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Published:
2023-05-27
Updated:
2024-02-05
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3,661
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2/?
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rewrite, revitalize, rival

Summary:

“Holy shit,” Victor hears Yuri says.

“What?” Victor says dumbly. And then he listens. “Holy shit.”

Because Katsuki Yuuri just beat Victor’s FS record by ten points.

And Victor Nikiforov, for the first time in a long time, feels alive.

OR: Yuuri and Yuri time travel and everyone else is just along for the ride.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

It starts during the practice before the free skate.

Celestino was already concerned about Yuuri, the young man having exited the bathrooms with red rimmed eyes and trembling hands, pushing past his coach to get to the ice.

His skating has been wobbly, sloppy in the way it always gets when his anxiety begins to debilitate his mind. 

He can tell that Yuuri is trying to focus. His brows are furrowed in concentration, his lips set in a firm line, and his movements filled with intent just failing their execution. But with the sorrow that tears at his heart from the passing of his beloved dog, he is more than distracted and detached from what needs to be done today.

Celestino doesn’t know what to do to encourage him. To get him out of this funk and set it aside just for the performance. Or hell! Even taking that emotion and using it to amplify his skate.

But Celestino doesn’t say that because he’s not a heartless monster like he knows other coaches could be, and he cares more about his student’s mental health than he does his performance.

Though he also knows that failure will only send him spiraling further.

It’s a decision he isn’t fit to make. Something that he doesn’t know the right answer for.

Celestino is so caught up in his internal battle that he almost misses it.

But as Yuuri is spinning in what looks like what would be a clean triple lux, he’s suddenly plummeting from the air and hitting the ice.

There’s gasps and shouts but Celestino can’t hear them over the roar rushing in his ears. He shoves his way to Yuuri, kneeling at his side.

“Yuuri!” Celestino exclaims. “What happened? Are you alright?”

Yuuri blinks blearily at him, his gaze not all there, like he’s not quite cognizant of where he is. “Ciao Ciao? What are you doing here?” Yuuri’s head falls limply on the ice with a small thunk and he frowns. “What am I doing on the ice?”

Celestino’s breath hitches. 

The medics have made their way over to them and immediately start checking Yuuri for injury.

The young man hesitates greatly with their questions. He doesn’t seem to know the year, guessing and guessing wrong. He luckily knows the questions about himself but where he is, what he’s doing there, are all met with confusion.

“You’re at Sochi, Russia for the Grand Prix,” Celestino says softly.

“What?” Yuuri breathes. “No, that’s— no, I can’t be—”

“Yes,” Celestino says, tears brimming his eyes. “You’ve worked very hard to get here, Yuuri. And I think you’ve worked yourself a little too hard. So let’s bring you somewhere to get you some rest, alright?”

Celestino slips a hand under Yuuri’s elbow, the medic taking the other side, and they help him to his feet.

His legs are unsteady beneath him and Celestino fears that it’s further injury, but Yuuri’s face goes stony, too blank for such an expressionate young man, and he slowly skates off the ice with confident glides. 

The other skaters are whispering amongst themselves and Celestino prays that Yuuri can’t hear whatever rumors they may already be spreading.

They bring Yuuri back to lay down and though Yuuri’s face is carefully devoid of his usual spark, Celestino can see horror in the young man’s eyes and a sorrow so strong that whatever Yuuri had been displaying before seems minute. 

They continue to treat Yuuri but they conclude that he’s physically fine, bar a few nasty bruises, and his memory is clearing up now that the initial confusion has passed.

“They want to keep an eye on you, make sure that you don’t exacerbate any hidden injuries,” Celestino says.

“I’m still competing,” Yuuri says, voice filled with fiery determination.

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” Celestino says. “If there’s head injury, you could have coordination issues—”

“I feel plenty coordinated—”

“Concussions can present later. You might not even know you have one—”

“I didn’t even hit my head!” Yuuri says. 

“You were confused!” Celestino says. “I’m just worried, Yuuri.”

