Work Text:
I landed. Victor texts Yuri, as soon as the wheels stop beneath him and before he hears the overhead ding saying its okay. His throat throbs around his heartbeat, waiting for texts from anyone in Hasetsu. There must have been an update on Makkachin while he was in the air! He's been traveling for over 16 hours since he left Russia, with a long layover as he couldn't get a direct flight last minute. His eyes sting at the thought his baby could have died while he was on his way, while he was so close! People start standing and pulling at their bags. Victor is in a daze. He blinks away the irrational tears. Several texts pop up from Yurio and a few others on the Russian team, they’re hours old, of course.
What time is it there? Should he even text back? Is everyone still asleep? His mind doesn’t work. He looks at his phone. It’s just past 9pm here. He sniffles. Right? He should have set two times on the home screen before he left, so he'd know at a glance. People start to move down the aisle. The woman in the seat next to him prepares to disembark. Victor’s only brought a carry-on. He grips it for dear life, an anchor in the haze. He shoves his phone in his coat pocket, warm against his thigh.
He stands still, staring at the clocks that line the ceiling above the arrival and departure screens. His mind gurgles: 3 o'clock. It's 3pm there. Did he miss Yuri's free skate? No. It was in the evening... 7pm? Four hours. Four more hours he has to stay awake. And longer, so he can congratulate Yuri on a job well done. And it's too late to go to the vet and visit Makkachin. A quiver runs through his body. He'll power nap in the car on the thirty-five minute ride from the airport to Hasetsu.
He rushes through the airport. His phone finally starts buzzing again with fresh messages.
My Eros- glad you’re safe. Keep me posted on Makkachin.
Mari- I’m parked out front, it’s not a big airport. You’ll see me.
She didn’t say anything about his dog!! How is his baby doing? He left Yuri’s side and flew all the way here… how could she be so cruel? He remembers his manners in time when he sees her car. She’s out here at night picking him up, her family boarded and took care of Makkachin all this time, even though they’re hardly a “pet friendly” resort. He slows down as he approaches, tries to calm himself so he doesn’t scream ‘How is my dog?!’ as rudely as possible.
The car’s still running, a trail of smoke coming from both the exhaust and the driver’s side window. He must be polite, he wants to bum a cigarette. The trunk pops as he approaches and he tosses in his bag. As he flings open the passenger door and gets halfway inside, her eyes cut over and she puffs:
“Makkachin’s fine… so far.”
Victor collapses into the vehicle, torn between hugging her and hanging his head between his legs to breathe. He chooses the latter, as Mari never looks very huggable. Somehow, while bent over, he remembers to shut his door against the freezing air outside.
She snorts, watching him half-hyperventilate. Then sighs and continues, “He’s on an IV until morning, hasn’t been able to eat or drink since they pumped his stomach, so his blood sugar’s out of whack," she hears Victor's breath catch, but isn't the type to softball things, "He seems like he'll be fine, but they caution he's an old dog and this was a shock to his system.”
Victor stays bent over his own legs, a few of the tears finally fall, briefly staining the mats on her floorboard. He sniffles, trying to control himself. It’s been such a long day. He hasn’t slept since he left Yuri's side, dozed maybe, on the longest flight. He’s barely eaten. He left his beloved protégé in the hands of his angry old former coach. Should he have even come at all?!
Mari places a hand flat and firm between his shoulder blades. Doesn’t move her palm, just holds it there. She has practice with this. Victor’s never had an older sister. Is Mari even his elder? He tries to inhale through his mouth and the breath won’t come, just hitches repeatedly, like he’s crying, but he’s not anymore. He can’t breathe!
“Through your nose,” she says and he hears both their windows roll down just enough to let cool air course over his exposed neck, “Deep. In. Hold It. And Out. Blow it all out.” Victor does as instructed. After just once, his head clears. She slaps his back and returns her hands to the steering wheel and gear shift, starting the car down the road. Victor looks up, sits up fully then. Rolls up his window and leans his temple against the chilled surface. So much for power-napping. He'll get some caffeine somewhere.
“Thank you," he whispers.
She shrugs, “Mondainai.”
They ride in silence. Victor’s traveled this path many times home from the airport with Yuri. Rarely at night, though, and he watches how different the scenery looks enveloped in darkness and the humming yellows of fluorescent lights, the occasional blues of LEDs.
He hears Mari flick her cigarette out the window and remembers he wanted one. It’s been a couple of years, and he never was a regular smoker, he started skating as a child, so, he couldn’t. But cigarette smoke means home to Victor, as everyone smokes everywhere in Russia, and he knows there’s no substitute for the simple, pale calm of nicotine shadowing over one’s brain and warming the throat.
