Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chris Giacometti was sitting on a rooftop above the entrance to a Tokyo train station with a pair of binoculars, engaging in his favourite pastime since time immemorial: people-watching. And people-judging, of course.

Chris had left his lunch break in Switzerland and transported here on a whim, transforming his clothes into a grey flak jacket and combat boots, and added a toothpick to the corner of his mouth just to complete the look. He visited a different city every day, just to see the different sorts of love disasters each city specialised in. It never got boring. All miserable people were uniquely miserable, as Tolstoy said. Or something like that. Chris didn't remember exactly, because at the time he'd been trying to give Tolstoy advice for fixing his marriage.

He was known as Chris Giacometti in his business circles, and various other names when he was on pleasure trips, but when he stepped away from the mortal world he was simply the god of love and lust.

In the olden days, when the pantheon had been grimmer and more powerful and mortals had truly believed in them, they had had no moral obligation to anyone. In those days, Chris could create love out of nothing, between any two souls, even making a man and a mountain long for each other. Nowadays... well, he couldn't make anybody fall in love who didn't really want to, nor change their nature. But he could certainly help. That's why he was the creator and CEO of Emberz, the world's most popular speed dating app. Even gods had to move with the times.

In Tokyo it was late in the evening, when the workaholics were heading out for a drink, spring-loaded with desperate regrets, and the college students wandering about in little clusters of carnal joy. Chris scanned the crowd heading for the entrance to the station. Set up by his side was a shimmering, sky-blue rifle, and slung across his chest was a bandolier holding various magical missiles to erase doubt, insecurity and anxiety, each targeted to a specific problem. He saw an old man in a business suit unwilling to let go of grudges that kept him from embracing the old school-friend who'd come back into his life. His binoculars caught a glimpse of a young mother torn between a dull marriage and an exciting new lover. Finally he spotted a young man in a tracksuit with a scarf tucked over his mouth, dragging a wheeled bag behind him.

"Ah, there's a boy who needs some love in his life," Chris murmured to himself. The young man was wracked with emotional pain and pent-up desires. With a glance, Chris detected that he was aware of his sexuality but unwilling to act on it, and that he blamed his career for the absence of love in his life, when in fact only his own fears were holding him back. The perfect target. Chris smiled, put down the binoculars and picked up his shimmering rifle, which pulsed in excitement. He selected a dark blue missile and slid it into the chamber, took aim and fired.

"Bullseye," whispered Chris, as he felt the missile sink between the target's shoulder blades and into his heart. He waited for the young man's spirit to lift as a new desire for love flooded through his nervous system.

Nothing happened. Chris grabbed the binoculars. He knew he'd struck his target. After thousands of years changing the hearts of mortals, he didn't miss. But the young man hurried on with his head still hanging low.

Chris frowned. He picked up the rifle and folded it into itself until it reformed into the shape of a fountain-pen. Then he stepped up onto the edge of the roof and leapt off. Invisibly, he soared downwards, landing on his feet among the busy crowd and appearing in a dark, plum-coloured business suit with the blue pen tucked into his front pocket. The young man was just ahead. Chris pushed through the crowd to follow him. Why hadn't the missile affected him? Even if it hadn't been potent enough – and Chris prided himself on always getting the dose right – there should have been some response.

The young man had his phone out now. "Hi, Mom. Yeah, I'll get the next train home. I don't know if there's one tonight, I might have to stay over with Touma. No, I'll call him."

Chris stared at the back of the young man's head, feeling the self-pity wash off him. And then his gaze slid down to the disposable tote bag in his hand. JAPAN FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS, the block letters said. MEN'S SINGLES.

Chris' eyes went wide. His lips parted in a sharp inhale. The young man stopped to look up at the schedule board winking above their heads and Chris almost collided with him. The boy pulled down his scarf for a moment, squinting through his glasses at the timetable. Chris grabbed his phone, thumbed the contact "V" and turned away so he wasn't so obviously staring.

The phone rung four times, Chris bouncing on his heels, and finally the god of Viktory picked up, sounding very disheveled. "Da? I'm in San Fran. You woke me up."

Chris spoke in Swiss-German in the hopes the target would take a few minutes to translate it, hissing as quietly as he could. "I found him, Viktor!"

"What?" a paused. "Are you going to elaborate? Who have you found?"

"I'm not going to ring you at this hour for just anybody."

"Last year you rung me just to boast about who you were in bed with!"

"They were a prime minister," Chris pouted.

"All I'm saying is, this better be the us-damned Pope."

"Better. It's him," Chris breathed. "I found him."

Finally, the sleepy Viktor seemed to catch on. "That's not possible."

"He’s in Tokyo. He's dressed up like a moody millennial with spectacles, but it's definitely him. I tried to shoot him with one of my love spells and it had no effect."

Viktor's voice was a little strained. "Perhaps you're just losing your touch, old man."

"My touch is as good as ever!" Chris scolded, smirking to himself. "I know it's him. He's a skater."

There was silence for several seconds. Then Viktor said, "Delay him. Change your shape, don't let him recognise you." There was the sound of blankets and the thump of half-asleep feet. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Yes, oh-captain-my-captain," Chris said, and hung up. He turned around. "Oh... whoops."

The young man was gone. The crowd flowed around Chris, heading on and off trains in all directions, carrying people to all corners of the country.

---[]---

The steel ceiling beams stretched into an oval dome above their heads. The dark green walls were solid and windowless, giving no clue as to what might lie outside – or above – the expansive room. Behind the table were several white projection screens, and curved desks had been set at regular intervals, holding black rotary-dial phones. These were preferred to their more modern counterparts, let alone any type of computers. Cellphones and wireless transmitters of all types were banned in here. This room could not be compromised by any possibility of digital eavesdroppers.

The last of the generals and policy-makers had taken their seat a few minutes ago, and were now beginning to fidget with impatience. Some turned to their neighbours and made small talk about the political news beyond the borders. Some scribbled reminders to themselves on scrap paper, while others simply sat with tense shoulders, shadows growing in the canyons of their faces. A few assistants and aides stood behind their bosses or scurried around the table, leaning in to whisper messages.

There was a knock on the door. An aide rushed to open it. A man walked in with a relaxed stride, one hand in his pocket and the other supporting a thick pile of files under his arm. There was nothing military in his pose or his smile. His suit was impeccably tailored to display a honed figure, and his dark curls had been shaved on the sides of his head but left long on top.

"Morning, gentleman," he smiled to the room, with the smooth accent of an Eton boy sliding between his thick lips. "My name is Alan Savage, CEO. Sorry to keep you waiting. My boss is on his way from London right now."

The general closest to the door got up and held out his hand. He spoke in clear English. "Good to have you, but I hope you mean he's on his way downstairs. Most of us have ten minutes at most."

"Oh, he won't be long." Savage winked at him as he shook his hand and turned to survey the room.

"Ugh." The general who'd been sitting next to his colleague was one of the oldest in the room, balding on top and with a chunk missing out of his nose. He turned away, balling his fist. "What is this shit? We don't have time for this. We can cancel our contracts with you at any time and buy arms from anyone."

Savage shot him a beaming smile full of flawless, white teeth. "Trust me. He's worth the wait."

He turned at the sound of another knock on the door. The aide pulled it open.

"Ah! There you are, sir."

The entire room leaned forward slightly to stare at the young man who had just walked into the room. He wore an expensive, grey suit, but he couldn't even have stretched to five-foot-five, and his round face was still adolescent, not yet sculpted by puberty. His blond hair was tied back from his face in two plaits, knotted into a bun at the back of his head.

"Gentlemen and ladies," Savage waved his free arm at the young man. "My beloved mentor, Yuri Plisetsky. Founder of YuTech Defense and Security, and your best friend if you hope to win the – uh – numerous conflicts that you are currently pursuing. This, good fellows, is the God of War."

There was a moment of silence. Several of the generals glanced at each other. A woman near the front put her hand to her mouth to hide a smile. The man next to her wasn't so polite and broke out into a crack of laughter.

"What is this?" the balding general with the chunk of nose missing jumped to his feet. He waved his hand at the newcomer. "Is this a joke? Who's this short-arse brat?"

The young man's gaze turned on him at once, and there was a crackle as the temperature in the room suddenly plummeted. Exhalations turned to fog around the table. The woman who had smiled looked down at the pen in her hand and found that frost crystals were rapidly spreading across it. Yet steam seemed to be rising from the shoulders of the young man, and his eyes were blown into huge, black pupils. The corner of his mouth twitched into a snarl.

"You think I'm a joke?" he stepped forward and raised his hand, and the balding general gasped and nearly fell out of his chair, his spine curving backwards. And then he seemed to be standing up, yet his feet were not supporting him, and his neighbour made a gurgle of repressed shock as the imprint formed of a balled fist curled around the general's lapels. The balding man was lifted higher and higher.

"This is the first time I have revealed myself to unknown mortals for a millennia!" the young man cried. "I will be shown the respect I deserve!"

All the eyes in the room were staring at the floating general, and those few that tried to move to help him found their couldn't twitch a single muscle in their body. The general likewise frozen in shock, hanging four feet above the table. And then the shape of the fist vanished and he plummeted back into his chair. He landed right on the seat, seemingly unharmed. One of the wheels of the chair snapped off and rolled across the floor.

Savage was still smiling. "Not a joke, fellows. An opportunity."

There was a rapid intake of air and everyone who had found themselves frozen was suddenly released. A few of them shoved their chairs away from the table or bent over its edge, gripping their chests. To their credit, none of them jumped up and reached for the phones. They sat in silence.

The young man who had been named Yuri Plisetsky adjusted his tie and sniffed. "This is only the beginning. You must all have noticed that the powers of the gods have been waning. No more! War is spreading, and I am the only one who can truly know its nature or direct it where it does not wish to go. I have chosen your puny civilisation as my favoured people, but do not think I owe you any loyalty. If you help restore me to my true glory, help me unseat the fragile king of the diminished pantheon, then you will be unstoppable wherever you send your tanks and your drones and the eyes of your satellites. Fail me, and you will see how quickly the tides of war can turn."

Most of the table sat stunned. One older woman who had been sitting near the back now stood up. Her hair was streaked with silver and her lapels identified her status above almost all the men. Her voice was sharp and unafraid when she spoke. “An impressive display, Mr Plisetsky. What would you do if we were to call the guards in right now? I’m simply curious.”

Yuri Plisetsky raised his hands again and stretched out his fingers. Every rotary-dial phone in the room began to shake, and then flew off their desks and thudded down onto the table in the centre of the room, their cords ripping out of the wall but somehow remaining intact. Those closest to them jumped and surveyed them with wary gazes.

“Call them,” Yuri said. “I will leave. But you will wish you listened to me.”

The woman had only flinched a little as the nearest phone had landed in front of her. "If you truly have this power, may I ask why offer it to us now? Did your last 'favoured people' disappoint you? We must be sure, you see, that you did not fail them. Or worse, we want to be sure you will not return to them if there if we present you with... disagreements. I, for one, do not makes deals with the devil. Only partnerships."

Yuri Plisetsky turned his eyes on her, her pupils now restored to an emerald green. He tossed a strand of hair off his face with a flick of his fingers. "A fair question. I will tell you the truth: I have not given my favour to any single group since I was worshipped by those you call the Romans."

"Why?" the woman pressed. "What has changed now?"

Yuri's eyes narrowed, but after a moment he tossed his head. "One of the pantheon has vanished. One who stood in my way many times, who had the power to turn enemies to comrades and craft even the worst rage into joy. After a quarter of a century, I feel confident that he will not return to oppose me. He may have been finally swallowed up by the pious apathy of mortals. Now it is my time to rise."

---[]---

Yuuri Katsuki opened his curtains to see a world turned white.

"Snow, this late in the year?" he frowned, peering out over the garden. "Great."

He flopped face-down on his bed and turned his head to reach for his phone. He switched it back on for the first time since the video of his skating had gone viral, selecting all the emails in his inbox and setting them to "Mark as Read". The top post on his Facebook feed was a composite video of his skate in Ice Palace Hasetsu, next to Viktor Nikiforov's gold-medal performance in 1964. Yuuri sighed and stopped to watch the video, his eyes fixed only on Nikiforov. Even viewed through the grainy lens of the black-and-white camera, Viktor was perfect, far more elegant and charismatic than Yuuri's skate. It was embarrassing to even compare them.

