Chapter Text
Stammi vicino / Stay close to me
Non te ne andare / Don’t go
Ho paura di perderti / I’m afraid of losing you
When Victor first sees the ruined door of the mansion, he thinks that his heart just might stop.
He can tell that the front hall is a mess of blood and gore from his first glance, and he blocks the the remains of the door with a sheet of ice, quickly pivoting on his heel to face Yuri and Otabek. “Victor?” Yuri’s voice quavers with confusion.
“I’ll go in alone,” Victor says. “You two wait out here.”
Otabek stills, clearly knowing what Victor is trying to keep hidden. Yuri’s lips twist into a scowl though, fingers clenching his leopardskin cloak to stave off the cold. “You’re not telling me something,” Yuri says, “I don’t like that. This is my home, and it’s cold, and Papa is-”
Victor tosses his coat towards Yuri without a second thought. Ever since he became the way he is, cold temperatures barely faze him. “If you’re cold, wear that,” he hears himself say. “Just- Yurio, please stay out here.”
“I-” Yuri is interrupted by Otabek’s arm cutting through the air in front of him. The mercenary’s face is downcast, shadowed by grim grief. “What-”
“If...” Otabek bites his lip, staring at the ground like it could offer some form of salvation from this moment, “You don’t...”
“Your father would kill me if he found out that I let you see,” Victor explains for him. Otabek nods stiffly, and Yuri balks at their united front. Comprehension comes over his face like a sunset, and he opens his mouth to speak, but something prompts his jaw to click shut.
“Fine,” the word is spat like an insult. He jabs a finger at Otabek. “But if you take too long, I’m going to send this guy off to see his comrades.”
Victor doesn’t have the time to be amused at Yuri trying to use Otabek as a hostage of sorts, or chide him with Yuuri’s implied wish that Otabek be left alive. So he presses his lips together to offer a wan smile and presses his hand to the ice. It gives way for him, a neat rectangle for him to enter, and reforms the moment he’s through.
The hall is a mess, but he doesn’t have time to register the blood and gore again. Victor scans the wreckage until he traces the carnage up the stairs, into the West Wing. The door is agape. He takes the steps two at a time, his heart in his throat, and-
When he opens the door, he thinks he might vomit his heart out out his mouth. He’s seen worse. He’s inflicted worse. But this is Yuuri, who he cares about. Victor rushes to Yuuri’s side, kneeling on the ground despite the blood and grasping his hand, touching his cheek. “Yuuri,” he breathes. It’s painful to look at Yuuri and the stab-wounds in his abdomen, at the deeply cut leg. His eyes are unseeing, darting everywhere, and his skin is clammy to the touch. Victor can only imagine how painful it is for Yuuri himself, if it already hurts to just look.
“Victor?” Yuuri gasps, his tongue tangling around the syllables in way that drags the ‘tor’ into ‘to-ru’. “Is that you?”
“I’m here,” Victor answers immediately, squeezing Yuuri’s hand. “Yuuri, I’m here.” There is no indication of Yuuri having heard him though, his eyelashes starting to flutter as he struggles to keep his eyes open. “Yuuri, how-”
“Stay close to me,” Yuuri wheezes. The hand that Victor is holding slackens, and Victor can only stare in horror as his throat convulses around the next words. “Don’t go. I’m afraid-”
“Shhh, Yuuri, don’t talk,” Victor pleads, his heart tearing in two at Yuuri’s glassy expression. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere-”
“I’m afraid of losing you,” Yuuri continues like he didn’t hear Victor, his eyes finally falling shut. His cheek under Victor’s hand barely moves now. “It’s... it’s so cold.”
Yuuri’s hand slips from Victor’s grasp, a sudden deadweight. “Yuuri?” Victor pats against Yuuri’s cheek and then seeks for a pulse in his neck. “Yuuri?”
There is no pulse. “YUURI!” the scream tears itself out of Victor’s throat, unbidden, like a vulture tearing free from its cage to go eat a god’s liver. “No, no-”
Yuuri is immortal. Logically, he knows this because of the journals he’s read and the experiences Yuuri has shared with him, on nights which they sat together in front of the fireplace. Victor knows it, but right now all he does right now is bury his face in the hollow of Yuuri’s neck, holding the his body as close to him as possible. He’d read about Yuuri’s dying, but nothing in the world could have prepared him for this. For Yuuri going still in his hands, his body heavily wounded and his pulse gone.
Victor has had other people he’s cared about die in his arms before, but Yuuri is the first one that gave him hope for a new future. Hope for a different life than the wandering one that he’s had for more than four hundred years.
He feels it at first. How can Victor not feel, when he’s clutching Yuuri to his chest like the most precious of existences? He feels the body under him warm slightly, a pulse coming to life under his fingertips. When he lifts his head to look at Yuuri’s body, he regrets it immediately, fixing his gaze on Yuuri’s face instead and the gentle expression that is common on corpses. Victor refuses to watch as Yuuri’s wounds knit close and his leg regrows despite having seen it all happen to himself before.
Anyone who thinks that immortality is a gift is a fool; he knows the bitter truth. Immortality is painful, more of a curse than a blessing.
(Though at least Victor’s immortality and Yuuri’s immortality have both allowed them to meet each other. That, Victor supposes, is one greatly redeeming feature.)
He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Yuuri’s breath first stopped, but he doesn’t care anymore. Not when Yuuri twitches in his arms, his fingers moving first, brushing against Victor’s shirt. His chest rises and falls as he breathes anew, and Victor quietly watches as his beloved comes to life again in his arms.
