Chapter Text
August, 2015
Victor tilted his head back to study the building in front of him. Beside him, Yuri scowled. Twelve years old and already so pugnacious. Victor shuddered to think about what the boy would be like as he grew older. ‘Detroit Skating Club’ was spelled out in big blue letters on the side of the awning above the door. It was hideous. He remembered the beautiful rink back home in Petersburg, with the soft blue pillars and the surrounding park. He wished he had never left. He wished Yakov had never decided to retire, even “temporarily” so he had to leave. But there was no changing things now.
“Remind me why we had to come to fucking Detroit of all places instead of staying in Russia?” Yuri asked.
Victor sighed and stepped towards the glass door. He pulled it open with a little more force than was probably necessary.
“Because Yakov wanted to focus on salvaging things with Lilia before it was too late and after him, Cialdini is the best coach in the business. Yakov said so. This is who he wants us skating under now. So here we are. Also, watch your language”
Yuri’s scowl deepened, but he followed Victor inside the building nevertheless.
“Sounds like a stupid reason,” he said.
“Next year, you’ll be competing in the Juniors,” Victor replied. “Do you want an okay coach or the best coach to help get you ready for that and then guide you through?”
“The best,” Yuri grumbled.
“Alright, well…this is the best coach,” Victor said. “Yakov trusts him. Hell, Yakov coached him, before he got injured, that is. Now, you can keep complaining or—”
“Victor?” Someone asked. “Victor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky?”
Victor turned. A short, tan-skinned boy was rushing towards him. Victor estimated that he was around 15 or 16. That would be Phichit Chulanout, then. Victor had been careful to do his research before he’d shown up at the club. He wanted to know who all of the top skaters here were. He wanted to know how well they had competed in the past, wanted to know what kind of people they were in general to make sure that this place really would be a good place for him and Yuri. He smiled.
“That’s right.”
Phichit held out his hand. “I’m Phichit. I’m one of Celestino’s current students.”
Victor nodded. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said, shaking Phichit’s hand firmly.
Phichit grinned broadly. “It’s nice to meet you too. Now, Celestino sent me to greet you both. He wanted to make sure that I gave you a full tour, if that’s alright?”
Yuri scoffed and looked away. Victor sighed internally. Leave it to Yuri to be difficult even when Phichit was being so pleasant.
“That sounds wonderful!” Victor said. He expanded his smile to match Phichit’s, put on the persona of Victor Nikiforov, figure skating legend.
“Great,” Phichit said, bobbing his head. “Right this way!”
Victor and Yuri trailed after Phichit as he took them around the rink’s facilities: the weight room, the two practice rinks, the dance studio. Everywhere there was to go in the building, Phichit took them. He ended the tour in the locker room, where he handed Victor a roll of duct tape and a sharpie.
“Celestino has the locks,” Phichit said, “but for now, you can mark out a permanent locker for yourself. Yuri’s better at explaining the locker room system than I am, but we’re all along this wall. We—”
Phichit was cut off as the locker room door flew open. Two men rushed in, all abustle. One of them was a stranger, the other Victor recognized immediately. Katsuki Yuri. The one skater he had researched most ardently. Katsuki’s personal life was shrouded in shadows, his social media accounts inactive and his interviews stiffly formal. He was from Japan, Victor knew, and he had moved here two years ago to join the skate club and start college at the nearby university. He was 20 years old. He had potential, but always seemed to sabotage himself and give in to the pressure of high-stakes competitions.
He was, Victor couldn’t help but notice, also surprisingly attractive in person.
“You’re late,” Phichit warned.
“I know,” Yuri huffed. He spun the through his combination quickly and whipped open his locker. “I was doing stuff.”
The man standing next to Yuri blushed strongly enough that it showed through his dark skin.
“I’m stuff,” he said with a small, wondrous smile.
Yuri dropped his bag in the locker and quickly changed out of his shorts and into a pair of sweats. He grabbed his skates from where they were sitting on the top shelf, then leaned over and kissed his friend (boyfriend?) on the lips.
“I’ll see you later,” he said. “And I love you.”