Yuuri turned his phone off and pressed his face into the pillow. The poster of Viktor Nikiforov above his head smiled down at him. The picture had been snapped just as he finished his Olympic performance, one of the few professional images of the skater in action, the resolution high enough to see the sweat beading on Viktor's neck and the strain of his tendons against the sheer cloth of his costume. Yuuri had found the photo in an old book when he was fifteen. He had written to the archive who owned the photographer's work to get a copy of the negative, and had it blown up to poster-size with his own pocket-money.

Nikiforov was a mystery that had an ending too unsatisfying to interest most people. The completely unknown Russian had appeared on the skating scene in 1962, winning the world championships twice with incredible performances that at the time were beyond revolutionary – they were almost unscorable. Even today, Viktor's skates would have netted him world records. In the 60s, several committees were convened just to decide whether his jumps would be allowed, and how to judge them. The 1964 Olympics had been his crowning glory, launching him onto the world stage and charming audiences with his boisterous and cheekily self-aggrandising interviews. He had been slated for an exhibition tour of Europe and North America, but after the Olympics finished his tour had been suddenly cancelled and the revolutionary skater had simply disappeared. Most sports historians agreed that the iron curtain had slammed shut behind him – that he had been suspected of defecting, or worse, and had been taken into indefinite custody. Either he'd died in prison or been paid enough to never raise his head in public again. Skating would take several more decades to produce athletes of his skill, and even then, they were inventing his achievements anew: most of the skaters Yuuri met had barely heard of Nikiforov and had never watched the handful of recordings of him skating.

But when Yuuri was young, he'd seen glimpses of Viktor in a documentary and fallen completely in love. Since then, he'd hunted down every image of his hero, every video of his performances, even the radio broadcasts of his interviews. Viktor had been his inspiration to go professional, and during his failure at the last Grand Prix, it was Viktor he thought of with the greatest shame. Maybe the mysterious Nikiforov really had been dead for fifty years, but Yuuri still felt as if he'd let him down.

There was a knock on the door and his mother's voice broke him out his trance. "Yuuri, dear! Come to breakfast. We need someone to shovel the paths!"

"Coming, Mom," Yuuri mumbled.

Dressed and fed, he pulled on a thick jacket and went outside. As he slid open the front door, he was almost bowled over by a large dog that bounded inside. Yuuri yelped and sat down to let the dog greet him, its tail wagging as it nuzzled his face, huffing foul breath all over him. He pulled off his gloves and dug his fingers into the curly hair on its head with a laugh.

"Hey there, cutie. Who do you belong to?"

"Oh, he's with some new fellow who just arrived." Yuuri's dad was going past with a crate full of crockery. "Foreign tourist. Rich too." His dad winked. "And handsome. I'm sure you'd stick around if we had more like that!"

"Dad! Please, stop." Yuuri pressed his face into the dog's flank for a moment, thinking of Vicchan. The dog bounded away into the snow again, leaving him sitting on the front step. “You know I don’t have plans to keep skating."

"Of course. Well, we're here to talk about it when you're ready," his dad nodded and when Yuuri just sighed, his father sidled away.

Yuuri spent the rest of the morning clearing the snow from the entrances. Just as he was finished, he looked up at the upper storey of the hotel and saw someone watching him from an upstairs window. There was a pale-haired man with his hands and faced pressed right up against the glass, grinning at Yuuri. He looked strangely familiar. Having finally made eye contact, he waved frantically. With a frown, Yuuri took one hand off the shovel to wave back.

The man disappeared from the window with a brief flash of a trenchcoat being snatched up. Yuuri shrugged and went back to shoveling, but within seconds he heard the crunch of shoes on the snow and looked up to see the lanky figure of the man from the window leaping off the steps of the side-door and lunging through the snow towards him.

"Privyet, golubchik!"

"Ah—" Yuuri dropped the shovel and raised his hands just as the man half-collided with him, seizing him by both arms. He was still smiling broadly. Yuuri flinched. "I'm sorry, I don't speak..." he wasn't even sure what he'd just heard, it had all happened so fast.

"Oh! Of course, you've been here so long," the man laughed in passable Japanese. "It's so good to see you!"

Yuuri stared at him. And then the man’s familiarity slid into frame in his thoughts. His eyes went wide and he felt his heart thump in his chest so hard it made him dizzy. "Viktor? Viktor Nikiforov?"

"If you like." Viktor released him and propped his hands on his hips. Then he leaned in so close that Yuuri almost toppled over backwards. “This rustic, shy look you’ve got going is adorable.”

Yuuri stared at him, pushing his glasses up his nose. "This... this isn't possible. You're not him. You're too young," and alive he added silently. "Where did you come from?"

"San Francisco this month." Viktor tilted his head in confusion. "And you're named Yuuri, aren't you? I looked you up in the Japanese Nationals. You were terrible," he grinned.

"Oh." Yuuri wilted. "Uh... thanks."

"You obviously need me!"

"Need... you?"

"You should have just told me you were in such a dire state and I would have come years ago!" Viktor clapped his hands on Yuuri's shoulders, making him flinch again. His voice became plaintive, "Yuuri, why have you been hiding for so long? I missed you. We all missed you, but..." something flickered across his face that Yuuri couldn't read. "Myself most of all."

"I'm sorry," Yuuri pulled himself out of the man's grasp. "We’ve never met. You've mixed me up with someone else. And you can't be the Viktor Nikiforov I was thinking of. He would be eighty years old by now, if he's even still alive."

"Ah, I see," Viktor winked. "Staying in deep cover, is that it?"

"I don't know what you mean."

Viktor gave an even more exaggerated wink, as if he thought Yuuri might somehow have missed the last one. "A true mortal life. I understand. Going for an ordinary body and everything," he reached out and pulled Yuuri's coat up, exposing a slice of his belly to the freezing air. Yuuri yelped and jumped backwards, pulling his clothes down. Viktor nodded. "I've been tempted myself, many times. It's hard to bear the burden of who we really are, especially in an age of disbelief."

Yuuri grumbled, tucking his shirt in his trousers in case Viktor tried that again. "And who exactly do you think I am?"

Viktor's expression softened, and Yuuri couldn't shake the conviction that he really was looking at the 1964 Olympic champion in the flesh. He'd studied Nikiforov's videos so many times he could see every moment when he closed his eyes and feel the shape of the jumps when he was on the ice. He had stared at photographs of Viktor on his walls since he was a teenager. This man was identical, from face to voice to the rakish way he stood, with all the grace and self-awareness of an athlete. But it was also impossible.

"You've had many names and many forms," Viktor said, drawing closer as he spoke. "Dionysus. Gambrinus. Ninkasi. Ægir. Hathor. Bacchus. And you have taken many roles as a spirit of celebration and reconciliation. But always, my dear Yuuri, you have been beloved by mortals. For you are the god of parties, the god of drinking, the god of alcohol in all its forms."

Yuuri stared at him for a long, long time. At last he picked up the shovel again with both hands and said, “I don’t know how my dad talked you into this, but when you see him, tell him this is the worst possible way he could have set me up on a blind date.”

"No, no!" Viktor laughed, waving his hands in dismissal. "It really is me! I haven't even changed my face since you left. I've been looking for you for over twenty years!"

"Look." Yuuri pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tell Dad this isn't funny. I've got chores to do and my life to sort out."

He shook his head, wondering if the cold was getting to his brain. How could this stranger look so much like Viktor Nikiforov? It had to be some kind prank. But who would know Yuuri well enough to set up something so specific to him, yet be rude enough to call the masquerade ‘God of Victory’ after all his failures this year? It didn’t make sense. Yuuri gripped the shovel and stabbed it into the snow so hard he struck the tile underneath with a painful jolt that vibrated in his teeth. His cheeks were burning and his neck muscles were so tense that they hurt.

"Okay, Yuuri." Viktor was still saying Yuuri's name with a kind of wink-wink-nudge in his voice, as if amending quotation marks to it in his mind. "Obviously you're enjoying your little mortal life and don't want to come home." Yuuri gripped the shovel tighter and gritted his teeth. "But at least tell me you believe me. I'm not some nymph taking Viktor's face to play a trick on your or something."

"You're not Viktor Nikiforov," Yuuri said over his shoulder. "He's been gone for fifty years."

"I'll prove it to you," Viktor said firmly. "Tonight, at that local skating rink. Meet me there after dinner!"

Yuuri looked after at him. Viktor was just standing with his hands in his pockets, watching him with an expression that was difficult to read. A few flakes of snow were beginning to fall around him, catching in his hair and sparkling there before they melted.

Whoever he really was, whether he was delusional or just playing a stupid prank, he didn't seem dangerous. Yuuri sighed. "Sure. Prove it to me."

"Kpyto!" Viktor clapped his hands and grinned. "I just have to go home and get something. See you later!"

He turned and dashed off across the snowy lawn, around the side of the building. Yuuri raised his hand. "Wait, that's a dead end," he called.

He followed Viktor's footprints in the snow, but when he came around the corner, there was no one there. The footprints just ended at a screen taller than Yuuri, which blocked visibility to the outdoor hot springs. He blinked, looking around the narrow space between the screen and the blank wall at the back of the hotel. Viktor Nikiforov had vanished.

"Go home?" Yuuri frowned to himself. "Did he mean go back to his room?"

He shrugged and went back to shovelling the driveway, trying not to think any more about the bizarre stranger.

Chapter Text

The man claiming to be Viktor Nikiforov was in the restaurant that evening, wearing only a bathrobe and ordering dish after dish from the menu and praising all of them loud enough that the two gentlemen trying to watch TV in the corner were looking increasingly irritated. Yuuri sat at a different table, and his mother took a break to come and eat with him. No sooner had they both picked up their chopsticks, than Viktor Nikiforov got up – balancing three dishes in his hands – and walked over to sit at the table with them.

"Hello, Mrs Katsuki! Your bathhouse is beautiful. I hope I can stay in Hasetsu for some time," he crooned.

"Well, thank you, dear," said Yuuri's mom. "Are you on holiday?"

"Yes, a dear friend of mine lives here, so I'm visiting for the first time." Viktor smiled the most charming smile at her that Yuuri had ever seen. His stomach suddenly wasn't interested in food.

"Oh, that's nice. And what do you do?"

"I'm a figure skater, Mrs Katsuki."

"Really? Our Yuuri is too!"

Viktor turned the irresistible smile on Yuuri. "I know. I saw a video of him skating a wonderful routine last week." He switched his focus back to Yuuri's mother. "How long have you been running this bathhouse?"

"Oh, years and years!" she said proudly, putting down her chopsticks. "It's been in the family for a couple of generations."

"Ah, traditions are so important. So the kids were born here? Hasetsu must be so proud of Yuuri."

Yuuri pretended to be concentrating on his food, but he was eating very slowly. Viktor was up to something, and he wanted to intervene, but he couldn't figure out what information the man was trying to glean.

"Yuuri was born right here in town, that's right." His mother nodded at her son. "Mari is from further north."

"Why's that?"

"Well... Mari was adopted. But Hasetsu is very much her home."

Oh no. There it was. Yuuri abandoned his food. "Mom, he doesn't need to hear our whole life story!"

"No, please, I think that's wonderful!" Viktor leaned in even further, and being somewhat taller, blocked Yuuri from his own mother. "Is Yuuri adopted too? Where did he come from – was he left on the doorstep in a strangely-woven basket? Did he have any curious birthmarks?"

Yuuri's mother chuckled. "No, no, we got Yuuri the regular way." Yuuri tossed Viktor a smug look. But his mother continued before he could stop her. "The doctors said we couldn't have children, you see. We'd tried for years, and we were so happy when we finally got Mari that we never asked for anything more! But then out of nowhere – there was Yuuri!"

"Oh!" Viktor's eyes lit up. "What was your secret? Prayer? Bedroom rituals?"

Yuuri’s flushed all the way from his neck to his forehead. Yuuri’s mother giggled and covered her mouth for a moment. "Goodness. Well, my aunt did give us some traditional medicine and made us go to a famous shrine, but we don't believe in that sort of superstition. Sometimes these things just happen, you know."

"Yes." Viktor smirked. "Especially when you have a fertility god watching over you."

"Pardon?"

Viktor laughed, his mouth full of steamed pork bun. "Oh, nothing, just an old Russian proverb.”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm done eating, Mom. I'm going to head to the rink tonight."

He got up and took his plates into the kitchen. As he headed for his room, he looked over to see Viktor waving at him as went past. If it was possible, Yuuri’s cheeks seemed to burn even hotter, and he looked away as quickly as he could.

