Chapter Text
It's Yuri’s second GPF banquet since becoming Yuri Katsuki-Nikiforov. It’s his first with Victor only as his coach and the fourth banquet since the beautifully amazing Victor Nikiforov showed up at his family’s hot springs and announced that he was going to be Yuri’s coach. They have grown so much together and Yuri knows that there is no one else that he would want to be his partner on or off the ice.
Victor is off smoothing out sponsorship deals while Yuri talks with Phichit and Leo de la Iglesia. Both had also made it to the final Grand Prix competition and came out with personal bests.
“Yuri! When are you and Victor going to adopt your figure skating protégés’? Uncle Phichit is dying to spoil them!” Yuri only laughs at Phichit’s complaints.
“We haven’t really talked much about it since before we got married. We're just focusing on skating right now.” Yuri reflects with a shrug.
“But Yuuuuuri! Victor retired last year! He’d be an amazing stay at home dad!” Leo just laughs at Phichit who is now shaking Yuri in an attempt to further get his point across.
“EW! Gross! Pork Cutlet Bowl and the asshole do not need anything else to make them more annoying!” Ah, there’s Yurio, Yuri was starting to wonder where the Russian punk had wandered off to. Yurio having turned 18 this year is starting to adapt to the changes his body has been making the past few years and has made a strong comeback this season, almost pushing Yuri out of God, but settled for silver. At this point, Yuri has a couple of centimeters on Yurio but is still shorter than Victor.
“Don’t worry Yuri, Sarah and Noah Miller would have to die first for Katsuki to have kids,” Leo pipes up between laughs.
Yuri covers his face with his hands at the blush rushes all the way up to his hairline, “Oh my God! I completely forgot about that!”
“What?” Yurio is looking between them all like they have all suddenly grown extra heads. “Who is Sarah and Noah?”
Leo gestures towards the American coaches and previous top pair skaters. “They used to be good pair skaters but stopped skating once they had kids, Emily and Josh, they took up coaching because they would be less likely to get hurt. They would bring their kids to the rink in Detroit-“
“And they absolutely LOVED Yuri! We would all joke that if anything ever happened to Sarah and Noah that Yuri should be the one to take care of them. No one knows about their extended family, but it is assumed that they are not in the picture.” Phichit finishes for Leo.
“Yeaaaa, but that was only ever a joke! No one would actually leave the care of their children to me!” Yuri takes his hands away from his face long enough to glare at Phichit and Leo, who just laugh at him.
“You guys are weird” Yurio announces before sulking off to go find Otabek.
***
Immediately after they land back in St. Petersburg, Yuri decides that he wants to go to the rink and skate, despite his coach saying that he should take a rest day. It seems that they were not the only ones with that idea as they see Mila and Yurio already lacing up their skates and arguing about something.
“I don’t see why you don’t just ask him out!” Mila is laughing more than anything, however, Yurio’s blush has spread to his ears by this point showing that he is more embarrassed than he is mad.
“I don’t see how it's your fucking problem! Why don’t you just go sleep with another hockey jock already?” Yurio storms off to the ice to begin his warm-up.
“What was that all about?” Victor asks hand in hand with Yuri as they approach Mila.
“I was just giving him a hard time about Otabek, you know the usual.”
Victor watches as Yuri begins practice with some lazy figure eights before picking up his speed. His step sequences have always been his specialty and despite constantly ending up on the podium at competitions his jumps still stand for improvement. As if to prove that idea, he immediately stumbles out of the quad flip he had attempted. At least he didn’t fall flat on his butt like he used to. Yurio is refining the step sequence from his free program. His stamina was causing him trouble during the Grand Prix and he messed up on this part costing him the gold.
After about an hour of practice, someone’s phone begins to ring. No one reaches for it until it has gone to voicemail once and starts ringing again. Victor who is closest to the side skates over and picks up Yuri’s blue poodle phone case.
“Who is it?” Yuri calls out from across the rink.
“Someone named Nicholas James. Do you want me to-“ When Yuri heard ‘Nicholas’ he skated over to Victor and grabbed the phone out of his hand.
“Moshi Moshi, Nic! You better be calling because you’re in St. Petersburg and you're dying to see me,” Yuri has the most strained smile Victor has ever seen him wear.
All Victor can make out on the other end of the phone before Yuri has on his skate guards and is walking off to the side is, “Unfortunately not, do you remember Sarah and Noah Miller from your time here in Detroit?”
“Of course.” Victor cannot hear the rest of the conversation since Yuri has walked out of earshot.
Suddenly Yurio and Mila are standing right next to him, “Victor have you seen this?” Yurio is shoving his phone in Victor’s face before he gets a chance to answer.
