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The key slides into the lock with jacket movements, held between tumbling fingers as Victor balances the bags of groceries. He turns it with a quick motion, the click echoes through the hallway of the apartment building and the door swings open a second later. Handling knocking against the door, the way it has since the day Victor moved in. He really should find a way to fix that.
Victor enters and the door thuds closed behind him. “I’m home!” Victor calls out discarding his jacket and shoes. Right next to Yuuri’s things. To his fiancé's things.
It had been so easy to make Yuuri fit into the apartment. There were perfect, empty spots for his shoes at the entrance. An extra hook for a jacket, so that Victor would be hanging alone anymore. A planet Yuuri had owned stood on top small bench they’d built together.
Bags in hand he moves towards the kitchen, more Yuuri’s now than Victor’s. He’d never done much cooking himself, and the kitchen had been spars. A few pots and pans, plates, and cubs. But Yuuri had either brought stuff from Hasetsu or bought new stuff. A rice cooker stood shiny and a person was on the counter. A steamer lived in the tub cupboard, together with the big, funny, animal-colored mugs that Mari had gotten Victor for his birthday. A kettle had too found its win inside, together with an assortment of different teas. Set up in neat little rows on a tray decorated by Japanese symbols that Victor had yet to figure out how to read.
Victor starts putting things away - milk, yogurt, and vegetables in the fridge. Rice and potatoes are in the drawer next to the sink. Meat in the freezer. - When he notices something odd.
A silence lingers in the apartment, as he moves around the kitchen. Makkachan is fast asleep on the couch, tail thudding slowly against the cushions. But Yuuri isn’t there. No greeting to Victor’s call out, no feet tapping against the floor, no sounds of movement that indicated to Victor that Yuuri was even home at all.
Yuuri was home. Victor knew Yuuri was.
It had been a tough night for the both of them, Makkachan too. Victor liked to think that he was getting better at dealing with Yuuri’s anxiety and that he was seeing clear improvements, but nights like that had him questioning it even if they had grown increasingly rare.
“Yuuri?” Victor calls out a moment later discarding the pack of eggs on the counter. Slowly moving towards their bedroom.
He’d barely slept at all the night before, eyes filled with tears and voice breaking every time a word passed his lips. Victor had hugged him tight and whispered in his ear, and felt the heartbeat slow down and breathing even out. But in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Yuuri had red, puffy eyes in the morning, wet from crying. Salty tear tracks had dried against his cheeks, and dark, deep bags hung under his eyes.
It had been an easy choice for the two of them to make. Yuuri would stay home.
Victor silently hoped that Yuuri’s silence was a sign he’d finally fallen asleep, but if that was the case Makkachan would have taken the end of the bed instead of the couch.
The door to their bedroom is slightly ajar, darkness seeping out through the door. Victor nudges it open softly and lets his eyes adjust to the messy, empty, bed. The blankets have been moved, at least, so Victor hopes that’s a sign that Yuuri has slept.
The sound of water escapes the bathroom a moment later, and light streams from under the door.
Victor knocks on the door a moment later, listening for Yuuri’s soft, gentle, voice. But nobody replies. “Yuuri?” Victor feels the first hints of worry enter his voice as he reaches for the handle. It’s cold under his fingers.
Yuuri couldn’t have fallen asleep in the tub, right?
The bathroom lights are blinding for a long moment, a hazy bright light digging deep into his eyes after they’d adjusted to the darkness of the bedroom. But when Victor finally can see the bathroom, he his heart stops beating. At least, that’s how it feels. Feet glued to the wooden floors of the bedroom, linger on the edge of the bathroom tiles.
Red.
That’s the first thing he sees.
A sea of red.
Yuuri was engulfed in a sea of red.
Victor moves across the bathroom in a few long strides, reaching Yuuri’s side in moments. Hands reach into the warm water of the bathtub, grasping Yuuri’s shirt and pulling him upwards. Up, into Victor's safe, protective arms, and then lowers the limp body towards the floor. His hair is soaked by the bloody water, and his black t-shirt - the one that used to be Victor’s - glues itself against Yuuri’s pale, cold, skin.