---[]---

In a small town in Minnesota, Andy Roy, the coach of the Merriport Ospreys, watched his boys skate out onto the ice. They were kitted out in full hockey gear, sticks clacking and voices barking as they egged each other on for the coming game. Their opponents entered the rink in a much more orderly line, making almost no sound except the scrape of their blades the occasional grunting as their captain directed them into position.

“Where’s their coach, Andy?” the referee – a local lad that Roy had known since he was a boy – was just taking his skate guards off and fumbling to hook his whistle over his head.

Roy shrugged. “They don’t seem to have one. Captain’s in charge.”

The referee frowned. “Weird accents they got.”

“They’re from Siberia, Richie,” said the coach.

They watched the players begin to take position. Roy’s boys were rolling their shoulders and switching their sticks from hand to hand, their breath huffing in the cool air. But the opposition team moved with no bravado and almost no acknowledgment of each other. They might as well have been strangers in line for the bank.

The referee stepped onto the ice and skated towards where the captain of the Ospreys was shaking hands with the captain of the opposition. They nodded to each other as they gripped each other’s wrists firmly. There was no overt threat, nothing truly out of place, but Roy was unsettled.

He’d been emailed by the captain via the Osprey’s website a few weeks back. The club were called the Tarturs, and they came from a small region above the arctic circle. They said they were looking to distinguish themselves in their local league and were touring North America to diversify their strategies. Roy thought it sounded like a great idea, hosting a game with a foreign team, especially with all the international tensions on the news right now. Let sport bring them together. He’d welcomed the Tarturs outside the rink when they’d turned up in a battered, unmarked minibus only an hour before the game was due to start. But from the moment they piled out to greet him, there was something about them that he didn’t like. They didn’t interact with each other the way he expected, with elbows and jokes and nicknames flying. They just unpacked and went into the changing room, saying almost nothing to Roy or to each other.

Maybe they were just jetlagged. Roy looked up into the stands. It was a Tuesday night, bingo night at the local hall, so the seats were only about half full even though the Ospreys were beloved in town. Near the front, sitting right behind the Tarturs’ bench, was a cluster of two young women and a man with hand-made signs cheering the away team. Roy was surprised, and sidled over to the strangers as the referee gave the captains a spiel about playing a fair game and keeping the blood to a minimum.

“Ladies, gent,” he nodded at them. The three were all in their twenties, and though they were rugged up in jeans and jackets he could tell they weren’t local. “You from out of town?”

“Drove up from Minneapolis this afternoon,” the older of the two women said, and flapped her scarf in front of her. It appeared to be hand-knitted with the Tarturs’ colours and name. “Super excited to see the Tarturs in action!”

“I wouldn’t have thought they’d have an American fanbase already,” Roy frowned, folding his arms.

“Oh, you know how it is.” The younger woman pinked a little in the cheeks. “With the Internet.”

Roy didn’t know how it was with the Internet, and it must have shown on his face, because the man laughed. “They had this hilarious twitter account, just ordinary stuff about them training and their American-Canadian tour, but whoever runs it has a really dry sense of humour. It kind of went viral and now there’s a bunch of us groupies following them around the States.”

“Ah,” said Roy. He saw how it was now. His teenage daughter, who was a talented hockey player herself, was always getting obsessed with the strangest things from social media. Roy could never keep up with the ‘memes’ she was talking about, but he accepted that he was just getting old. At least the rules of hockey didn’t change as fast as the celebrity gossip.

The whistle blew, and Roy remembered he was supposed to be coaching a game. He hurried back to the side of the rink, just in time to see the Tarturs slam three of his boys onto their backs and score their first goal. Behind him, Roy heard the two Minneapolis visitors roar and scream with excitement while the local fans in the seats above gave a collective groan.

The game only went downhill from there.

---[]---

When Yuuri got to the rink, Viktor Nikiforov was standing outside, now dressed in a black turtleneck and sportswear on bottom. With the shock of his silver hair, he was a striking figure against the painted wall of Hasetsu Ice Palace. He waved as Yuuri approached.

“How… where…?” Yuuri took his headphones out and stared at him. When he’d left the bathhouse, Viktor had still been sitting in the restaurant in a bathrobe scoffing ice cream.

“You came! I’ve been waiting for ages.” Viktor checked his watch and put his hand on the door. “Shall we talk inside?”

“Hang on, Yuuko gave me a key.” Yuuri hurried up the steps, fumbling in his pocket, but the door swung open when Viktor pushed on it. That was unusual. Yuuko was pretty careful about locking the rink up at night.

“Everything is so quaint here,” Viktor chattered as they headed towards the rink itself. “I can see why it would be good for the spirit. But if you wanted to stay hidden, why put yourself on the international stage as a figure skater? Chris would never have found you without the Japanese Nationals.”

“I’m just a big box of mysteries,” Yuuri muttered. The cool air of the rink hit his face, and he breathed in the smell of freshly-surfaced ice.

Yuuri found the switch and flicked on the rink lights, the comforting thump of the huge fluorescents vibrating in his ribs. Viktor leaned against the barrier, humming with pleasure. "Remember that frozen lake in the Yukon that we found? Not a human for a hundred miles in every direction. The foxes hunting around the banks weren't even afraid of us. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever skated."

His face looked so wistful, and so much like the real Viktor Nikiforov from the old recordings, that Yuuri couldn't bring himself to shoot him down again. He said nothing for a few moments, letting the emotion fade before he asked, "What did you want to show me?"

"Aha! Hold out your hand." Viktor reached into his bag and pulled out something that flashed golden in the glow of the rink, trailing a long, blue ribbon.

Yuuri's eyes went wide. He reached out, and Viktor pressed the heavy, thick medal into his palm, grasping Yuuri’s hand with both of his own for a brief moment.

INNSBRUCK 1964 EISKUNSTLAUF, was inscribed around the edge of the gold medal, and on the other side, OLYMPISCHE WINTERSPIELE IX. The blue ribbon was faded and beginning to perish, but the medal was as clean as the day it was minted.

"This was his," Yuuri whispered. "I watched them put it around his neck."

"Of course you did. You were there!" Viktor said, leaning in close from the side as if peering at the medal in Yuuri's hand, though Yuuri could feel that Viktor's eyes were on his face, not his hand.

"No, on YouTube." Yuuri shook his head. "How did you get this?"

"You still don't believe me." Viktor's cheery tone was finally beginning to fray a little.

Yuuri's heart was pounding. He held the medal in both hands, the heavy reality of it pressing against the barriers of improbability. Then he realised. "You're his grandson. That's why you look like him. That's why you're named after him!" He raised his head to look Viktor in the eye. "What happened to him? Why did he disappear? Is he still alive?"

"No, no, and no!" Viktor stepped away, laughing a little, but there was a sadness to it now. He crouched down and unzipped his bag. Inside were a pair of immaculate, white skates. "Alright. I have one more thing to show you. Name a routine."

He slipped his shoes off and was pulling the skates on quickly, lacing them up with his swift, elegant fingers.

"What?"

"Name one of my routines. One you know well."

Yuuri knew all of them well. He thought of his favourite, the Olympic triumph at the end of Nikiforov's tragically short career. But Viktor had already shown he knew about that performance. So instead Yuuri said, "the Cortina d’Ampezzo freeskate, 1963."

Viktor smiled at him and stepped onto the ice. He clicked his fingers, and out of the scratchy PA system came the swelling strings of an orchestra. Yuuri looked around, but there was no one behind the blinds of the office window. He knew this music. It was an original arrangement of César Cui’s Orientale. Nikiforov had skated to it in 1963, and Yuuri had never heard this particular version outside of the TV broadcast of that competition.

Viktor was skating backwards away from the barrier, his smile growing broader, his hands outstretched towards Yuuri. The tempo of the piano began to accelerate, and he began to skate.

It was exactly as Yuuri had watched it dozens of times before. But now it was not a tiny monochrome figure on his laptop, but Viktor Nikiforov himself performing every jump, every flourish of his arms, every flirtatious swing towards the crowd. Yet there was no crowd, there was only Yuuri, and he felt drugged by the beauty of the performance, and by Viktor's eyes on him and him alone. Yuuri knew the routine so well, anticipated every twist, reciting them in his mind: triple sachow… spin… triple axel… but in life they were still new, each one more thrilling than the last. When Yuuri looked closely he saw there was a roughness at the edges as well, a little bit of over-compensation with each push, like a gem that had gathered a tarnish after sitting in a cupboard too long. But Viktor propelled himself with such confidence that it was clearly not inexperience that was marring him. It was something else, something like heartache.

As the music faded and Viktor sunk into a spin, Yuuri felt a sudden lurch deep in his chest, and tears welling up in his eyes. He was overwhelmed with a nostalgic melancholy that he didn't understand. He wiped his eyes quickly and the feeling was gone. There was only the elation of what he'd just seen, and the confusion about what it meant. Viktor skated back towards him, holding one arm out to him as if expecting Yuuri to take his hand and kiss it.

Yuuri kept his hands in his pockets and Viktor gripped the barrier to stop himself. His cheeks were flushed, his breathing a little heavy. He was gorgeous beyond words as he wiped his brow with his sleeve. "I'm a little rusty," he apologized. "I haven't skated since you disappeared."

"That was perfect," Yuuri said quietly. "I don't know what to think. It's impossible. I want to believe you really are Viktor Nikiforov. But if you haven't aged a day in fifty years... I don't know what to think."

"You don't need to hide any more. Whatever you're so afraid of, I'm here now." Viktor leaned over the barrier to grab his wrist, but Yuuri slipped out of his reach. "Yuuri, stop. I'm your king. Your Victory. You are my Dionysus, my Revelry."

Yuuri shook his head. "Sorry, Viktor. You've got me mixed up with someone else."

He went over to the stands and sat down to put his skates on, laying the medal gently on his folded jacket to protect it. Once again he could almost feel Viktor's eyes on him, as if his attention had a physical presence in the air. He went to the edge of the ice, standing in the gate. He glanced at Viktor. "What happened to him? To Dionysus?"

Yuuri didn't believe the god thing, of course, but the whole situation was so strange and increasingly exciting that he was willing to play along for now. And he was genuinely curious to hear the story that Viktor had concocted to explain it all.

"Alright, I can see what’s happened. You’ve committed yourself so completely to this veneer that you’ve hidden your own memories. A truly convincing disguise.” Viktor followed him onto the ice and they began to skate a lazy circumference of the rink, a couple of feet apart from each other. “You said you wanted to go and live as a priest. You didn’t care what religion it was for, just so long as the temple made its own beer. That’s the last time we spoke. Do you remember that?”

“A priest,” said Yuuri. “That sounds like quite a step down from ‘god’.”

“Well… we're not as influential as we once were,” Viktor smiled, but his eyes didn’t light up as they had before. “Our pantheon has been waning for hundreds of years. Immortality doesn't look so attractive when you can't drain oceans and create suns anymore. So we drift in and out of the mortal world, seeking distractions, seeking a purpose. Some of us never come back. The minor deities are all but extinct.” Viktor made a gesture with his hand that Yuuri didn’t understand. “Poseidon and Demeter are going the same way. We lost our king and his wife entirely.”

“Zeus?” Yuuri threw out the name in a half-hearted attempted to pretend he knew anything about the history that Viktor’s story was drawn from. Most of his experience with classical pantheons was from blockbuster films and B-grade television shows.

“Amun, Zeus, Jupiter, Odin. The weaker we became, the more the different incarnations blended together,” Viktor shrugged.

“Why? Because people stopped worshipping you?”

Viktor tilted his head side to side. “That was part of it. There are different ways to disappear, and different ways to survive. To adapt, most of us have taken mortal personas and thrived as best we can in our reduced state. But vanishing entirely is always a choice.”

Once again, Yuuri felt a tingle of that melancholy he had experienced while watching Viktor skate. It was fainter this time, and tinged with fear. He wanted to contradict Viktor, without even knowing what Viktor had said wrong. Instead he tried to focus the conversation back on proving to Viktor that he wasn’t who Viktor said he was. “So which do you think Dionysus chose? Did he just pretend to be human, or did he choose…” suicide seemed to be the wrong word for a creature that was supposed to be immortal, “…nothingness?”

Viktor turned his gaze of Yuuri. “I was afraid for years that it was the latter. When you left for the temple, you wouldn’t tell me where you were going, but you promised me you’d come home in a decade. Then your messages just stopped. I hoped every day for at least a phone call to say goodbye.”

Viktor paused, glancing hopefully at him. Yuuri shrugged. “This isn’t bringing back any repressed memories. I’m sorry. I hope you find him.”

