Chapter Text
‘lost in this confusion lies the root of everything’
It starts again when he least expects it.
Viktor is competing in the Sochi Senior Grand Prix Final, has competed in every competition from National to Global since Yuri has known him. Yakov goes with him, Viktors coach and something akin to Yuri’s guardian. He lives with Yakov, he supposes. Yakov cares for him and cooks for him and hires people to choreograph winning programs to winning soundtracks. Yakov is good and careful with what he lets Yuri have and what Yuri does to himself.
He skates in the Junior Division and wins gold which satsisfies him, to whatever extent he can convince himself of. It’s against a bunch of children he tells himself, this is not a representation of who he is. This is barely a win, but it is not a loss. He can look at himself in his mirror tonight and choke down some food at the banquet and count very carefully in his head what he is allowed to have for the rest of the night. Art was made and he cannot stop making art because he has won because who knows when he will be allowed to put down the brush. This is something insignificant, even a pig could win at a junior Grand Prix. But this is something he has worked for.
This is something that Yuri can go home and hold in his hands at night. Curl his knees under his chin and hold against the soft skin of his stomach under where his arms are wrapped around himself. Something to call his own.
He watches Viktor skate, watches him win before it’s even been announced. Viktor Nikiforov is nothing like Yuri Plisetsky. Viktor Nikiforov has never needed anyone to tell him what he is.
It seems almost crude to him at times, to try and contain all that Viktor Nikiforov is to five numbers. Five numbers and one decimal point.
Then again, skating is not everything.
Yuri knows this, has been told this by more people than just Yakov. There will be a time where he is no longer able to skate and when that happens, other skaters tell him that he will be something, even then.
But he is older now, and louder. Angrier. He has always been a bold child, but now there is a bark hiding a feeble bite. It keeps him more alive, keeps him warm and stops his head from swimming and vision from blurring. He is kept in the moment when the dog is growling and there is more glass broken behind his ribs than he can manage to grasp with both his hands.
He rations it now, can feel that he is becoming older and held to higher standards than he possibly knows. There is less being given and less he can afford to feed the dog, regardless of how hard either of them cry.
He feels alive when he is angry and nothing when he is not and Yuri Plisetsky has not known nothing in a long time.
Viktor stands proud on the podium, flanked by Leroy and Giacometti. Yuri burns low inside.
The need to skate on the same ice as Viktor eats him up more than the dog ever could.
The press drag him away after, all sharp teeth and dark eyes and eager to know when the final skate of Viktors career will be. He watches as Viktor looks back at them, eyes vacant and almost bloody after one of the best skates of his life. Yuri knows that look, has taught himself that look in the mirror late at night. He knows that Viktor will continue to skate until there is no ice left for him to physically skate on.
Viktor is an enigma, both on and off the ice. Never saying anything fully, words an eternally twisted truth. Even watching him practice his routine day in and day out, Yuri could not be prepared for the way he performs in competition. Every step is a surprise that leaves the audience hanging off the edge of their seat and Yuri is no better than anyone else who loves art. Yuri wonders which half truth he will tell them tonight.
He watches as Viktor plays nice, laughing along as the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes and he has to force himself to turn away.
The lights in the centre are making his head throb and the reporters voices are driving him absolutely mad and he doesn’t know how long he can go before he brains himself on the linoleum beneath his feet.
Mumbling some excuse to Yakov, he turns and tries to find the bathroom, trying finding peace or quiet or anything in-between.
He turns and turns and stops when he hears choking in the bathroom.
He hears full-stomached sobs coming from a stall right in the corner and he is suddenly much much younger.
He is learning what art truly is, what you are born with and what you work for and what everyone else gets handed on a silver platter and gets to lick the plate clean of. Yuri doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to feel. He hears this sound at least once a week, whenever he fucks up, whenever the world is too much and he needs everything out and gone and quiet again.
Hearing it from outside of his own body feels surreal. His whole existence feels fake, drawn in crayon, forced into three dimensions.
His legs move before he does and before he knows it hes angling his leg just so to smash the door off its hinges. The door rebounds inwards with a sickening crack, somehow still intact and he doesn't fucking know what to do. Doesn't know what to expect when his head stops swimming and his eyes finally focus through the tears in his eyes.
He breathes and focuses and the door unlocks with a hushed ‘sorry’ and the overwhelming presence of someone who would rather be anywhere else.
Yuuri Katsuki is not exactly unknown in skating circles, especially to Yuri. The result of the figure skating world only being so big and the fact that he was up against Viktor tonight. He’s seen Yuuri’s skate, can see the talent and power and art woven into his body that is struggling to break through. It’s like seeing his past self and his future self in one, the failure that he could soon be and Yuri is nauseous at the thought, blood boiling at the mess of a man in front of him. He sees red.
Before he knows it he’s shouting, inches away from Yuuri’s face, screaming about how he’s competing in the senior division next year. He sees red, lips moving without any thought as the words leave his mouth:
‘It’s time for you to fucking retire, I don't think we need two Yuri's in the same breath.’
He walks away and feels Yuuri’s eyes on him, locks eyes with himself in the mirror so he knows what monster Yuuri is seeing. All he can make out in the mirror are sunken cheeks. Sunken cheeks and bloodshot, hollow eyes.
Disgusting.