“I love you too,” came the reply. “And damn right you’ll see me later; we never got to finish what we started.”
Yuri blushed and they kissed again, quickly. Before Victor could really take the time to fully appreciate Yuri’s presence however, he was moving again, leaving as quickly as he had come.
“Knock ‘em dead babe!” The other man shouted just as Yuri reached the door.
Yuri flashed a thumbs up and then he was gone. The man turned and smiled merrily at Phichit.
“So how are you today?” he asked.
Phichit chuckled. “If you keeping making him late, Patrick, Ciao Ciao is going to kill you.”
“You know, Phichit, I’m inclined to agree with you on that, but in my defense, for once, this is not my fault.”
Phichit snorted. “Sure it’s not,”
“It really isn’t,” Patrick argued, “but I’m willing to believe Ciao Ciao will believe that as much as you do. Which means I should probably get going. If the man asks, we were studying.”
Patrick pushed off of where he was leaning against the row of lockers. “Dinner. Tonight. Seven o’clock. Colonel’s. Be there or be attacked by a deadly, venomous rattle snake.”
Phichit rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Whatever, Patrick.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
They hugged quickly, and then Patrick was walking off as well. Before he reached the door, he turned.
“And bring your new friends,” he said, jerking his head towards Victor and Yuri. “They look interesting.”
The door slammed heavily behind him and he was gone. Victor blinked. The two of them—Patrick and Yuri—had moved like a whirlwind. It was almost impossible to believe they had ever been there at all, if not for the fact that Yuri hadn’t finished locking up his locker and it now stood wide open next to Victor. Phichit sighed, but there was a certain fondness in the sound.
“So that’s Yuri and Patrick,” Phichit said. “Our resident lovebirds, we like to joke. They’ve been dating since they were eighteen—pretty much two years now.”
“Wow,” Victor said. he still felt a little flustered for the rapid arrival and departure. “That’s really…are they…”
He trailed off, the word he hadn’t said hanging heavily in the air between him and Phichit. Soulmates. Everyone had one, but not everyone always found theirs. Victor was still holding out hope that he would meet his someday. He’d been holding out hope since he had woken up two years ago to the painful stinging sensation along his back left shoulder blade when his soulmate had gotten a tattoo there. It was of the Sagittarius constellation—Victor had scrambled for his phone and searched endlessly until he had found the match. Two years and…nothing. But for two people to have been dating as long as Yuri and Patrick had, that usually meant they had been luckier than Victor had been.
Phichit blushed and reached over to close up Yuri’s locker. He was careful to test the lock to make sure it wasn’t about to open again.
“No,” Phichit said. “But that doesn’t matter. They may as well be, after all this time. Honestly, I can’t think of anyone better for either of them. They’re perfect together. They’re the kind of relationship I want to have one day.”
“Oh,” Victor said.
Phichit nodded and they stood together a moment longer in silence.
“You should probably finish doing that,” Phichit said, nodding at the supplies he had placed in Victor’s hands before Yuri’s entrance.
“We’re arranged by age, so you’ll be next to Yuri. Yuri, you’ll be next to me once Victor’s done, alright?”
Yuri scoffed, but Victor took to writing his name down, as instructed. On the locker next to him, Yuri’s name had been written on his piece of duct tape twice: once in English, once in his native Japanese. The tape had been decorated with little doodles of stars. Taking the cue from the absent Yuri, Victor wrote his name twice too, ripped off the piece of tape, and stuck it carefully on the locker Phichit had designated, parallel to the vents.
Task complete, Victor handed the tape and the sharpie off to Yuri, then stowed his things neatly in the locker. For better or worse, this was going to be his new home now. It was an eerie thought, and Victor tried not to delve too deeply into it. Even if Victor could understand Yakov’s decision to retire so he could work on his relationship with his estranged wife and soulmate, the announcement had still stung. He had been born and raised in Petersburg. Had gone to school there. Skated and trained there. Never had he even begun to imagine what it would be like to leave, possibly for good.
“Great,” Phichit said, clapping his hands once together when they were finished. “Now that you’re settled, let’s go meet Celestino. He’s been looking forward to meeting you both, I know.”
