person feel lonelier than realizing that the last person they considered family was gone. The loneliness follows him everywhere from that moment on, it hangs off him like a ghost. It settles into the crevices of his bones.

But he’s good at pretending, he’s good at sneering at his pain and using it to fuel his ambition. So the loneliness becomes just another tool to use. Just like his anger or his frustration. For a while, it works quite well, just like all his other negative emotions.

But then Viktor and Yuuri come into his life and the loneliness recedes, just a little bit. But as he watches them leave over and over and over again the loneliness just keeps growing and growing in him, and the ghost is suddenly taking possession of him.  It comes to a point where he can’t see past it. And it drains him, breaks him, and weakens him.The strings catch against a void and he’s nothing more than a walking puppet. And like a puppet, he brings the pills to his mouth and he swallows them because that’s what his loneliness is telling him to do.

Yuri is not a drinker. He doesn’t like the feeling of losing control and he especially does not like the way he feels the morning after. And he’s seen first hand what alcohol can do to a person as level headed as Yuuri. He drinks in social situations, sure, but he does not, in general, get drunk.

But today—today is a fucking special day.

He pours Viktor’s precious vintage Kauffman Vodka Yakov gave him years ago into a shot glass and downs it all in one go. He pours another, and another, and another, and another. For a moment there he actually loses track. There are a variety of reasons he really should not be drinking but Yuri is beyond caring at this point. He doesn’t want to feel anything, he just wants a moment of relief. He’s not sure how much time passes but the world is starting to look a little fuzzy around the edges and he’s starting to see the comical absurdity of the situation.

He hears the door of the apartment open and soon Yuuri is making his way inside.

“Kaaatsuuudooonnnn,” The blond sing-songs, swaying from side to side, raising his hand and waving him over, “You-you’re back! Hurray!”

“Yura?” Yuuri asks worriedly when he notices Yuri sitting on the floor of the living room and the vodka on the coffee table, “Are you...drunk?”

“Y-Yeah,” He hiccups. He tries pouring more vodka to the shot glass but his hands aren’t cooperating very well and he spills most of it but the shot glass is half full now, so it doesn’t really matter. He giggles.

“Yura, what are you doing?” The Japanese man incredulously says when he notices just what vodka Yuri is drinking and spilling all over the place.

“H-here.” Yuri says, “You have to drink—drink with me. Today is a day for celebration.” He tries standing up, only to trip over his feet and drop the glass and its contents. “Oh no!” He whines pitifully, pouting, and bringing his hands up to his face in surprise, “I dropped it! But—it’s—I’ll pour you more.”

“Yura, no,” Yuuri says, dropping to his knees and holding Yuri by the shoulders. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“But—but we—we have to celebrate!”

“Celebrate what?”

“That it wasn’t me! Katsudon! That I wasn’t the problem!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, look,” He excitedly chippers as he pulls out the photo the caseworker had given him earlier that day, “Look! Another Little Yura!”

Yuuri takes the picture from Yuri’s hand and probably sees what Yuri saw, a sullen boy with green eyes and dark hair. “His name is Ilya, he’s my little brother,” He proudly states, “And that woman abandoned him, just like she abandoned me.”

“Y-Yuri,” His partner asks, confused, “What do you—what do you mean abandoned?”

“Left behind? Discarded? Uhh—Unwanted? Thrown away?”

Yuuri’s eyes widen and he whispers, “What?”

“Oh! That’s right! I never told you! Well you see Katsudon,” He says, bringing Yuuri close and conspiratorially whispering in his ear, “Little Yura was left to die in an apartment when he was little but it turns out, that he wasn’t the only one! So that means! That it wasn’t Little Yura’s fault! It was that woman!”

There are tears starting to gather in Yuuri’s eyes and Yuri feels a little sad, “No, no, don’t cry! Don’t you see! It’s a cause for celebration!”

“No-no, Yuri, it’s not!” He chokes out.

The feeling of sadness is suddenly replaced by frustration, “Yes it is Katsudon!” He wonders how he can make him understand. “I thought the problem was me. My mom left me, Viktor left me, so I thought—oh, there must something wrong with me!” His voice cracks pitifully, “I’m the one that’s somehow in the wrong so I—so I should break myself and—and become the best—to prove to everyone that I am worth more than being abandoned.  I spent—I spent so many years trying to—trying to fucking convince myself that I deserved a fucking shred of affection.”

He feels the frustration giving away to anger but Yuri can’t seem to be able to stop it, “I deserve love. I know I do! I always thought: I deserve it, because look at all the things I can do!” He’s crying now, his face crumpling, “Look how amazing I can skate! Look how pretty I can look hanging off your arm—look—look at all I can offer you if you love me. Look at the—all the fucking perks you get for taking the time to show me affection.”

There are tears running down Yuuri’s cheeks and he’s looking at Yuri as is if he’s never seen him before. The blond pauses in his tirade and blinks away the tears and he wonders if maybe he said something he shouldn’t have. Suddenly he’s very worried, “Are you mad?” He tries to wipe Yuuri’s tears away but he pushes his hands away, “I-I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to upset you. I—I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“I’m not—I’m not mad.”

An intense feeling of foreboding lodges itself in Yuri’s chest and he tries to kiss him but Yuuri turns his face away and Yuri’s heart drops, “You are mad. Katsudon, don’t be mad. Please.”

Yuuri pulls him close and kisses his forehead, “I’m not mad.” He leans against the couch and holds Yuri between his arms.

“I’ll be good, I promise!” Yuri says, his cheek squished against Yuuri’s sweater, “I won’t complain even if I’m dying and I won’t ask for anything you’re not willing to give me. I promise I’m not more trouble than I’m worth.” Yuuri shudders against him, and he cries harder, sobbing into Yuri’s hair.

“Don’t say that, please, please.”

“But—but—”

“Shhhh, it’s okay Yura. It’s okay.” Yuuri pulls away to pepper his face with kisses, “It’s okay.” Then he hugs him again and holds Yuri until the blond's head is lolling against his shoulder. Yuri feels like life itself has been drained out of him.

He’s feeling sleepy now so he mutters, “I wanna go to bed.”

“Okay, let's go to bed.”

Yuri wakes up with the worst headache he’s ever had.

“I’m not drinking again.” He tells himself as the light of the morning makes his retinas want to sizzle out of existence. He buries his face under the pillows and tries to go back to sleep, but the memories from the day before slam into him in the next millisecond and he thinks, Fuck my life.

Fucking perfect. Just—peachy. Holy shit, can Yuri not ever catch a break? He supposes that being in a perpetual state of self-sabotage is just his default now. Well, maybe not. Dr. Ibraginov did warn him that alcohol and antidepressants did not tend to mix well. So he guesses this one was on him.

Oh man, he wonders if Yuuri called Viktor and then thinks, of course he did. He even goes as far as to bet one of his Olympic medals that he would be flying in, too. 

Well, time to face the music and all its blaring horns.

He gets up from bed, holding his head in his hands because it still hurts like a bitch. On the nightstand, Yuuri had thoughtfully left him water and aspirin. He feels kinda bad for him, he unloaded a lot last night...like a whole fucking lot. Yuuri probably didn’t even sleep last night because he was too busy feeling guilty about something he shouldn’t be feeling guilty of. The worst of it is that even if Yuri apologized, Yuuri will still hold it close to his heart. He is such a fuck up.

