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Fame is overwhelming. The interviews where he hae to smile and answer the same questions they've always asked him. The photoshoots, the cream they put on his stretch marks. The small whispers about his sexuality and his gender. It's hard to bear with, makes him feel asphyxiated.
Most of his hair lays in his hands, and the words teenage beauty, the long-haired legend, repeat in his brain over and over. There's adrenaline running across his veins like a drug, and he knows he'll regret this later but he's ecstatic. He's not the beauty now, he looks more like he's always wanted to look like.
His jawline is sharper now that there's no hair around it, and the hint of stubble in his chin makes his heart speed up. He looks more like a man, and the words beautiful and gorgeous are replaced with manly and handsome.
He taps his foot against the floor and he doesn't know who to tell what he just did. He ends up taking a picture with his iPhone and uploading it to Twitter. People start freaking out immediately, and he's running on low enough hours of sleep to not give a shit about it.
He looks in the mirror again, and then turns to the wall, which is moving around and he's pretty sure it's forming a mouth. He hisses through his teeth, the fear being quelled in his heart by the thought that a wall can't hurt him.
His head is pounding and he decides to go to one of the clubs at Moscow. His phone keeps going off, yelling at him to pay it attention, but he shakes his head as he starts dressing himself. Too tight jeans, not paried up socks, shirt. He's doing fine.
He calls a cab, and he can't keep still as it drives to the nearest club. It's barely three in the morning, it should be packed and he can find a guy he can have a one night stand with and no one will care.
He gets off the cab, pays the driver and slams the door shut as he runs inside. The music is obnoxiously loud and he's attacked by sights that he's sure aren't supposed to be there. A snake slithers around the floor and suddenly the entire floor is snakes and he wants to scream in goddamn fear.
He ignores it. The snakes hiss when he steps on them. He starts dancing with a guy, he's got hazel eyes and wavy brown hair and he can do this. "You're Viktor Nikiforov!" he exclaims when he turns around and looks at him more closely.
He wishes he could introduce himself, just be Viktor for a second. "Yeah, I am." His head is running with thoughts about his hair and his body and his uncle and his mama and it's so much he chokes on air. "Do you wanna — wanna go upstairs?"
The man smiles and nods. He doesn't know his name. He doesn't know if he asked it or not; maybe he did and he forgot. He feels terrible, and the snakea are closer to the walls than the dancefloor.
"I can't believe I'm sleeping with Viktor Nikiforov," he says as he starts stripping down, and Viktor breathes hard for a few seconds. "You're clean, right? I mean, it'd be publicized if you had HIV."
"Huh?" Viktor was too focused on thinking about his mama and her own disorder, his aunt and her menacing smile as she — as she did what she had done when he was a kid. "Oh, yeah, I am. Are you?"
"Mhm. Didn't bring a condom. Is that okay?"
Viktor doesn't care. He breathes out a "yes", and he spaces out while he kisses this man and he goes inside him without much care. His mind isn't thinking about the risk of pregnancy or of him lying— it's all just having sex with a stranger and the numbness spreading across his entire body.
When they're done he feels fuzzy all over and the man's face is melting off. He doesn't tell him, simply puts his clothes back on and starts jogging back to the hotel. His thoughts become jump combinations and season themes and costumes and it's all so overwhelming.
When he gets to the hotel it's four and a half in the morning and the entrance is eerily quiet. He goes to his room, opens the door and looks at the mirror. He looks okay, sweat on his forehead and his hair messy as all hell.
He takes a notepad and starts writing down entire programs, different jumps and sequences, his head light and his eyelids heavy with exhaustion. But he can't sleep, and there's a dog barking outside his door.
He has three songs listed out for a free skate when he opens the door. There's no dog and the barking stops and he puts his hands against his face, groaning.
He starts planning out jumps without thinking about ISU restrictions and what's humanly possible. He writes stuff down until his hand cramps and he throws the pen across the room, the walls closing around him.
When he wakes up the next day he has no recollection of sleeping at all. His head is pounding but he's still charged with energy— he could do whatever he wants to do now.
Chris looks at him weird when they both go to get breakfast in the hotel. Yakov sits in front of him while Chris makes himself a place in the Team Russia table.
"You look like you haven't slept in three days."
"I haven't." Viktor turns around and sees a huge snake; he doesn't even blink. Only a should I call security passes through his head, and he then starts hearing Chris' voice again. "Ah?"
"Dude, you should see a doctor. You haven't slept and you were staring at the floor as if there was something there."
"There was," Viktor shrugs. Chris drops his fork, and Yakov seems to be too immersed on his conversation with his wife to care about his student's mental health being discussed in front of him.
"What? I'm taking you to the hospital. What did you do last night?"
"Wrote down different programs," his mind is still plagued by racing thoughts, of his mom, of having to design a costume and draw something and write a blog post. "I still want to do that."
Chris is tight-lipped and his eyes are blown wide. "We have to take you to the hospital right fucking now. I haven't been taking mood stabilizers for four years to see Viktor Nikiforov have a manic episode."