Yuuri is his beloved, despite the fact that Victor has only known him for little more than a short month. Victor has loved before, both passionately and platonically, so he knows what love feels like. He feels the same towards Yuuri already — a wish to stay by Yuuri’s side no matter what happens. And it matters doubly now, because both of them are immortal. Neither of them, if Yuuri accepts him, would ever again have to fear their loved one aging and leaving through the passage of time.
Because they’re both immortal, and even if Yuuri cannot leave his estate, Victor would be all too happy to stop his wandering life. To finally have a place to call home, and someone that he can love unconditionally.
He hears Yuuri start breathing through his mouth now, and watches with bated breath as Yuuri’s eyes open, irises the same lovely shade of brown as always. “... Victor?” Yuuri whispers.
“It’s me,” Victor replies, transfixed on the million emotions that flit across Yuuri’s face now. “Are... are you okay?”
At this, Yuuri cracks a smile. “As much as someone that came back from the dead can be,” he jokes. Victor is about to pull him into a proper hug when Yuuri seizes up, his eyes going wide. “Wait, if you’re here- where’s Yurochka?!”
Victor winces. Right. He’d left them waiting outside. He can only pray that Otabek is still alive. “He’s okay,” Victor says. “He’s waiting outside the manor right now. I... saw the front hall, and I didn’t think that...” that you wanted him to see this.
Yuuri sags with relief. “Oh,” he sighs, “Thank you.”
“Do you need anything from me?” Victor asks. “Water, or...?”
Yuuri winces. “I... water would be helpful,” his voice is suddenly small, and he pries himself free of Victor grasp. “I need to- I need to activate the cleaning spells, so Yurochka can-” he pushes up from the floor with his arms, but his knees buckle and Victor only just catches him in time before his head impacts the floor.
“I can only imagine how tiring coming back from the dead must be,” Victor does his best not to to let his breath catch on the words and their dreadful implication. “I’ll get you water, okay? And just tell me how to activate the spells so Yurio doesn’t have to see the mess.”
Yuuri looks like he wants to argue with him for a moment, but he softens in Victor’s loose hold. “Okay then,” he says. “Just... can you help me to my bedroom? It’s the door to the right.”
“Of course.” Victor loops his arm under Yuuri’s, keeping him steady as he stands. Yuuri’s steps are small, and Victor ends up supporting most of his weight, but he doesn’t mind. As they shuffle towards Yuuri’s bedroom, the directions to activate the cleansing array are passed to Victor’s ears, as well as mumbles of thanks for Victor’s assistance.
Yuuri’s room is a little cluttered, full of open books and papers and writing desks. In the center though, there is a large bed. The room is dark as Victor doesn’t know where the switch to activate the light runes are, but the moonlight pouring through the window gives plenty of illumination.
Yuuri refuses to lie down on his bed in his state, as his clothes are ruined and blood still sticks to him, so Victor helps him to the adjoined washroom. “I’m good now,” Yuuri says, “Just... do as I told you and let Yurochka in, please.”
“Okay.” Victor leaves without a protest. But as he walks away, he can faintly see Yuuri’s form curl in, and his shoulders shake, hands gripping the stone sink. It’s probably just post-resurrection shakes, he tells himself.
It only takes about a minute for Yuri to get antsy once Victor’s left. The cold doesn’t help, either, and he decides that moving is the best option before he gets frostbite on his feet or something.
He shrugs mentally, makes sure that Victor’s coat is secure, and reaches for the reins of the horses, deciding to head for the stables. The mercenary starts after him. “Where are you going?” Otabek asks.
“I don’t want to leave the horses in the snow,” Yuri deigns to answer. “And besides, the old man didn’t say that I had to stay there and wait, just that I couldn’t go in.” Otabek hesitates, but follows after him. “What are you doing?”
He averts his eyes. “Waiting there alone would be unpleasant.” Yuri gets it though, and holds his tongue as he heads to the stables.
The stables are on the west side of the house, the same side as the kitchen. The kennels and gazebo are on the other side. So when they round the corner, neither of them are prepared for the sight in front of them.
Dogs. The kennel dogs in a group, digging into the snow and the frozen earth all together, a synchronized effort. As Yuri registers the red marring the snow, he hears a retching sound behind him. There is a path behind the dogs, tracking to the kitchen door. A bunch of strange long objects lie to the side of them, piled in a way that’s so neat it’s a little bizarre.
Yuri doesn’t even realize that he’d started walking to them until there’s a hand on his elbow, yanking him back. He spins around to give Otabek a piece of his mind, but the mercenary’s face stops him. Otabek’s gone white as a ghost, like he had just died a little inside. “No,” he whispers, voice shot with stark horror.
No what? Yuri nearly snaps, but then there is a barking, a mass of brown fur pawing at him. He looks down at an unfamiliar poodle, one that looks like Vic. Oh, he realizes, it’s Victor’s dog. Makkachin paws at him more, forcing him and Otabek to go back, herding them away from the scene.
At some point, there’s a scream through the air, something that sounds like Victor’s voice and Papa’s name. At some point, the reins slip from Yuri’s grasp, and the horses give him a reproving look before heading off to the stable themselves. (At some point, a dog peels off from the group to help the horses enter.)
At some point, it clicks — Otabek’s expression, the bloody mess they had just witnessed. The objects had been limbs and torsos and heads; whole bodies torn to pieces by canine teeth for easier burial. He whirls around to Otabek and his pallor face. “Are those-” the words that come out of his throat are strangled with wires of denial.
“They are,” Otabek’s eyes are on the ground, looking anywhere but the human remains. “That’s what happened to the people that attacked your so-called-father.”
Part of Yuri wants to choke on revulsion, deny that Papa could ever do anything to someone like that.
Papa is gentle, nurturing. He taught Yuri his letters, how to read and write and cook and clean. He welcomes everyone to his home and lets every damn stranger that stays longer than three days leave with a piece of his heart.