He brushes his teeth and while he looks in the mirror he can only see a fuck up, he can barely stand to look at himself. He is never drinking again, really. He checks his phone and there’s a missed call from Ilya’s caseworker and he gives her a call back.

“I’m sorry if I called too early,” She says after she greets him, “I just wanted to set up a meeting with you to talk more about the situation.”

“I’s no problem,” He says, and hates the way he slurs, he clears his throat, “And, uh, sure. When would you like to meet?”

“Can we meet today?”

“Today? Uhh,” He does a quick mental check to see if there’s anything important he needs to do today. He doesn’t. And even if he did, this is more important than anything right now, even his own mess, “Yeah, today’s a good day. What time?”

“Around three?”

“Yes, that sounds good to me.” He takes a seat on the bed, and runs a hand through his hair, “Do you have somewhere you want to meet in specific?”

“Actually, since it is a private matter, I was going to ask you if there was anywhere where you would feel comfortable meeting. I know that even now there are a lot of people...interested in you.” He cringes, because yeah, things had cooled down considerably since the video leak but there were still those persistent individuals that followed him if he wasn’t careful.

“Well, I can meet you...at the rink I train at?” Used to train at, are the correct words but the logistics are abysmal. “I can text you the address.”

“Perfect. I’ll be waiting.”

He hangs up and immediately texts her the address. He sighs deeply.

“Who was that?” Yuuri asks, and the blond jumps because he hadn’t noticed him leaning against the doorway.

Yuri clears his throat, “Caseworker.”

Yuuri nods, his eyes are bloodshot and he’s still in yesterday’s clothes. So he didn’t sleep, like Yuri suspected. “Are we going to talk about it?”

Yuri lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah—yeah we are.”

The older pauses, probably not expecting Yuri to give in so easily. “Do you want to eat first?”

“No,” Yuri says motioning him over, “I’m not hungry.”

The dark-haired man takes a seat beside him on the bed and Yuri doesn’t think about it before he leans his head on his shoulder, his head is still pounding, and maybe he shouldn’t be doing this hungover but he knows he might lose his nerves so it has to be now. “Okay, so, it started when I was seven.” And he tells Yuuri everything. Everything. He tells him about the years that followed, about when he met Viktor, about when he found out about Ilya. He tells him how Viktor leaving affected him and about how he felt afterward. He told him about his jealously and his unfounded fear that everyone he loved would eventually abandon him.

He told him about...that day last December when he woke up and living seemed utterly pointless and worthless. He explains about how lonely he had been feeling for a long, long time and how he hated watching them leave because it always reminded him of his mother. He told him about the ups and downs he’s gone through in the last couple of months and how much happier he’s been now that he’s not alone.

“I keep thinking—that this whole set up is totally impractical for you guys and that I should—I should suck it up, you know, and try to get better so you guys can have it easier. But I—I don’t want—I don’t want to be alone.” He bites his bottom lip, worrying it at the corner, “But things—things have changed. I have to be better now.” Yuri lets out a laugh and his voice cracks as he says, “I’m so tired of everything.”

Yuuri intertwines their fingers together and squeezes his hand. “Thank you for telling me, Yura. Thank you for trusting me.”

Yuri sniffs and he falls against the bed, Yuuri wraps his arms around him and pulls him close. They fall asleep hanging on tightly to each other and Yuri feels some of the unbearable tension leave his shoulders, just as he loses consciousness.

After Yuri gets home from meeting Ilya’s caseworker Viktor is home, he knows because his carryon luggage is sitting against the wall of the hallway. He resists the urge to walk back out and run away. But this talk has been a long time coming, he can’t run away from it anymore.

“He’s on the roof,” Yuuri tells him, when he notices Yuri looking around and not finding him.

“Okay.” He says, psyching himself up, “Okay.”

“It’ll be fine, Yura.”

Yuri is sure it will be, it’s just...nerves.

He finds Viktor looking out at the city skyline. The sun is beginning to set and the lights are beginning to illuminate the city. Surprisingly, or maybe not, Viktor is smoking.

“Since when do you smoke?” Yuri asks, walking up to him.

“Everyone has a vice, Yura.” Viktor says solemnly, letting out a breath of smoke into the night. Yuri wrinkles his nose at the smell.

“Yeah, except yours is shopping, not smoking.”

Viktor shrugs, “Never too late to start.”

Yuri rolls his eyes and snatches the cigarette from his fingers, “It’s never too late to stop either.” He drops it on the floor and kills it. “Stop being an idiot.”

A silence descends between them as they look out to see the last rays of the sun fading. He's sure Yuuri gave him a detailed recounting of all the things he said last night when he had liquid courage running through his veins.

“Sorry I drank your precious vodka,” He mutters, hoping that will make Viktor snap out of whatever trance he'd fallen into.

“That’s the least of my worries,” The silver-haired man says.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Yuri says, finally, “You aren’t responsible for the way I feel.”

Viktor lets out a humorless, self-deprecating laugh. “You might be right about that but you said it too, Yuri. Just because we’re going through stuff doesn’t give us the excuse to act like assholes. I’m responsible for the way I handled the situation, at least.” Viktor grabs his hands and turns him toward him, “So let me apologize for forgetting about the promise I never fulfilled.”

He gives a small smile, “I accept your apology. But...” His smile drops a little, “Don’t make me promises you can’t keep again. I tend to take them to heart.”

The older man cups his cheeks tenderly and says, “Yeah, I won’t.”

He leans down to kiss him and Yuri turns his face away, “You are not kissing me with cigarette breath. That’s disgusting.”

Viktor’s seriousness finally cracks, and he huffs out an amused laugh, “I’ve had dirtier things in my mouth and you didn’t mind then.”

“Fuck you.” He retorts as Viktor kisses his cheek and pulls him into a tender hug.

“Some people,” Yuri says, looking at Dr. Ibraginov’s ceiling, “Should not be allowed to conceive.” He pauses, “Because they’re shits.”

His therapist nods in agreement, “When will you see him?”

The blond clears his throat but still croaks, “The day after tomorrow. I’m flying out to Moscow in the morning.”

“Are you...ready to see him?”

“Not really,” He turns his head to look at her, “But will I ever be ready?”

“I suppose not.” Dr. Ibraginov gives him a once over, “You’re strangely calm about this.”

“Oh, this?” He asks, humorless, motioning to himself, “This is all a facade.” He pauses biting his lip. “Honestly...I don’t know how to feel, to be honest. I spent a long time resenting him because I thought he was....that he was....chosen? And now here we are.” He says. “Should I be relieved she’s just a shit mother and be glad that he’s no different from me? If I think that way, what type of person does that make me?”

Dr. Ibraginov clicks her pen, “Have you talked it over with your boyfriends?”

“Yep, I got drunk and told Yuuri about it and then I had a spectacular breakdown. But I finally talked to him about a lot of stuff and Viktor flew in and we talked and well, here we are now.”

“And how did they react?”

“About as well as you can expect. They were surprised about Ilya since I’d never told them I had a sibling and it’s not like the woman showed up at my grandfather’s funeral so they never got to meet her. As for the rest of it...well, I think they’re upset I didn’t talk to them sooner. But we’re working through it, I have nothing to hide anymore.” He lets out a swoosh of air, “My real concern is how does someone as kind and as loving as my grandfather produce such a shit spawn? How does that even work?”

