Chapter Text
Yuuri resigned himself to accepting that he would have to deal with whatever issues he might have alone and wait until the case had ended to discuss them with Viktor. After all, there was no reason to add something else to an already difficult case. And if a small part of him hoped that it was only the case that had made him feel that way, he didn’t face that theory head on, but took it into his account to not be hasty.
Yuuri sat in the living area with the others, pressed close against Viktor’s side to make room for everyone on the couch and the two recliners. The memory of the dreams still made him a little uneasy at being so close to the man, but he did his best to remain logical and convince himself that Viktor would never hurt him. Beside him, Viktor looked relieved that Yuuri was back beside him, and kept a hand intertwined with his. Yuuri couldn’t help but look at their locked hands every few minutes, and force down the feeling of unease.
“I’m so glad you guys are here,” Mila said, snapping Yuuri back to the present. She was looking back to the kitchen where Sara, Leo, and Otabek were getting everyone something to drink. “She hasn’t looked this relaxed in a while,” she confided in them. “I mean… from what you have told us, we should be worried, but,” she laughed. “I don’t know how to put it, it’s like knowing you got bitten by an incredibly venomous snake, but you have the antidote, and before, we didn’t know what type of snake it was, we had no way to cure the bite.”
Yuuri could see how tired she looked when they had first gotten there, and while she looked better, she still looked tired. He wondered if she’d been having nightmares, too.
He flinched when Viktor began to speak beside him.
“We’re happy to help,” he responded, sending Yuuri a smile, that Yuuri responded to with his own strained smile.
“Hey, Katsudon, you okay? You’re kinda jumpy,” Yuri said, drawing everyone’s attention to him.
“O-oh, yeah. Just the energy of this house makes me a little nervous.”
Yuri hummed in response, but continued to regard him suspiciously, glancing to the kitchen where Otabek was currently.
When he looked back, he tilted his head to look past Yuuri and at the monitors. “Son of a bitch,” he grumbled, standing and going over to them just as the others were returning.
“What happened?” Otabek asked, putting the cups down on the coffee table and going to stand where Yuri had been as the boy jogged out of the room.
“They all went down except-“
“Yuri!” Leo shouted, dropping everything he was holding with a resounding crash, and running out of the room just as a startled cry and thuds were heard.
Yuuri felt his blood run cold as he ran into the hall and saw Yuri lying unconscious at the foot of the stairs, with cruel, high-pitched laughter echoing around them.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” he heard Mila say behind him, but couldn’t tear his eyes away, couldn’t react, not as Otabek shoved past them, checking his breathing, and pulse, careful not to move him, or as Viktor urged him to do something from beside him.
Everything sounded muffled: Phichit asking Leo what happened, Mila shouting into her phone, Leo’s explanation that she had pushed him, Otabek telling Yuri he was going to be okay, Viktor calling out to him repeatedly. The thing that finally broke Yuuri out was the sound of Sara praying fervently.
“Don’t do that!” He yelled more forcefully than he should have, scaring the girl. “I-It’ll make it worse. You’ll upset the spirit, and we need to keep Yuri… we need to make sure the paramedics can get to him.”
Yuuri quickly turned away and went to Yuri’s side, unwilling to even clear the hair from his face out of fear of hurting him. He held shaky hands just over Yuri’s head, feeling for injury and allowing what little energy he had begin to heal Yuri.
It was slow. Slower than he’d ever been, and he was frustrated to the point of tears.
“I can’t,” he choked out. “It’s not working.”
“ Why not ?” Otabek demanded, a snarl more than actual words.
“He hasn’t been getting enough rest, Otabek. You can’t expect him to be able to do this with the way he’s been!” Phichit hissed.
“We need to seal the spirit in so it doesn’t attach itself to Yuri and do something worse,” Guang-Hong said, rushing past them and to the front door.
“I’ll help,” Leo said, moving towards the back of the house.