But- Papa also taught Yuri how to use the rapier to kill, how to dance in a room that was half dance studio and half armory. Papa has lived for a very long time, and how many times has he told Yuri to not go downstairs, or to stay in for the day?
Papa needs to be protected. For the longest time, Yuri had looked at his father’s immortal existence as something to detest, almost pity, because the way that Papa is detached and pushes people away. But now, in the face of his father’s self-defense, the remains of Otabek’s companions, he is forced to swallow the bitter truth.
“I want to protect Papa,” Yuri says, “From travellers like you.”
Otabek stiffens, and his hand drops to where a sword was once sheathed. “My companions and I wanted to live well,” he replies quietly. Wanted, past tense.
Yuri looks up at him, feeling calm settle around him like a second cloak. “I’m sorry for their loss,” he grinds out. “But you hurt Papa badly, so-” he bites off the words and heads back to the front of the house, mind racing through the images of the bodies. The man that had cared for Yuri this whole time was also capable of murder. He’d known that. The dogs that Yuri had grown up playing with and getting food with were capable of things like tearing men apart and disposing of bodies. He hadn’t known that.
The facts are there, but Yuri wars against letting them click. His father had never truly been in physical danger from the mercenaries. Papa has been around for hundreds of years before he met Yuri. Papa is expecting Yuri to leave someday.
He chokes a sob down. Why, then? He can’t help but question. Why did I think he needs me?
After all, he’s pushing me away too. Like the rest.
Even though Yuuri had raised him and calls him his son, his father never really told him everything, did he?
“... Hey, Otabek,” he tries to keep his voice level, pulling his leopardskin (the gift from Papa five years ago) and Victor’s coat (a careless gesture that showed the care the traveller has) tighter, trying to stave off a chill from within rather than the one from the winter air. “Can you... tell me about your companions?”
“Why?”
Yurio forces a smile. “Well, why not?” He walks past the front door, towards the gazebo which he knows will be better to talk in.
Otabek stares at him for a moment, gaze still solemn with sorrow. He casts a look to the side of the mansion where the corpses are being buried, and forces his own smile. “The one I was closest to was Denis,” he begins.
Yuuri feels the cleansing magic wash over the house the same time he washes his face of blood and a layer of dead skin. He hesitates briefly before entering the shower, as it’s cold and the heating stones may take awhile to work sometimes after the house has been cleansed. He can’t greet his son while looking like he’d just resurrected, though, so he strips out of his wrecked clothes and discards them to the side, noting to burn them later.
He steps into the washbasin and presses a stone to start the flow of water raining on top of him, another to heat it up. He closes his eyes under the water, enjoying the sensation of drops running through his hair and down his skin. Just opens up a void in himself to fill everything else with the feeling and the sound of water falling from the ceiling, pouring through his hair and in rivulets down his skin, the noise bouncing around the stone walls.
Yuuri times his breath with the fall of the water, losing himself to it. He stares at nothing in particular other than the bottom of the washbasin as he mechanically reaches for the hair-soap, using a cloth to wash off the evidence of his death and rebirth. Sometimes, his arm twinges, and Yuuri realizes that he’d been holding it in a position for too long, not remembering when he had picked up the washcloth or why, when he still had hair-soap dripping down his neck.
He rubs where his wounds were closed until the skin there is red, as if he could wipe away evidence that he had indeed died and come alive, wipe away the events that had led to him bleeding out. Bile rises in his throat for a moment, and Yuuri gags a little, opening his mouth and letting water fall on his tongue so he could rinse out the taste, spit the feeling out entirely.
Is Yurochka safe? He abruptly wants to ask Victor at that moment, but Victor isn’t here. Unthinkingly, he smashes a stone to cut off the flow of water falling on him, stepping out of the washbasin. He barely has the presence of mind to grab a dry towel on the side, rubbing water from his face so he can see. “Victor-”
He calls the name, but regrets it not a moment later at the sound of his voice echoing around his empty room.
It’s not really empty, he knows. He’s long filled it with things so that the space of it wasn’t so achingly obvious. But it’s devoid of life, still and quiet under the silvery white light that winter nights bring. He steps into his bedroom himself, uncaring of the chill, and looks. He wants to call for Victor again, but the two syllables refuse to come out of his throat, lodged in like a stubborn bit of bone trying to choke him.
Even when Yuuri himself is in his own room, it feels empty. He lets his fingertips skim over the glass top of a writing desk, not a single speck of dust coming off. It’s clinically clean, unchanging and transparent — just like Yuuri himself feels.
Yuuri doesn’t register that he’s on the floor until the fibers of a blue rug tickles his eyelids. He’s facedown, breath short, and he feels like dying again.
Something pulls at his hair — oh, it’s just his own hands. He yanks at the black strands, trying to chase the sensation of pain, a starburst of feeling.
God, everything feels empty. Yuuri’s like the glass on the writing desk, still and unchanging, melted sand that’s been frozen in time. People come and go to write their mark on top of the desk in paper, but it all slides away eventually, tossed into a wastebasket like how memories are thrown into oblivion.
Why did he want to call for Victor? He shouldn’t. It’s a bad idea. Victor should go, like everyone else. Go, maybe take his son with him so that Yuri can finally see the world outside of this unchanging estate. Yuuri manages to free a hand from his hair to clench the rug instead, honing in on the roughness against his fingers.
Everyone should go — they all leave anyway, so why does Yuuri even contemplate asking them to stay, sometimes? Everyone leaves eventually, so Victor and Yuri should go now. The sooner, the better, before he spends more time with them and successfully deludes himself into believing that they all can have a happiness together.
