Archive of Our Own

Life after retiring, for Yuuri, had been like slowly waking up from a dream. Although truth be told, he did not enjoy much the last months of his final ice skating season and the minor injuries that followed it. Yes he had secured his last gold at the grand prix and yes he kept his former records untouched. Even with Victor coaching both Yurio and Otabek, now competing in every major league and championship. But that was another whole issue,in all honesty. But after hanging up his skates, Yuuri felt like another person. Who he was outside of the ice and what he did other than jumping in the air and zooming through the rink was an exciting and interesting process for him. The dream and the illusion of being a skater, and a skater alone, slowly dissipated as he woke up and allowed himself to rest, to make mistakes and try as much as he wanted because nothing was a matter of qualifications anymore made Yuuri feel at ease, it gave him peace to live everyday as he wanted and not as he had to. He was waking up from a dream but, at the same time, he was entering his favorite fantasy.

“Yurio! You’re dropping your leg. It looks like a shrimp!” Victor giggled, seated by Yuuri and Otabek as the three men watched the youngest perform his free skate for the last time that day.

“And your arms are moving so much they look like tentacles. Are you taking a submarine approach to this program, eh?”

“Victor, I swear to fucking god, if you do not stop that I will literally skin you with the blades of my skates.”

Victor faked a gasp and shivered in exaggeration.

“Scary!” He laughed. “Now you’re running through your program once more for talking back at me like that. Also, fix your shrimp leg!”

“It does look like a shrimp.” Otabek muttered and Yuuri laughed between them.

“Fuck you Otabek!” Yuri screamed from his end of the rink, turning back to first position to work again on his program. “Heard that!”

Yuuri laughed earnestly at Otabek’s amusement and then turned to his husband.

“Shrimp leg aside, I think this one’s a winner! He looks ready for this season Victor-san. Congratulations…”

“Ah my sweet Yurishka, this would have not happened without you!” He reached and held his hand. “You still inspire me to do my best every single day.”

Victor kissed his cheek and nuzzled his nose against his neck in a loving matter. Yuuri blushed and pretended to ignore Otabek’s red face as he stared at them.

Things changed since Yuuri retired. They changed a lot, but not all of them.

Still, since the last day he stepped on ice, Yuuri felt as if a heavy, damp cloth was being lifted off of every single one of his limbs and his head. He realized how much his body was still able to do once recovery came through and used it to its full advantage. He also had time to read and write now, putting to good use his college degree in sports journalism in different publications all over the world that either begged for his participation or paid good money to print whatever Yuuri had to write. He visited his now retired parents regularly, and he had even traveled with Victor to South Korea to visit Mari, who was now married and owned her own hair and makeup studio. That was something they did a lot whenever they were off season or just taking a long break between competitions, traveling. And they loved it. It was very different to travel for leisure and pleasure than to travel for competitions where you locked yourself either on a rink or in your hotel room. Retiring wasn’t so bad, really, and Yuuri wasn’t old at all. So he kept skating for fun, sometimes featuring in Phichit and Chris’s ice show with Victor for a good duet. Yuuri also kept dancing and took over a couple of his husband’s responsibilities at their rink in Fukuoka, but by far his favorite retirement activity was helping coaching Otabek.

“You are doing great Otabek! I know that after taking a season off you must feel like your mind and your body are not on the same page but when I look at you on the ice all I see is a full blown ballet.” Yuuri smiled widely and gestured a grand circle with his arms, then clapping one single time in excitement. Genuine pride for his student steeping through his manners. “Nobody will be able tell that you spent a year producing records and not busting your ass on the ice!”

Otabek laughed and covered his smile with gloved hand, pretending not to have been absolutely broken by the one Yuuri Katsuki. Otabek admired him so much that it was no secret to anyone how Yuuri had him totally wrapped around his pinky finger by now.

“That makes me feel a thousand times better, sensei.” He huffed. “I don’t feel like that just yet but maybe soon I will. My legs are still a little wobbly on the landings and my splits still have to be wider, I think. But I’m not worried, your help has done wonders!”