“I understand why,” Yuuri says. “But they’re going to clear me and I’m going to compete.”

Celestino softens. “You don’t have anything to prove.”

“I do,” Yuuri says. “But it’s not for them. It’s for me. I know I can do this. I know that I can do better.”

“Better than what?” Celestino says.

Yuuri meets his eyes and there’s something that Celestino doesn’t recognize in his gaze. “Better than how I did before.”

Celestino stews for a moment, holding back the protective disapproval that sits on his tongue. “If you start feeling unwell at all, even if it’s just a little tingle in your temple, you will see the medics again.”

“I will,” Yuuri says. “I promise.”

Celestino sighs. “Okay.”

“I want to look over my routine notes,” Yuuri says.

“Do you not remember your routine?” Celestino says?

Yuuri shakes his head, though he gnaws at his lip, his most obvious tell for lying. “I just want to see where I can improve.”

Celestino watches with worry as Yuuri studies the sheet he brings him with his routines written out. Yuuri looks over it with a thoughtful frown. 

“I can do better than this.”

“Yuuri,” Celestino says. “You just fell on a Triple Lutz. I don’t think it’s a good idea to—”

“I can do it,” Yuuri says emphatically. “I just— the narrative isn’t right anymore.”

Celestino wants to shut this down, shake Yuuri on the shoulders to just practice what they’ve prepared for months, but he knows he won’t be able to stop him. And something in him wants to know what Yuuri will do.

Yuuri scribbles on the paper, replacing some elements with their more difficult counterparts, rearranging it completely so that the quads have been moved. It looks— technically beautiful but completely out of Yuuri’s capabilities, especially with how Yuuri performed in his short program.

“Yuuri—”

“Let me show you. Please. I can do this.”

Celestino isn’t sure that it’s a good idea.

But then Yuuri gets on the ice and he becomes the music. He’s creating art with every flick of his wrist, every spin and jump, every curve of the lip. 

It’s unlike anything Celestino has seen Yuuri do. No. It’s unlike anything Celestino had seen ever. 

And it may just change ice skating as they know it.

.-~*~-.

Some may think that Victor has become bored of the victory. Accustomed to it. Expecting of it.

But Victor is resigned to it. The guarantee of his success makes every win mean less and less.

He’s an icon, but he feels like iconography. A symbol, an idea, but nothing truly tangible. 

Victor performed and scored just below his free skate record, getting him a score of 335.76. It’s high. It would be unthinkable that anyone beats him. It’s what everyone expected of him and he…

He’s tired. He’s tired of living in this cyclical drone. He’s tired of being the highest of standards and being held to them. He’s tired of being the best.

Victor trudges off from the Kiss and Cry and goes to grab some water when Yuri pulls him aside and tells him that he should stick around to watch the next contestant.

Victor cocks a brow. “Why?”

Yuri’s eyes dart suspiciously. “He’s gonna be worth watching.”

Victor hears the announcer call out the next skater and the name rings in his mind with slight recognition. Oh. It’s the skater that fell during practice. Now he sees. Yuri probably wants to see whatever disaster is about to befall this poor skater who is clearly overworked and overemotional.

Victor wonders if he’s ever been overemotional. He can’t remember when he felt something so strongly that it was actually notable. 

Katsuki Yuuri. Victor knows of him vaguely, the way you do when you see names on leaderboards, but not really being able to put a face to the name. He’s always struggled with that. So many faces, so many names, and all of them just meaningless passerbys in his everyday.

Katsuki takes his mark on the ice and it’s like he’s completely transformed. He demands the attention of each individual in the audience.

When he takes off, it’s like his body is being pulled with every motion. He is not moving, he is being moved. The story is clear in every movement. Someone so in love that it is palpable, seeping from them in every motion. Someone who has lost their love but has hope to find them again. Someone who is searching desperately, lost and afraid and alone who doesn’t want to be alone.