Yuuri reaches for the leg of the writing desk, intent on using it to pull himself upright and tell Victor and Yurochka to leave for good, for forever, to live out their lives in the wide world instead of being chained to him and his estate, but his legs feel paralyzed, knees locked against the carpet.
(Vaguely, he registers a voice calling for him, but it sounds like someone speaking through water, like his ears are clogged with cotton and-)
(Yuuri doesn’t realize that he’d stopped breathing until his vision blacks out and he nearly dies again.)
“Yuuri-” he hears Victor’s voice now that he’s breathing again, even if it’s only in sharp staccato bursts. He hears concern and care and those things are not- they’re impermissible. Yuuri is the master of the house; people aren’t allowed to care — they all end up leaving anyway so what’s the point-
What’s the point?
They all leave anyway.
Asking them to stay is prolonging the inevitable, so he should just drive them away now.
Hands reach for him, and Yuuri allows one last moment of weakness, lets himself enjoy contact with another human being for what will probably be the last time for a couple years. “Yuuri,” the way his name is voiced is shot through with urgency as Victor lifts him up again. His face is creased with worry and he is beautiful in the moonlight. Like a bird that Yuuri cannot cage, and must let go.
“Victor,” Yuuri’s voice sounds foreign to himself.
“Are you okay-”
“Let’s end this.”
“Let’s end this,” Yuuri says, his eyes hard, unmovable granite cliffs. Even though he’s leaning on Victor for support, it suddenly feels like he’s miles away.
Victor feels his breath taken away by those three words, catching on his throat. All he can do is stare at Yuuri, coming to stop. “What are you saying, Yuuri?” he instead asks. “You were on the floor when I came in, are you okay?”
Yuuri withdraws from Victor’s side, spine straightening stiffly, a cold expression like a finely fitted mask coming to rest upon his brow. “You should go,” he repeats, and it’s only out of virtue of many nights pining over Yuuri’s voice that Victor notices the tremor in his voice, an undertone of disquiet. He’s still naked, hair still wet from washing up, and any other situation Victor would have taken the opportunity to relish in his appearance.
It’s a thought that he’s been having recently; if only recent events didn’t hang over their head, everything would be different. Better-different, a sign of him and Yuuri becoming closer. But no, even though he is naked, Yuuri in this moment seems more heavily armed than a knight. “What are you saying?” Victor asks again. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Now leave.” Yuuri turns away and heads for what Victor assumes is the wardrobe.
Victor hesitates, because there is something wrong here. “Yurio is outside,” he informs, “With the survivor of the men who attacked you. I’ll let them in now.”
It aches to turn his back on Yuuri when he’s like this, but he does to leave the room. However, Yuuri’s words stop him in his tracks. “No need,” Yuuri says, devoid of emotion. “He should leave with you.”
Leave. Yuuri keeps saying that word, but Victor doesn’t understand. “Why would we do that?” he can’t help but snap. “Why do you think I should leave? I literally just- you died in my arms not twenty minutes ago, Yuuri! Your son is worried for you, and the soldier has nowhere to go. He’s clearly remorseful, so I don’t see why-”
“I said to leave!” Yuuri whips around from where he had been buttoning up a shirt, the white cloth making him look like some kind of faded specter, more dead than alive. “All three of you should go,” he continues, shoulder squared. “There’s nothing for you here. You are a traveller and have seen the world. Yurochka is young, as has yet to see it. I care not what happens to the soldier, but the point is that there is no future for the three of you here!” His voice is quiet, but builds in intensity until the last word is practically a command. “So go, Victor!”
Nothing makes sense. Victor falters, his hands clenching and unclenching. In the face of Yuuri’s death, his breakdown, and now his demand to leave, he has no idea what to do.
So he... obeys. “If you say so,” Victor whispers, “If that is what you truly want, Lord Katsuki.” He can’t help but relish in the hurt that momentarily flickers across Yuuri face, going as far as bowing before he exits the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
He takes a deep breath to fortify himself, and heads out to let Yuri and Otabek into the house. There are no longer bloodstains and bits of human flesh everywhere in the front hall, and all damage to the furniture had been repaired as well. There was probably a time component to the cleansing spell, getting rid of the evidence and reverting the state of the house to before chaos broke out.
Victor is painfully away of the way his shoes clack against the wood, the only sound accompanying him. He opens the now-repaired front door, praying for Yuri to have not become a murderer while his back was turned.
Yuri and Otabek are nowhere in sight. He frowns, at this, but spots their footsteps. He walks into the snow, tracing the two sets, praying that what’s at the end will not give him something to regret. The cold of the snow barely affects him even though he only has his shirt and scarf and pants on, as right now it feels like his heart is colder.
When he rounds the corner, it feels like his heart has just been stabbed with a sliver of needle. Yuri and Otabek are sitting (well, Yuri is crouching on his chair) at the gazebo he and Yuuri had first met. Their voices are muffled by the snow around them, but from this distance he can tell that their conversation is amicable. There’s a faint red glow around the gazebo as he walks closer — probably fire magic at work to keep the occupants warm.
Victor remembers his first conversation with Yuuri, the carefully cultivated demeanor Yuuri wore. The distance between them that he could have sworn had faded with time, but came back in full force to shove him out of Yuuri’s presence. He shoves the contemplation to the side though, pastes on a smile and pitches his voice to the pair. “Don’t you two want to come in?” he calls.
Otabek immediately falls silent, looking to Yuri for some kind of cue. Yuri says something before getting off the chair and holding out a hand to the mercenary. Victor waits patiently for them to come closer before speaking again. “Well, I’m glad that Yurio didn’t kill you after all, Otabek,” he says.