He’s just about to pipe up when Mari, staring straight ahead, says:
“So. You kissed my brother on live television.”
Victor’s heart, already overworked and abused today, stops beating.
“In front of our parents.”
His lungs cave in.
“And everyone we know.”
He clutches the ‘oh-shit’ bar overhead. It’s that kind of a feeling.
He breathes like she taught him moments ago, looking out at the scenery again, afraid to even see her in his periphery. Is this what Yuri feels like all the time around everyone? Victor’s not used to anxiety. He can see how prescriptions would be needed if you felt this way all the time.
“Yes.” He manages, then he clenches his eyes shut, pursing his lips, praying… praying? Maybe so. Maybe there’s something that can get him out of this car, out of this country, but still able to be with Makkachin as soon as the dog wakes up in the morning. Maybe? Please?
Then a more rational part of his mind steps in. Why is she bringing this up now? The Cup of China was weeks ago! Where does she get off? She's kicking a man when he's down!
“Care to comment?” she drills him, exactly like a reporter. At the press conference after the Cup of China, the professional journalists didn't mention their first kiss, though Yuri dreaded the question so much he prepared a shy joke in response. But, traveling from Beijing back to Hasetsu, he and Yuri dodged dozens of paparazzi screaming kiss questions at them in the hotel lobby, as they exited buildings, got into cars, and walked the airports. Victor’s head hurts so much, all of a sudden, like his brain might split in two and fly in either direction out of his skull. He even pictures one half slurping down the passenger window and the other smacking Mari in the face. He’s going to have to be so much nicer to Yuri, if that’s possible, from now on. Anxiety sucks. Next time Yuri’s pacing the floors like a robot before a performance, he’s going to empathize much more than he did that day. I promise, Yuri
Mari clears her throat. Victor realizes they just passed Yu-Topia.
“Oh, we’re not stopping until you speak up, Vicchan”
Dammit, he wasted too much time! She’s pissed now! Or maybe not, she called him 'Vicchan'... wasn't 'chan' a term of endearment? He spins in his seat to face her, waves his hands apologetically, and the first dribble to fly out of his heart-shaped mouth is:
“Yuri’s Cup of China free skate was the best he’s ever done!”
"Uh-huh. So was Yurio's. I didn't see Yakov face sucking him over it, did you?"
Victor sputters and deflates. His entire experience with the Katsuki clan has been nothing but hospitable, friendly, even warm. He was pretty sure they all liked him. But... no one in the family said anything about the kiss last month, when they got back from China. Were they more traditional people that didn't approve of...? He swallows. Mari's glancing at him expectantly from time to time. He straightens his shoulders, runs a hand over his brow into his silver hair. Holds the hand on his crown, keeping his bangs out of his eyes when he looks at her, all seriousness.
"Are your parents angry? I can move out."
"Not on your life!" she barks, "You're our biggest tourist draw. People show up just to pet your dog."
"M-Makkachin," he deflates further, his body seems to be eating itself with shame. He whines, "All this. It's too much drama."
"Yep. My parents aren't used to pampering big shots like you," she tsks. "Neither is my brother."
"He... Yuri doesn't pamper me!"
She almost swerves onto the shoulder. Uh-oh. She is mad! That 'chan' meant nothing! Victor gulps.
Mari clenches the steering wheel tighter and growls: “Yuri caters to your every whim!”
Victor chokes, hardly remembering all the cruel rejections and outright avoidance when he first arrived. But he doesn’t say any of this. He wants Mari to get to the point. She’s never been so circuitous. “If your parents aren’t angry, then…”
Mari grunts as she pulls into the parking lot at Kachu Snack bar. She told the ballerina to skip Yu-Topia tonight, everyone is there anticipating Yuri’s free skate at 1am. Most, like her parents, are trying to sleep early, wake up around 11 to watch all the events. It’s not a place to bring Victor right now. She turns off the car, slaps the base of her cigarette pack, sliding a set of cancer sticks out the small square on top. She leans the two protruding butts toward Victor. He accepts with a nod, retrieving one, “How’d you know?”
“Your day’s been shittier than mine.” She lights her own and offers Victor the lighter. He rolls down his window, even though her car smells heavily of smoke, out of courtesy. She exhales, “Maybe 30 minutes after that kiss of yours, at midnight our time, the local gossip rags almost broke down our doors.” She’s annoyed he’s still not apologizing, or saying anything! She growls around her smoke, “The international calls didn’t stop until around 3am.”
Victor expels a ragged sigh with his first puff of hot smoke out the window. He doesn’t look at Mari, but she can see the strain of shame in his features, “I admit I didn’t think about the consequences,” he tsks, “I guess I rarely do.” Then, shifting emotional gears, he turns to her with a heart-shaped smile, “Yakov’s always hounding me about that!” Victor’s trying to self-abash so she doesn’t have to; feeling calmer now that the car’s not moving, he knows where they were heading, and he’s aware of Makkachin’s status. “Oh!” he whips his phone out of his pocket. He missed two texts from Yuri, already.