“I think your moth—” Yuri shoots her a sharp look, Dr. Ibraginov clears her throat, “I mean, I think your grandfather’s daughter might have a lot of issues no one knows about, she might even have psychopathic tendencies or she could just be a terrible human being period. It could be a number of things but we’d never be sure since she’s...gone.”

Yuri hums and then stays silent. There are a lot of things swirling in his head, a lot of thoughts and musings. More than he can deal with all at once. He hadn’t lied when he said this eerie calm is a facade because he feels like a string stretched so thin it might snap in reaction to nothing.

After unloading his tragic backstory to his lover and woken up from their nap, he’d taken a shower, eaten, and then gone to meet with Ilya’s caseworker. She’d given him a summary of the happenings of the last year and it went a little like this: so the kid had been taken to the orphanage February of last year so he’d been there more than a year now, however his case hadn’t been researched up until April of this year since there was a backlog of cases. They had tried contacting Yuri’s grandfather but they were only met with a death certificate.

The case had come to an abrupt halt until they took a look at his grandfather’s emergency contacts and found Yuri there. Then, they looked up Yuri’s old history casework from the time he had been in state custody before his grandfather officially took him in and linked it back to the woman who birthed him.

So here they were, two brothers in the same boat, and a whole chasm of distance between them. The prevailing thought in Yuri’s head is: what the fuck is he supposed to do with a child? He’s no role model and he’s certainly not brotherly material either. It’s not a matter of money, he has enough of that, it’s about the emotional side—the caregiving. Yuri can barely function himself as things are right now and to then be put in charge of the development of someone else is...more than he thinks he can handle.

And the caseworker had said...she had implied that Yuri could also—that he could not take responsibility. He didn’t have to, they could sweep all this under the rug if Yuri said he didn’t want to meet him. He could turn a blind eye to it. He considered it—for a fucking split second he thought about it—but then no. He didn’t want to be like that woman. He didn’t want to stoop to her level, his grandfather wouldn’t have hesitated to take this child in, just like he didn’t hesitate to take Yuri in even though he was struggling with his health and financial stability.

So, no. Yuri would take responsibility. He would not be like that woman.

His life has been turned upside down now though, now it’s not just him he has to consider, he has to think about the kid too. Fuck, Yuri doesn’t know jack shit about child care. He can’t even cook. It’s going to take a while for all the paperwork to be done and then the kid’s life is going to be completely uprooted from Moscow to here. He’s probably going to have to move out.

Because while the apartment they all share is a good fit for them, since they all share a room, with another person it won’t go over too well. Their guest room is stuffed with the endless things they all own. Like Viktor’s coat collection, Yuuri’s endless memorabilia of literally everything and anything, and the books Yuri had inherited from his grandfather not to mention all their costumes and old worn-out skates. He’ll have to tell Viktor and Yuuri about it, look for a good apartment, think about what school to enroll Ilya in.

“Do you...think he’ll need therapy, too?” He asks Dr. Ibraginov, suddenly.

“Oh, I would highly recommend it. I can refer you to a great child psychologist if you’re thinking about it.”

He nods, thinking about himself and all the junk he’s been carrying around for years, “Yeah, he’s definitely going to need it.”

Later that afternoon, when he arrives home, he feels as tired as he felt months ago. For a while, his depression had greatly improved since he was taking his medication and wasn’t alone anymore so he hadn’t felt this tired. These past few days have been emotionally and psychologically exhausting though and his mind is continuously going one hundred miles a second, so his head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton.

“I’m back,” He announces, pulling off his shoes and making his way inside. Viktor and Yuuri are at the breakfast table, looking over papers and they both greet him. Viktor stands from his place and gives him a kiss. Yuuri continues to shuffle papers from one hand to the other.

“How are you holding up?” Viktor asks.

“Ehh, you know,” Yuri says, flopping onto the couch, “It’s a typical day in my life.”

He notices how they exchange glances, and rolls his eyes, “What?”

“Well,” Viktor starts, shifting from one foot to another, “We wanted to talk to you about something.”

Yuri waits and when neither of them continues talking he gripes, “Weeelllll? What is it?”

“Come here, Yura.” Yuuri says from his spot on the table, the papers still laid out before him.

“Ughhh,” He complains, but gets up nonetheless. Viktor follows and takes a seat where he was previously seated. He lets himself drop into the chair and look at what they’re looking at. Its catalogs of—houses?

He looks at them and opens his mouth but Viktor cuts in, “We’ve always wanted to buy a house here and we thought maybe next year but...with the situation the way it is, we thought—why not now?”

They're looking at him expectantly and Yuri—what the fuck is Yuri supposed to say to that? Congratulations?

“Uhh—”

“You know,” Yuuri starts rambling, nervously excited, “Since we probably won’t have enough space here...we thought might as well right? And—and I think Ilya would like his own room, too. And what if he wants a pet? We’d need space and our guest room—yeah, let's not think about that. And—”

Yuri blinks. And then flushes, realization dawning, “Oh. Ohhhh.”

Yuuri pauses. Then squints suspiciously, “What thoughts have you been having?”

The blond clears his throat, looking away, “Well...you know....”

“Yura...” Viktor says warningly and narrowing his eyes.

“Well, I mean—I was thinking—I wasn’t—Errr—”

Yuuri’s face falls, his own realization clicking into place, “You were thinking about...getting your own place?”

“I thought it made sense? You guys are married and—I mean, I know we’re—" He motions between them, “—But Ilya is...not related to that. So I thought—maybe a place of my own would be best.”

“Oh,” Is the only thing Yuuri says, his previous excitement plunging into undisguised disappointment.

A tense silence falls on them.

“Yura,” Viktor begins, “Do you want to live away from us?”

“No but—”

“Do you not think we’re going to last? As a—” He motions between them as Yuri had done.

“Well, no, but—”

“Then what’s the problem?”

There’s a lot of problems, actually. For starters, it wouldn’t be a good thing to bring Ilya into a home that might tear itself apart in a few years. And how would Yuri explain the relationship he has with a married couple? Is that going to affect his already unstable development? What if Ilya got too attached and then when Yuri ultimately fucked this up like he’s prone to do (as told by previous occasions) how would he navigate the separation that he would cause? And what about—

“Stop.” Viktor says, his face serious. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.”

Yuri clenches his jaw.

“Talk to us, Yura,” Yuuri says, softly, “We want to help you.”

His eyes are glazing over in tears and for fucks sake, he tells himself, get a grip.

“Okay,” he says after a moment and the knot in his throat won't get in the way, “Okay so, I have some concerns.” And Yuri tells them about the things he’s been mulling over.

The Krasnogorsk orphanage is a dreary looking building that looks more like a prison rather than a home for children. It gives him...a nasty feeling. This is where he could have ended up if his grandfather hadn’t been there to take him in. It’s a sobering thought.

He’s anxious because today is the first meeting between him and...his brother. (And man, what a fucking weird thing it is to say.) He’s been patiently waiting for close to ten minutes now and that just gives makes his anxiety mount. He didn’t think there could be anything more nerve-wracking than skating on Olympic Ice, yet here he was, so close to shitting bricks.

The door opens and the caseworker comes in, followed by the most sullen-looking child he’s ever seen. He looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but here and same.

“Hello!” She greets, ignoring the tense air, “Here’s our little Ilyukha.”

“Don’t call me that,” The kid snaps, instantly.