Victor knows what it means to be alone. Victor knows how it feels to be clinging to hopeless hope.

The first jump is sudden and Victor doesn’t even anticipate it. 

A perfectly executed quad salchow. There’s a small quirk of his lips, like the move triggers a nostalgic recollection. 

He follows this with an intricate step sequence, completely and utterly mesmerizing. The movements are quick and precise, almost too fast to comprehend, and Victor’s eyes are glued to the way his muscles flex with every flick of the toe.

He continues with some beautiful skating, showing off his spins and his elegance, but it leaves Victor perplexed. 

Where are the rest of the jumps? It’s nearing the end of the song and he’s only done the one. 

He enters another beautiful step sequence and while Victor is being entranced, he’s suddenly leaping into a quad lutz + triple toe.

Victor’s breath hitches. He’s moved the jumps to the end. Jumps of this level at this part of the performance, it’s unheard of.

He continues to glide, continues to capture the audience’s every attention, and then he’s ending the routine with a… no. He couldn’t have—

But he did.

He ended with a quadruple flip + triple axel.

The second almost looks like an after thought when the quadruple flip felt as though he was pouring his entire heart into the jump.

He ends with one final step sequence into a beautiful sit spin into a camel spin. 

As he releases, he presses a palm to his lips and his hand sweeps out as if he’s reaching, like he’s captured his love and thrown it to… to…

To Victor. 

Victor’s heart stutters, lips parted as his eyes meet Yuuri’s.

Yuuri’s holds the stance for a few moments before pulling away. 

The applause is thunderous. 

But Victor doesn’t hear it. It all blurs away, his focus on Yuuri skating to the Kiss and Cry.

“Holy shit,” Victor hears Yuri says. 

“What?” Victor says dumbly. And then he listens. “Holy shit.”

Because Katsuki Yuuri just beat Victor’s FS record by ten points.

And Victor Nikiforov, for the first time in a long time, feels alive.

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

To say the least, the world is in quite a shock.

Katsuki Yuuri, who they thought would barely scrape it to the top five, suddenly shot his way up to silver.

The young man himself seems to be in a similar state of shock and disbelief, floating between interview to interview giving stilted responses that seem both meticulously rehearsed to the point of thoughtless regurgitation of words while also looking like complete on the spot improvisation.

When he stands beside Victor, he stares at him with awe and such heartbroken pain that it sparks numerous speculation of a secret romance (and more importantly, a secret breakup).

But Katsuki denies the rumors, his voice cracking on poorly hidden hurt, and Nikiforov is completely oblivious of it all, unaware of how these rumors had started but unable to deny his quickly growing enamorment and respect for the other skater.

The rest of the Grand Prix flies by and the talk of Katsuki doesn’t die down. Everyone is looking for a chance to talk with the record-breaking, standard-redefining skater. But the one who longs to speak to him most is the man whose record he broke.

It takes Victor a moment to build up the courage to approach him, Yuuri barely getting a moment to breathe from the people swarming him at the banquet, and when he finally sees Yuuri with a free space at his side, Yuri approaches him. 

Yuuri looks at him with a longing Victor doesn’t understand and it seems that Yuuri begins the typical pleasantries he’s been cycling through for the past hour, but Yuri says something that makes Yuuri pause. 

Yuuri stares at Yuri with wide eyes of shock, gasping something Victor can’t hear, before tackling Yuri with a hug.

Victor sucks in a sharp breath, ready for Yuri to bite off the head of the poor man, but to his surprise, Yuri begrudgingly accepts the hug, even melting into his embrace. Yuuri pulls away, fondly ruffling Yuri’s hair and finally he’s back to his usual self, blowing up into indignant shouts, but Yuuri just throws his head back in laughter. 

A million questions are swarming Victor’s mind. How do they know each other? How long have they known each other? How did Victor not know about Yuuri before now but Yuri seems like he’s known him for years?

As if they’ve read his mind, they both look over at Victor, eyes too sad, and Victor wants to wipe it away.