It is showing a news headline saying, “Tragic plane crash results in the death of the American Figure Skating team” Victor grabs the phone to read more. The American Figure Skating team was heading home after the Grand Prix Final and they do not know much more yet, other than the plane crashed in the middle of nowhere just outside of Washington DC. As far as they can tell there have been no survivors found. Leo de la Iglesia and his coach were saved as they were on a different flight after staying an extra day in Italy.
“The ISU has already announced that they are canceling the rest of the competition this season! That blows!” Yurio exclaims before he grabs his phone back from Victor.
“Well, that makes sense, they did the same thing when this happened back in ‘61,” Mila says with a shrug, “It’s so sad though so many people gone! I can’t believe I will never see or skate against Ashely ever again” Victor puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Thanks again for calling me, Nic. I will have to talk that over with my husband before giving you a definite answer. I'll call you back later today. Ok. Yea I will let you know when my flight lands. Alright. Good-bye.” Yuri hangs up the phone as he is walking back over to the group with his hand running through his hair.
“What did Nicholas say, love?”
“I assume you guys have already heard about the plane crash?” Yuri barely looks at them as he leans down to untie his skates. They nod their heads at him. “Well, some good friends of mine from Detroit died in the crash.” Yuri looks up at Victor, “I am going to America to help with things, and there is something I need to talk to you about alone.”
Victor just nods at Yuri walking over and taking his skates off as well. They say their good-byes to Yurio and Mila before walking home. Victor can tell that there is something more than just the plane crash bothering Yuri. They do not say anything to each other until they are in their apartment and settled on the couch.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Victor starts since all Yuri is doing is staring down at his clasped hands.
When he still doesn’t respond Victor puts a light hand on Yuri’s shoulder, “Yuri?” Yuri looks up at Victor with tears in his eyes before falling into Victor’s shoulder and sobbing.
“They’re still so young Victor! What are we going to do? Can we take them? But we live in RUSSIA!” Victor is rubbing his back and holding him as he continues to say things that don’t make sense.
“Liybimaya, slow down, what is going on? Breath for me, love.”
Yuri takes several deep breaths before starting at the beginning. “When I was in Detroit there was this skating couple who used to be popular in pair skating. They ended up getting married and having kids.”
“Cute!”
Yuri nods, “Yes, their kids were really cute too. Last I saw them 5 years ago, Emily was 8, and Josh was only 5. They were really cute kids. Naturally, Sarah and Noah already had them learning how to ice skate, so they would come with their parents to the rink, and Phichit and I would play with them when we were not practicing our programs. It was really cute.
“I especially bonded with Emily. She reminded me a lot of myself when I was younger. Anxiety and all. It became a running joke that if anything happened to them I would be the one who would take care of them because I understood Anxiety. What I didn’t realize at the time though was that it wasn’t just a joke. Sarah and Noah actually named me responsible for the kids if something ever happened to them.” Yuri stopped here and started crying even harder. “I don’t know what to do, Vitya.”
It took Victor a few minutes to realize what Yuri meant, “Sarah and Noah died in the plane crash.” It wasn’t a question, rather a statement of fact.
Yuri nodded his head against Victor’s chest. “Yea, Emily and Josh stay home during competitions now that Emily is old enough to take care of them for a couple of days. Plus, they have always been close with the other skaters at the rink. So, those who were not competing typically check in on them and use Emily as an excuse to break their diet and eat some cookies.” Yuri chuckles sadly at the memory.
Yuri sits up and wipes the tears out of his eyes, “Victor, I am legally in charge of these kids. I don’t know what to do. I know we haven’t talked about kids in a while, but we basically have to adopt them or let them go into the foster system where they could potentially be separated. I don’t want to do that to them. Victor are you ok?”
Because Yuri was crying in Victor’s chest, he didn’t realize how still Victor had gone after his last interjection. Yuri definitely didn’t realize how pale Victor had gone.
Yuri started talking again, “Victor, I know we were still waiting on adopting any more pets and we definitely haven’t talked about kids since before we got married, but I really don’t want these kids to end up in the hands of strangers. I know that I am not always the best husband, and I might really suck as a dad. But Sarah and Noah trusted me with their kids. I don’t want to be responsible if they get placed in a bad foster home or anything. Before you say no, at least come to America with me to meet them.”
Slowly Victor processed what was going on while Yuri was speaking. Slowly the color came back to his face, and he started to don the heart-shaped smile that Yuri loves so much, “Yuri, why would you think I would say no? I was just surprised this was suddenly happening to us. Once I entered a relationship with a man I didn't think surprise pregnancies would be a thing," Victor winked at Yuri. "You’re gonna be an amazing dad. Of course, we won't let anything bad happen to them. I'd sign the papers right now if I could”
“Really?”
“Yea, we better buy some plane tickets then, and you need to call Nicholas.”
“I love you so much!” Yuri throws his arms around Victor’s neck. Victor squeezed Yuri back just as hard.
“I love you too, moye liybimaya”