Chapter Text
There’s one day until Yuri competes in the Rostelecom cup short program.
It’s well into the evening, and Yuri’s group (including you) went back to the rink to run through the program a few more times, after the other athletes had their share of practice. You had been stuck doing nothing in your hotel room for the several hours Yuri was with his grandfather, doing earlier practice, and dealing with whatever bromance he had with the competitor from Kazakhstan. You teased him about it when he came back, which he nearly punched you over, getting all bent out of shape about it.
(“You wouldn't beat up your injured friend?” “I would.”)
Anyways.
You lean your forearms atop the side boards of the ice rink, the outside of it, unfortunately. Your crutches are leaning against the barrier, too, only a short distance from you. You’re standing on one load-bearing foot, the other fairly useless. Depressed that you’d miss your shot this year, you didn’t really want to even look at ice until you recovered, but still felt inclined to support Yuri. You watch him practice spins and toe flips. Your body literally aches watching him on the ice.
His coach and that stern-looking woman were on the opposite side of the rink as you. Yakov shouts commands frequently. Yuri and them let you come watch so long as you kept quiet and didn’t bother the coaching. So that’s what you did. Silently observing. It’s better than sitting in the hotel all day and crying about your oversights.
I could have my skates on right now. But I was too arrogant and got myself a smashed ankle, You mope to yourself.
You continue to watch Yuri go through his routine, despite your self-depricating thoughts.
A toe loop… a triple axel…
You consider your abilities compared to his, suddenly having doubts.
I’ll definitely be behind. Three more months, maybe a little longer, of no skating. What a joke! I’ll be trying for the rest of my life trying to get back on Yuri’s level, surely.
Your mind drifts off, dwelling on terrible possibilities of never getting on the ice again.
However, you’re pulled from your thoughts when someone unexpectedly flicks you on the temple. You startle, gripping onto the side board and quickly avoid the reflex of putting pressure on your injured ankle.
“Yuri…” you grumble, reaching for your crutches. You prop yourself up successfully. Yuri re-ties his hair.
“Get your head out of the clouds. I’m done– let’s go,” he says flatly, the elastic snapping into place. He begins to walk off with his stuff, leaving you to limp after. You hurriedly collect up your own things and try to keep up, despite using giant sticks under your armpits to travel. You lose sight of him as he leaves the rink area.
So impatient.
When you push through the arena doors, you see Yuri standing by the exit. You exhale in relief.
“Yakov and Lilia have gone ahead already. You’re slow. The sun’s about to go down,” Yuri complains once you’re in earshot. He immediately goes to open the door.
“...If you don’t remember, I snapped my talus in half,” you re-inform him. He rolls his eyes.
“Because you were being stupid and tried a trick too advanced for you,” Yuri holds the door open for you to walk through, despite actively berating you.
He was totally right. It’s completely your fault. You shake your head wearily.
“Yeah, well, humor me a little bit, would you?” You step through, and he lets the door swing back with a slam. You walk parallel to Yuri. He’s being a jerk about it, but he’s actually being somewhat considerate about your slow pace. If you pointed it out he would surely leave you behind.
“Quit whining about it, and maybe I’ll give you grace. But probably not,” Yuri huffs, indignant. He gets ahead of you slightly, but occasionally glances over his shoulder at you.
“Whatever.” You give up arguing. The sky turns from yellow, to orange, and then purple as you make your way back. Street lights dimly illuminate the walking path.
Suddenly, you are falling forwards.
Your toe caught on an eroded chunk of sidewalk. You have little time to catch yourself. You slam face-first into the concrete, your crutches clattering down with you. Yuri turns around hastily.
“What the hell?” He shouts. He’s still for a moment, and then starts grabbing at your limp arms and attempting to force you to stand up.
You have no motivation to clamber back to your feet, but Yuri was really hurting your arm by tugging on it, so you sit up, swatting him away. Embarrassed, you avoid looking at Yuri and crawl towards your crutches.
“I’m fine,” You say, hoarsely. Your face is unbearably hot.