Phichit turned and started for the exit. Victor looked wearily down at Yuri, who glared up at him.
“We should have stayed in Russia,” Yuri snapped in their native tongue.
Victor sighed. This was for the best, he tried to tell himself. It really was for the best.
***
After practice, Phichit and Yuri led Victor and the younger Yuri to Colonel’s, as a part of what was, apparently, a weekly event. At some point, Victor was not sure when, it had been determined that he and Yuri would be folded into the group that Yuri and Phichit were a part of in Detroit. He wasn’t necessarily complaining; it was nice, after all, to make friends with so little effort on his part, but it did feel a little odd. It felt…permanent somehow. More permanent than he wanted this transition to be. Too quickly decided, and too easily erasing the life he'd had before. It was a finally a surrender to the fact that he would no longer be living in St. Petersburg, and training with Yakov, and spending his spare time with the small group of skaters that he had grown up with.
If Yuri felt similarly, he didn’t mention it. He continued to be his usual, moody self. His grandfather had charged Victor with being something of a guardian for the other boy while the two of them were here, and Victor had every intention of fulfilling that role to the best of his abilities. He had an innate respect for Yuri’s grandfather, not least because he was a gentle, caring man, the kind of man who would let a stranger stay for lunch if they asked and be friends with them by the end of an hour, the kind of man who treated all life with a sacred sort of respect. Victor didn’t know what had happened to Yuri’s mother and had never bothered to ask. He had his grandpa, and that was enough.
He probably missed his grandpa, Victor realized. Hell, Victor missed him. Yakov and Grandpa Plisetsky had taught Victor more about what it meant to be a man than anyone else ever had. At twenty-four, he was already becoming something of a legend in the skating world, but it was the approval of those two elders that he always sought first.
Colonel’s was a run-down sort of diner, timeless in its age. It felt so stereotypically American that Victor had to remind himself that he was not, in fact, imagining it or over-emphasizing its qualities in his mind. Yuri—the other Yuri, the Japanese one—made a beeline for the seat next to his boyfriend the moment they walked in. Phichit laughed softly to himself and made introductions once they had reached the table.
“Patrick you’ve met,” Phichit said, gesturing to the darker-skinned man, “though I don’t think very formally.”
Patrick smiled and gave a little wave. He had one arm resting over the back of Yuri’s chair. Yuri was leaning into him a little.
“So you two are really from Russia?” Patrick asked.
Victor’s Yuri dropped into a chair on the other side of the table with a scowl.
“Where else would we be from you fucking moron?” he asked.
“Language, Yuri,” Victor muttered.
Patrick’s brows flicked up in silent surprise. He turned to Yuri.
“I like him. Let’s find a way to keep him.”
Yuri flushed a little. “You can’t just decide you want to keep random people you’ve just met, P.”
Patrick frowned. “But I want one.”
Yuri chuckled. “Then maybe, if you’re nice, he’ll let you be his friend.”
Patrick perked up at this suggestion. “Yuri, will you be my friend?”
The twelve year old’s scowl deepened. “No way in hell.”
Patrick sunk down a little.
The girl sitting beside him laughed and reached her arm across the table, towards Victor.
“I’m Theia,” she said. “I’ve known these dorks since we were freshman.”
“Oh, to be young again,” Patrick objected. “To return to our days of sweet and wild youth.”
The look Theia shot Patrick was exasperated, but fond. He beamed at her, and a moment later, Theia turned back to Victor.
“We’re a pretty funky crowd, but I promise we won’t bite,” she said. “Honestly, it’s nice to meet new people. These weirdos can get annoying sometimes.”
Victor couldn’t help but smile at that. They all had an easy familiarity to the way the sat together, talked to one another. It was almost like if they were a family. He sank happily into the seat next to his Yuri and Phichit settled into the chair placed next to him, at the end of the table.
“So it’s Victor and Yuri, right?” Patrick asked, pointing to each of them in turn. “Phichit and Yuri have told us a little bit about you guys, but I’m really bad with names. And faces. And just people in general, really.”