“I have found him,” Viktor said confidently. “You’ve just gotten yourself too deep in your mortal life. It happens to the best of us! It’ll all come back to you.”

Yuuri grumbled. “I’m sure it will. So where is home, then?” he called, skating backwards away from Viktor. “Mount Olympus?”

Viktor smiled, following him easy even when he zigged and zagged. “Not since forever! Mortals, they get everywhere. We transferred the seat of our power to Antarctica millennia ago. There are still plenty of unexplored peaks there, though I imagine it won’t last forever. They have helicopters and drones and GPS, now. Humanity will conquer our mountain one day, and we’ll just have to keep moving further and further away. To the dark side of the moon, perhaps.” He gave a bright, airy laugh.

“Sounds lonely.”

“It is. Especially without you.”

“You mean Dionysus.” Yuuri gave a low hum and skated onwards. “Why’s he so special to you?”

Viktor turned so that he was in profile to Yuuri, and Yuuri tried to focus on his words rather than the perfect, sharp angles of his nose. “You kept me focused after I took the mantle of kingship. It was… a difficult time for me. You convinced me to commit myself to one mortal body and see if I could make it a champion. You were the one who suggested figure skating, and we spent twenty years creating the persona of Viktor Nikiforov and all his triumphs.”

“We… created Nikiforov?”

“Of course. An unknown Russian revolutionary, emerging from behind the iron curtain, taking the skating world by storm… the hard work was all me, of course, but you made me dance whenever I was too tense to skate. You were my inspiration every time I wanted to give up. We were never really friends before then, we were just part of the same pantheon, but once I became Viktor, something changed in both of us.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Yuuri snapped, a little quickly. It was a beautiful story, but it felt yet again like some kind of nasty joke, and he didn’t understand who was supposed to be laughing. Yuuri Katsuki was the last person on the planet who could inspire anybody, let alone help them de-stress before a competition. He couldn’t even save himself from his own anxiety. The person Viktor was describing was a stranger. One who sounded a lot more fun and happy than Yuuri.

He skidded to a stop at the edge of the rink, almost slamming into the barrier, and Viktor slid in beside him with far more elegance. Yuuri growled at him. “You’re convinced I’m Dionysus. I evidently can’t change your mind. But I’m not going to pretend I believe you.”

“Then believe this,” Viktor insisted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Yuuri suddenly thought of the music appearing as if by magic and was instantly convinced that it was nothing more magical than Bluetooth. Gods and immortals? What was he thinking?

Viktor was opening a video on his phone. It was from an American skater who’d been in last year’s Grand Prix, one that Yuuri didn’t know well. The video was posted on their instagram with the title “GPF Banquet FLASHDANCE LOLOLOL”. Yuuri leaned forward to see the phone screen better and gave a shocked squeak.

“Oh no, no!” he covered his mouth. “Turn it off!”

The video was of a scattered crowd of guests late in the evening, most of them polished up in sparkling cocktail dresses and tuxedos. Into the frame had just staggered Yuuri Katsuki, clutching a half-empty glass of slopping champagne in one hand and his trailing tie in the other. A few people glanced at him, smirking or rolling their eyes.

“I don’t remember that at all! Turn it off, this is so embarrassing.”

“Just keep watching!” Viktor slung his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and held him close, their heads together.

Yuuri peeped between his fingers. The Yuuri on the video was red-cheeked, his hair mussed up in all directions, his shirt half unbuttoned and his eyes unfocused. “Come on, let’s get this party started,” he suddenly yelled, voice slurred even in the low sound-quality of the video. Everyone around him turned in surprise, most of them taking a couple of steps back from him as he swayed on the spot. A few were frowning now. A voice from behind the camera – the skater who was filming – gave a low laugh.

Video-Yuuri tossed back the rest of the champagne and then threw the glass into the air over his shoulder. Yuuri gave a groan of shame, but the glass didn’t shatter on the polished floor of the banquet hall: it was snatched out of the air by a waitress passing directly behind him. The American voice filming the scene gave a joyful, “Oh my God!” and laughed again. The woman holding the glass looked just as surprised. She put the glass on her tray and kept walking, shaking her head.

“I don’t want to see the rest of this,” Yuuri said through gritted teeth.

“That’s why you keep missing the truth,” Viktor insisted, determinedly holding him tight. “Just watch.”

Video-Yuuri suddenly pointed to something off screen. Until now the only audible music had been a soft, background piano accompanied by strings, but within a few seconds it began to speed up and grow louder. The skater filming the scene whipped the camera around in a sickening hand-held pan and refocused on the musicians in the corner of the room, all in black-tie dress with white shirts. Without warning, the pianist’s fingers had begun thumping up and down the scales in a bizarre but recognisable rearrangement of James Brown’s I Got You, while the two violinists provided the melody with jagged strikes along their strings and the cellist began to pluck out the beat. Within seconds, a middle-aged coach in an expensive shirt grabbed the punch-bowl off the buffet table, upended the dregs all over his leather Oxfords and began to use two wooden salad spoons to drum the rhythm. A moment later, two female skaters slid out of the crowd and began to sing the lyrics, harmonising with each other as if they’d practiced for it their whole lives.

“What the hell…?” Yuuri frowned, leaning in closer. The pianist was actually standing up, hammering the keys of his grand piano, the cellist was thumping her feet in time to the beat, and the two violinists were slapping their hips against each other and grinning like fiddlers at a country jig.

The American behind the camera was whispering, “What the f…” and then the lights above his head began to flicker on and off. He switched the camera’s view back to Video-Yuuri, who was dancing wildly now in the open circle that had formed around him moments earlier. But he wasn’t alone. In singles, then pairs, than spreading in a great ripple, every single person in the crowd was dancing, throwing up their arms wildly, launching themselves into each other’s embrace, singing along with off-key yelps and howls. The camera finally turned around to show the amateur cameraman’s face. The American’s eyes were wild and his jaw hung open in an open-mouthed grin. Then he too began to shimmy to the beat, and the video ended abruptly.

His caption below said simply, Just found this on my phone… can barely remember this amazing flash mob… unreal! Sk8rs sure know how to PARTY.

Viktor turned off his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. Yuuri stared into the empty space, his cheeks burning.

“Th-that was so humiliating,” Yuuri stammered at last. “I can’t believe that’s been online all these months.”

“Yuuri, that’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Viktor laughed. “Everyone in that party was in love with you in that moment. That’s your gift.”

“Everyone dances at the end of the night,” said Yuuri. “They were just having fun. That’s what the banquet is for.”

“They were dancing because you were dancing.” Viktor grabbed him by the shoulders and stared into his face. “You are literally the spirit of the party.”

Yuuri was trying to process what he’d just seen, convinced it must have been rehearsed beforehand by the musicians, that the drummer and the singers were just plants, that it had been some kind of performance art piece. “What do you want from me, Viktor? You want me to come back to Antarctica with you? I can't. My family is here. I've got my career to think about."

"The career you just bombed out of at the Japanese nationals?" Viktor asked. "Lets face it, Dionysus – Yuuri – you're not exactly the god of victory—"

Yuuri pushed away from him, onto the ice. "That was not called for."

Viktor flicked his hair away from his eyes. "These mortal goals are so beneath you. Why would do you need them?"

"Because they're my goals!" Yuuri growled, balling his fists. "I don't care if you can win anything with a wave your hand, it's hard work for me, and I'm not just going to give it up because some handsome god drops out of the clouds and tells me I'm his lost choreographer!"

His breath was coming fast and heavy, his thoughts had turned to a blank, buzzing storm and had he just called Viktor handsome? This was going from bad to worse.

But at least he had finally realised that he didn’t want to retire. He wasn’t ready to give up skating. He had lost before, he had cried in bathroom stalls before, but he loved this sport so much that he was willing to risk all of that again if it meant he could keep skating the way that Viktor Nikiforov – the original Viktor Nikiforov – had skated. With all respect to Yuuko and Minako, didn’t just want to come home, run an ice rink and coach kids in a small town like Hasetsu for the rest of his life. He wanted to be better than anyone could have expected of him. He wanted to be the best.

Viktor's face was alight and he was raising his hands as if to grasp something out of the air. "I could be your coach!"

Yuuri had been just about to launch into another tirade, but he stopped with one finger raised, his mouth hanging open. After a moment he frowned, "My coach?"

"Of course! You want to continue your career – you want to improve on your disastrous last season – I can help you do that!” Viktor drew himself up and skated onto the ice towards Yuri, holding out his hands to him. “I was a skater for twenty years, you know.”

“You retired in the sixties.”

“I was ahead of my time.” Viktor winked, coming in close again. Yuuri felt himself shiver as Viktor loomed over him, and he felt Viktor’s hand slide over his.

Yuuri stammered, “I don’t want to win by… by magic.”

“The god of victory would never cheat.” Viktor’s mouth was inches from his now. Yuuri could feel the faint touch of warm breath in the cool air. He could see Viktor’s lashes tremble as a few strands of his fringe fell over one eye. “Take me as your coach. I’m going to see you back at the Grand Prix. And this time, you’re going to win.”

“And then what?” Yuuri asked, because breathing was suddenly very difficult, and there were sparks flowing deeper and deeper into his body, and he had to keep Viktor talking or this moment would end.

“And then you’ll come back to the mountain with me.” Viktor was lifting his hand and kissing the knuckles of his glove. It was incredibly frustrating to feel the pressure but not the texture of his lips. “When I get you that gold medal, you’ll come home.”

Yuuri tried to speak and found his voice was gone. He swallowed, and realised he didn’t trust his brain to come out with anything sensible. He had to think about this. He was about to make a deal with a man who might – maybe – perhaps – be a living, breathing god. On instinct he pulled his hand out of the glove and spun away, leaving Victor holding the empty cloth, skating away a few feet and avoiding Viktor’s eye. The spell was broken, and his head cleared. He knew his answer. Viktor might be a madman – or a mad god! – but he had just proven himself to be an adept skater.

If this was the way Yuuri was going to win, then so be it. He’d promise anything to get that gold medal.

He raised his gaze with a smile. “Let’s do this.”

Chapter Text

The labs were behind several swipes doors, but the teenage boy with the bob of blonde hair seemed to have a key to all of them. He sauntered through the corridors with a sharp glance at any post-doc or grad student who looked like they might question what he was doing here. He was in a short-sleeved shirt and slacks today, wearing a pair of thick-rimmed black spectacles with no lenses. In his front breast pocket were two ball-point pens. They were both red.

The final set of double-doors had a sign that read: QUANTUM COMPUTERS UNIT. The young man pushed through them without even pretending to swipe his card this time. He ignored the high-voltage signs leading through to the engineering laboratories, and went straight to the office just inside the doors.

He knocked on the frosted glass, above the name Otabek Altin. There was the squeak of a desk chair. A man pulled the door open to stare down at him. He looked too young for the ‘prof’ that prefixed him name.

“Piss off,” Otabek said, almost at once. He tried to shut the door, but the young man slammed his hand against it to hold it open.

“Don’t tell me they’re paying you more than I’m offering,” he snapped.

Otabek stopped trying to shove the door closed. “It’s Yuri Plisetsky these days, isn’t it?” he drawled. “You’re copying Victor and playing the Russian.”

“I’m not copying anybody!” Yuri yelled, eyes going wide, and there was the sound of footsteps on the other side of the laboratory door behind him.

Otabek grabbed Yuri and pulled him into the office just as the door opened; he waved dismissively at the technician on the other side. “Sorry to shout, I just stubbed my toe. It’s fine.”

He shut the door and turned back towards Yuri with a sigh. He motioned to the low-slung couch on the near side of his desk. “I suppose you should sit down now you’re inside.”

“I’ll stand,” Yuri snapped, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Fine.” Otabek settled himself behind his desk and folded his hands in front of him. He glanced Yuri up and down. “I’m not interested in anything you have to offer. I have a team now, and a network of international collaborators, and you can’t buy all of them.”

“Name a price,” Yuri shrugged.

Otabek’s eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t even be here. I heard from Hermes that you’ve chosen a side in the coming war, and it’s not this side of the globe. I don’t need to get declared a traitor and thrown in prison when the storm hits. That would be very counter-productive to my work.”

“You’ll end up working for my people sooner or later,” said Yuri. Despite his declaration of a few moments before, he sat down on the settee, leaning into the chair and slinging his arms over the back of the cushions. “At least if you come willingly you’ll get to call the shots. And they’d love another god on their side.”

Otabek tilted his head to one side. “We agreed not to reveal our identities to mortals.”