Yuuri reached out to his student’s shoulder and grasped it with care. He had taken a particular liking to Otabek and his soft spot for the Kazakh was only growing with his personal training lessons.

“Oh I’m glad! I know Victor’s not very good at targeting areas of opportunity on his trainings but that’s why I am here…”

“I do not mean that!” Otabek whispered, suddenly looking embarrassed and Yuuri barked out a good laugh. He genuinely liked the kid.

Otabek reminded him too much of himself in his earliest stages of major league competitions. He was eager, determined, and had a natural talent for technique and was viciously disciplined. Frequenting trainings with Victor and trying to keep up with Yurio only made him better, but there were a couple of gaps here and there made out of human flaws that required some softness and reassurance of someone who knew what it was to have them like Yuuri. He knew what a couple of kind words, along with a vigorous training and killer dedication could build up to. And that was what he was there for.

“I know you don’t, but let’s be real when your coach is a phenom like Victor Nikiforov it’s not the same as if it was an average athlete the one teaching you stuff. We are not all exceptionally good at absolutely everything like he is. Are we?” Otabek shook his head. “So it’s good to have someone who knows how to work flaws and mistakes for improvement instead of somebody who thinks that it can’t be helped because you didn’t get it right on your first attempt.”

“Oh god! He does that!” Otabek laughed again and hugged Yuuri by his side. “You’re right!”

“Well of course I am, that man is not only my husband but he also coached me for years, I know what it’s like to be analyzed by him at every turn of your blade. But I also know what I wish he had done for me. On top of basically saving my career, but you know what I mean... That’s why we work so well together Otabek-kun. Don’t forget that it takes two rights to make one great.”

Otabek nodded.

“Noted, Sensei.”

Yuuri laughed and pushed him playfully. Otabek was a great student, he was like a sponge and absorbed absolutely everything that could be released and poured on every single moment of his performances on ice. As well as his off-rink training where there was much to be done. Sometimes Yuuri thinks it’s because of him that he took being a good coach so personally. Sure, Victor is absolutely fantastic and the best one out there as of today, like he usually is for every and anything else, but Yuuri sees right through Otabek and he knows he is not like Yurio, taking a year off proved just that, so he guessed his student could use a softer approach to his already amazing ice skating from time to time. It was all about continuously complementing what was already there, something Yuuri had learned to do exceptionally well in the past few years.

“So I heard something about splits or was it my imagination?”

Otabek groaned and his coach smiled pitifully at him.

“Back to the yoga mat, Otabek Altin!”

However, as his day to day changed so did his mind and body. Where his anxieties dropped, his consciousness rose; his injuries healed and the last broken bits of his heart sealed. Yuuri grew confident, much more than he had ever been on the ice and it showed whenever he coached, when he danced, when he advised the newest skaters and even offered commentary in the latest Olympic Games. Yuuri was changing, as it was to be expected. And for some reason he did not enjoyed that as much as he thought. At least not every part of it.

It was late in the night when he crashed down on his bed after a long afternoon at his dancing studio on the basement of the rink. He was late for dinner and skipped most of it to rush to the shower and then to his bedroom where Victor was sitting down on their desk with an obvious frown on his face. Yuuri exhaled against the pillows and Victor got closer to him.

“Okay Yurishka, you’ve had quite a run this evening. Care to share with the class what’s going inside that head of yours?”

Yuri groaned.

“Hm, very interesting Mr. Katsuki-Nikiforov. Can you elaborate on that?”

This time the other man only breathed out loudly, making a wheezing noise as the air inside him found its way out of the pillows where his face was smushed in.

“Oooh!” Victor hummed. “I see, this is a very interesting approach. Will you follow up with, I don’t know, verbal comments, Mr. Katsuki?”

When Yuuri lifted his face, he found his breathtaking husband in an oversized sweater and reading glasses. His short fringe falling into his forehead and his hands pretending to hold a pen and a notepad. Expression solemn as if he was truly writing down the inner workings of Yuuri’s twisted mind.

He couldn’t help but giggle.