Long wounds wind up around his wrists. Ragged along the edges, raw, and deep, and bleeding. Bleeding so much. Seeping out into the bathmat below him.
The bath water is a deep red, and Victor has to advert his gaze and swallow when he feels a bill rise in his throat. Cutting. Suicide. Death…
Victor reaches for the first and best towel he can find, the one he’d left in a pile on the floor that morning. Wraps it first around Yuuri’s right arm, tight, before placing his knees against his wrist and putting pressure on the wound. Then, hands-free, he uses a second towel around Yuuri’s left arm.
He can feel the red liquid seeping through the towel under his knees. Knows it must look like a blood bath… He can’t bring himself to care.
Somehow, he manages to pull his phone out with one hand, the other holding the towel tight against Yuuri’s left wrist. He calls 911, puts the phone on speaker, and rests it against the bloody floor, listening to the small tone beeps far, far away. A tiny voice reaches him. “911, what’s your emergency?”
Victor’s mouth feels dry the second he hears the faint voice. Throat closing up on him. Betraying him.
He’d known Yuuri wasn’t doing well, had known for a long time. That anxiety and depression were simply a part of life if he wanted to marry Yuuri Katsuki. Victor had been prepared for that. Breathing techniques, binge episodes, and days where Yuuri couldn’t sleep, or couldn’t eat. Prepared for therapy, alone and together, and medicine that might or might not work. He’d known what he signed up for. But never in his wildest dreams, had he imagined this…
Yuuri, bleeding out on their bathroom floor. In the apartment, that hadn’t been a home until Yuuri came into Victor’s life. In the apartment, where Yuuri had a spot, long before he came to Russia.
Makkachan wines somewhere from the door, having woken up. Victor prays the dog won’t come closer. Doesn’t want Makkachan’s fur to get covered but Yuuri’s blood. Doesn’t want that to be Makkachan’s last memory of Victor’s fiancés. His lover. The one that brought him back from death.
“Sir?” The call voice calls out for him a moment later.
Victor swallows hard hoping to keep his voice steady. He rattles off his address with practiced ease, “My… Yuuri Katsuki, my fiancés, he’s bleeding. A lot. I think he might-“ Victor can’t bring himself to say it.
I think he might have attempted suicide.
The person on the phone is calm, taking deep breaths for Victor to follow. “Where is he bleeding from?” they ask and Victor responds, automatically, not quite there. “Do you have something like a towel or a cloth you can wrap around the wounds?”
“I already did” Victor hears his voice responds. The voice on the phone praises him.
“I know this sounds scary, but I need to know if he’s breathing. I need you to check his pulse, okay?” Victor nods, almost forgetting that they can’t see that, then mumbles out a curt yes. Finds his fingers giving way around the towel, instead placing two fingers against Yuuri’s neck. Searching for those tiny beats of life through the paper-thin, fragile skin. Eyes glued to Yuur’s unmoving chest.
“I…” A breath, “I don’t… he isn’t breath, I’m… I’m not sure he has a pulse.”
A moment of silence that feels like a million years, and before Victor’s eyes his whole life with Yuuri replays. Their first dinner together, their first medal, those days in Hasetsu. Memories of Yurio coming from Russia and competitions, and hot springs.
When the voice comes back, the pictures fade into a cloud of smoke. “Okay. Sir. I need you to start CPR until the emergency services get there, okay?” Victor nods. Doesn’t have words anymore. “You need to place him flat on a hard surface.”
Victor shifts Yuuri’s unmoving body till he’s flat on his back. Grunts out a “Yes?”
“Now, two hands, middle of the chest. One folded over the other.” Victor does it the best he can, and pumps in the rhythm the responser explains. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.