For a moment, Otabek’s expression shutters, but Yuri makes to kick Victor in the shins. “Have some tact, old man,” he snaps, “Hey Otabek, come on.”
Somehow, they’ve become... friendly, Victor dares to say. Not that Victor doesn’t approve, but he wonders. How easy it was for them to connect, and why Yuuri wants to shut them all out. “Yurio,” Victor starts, “About your father...”
“Papa’s okay, right?” Yuri doesn’t look at Victor. “He’s immortal, after all.”
The answer is so blase that Victor gets a sense of whiplash. He surges forward in the snow, gripping Yuri tightly by the collar. “What do you mean by that?” he hisses. “He’s your father-”
“He was immortal before he was my father!” Yuri snarls, “Let go of me, old man!”
Victor knows now. Something had happened to make Yurio doubt Yuuri in the short twenty minutes he’d left them alone. There would be no help coming from him. “So?” he rebuts, “Yuuri is still your father. What happened to the boy that tried to chase me off as a leopard?”
Yuri’s mouth twists into a bitter smile. “I realized that Papa doesn’t really need me after all.” Victor’s grip slackens at that, startled by the words, and Yuri shakes himself free. “Let’s go, Otabek.”
They enter the house as Victor stands frozen in the snow, and he can tell that they have gone towards the kitchen. He feels so out of his depth right now, lost.
What does he want? Why is he still here? Yuuri had told him to leave.
Victor doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay with Yuuri, immortal together. Happy together. A home, some way to end Victor’s eternal wandering. He’s wanted a home to settle down ever since he became immortal, and with Yuuri, he could possibly have that.
He steels himself, and enters the house again. He doesn’t understand why Yuuri wants him to leave, or why Yuri is suddenly distant, but Victor does know that he wants to understand them.
Up the stairs again, to the West Wing. The door swings open at the lightest touch, and he pauses in front of Yuuri’s bedroom. What do you say to someone who’s pushing you away?
The only solution Victor can think of is to push back until he does understand.
“Yuuri?” he opens the door, seeking the man, and his heart clenches at the sight of a figure huddled on the bed. There’s no response.
Victor keeps his steps as quiet as possible as he approaches, not knowing what he would say if Yuuri told him to leave yet again. It feels like forever, walking to him. “Yuuri,” he tries again.
The form shifts just the slightest. “I thought I told you to go,” Yuuri whispers, voice cracking.
Somehow, that hurts Victor more than Yuuri’s earlier screaming. “Can I touch you?” Victor asks. He sees the hesitation on Yuuri’s face, but there’s a nod, so Victor sits at the edge of the bed, placing his hand on Yuuri’s wrist. It’s comforting, to feel his pulse underneath his fingertips.
“Why are you still here?” Yuuri asks. “You told me the stories of how you travel the world, seeing new places. New people. Someone like you... isn’t it against your nature to stay in one place for so long? If you’re going to leave, you should leave now.”
Victor traces Yuuri’s vein gently with his thumb as he takes in the lifeless words, the chill in the air around them that is not from Victor’s magic. It’s a mental sort of chill. “Why?”
Yuuri says nothing at first, turning his face so that his mouth is muffled by the blankets. “Why are you still here, Victor?” he instead asks again. “Yurochka is still here because I raised him, but even he will leave eventually too. Him, I understand, but not you.”
Yuuri doesn’t understand. It hits Victor like a sack of bricks. I thought it was obvious, that I want to stay here with you. I want to have a home with you. It’s almost like a betrayal, even though he knows logically that Yuuri cannot read his mind — but even then, Victor had thought his actions had been obvious enough to indicate his wish to stay.
“Listen to me, Yuuri,” Victor demands, gently. “Please, look at me.” He touches Yuuri’s shoulder, and the man follows until his posture is upright, legs to the side. “It’s because I care about you.”
Immediately, Yuuri folds into something defensive. “You-”
Victor surges forth, desperate. A final move, like a soldier’s last stand. He folds Yuuri in his arms, hugging him like a lifeline. Don’t push me away, he begs in his heart. “I care about you,” he repeats. “I care, so I want to stay.” Yuuri’s head fits perfectly under Victor’s chin. If only this hug was less of a plea and more of a sign of affection between them.
If only Yuuri could hug him back.
But now is not the time for wistful thinking. “You’ve only been here for a month!” Yuuri points out.
“I grew to care for you in a month,”’ Victor fires back. He wishes he could say that he loves Yuuri, but now is not the time. Not yet. “I care about you, Yuuri.”
“How much?” Yuuri whispers, his doubt so obvious, “How are you so sure?”
Victor smiles with an edge of mourning to his lips, even though Yuuri cannot see when his head is below his like this. “I know my own heart,” he says. When there’s no reply to that, he repeats himself again. “I care about you.” And again. “I care about you.”
“Why do you care so much?” Yuuri finally gasps, breaking free of silence. Victor can feel him shaking, his hands clenching Victor’s shirt in desperation and disbelief, like Yuuri can’t decide to push him away or pull him closer. Victor makes the choice for him, and backs away. It hurts, to take in the sight of the moonlight shining on Yuuri, tears staining his face and his body language screaming with fear. Fear of what?
Fear of intimacy, Victor knows now. Fear of letting someone get too close. “Do I need a reason to care about you?” he answers, and his fingers go up to start undressing himself. Fuck it.
Yuuri gapes through his tears. “What are you doing? I-” he curls in on himself, but his watery eyes are still fixed on Victor. “I’m immortal, Victor! You can’t-! Someday you’ll die, or you’ll want to leave. You’re a traveller, you see the world — you don’t want to be stuck to this mansion with someone that can only chain you down.” He squeezes his eyes shut, and it squeezes Victor’s heart like a vice, that expression. “This isn’t a fairytale which love is the answer! I don’t know if love is enough to free me. God knows I’ve loved before - I love Yuri with all my heart. But it will never be enough, because I’m chained here! There is no point to you caring about me when nothing can come out of it!”
