Chapter Text
“Was Yakov good to you while I was gone?” Victor asks in the car. He doesn’t sound at all concerned, just curious.
“Mm.” Yuuri nods, but can’t help his yawn; it’s been an exhausting few days between Maccachin, the free skate, and Yurio. All he wants to do is curl up with Victor and sleep for a few days. The familiar landscape of Hasetsu blurs past the windows. It’s nice.
Victor lets him have the silence until they pull up to the onsen. “Come on, Yuuri. We need to get your bags inside.”
He reluctantly unbuckles his seatbelt. The car is so warm, and as pretty as it is, the snow is cold. There must be a strange look on his face, because Victor laughs before getting out of the car. He walks around the outside of the car and throws the door open unceremoniously, a mischievous grin on his face as Yuuri yelps at the rush of cold.
“Victor!”
Victor blinks at him innocently. “What? I thought it was chivalrous to open the door for the person you love.”
It takes a lot for Yuuri to hold back his blush. He slides out of the car and bats his boyfriend on the shoulder lightly. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“Ah, but it worked.” Victor opens the back door and hands Yuuri his bag. “Let’s go inside.”
Yuuri leaves the unpacking for tomorrow, simply dropping his stuff in his room and rummaging through his drawers to find a pair of sweats or pj’s. At the moment, he’s not particular. The cold definitely woke him up, but he still wants to spend some time with Victor. His worry about Maccachin and Yurio distracted Yuuri from missing him, but the feeling was always there, he realizes as he takes off his shirt. It wasn’t just during his free skate; that was just when he was the most aware of it.
A pair of icy hands cross his torso. As if Victor can read his mind, he wraps Yuuri in his arms from behind. “I missed you so much, милый. Even a day...”
Yuuri sinks back into his hold, barely startled at Victor’s sudden appearance. “I know. It was too much for me too, given the circumstances. But if we hadn’t…”
“Maccachin is fine,” Victor assures him, resting his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder.
Yuuri shakes his head. “That’s not it.”
Victor hums curiously before pulling away and tugging Yuuri toward his room. “Let’s go to bed, Yuuri.”
“But I’m not tired-- and I’m not wearing a shirt ,” Yuuri remembers, face burning in mortification. What if his sister turned that corner? Or his mother?
“It’s fine,” he insists, opening the door and pulling Yuuri in. “Besides, I don’t mind the view.”
Yuuri flushes a deep red; he wants to think that Victor doesn’t see because of the darkness, but there’s no way he’s oblivious. He know the effect he has on Yuuri.
Victor closes the door and drags Yuuri to bed, playfully wrestling him over who gets to be the big spoon. Of course he wins, wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s torso and slotting their legs together.. Still, once they get comfortable, his expression grows more serious.
“There’s something else bothering you.” It’s not a question, and Yuuri avoids looking at him. “What is it?”
“It’s… not my place to say,” Yuuri mumbles, thinking about the heart-wrenchingly vulnerable look on Yurio’s face when Yuuri found him in the bathroom.
He’d skated Agape beautifully, but it hadn’t seemed like it was really him skating. He didn’t know what brought it on, but when he’d held the boy in his arms, it seemed like he was barely keeping himself sane. He was in so much pain, and it still scares Yuuri to think that he would have had to deal with it alone.
“Mm.” Victor sounds like he understands. He shifts and the telltale glow of a phone screen lights up the room. Almost instantly, the phone buzzes. He holds the phone screen for Yuuri to see.
VN: did something happen with Yuuri? he won’t say
YP: ofc not wtf
YP: also tell that bastard he took my siamese kitten socks with him i want them back
“What do you want me to say?” Yuuri knows that there’s no way that Yuri would admit to anything happening in Russia. He’s probably repressing it, trying not to remember that he had a moment of weakness in front of the man he swears to hate.
Victor puts the screen to sleep and puts it down, settling back into his previous position. He plays with a strand of Yuuri’s hair and sighs. “I’m going to tell you something that I think you already know. Yurio has the habit of saying anything other than what he means. It’s a… what’s the word…”
Yuuri’s English is better than Victor’s, but it’s still not great. He goes out on a limb. “Defense mechanism?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly it,” Victor murmurs. “I’m sure you can tell why he does it.”
“He seems so open about being out, I just assumed that he was just like that. But then… After the first day at Roseltam, something happened. He’s so afraid, Victor.” It’s hard not to tell him the whole story, to avoid explaining exactly how heartbreaking it is to think about such a fiery boy being shut down by his own body and soul. But as abrasive and downright mean as Yuri is, Yuuri has grown increasingly fond of him; he would never betray the boy’s trust like that.
Victor stops messing with Yuuri’s hair, dropping a light kiss on his shoulder with a sigh. “It’s not that he’s been open about it. It’s that you and I both found out by accident, and he forced himself to play it off like nothing. Yakov and I have done our best to help him, but he never lets his guard down. He’s terrified of people seeing Yulia.”
Yuuri rolls over and looks at Victor in confusion. That doesn’t make sense to him, because Yuuri never saw Yulia except when… “But what about his girlfriend?”
“Huh?” Victor raises a surprised eyebrow. “He doesn’t have one.”
“But… he always acts like a girl when he’s on the phone with this girl--” Yuuri stops when Victor starts laughing. He’s trying to keep quiet, but his shoulders are shaking hard enough to rock the bed.
“I’m-- I’m sorry,” he chokes out in a whisper. “It’s not f--funny. I--It’s actually a very sad situation. But you th--thought Anna --”
Yuuri flushes again, not entirely sure what he’s done wrong. It’s not as though anyone knows much about Yuri Plizetsky; his entire past is kept under wraps, to keep controversy down. It’s not out of the question to think that he could have a girlfriend. It doesn’t make total sense that he would pretend to be someone that he’s not for her sake, if they love each other, but nothing about Yurio has made sense to Yuuri until recently anyway.
Victor holds Yuuri’s face in his hands gently and sobers. “I’m sorry. I had to either laugh at the hilarity or cry at the sadness. I don’t want you to see me cry, Yuuri.”
“I don’t want you to think that you can’t cry,” Yuuri says, for once maintaining eye contact. “God knows I do it enough.”
“I don’t mind. I love that you can be so open about your emotions.” Victor smiles softly for a moment before it drops into some expression that has Yuuri mildly concerned. “Since you’ll meet her at the Grand Prix, I should tell you before that, I suppose. Anna is Yurio’s little sister.”
Yuuri’s eyes widen. He didn’t know Yuri had family besides his grandpa. “And he hasn’t--”
“If he does, he’ll be banned from seeing her.” Victor’s expression has darkened in a way that Yuuri hopes he never has to see again. “He hasn’t told her, so that hasn’t happened. In fact, as I understand, she was supposed to be there during the short program the other day. He would do anything for that little girl. ”
So that’s what that was. Yuuri can understand why Yuri is doing this to himself, but he can’t even imagine the pain the boy is going through. “But it’s hurting him so much…”
“Anything,” Victor repeats bitterly, angry at something Yuuri can’t see. He mutters something to himself in Russian, almost as if he doesn’t know he’s saying it. Yuuri catches the words parents and understand, and puts the pieces together. Still, he doesn’t say anything, waiting instead for Victor to switch back to English. He does, eventually. “All I can do is support him, even when he does things I don’t agree with.”
Yuuri wraps his arms more tightly around Victor. “We can only do the best we can. If he’ll let us, we should guide him.”
There’s no response from Victor, not that Yuuri really expects one. It’s okay. Sometimes silence speaks so much louder than either of them could ever hope to.