Victor laughed. “Yes. And do you prefer to go by ‘stuff’ or ‘Patrick’?”
Both Patrick and Yuri flushed deeply.
“Patrick,” he mumbled. “Only Yuri can call me stuff.”
Victor smiled. They were adorable, both of them, blushing like that. Yuri especially. As disconcerting as this sudden inclusion was, it was also comforting in a way. He had always liked being around other people, and had been quietly worried that he somehow wouldn’t fit in here, that he would have permanently lost the flock of friends he’d surrounded himself with in Petersburg. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to make new friends so quickly. Maybe he should be pleased instead at how little effort it was taking on his part, and grateful for how much he liked everyone here already.
“Good to know,” Victor replied smoothly.
Patrick smiled a little, but it quickly turned into a frown. He propped his head on his hand and stared at the other Yuri—Victor’s Yuri.
“Having two Yuri’s around is going to be confusing,” he grumbled. “Squad, you got any suggestions?”
“We could call him ‘maew ,’” Phichit supplied, “or ‘nit. ’”
“Phichit, babe, I love you, but I have no idea what either of those mean.”
“What about Yuri P.,” Theia said. “Simple, straight forward, makes logical sense.”
Patrick furrowed his brow. “’Yuri P.’ is long winded. I talk fast, Thee. I need something I can say quickly.”
“Yurio,” Yuri said.
Patrick snapped his fingers. “Fucking perfect. Does that work for you, Yurio, or would you rather it be something else?”
Yuri—or Yurio now, Victor supposed—scowled. He had another nickname, Victor knew. ‘Yura,' or 'Yuratcha' if they were feeling especially affectionate. Yakov had used it sometimes. It was what Yurio’s grandfather called him. Somehow, though, Victor doubted that Yurio was about to let these strangers call him that.
“You geniuses really can’t come up with anything better?” he asked.
“Nope,” Patrick replied cheerfully.
“Then I guess that’s fine.”
“Awesome!” Patrick said. “Now, I feel awful and uncomfortable because I’m dominating the conversation so someone please stop me. Theia, lovely, how was your day today?”
Theia smiled and launched into a multitude of small stories, little things that had happened to her. Yuri and Phichit would ask questions every now and then, but Patrick stayed quiet, head rested on Yuri’s shoulder, smiling happily. Even if they weren’t soulmates, Victor had to admit they were cute together. He had never had that. Not really. There had been flings, here and there. One night stands. But he’d never committed himself to anyone before. He tried to tell himself it was because he was waiting for his soulmate, that he wouldn’t find that person he really clicked with until he met them, but sometimes, seeing couples like Yuri and Patrick who didn’t need that cosmic bond to hold them together, Victor couldn’t help but wonder if he was missing out on some great secret of life. It was a depressing thought, and he pushed it away quickly. Everyone had a soulmate waiting for them, and he would find his eventually, and precisely when he was meant to. No sooner or later. That was just the way life worked.
After Theia finished talking, Victor did his best to engage his new friends in conversation and learn more about them. Theia responded most frequently, although Phichit or Patrick would chime in here or there. Yurio kept to himself, choosing to scroll through Instagram on his phone instead of actually answering any of the questions that Theia gently sent his way. Yuri didn’t talk much either, a fact that Victor found slightly disappointing. He wanted to get to know the mysteriously private Japanese skater who was to be his new rink-mate. Getting to know everyone else was wonderful, but Yuri was the enigma that Victor really wanted to crack open.
All in all, the food at the diner was fine. Typically American. The proprietor, a man named Donald, was familiar enough with Phichit and the rest that he teased them amicably as he took their orders and asked them about their day. He eyed Victor and Yurio thoughtfully when they were introduced but gave them a warm welcome all the same. Victor ordered for himself and then made a guess at what Yurio would want. The younger boy was too proud to admit that he didn’t read English well enough to understand the menu and he had quickly shot down Victor’s attempts to help.