Victor discards his shirt and scarf to the side before crouching on the bed again, the mattress dipping under his weight. He reaches his hand towards Yuuri, praying that the man doesn’t reject his touch, but Yuuri sobs again, a sharp sound that stabs through Victor’s entire being. He touches Yuuri’s cheek, still, and lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding when Yuuri relaxes under his touch. “I don’t care about that,” Victor says. “I never said I wanted to cure you. I just don’t want to leave you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Besides...did you really love them? Fully? Wholly?” Victor continues.
Yuuri’s head shoots up, and there is fire in his eyes now. “You think that I don’t love Yuri?” he snaps, hand moving up to push Victor away-
“No, you do love him.” Yuuri eases, but his eyes burn with confusion now. “But even him, even all the lovers you’ve had romantically.”
“Of course I did!”
Victor chuckles bitterly. “Don’t take me wrong, Yuuri, but how can you have loved them fully if you kept pushing them away, like how you’re pushing me and Yuri away even now?”
“... what?”
He keeps his hand on Yuuri’s cheek, and places his other on Yuuri’s hand, squeezing it lightly. “You fear that they’ll leave you, or that they’ll die before you, so you think it’s better if they leave and pursue happiness elsewhere, right?” Yuuri nods numbly. “You may think it’s selfless, that it’s out of love that you push them away, but...” Victor leans forward, lips brushing against Yuuri’s ear to deliver the final blow, “Isn’t that out of your fear instead?”
Yuuri seizes up, and Victor lunges, wrapping his arms around Yuuri and holding him close. “Please, don’t run.” He’s aware of a fresh wave of tears running down his shoulder. Thankfully, Yuuri doesn’t try to break from Victor’s hold - if he were truly uncomfortable, Victor would have let him go.
“Why are you saying this to me?” Yuuri croaks.
“Didn’t you ask me to stay by your side?”
“I... no? When?” Yuuri asks, puzzled. A pause. “Why are you saying this to me when you’re half-naked?”
He was half dead at the time, Victor remembers morosely. He sighs and releases Yuuri, sitting back. “I wanted to prove something to you.” He closes his eyes. “I’m saying this because I care about you.” I love you, Victor wants to say, but he knows that now is not the time, not when Yuuri looks half-ready to bolt. Not yet.
“I’ll outlive you,” Yuuri hiccups. “I’ll forever look younger than you. You’ll get tired of me.” The fears, once voiced, lose a bit of their power. He’s kept them bottled up for so long, only expressing them to his journals, never to another person. “Someday you’ll regret caring me. So many left because they realized that loving me is not-” he curls up and clutches his chest, as if the words physically hurt to say, “Loving me is a terrible idea.”
Victor smiles, even though he knows Yuuri isn’t looking. “I live for terrible decisions.” Yuuri laughs at that, the one that comes out when he doesn’t find something funny in the least. But there is a hint of a smile on his lips now.
“You are a terrible man. You come into my house and you rummage through my past and true to learn everything about me, even if you turn things upside down in the process...” but there’s not an iota of disgust in his voice. It’s fond, albeit regretful. “I don’t even know if love is the key to breaking my curse, Victor. What if I love and everything stays the same?”
He picks up Yuuri’s hand, the left one this time, and lifts it to his lips, kissing the ring finger. “Like I said, I don’t intend to try and free you of immortality. I have no idea how.” He reiterates his previous sentiment. “And... everything won’t stay the same, Yuuri,” Victor promises, “because you’ll have me.”
Yuuri doesn’t pull his hand from Victor’s grasp, but his words hurt more than that action would have. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m immortal, Victor-”
He pushes his hurt to the side and kisses Yuuri’s hand again, turning it over and pressing his lips to the palm. “As am I.”
“I’ll outli- what?”
“Is this okay?” Otabek asks.
Yuri pauses rummaging through the pantry to level him an exasperated look. “If I didn’t want you here, I would have turned into a leopard and chased you out,” he says with half the usual bite. It’s very late at night, but he doesn’t feel like sleeping, too consumed by recent events to do so. It’s easy to channel his nervous energy into talking with Otabek. Busying himself with scrounging up food for both of them instead of talking to his father.
What would he even say to Papa? “I saw what the dogs did to the intruder,” or, “Why didn’t you tell me?” He doesn’t know what he feels right now, precisely, so he shoves his thoughts related to Papa aside in favour of being decent to someone that’s not Papa for once.
(He should feel guilty for not checking in on Papa right away, even though all the clues point his his father having recently died, but judging by Victor’s lack of presence, it will be okay.)
(At least, he hopes so.)
“Do you want some pirozhki?” Yuri gives up on the pantry and takes out some leftover pirozhki from the cold-box instead.
“Anything is fine.”
Yuri activates the fire in the oven to reheat the food, grabbing cups of water for them both while he waits for it. The water is ice-cold, but he doesn’t care. “What are you going to do now?” Without your comrades, Yuri means. He knows Otabek gets his point, though.
Otabek hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I originally meant to find service with Lord Leroy when I went to deliver the message, find employment in Cendey maybe. Now, I don’t know.”
“You can stay here for a bit,” Yuri offers without forethought. “We have a lot of guest rooms.” Then he winces, remembering the bodies in the snow. “That is, if you don’t mind the whole...”
“My comrades died here, and I doubt that the man that killed them would be so welcoming as to let me stay.” The sentence weighs on both of them. “The offer is kind though.”