Even if time went by and Victor changed as well, Yuuri had seen him turn into the most graceful and poised version of the Victor Nikiforov anyone had ever seen. Time with Yuuri had done him well and now his mature exterior matched a much more tuned interior now that he had finally grown fully into his heart. He was still quite boyish at times, to much of Yuuri’s delight, but Victor was now a full grown man who knew much better than to act coy and spoilt all the time. And it suited him, now calm and peaceful, a very loving man who was still hotter than hell but as good as heaven. A great man with a stupidly attractive face, who had not lost his humor and kind heart at all. Yuuri could have not been more in love. And yet...

“You are, honest to god, ridiculous.” He rolled his eyes and turned on his back, pulling down his sweatshirt as he did so to look at his husband through his own steamed glasses.

Victor reached for him and grabbed his hand to kiss his knuckles. Yuuri blushed and bit his lip.

“I am just very eager to know, truly, what is it that has you in this very concerning state of being?” He raised an eyebrow. “If the Atlin boy is messing with you I swear to heaven above that I…”

“Of course it’s not Otabek, Victor. I am seconds away of adopting that kid, no joke.”

“A child of our own! How blessed will we be.” They both laughed soundly. “Finally a way to silence all those ice skating websites gossiping about our family dynamic. Although I do not know how they will feel about us choosing Otabek over Yurio, you see…”

“Well if they’re not going to pay child support they should not care at all, right?”

Victor laughed once more and took off his glasses before kissing Yuuri softly on the lips. The fact that the Victor Nikiforov truly married the Yuuri Katsuki was absolutely magical. Not to mention that Yuuri secured his marriage and his first gold on a Grand Prix a year after Barcelona. Whether it was the absolute determination in marrying his idol or showing the world who he really was in the ice, it did the trick. And both his adventure as a competitive skater and his journey as a husband, had given Yuuri the joy of a lifetime.

As soon as his lips were in touch with Victor’s, Yuuri felt a soft flame licking at the bottom of his stomach that urged him to press his whole face against his husband’s. He was so, so in love that sometimes it hurt him to be this open with him. This vulnerable and soft and pliable because it was disarming himself on every level and giving all of him to Victor, blindly and willingly just because he loved him to no end. Their lips where hot and firm, marking every kiss with intention and need for each other. Their breaths ragged already and their cheeks blushed, necks tainted in hues of coral as they shared warmth. Exhaling air softly from his nose, Yuuri took both of his hands and tried to pull Victor into him, desperate to have his body covered completely by his, pressed firmly against the bed like a stamp and framed perfectly by Victor’s sharp physique. He wanted to disappear into him and never look back. Yuuri wanted to feel him and him alone until he forgot about everything and it was only Victor in his head and soul. He wanted to think of nothing but him.

“Yuuri, detka, why are you crying?”

it wasn’t until Victor broke the kiss that Yuuri felt the hot tears falling from his eyes and into his cheeks, a horrible gasp forming in the base of his throat when he tried to speak up. He could only sob, then. His heart heavy and painful as he held on to Victor.

“Yurishka, what is it my love?” Victor whispered, climbing into the bed and holding Yuuri close to him, both lying down and curled up in a tight little ball of love.

“I don’t know.” He muttered in between gasps. “I-I… I feel awful.”

Victor brushed Yuuri’s hair with his hand and whispered behind his ear.

“Why? What’s the matter, baby?”

Yuuri shook his head and hid his face behind his hands. As soon as he started crying he understood his own pain and discomfort. He had to say it once and it put him to rest.

“No, I mean- I feel awful. Physically. I feel awful and ugly and disgusting.” His voice turned smaller and smaller with every single word, which came out strained and broken.

“What? Why?”

Victor held Yuuri even closer, turning him with his arms so they could face each other. Yuuri was not crying anymore, but his face was red and swollen and wet, it was a heartbreaking picture for someone as beautiful and with such a bright smile as himself. His eyes were dark and he could not meet Victor’s gaze. When Victor tried to lift Yuuri’s gaze, his hands were pushed aside.

“Will you talk to me, detka, please?”

