Work Text:
It started as a joke.
“Look, Yurio! They’re selling little stickers of Yuuri!” Victor had exclaimed, gesturing excitedly towards an ebay listing.
“Yeah, yeah. Go blog about it,” Yurio had replied sarcastically.
It’s not as though Victor is unfamiliar with fan blogs. He already knew of several devoted to himself, some devoted to figure skating in general, and many devoted to Yuuri, the love of Victor’s life.
He and Yuuri have been married for six years, retired for four, and co-coaching Yurio for three. Though Victor and Yuuri still get plenty of attention from the skating community, it’s been a while since Victor’s been able to find a blog with mostly Yuuri content.
But what if… Victor made a blog with mostly Yuuri content…
And that’s how @yuurionloveeros is born. As a combination of “Yuri on ICE” and “On Love: Eros,” the two programs that jump-started Victor’s heart into overdrive, the url is very personal to him.
“I still haven’t deleted that fanpage I made about you back in 2011, so I guess I don’t have room to talk,” Yuuri says when Victor shows him his new blog. “But… Vitya, isn’t that a little embarrassing?”
“Not at all,” Victor replies. “My heart’s already devoted to you. How could I possibly be embarrassed by having a blog devoted to you?”
He’s surprised that his little blog is getting any attention at all, really, especially considering that he hadn’t bothered advertising it. He is pleased that so many people have to good sense to follow a Yuuri-centric blog, though. Of course, Victor doesn’t solely post things about Yuuri. He posts a little about general figure skating, too.
And for the most part, the skating fandom is nice and welcoming. Still, Victor finds himself getting vaguely offensive anonymous messages every now and then.
“Did you sleep under a rock for the last ten years or something? Katsuki retired ages ago. Or do you just not keep up with the sport anymore?”
Victor frowns at the message. Just because Yuuri is retired doesn’t mean he shouldn’t still have fans! He takes a few minutes to type out a response.
“I am perfectly aware of when Yuuri retired. I watch and have watched figure skating for the past two decades!!! In that time, I have never seen anyone as beautiful and incredible as Yuuri Katsuki!!! Do you even know how hard it is to skate with that kind of musicality? Do you know how much work it takes to maintain stamina like that? Yuuri is the greatest gift figure skating has ever been given and I won’t have you coming to my blog and insinuating otherwise.”
You do not insult Yuuri Katsuki to Victor Nikiforov’s face. Victor can’t let such an injustice stand.
He isn’t exactly expecting this post to get any attention, but surprisingly, when he goes to his blog the next day, he finds it has several hundred notes.
#just let the dude stan his favorite skater in peace, #how are you going to feel in 10 years when your fave retires
Most of the notes are some variation of that, expressing support for Victor to blog about whoever or whatever he wants. But then, there’s a few that are… different.
#lol this guy sounds like he has a huge crush on yuuri, #same tbh, #please give us the yuuri content we deserve
Now these are Victor’s kind of people.
His follower count has increased considerably, and Victor grins as he tells his husband about all the people who want “Yuuri content.”
“Vitya,” Yuuri whines. “How is this not embarrassing? They’re following you to hear about me!”
“Because my life’s calling is to appreciate you. Skating is second, and coaching is third, but you’re number one,” Victor insists.
Yuuri blushes, but he doesn’t say anything more, merely pressing himself closer to Victor’s side as they rest comfortably on the couch. Victor makes some more posts on his blog. It’s a pleasant evening.
Over the course of a few weeks, Victor’s follower count grows and grows, as apparently people find his enthusiastic praise of Yuuri to be entertaining. He even gets a few people interacting with him regularly, and he starts to recognize their names.
He still gets anonymous messages, too. Some are clearly trolls, which Victor shoots down just to be funny. Others, though, are genuine questions, and Victor takes them seriously.
“I’ve gotta ask, what do you think about Victor Nikiforov? Are you jealous of him for getting Yuuri to himself? Were you ever a fan of him?”
Victor nearly chokes on his laughter. Jealous? Of himself? How is that even possible?
“I guess you could say I was a fan. But then I discovered Yuuri and my life changed! How could anyone not think Yuuri is the better skater? My husband would disagree with me, but he’s biased! He used to have a wall filled with Victor Nikiforov posters, but they’re in storage now because he thinks it’s too embarrassing to put them on display. He doesn’t want me to display my Yuuri posters, either, so they have to stay in storage with his Victor ones. But that’s okay! The Victors and Yuuris have to stay together! It would be cruel to separate a love so true, don’t you think?”