Yuri pushes Yuuri in the chest, shouting again and wiping his eyes with his sleeves. Yuuri just looks sad, heartbroken like he’s been since his victory.

Yuuri looks at him again and their eyes meet and Victor can’t help but get lost in them. It’s Yuuri who turns away, brows pinched like it hurts to look at Victor and it pains him because he doesn’t know what he’s done to cause that reaction.

Yuri yells again, smacking his palm against Yuuri’s forehead before grabbing his wrist and dragging him… towards Victor?!

Victor steadies himself, going over the many different scenarios he’d built up in his mind and the different scripts he prepared for when he finally got to speak to Yuuri.

Yuri stomps in front of Victor, almost shoving Yuuri into Victor. “Talk,” Yuri says with his typical annoyance before stomping away.

“Hello,” Yuuri says shyly, eyes big behind his glasses.

“You weren’t wearing those earlier,” Victor blurts out.

“Uhm,” Yuuri says. “Yes. I… wear different clothes when I’m skating?”

“No,” Victor says, internally cursing himself but unable to stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth. “Those.” His hand goes up to frame Yuuri’s face, fingers caressing the leg of his glasses, palm grazing his cheek.

Yuuri’s face burns up, his mouth dropping open slightly. “Ah. Yes. Well, I’ve learned the hard way that they don’t like to stay on my face while I’m skating.”

“Spins,” Victor says, nodding as if he had said something sage and not stating the obvious.

Thankfully, Yuuri laughs, the hurt in his eyes lightening just slightly, his smile blinding and making Victor’s heart soar. “Yes. Spins.”

“How do you see?” 

“Not well,” he says. “I don’t do well with contacts. The moves, they’re built into me. I know how they feel. I don’t need to see to be able to feel that.”

“Wow,” Victor breathes. “And you do. You feel the music. Anyone can see that. You’re… magnificent.” Yuuri ducks his head and Victor can’t help taking his chin in his hand, pulling his face back up. “You are. You’re meant for the ice. The way you move, it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

Yuuri stares at him with disbelief. “You’ve been my idol for as long as I can remember. I used to skate your programs, trying to get an ounce of your grace. I knew that I had to be on the same ice as you. I never thought you could ever see me as anything but a second-rate nobody. But you… you see something that I can’t see in myself. You’ve always…” He shakes his head. “Even now, I don’t know what you see in me.”

And Victor is stunned near speechless. How can Yuuri think so lowly of himself when he is so breath-takingly radiant? From the moment Victor had set eyes on him, he was drawn to him, like a planet in orbit, revolving around the brightest star. 

“You are greater than you know, Katsuki Yuuri,” Victor says. “And if it’s me that has to show that to you, then I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it.”

“The rest of your life?” Yuuri repeats.

“If you’ll have me.”

“We’ve just met,” Yuuri says, his cheeks tinted pink.

“And I’d love to get to know you more,” Victor says. “How long are you in Sochi?”

“I… was actually planning on staying a little longer,” Yuuri says.

Victor grins. “May I get you a drink?”

“No!” Yuuri exclaims suddenly. “I mean, uhm. I don’t like to drink at official gatherings. I don’t handle my alcohol well.”

“Well, luckily, there happen to be many drinks that don’t have alcohol.”

“I’d like that,” Yuuri says. 

They end up at a table in the corner of the banquet hall, Yuuri mindlessly tracing patterns in the condensation of his glass of water as he speaks with Victor.

Katsuki Yuuri is the most fascinating man that Victor has ever gotten the honor of speaking with.

There’s something about him that makes him feel like he’s known him all his life, the conversation so natural that Victor finds himself sharing things that he has never shared with anyone else. 

Yuuri doesn’t seem surprised by the things he shares, taking in everything he says with no judgment, just genuine interest. 

Is exhausting, playing the role that he must play. It’s not often that he can truly be just himself. Even his rinkmates who he’s skated with for years have expectations for him, their own versions of him that they’ve built of him that he has to maintain.