Yuuri shivered.

“I don’t know, I don’t want to seem superficial… I didn’t think about this before but since I started I can’t stop? It’s so stupid, Victor. We should just sleep, I am probably just tired.”

“It’s not stupid or superficial, Yuuri. If it is hurting you this bad we must talk about it. I don’t want you bottling it up, we can make this right but let me listen to you.”

Yuuri seemed to think for a second.

He probably would not be able to tell what it was that made him so upset, he was just trying very hard to get by on his day to day without making so much fuss about his looks. Not because he did not care but because he had much more important things to do, and now that the was out of the spotlight and off of the prying lenses of the cameras of the paparazzis and the television broadcasters, it became less and less of a priority until he forgot about things such as makeup and designer clothes and fashionable frames for his eyeglasses. He stopped slicking his hair back and it was much longer than it had ever been. Yuuri was not so concerned anymore about his waistline and he pretty much ignored his diet five days out of seven. Did he let himself go? He would have not thought about it that way, but whenever he had a second to spare and he looked objectively at himself he would probably have to say yes.

The more attention he paid to the minimum details, the looks he would give himself on the mirrors and the fit of his jeans around his thighs and hips made him turn to the most negative things he could say about himself.

“It started by simple, short words.” He muttered. “I would catch myself looking down on me and whispering insults like ‘fat’, ‘ugly’, ‘disgusting’, ‘pig’, ‘broken’ and ‘unfit’.” Yuuri said, feeling his eyes well up with even more tears. “Then my clothes stopped fitting right, most of them won’t even let me breathe and now I have all these spots and marks on my face and my hands... I look stained, Victor. I catch myself going after seconds, sometimes even thirds and eventually when I want to go out for my morning jogs I run out of breath before the first five miles. So now I am drowning in full fledged monologues of self-hatred and I can’t even stand myself. I avoid mirrors and I try to make it to the weekend without having dinner…”

“I have noticed, lyubimyj.” Victor mutters, holding his husband’s hands tightly. “I have seen it. Most of it. But I had no idea it was this bad?”

Yuuri shook his head.

“I did not know it was this bad. I feel like I have been putting it off for as long as I can remember? I do not like being this way, I do not like thinking or feeling this way because I know it is stupid. God, I feel so dumb.” He laughs bitterly. “I’ve always been this way, it’s only a matter of time before it happens again and again. But why does it hurt so much right now?”

Victor’s frown deepened and turned harsh.

“Yuuri stop that, if you have to talk about your feelings then do it. I don’t care if it’s about your appearance, about your weight, about training or even about the traffic on your way home. I would rather listen to all of it than to see you crying all the time because you are being choked by your own thoughts and emotions.”

“Even if it’s because I think I look hideous?”

“I want to hear all of your nonsense, mostly because I am positive I can debunk more than half of it.”

“But Victor, honey, look at me! I am huge, I look disgusting, my face is ugly now! All of my clothes are tight as fuck now, my skin and my lips are dry and I keep looking dirty with all these tears and sweat running down cheeks… I can’t bear the image of myself Victor, I hate this so much. I hate myself so much…I want to be somebody else.”
As soon as he started crying again, Victor held him once more. Cooing at him and rocking side by side as if he was trying to lull the pain in his heart for him.

“If you were anybody else, I wouldn't be here, and I would be very much alone, Yuuri.”

“You’d be with someone who would take care of themselves, someone tiny and pretty and… dainty.” Yuuri muttered. “I will even make you look bad, oh my god, the things they’ll say about you Victor… I am such an ugly pig it will affect you, fuck!”

Victor was having none of it anymore.

“I want you to stop saying those things, first of all. They are all awful, and false. You’re saying such nonsense… It is insane, Yuuri. I can’t have all that. I might be unable to silence your thoughts but at least I can keep track of your words and putting them out there for the world to hear is only harmful to you, Detka.”

“Victor, I-!”

“Second of all, I would never be with anyone that wasn't you. I would rather spend all of my life, looking fr you -any version of you- before having anyone else. You are perfect for me as you are and whatever the people says I don’t care because this, you, is just for me.”