Viktor stares at him in confusion. How confession of taking medication to make his head more similar to normal flies straight over his head. "There's nothing wrong with me! I was being productive last night. Why in the hell would I go to the hospital?"
"Mr. Feltsman." Chris isn't in his chair anymore. Yakov's plate has blood in it, but he turns around with raised eyebrows and a quirked lip. "I think Viktor is having a manic episode. We have to take him to the hospital."
Yakov squints, and he makes a grimace for a split second before he sighs. "Take him, then. Hopefully he gets better."
Chris eyes Yakov with utter disbelief in his sea green eyes. Then he shakes his head vigorously, takes Viktor by his wrist and forces him out of his chair.
"I don't— I'm fine, Chris, you should stop worrying! Jesus Christ!"
"Viktor, you're hallucinating. You can't sleep. You aren't fine."
Viktor grumbles a response and gives up. He gets up on his own and walks towards the reception. Chris asks for a cab in rushed English and a woman there complies.
Viktor thinks that he'll be locked up and that he'll be called a psycho and and and—
"Viktor, you'll be fine."
He's grabbing him by the wrist again, and he shouts without thinking twice. Chris bites his lip, nods and takes him to the cab. He doesn't register it, but he drums his fingers against his two days in use jeans and rubs his feet against the carpet of the cab.
When they get to the hospital, everything is blurry and rushed and he doesn't think he'll remember any of that when he's back to normal. When they've drugged him enough for him to not be writing program ideas down at five in the morning after getting fucked by a complete stranger.
They talk about how he'll be alright in a few days, that he needs to have mood stabilizers and etcetera. The medication doesn't taste like anything as he downs it, but he gets knocked out minutes after.
When he wakes up he only sleeps and sleeps and takes his medication. Everything tastes grey and flat and he doesn't want food.
"You have to eat," a nurse says. She has kind eyes and a reassuring smile. Viktor doesn't know if she's aware that he's him. The living legend.
His thoughts aren't as fast as when he wasn't on anything, but God, this is going to be highly publicized and everyone's going to call him a psycho and Yakov will stop coaching him and.
He downs a bit more of the potatoes they gave him. "I'm— I'm sorry. When is group therapy?" The other patients have tired eyes and lackluster stares and maybe they're as empty or as not-norew
"Five p.m. It's one right now. Eat more, Viktor."
"Are there news about me going inpatient?"
"Excuse me?"
"I'm one of the top figure skaters. I'm Viktor Nikiforov. I've won gold at Worlds. People must be freaking out because I'm a psycho or something."
"I didn't recognize you, I'm sorry," the nurse ducks her head and he mutters an 'it's alright'. She takes out her phone and flips through social media. "Yeah, there is. Your coach made a statement and people are reacting weird about the top skater being mentally ill."
Viktor shrugs, takes one of the sleeping pills he left out at his nightstand. He lets himself fall asleep on top of the bed and he hopes he sleeps through group therapy. He doesn't want to talk to anyone, his mouth feels dry.
It takes him three days, but he's got a few boxes of mood stabilizers and his heart thumping against his chest when he leaves. He's overwhelmed by the response in social media and people asking for interviews.
He answers with the same fake smile and the same fake answers about how he's been fine and oh wow, the hospital was great. Fame is overwhelming, especially when people frame you as some crazy genius now that he's out of a psych ward.
Yakov doesn't seem interested in his health, muttering about how glad he is he can come back to practice. He clutches his fists and skates harder, tries harder, although his mucles strain and he hasn't touched the ice in a week.
"I don't remember anything of my time at the ward," Viktor admits quietly, hiding his face on Yuuri's neck. He smells good, perfect, like lilies and soft, expensive perfurme. He's in love, he can't deny that no matter how hard he tries.
The engagement ring is engraved in his skin, and the fact he once believed he'd never find anyone is a bit sad. But he's found his other half, and he's so, so grateful.
"Once my parents called an ambulance when I was having a panic attack," Yuuri comments before placing a kiss on his hair. It's so comforting he tears up against the other's neck. "Worst thing that's ever happened to me."
"And the best?" he takes his head away from Yuuri and looks at him. Deep brown eyes, a soft smile, round cheeks. He's the most beautiful man he's ever seen.
Yuuri's eyes shine. "Having my childhood crush appear at my family's business completely naked, of course."
Appearing in the Katsuki's onsen was probably the best thing that's ever happened to Viktor, too. He remembers the widening of Yuuri's eyes when he saw his junk, before his eyes came back to normal. His quiet whisper of 'Viktor...?'. The way he didn't notice the scars in his chest until they were dating.
It's been so long since then— months and months, and so much has happened he has almost forgotten to take his medication more than once. Yuuri told him about his own pills and reminded him to take his and it all fills him with warmth. He loves being cared for once.
Viktor laughs, though, and fame (and interviews and magazines) couldn't stop him from loving his husband-to-be no matter how hard it tried.