The smile on the caseworker's face looks a little strained, “Right well, would you like to take a walk in our gardens...It’ll be better than this stuffy room.”

Yuri nods, his gaze shifting to the kid who’s giving him the stink eye and Yuri can already feel his patience fizzling. What is he getting into? Please don’t let him regret this. Please.

“So you’re the famous skater that tried to kill himself?” Ilya says, as soon as the caseworker has left them in the garden.

“And also your brother,” Yuri murmurs under his breath. This kid was already getting on his nerves.

Ilya shrugs, “I have no family.”

“Sucks to be you,” Yuri challenges, “Since you’re going to be under my custody.”

The kid sighs and looks up at him without flinching, and it reminds Yuri of someone...

“Why are you doing this?” He asks, trying to act like an adult.

“Why not?” He shoots back, and suddenly, as he watches the kid’s cheeks flush in anger, he understands why Viktor had always liked to antagonize him when he was younger.

“I don’t need your pity.”

“Perfect, because this isn’t pity.”

Ilya grumbles, “Then why?”

“Do you want to stay at this shitty orphanage?”

“No, but you’re saying that you’re going to take custody of me and you don’t even know me.”

Yuri’s eyebrows shoot up, maybe he was underestimating this kid. Of course he wouldn’t be a shy, timid child. He’d been stuck in an overcrowded orphanage with adults he didn’t know and kids older than him that probably enjoyed taking advantage of the weaker ones for over a year. He must have grown fangs to survive.

He supposes he could be a little honest, “Because, I want to give you the life I think you deserve.”

Ilya opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and closes it again. He clears his throat. He probably wasn’t expecting such an honest and straightforward answer. “What makes you think I deserve stuff?”

Yuri looks at him in the eye and tells him sincerely, “Everyone deserves stuff.”

And Ilya must see something of himself reflected back because his next words are, “Mom said I deserved to drown. Did she ever tell you that?”

Yuri inhales sharply because yeah, yeah fuck that bitch. “Not that in specific, but she never liked me very much.”

“Mmm,” Ilya hums, “Well, she didn’t like me either.”

“Makes us two peas in a pod.”

“Ugh, do you always make lame jokes?”

Yuri had forgotten for a second there that this was a ten-year-old kid and therefore Yuri was the adult and that automatically made him...lame. This was going to be a pain in the ass.

After the ice breaks between them, Yuri is able to catch glimpses of the type of kid Ilya really is. He’s quick-witted but doesn’t curse and when Yuri offhandedly mentions he has pets he gets this excited look in his eye that he tries to hide by scowling harder. He really is still a kid, Yuri realizes, but he’s glad. Glad that this kid still has a chance at a better life. That he hasn’t been carrying his ghosts for long and that there’s still time to get rid of them.

When their meeting ends Ilya looks up at him and tells him, “You’re alright, I guess.”

Yuri snorts, “Thanks, I guess.”

He leaves, making an appointment to see him again in two days after Ilya gets out of school.

Yuri feels vaguely...okay.

When he gets to the hotel he’s staying at, he gives Yuuri a call.

“Hi, Yura!” He greats, “How did it go?”

“It went well, I think. But he’s a brat.”

Yuuri laughs, “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“How did house hunting go?”

“Oh.” The older man says, “Weeeeelll, did you see the photos I sent you?”

“Yeah, I looked over some of them. They’re alright.”

“I thought so too, but you know Viktor,” His voice raises in pitch in a poor imitation of their older lover, “Oh no, love! This one looks too old! This one doesn’t have south-facing windows! And this one is too small! I don’t like this arch in the doorway! And so on and so forth, it hasn’t even been a day and I’m already tired.”

Yuri snorts because he can hear Viktor whining in the background, “Those are all valid points!”

“Tell him not to stress too much or else he’s gonna lose the rest of his hair.”

Yuuri laughs, “I’ll be sure to pass on the message. Have you had dinner yet?”

“No, I’ll go in a little bit. And you?”

“We’re about to eat right now.”

Yuri looks around the empty hotel room and wishes he was there with them, this is this first time he’s by himself in a while. It’s not as bad, but it’s still not great. 

“Well I’ll leave you to it, I’m gonna go take a bath.”

“Ooooh,” Viktor coos, close to the receiver now, “Send a picture.”

“You’re annoying.”

“Ahhh, it’s okay if you don’t, I have a collection.”

He flushes red, remembering that Viktor does, in fact, have a collection, “Goodnight!”

Yuri hangs up but it’s not long after that the texts start and as he looks through all the emojis he can’t help but laugh. He feels a surge of affection for them, he really does love them and he’s glad they’re the ones who he fell in love with.

During the following week, he meets with Ilya four times, and every day he learns more about the kid and he’s noticed that he didn't smile much. Though he does tend to give little condensing sneers but other than that he didn’t express his amusement easily. Yuri supposes that’s just a thing they’ll have to work on, eventually.

Yuri is finally able to bring Ilya to Saint Petersburg a month after their initial meeting, the paperwork had been finalized and he had full custody now. Ilya’s entire life fits in a small carryon suitcase so Yuri has to take him shopping to furnish his room and his entire wardrobe. The kid hadn’t known what to do when presented with all the options. But it’s good timing because Viktor and Yuuri had found the house of their dreams despite the short notice. When he introduces them, Yuuri can barely keep his excitement in check.

“I’m Yuuri Katsuki,” He introduces himself, “And this is my husband Viktor.”

Ilya looked at him flatly, “I know who you are.”

“We’re—we’re your brother’s roommates.”

And they were roommates, Yuri’s head automatically filled in. And shit, this was so not the time to be thinking in meme.

Ilya looked unimpressed and asked Yuri, “You’re so poor you need roommates?”

“Shut it.” Yuri gritted between his teeth.

The roommate thing had been Yuuri’s idea. They wouldn’t immediately tell Ilya the truth because well—first he just needed to get used to the idea of Viktor and Yuuri together.  He needed to trust them before they came out to him and Yuri doesn't know what types of things the state had fed to him about same-sex couples though he could only assume it wasn’t anything good. They would cross the bridge when they got to it.

Besides, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. The house they’d bought was big and spacious. Furnishing it had been quite the endeavor with three different opinions and styles to take into consideration. It had the master bedroom downstairs and three upstairs bedrooms. One would be Ilya’s, the other would be Yuri’s fake one, and the other one was the guest room. (Or once again, the glorified closet.) The idea was that Yuri would sneak back downstairs once Ilya went to bed. Yuri would deal with sneaking around his own house for the sake of this kid. Let no one say he had not matured.

The house was beautiful with a large garden and patio and despite the fact it was forty minutes away from the rink even Viktor had not found anything to complain about so they knew this was the perfect fit. It was their new home—and Yuri loved it.

With the past month being so busy and Yuri traveling between Moscow and Saint Petersburg every week, he’d gotten behind on his schoolwork once again and he had to play catch up the first couple of weeks of classes. But it was his last semester after years of taking on and off classes and he would finally be able to graduate so he didn’t mind the extra work he’d been putting in. Russian Literature had been his major of choice because his grandfather had been strangely proud of all the literature this country had to offer.

Russian Literature is a gift to the world, he would say as he flipped through his battered up copy of Anna Karenina. Yuri kind of agreed, to be honest.