“But it’s the truth…”

“No, no, Yuuri… It’s okay to shed tears but you can’t tell yourself all of that. And you can’t try to trick me into buying it myself.”

“Why?”

“Well, first of all, because it is not true. Second, because you will end up believing it and it will blind you from what you actually are. It won’t let you see the rest of you, if you only focus on the bad you will only swallow those knives that you feed yourself and they will cut you from within.” Victor placed a hand on Yuuri’s belly, pressing lightly against the soft flesh. The younger, feeling his skin give in to the pressure of his husband’s hand, tried to push Victor away. But he found resistance.

“Don’t touch me, I’m so big…” Yuuri whispered, his words bubbling up inside him, seconds away from spilling once more.

“Yuuri, you are not. And even if you were, which is not the case, it would be fine. We change, bodies change, and instead of trying to raise a battle against us we have to understand us and welcome these changes, these new forms that we adopt because we are adapting to time.”

“That’s so easy for you to say, you are so perfect Victor…”

“I am not, nobody is. No matter how young and powerful we seem like Yurio and Otabek, how slim and… graceful we can come across like myself- Nobody is perfect, and we all have these details that we will always hate about ourselves. We all live with parts of us that we wish we could change, or improve. That we all have, it is part of the human condition to want something else that we are not only to satisfy an image that has been forced upon us like the only acceptable option there is to have the right to exist.”

“I just want to disappear Victor, I am so embarrassed of myself.”

He could go on forever, Victor knew. Repeating himself and saying all of this again and again, but he would not allow none of that.

“That will not change if you keep perceiving yourself so negatively.”

“Everytime I put on a pair of jeans I want to die, but if I wear sweats or leggings I can’t help but look at every fold and curve. I am so exhausted with myself I don’t sleep at night and it makes me look like shit by day. I am so hurt that I can’t help but eat and eat at every moment that I feel estranged or disgusted at myself.”

Victor inhaled sharply, knowing it was in him, if only for that moment, to soothe his husband so he could sleep for once that simple night. But it could be harder than it sounded. Yuuri was a fragile person, he knew it ever since they met and he has taken that with himself everywhere they go, for Victor knew how important it was to keep it in mind if he was going to be his lover. When they married, Victor did not think about it as much, but only because he already knew it by heart. Being with Yuuri was being open, vulnerable, and sincere but sometimes it was also being cautious, careful and caring. Loving Yuuri came with a lot of beauty for him, it was the best thing in his life and his favorite part of his day to day, but it was also hard and demanding. Tonight it seemed to be one of those times where he knew how tough it got and how patient he had to be.

He had been there, once, but Yuuri, albeit unknowingly, helped him to get out of that hole with love and sincerity. His overflowing well of compliments, adoration and self, made Victor recover from the pain and hurt that followed him for weeks after retiring a couple of years ago. And he knew Christophe had been there too, before Victor hung up his skates. And now Victor knew it was not some kind of skater-exclusive syndrome that followed artistic athletes after retiring. It was a human syndrome, a ugly and gritty, very unpleasant, experience every single person would have to go through at some point when change and challenge presented themselves in front of anyone who would dare to initiate a new journey, a new adventure, a new chapter in their lives. It was bound to happen, anyone could face themselves like this at any given point of their lives. Yuuri was there now, and his normal anxieties collided messily with it to the breaking point where it had him just like this, open raw and vulnerable at his lowest.
Lucky for him, Victor had not only been there himself, but he had seen Yuuri like that in the past.

“I understand what you are going through, and now that you have talked to me about it we will get out of here together.” Victor kissed him again. “I am not promising a make-over with an exercise routine and meal plan included, but an easy way to approach this crisis that you are having so you can meet your new self and love him just as much as I do. Whether you feel like you have let yourself go or that change simply beat you in this one race, we will welcome together this fantastic you in time.”

Yuuri stayed silent and Victor hummed.

“You don’t seem very convinced.”

“I am not sure I want to love this version of myself, I see it and I hate that it has turned into who I am.”