This response nets him a flurry of activity, with his followers apparently excited to hear about his husband. And Victor, of course, is more than happy to take the time to tell his followers all about how amazing Yuuri is.
“My husband surprised me with roses today! ♡♡♡ So romantic!”
“My husband and I had an impromptu dance night! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ He’s still the most incredible dancer I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“Help, I took my husband out to dinner but he was so beautiful that I couldn’t focus on the food at all!”
Of course, since his blog is still ostensibly about skating, Victor continues to post about that, often combining it with his “my husband” posts.
”My husband and I may not agree on who the best skater in the world is, but we do agree that the best performance in the world is the first one they did together, Stammi Vicino (duetto)”
He adds a link to the best quality video he can find. The post is immediately followed by a compilation of screenshots of Victor’s favorite parts of that performance, which is basically every frame that Yuuri appears in. It gets thousands of notes, although it seems that half of them are from people who just find Victor’s commentary endearing.
”lol did you know you sound exactly like victor nikiforov whenever you talk about yuuri? and you sound a little bit like him when you talk about your husband too. are you and him literally victuuri or something?”
Victor laughs. He never actually meant to hide his identity on his blog, but apparently nobody knows who he is. Then again, he supposes that it’s not the sort of thing people would be likely to guess on their own. He may as well just tell them.
”Yes, we really are!”
Victor expects to be flooded with messages. Excited ones, confused ones, even. But instead he finds that, while his post gets a lot of notes, the comments are all “lol” or “basically” or some other variant that suggests that nobody actually believes him.
”You don’t understand. I am LITERALLY Victor Nikiforov.”
And yet, his clarification post does nothing to clarify anything, apparently. He gets a lot of #same, and one of his mutuals reblogs with a tongue-in-cheek list of
“Reasons yuurionloveeros is Victor Nikiforov”
1. Is Russian
2. Loves Yuuri Katsuki
3 .Never stops talking about his husband
4. Cheers for Yuri Plisetsky in competitions
5. Is Extra
“Sounds legit to me.”
The post is friendly, and yet it sends a jolt of shock through Victor. He hadn’t realized that people would just accept his statement as being… what, some kind of metaphor?
He drops his phone onto the couch and clutches dramatically at his heart.
“Yuuri!” he cries out. “Yuuri, these people on the internet don’t believe that we’re really ourselves!”
“W-What?” Yuuri splutters, picking up Victor’s phone worriedly. He relaxes just a bit as he reads the messages. “Oh, you mean they don’t believe you’re the one running the blog. Is it really that bad?” he asks with a laugh.
“I don’t want them thinking there’s some random fan out there who loves you more than I do!” Victor insists.
“The way you looked, I thought you were about to say we were victims of identity theft,” Yuuri says chidingly, crossing his arms.
“Ahaha… Sorry,” Victor apologizes sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Mm, well,” Yuuri says, leaning forward. “How are you going to comfort your poor husband, Vitya? After such a shock, I might need you to hold onto me all night.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Victor says, smiling as he pulls Yuuri closer. Any thoughts of his blog are quickly forgotten when he has the love of his life in his arms.
That’s why he’s surprised when Yuuri wakes him up the next morning by tossing him his phone.
“I fixed your blog problem,” he says with a mischievous smile.
Confused, Victor pulls up his blog to see a post that he definitely didn’t make.
It’s a video, and as he taps it, Yuuri’s voice comes out of his speakers.
“Ah… hello?” Video Yuuri says softly. “I suppose you all know who I am, given the kind of blog Victor runs.” Video Yuuri flushes slightly. “Yes, well. Victor tells me that you don’t believe that he’s the real deal. He was pretty upset. I don’t think he’s used to having people not know who he is.”
Video Yuuri laughs, and Victor takes a moment to smile at the real Yuuri.
“So I thought I would post this and save him the time of proving it himself. Victor is ‘yuurionloveeros,’ and I’m his husband, Yuuri Katsuki. We hope you’ll continue to support us even though you know who we are now.” Video Yuuri finishes, smiling a little just as the video cuts off.
Now, Victor can see that THIS post has gone viral. Messages flood his inbox, but Victor just sets his phone aside.
“Thank you, love,” Victor says warmly, opening his arms invitingly.
“You’re so ridiculous sometimes,” Yuuri murmurs as he embraces him. “But I’ll do anything if it makes you happy.”