The thing he quickly realizes, the first few weeks of living together with Ilya, is how hard it actually is to pretend to not love Yuuri and Viktor. He hadn’t noticed just how touchy he was with them until he has to stop. It had never been a problem when they were in public because Yuri detested PDA on principle, but in private Yuri was so much more physically affectionate than he realized.

He can’t lay his head on their lap when he’s tired, he can’t reach for their hand when he wants, he can’t drape himself all over their laps when he wants attention, he can’t kiss them when he wants them to stop talking, he can’t run his hands down their backs in the most suggestive manner, he can’t hug them just because.

It’s annoying.

Even though he touches them at night when he comes back downstairs after making a show of going to bed upstairs, he still misses the liberty he had in the apartment. More than once he’d caught himself just before he brushed his fingers through Viktor’s hair or just before he stole pocky from Yuuri’s mouth.

And maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but Ilya is the most observant little brat Yuri has ever had the displeasure of meeting. He is constantly aware of everything that’s happening around him, always flinching at any sudden movement either of them made. It comes, Ilya’s psychiatrist says, from having to be on the constant lookout for danger so it’s not like Yuri can be an asshole about it.

A few weeks after they move in, Yuuri goes back to Japan and as he leaves he warns Viktor with narrowed eyes, “I won’t be here to stop you so please be a little discreet.”

“I can be discreet,” Viktor says, offended.

“You have no impulse control,” Yuri dryly reminds him.

With Yuuri gone things change a little because Ilya holes himself up more in his room and that gives Viktor and Yuri a little freedom.

Which is why, currently, Viktor has Yuri pressed up against the wall of their bedroom even though its barely three in the afternoon. He has his hand around Yuri’s cock, pumping in an annoyingly slow pace, and he has to press his face against Viktor’s shoulder to keep the noises down.

“Bed, idiot,” Yuri moans as he tries to push him away.

“I don’t know,” Viktor says, almost uncaring, “I kinda want to take you up against the wall.”

Despite the shivers running down his back, Yuri snorts, “No way, dumbass, what if you break your hip or something.”

Viktor makes an offended noise, “I am not that old.”

Yuri manages to somehow muster up enough strength to push him away and Viktor stumbles back. He quickly locks the door behind him and Yuri pushes Viktor until he’s falling back on the bed, “Funny, I never said anything about you being old.”

“You’re the worst,” Viktor said, already crawling back to lean against the headboard and pulling Yuri to straddle his lap.

For the next few moments Yuri is thoroughly distracted by Viktor’s hands, mouth, and the hardness he feels under him. But later, when Viktor has him on his back and is lining himself up with his entrance and Yuri’s leg is thrown over his shoulder the blond can’t help the ridiculous thought from surfacing, and he laughs, “Can you imagine though?”

“Imagine what?” Viktor asks, as he buries himself deep inside him.

Yuri keens a little, his toes curling, and he has to take a moment to adjust to the feeling of being full. Then he breathlessly says, amused, “How would we explain it if you actually broke a hip?”

The older man snickers, graceless, “That’s not really what I want to think about it right now,” He lets out a strained breath as he leans down to cage Yuri’s head between his arms, he rests his forehead against Yuri’s and he asks, softly brushing his lips against his own, “You okay?”

Yuri nods, still smiling, and cups Viktor’s face and kisses him, deeply, “Yeah, yeah. I’m good.”

He’s been going to the studio with less frequency now, but he still tried to go at least twice a week. It’s in one of those days when Irina casually says, ‘’So the school is doing a fundraiser for the art department.”

“That’s nice,” Yuri says, as he deepens his stretch on the barre.

“Yeah, so.”

Yuri pauses, looking up at her, “So?”

“Would you like to participate?”

“Uhh, doing what?”

“Ohh, you know,” She says, looking away from him, “You could participate in a dance competition or model for the photography department or a drawing class or you could skate...”

He stares at her, “Figure skate?”

“Well, the university does have a rink.”

Yuri would like to immediately refuse because he’s well—he’s still not there yet. But—but he’s missing it more and more now.

“When’s the fundraiser?”

“It’s on November 10th.”

He sighs, so a little over a month away, that’s not...bad. But will he be able to step on the ice by then? He’s managed to keep building his tolerance but performing still seems like such a faraway thing, would he be able to do it and not embarrass himself even more?

“Just think about it,” Irina says when she notices his hesitation.

He talks it over with Dr. Ibraginov and she thinks it’s a perfect opportunity to help him get back out there. Since it’s not a competition he won’t have that judgment hanging over his head but people are going to still notice...especially since he hasn’t publicly skated since the Grand Prix and the news of his attempted suicide broke out. But it’s time Yuri took a set out of his comfort zone, it’s time to start moving forward even though all he wanted to do was stay still forever.

Since Irina knows some of the members that are on the planning committee he’s able to talk to them about it. He tells them that he’ll do it but to not put his name on the program, just in case he chickens out last minute and they agree, much to his surprise.

Yuri is given access to the rink in the mornings since he’s going to be participating in the fundraiser. So now it’s just a matter of choosing a program to perform but none of his previous routines seem fitting enough. He visits the rink when he’s scheduled to do so and on the first couple of days he really didn’t get much done. He’d broken out into hives again on the first day there but he hadn’t felt nauseous so it’d been okay.

He doesn’t tell Yuuri and Viktor about the fundraiser, mostly because he wants it to be a surprise but as he flubs his jumps over and over again he thinks maybe it really will be impossible for him. He doesn't remember falling over this much since he first began skating. It’s annoyingly frustrating. It’s not like he’s out of shape since he did keep up with his training regimen outside of the ice, but it’s just...something feels off. And he can’t quite understand what it is.

But he keeps practicing, keeps trying even though he keeps failing because he wanted to do this. He wanted to skate. Little by little, it got easy enough that he could begin doing his routines even with the itch under his skin. Still, he thinks he might need some outside help so he turns to the most unlikely person.

Alexander is as a big a prick about helping him as he is about teaching him how to Latin dance. Because even though he knows next to nothing about figure skating he does know about artistry and the elegance a body is able to express. He knows about emotion.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Sasha tells Yuri after he stops him yet again. “Are you even enjoying yourself?”

That makes Yuri pause, because was he?

Alexander rolls his eyes, “It’s a fundraiser, you don’t have to be...” He motions with his hands, “So serious.”

“But I want to do something good.” He retorts, angry.

Alexander sighs, “I know you do. Listen, you’re a good skater. Actually, you’re brilliant, to be honest. But I noticed that even when you’re dancing you give your best when you’re having fun. It’s like that for everyone, you don’t have to be perfect one hundred percent of the time. Sometimes the most memorable performances are the ones you have the most fun doing.”

It gives Yuri something to think about in the following days.

“You ever been ice skating?” Yuri asks Ilya on one of those days.

Ilya shakes his head, looking up from his homework, “Why?”

“Would you like to?”

He shrugs, as if he didn’t care either way.

So Yuri takes him to the rink on a Saturday morning and Ilya looks at the ice with complete disdain and Yuri feels a little offended that he didn’t instantly love it.

“Do you need help?” He asks as Ilya clings to the boards.

“No,” He peevishly answers, despite the fact that he’d already fallen over five times already.

Yuri rolls his eyes because this kid was really stubborn. “You should ask for help if you need it.”

Ilya looks at him, “Do you?”

Yuri pauses, thinking about it, and then honestly says, “I do now.”

Ilya looks away, and then says, “Dr. Kuznetsov says I should ask for help, too.”