The group of friends insisted on paying for Yurio and Victor’s dinner after they had finished and Victor, after a lengthy debate, finally conceded. He resolved himself silently to cover the bill at any future outings. Once that was settled, the six of them wandered out onto the street in a small wave. It was getting late, but the sun was only just starting to set. A pang went through Victor’s heart as he thought of summer days back home in Petersburg, which seemed sometimes to stretch on forever. That was another thing he had never counted on losing that was lost to him now.
“Graeme’s?” Phichit asked, snapping Victor out of his reverie.
Theia crinkled her nose. “As wonderful as that sounds…I’m full. And tired. And almost people-d out for the evening, as much as I love you all.”
Patrick was already starting to tug on Yuri’s wrist.
“We have unfinished business.” He said simply.
Yuri turned red up to his ears and Patrick blushed a little at his own words too.
“Sorry, Phichit,” Theia said. “Next time maybe, but it looks like you have no dice on this one tonight.”
Phichit sighed, then gave each of his friends a hug. It was a familiar ritual, Victor could see. One that even Patrick and Yuri participated in, separating from each other long enough to hug Theia goodnight as well. He was surprised when Phichit pulled him into a quick hug as well.
“It was nice to meet you, Victor,” Phichit mumbled.
Oh, he hadn’t realized how much he needed this. He hugged Phichit tightly back.
“It was nice to meet you too.”
All too soon, Phichit had stepped away. Yurio scowled and backed away before Phichit could hug him too, and Phichit laughed before starting down the street. Theia traipsed after him.
“See you tomorrow!” Phichit called.
“Or at least sometime this week!”
Yuri and Patrick laughed and then set off in another direction. Patrick lifted his hand in a quiet goodbye, but Yuri barely acknowledged them. It left Victor feeling strangely empty, but he resolved himself to get to know his new rink-mate better in the coming days.
“They’re strange,” Yurio snorted.
“I like them,” Victor chirped. Together the two of the started walking off towards Victor’s apartment.
“Well, you’re strange too.”
Victor chuckled and they fell into silence for a moment. Around them, the warm evening air hummed with life. A few cars drove by. Somewhere, a fire engine was blaring. A bass pounded out onto the street from an open window. It was an area removed from Detroit proper, but it was a college town, and even now, in late summer, the remnants of that showed. It wasn’t Petersburg, wasn’t a proper city neighborhood and it never would be. There would never be the same seagulls, or parks, or people. Detroit lacked the history and meaning that graced every aspect of Petersburg’s existence. And this section of the world away from Detroit lacked even the universal qualities of all cities. It was horrendous, but it was life now.
“I hate it here,” Yurio muttered. “It smells.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Yurio snorted and Victor heard all the words he wasn’t saying in the sound.
I don’t want to get used to it.
Victor didn’t dare voice that he felt the same way. Because, despite everything, he held out the hope that this could be good. This could work out for the two of them. And if all else failed, they would always have each other.
They walked the rest of the way back to Victor’s apartment in silence. Makkachin greeted them at the door and Victor was silently grateful that he had been able to bring his poodle with him. Makkachin had been his companion through everything; making this transition without her would have been impossible.
Yurio, true to form, turned up his nose at the slobbering dog and crashed on the futon sitting alone in the middle of the room. Boxes, some opened, many still taped shut, were stacked on the floor around it. Victor had only moved in yesterday and had only managed to muster the strength to set up the futon for Yurio to stay on for the time being. Eventually, they both knew that Yurio would be asked to move into the housing shared by all the non-local junior skaters, but Yurio was intent on staying with Victor for now and Victor wasn’t overly inclined to compel him to leave.
He liked having the younger skater around. It reminded him a little bit of home.
Makkachin sat down by the door and whined and Victor looked about the room quickly before reaching for the leash hanging from the hook by the door. A poem unfolded in his mind, or rather, the bones of a poem. Just a drabble about boxes and dreams and starting over. He snagged his notebook and pencil from the training bag he had brought with him to the rink before clipping up Makkachin and heading out for their walk. He could work on his poem-skeleton while they were out.
The darkness had closed around the huddles apartments and houses and buildings lining his new street in the short time he’d been inside with Yuri, and Victor shuddered, despite the warm night air. It was far more suburban here than it was back home. More settled. The whole scene conjured stereotypical images of American barbeques and kids playing in the street. A peaceful enough life, he supposed.