“Still, you should stay.” Yuri says again, snagging a pirozhok to test the temperature. He bites it, but it’s still kind of cold, so he puts it back in. “It’s not like you have anywhere else to go right now, right?” Otabek’s mouth twitches into a frown, and Yuri winces inside, regretting his words. It’s not... he wants to get along with Otabek, but most of his life he’s used to being abrasive. It’s a bit of a learning curve.
Otabek’s gaze turns to the ground. “I don’t,” he admits. The words sound more hollow than they should.
Earlier, before Victor had interrupted, the man had regaled Yuri with fond memories of his now-dead companions. Yuri senses his disquiet at losing them, and is a little at a loss at what to say.
Most of the time, everyone he interacts with are either from running errands or from visitors, and both sets of people are presented with specific attitudes that Yuri has long cultivated. But Otabek is Yuri’s age, and Yuri can’t bring himself to be angry as usual. Not when Otabek had lost all his companions and in that, paid the price for attacking Papa already.
Part of him genuinely wants to know Otabek better, to be honest. Not just because they’re similar in age, but because Yuri suddenly feels a longing to relate to the stories he’s told, of adventure and fighting and travelling. Even Victor’s highly dramatized tales hadn’t made Yuri feel this way. And it’s a little terrifying, because this whole time, Yuri has wanted nothing more than to stay with his Papa forever.
It stings, to know that Papa is right about how Yuri would leave eventually, or want to leave. Instead of feeling hurt about it, that part of his heart only feels empty. “If he doesn’t expect me to stay, why should I?” Yuri mutters.
Otabek’s voice cuts him free from his musings. “What was that?”
Shit, Yuri had talked aloud. “It’s nothing,” he says, and opens the oven to check the pirozhki again. This time, they’re just on this side of too hot, but it’s cold anyway, so he puts on mittens to take the tray out of the oven and tosses a pirozhok over to Otabek, who fumbles when he catches it, but manages to not drop it. “It’s a little hot.”
“Thank you.”
They eat in relative silence, six pirozhki split between them. The taste of fried pork in one of them makes Yuri’s heart stutter and his thoughts race to Papa for a moment, but he stays where he is.
“Is it really okay?” Otabek asks again, once they’ve polished off the pirozhki. Yuri scowls, but Otabek forges on. “I mean, to not go to your father. He was in a bad shape. You had the eyes of a soldier when you first heard the news, but now-”
“It’s none of your business,” Yuri snaps.
At first, Otabek says nothing, simply staring at him impassively. It makes Yuri twitch in annoyance. “I regret not being closer to my comrades,” Otabek says after a minute’s deliberation. “I hope that you don’t regret similarly.”
Yuri can’t help but step back, feeling as if he’s been shot by a hunter trying to poach him in leopard form. “Excuse me?” he sputters.
“... I don’t know why you allow the sight of my comrades’ corpses to affect your relationship with you father,” Otabek explains. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Yuri feels the corner of his lip twitch in dismay. “What’s it to you?” he deflects.
“If I really am to be staying here, I don’t want to be responsible for a family rift.”
Oh. “The thing is-” why does his throat feel dry all of a sudden? “I always thought that I have to protect Papa. He’s lived a long time, and everyone comes and goes, and he’s just always so sad. He tries to hide it, for my sake, but I feel useless sometimes. So seeing those bodies,” Yuri looks at the ground, “A lot of bad travellers have come by, and Papa would always tell me that he’d driven them off. How many of them did he kill?”
“You don’t like that he killed them?” Otabek asks.
Yuri shakes his head, frustrated. “No, I just wish he had told me the truth.” The words hurt to say, a wound finally being aired out. He shouldn’t say this to someone that’s still practically a stranger, but who else is there? “I thought Papa trusted me. I always told him that I wouldn’t leave, but he keeps pushing me away, and I just- I want to be there for him. But what’s the point, if he hides things from me and keeps telling me to go?”
“Maybe he’s right,” Yuri continues, each word like a heavy chain being unlooped from his heart. “Maybe I do need to go see the world, like you and the old man have. Maybe I’m just going to leave, like everyone else — but fuck, I don’t want to, Otabek.”
Something wet touches his cheek, and Yuri lifts his hand in alarm.
It’s a tear.
Oh, he’s crying.
“Can you show me where I can sleep?” he feels a surge of gratefulness to Otabek for not pointing it out.
He sniffs wetly, and nods. “Follow me.”
Yuri hesitates outside of his father’s room on the way back to his own, after showing Otabek into the Green Room. Through a sliver of space between the doors, he can see Victor holding onto Papa, and part of him finally falls silent.
It’s a little easier to breathe now, to know that he’s not the only one that truly doesn’t want Papa to be alone anymore.
(- Not Papa. Papa is what I called him as a child. He’s Yuuri.)
And even if they aren’t family by blood, they will always share a bond through their names. That feeling is enough to quiet the thrum of his thoughts and let Yuri fall into a dreamless sleep.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I can prove it.” Victor hangs onto him like he’s his anchor, and Yuuri becomes fully aware that Victor is much less than fully clothed, that his eyes have a plea that Yuuri has never seen before. “I came here because I’ve heard of immortals before, but most of them were lies. Others took their immortality using black magic. But you’re like me — chained to the earth and time, never aging, never dying.”
Disbelief bubbles into laughter from Yuuri’s mouth like champagne popping, but his throat feels dry. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
“Do you think that I would lie to you about this? What reason would I have?” Victor counters, releasing Yuuri’s hand and reaching to grab his arms instead, shaking him. “Look at me, Yuuri - please.”
He does. Victor’s eyes are clear like ice, beseeching, not an ounce of fakery in them. And Yuuri wants to believe so badly, wants to hope. “How long, then?” he whispers.