Below, deep in Yuuri’s chest, Victor can feel the bones cracking, Can hear them breaking apart as Victor pumps and pumps and pumps. Compression, after compression. Making Yuuri’s heartbeat, like he’d done so many times before, but Victor prefers it when Yuuri is awake. When he gets a little too hard or laughs a little too much. Cheeks red.
“Two inches deep” the voice reminds. Victor pushes harder. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.
“I can feel the ribs breaking…” he trails off, out of breath.
He’s always finding the personal switching places on medical dramas on TV to be weird, but he understands now. His arms are burning with pain as he keeps compression Yuuri’s chest. Hard. Victor is supposed to be in perfect shape, as a skater. He wonders stupidly if it would be easier with his feet. “That’s okay. That’s perfectly normal. Keep going.”
1, 2, 3, 4…
Victor hears the phone ring, someone asking to buzz in. Hears his own and hears the neighbors next door. And the guy below, and above.
1, 2, 3, 4…
“The EMTs should be there any moment now, do you know if the door is locked?”
Victor tries to remember if he locked the door when he came home. Remembers the clicks echoing through the hallway. It can’t be more than fifteen minutes ago, but it feels like a lifetime.
“It…” 1, 2, 3, 4. “Should be unlocked.”
The phones stop. Footsteps echo in the hallway, up the staircase. Rhythmically, each compression forced into Yuuri’s broken chest. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4… “Please… Please Yuuri… I… I can’t… I can’t…”
The door to his apartment opens with a loud thud against the wall, and Victor startles.
Yuuri had always complained about that damn door slamming against the wall. Victor had said it was like that when he moved in. He should have done something about it months ago when Yuuri first came here. But Victor had been too busy playing catch-up in the middle of the competitive season. And now, it had all been in vain, because he’d missed something with Yuuri.
A sign that would have told him about this. That could have stopped, this.
1, 2, 3, 4… 1, 2, 3, 4…
Across from Yuuri a man kneels and takes over. Victor watches each compression going deep, deep in Yuuri’s chest. Watches a second EMT place small pads against his chest, and a machine turns on. A mechanical voice analyses his non-existent heartbeat.
Someone pushes Victor out of the bathroom, and his phone back into his hands, up against his ears. Victor doesn’t remember pulling his knees to his chest, of Makkachan resting her head onto them. Her warm body ground. “Is… is he…”
“No, you did good sir.” The operator says through the tiny speaker loud now that they’re right against his ear. “I need to pick up the next call now, will you be okay?”
Victor pounders that for a moment. Then nods, “Yes, I… thank you.”
He doesn’t know what he thanks them. For teaching him. For doing their job. For helping when the whole world crumbled around him.
The line goes dead.
The phone disappears into a pocket. Victor has half a thought to text Mari or Phichit. To call Yurio or Yakov of Lillia. He doesn’t, instead focus on Makkachan’s weight against his knees in the now-lit bedroom.
“We got a pules” one EMT announces loudly. “Get him ready for transport, now.” There’s a calmness in that voice, combined with power, and certainty.
Victor pushes himself up when they place Yuuri on a stretcher. When they move through the bedroom and out towards the hallway. Victor falls into step with them, only slowing down to grab his keys. When he catches up again dark brown eyes are fluttering open. Searching the ceiling above him.
“V’ic’or…”
Yuuri’s hand is reaching for him, wrist wrapped tight in gauze. Victor takes it as they start the descent down the stairs. “It’s okay, I’ve got you, My Yuuri. It’s okay.”
He seems to calm a little at Victor's words, his eyes falling shut again. But Victor knows he’s awake. The way he breathes is staggers and hollow, like during a panic attack.
“I love you” Victor whispers in the back of the ambulance. Squeezing Yuuri’s hand tight.
“I lo’e you t’.” Yuuri’s voice is slurred, but Victor doesn’t care. It’s the best word he’s ever heard. They will forever be stuck in his brain. “I’m so’ry.”
Victor shakes his head and leans over Yuuri to meet his eyes, “No. It’s okay. I’ve got you”.
Yuuri doesn’t argue with that.