“I don’t see why we have to shelter the humans. They’re more adaptable than ever,” he scoffed.

“Times aren’t what they used to be, Yuri. Destabilisation of their worldviews can spread so much further than when we were young. We all swore on it.”

“We swore our secrecy to Zeus. That fool was always too arrogant to deal with our slow decline! He didn’t know how the world worked then, and he certainly doesn’t know now,” Yuri threw up one hand dismissively. “I don’t swear to any king now. Especially not the usurper.” He made a spitting motion to one side, though he had enough respect for Otabek not to actually spit in his office.

Otabek’s eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t be stirring up conflict. It’ll only end badly for all of us.”

“I’m not!” Yuuri snarled. He leaned back into the couch and shrugged. “I’m just feeding off it. Trying to point it in a productive direction.”

“War is never productive.”

“You’re a smithy. Your children are iron and steel. War is your lifeblood.”

Otabek conceded with silence. At last he said, “I’ll pick a side when the outcome becomes clearer.”

“It may be too late by then.” Yuri got to his feet and ambled towards the door. “Think hard about it. YuTech will always want you.”

“And you be careful,” Otabek said as he reached the door. “The timing of this conflict is suspicious to my mind. And your ambition has led you into trouble before.”

Yuri put his hand on the door. “Goodbye, Hephaestus.”

“Goodbye, Ares.” Otabek paused for a moment. Then, as Yuri turned the handle, he added, “By the way, Hermes also passed on a rumour that Dionysus has been seen in Japan. Alive.”

Yuri’s fingers clenched around the round door-handle. The metal screeched and warped into a crumpled knot, and the temperature of the room dropped so fast that a crack jolted across the frosted glass pane of the door. He turned sharply, teeth bared, pupils blown until his irises were solid black. “That’s a lie! He is gone!”

Otabek shrugged, apparently heedless to the ice forming on the surface of the water-bottle next to him. “Perhaps it’s just a rumour.”

Yuri growled, jerked the door open and stormed outside.

“Remember to wipe the CCTV in this building behind you!” Otabek called as the door slammed shut.

---[]---

Yuuri was walking across cobblestones. His feet clattered with each step he took, but in between he could hear a soft tapping. He stopped and listened. There was nothing but the rush of the wind through the keyaki branches. He looked up and saw a clouded sky with a handful of stars in the distance, but no moon. The light was barely enough to illuminate his path. As the wind faded, he realised the owls had gone quiet.

“Konbanwa,” he called. When there was no answer he added, “Can I help you?”

There was a hush behind him, but the breeze had dropped to nothing. Yuuri spun and found himself face-to-face with a white mask hanging in the darkness. Black, empty eyeholes stared at him above a mouthless face. There was a shape behind it, more solid than the air, but Yuuri could not make out its edges. It bled from the shadows like water draining into a black pool.

Yuuri took a step backwards, and felt the movement of air behind him. He turned to find a second mask waiting for him, and then a third on his left, a fourth on his right, and more, and more, a dozen of them perhaps. There was no time to count them as they crowded in towards him from all sides.

In fact, there was not even time to think before fingers seized his arms, his shoulders, his hair and neck, and then there was nothing at all but pain.

Yuuri jerked awake. His teeth clacked together, and for a moment his body ached as if he was in the midst of a fever, his muscles feeling bruised and his joints swollen. He groaned and curled onto his side, but within moments the ache faded to nothing and he was left lying in cold sweat. He breathed in deep until his heart had stopped pounding and tried to get back to sleep.

---[]---

The snow had long melted and but today was the first warm, spring day in Hasetsu. Viktor’s training regime was effective at getting Yuuri back into shape, but it wasn’t much fun. He made Yuuri jog around while he accompanied him on Mari’s bicycle, trench coat flying behind him, egging Yuuri on every time he started to slow down. Makkachin, the large poodle that Viktor had brought with him, ran along with Yuuri most days and always seemed to have far more energy then him. Today however, Makkachin had been left at home because of the traffic.

Viktor had taken him on a new route on their run every day, apparently so he could enjoy the sights at the same time as coaching. Today he’d chosen a busy part of the old town, full of historical buildings with refurbished stores and new pop-up markets, and the streets were packed with shoppers and sightseers keen to get out and enjoy the sunshine. Yuuri had to constantly duck and dodge as he jogged so as not to collide with anyone, panting, “Sorry!” every time he leapt over someone’s dog or nearly knocked elderly walkers into the gutter. Viktor was biking the wrong-way down the street as he called encouragements at Yuuri, yet somehow hadn’t had a single close call. The oncoming cars and bikes just eased around him as if he was a totally normal obstacle. A tram even stopped suddenly to let a passenger take a picture at a wide section of the road, where Viktor could zoom past without slowing down.

Yuuri paused to take a breath at a busy intersection while he waited for the lights. Viktor pulled up beside him to lean on the curb. He held out a water bottle.

“Don’t get tired now, we’re going to head up the hill to the castle next!” he beamed.

Yuuri groaned and drained half the water at once. All he wanted was to go home and eat a huge bowl of katsudon, but even if they turned around and headed back now, Viktor had already convinced his mum to only serve him plain noodles and vegetables. He leaned over to prop himself up on his knees for a moment. When he straightened up his eyes came to rest on a billboard across the road. It was advertising a new exhibition of Hellenistic statuary at the Kyoto National Museum. A row of images of the art, some busts and some full-body sculptures, were displayed along the width of the billboard.

“Which one are you?” Yuuri asked, as Viktor followed his gaze.

Viktor’s expression had been gleeful at the thought of making Yuuri run up a hill. Now it was a controlled neutrality. After a moment he pointed at one of the central figures. It was a white, marble statue of a woman with a shield and a helmet, staring serenely into the distance with blank eyes. Yuuri swallowed. For a moment the statue’s face reminded him of the white mask from his nightmare. Normally he never remembered his dreams for long after he awoke, but this one had stuck in his mind. He could still hear the sound of the wind, and the feeling of tightening fingers on his arms.

“Athena?” he asked, trying not to think about the dream.

“In a way,” Viktor shrugged. He took the water bottle back when Yuuri held it out, and tucked it into the pannier on the back of the bike. “Maybe we should take a break before we attempt the hill.”

“Thank God,” Yuuri gasped, wiping his forehead.

“You’re welcome!”

“That joke’s already getting old.”

“There’s no helping it. All my jokes are old.”

Viktor walked the bike as they headed to the park nearby. The last of the cherry-blossoms were still in bloom, so all the benches were full, but they managed to find a low wall to sit on. Yuuri leaned back, his fingers digging into the grass, and looked up at the pink trees. Their petals rippled like water as the breeze shifted their branches.

“I didn’t know Athena was a goddess of victory,” he said. “Isn’t she like… wisdom?”

“I was many things, in those days, and I’ve been many things since.” Viktor shrugged, propping one leg up to rest his arms on his knee. “But Nike, the personification of victory, was one of my closest companions. When things began to go downhill for us, Victory knew she couldn’t hold onto her essence alone, so I took her into myself and we became one deity. We were stronger together. Aphrodite did the same with her son Eros – you probably know him by the name Cupid. Two becoming one. Athena represents Victory now, but ever since I became the leader of the pantheon, I’ve been a bit more Victory than Athena.”

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,” Yuuri said. “How did you become king?”

“Oh, the same way these things always happen. I won a fight.” Viktor looked out over the terraces of the park with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It was many years we finally accepted the loss of Zeus. The human world was tearing itself apart at the seams. As a result, the god of war was more powerful in those days than he had been for hundreds of years. He wanted to become our leader, but some of us feared that the war would spread within our pantheon. So I fought with him to take up the king's mantle, and I won. Really, he should have seen that coming!” Viktor turned to wink at Yuuri. “After I beat him, I helped humans end the war as quickly as I could, with the aid of Hephaestus. But the victory I gave to them… it came at a terrible cost. I should have been more patient with the victories that I bestowed. If a god can regret anything, it’s giving the power of the gods to humans…” Viktor glanced out across the cherry blossoms once again.

Yuuri could understand the shape of what Viktor was saying, but he didn’t like to think about it. He fell silent, pretending to admire the view while he collected his thoughts.

“So Zeus just… disappeared?” he pressed. “He wasn’t, like, assassinated?”

“Zeus?” Viktor frowned at him. “No. He and Hera left of their own choosing, more than a hundred years ago. They took mortal bodies and went to the new world to seek their fortune. We never saw them again. They’ll still be out there probably, their essence surviving in some form – a tree, a river, a sacred statue in a shrine. If so, they’ll no longer be conscious of their true identity. A river can react, but it cannot remember it was a god.”

Yuuri hummed to himself. “Neither can I, apparently.”

“But Dionysus wouldn’t have done that,” Viktor said confidently, leaning against Yuuri like a large dog.

Yuuri swallowed. “Viktor, I don’t know if I really am Dionysus, but maybe I’m connected to him somehow. I’ve been having these weird dreams since you arrived,” he looked Viktor in the eye. “I think something bad happened to him. That’s why he disappeared.”

“What do you mean?”

Yuuri sighed. “I can’t be Dionysus, because from what I’ve seen in my dreams… I think he was murdered.”

Viktor stared at him for several long seconds. Then he slung his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and laughed. “That’s ridiculous, Yuuri. Nobody can murder an immortal. It’s right there in the name!”

“I know that,” Yuuri grumbled. “But how can you be sure?”

“I think I know how we work after all this time.” Viktor tossed his hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head. “We can be imprisoned, we can even be made powerless if beaten in combat, certainly. But we can’t be killed.”

Yuuri didn’t argue about it further. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that his dream had ended with a death.

“Let’s skip the hill for today,” said Viktor, hopping off the wall and holding out his hand. “I think you’re finally ready to begin training in skates. I’m going to let you back on the ice.”

---[]---

Yuuri was sweaty and slightly sunburned from the morning’s jog, but he had a change of clothes in a locker at Ice Palace Hasetsu, so they headed straight to the rink. He wasn’t expecting anyone to recognise him apart from Yuuko and Takeshi. It was a pleasant walk through town, but Yuuri noticed that the one time he tried to bring up Dionysus again, Viktor changed the subject at once. So maybe he had been more shaken by Yuuri’s dream than he seemed.

As they reached the front door of the complex, a small figure who’d been leaning against the wall jumped up. He was a young, slim man carrying a tiny, hand-held digital recorder in one hand. “And here they are, the long-lost dream team!”

“Phichit!” Viktor threw up his arms. “What are you doing here?”

“I know a story in the making. And a paycheque,” Phichit winked at him and came in close, holding his camera out so that he could get his own face in the shot. He threw his other arm around both Viktor and Yuuri’s shoulders at once, pulling them in close. His voice suddenly switched to a rapid, excitable tone as he threw up a peace sign over Yuuri’s shoulder. “Oh, my God, you guys, I know you all love skaters,” he waggled his eyebrows at his invisible audience. “Well! I’m here with the biggest power couple in the skating world right now, Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov! Say ‘hi’ to the Phichit Fam, guys!”

“Hi!” Viktor beamed at the camera.

Yuuri blinked as he recognised the young man. “You’re Phichit Chulanot,” he said weakly. “You’re one of the biggest YouTube stars in this hemisphere.”

Phichit shot him an exaggerated grimace. “I think my Fam already know that, Yuuri.”

“W-why are you here?”

“Can’t you guess?” Phichit was still overdoing all of his facial expressions.

“No!”

“Oh. My. God,” Phichit looked directly into the lens. “He’s too adorable.” he turned back to Yuuri. “I heard how you guys met when you hooked up in Russia at the Grand Prix, and I had to find out more about it! I’ve been talking about the love story all morning if you want to check it out on twitter at-the-messenger,” this last part was again directed towards the camera.

“Hooked up? Wait, when you said ‘power couple’—” Yuuri didn’t intend for his voice to come out in such a shriek, but his brain had just gone in about six different directions of panic at once. He turned to the camera and waved both hands. “He’s my coach! He’s just my coach!”

“Ugh, you two are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” Phichit gave a full-body shiver of delight while somehow keeping the camera in his hand completely steady. His voice suddenly dropped to a much more plain tone. “I totally thought Chris had told you about this. Let’s go inside and chat about it.”

He linked his arm through the loop of Yuuri’s elbow on one side and Viktor’s on the other and herded them inside. He led him to an empty section of the changing rooms and then turned and grabbed Yuuri, pulling him into a tight hug. “It is so good to see you! I’ve missed you so much.”

Yuuri drew back. “I… I don’t think we’ve met.”