But Yuuri doesn’t have any expectations for Victor but for him to be himself and in the fleeting hours that he spends talking with Yuuri, he feels, for the first time in a long time, seen.

Victor is many things. He is watched. He is perceived. But he isn’t often seen.

It’s lonely, being the best, and though Yuuri has yet to achieve that title, Victor can only see greatness in his future.

Yuuri is a breath of fresh air after drowning so long you don’t realize you are. Yuuri is the relief of aloe after a sunburn, of sitting after hours repetitions, of the raucous cheers after a performance.

Victor hasn’t felt so himself in so long that he had forgotten what it was like to truly be him.

It’s torture to bid Yuuri a goodnight, but he promises that they’ll see each other again, and Victor can’t help but believe him, can’t help but to hope that again will be soon.

He lies awake in his hotel bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling like a schoolboy, overwhelmed with a crush.

But this is no puppy love. No quick rush of passion.

Victor can imagine a future with Yuuri. A future of Yuuri’s smiles and laughs and seeing eyes. 

And isn’t that terrifying in itself?

Just one day and Victor’s heart is irrevocably Yuuri’s.

He doesn’t know how he’ll manage it when Yuuri returns to America. Will he have to wait until the next competition to see him again? Will Yuuri be willing to hold onto Victor through calls and messages or will he grow tired of him when he can’t be there with him, unable to feel his touch, to hold him as he longs to do?

Yuuri had given him his phone number which implies that he wants to stay in touch, but Victor knows how relationships can fizzle out because of distance.

But his worries are soothed when he wakes up to a message from Yuuri the next morning. It’s a simple good morning, but it makes Victor’s heart race. 

Victor goes to the rink that morning, the need to express his love on the ice about to burst out of him. He feels the silent music flow through his every move, hit with a wave of new inspiration, knowing what his next program will be.

When he finally finishes, he’s startled by the sound of clapping at the edge of the rink.

There stands Yuuri and, to his surprise, Yakov.

“Yuuri!” Victor greets. 

“Hello, Victor,” Yuuri says, and the way he says his name makes him stutter, so unbelievably enamored.

“Victor,” Yakov says stiffly. “Celestino, Katsuki, and I had a discussion this morning. He’s going to be training under me.”

Victor’s jaw drops, that soaring feeling in his heart glowing so warm that he can feel it spread through his entire being, electricity sparking through his veins.

“Why did you leave Celestino?”

“Celestino had always believed I could do something more, that I was holding myself back, and when he saw what I could truly do, he realized that he had taught me all he could and that I needed someone who wouldn’t just get me to my best, but someone who could push me to be even better.” Yuuri smiles softly. “I loved Celestino and Celestino loved me too but he… he worries. I’ve struggled with my anxiety and that keeps him from pushing me because he doesn’t want to push me too far and we both know that I can never truly grow if he’s holding back. Yakov won’t hold back.”

“No, I won’t,” Yakov says. “After I saw what you pulled at the Grand Prix, you can bet that I’m not going to go easy on you. That’s just the beginning for you, Katsuki. You’re not going to be the next Victor Nikiforov. You’re going to be better. You’re going to be the Katsuki Yuuri.”

And Victor knows it’s true. Never before was he so thrilled at the idea of being beaten and usurped, but if there’s anyone who deserves it, it’s Yuuri.

Notes:

okay ..,. uh hi. it has been,., almost a year since i posted the first chapter but i finally wrote the next one. i fell out of yuri on ice HARD and this is unoutlined so i really had no idea where i was going with this one but i was hit with sudden inspiration to crank out this chapter and i think i've got a better idea where i'm going with this story. can't promise i'll have an update anytime soon though. fanfic writing took a bit of a backburner for me when i started working on my music. which, btw, i came out with my debut EP, Monomyth by impravidus, but i've been getting back into fanfic recently and MAN i've missed it. hopefully more to come in a more timely manner.

Notes:

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