Your knees were scraped, and you felt a slight cool feeling trickle down your nose bridge, so you must have scuffed your forehead as well when you went down. You swipe your sleeve over your face to try and hide it, but a fresh stream of blood flows out. You sigh resignedly, your throat feeling restricted by an invisible wire.
You reach for one of the crutches, but Yuri’s hand gets to it first.
He’s probably going to say something mean.
You brace for it, looking up. He’s standing silently over you, holding the crutch out. His face is completely blank.
That sort of look is even more horrifying than anything he could’ve said! You’re left feeling shaken.
Resignedly, you grab the crutch and use that and your good leg to push yourself up. You collect your other crutch, both of you silent. You try to keep a look of neutrality to make it seem like your internal body temperature hasn't shot up by 100 degrees.
You manage to stand without wobbling. Surely, you’re experiencing an adrenaline rush, since you don’t feel nearly as hurt as you should. You look at your feet. Gravity steadily drags the blood dripping from the gash on your forehead down. You watch red spots appear on the ground right in front of you.
After an uncomfortable period of silence, Yuri breaks it.
“Come on. Y/N, that’s disgusting. We’ll wipe it off when we get back,” Yuri says, his tone completely mild. It's driving you nuts.
“You’re not gonna call me a dumbass or something?” You inquire, your face displaying genuine confusion.
“Do you want me to?” Yuri snaps back at you. “Come on,” he repeats. He looks at you a moment longer. “Seriously, that’s really fucking gross. Hurry up.” He turns, and begins to walk again. You gaze wearily at his moving form. You swipe the blood trickling down your nose bridge with your sleeve, to keep it out of your mouth.
You start walking a moment later.
“Yuri, wait up.”
—
Yuri unlocks the hotel room. You limp inside, and he closes the door behind you. Since your parents allowed you to come to Moscow by yourself, the condition was that you were accompanied by Yuri and his crew. Yakov and Lilia were in a separate room, since it seems there were no suites available. It would be awkward, anyways. They were just down the hall.
After kicking off your shoes, the both of you make way for the bathroom, as that’s where first aid kits tend to be.
Yuri rummages around in the drawers and cabinets while you sit on the edge of the bathtub. You hold a wet towel to your forehead, hoping to absorb all the escaping blood as well as clean the dried-up blood off. You’ve dabbed parts of your clothing with it, too. Mostly your sleeves.
“I found one!” Yuri triumphs, setting it down on the counter. He pops the plastic container open and stares at it. He grabs a tube of antibiotic ointment. He hesitates to move, looking vaguely flustered for a moment, and then tosses it at you.
What’s that look about?
“You do it. I’m not touching that,” he instructs harshly, preemptively setting a gauze pad out on the counter as well.
You fumble with the ointment for a moment.
You turn the cap off and squeeze some onto your finger to apply. Since you literally can’t see the injury, and don’t want to deal with your crutches just to walk 3 feet, you have to guess the general size of it by touch alone.
Yuri doesn’t heckle you, so you assume you’ve covered the whole gash. Or maybe he just didn’t want to look at it. Yuri promptly throws the gauze pad at you.
“I can’t put this on myself. It would be more precise if you did it,” You suggest. Yuri stares at you. You stare back.
He walks out of the bathroom. “No way.”
“HEY!” You holler, “I need paper tape!”
Yuri doesn’t come back. You groan, having to bring yourself to your feet and collect it yourself. The mirror above the sink allows you to inspect the wound.
Such a nasty cut. Awkwardly, you balance on one crutch since you can’t really cover the gash up with a limited range of movement. You hastily tend to the injury using the mirror as a guide. It still stings, but you’re no longer dripping blood everywhere. You clean off as much of the remaining traces of the fall with the cloth.
You step out after putting all the stuff Yuri threw out of the cabinets back. Yuri is sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of one of the twin-sized beds, doing something on his phone. He glances up at you, but doesn’t react at all. Somehow, it’s worse than him berating you. You shuffle towards your own bed, shrugging your coat off.
Yuri goes back into the bathroom.
You collapse onto your bed.