“Maybe you should listen to her,” He tells him and Ilya just shrugs. Dr. Kuznetsov is a woman in her late fifties that looks like she’s everyone’s grandmother. She even gives Ilya baked treats like a grandmother would, every time when he gets out of her office his arms are full of a variety of sweets and Ilya is stingy with them.

He didn’t share with anyone, not even Yuuri, who seemed to be the only person that he actually liked. Though Yuri suspected he only acted civil with Yuuri because he was the only one who could cook Japanese food, he tolerated everyone else. He didn’t like Viktor and it was the funniest thing because Viktor would constantly try to start a conversation with him and the kid would just ignore him. It didn’t help that Viktor would sometimes refer to him as Ilyushen’ka. Ilya always blushed furiously when he did that, looking ready to pop a vein or two.

As for Yuri, he treated Yuri with the same prickliness he’d treated him with since their first meeting. The only ones he actually got along with are Tsar and Potya, he would spend entire afternoons playing with them. He didn’t particularly like Lilia or Yakov either or any of the other people he’d been introduced to. It’s like he thought of everyone as an enemy.

Or at least, that’s the way it seemed. Dr. Kuznetsov had told Yuri that Ilya was actually starting to warm up to them, “He talks about you a lot in our sessions but it’s going to take a while for him to actually express himself honestly.”

The only thing Yuri can do is be patient.

Ilya tries skating forward and slips, again. Yuri has to resist the urge to laugh and Ilya groans, crawling on his knees toward the exit, “I’m gonna go sit down.”

“It’s not hard,” He tells him as he skates beside him.

“Easy for you to say, you’re good at it.”

“I worked hard to be good.”

Ilya finally makes it out of the ice and onto one of the benches. He looks up at Yuri with curious eyes, “So why don’t you skate anymore?”

Yuri raises an eyebrow, “I’m skating right now.”

Ilya rolls his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

“Well,” Yuri says, as he takes a seat beside him on the bench, “I just have to figure somethings out.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence for a few minutes and then Yuri remembers something he’s been wanting to ask for some time now, “Do you have any hobbies?”

Ilya looks at him blankly, “I study.”

Yuri wants to roll his eyes, “Okay, then, is there anything else you’d like to learn how to do?”

“Why?”

“I just want to know.”

Ilya bites his lip, debating in his little head about the pros and cons of telling Yuri something about himself. “I used to play piano.”

“Do you want to keep playing?”

“Why?”

Yuri does roll his eyes this time, “What do you mean why? So I can find a teacher for you maybe? So you can do something you like instead of holing up in your room?”

“I only stay in my room because you and your boyfriends don’t want me there.”

Yuri’s thoughts screech to a halt. And he resists the urge to cringe, “How do you know about that?”

Ilya looks at him with the most unimpressed face, “I’m not stupid.”

Yuri doesn’t know how to respond to that and Ilya is looking more and more sullen by the second, “If I was going to be in the way you shouldn’t have taken me in.”

“You’re not in the way.” Yuri snaps.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Ilya shoots back, his green eyes glassy.

And fuck, Yuri is suddenly realizing all the things he’s done wrong and why Ilya refused to open up. Of course, Ilya would have thought they didn’t want him there if they weren’t being honest with him. He’d been lied to enough in his life and here Yuri was, lying to him more.

“Sorry,” He says, sincerely, looking at him the eye. “I’m sorry. I should have told you from the beginning. But I promise it wasn’t because we think you’re in the way or that we don’t want you there.”

“Why didn’t you?” Ilya sniffs.

“I-I didn’t know how you would react. And I didn’t want to...make you uncomfortable.”

Ilya stubbornly wipes the few stray tears that have managed to slip out of his eyes, “I mean...it’s weird but...all of you are weird so...”

Yuri snorts, “Thanks, I guess.”

Ilya looks as though he wants to smile, but his face crumples as if he was remembering something terrible, “Mom said—she always said I was in the way and she—she left because I—”

And oh. Oh no.

“Listen to me,” Yuri cuts, grabbing Ilya by the shoulders and holding him firmly, “It’s wasn’t your fault. No matter what you think, she didn’t leave because there was something wrong with you.”

“But—but—“

“No. Listen.” Yuri says, his voice trembling, “She left me too and I spent so long thinking it was because I was the problem but it wasn’t my fault. Just like it’s not yours.”

Ilya is crying now and Yuri wonders just how much he needed to hear those words. Yuri pulls him close and lets him cry it out. Because he knows its better to let out rather than keep it all bottled up inside.

“It’s okay,” He tells him, “We’re gonna be okay.”

Ilya hugs him tightly, he clings to him as if he were a lifeline and Yuri realizes that he’s been so deprived of physical touch that this is probably the first hug he’s gotten in years. He brushes his fingers through his hair and murmurs, “I’ll take care of you.” And Ilya cries like the child he is, nodding his head.

Later, when Ilya has managed to calm down some, he gives him a wobbly smile. It’s the first smile that Yuri has seen on his face and even though Ilya’s face is covered in snot and flushed red Yuri can’t help but think he has a very beautiful, innocent smile.

“Let’s try skating again,” Ilya murmurs, wiping his face.

“Alright,” Yuri says, standing up and walking to the ice.

“Y-Yura,” Ilya says and Yuri stops, trying not to seem surprised at the nickname, and turns back to look at him. Ilya’s face at the moment looks like he’s deciding between life and death. But ultimately he shyly says, “Can you...help me?”

“Yeah,” He steps out onto the ice and Ilya comes to stand between the boards, his hands automatically reaching for them.

Yuri takes one of his hands and says, “You’re going to have to let the board go.”

The kid looks terribly frightened for a split second, and it looks like he’s going to pull away but before he can Yuri says, “Trust me.”

His eyes widen—his green, green eyes that remind Yuri so much of himself—but he lets the board go and Yuri is there, to steady him.

The fundraiser is open to the public and it’s like an art festival. There is live music, food, and there’s stalls were students sell their artwork, sculptures, and photography prints. It’s actually quite nice. The main events are a grand concert in the courtyard followed by a dance competition in the morning. In the afternoon, there’s a ballet performance, a fashion show, an auction, a film, and finally, performances in the theatre by anyone who would like to participate.

Yuri will be closing the fundraiser with his performance. It’s going to be an unusual occurrence since it won’t be in the theater as the previous years, but the fundraiser committee had planned it down to the moment the streamers would release from the ceiling of the rink. There’s been nervous excitement between the students that had heard the rumors all day. At exactly five-fifteen the university’s Twitter puts out the announcement, and Yuri retweets it and watches as his fans immediately start spreading the news.

Yuuri, Viktor, and Ilya had come in the afternoon and his kid brother had somehow managed to coerce his lovers into taking him to the rink before the announcement was made. Irina was supposed to save them seats because the stands had begun to fill as soon as the news was out.

After they had come clean to Ilya he’d been much more receptive of their attempts to get closer. He even put up with Viktor’s cutesy nickname with minimal annoyance and grumbling. He’d started piano just three days ago and he seemed much happier. When Yuri had asked how he’d figured the whole thing out Ilya had just hauntingly said, “I’m all-knowing.”

But it turned out that it was just that they were all terrible at being discreet. “I saw you guys kissing,” Ilya finally admitted, “At first I thought you were having an affair with Yuuri but then I saw you kissing Viktor too so...”