“I-I can set up a ward on Yuri,” he hiccuped, switching to Japanese as he began an incantation.
Mila ran out the door behind them, and soon enough Yuuri heard several footsteps stomp into the house.
He had just concluded, as Viktor pulled him out of the way and held him as Yuri was taken away.
“Go with him,” Viktor told Otabek, who nodded and followed them out.
The door slammed shut, trapping them in a painful silence. Yuuri hiccuped in Viktor’s arms, still staring at the spot Yuri had been. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“It’s not your fault,” Yuuri heard and felt Viktor say from behind him.
“But I couldn’t-“
“ Why do you always blame yourself, Yuuri?!” Viktor yelled, as he spun him around to face him. Yuuri flinched, and drew back, but Viktor held him firmly in place. “You’re amazing, Yuuri. You’re strong, smart, kind, and I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to this world or the next, but you can’t stop all the bad things from happening.” Viktor sighed, and Yuuri looked up to see him blinking away tears. He wanted to apologize again, but he knew it would make things worse so he just pulled Viktor into a hug, feeling the man melt into him, and felt as he cried quietly into Yuuri’s hair and Yuuri hated the way it felt.
He hated how foreign it felt to hold Viktor and how distant he had grown from him in the past two days. He hated how he felt nothing as Viktor told him he thought he was amazing, or as he held him, or as Viktor cried.
He hated that he felt as if he was falling out of love with him. Or maybe he already had?
His train of thought was interrupted by Phichit. “Maybe we should review the footage,” he whispered.
“I don’t think it matters now,” Leo quickly interjected.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“B-because I didn’t see the woman push Yuri down the stairs... I saw Yuuri.”
Yuuri’s attention snapped up to Leo, then to the others. They had seen him in the living room. He couldn’t have done that to Yuri. He wouldn’t have.
“That’s not-“
“I know . That’s why I’m saying it doesn’t matter. Yuuri was with you, this thing is just trying to mess with our heads,” Leo tried, but was ignored by Viktor who went back to the monitors, with Phichit and Guang-Hong beside him.
Yuuri stood frozen, his eyes locked onto the top of the stairs, not knowing what he was expecting to see.
He heard the buzz of static from the living room, and felt each beat of his heart thrum through his body. He took slow, stiff steps back to the others, scared of what he was going to see on the monitors.
As he drew closer, the buzz became so loud it was all he could hear. It was deafening; the white noise fell over everything like something tangible, and enveloped Yuuri’s mind. Everything felt surreal.
He wasn’t here, he was still in Detroit, planning for the last season. Yuri was okay and in St. Petersburg with Viktor, who he still loved so much, that the mere thought of him would make him smile like a fool and make his heart soar.
Yuuri didn’t even notice that he drew closer, watching as Viktor bent down to whisper something to Guang-Hong, who nodded, sneaking a glance at Yuuri.
They think you did it , a voice in his head whispered to him. They’re plotting against you . They wanted to get rid of you. Why is he so close to Guang-Hong? He’s a lot like you. Viktor’s tired of you .
“Yuuri?” he heard Guang-Hong say.
He looked up, feeling his body react slower than he had. “We’re going to try and get the cameras working again. We need you to help with the one in the boy’s room.”
That one isn’t down .
“That one is still working,” he said, looking to the screen to see that it was, in fact, still working.
“We just need to change the battery on that one. W-we’re going to split up. I’ll go with you to that one,” he hesitated, glancing quickly over to Viktor who gave a subtle nod.
“ Why ?” Yuuri asked.
“It’s not safe to go around alone,” Viktor responded.
“I hardly think Yuri wouldn’t still be on his way to the hospital if someone else had gone with him,” he spat back, drawing back at the harshness of his statement.
“I- that’s not-“
“It’s okay, c’mon, Yuuri,” Guang-Hong insisted, locking his arm with Yuuri’s and taking the battery pack Viktor held out for him.