“There are some things we can change to make you feel like yourself again, others are new and we will learn to understand them so we can accept them as they are. What can be helped we will help, I am here and I promise you this.”

Yuuri inhaled slowly.

“And what about the things that can not be helped at all?” He wondered, sounding so innocent and concerned all of the sudden.

“We’ll figure them out later, if they need more time then with time we will address them and with patience it’ll be over. If it is not a matter of time nor patience, then it’ll have to be what it must be.”

Yuuri lifted his gaze then, he was still crying and his eyes were not only scarlet red by the skin, but now the darkness that tainted them before had dissolved and a pair of brown honey looked at him with a glance of hope.

“You don’t think I look awful?”

Victor huffed.

“I think you look healthy, beautiful and handsome as ever.” Victor told him. “I only see my lovely Yuuri whom I adore and it breaks my heart to find out that you have been feeling this way for some time now and that I could have helped before. We could have prevented this, Yurishka.”

“I did not want you to realize how ugly I had become.” He admitted, voice tiny and eyes hurt. “I thought that you had not seen me yet and that if I spoke to you about it the you would see it, then you would see me and… and not want me anymore.”

“Oh Yuuri, I will always want you. As soon as I wake up in the morning and as I close my eyes at night, you are all I want. I could give it all up if I had to just to keep it. I did not see what you see because to me you’re still my amazing Yuuri and no matter what your body go through and how much your face shows it I still think you are the most beautiful man in all over the world and even after all these years of marriage I still have not got enough of you.”

“Do you mean it?”

“As much as I mean every single ‘I love you’ I have uttered to you in my lifetime.” Victor hummed, chuckling as Yuuri buried his face in his chest. “And you know you are the one thing I love the most, above all, in the world.”

“I feel so stupid, I truly did not want to ruin our night like this.”

“Stop it, Yuuri. Listening to you will never ruin anything, no matter how heartbreaking it can get. If you don’t talk to me I can’t get to know you, and one thing that I love, of all of them, is how I am always getting to know you as if it were the first time I ever laid eyes on you. And that can only happen if you allow me within your head and heart.”

Yuuri nodded.

“Thank you, Victor.” He looked up to him. “I love you so much, thank you.”

“Ah, my baby, thank you for sharing this with me. It is better this way.”

Then, Yuuri kissed him, slowly and unsurely raising from his position on the bed so he could climb his way to Victor’s hips, seating softly on top of him. Victor’s hands found their way to Yuuri’s waist and held him tightly in place to raise as well. Now that they were both seated, Yuuri could hug him between kisses and hold him close to his chest as their breathings fogged up and their hearts beated once again with the euphoria of their affections. Yuuri smiled and Victor broke their embrace just to look at him.

“There it is.” He smiled as well. “I would kill just for that smile, Yuuri. Please never stop smiling.”
Yuuri nodded.

“I want this pain to go away Victor. I want to smile for you. Help me get rid of all this hurt.”

Victor caressed Yuuri’s face with his knuckles, pushing his hair back and holding all of his face with both his hands, his thumbs drawing lazy circles over his cheekbones.

Things have changed, everything was by far different now. But Yuuri was never alone and with Victor even the worst things could be bearable. No matter how different they were becoming, how unknown and scary. Everything was changing and yet Victor was still there, ever present in every step he gave. Loving him, adoring him, supporting him and standing by him on every step he gave along the way. He knew very well how difficult things could get, nothing had ever been easy since Victor Nikiforov appeared buck naked in his family’s onsen. But they had always been so, so worth it. And to this day he thanked every single challenge he ever faced. And he thanked Victor for being with him along all the way.

“All you had to do was ask me. In no time we’ll be fine, Yuuri.” He kissed his forehead. “In no time.”

Yuuri’s insecurities would not fade away just like that. But just by voicing them he felt better, he was acknowledged and reassured, at least that night he would be able to get some sleep. And reaching out always was the worst part, and now he was done with it. He knew he would be fine, not that night and not the next day, but he was coming home to love himself soon. And he was going to get there with the other love of his life