Viktor leaned in front the side, tapping Phichit on the shoulder with a small smile. “He doesn’t remember who he is, Hermes. He’s got that mortal brain thing going on.”

“Oh! You poor thing,” Phichit put his hands over his mouth. “So you weren’t faking your confusion out there? Dionysus, I’m so sorry!” he chuckled and clapped his hands together. “I totally thought you were acting. My subscribers will love it, either way. I’m looking for ways to break into the sports fandom circles, there’s always new material to talk about there.”

“Yuuri. I’m Yuuri,” Yuuri said firmly, putting his hands on his hips. “Are you telling me you’re another god?”

Viktor gripped Phichit’s shoulder and waved his hand at the two of them. “Yuuri, meet Hermes. Sometimes also Mercury, Lugus or Enlil.”

“Phichit is fine, please, those alter egos make me sound like someone’s grandpa,” Phichit flapped his hand and folded his arms. “So you have no idea what Chris is up to?” he looked at Viktor. “Did you know?”

“Who’s Chris?” Yuuri asked.

“Christophe Giacometti. Aphrodite,” Viktor explained and then turned back to Phichit. “What’s he plotting?”

Phichit raised his eyebrows. “He’s prepped you a new backstory, Viktor, since you could be under serious scrutiny by mortals for the next few months. Your cover is about how you’re the grandson of the legendary Olympic skater, Viktor Nikiforov. Your déduška trained you, but you never knew he was famous outside of Russia. He told me he’s got you all the paperwork you need for a new human identity. In return, when you two win the Grand Prix and all the press comes to interview you, he wants you to say that you met each other on Emberz at the Sochi finals last year.”

Yuuri squeaked. “The dating app?”

“He’s offering you a substantial sponsorship deal if you go through with it. It’ll be great PR for his brand.” Phichit clapped his hands. “And he’s paying me to make sure you two have a proper fanbase by the time the finals come around, hanging off your every word.”

Yuuri turned to Viktor. “Why’s he doing this? How did Aphrodite even know you were my coach?”

Viktor winced. “I told him. He’s the one that found you and brought you to my attention. He wanted an update on whether you were coming home.”

“Argh!” Yuuri sat down on the bench with his head in his hands. “There’s no way I’m coming out to the world as a PR stunt for Emberz! You have to tell him I’m not going to do it.”

Viktor laughed and patted his back. “Look, you’re not going to care what anyone thinks of you after you win the Grand Prix.”

“Coming last again is suddenly looking much more attractive,” Yuuri buried his face in his hands.

“You couldn’t lose if you tried. You skated with Viktor for forty years.” Phichit shot him a thumbs up.

“I don’t remember that,” Yuuri said through gritted teeth. He didn’t bother adding, that wasn’t even me! Arguing with one god had been difficult enough, he didn’t have the energy for two.

“Pass me your phone so I can give you my number,” said Phichit. Yuuri gave it over without much protest and Phichit fiddled with it for a few minutes and then handed it back. “There. I know how overwhelming Viktor can be. If he and Chris get too much for you, give me a call and I can talk you through things until you get your memory back.”

“Phichit, he’s fine!” Viktor insisted, ruffling Yuuri’s hair. “Aren’t you?”

Yuuri covered his face and groaned again.

Phichit pulled out his camera. “Now let’s sit you two down somewhere with a good backdrop and do a proper interview. I want to edit this and post it by the end of today.”

---[]---

Outside, storm clouds rolled across the horizon, lighting up the city blocks that stood above the churning river in the distance. There were no lights on in the grand office that filled the top floor of YuTech tower. The glow of the pulsing city cast shadows through the glass walls that encircled the office. A single computer screen flickered on a gigantic, oaken desk, the feet of which were carved into the shape of roaring boars. Behind the desk, Yuri Plisetsky was a tiny figure sitting cross-legged in a black, leather chair. His fingers were knotted and resting under his chin, watching the screen from beneath heavy brows.

“…what about the rumours that this is your final year?” Phichit Chulanot asked on the screen. He was sitting intimately close to his interview subjects, like three friends getting coffee, so that the single camera angle encompassed all of them. “Are you still planning to retire soon, now that you have this fantastic new chance to reinvent yourself as a skater?”

“Oh! Er, I mean, it really depends,” the young man with the sunburned cheeks and the grotty jogging shirt scratched the back of his head. “I… I don’t even know what will happen this season. Um.”

Behind the oaken desk, Yuri’s lip twisted in a sneer.

“Teaming up with your hero’s grandson is already a piece of luck,” Phichit shot his audience a quick smile. “I bet you have plenty more ahead of you,” he swivelled back to the camera in full. “I’m so lucky to be here in Hasetsu, Japan, everyone. Viktor and Yuuri are such great guys and I’m going to keep you all updated with their progress in the upcoming competitions. If you’ve got an amazing story about people you never expected to meet, tell me about it in the comments! Don’t forget to hit subscribe. Until next time, bye-bye!” he threw up two peace signs and the video cut to a standard closing animation of a dancing hamster.

Yuri leaned forward in his chair, clenching his fists on the desk. “So you really have returned, you bastard,” he hissed. “And now I know exactly where to find you.”

Chapter Text

Red-gold sunshine streamed in through the glass front doors as Yuuri saw Yuuko and Takeshi off for the evening, promising to turn all the lights out when he left. He waved at the triplets, who were dragging on their parents’ hands and begging to stay and watch Yuuri and Viktor training.

“Leave them alone, girls,” Yuuko scolded. “Yuuri’s very stressed.”

“Thanks Yuuko,” Yuuri said weakly.

Viktor had suggested they take the night off. But Yuuri didn’t think he’d sleep unless he exhausted himself completely tonight. He might as well use that anxiety for one more practise. He watched the family disappear around the corner before he let the door swing shut.

A cold breeze rushed inside as the gap closed. Yuuri shivered and zipped his jacket up to the chin, and as he did so, his eye was caught by a movement on the steps leading up to the rink. There was a short figure heading towards him, though with the setting sun behind him it was hard to make out any features. Yuuri shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, turning to go back inside. His sneakers were silent on the carpet of the lobby as he passed the front desk. He had just reached the archway through to the rink when he heard a tap on the glass behind him.

He turned. There was a young man – only a teenager, by the looks of him – standing outside the doors, the same short figure he’d seen approaching a few moments earlier. He was a blond foreigner in a black and orange hoodie and skinny jeans, his fringe hanging low over his eyes.

“Sorry,” Yuuri called in English. “We’re closed for the night.”

He wasn’t sure if the teen could even hear him through the glass, as he didn’t move or react to his words. Yuuri crossed his arms to show no-go and yelled louder. “Closed!”

The teen raised his head a little, enough for Yuuri to see the glint of the setting sun in his eyes. And then he lifted his arm and pulled his fist back.

Yuuri started to shake his head in confusion, and then the fist slammed forward and every pane of glass in the front of Hasetsu Ice Castle exploded inwards.

The noise alone was enough to stun Yuuri, a boom and the ringing of a million crystalline shards, but the concussive wave that hit him a split-second later was what knocked him flat on his back. He lay for perhaps half a second, deafened, his vision spinning. And then a rush of adrenaline told him to get up, get on his feet and run right now.

He rolled onto his side and shoved himself up, muscles pumping with blood. The ache of hitting the floor vanished in his panic. His legs didn’t seem to want to coordinate, but somehow he managed to stand up and stagger through the archway towards the rink.

He snatched the briefest glance backwards as he forced his trembling legs into a sprint. The teenager in the hoodie was striding across the lobby, glass crunching under his lace-ups. There was the tinkle of a few final shards falling from the shattered doors.

“You fat drunkard!” the teenager’s voice echoed through the hall. The accent was familiar, but Yuuri couldn’t place it in his panic. “You should have stayed missing!”

Yuuri bolted into the corridor. The changing rooms opened on either side of him. If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have turned left or right. The changing rooms were like a maze for unfamiliar visitors, and they had multiple exits into other parts of the building; toilets with windows to the outside and doors that led to the café, the gymnasium with two side entrances, and fire escapes with panic bars. But he wasn’t thinking straight, so he ran towards what felt known and safe: the ice.

There was a wordless roar of anger, and this time Yuuri thought to throw himself to the ground as another wave of concussive force crashed through the air. Dust showered down from cracks that split the concrete walls and ceiling around him. His prone body was pounded as if with an enormous fist, but not hard enough to break anything. He jumped up almost before he was aware the force had passed and was running again, his lungs aching as he heaved for breath.

The barrier of the rink loomed in front of him and he following it in a crouch and huddled against it.

“Stop hiding, shithead. Why won’t you fight me?” the teenager barked from the direction of the corridor. His voice rippled around the cavernous rink, making the free-hanging lights directly above swing on their chains. There was another boom, and the barrier around the edge of the rink shattered along its length like a log split by an axe, the force fading and stopping just feet from where Yuuri was hiding.

A whimper emerged from Yuuri’s throat and he clapped his hands over his mouth. He could hear soft footsteps moving around his side of the rink towards him. He gasped and jumped up into a hunched run once more, trying to stay below the height of the barrier.

“I see you!”

Yuuri had reached a gate onto the ice. He dived through it just as another concussive force hit directly where he had been standing. Suddenly there was fresh, slippery ice under his sneakers, and the blast knocked him forward onto his hands. When he tried to get up his toes just slipped and skidded on the newly surfaced rink.

He flipped over onto his back.

The teenager was standing in the empty gate, the edges of which were cracked and ruined by the last blast. Yuuri could see his face more closely now. He looked young, but full of unhuman rage, his pupils blown huge until they were totally black. The air felt much colder than it should be against Yuuri’s skin. He could feel the pulse of hot blood in every nerve. His breath fogged in front of him, and his gloves were sticking to the ice.

“Why are you running? Face me!” the teenager roared.

Yuuri could only shake his head and push himself away, scrambling backwards on his hands and butt, his legs kicking frantically to get some purchase on the ice so he could stand up. The teenager snarled and stepped onto the rink, walking with ease one, two, three steps towards Yuuri. He drew back his fist once more.

Yuuri couldn’t look away. He braced himself, even knowing that what the fist had done to glass and wood and concrete it would just as easily do to his skull. He saw it move, and heard without really registering it the scrape of ice skates growing louder.

Viktor skidded to a stop and caught the teenager’s fist as if snatching a softball out of the air. He held it, with the young man’s arm still extended, his body quivering on the other end of it like a tuning fork.

“Hello, Yuri,” he said, which Yuuri knew against all reason was somehow the teenager’s name and not his own. Yuuri couldn’t see Viktor’s face but he could hear the cold anger in his voice. “You seem upset.”

“Stay out of my way, Viktor!” the teenager – Yuri? – sneered at him. Viktor turned a little so that Yuuri could see his profile, one eyebrow kinking for a moment before he tightened his fingers around the captured fist and with a careless flick of his arm, hurled the teenager forty feet across the rink.

Yuri skidded away from them like a sack of flour and came to an abrupt stop against the barrier on the far side. Yuuri had a moment to snatch a breath before Yuri jumped to his feet and sprinted back towards them, almost appearing to hover inches above the ice. The air behind him was distorted like a heat-haze.

Viktor swept both hands up, and the ice beneath his feet shivered, cracking away from him to the left and right. With a creak loud enough to vibrate through Yuuri’s chest, the sheet of ice folded up off the floor of the rink like an enormous leaf of paper. Jerking and rumbling as if in protest, the ice curved up until it became a white, iridescent wall that blocked Yuri’s approach.

Viktor took a step back, glancing around as there came a growing howl of anger from the other side of the wall. He looked over his shoulder at Yuuri, his hair shifting across his serene face. Then he threw out his hand in Yuuri’s direction, palm open. Yuuri felt himself shoved backwards across the ice towards the edge of the rink, like a jacket tossed to one side. Viktor took a step backwards along the line of the ice-wall, and then there was a deafening crack and Yuri burst through it with his bare fists, a section of the wall crumbling around him.

He leapt through and landed in a crouch on the intact side of the split in the ice. He began to turn towards Yuuri, whose heart started pounding even harder, but before he could move Viktor was on him front behind. He grabbed Yuri’s wrist with one hand and the back of his neck with the other and knocked his knees out from under him, pushing him down into the ice at the edge of the split.

Yuri managed to turn his head sideways just before his face was slammed into the ice. Yuuri flinched. Viktor put one knee between Yuri’s shoulder blades and the other on the concrete side of the floor, where the ice-sheet had been peeled away. His face might have been mistaken for calm as he held the squirming teenager in place, but there was a faint line between his brows and a slight downturn on his lips.