My Eros Any news?
My Eros …Victor? :-(
Victor holds the cig in his lips while his thumbs whirl:
Sorry. Yes. Makkachin lives! But he’s on an IV. They’ll know if he’ll be ok for sure by morning
My Eros Oh good! :D RU Ok? Have you slept?
Victor’s a mess. But he doesn’t want Yuri to worry. I’ll try and power nap before your FS
My Eros Good luck.
Victor chuckles, Hey! That’s my line. <3 <3
Mari clears her throat with an exaggerated “Achem!”
“Right. Sorry.” Victor hides the phone away, a sheepish grin still tucked in his cheeks. His eyes close on his next inhale of smoke.
Mari doesn’t know what to say now. The man positively beamed while texting her brother. They’re stupid for each other, obviously. That’s all she needed to know. But this guy’s such a reckless jerk sometimes and Yuri is so easy to hurt! She glares at him in her indecision. She meant to interrogate him, berate him, tear the superstar down to earth, so maybe he’d think before he acts next time. But she realizes that’s a waste of energy. This is Victor Nikiforov, after all. He’s too spoiled; a 27 year old man child, in so many ways. She rolls her eyes, Just like Yuri.
“You two are made for each other,” she groans.
Victor perks up, whole body straightening with excitement in his seat. He turns to her like a kid who weaseled out of detention: “You’re not mad at me either, then?!”
Mari snorts, shaking her head, “No, I’m furious. At both of you.” She flicks her cigarette outside. “You’re careening head first into a wall together and there’s nothing anyone can do, but watch.”
Victor blinks; his face changes. Mari sees something flicker in his eyes then get replaced by his usual brightness when he smiles: “You think Yuri and I are doing this together?” He shakes his head, realizes he’s not clear, “I mean, that Yuri is too?” Why can’t he talk?
Mari gets it. Of course her stupid, naïve brother hasn’t been responsive or given Victor any signs. After the kiss last month, she expected to see some PDA between them. But nothing had changed. No clandestine late-night noises in their part of the house; no announcements of a relationship to the family; she glances at Victor with a trace of pity, then. But her fierce vigilance lingers. “Do you love him?” She glares right into Victor’s eyes. “Or is he another of your flings? Because I swear to…”
“Is that what the gossip rags said?” Victor’s brow lowers and Mari appreciates the calm anger in his voice, “Yuri’s a fling?”
“They said much worse. The headlines were something about Yuri sleeping his way to the top of the figure skating world.”
The calm abandons Victor, back-filled by rage. "Suka b'lyad!" He curses in Russian and looks around at the buildings surrounding the car, “Where are their offices?!” It’s a small town, they can’t be far. The bastards! He’ll sue them for libel. He makes to get out of the vehicle, muscles all in knots.
“Victor.” Somehow, Mari’s gravel voice, a single word, his name, stops him. She’s got a certain authority about her, she’d make a good coach. Victor slams the door anyway. He’s never been good at listening to coaches.
“Don’t be stupid,” she says, one brow raised, looking him over, making him feel childish. The scenarios play out in his head. He beats up a paparazzo, or sabotages their printing equipment. Even if he just sues them, the story’s everywhere. The news that Victor threw a tantrum tarnishes Yuri’s victory at Rostelecom. Right now, the stories about their relationship are mostly positive and cute, like the few taglines he let himself read about the kiss last month. The gossip rags are the bad guys who most people ignore for smearing a good story. Unless he pulls some tough guy shit tonight and tilts all the press against him… and Yuri, by association.
He looks at Mari with renewed interest. How could she say so much by saying so little?
“Arigato,” he tries on the Japanese word to show his appreciation. “For everything.”
She shrugs. “You know the drill.” Opening her door, getting out while reciting, “Don’t hurt him or I’ll kill you, blah, blah, blah.”
“Yes ma’am.” Victor smiles, rubbing out his cigarette on the wall of Minako’s place and opening the door for Mari to enter first.
Victor doesn’t even get to hang his coat. Minako charges him. She’s both the china shop and the bull, in one body. And the woman is obviously a tad lit.
“There he is! Nikiforov! Russia’s Treasure!” she stabs a finger in his breastbone with each of his monikers, “Mr. Five Time Gold Medalist!” Then, hands on her hips, eyes squinting, “What’s your game? Huh?!”
“Mina…” her oft-times drinking buddy leans against the bar, embarrassed, with a hand over her eyes. They'd planned on cross-examining Victor together, but she accidentally resolved everything on the way here. Whoops. “There’s no point grilling him.”