He had never really cared for a peaceful life.
There was a park up the road and Victor walked with Makkachin through it. A few stars managed to speckle the night sky. If he could gather them all up in one hand, they would barely fill his palm, but still. There were more stars here than he had ever been able to see in Petersburg.
What stars are these/that grace the evening skies? he thought to himself as he watched them shine above. Are they the same stars that twinkle/beyond my city’s lights?
He dashed the poem before it could get any farther. Something about it just didn’t feel right yet. But he liked that opening line. What stars are these/that grace the evening skies?
He had studied poetry in college back home. He’d enjoyed it, too. And the professors had always liked what he had written. After skating…after skating, if he didn’t end up as someone’s coach or doing something in the skating community, he had always thought that perhaps he would be a poet. There was the same sort of artistry to writing poems as there was in skating; not the overt meaning of a novel or a short story, but a sort of derived meaning, brought together based of how the poet presented their subject. In skating, he told his story through spins and jumps and step sequences. In poetry, he told his story through meter and enjambment and tone. Same concept, just a different medium.
Another car drove down the street. He could hear people talking, somewhere, probably a couple or a family on a stroll through the park. The bones of the poem he had been thinking of earlier came back to him, and he tugged Makkachin over to a park bend so he could sit down and write and try and flesh it out. He wrote down the “What Stars” couplet first and followed it up with the lines he had immediately thought of so that he could fiddle with them later and then started his other poem on the next page. He closed his eyes after the first line to get a sense for his new living room again—the way it looked with all the boxes stacked up around in. And then he started writing again.
Boxes stacked about this
Empty room and I think
I could build a castle
Here I could build a
Home here
I remember being
A little boy in Petersburg
Building forts and trains and podiums
Out of old boxes using
The empty cardboard to
Build up my dreams.
Surrounded now again by boxes
Filled with scraps of my life
Stacked about the room
Older now but just as ready
To build my cardboard dreams again.
He studied it for a moment when he was done and then scrawled a name for the poem in the little margin at the top of the page—"Cardboard Houses." He’d probably fiddle with it later, change the way the lines broke or maybe some of the words he used, but all in all, not bad. He shut his notebook with a sigh and looked down to where Makka was panting up at him.
“It’s really something we’ve gotten into here, isn’t it, Makka?” He asked the poodle.
Makkachin whined and stepped forward to rub her nose against Victor’s knee before sitting back down again.
“I’m glad you’re here, even if it meant a little extra trouble. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Makka’s tail thumped twice against the ground and Victor reached over to scratch behind her ears.
“You’re a good dog, Makkachin,” he whispered, “and an even better friend.”
Makkachin twisted to lick Victor’s wrist and then leaped up and started sniffing around in earnest. Victor chucked.
“Alright, alright, do your business and then we can head back.”
He couldn’t bring himself to call the new apartment ‘home.’ Not yet. He’d barely been living there for a day or two. He had no more emotional attachment to the place than he had for any of the hotel rooms he stayed at during competitions. For now, it was just a place where he happened to live. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe it would be, in a few months, a few years even, though he shuddered at the reality that he may be here that long. If he was lucky, Yakov would sort out whatever was going on between him and Lilia and come back to skating sooner rather than later, and Victor and Yurio would be able to go back to home to Petersburg where they belonged. If he was slightly less lucky, he would eventually come to like it here, with the quiet summer streets, and the other skaters at the club.
He tried not to think about what would happen if he was severely un-lucky and what kind of personal hell that would be. No true friends. No settling into life here. Never being happy again.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Victor told Makkachin when the poodle was done doing her business. “I liked the people I met today, so it’s more likely than not that it won’t be like that it all. And it won’t be Petersburg, but maybe it can be home, ya?”
Makkachin tugged on the leash, eager to go sniffing at a patch of grass, which Victor obliged with a chuckle. He glanced up at the stars again when he did, picked one out and made a wish. Perhaps that would be one perk out of everything that had happened. Here, at least, he would have stars that he could wish on.