Reluctantly, you lift your head and pull your phone out from your pocket. You scroll through your social media. Your figure skating friends from home are posting about all the tournaments and fun things they’re doing. Your figure skating friends from other countries are posting about interesting stuff, too.
I wish I could be posting stuff like that.
You drop your phone and roll onto your back, laying your ringed hands on your stomach. It was sort of a sorry sight.
The bathroom door swings open. Yuri stands and stares at you for a minute. You lift your head to look at him properly, feeling his eyes on you. He’s already moved to deal with stuff by his bed, so you lay your head back down and close your eyes.
A pillow strikes you in the face a moment later.
“...Yuri,” you state, muffled.
You pull it off and chuck it back onto Yuri’s bed. He’s standing at your bedside.
You prop onto your elbows.
“What’s this? An intervention?” You wonder. Yuri frowns, looking pissed off, as he usually is.
“You look like a loser, sitting there all teary-eyed.”
“I’m not teary-eyed.”
“Well, you give off the energy of being a crybaby bitch!" Yuri fumes.
“Why’s that your problem? I fucked up my career, and I think I’m allowed to be upset about it,” you counter, your face growing hot again.
“You’ve been upset for a month already! Get over it!” Yuri throws the pillow at you again, this time more forcefully. “It’s really killing my mood. Just because you were in over your head at the Qualifiers, it doesn’t mean you get to be all pathetic about it! At least when I’m around."
I should let this pillow suffocate me, you think, feeling rather defeated and unmotivated to shout back at this point.
You don’t reply. Yuri throws another pillow at you. You don’t react.
“Come on!” He hollers, clearly unappreciative at the lack of a retort. “If you’re gonna bitch and whine about being left behind, and not do anything about it, then it’ll just stay like that!” Yuri throws a third pillow at you.
“If you’re gonna bitch and whine about being left behind, and not do anything, then it’ll just stay like that.” The words echo in your head.
“You’ve got me saying stupid inspirational shit. I sound like Viktor. You’re making me sound like fucking Viktor! You’re ruining me!” Yuri continues to shout. He grabs one of your pillows this time and slams it into your stomach. You only flinch.
“I don’t think Viktor would try to motivate me by saying I'm ‘bitching and whining’,” you say, two pillows now stifling your voice. The third pillow fell at your waist, and the fourth pillow used against you was laying on your chest, where it had struck. You emerge from the pillow pile, sitting straight up. “And what am I supposed to do now? My ankle’s still broken. I can’t just leap onto the ice and fix up my life.” Your voice breaks at a few points.
Yuri stares at you, almost in disbelief.
“If you start crying for real, Y/N, I’ll make you sleep in the hallway.” He picks up another one of your pillows and whacks you over the head with it. You grab one of the ones that fell off your face a moment before and swing it at him in retaliation. It hits him in the abdomen.
“I’m not crying. You’re such a dick!” You yell, tears actively running down your face despite your denials. Yuri hits you a second time, right in the face. You get on your knees and hit him back, the both of you carelessly swinging. You block another attempt and nearly knock him down.
“You’re a quitter! And I’m literally watching you cry right now!”
“I’m not a quitter! I physically can’t do anything! I came to cheer you on, not get scolded!” You sob.
“Well, go home! I don’t care!” Yuri knocks you down. You roll off your bed onto the opposite side, leaning against it for support since your injured leg was only hovering.
“Do you really mean that?” Your expression abruptly turns deadpan.
Yuri stops short of trying to chuck a pillow at you again. The both of you are quiet. Yuri’s gone stiff. The extreme energy that had risen quickly evaporated.
“...No.” Yuri throws the pillow at you anyways, looking somewhat regretful at this point. It was a weak toss– his heart’s not in it anymore. You let it hit you and fall to the floor. You wipe your eyes with your palms and slowly start tidying things. Yuri reluctantly puts all of his pillows back. The two of you remain in silence for an extended period of time. It’s awkward.
“Yuri–” you attempt.
“Change your clothes. We’re going out to eat soon.”
You exhale quietly and begin getting your stuff together.
Your forehead throbs. It finally caught up to you.