Looking back now, he supposes all their concerns about him accepting them had been baseless. Now every time any of them displayed physical affection between them he would just wrinkle his nose and say, “Gross.” But other than that, he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Ilya had grown comfortable enough with them that once he even fell asleep on the couch while they were all watching a movie and had let himself be carried to bed by Viktor after.

So, progress.

Yuri had ultimately decided to throw all his previous routines out the window since none of them felt right to perform. Instead, he’d gone a different route, with Alexander’s help, he’d managed to choreograph a routine that incorporated all the dances he’d been learning this past year. He was going to step out of his comfort zone and deliver the most ridiculous performance he’d ever done. From Samba to Jive, to Swing, to Ballet, to Folk dancing, he was going to blend them into a giant juice of a mess. And he’s going to love every second of it.

But Yuri’s been shitting bricks in the locker room since the announcement was made. Because it’s real. It’s happening. Right now, it’s happening.

On December thirteenth of last year he had wished so, so badly to die. He had wished to stop feeling the hollowness that had been eating him up from the inside out. He had been so close too, so close.

But he lived.

And that’s the thing. He survived.

And suddenly, he’d been fighting against the strings that had been controlling him and he’d wrestled against the ghost that had taken residence in the hollows of his bones. Because he’s done letting the negative emotions take advantage of him, he’s done letting them fuel him, he’s done living his life as a person that only expects the worst. He’s done letting that woman have control over him. He’s done breaking himself to pieces to prove his worth.

He’d painstakingly rearranged the fragments of his soul into something resembling a mosaic. It hadn’t been fun or easy or graceful or beautiful. It’s been him and his ugliness and sorrow and agony and torment and his unrelenting soul. Because yeah, his soul had fractured itself into tiny pieces, it had torn itself apart and it has weakened him but—but it’s because of those fractures and those tears and those weaknesses that he can’t let himself stay underwater anymore. It was time to smash through the ice that had been containing him below the lake. He’s stubborn, always has been, so he’ll be stubborn about this too.

He would live and continue living. Not for anyone else but himself.

So he’s going to skate today.

He’s going to skate for Viktor and Yuuri, the people he loved so intensely sometimes it scared him. He’s going to skate for Lilia and Yakov, the people that were always there for him despite all his attempts to get away from them. He would skate for all the people that ever cared about him without expecting anything in return. He would skate for Ilya, for this kid that was barely beginning to trust him and who would still get frightened when Yuri caught him sneaking snacks up to his room.

But above all, he would skate for seven-year-old Yuri, whose mother abandoned him. He would skate for ten-year-old Yuri who was so in love with the ice he didn’t notice loneliness surrounding him. He would skate for fourteen-year-old Yuri who found out his mother had another child and that she was never coming back for him. He would skate for fifteen-year-old Yuri who won gold in the Grand Prix in the first year of his senior debut.

He would skate for the Yuri that won Olympic gold, for the Yuri that lost his grandfather, for the Yuri that worked so hard that he broke himself in the process. He would skate for the Yuri that sat out on the balcony of a hotel room in the cold, trying to find a reason to keep living and finding none. He would skate for the Yuri that survived. And continued to survive.

This wasn’t a competition, it wasn’t anything official or serious for anyone but Yuri. So he would make sure this performance was the best one he’s ever done. The most memorable and symbolic for himself. Because this performance was for the Yuri’s who’s love for the ice had gone out like a light and for the Yuri he was now. The one that was starting to love ice skating again even though he still got hives. This was the performance that would shape him into the Yuri he would someday be.

Here, right now, he would release himself of all the strings that had been controlling him. And when he came out on the other side he would never look back again.

And let this performance be a statement, too. Let it be a declaration of war to everyone. A warning that he’s coming back for the crown he let them take. Because all though he was no longer skating to be prove his worth, or to be better than Viktor, he still wanted to be better than the Yuri that won using anger and sadness and loneliness as fuel. He wanted to win with nothing weighing him down because he wanted to be better than the Yuri he’d been last year.

“We're ready for you,” Irina says, sometime after. He stands from his spot and follows her out of the changing room into the rink. Before stepping on the ice he takes in a deep breath and as he skates to the center he hears a cacophony of cheers and applause. He looks around and takes in every person that’s there to see him and smiles. An unguarded, bright smile he would have never been caught dead giving in public before. He’d forgotten what it felt like, to be the center of the world's attention.

He catches Viktor’s eyes and he’s looking at him with a soft smile, surprised and proud, and then Yuuri’s, who looks like he’s about to burst into tears, and finally Ilya’s, who’s looking at him with excited expectation.

He thinks about all the things that have happened this year and feels something release itself from inside him, the ghost of loneliness he had trapped between his ribcage and his skin.

He takes his position, feels the world all holding its breath, waiting for Yuri to bear his soul and it’s not as appalling as it had been months ago. The music starts, the strings no longer control him, and so, Yuri lets his soul alight itself in brilliance.

Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul

And sings the tune without  the words

And never stops at all

— Emily Dickinson

EPILOGUE: ONE YEAR LATER

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Yuri mutters as he looks at his watch, “Where the fuck is it?”

He looks from one hall to the other and finally just chooses to go left and he can only hope he’s going down the right direction. He glances at his watch again, he’s already late, shit. Luck must be on his side today because he hears the claps of people and he sighs in relief, he makes his way through the nearest doors into the auditorium.

Ilya is in the middle of his bow and when he looks up he nervously scans the crowd. Yuri can tell the moment Ilya notices him, standing at the back because he gives a little wobbly smile.

And Yuri can only feel relief flooding him that he made it in time as he watches Ilya take a seat before the grand piano. He delicately places his hands on the keys and begins playing. He plays with the same enthusiasm he practices with, that is to say, all heart and passion. The sound he creates is one of happiness and elation and Yuri can’t help but feel proud.

Ilya does a spectacular job, as he usually does in piano competitions, and wins first place. “Congratulations Ilyusha,” Yuri tells him afterward, ruffling his hair, “Who would have thought a brat like you could be this good.”

He slaps his hand away, laughing, “Thanks, ugly.”

Yuri rolls his eyes, “So where would you like for me to take you?”

“Uhhhh, home?”

“What? You don’t wanna go eat?”

“Not really, I’m tired.”

Yuri looks at him suspiciously because Ilya is never too tired to make Yuri buy him expensive food. Especially after a competition. Ilya just shrugs, “What?”

“You’re up to something.”

“No, I’m not, you’re just being dumb.”

Yuri lets it go, mostly because he doesn’t want to argue, he’s been arguing enough this past week but doesn’t stop feeling like his brother is hiding something. Well, maybe it’s just Yuri being weird, it’s a weird date. December thirteen, two years since his suicide attempt. It seems like such a long time ago now but it never slips Yuri’s mind that this could have easily been his two year death anniversary. It doesn’t help that’s his temper has been very, very short as of late.

Once they’re in the car and making their way home Yuri only grows more suspicious because Ilya has been glued to his phone and he keeps texting furiously with someone. He’s about to ask who it is, but his own phone rings.

He looks at the screen and Viktor’s picture is all he sees and he feels anger spike in his gut he shortly snaps. “What do you want?”

“Yurochka,” Viktor says, trying to be sweet, “Are you still mad?”

“Are you still mad?” He mocks, in a whiny voice, “Yes asshole! I’m still mad.”

“I said I was sorry!” Viktor exclaims, “How was I supposed to know the flight was going to be canceled because of the storm?”