Yuuri peeked up at the man, but found only the closed off, cold look he hadn’t seen since they had gotten close. Yuuri’s breath hitched, and he quickly looked away.
Something was wrong. Of course something was wrong, with the way Viktor looked at him, and Guang-Hong kept glancing at him.
They entered the room, and Yuuri felt himself become angrier the closer they got. It was irrational, and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop it from bubbling up in his chest until he felt so frustrated he could scream.
By the time he reached the entryway to the boy’s room, his teeth were clenched so hard he thought they would break.
Guang-Hong pulled his arm out of Yuuri’s and nervously smiled at him, handing him the battery pack with a shaky hand.
Yuuri turned to step into the room, but couldn’t make his body move to set foot in. It made him angrier that he couldn’t even do something as simple as this. He looked down at the battery pack for a moment, then threw it, narrowly missing hitting Guang-Hong, who took a step back, raising his arms to his chest in surrender.
“Y-yuuri, are you o-okay?”
“What are you trying to do?” He asked, taking a step closer to the shaking boy.
“We-we’re all just trying to close the case, Yuuri.”
“ Viktor!” Guang-Hong screamed, and released his shiki to trap Yuuri, who felt equal parts confused and enraged.
Viktor and Leo ran into the room, and as soon as Leo began to pray, he felt the edge of his vision begin to go black. Why was he doing an exorcism?! He would hurt every spirit that resided in the house.
“ Stop! ” Yuuri commanded. “What are you doing?! You’ll hurt the innocent spirits that-”
“There’s only one spirit here, Yuuri,” Viktor told him. “She’s been lying to you about what she’s done and who she’s hurt.”
“ They deserved it! They all deserved it! ” He heard himself almost screech, but it felt like the words were overpowered by Leo’s prayers.
Everything was overpowered by his prayers.
————
The first thing Yuuri was aware of when he came to was that he wasn’t laying in a bed, or even on the floor; he felt the steady up and down of someone breathing around him and heard the slightly faster than usual beat of a heart next to his ear. He slowly opened his eyes to find Viktor holding him, with a look of concern, which quickly melted to relief when he saw Yuuri’s eyes blink open.
Yuuri choked out a sob, throwing his arms around Viktor’s neck and pulling him into a kiss, that the man enthusiastically returned when he got over the initial surprise.
Yuuri whimpered at the feeling of warmth, and comfort, and surety he felt being with Viktor. His lover pulled back, resting his forehead against Yuuri’s as he searched his face for any indication of what was wrong. “Did I hurt you?” He breathed out, moving his hands to cradle Yuuri’s face.
Yuuri shook his head, placing a hand over Viktor’s.
“I missed you so much .”
“Yuuri, I’ve been here this whole time,” Viktor mumbled, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“But I wasn’t,” Yuuri responded, feeling a tear run down his cheek. “I had nightmares of you— a-and they felt so real that when I woke up I was still scared and I didn’t want you to touch me, and I didn’t want you anywhere near me, but I knew that wasn’t right— that it didn’t make sense, so I forced myself to try and act normal, but I hated how it felt and I hated that it felt that way.”
“I… is it terrible that I made myself believe every lie you told about being tired and feeling uncomfortable because of the energy of this place because I didn’t want to believe you didn’t love me anymore?”
Yuuri opened and closed his mouth, looking up at Viktor, whose own eyes looked watery as he looked down at Yuuri with a sad smile.
He felt his heart all but break as he wondered how Viktor must have felt every time Yuuri flinched, pulled away, or avoided him. Every time Yuuri responded to a loving smile by averting his eyes. He let himself cry this time, apologizing as he held onto Viktor as if the man would disappear, and having Viktor hold him just as tightly in return.
“I really didn’t like this case,” Yuuri hiccupped, holding onto Viktor for a moment longer before pulling back and pressing another kiss to Viktor’s lips. “Would you marry me?”
.