“Submit, Ares,” he said, calmly and without labouring for breath.

“Get off me!” Yuri’s voice was muffled.

Viktor ground his face harder into the floor, and Yuuri put his hand over his mouth in horror as the ice under his head cracked in all directions like a spider-web. He wanted to tell Viktor to stop, but he was terrified to draw any attention towards himself.

“Submit,” Viktor repeated.

“Poshel na khuy, Afina!” Yuri’s voice was increasingly muddy, but Yuuri recognised that he was speaking Russian and finally realised why the accent was so familiar.

Yuri kicked out at Viktor, managing to catch him in his braced leg. The blow made an audible crunch and Viktor grunted, but held fast. There was another brief and frantic struggle. Then the teenager went still, except for a few gurgling breaths.

Viktor loosened his twisted arm a little. “Calmed down?”

Yuuri saw Yuri give a tiny nod. Viktor’s cold face turned into a sunny smile in a flash and he stood up, leaning heavily on the leg that Yuri hadn’t struck. He gripped Yuri’s arm and pulled him to his feet. One side of Yuri’s face was a mangled, bloody mess.

Yuuri took hold of the barrier behind him and pulled himself upright. His whole body was shaking and he had to pause for a moment to wait and see if he was going to throw up. When his stomach had settled, he toed off his sneakers and took a few steps across the ice, ignoring the discomfort of the cold because his socks gripped much better than his shoes.

As Yuuri approached, he saw Viktor raise his knee and put his hands on his knee and the top of his skate. Yuuri noticed that his lower leg where Yuri had kicked him had an angle in it that legs shouldn’t have. Viktor squeezed, there was a wet snap that was audible even from twenty feet away, and the leg was suddenly straight again. Yuuri shuddered. Viktor lowered his foot back onto the ice and flexed his ankle.

“Yuuri! Come over here,” he was beaming cheerfully as always, as if he wasn’t surrounded by a ruined rink and piles of debris, as if he hadn’t just healed a broken leg with what looked like a wink and a prayer. He slung his arm around Yuri’s shoulders. “This is our dear Ares. In human circles he’s been calling himself Yuri Plisetsky. Yuri, do you want to apologise for turning up uninvited?” he looked expectantly at the teenager.

Yuri was glowering out of one side of his face. The other side was lacerated almost all the way through his cheek. Blood dripped down his neck and his eye socket was crushed into pulp. He spat out of the undamaged corner of his mouth and it splattered on the ice like a crimson rune. As Yuuri watched with a fresh wave of nausea and the muscles of his face began to twitch and knit themselves back together, the structure of the bones clicked back into place, and his missing eye reinflated and blinked behind a brand-new eyelid.

Yuuri stayed a good twenty feet back from the two gods. He’d almost gone through terror and come out the other side clear-headed, and with Viktor still holding Yuri under his arm he was emboldened.

“What’s your problem?” he gasped at Yuri, balling his fists. “What did I do to you to deserve that?”

Yuri wiped the back of his hand across his bloodied mouth and it came away clean. The crimson splatter on the ice was rapidly evaporating as well, with what looked like a small wisp of reddish smoke. “Why didn’t you fight back, you coward? You used to be tougher than this.” He glanced Yuuri up and down with a sneer, from his socked feet to his spectacles and ruffled hair.

“Ares,” Viktor’s hand clenched on the other god’s shoulder and leaned in close to his ear. “Dionysus is living as a mortal now, including his mind. As far as he’s aware, you just tried to murder him without provocation.”

Yuri’s eyes went wide and he glanced between Viktor and Yuuri. “What?” he raised his hands as if wanting to strangle the air between them. “That’s your excuse for disappearing all these years?” he closed his eyes and slapped himself on the forehead. “And here I thought I was lucky enough to be rid of you at last, you interfering arsehole.”

Yuuri took a couple of steps forward. “I could have told you all that myself if you said hello like a normal person instead of blowing up buildings!”

“Don't worry, Yuuri will be back in the pantheon with us just as soon as he wins the gold in the skating Grand Prix,” Viktor patted the top of Yuri's head.

Yuri twitched away from his hand with a grunt.

“If I win,” Yuuri sniffed. “That was the promise.”

Viktor tilted his head as if he’d genuinely forgotten.

“What?” Yuuri folded his arms. “I’m just saying, I still think I’m a lot more Yuuri Katsuki than I am Dionysus. Especially after tonight… this god-stuff, it’s way too big for me. I gave you my word, Viktor, and I’ll do everything I can to keep it. But the mortal life – even as a retired skater with no Grand Prix gold – seems a lot safer right now than this,” he waved his hand to indicate the chaos around them.

The smile was gone on Viktor’s face, but Yuri was now relaxing into a slouch. He raised his hand. “Let me get this straight. You don’t want to come back to the pantheon?”

“I… I don’t think I belong there,” Yuuri said, hunching a little.

“But Viktor offered you victory itself in exchange for his beloved Dionysus’s return,” Yuri folded his arms. “Sounds like a deal with the devil to me. He’s going to take your soul, mortal,” Yuri winked with his new eye. “But I think I can get you out of the deal,” he tossed his head back and jabbed a finger at Yuuri’s chest. “I’ll beat you to that Grand Prix gold and make sure he can’t bring you back to the pantheon.”

“Wait, what?”

Yuri paused and glanced quickly at Viktor. “This is a medal we’re talking about, right?”

“Don’t tell me there’s a third god who’s a figure-skating expert,” Yuuri frowned.

“Not yet. But I’ll learn,” Yuri smirked. “I know the basics. You know, I skated on Lake Lagoda after I helped Pyotr Velikiy capture Nyenschantz. And once I show you how it’s really done, you can just stay in your itty-bitty human life and not get in my way, fatso. How about that?”

Yuuri flinched. Was he serious? He glanced at Viktor, who was rolling his eyes at the ceiling.

Yuuri mumbled, “I think I just saw you fly. That seems like a bit of an advantage.”

“Then we’ll both vow not to use our powers until after the Grand Prix,” Yuri stuck out his hand. “It’s not like I’ll need them to crush you.”

Viktor’s laugh echoed around the rink. When he spoke, his tone was distinctly mocking. “What, are you just going to learn to perform like a professional before they release the draw next month?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m going to do!” Yuri rounded on him, balling his fists. “I am the incarnation of war itself. My body is in peak physical form. Even without powers, I can practise as hard as I like without being injured.”

“You know the Russian skating federation still has to select you for competitions, right?” Viktor was now dripping with all the syrupy condescension.

“YuTech is worth seventeen billion dollars, you washed-up hack!” Yuri yelled. “I have contacts in the highest echelons of the government! You think a few phone calls can’t convince them I’m worth the risk?”

Viktor straightened up and folded his arm, smirking. “Alright. I can’t wait to see the results.”

Yuri rumbled deep in his chest and pointed straight at Viktor. “I’m going to become the best skater in the world and when I see you next, it’ll be on an ice rink. Where I’m going to crush your precious Dionysus into the dust and make sure he’s too ashamed to ever return.”

He turned back to Yuuri. “Do we have a deal, or not?”

Yuuri edged closer. He looked at Viktor, but Viktor was staring at the back of Yuri’s head with narrowed eyes, his mouth twisted quizzically. Yuri was growling impatiently, and all Yuuri wanted was to make sure he didn’t knock down any more walls. If he agreed to this, then Yuri wouldn’t be able to use his powers for the rest of the season, and that alone sounded like it was worth having to face him in an actual competition. Look at the damage he’d wrought after a single temper-tantrum.

Yuuri grabbed the teenager’s hand and shook it. He felt a jolt like a small electric shock, and when they withdrew, he glimpsed a blue circle glowing on his palm. It faded as soon as he raised his hand to look at it.

“Done. I’ll see you at this Grand Prix!” Yuuri grinned. “I hope you’ve got enough wine to survive your defeat, loser!”

He turned and stalked away. As he reached the broken barrier, he paused for a second.

“Don’t forget, you can’t use your powers until after the Grand Prix,” Viktor called sweetly. “No teleportation.”

With his back to them, Yuri gave a roar of rage and then took a deep breath. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed a number, walking off with heavy footsteps. “Savage? It’s your boss. Long story short, I’m stuck in Japan and need you to send over the private jet from Shanghai. With my passport, I suppose. Yes. I know. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back…”

As his voice faded, Viktor sighed. “What a brat. He’ll never make it to the Grand Prix. You’ll beat him so easily, Yuuri.”

“G-great,” Yuuri tried to laugh, but his legs had gone weak and he sat down on the bare ice before they could give way. “S-seems like just the kind opposition I need to keep me motivated.”

I’m going to die, he thought. I’m literally going to get my throat cut with an ice skate by the god of war. And I’ll probably come last in the finals again on top of everything else.

He pressed his hand to his eyes, trying to force back the tears. When he looked up again, Viktor was standing above him, holding out his hand. His smile warmed Yuuri and quelled his shivering. He let Viktor help him up and leaned on him to keep from slipping over in the ice.

“I’m okay,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. He shuddered. “Why is he so angry at me?”

“He’s always angry. He’s been angry for three thousand years.”

“But he came here for me. Why?”

There was a small frown on Viktor’s face and Yuuri realised with a fresh wave of nausea that Viktor didn’t have an answer to that question. He gulped. “And why did he keep calling me fat?”

“Well, when he knew you as Bacchus, you did get kind of fat!” Viktor chuckled, leading Yuuri off the ice. “I thought you were adorable, but Ares is always looking to criticise.”

Yuuri staggered towards the stands, but hissed as he stepped on a large splinter of wood from the scattered remains of the barrier. Viktor looked around clicking his tongue. “He didn’t even clean up! What a mess.”

“Oh, no,” Yuuri looked around at the ruined barrier, the shattered ice and the cracked walls of the castle. “Poor Yuuko. What am I going to tell her?”

“It’s fine. I’ll fix it,” Viktor raised his hands and flung his arms out like a conductor in front of an orchestra.

The shattered ruins of the sheet of ice began to move, its crease unfolding back into a flat plane and laying down on the floor of the rink, while the chunks and powder flew through the air and snapped back into place. The cracks sealed themselves up and the warped surface rippled and became smooth as glass, even more perfect than the freshly-surfaced rink of earlier in the evening. Viktor pushed off with his skates and sailed across the ice, his hands dancing through the air. The broken barrier trembled: the kindling and splinters were sucked back to their origins, rejoining into solid wood and filling in the scraped holes in the paint. Viktor spun into a toe-loop and the concrete corridor leading to the foyer rumbled and became whole, spurting a few bursts of dust. He sailed towards the front of the rink and into a single axel, and Yuuri heard the music of a million shards of glass lifting up and reforming the windows and doors at the front of the building.

Viktor skated back towards him. Yuuri felt gormless and heavy, standing on the ice in his socks with his jacket covered in concrete dust. Viktor looped around him while never taking his eyes of him, and came to an abrupt stop, almost toe-to-toe. He dusted his hands. “Done.”

“You’re impossible,” Yuuri whispered.

Viktor reached out with the same dancing movement he’d used to enchant the ice palace back together. His palm brushed against Yuuri’s cheek. “Impossible gets dull after a while. But the ordinary is infinitely new to me.”

---[]---

Lieutenant General Williams folded his arms as he stepped out of the tent and looked down at the road where the convoy was arriving. Truck after truck laboured along the muddy road, their huge tyres churning up stones that clattered on the windscreens of those following too close. Although it was still early in the year, there was morning frost clinging to the grass under his boots. He’d been in the Baltics many times in his career, and he knew that it was only going to get colder from here. As the months stretched on, the frost would grow until it formed beautiful lattices along the fern fronds. The cold would get into their bones no matter how thick their uniforms, no matter how much hot coffee they drunk. It would be a long winter ahead, watching a border with no idea what might come across it.

Davis, one of his colonels, stepped up beside him. “Sir,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me why, but are they at least telling you what’s going on?”

Williams chewed on inside of his cheek for a moment. At last he said, “Let’s hope to God they’re just flexing their muscles, Colonel.”

Davis nodded. “Hope to God every day, sir.”

---[]---

"Good night!" Viktor waved at Yuuri. "Get some sleep and try not to think about Yuri. You've got plenty of competitions to worry about instead."

Yuuri shivered. It was after midnight, and Yuuri usually tried to start training first thing in the morning. He couldn't imagine sleeping even if the whole night stretched ahead of them. But Viktor looked happy, and he couldn't stop a smile ghosting across his own face in return.