“That’s why I fucking told you to come yesterday.”

“We had some things to take care of,” He says.

“Oh, yeah?” Yuri spits, because he knows Viktor’s lying, “Like what?”

“Don’t be like this Yurochka,” The older man deflects, “We’ll be there tomorrow, I promise.”

“Whatever,” Yuri mutters, hanging up on him.

Ilya looks at him like he’s debating whether to keep a straight face or laugh. “Why’re you being so bitter?”

“Because bitter is my state of being.”

It’s not about the flight, it’s not even about Viktor being his usual self and forgetting to inform Yuri about it, hell, it’s not even about the fact that he had waited for them like an idiot at the airport for two hours this morning. It’s about the fact that they’d been lying to him. To his face. Constantly.

It started with Yuuri telling him that he had to go to Japan for a few days because some cousin or the other was sick. Viktor was going with him, for moral support or some shit because that’s what married people do, he’d lectured. But fuck it all because they hadn’t gone to Japan, they’d been in Moscow. The only reason Yuri found out was because someone had sneaked a photo and posted it online.

Yuri had been so furious he’d immediately called them and started cursing their entire existence. “What the fuck are you doing in Moscow?” He remembers shouting at them and they had only scrambled for excuses. But fuck that noise because Yuri hadn’t wanted to hear it and told them to come home immediately or else he was going to go there himself.

But they kept making excuses and Yuri could only make threats since he really couldn’t go to Moscow even if he wanted since Ilya’s competition was today. Yuri hadn’t missed any of his competitions or recitals to date and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to start now. Even though he wanted nothing more than to hop on the first flight to Moscow and punch his lying boyfriends in their stupid faces. He was sure they had realized it too and used it to their advantage.

“I’m sure they have a good reason,” Ilya tells him.

“There’s no good reason to lie to me,” He gripes, looking at him out the corner of his eye, “And make me look like a fucking imbecile.”

The rest of the ride home is tense and Ilya keeps texting with whoever but at this point Yuri doesn’t even care anymore.

Things had been a lot easier since Yuuri and Viktor had permanently moved to Russia at the beginning of June. Their inconvenient arrangement had finally come to an end and Yuri could only feel relieved that it was over. He’s sure they were sick of traveling back and forth constantly. They’d officially taken over for Yakov since he finally decided to retire and Yuri was back to competing.

It all seemed like it was going great up until this whole fiasco started.

When they finally make it home, his anger has faded into a dull annoyance. But just before Yuri is about to unlock the front door Ilya blurts, “Thanks for coming today.”

Yuri pauses, and turns to face him, “I always go.”

Ilya shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “Yeah, but you don’t have to. So thanks. For—for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” Yuri says, a little stupefied.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Ilya presses on, “Because—because I don’t know—where or what I would be doing, without you.” His cheeks are flushed and Yuri can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or the cold, “So I think—I think you deserve the best, too.”

“Thank you,” Yuri responds, sincerely.

Ilya nods, and then says, “You-you can open the door now.”

Yuri raises his eyebrow at the sudden change of his tone. “And you say I’m the one’s that weird.”

Ilya huffs, “Just open the door, it’s freezing out here.”

“Fine,” He pulls the door open, finally, “You’re being so—”

The words die in his throat and his heart jumps up to his throat. Because from the foyer all the way down the hall and disappearing into the living room there is a path lined out in rose petals. Yuri doesn’t know what to think of it. He looks down at Ilya who’s looking up at him with a cheeky smile, “They’re waiting.”

Yuri slips off his shoes and coat as if on autopilot. He steps on the flowers and stops, he doesn’t know what’s going on really or well, he does, or at least—has a vague feeling. “Just go,” Ilya says, pushing him.

Yuri follows the path, his heart pounding, and takes in the scene that’s waiting for him at the end of the path. They’ve rearranged the furniture to give space to the giant heart filled with roses they drew out on the floor, Viktor and Yuuri are standing at the center, smiling at him.

“What is—what?” He asks, baffled.

Yuuri comes up to him, and grabs his hand, pulling him between them. He’s dressed nicely, with his hair out of his eyes, and his glasses missing and Viktor is sharply dressed as ever. He’s not sure what to expect, but nervous excitement is already pooling in his stomach.

“I know you’re confused,” Yuuri starts, “But hear us out, okay?”

“Are you going to apologize for lying to me?”

Yuuri laughs, “Part of it is that.”

Viktor clears his throat and nervously takes his other hand, “Yurochka, we didn’t mean to lie to you, but we’ve been planning this for a while and it had to be today. Because today is…it’s both a good day and a sad day. But we wanted you to remember this day in a more happy light from now on.”

Yuri knows what’s happening for sure know, and yet he still can’t wrap his head around it because—because.

“Since the moment you told us you loved us, we’ve been goners, Yura. I don’t think you’ll ever know how happy we were that you—that you chose us. That you gave us a chance. Yura,” Viktor says, his eyes bright and steady and sincere, “You are worth all the trouble in the world. You are worth more to us than diamonds. You are worth all the flights and sleepless nights we sacrificed last year.”

“You are worth so much to us I can barely put it into words.” Yuri turns to Yuuri and sees that he too is looking at him with nothing but pure love in his eyes, “You are brilliant, funny, and brave. We’ve each known you for a long time and Yuuri and I have seen you rise above and beyond the impossible. You have taught us about love and life and we—we want the world to know that we belong to you and you belong to us.”

Yuri takes in a sharp breath and a funny little noise escapes his throat. “So, Yuri,” Viktor continues and both he and Yuuri both drop to their knee at the same time and Yuuri finishes the question, looking up at him, “Would you marry us?”

He opens up a little velvet box and presents Yuri with two thin rings, diamonds embedded all around. He nods furiously because at the moment that’s all he can seem to be able to do. He’s rewarded with blinding grins. And it’s only when he hears cheering that he realizes that they were not alone. He jumps as he finally looks around their living room and all his closest friends and family are there. Lilia and Yakov are smiling with tears in their eyes, Dr. Ibraginov too is looking at him with a smile on her face. Mila, Irina, Alexander, Giorgi, and some of his current rink mates that he’s grown close to are present too, even Otabek is here, making a riot along with everyone else. Ilya is taking pictures like he knows Yuri will want to watch the entire thing later through his shots.

Viktor and Yuuri stand, each kissing him deeply and murmuring into his ear, “I love you,” as they each slip one of the rings into his finger. The diamonds slot together perfectly against each other, giving the illusion they’re one ring and Yuri realizes they’re actually eternity bands and Yuri is choking around the knot in his throat, but he manages to gasp out, “These aren’t normal engagement rings, idiots.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says, “But we aren’t normal.”

Yuri laughs and can only say, “I love you, too.”

Later, when he’s admiring his rings and is able to properly process the entire events he thinks, What the hell, let me break the internet. There was no reason to hide anymore, no reason to not think this wasn’t going to last. They weren’t leaving him.

So he posts one of the pictures Ilya took on his Instagram. It’s a picture of Yuri giving the camera his biggest smile, standing between Viktor and Yuuri as they kiss his cheeks and he holds up his hand to show off his ring. He captions it, Gonna marry into the dream team of everyone’s wet dreams. Haters can die mad about it.

And in February, Yuri kisses the rings on his finger just before he steps into Olympic Ice, once again, to make history.

THE END