“Too long. I’ve almost lost count.” Victor relaxes just the slightest, but doesn’t let go. “Makkachin is the nineteenth dog I’ve had. They were all named Makkachin.” He laughs a little, like his heart is bleeding every time he opens his mouth. “At least I was never chained to one place, unlike you. You’re strong.”
“I- I..” Words fail him at the time when Yuuri needs them the most, so he reaches up to take Victor’s hands in his. “Can you die?” he whispers.
“I can’t.” Victor answers. He shakes a hand free from Yuuri’s and holds it open. Somehow, Yuuri isn’t surprised as frost appears, ice-natured water magic coalescing until a cold knife manifests. It looks to be made completely of ice, but Yuuri knows not to doubt the effectiveness of a construct. “Watch me, Yuuri.”
“You don’t need to-!” Yuuri lunges at Victor, his heart in his throat, but he’s not fast enough.
The knife stabs into Victor’s stomach, by his own hand. Yuuri’s hand closes on the hilt a second too late, and he topples into Victor with a desperate cry. “Shit,” Victor curses, so unlike him, “I don’t want to get blood on the bed.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Yuuri asks incredulously. “Victor-”
A hand rests on his shoulder, and Victor gently pushes him back, the knife still in his stomach. Frost crawls over the wound, stopping any blood, and Yuuri can only watch with increasing disbelief as the knife is dispelled and the wound (which had barely caused a flinch, now that he thinks about it) closes rapidly, flesh knitting in front of him, the only evidence that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing being a single drop of blood on the sheets between them. “I can cut my neck, if that would be more convincing,” Victor offers after a heartbeat.
Yuuri shakes his head right away, his shoulders shaking with how hard he now clasps Victor’s forearm. “No,” he says, his throat feeling strangely raspy. “I believe you. I- I want to believe you.”
“If you can believe this,” Victor says, his eyes boring into Yuuri with an unreadable intent, “Is it so hard to believe that I want to stay with you?”
Yuuri searches Victor’s expression, looking for something. What exactly, he doesn’t know. Honesty? No, not that. Not exactly. He finds something else though — a quiet fear that Yuuri himself is far too familiar with from long hours in front of a mirror. “Why?” he asks. Why do you want to stay? Why do you care about me? Why are you offering me this sort of future?
Victor smiles. It’s a small, sad smile. “The only reason I’ve travelled all these years is because it was impossible for me to find somewhere to settle down,” he admits, shoulders slumping and one of his hands coming up to cover Yuuri’s. “If I stayed too long, people would realize something is wrong with me, or want to use me. By travelling, I become merely a myth, and people are in awe of me when I show up somewhere I’ve been before, because they’d have heard of me in stories from their grandparents. Like that, no one can hurt me — many have tried, but I’ve always left places behind, so they could never chase me out.”
Yuuri understands where Victor is coming from. They’re opposites in their immortality, it seems, and isn’t that ironic. “I see,” is all he says, because what else can one say to that?
“Yuuri, I’ve always wanted a places to settle down, after all these years. Wandering is... lonely.” The last word is choked out, almost, a bitter truth.
And oh, they’re not so different after all. Everything finally clicks for Yuuri. “I’ve been lonely too,” he murmurs, and he feels Victor start to tug him closer. He doesn’t fight it.
“I care about you, Yuuri, because I can relate to you,” Victor says, leaning his forehead on Yuuri’s shoulder. He’s warm to the touch, which is at odds with the icy powers he’d just displayed, and with startling clarity, Yuuri realizes that he’s warm too. It’s a novel feeling, one that starts from his heart and reaches all the way to his fingertips. “You’re immortal. You’ve lived too long, experienced things other people never have, and may never understand. But I —”
“No,” Yuuri cuts in. “You could never fully understand. We’re different.” Victor tenses, but Yuuri reaches out to wrap an arm around Victor and hold him close, reciprocating the contact. “But... I know what you mean.”
“I want to understand you,” Victor whispers, “I want to have a home with you. Please, don’t chase me away.”
The last five words pierce Yuuri’s heart in a way that he knows. He knows, he knows what Victor means.
He knows what to say, as well.
“I’ve been so lonely too,” Yuuri murmurs, letting his head fall, eyelashes fluttering against Victor’s skin. A few tears leak from his eyes, from some sort of undefinable emotion that feels, strangely enough, like happiness. “You can stay, as long as you want.”
“When you were dying, earlier, you said something,” Victor says suddenly. “You don’t remember, but I do. So I’m returning them to you now, because I- I feel the same.”
Yuuri lets himself loosen in Victor’s arms. “What did I say?”
Victor sits back abruptly, his face startlingly close to Yuuri’s. “Stay close to me,” he utters the words like they’re a prayer to some higher being. “Don’t go. I’m afraid of losing you.”
A second ticks by, and then a full minute as Yuuri mutely registers the words, the unmistakeable wistfulness in Victor’s eyes, the emotional and physical closeness that is in reach.
To that, he doesn’t know what to say. But sometimes, actions suffice where words cannot. Lanterns flare to life around the room at his will, from fire runes long carved into the walls, magic of the house connected to the master of the house..
In the warm hue of the lanterns, Yuuri leans forward to fit his lips against Victor’s. They’re not a perfect fit, but as Victor makes an eager sound in the back of his throat, Yuuri lets out a contented sigh.
Even if they’re not a perfect fit, they’re willing to make it work.
In this moment, in Victor’s embrace, he is warm, and Yuuri is all too happy to let himself let down his walls and let go of his restraint.
(He doesn’t remember the last time he felt so warm.)
The moon looks down through the window, still, but for once her cold light does not affect either of the immortal men.