“Our baby Yuri, though!!” she twirls on her friend, eyes pooling, hands clenched near her throat “He’s being used by this,” another twirl and the finger stabs return, “bigshot, playboy, oversexed, lusty superstar!”
Victor drops his coat. It’s rare to make this Russian speechless. He tries to think of how Yuri usually responds to Minako’s assaults. He bows at the waist, hands clasped before his sternum, “Minako-sensi!” his voice all seriousness, though he hears Mari spit out a laugh from the bar, “I swear my intentions toward your pupil are entirely legitimate and pure!”
Minako is floored by this show of formality and, recovering herself, pats the back of Victor’s head. “Oh. Uh. O-okay, Vicchan,” she smiles as he straightens up and retrieves his coat. Then some of the heady buzz returns to her features and she shouts: “Hey! Waitaminute! PURE?”
Mari pours Victor a shot. This is gonna be a long night.
Victor downs it as Minako stomps towards her television, which was muted before she starts smashing remote buttons. She’s TiVo’ing the whole event and skips back to a point when the cameras were on Yuri as he talked to Yakov. Pointing at the screen, she shouts, “Lookit that face!! Pure is not what this boy needs!” she fixes Victor with a glare, miss-matched by a lopsided smile, and spurts: “He needs to get laid!”
Victor and Mari clink the glasses of their second shot.
As Minako expounds on her theory of the potential for he and Yuri’s relationship, Victor’s face won’t tone down to a shade less than strawberry. Mari thinks it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen. And so it goes, as they cheer for skater after skater.
They’re all drunk-screaming as Yuri exits the ice and heads to the kiss & cry with Yakov.
Silence and then they group hug hard, whooping together at the final scores.
Minako grabs Victor in a choke hold with one elbow, pointing at the screen, “See that, Victor?! Yelling! Yakov is yelling at him! NOT kissing him!”
“Yakov better not kiss my Yurakcha,” Victor blurs and the women erupt in guffaws. He smiles wider and beams, “You guys loved it. I’m gonna kiss him on TV every chance I get now.”
“You better not!”
“Vicchan! No!”
They wrestle and grapple with him and he flounces easily out of their reach, a wiry and slippery drunk. “Look!” He points to the screen where Yuri’s still being lectured. “It’s CALLED the Kiss and Cry!! You’re supposed to kiss after the performance!”
“Then Yakov’s doing it wrong!” Minako slams a fist on the bar.
Mari makes a face. “Ehh, I’m sorry for anyone that has to kiss that man.”
Victor laughs deep in his chest, doubles over with it. He hasn’t slept in almost 24 hours. It still feels like the same day he kissed Yuri for the first time, though he thinks that was actually yesterday, right? His dog almost died. But he’s fine. Victor is fine. He’s sleep deprived, slightly starving, drunk off his ass, and completely fine.
He passes out in less than an hour, missing the podium and many texts from Yuri. The skater won’t be worried, though. Because Victor sent him a string of slurring drunk texts as his last conscious thoughts before his eyes took over and closed for good.
dam U nailed it
beauty full
ssee u toomrow <3 <3 <3
Victor wakes up hungover, but happy. He gets taken to see Makkachin almost as soon as the others realize he’s awake. His beloved baby bounds to him, joyous and healthy as ever. The guarded Russian lets a few relieved tears fall in the dumb old dog’s fur, with a choked whisper, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
The reunion with everyone at Yu-Topia is easy, thanks to his night with Mari and Minako. After Makkachin licks and leaps on everyone in turn, Yuri’s parents praise how splendidly Yuri performed at Rostelecom, how proud they are of both him and Victor, and how deeply the appreciate Victor’s coaching.
Victor’s cheeks flush. He doesn’t deserve all that. He knows they’re too polite, too good-natured, to scold him for the hours they put in fielding personal questions about their son. He’s got to do more publicity for this place online. He’ll come up with some great perks or even signed items to give to every overnight guest, or something.
Yuri texts that he’ll be back home in about 13 hours. He’s packing up now, getting ready to leave. Victor lays in his bed, his wonderful pet sprawled over his midsection. His biggest take away from last night is the two women closest to Yuri both approve of their relationship, and moreso, they seem to be able to read Yuri's mixed signals better than Victor can. While they never explicitly said so, they must think Yuri feels something for Victor, or they wouldn't have pushed for... a physical escalation of things. Victor's worried about the future, though. Yuri didn’t need him as a coach to deliver on the ice yesterday. And, despite everything, he basically failed as a coach in the Cup of China, too. What more can he offer Yuri now?
At the airport, in his arms, Victor knows there’s still so much more to give, to share, and to create with this perfect man of his.
-----------------