"Goodnight, Viktor."

Yuuri slid the door of his bedroom shut and took a couple of steps backwards. The room was dark, except for a few strips of light from the yard outside. He went to the dresser and switched on the low, yellow lamp that sat on top of it. In the small mirror above, he stared at his own face and barely recognised it. There was concrete-dust in his hair and a haggard expression of shock in his eyes. He was glad his parents had been asleep by the time they got home.

"I'm going to be skating against a god," Yuuri whispered, and dragged his hands down his face. He peeped over his fingers, but he didn't look any more reassured for saying it out loud. "It's okay," he told himself. "Viktor believes in you. Viktor says you can beat him. Viktor says you're a god, too."

When Viktor said things like that, they seemed almost true. But tonight had given him a much larger truth that was inconceivable, and yet far, far more real. There were creatures in the world who looked like humans but were more dangerous than Yuuri had ever imagined, who could bend and destroy physical matter with a glance and a thought. He had thought of Viktor as a person with the memories of a superhuman, something that could be explained by familiar concepts like reincarnation, or possession, or even benign insanity. But Viktor had rearranged matter itself like a child stacking toy bricks. He had halted a fist that could shatter concrete. He and Yuri had committed acts of horrific violence against each other with the casual ease of two old friends greeting each other in the street.

For the first time, Yuuri started to feel some sympathy for why Dionysus had chosen the simple life of a priest.

"Don't think about it," he tipped his head back. "Focus on the competition tomorrow."

He rolled his shoulders, and winced at the sharp ache that shot through his muscles when he did so. He wrapped his arms over his head and grabbed fistfuls of cloth, dragging off his jacket and shirt in one movement. He turned and strained to look at his back in the mirror. The skin across his shoulder blades and down the length of his spine was blossoming with shallow, red-purple bruises from where he'd been thrown onto his back by the blast that had broken the Ice Castle windows.

It wasn't bad – it would hurt a bit, but he'd done plenty worse hitting the ice in practices. He'd just sleep on his side tonight. But the implication of the injury struck him deep in his core and made his legs shake.

The gods didn’t bruise. Yuri had said he'd heal from injuries even with the vow suppressing his powers. But Yuuri wasn't healing instantly. Somehow, between the nightmares and Viktor's fervent belief in him, he'd been convinced that he would get some advantage from Dionysus, even if he wasn't the god himself. But evidently he wasn't like Viktor and Yuri and Phichit and Chris. His body was still human. That meant he could still get hurt. He could still die.

"What happened to you, Dionysus?" Yuuri whispered, staring at the bruises. "Can you just help me out here, please?"

There was no answer from the god. And once again Yuuri felt sure that Dionysus, despite all Viktor's hopes, had been dead for a long time.

Chapter Text

“You’re being too soft on me,” Yuuri said, sipping at his soup. They were having breakfast on their way to the rink before another early morning practice. “You’re sitting back and waiting for me to turn into this perfect skater that I’ve never been. You need to push me harder.”

They had managed to get seats by the window, and were facing each other while they flicked through Yuuri’s phone, looking at the results from the first regional competitions in North America.

“I know what you’re capable of. We’ll get there,” Viktor sat back in his chair, throwing his arms out, his eyes fluttering as he revved into a speech. “Think about what Dionysus really means – merriment, joy, beauty and the delights of free sexuality—”

Yuuri groaned and leaned forward to thump his forehead against the table, just missing Viktor’s coffee. He’d heard all this several times over the last few days. The themes were laced into the choreography of the short program that Viktor had designed for him, and Yuuri wanted more than anything to give Viktor what he was asking for. But it just wasn’t working. “This is the problem. You’re talking about Dionysus. I can’t skate like Dionysus.”

Viktor dropped his arms, his voice resuming a drier tone. “Fine. But you have to get out of your comfort zone, Yuuri. You need to surprise people. It’s the surest way to victory.”

“Well, I won’t surprise anyone if I lose in my first competition of the season,” Yuuri sat up again, staring out the window. He propped his chin on his hand. “I’ve got to figure this out for myself.”

Viktor sighed. “You’re right. It’s a long time since I’ve been a patron of mortals. I’ve forgotten how difficult it is to make them do what you want.”

Yuuri glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “And did Dionysus ever do what you wanted?”

The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitched. “No. I suppose he didn’t.”

---[]---

Yuuri pressed the buzzer at Minako’s apartment and she let him up. Her small home smelled slightly of a burnt dinner and cigarettes, wafting in through the open window. She poured him a tea and they sat on the couch to talk, watching the news with the sound off. There was something about NATO and tensions in the Middle East. Yuuri hadn’t watched TV for so long that he didn’t even recognise the names of the distant cities flashing across the screen.

“God, your new coach is amazing. Please post more pictures of him,” Minako said, gulping her tea. “I don’t know how you can control yourself long enough to skate anything around him.”

“Me neither,” Yuuri tried to laugh, but even he could tell it was false.

“How’d you meet him, anyway? He’s the grandson of that guy you idolise, right? That Russian Olympian?”

Yuuri wanted to tell Minako everything: about Viktor, Dionysus, Ares, and the temporary destruction of Hasetsu Ice Palace. Most especially about the promise he’d made to return to the mountain of the gods if he won gold. But she’d just think he was so stressed about the upcoming Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship that he’d lost touch with reality.

“He came to watch the Grand Prix last year in Sochi,” Yuuri mumbled, trying to remember the details of Viktor's fake backstory. On the screen was a video of a weapons demonstration somewhere along the Turkish border. “He… came up to me afterwards and asked if we could work together. I blew him off, but he contacted me again after that video of me went viral.”

“Man, he must have felt pretty sorry for you, if he was willing to uproot his whole life to come and coach you.” Minako gave a bray of laughter. Yuuri didn’t answer. The silence was drawn out between them.

“So what’s really up?” Minako asked, changing the channel to a game show.

Yuuri swallowed. After some time, Yuuri turned to her. “Will you take me clubbing?”

Minako spat a mouthful of tea back into her cup. “Excuse me?”

“I… I feel like I need to relax. Go to a party. I’ve never even been out on the town in Hasetsu. I was too young before I left for Chicago.”

“No you weren’t. You were just too scared,” Minako laughed.

Yuuri smiled. “Yeah. So, do you want to go tonight?”

“Yuuri, where is this coming from?” Minako drained her tea and turned to look at him, tucking one leg under herself.

Yuuri sighed. “I feel like the only times I’ve ever really partied in my life are when I’m trying to forget something miserable. I got drunk when I arrived in Chicago and was homesick. I got drunk with my rinkmates when Vicchan died. I got drunk when I bombed at the Grand Prix last year. Being around Viktor, it’s just made me realise that I’ve never really celebrated much. When I succeed at skating, or school, I’m always too strung-out and exhausted afterwards to do much except sleep and worry about the next step. Maybe I just need to… have a little fun, I guess.”

He smiled weakly at her. She stared at him for several seconds, and then a grin spread across her face and she pumped both fists. “Alright, Yuuri Katsuki is finally loosening up! Let’s hit the town!”

---[]---

Yuuri sat cross-legged on the bench of the garden out the back of the bar. Minako was in a flowing, gossamer shirt that he had never seen before tonight. She’d changed into it before they’d left, and then put some wax in Yuuri's hair to make it swoop, and taken off his glasses. He couldn’t see people’s faces more than ten feet away, but it didn’t really matter, since most of their night had been spent in crowded and semi-dark bars and nightclubs.

Minako had taken him all over Hasetsu tonight, including a tiny dance bar in which she was the only woman. They’d had a drink in some places and just danced in others. When Minako brought over a beer in the first restaurant they stopped at, Yuuri started chugging it like water on a hot day. Minako laughed at him. “Slow down. Enjoy it.”

That was something he’d always found harder than he expected. He tried to drink more slowly, and the night had lasted much longer than he’d expected.

Now they sat on the bench in the garden, with the shining threads of Minako’s shirt catching the strings of lights on the walls. Yuuri realised he was drunk, but not too drunk. And he was happy, but still aware of himself instead of just getting lost in a blur. It was the strangest feeling. He liked it.

“He’s a god,” he was telling Minako, who was heavy-eyed and clutching a bottle between her fingers. “Like, truly. He has magic powers.”

“Yeah,” Minako agreed. “I saw him when I came to your practise.”

“No. No. Actually magic,” Yuuri insisted, taking another swig of his own drink. “And he’s so beautiful. And he looks like Nikiforov. The real Nikiforov. Because he is the real Nikiforov. It’s not real. It’s like a dream, it’s like someone took one of my fantasies and said here, why don’t you try it on for real. But it doesn’t fit in the real world. I’m not good enough.”

“Yuuri, you are. You’re so good,” Minako gushed. “You deserve Viktor. You deserve one more chance to show the world what you can do.”

Yuuri leaned forward, his head drooping. He stared into the mouth of the bottle. “Maybe… maybe I should pray to Dionysus or something.”

Minako gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah, do it. Sacrifice a goat or something.”

“Huh?” Yuuri squinted at her.

“You know. All those blood religions. The Dionysian Mysteries.”

She had switched to English, but the words didn’t make sense to Yuuri. “The what?”

“Google it, I can’t remember my college essays that well,” Minako was staring across the garden. “Oooh. I think those guys are trying to get our attention.”

Yuuri stared in the same direction as her and saw only shadowy blurs. “Where?”

“Over there!”

Yuuri stood up, trying not to stumble. He held out his hand to Minako. “Let’s go back inside to dance and see if they follow us.”

“Hell yeah, that’s my boy! Loving this new Yuuri,” Minako bounced up with far too much coordination than Yuuri thought was fair, grabbed his hand and blew a kiss somewhere across the garden as they headed back in.

In the early hours of the morning, Yuuri staggered in the back door of the bathhouse, alone but smiling to himself. He had to sit down to take his shoes off so he didn’t fall over, and he made it upstairs without braining himself on the steps and did his best to step lightly past the guest rooms so nobody complained about the noise. At Viktor’s room he paused for a moment, his hand drifting towards the handle to slide it open. He caught himself and stopped. What was he going to do, stumble in there and fall asleep in Viktor’s bed? That was a bad idea, and for once after a party he wasn’t too drunk that he didn’t know the difference.

He made it to his room and stripped down to his underwear, but he didn’t feel ready to sleep yet. An image flashed through his mind; Yuri Plisetsky’s blood evaporating from the ice in a cloud of red smoke. He opened up his computer and strained to remember what Minako had said earlier in the evening. The words had completely vanished, but he typed in ‘Dionysus’ with slow fingers, and began to read to first article he found.

...the primordial nature of the god… beloved of women, slaves and outlaws, and named as the liberator… he carries a weapon, dripping with honey... androgynous… ecstasy… maeneds… dangerous… chaotic… transformation… the enemy of Dionysus rent was into pieces by his own mother. Goat sacrifices were torn apart like the harvested vine…

“Viktor,” Yuuri whispered. “You didn’t tell me the half of it.”

---[]---

The roar that went around the stadium shook the floor and rattled the glass around the hockey rink. Every seat was full, although at this moment most of the audience was on their feet, stomping and yelling through cupped hands, waving signs. The Tarturs had just scored their eighth goal to the home team's one, and there were only seconds left on the timer.

The opposition coach covered his mouth for a moment, trying to hold back a curse in front of the cameras. One of the sports journalists from the local paper had been tailing him all night. He wanted to know all about this team that had been touring small venues in Canada for several months now. The coach had heard they were good, and they’d had a couple of freak successes against small-time local teams, but they’d never been up against an NHL club. Their winning streak was supposed to come to an end tonight.

Instead, the coach was staring down the barrel of his team’s worst defeat in his seven years as coach.

He should never have agreed to it. It was a preseason game, testing out some of the boys who were in the lineup for their first season but still inexperienced with a league of this calibre. But these guys, whoever they were, these foreigners with their strange accents and their dead-eyed stares, they weren’t normal. They were on steroids, or EPO, or chewing some kind of herbal stimulant. They were too good. They didn’t get tired. They skated off blows and collisions like they hadn’t even felt them. They didn’t even seem to get angry when his boys tried to shove them, shrugging off the offence or sliding away without a word.

He looked up at the full stands. Up there was the real reason for this hellish game. A full house, for a match that was only announced a month ago. Tickets had been bumped up fifty percent, supposedly because of the rush to prepare, but the coach knew that the stadium had just set that price because they knew fans would pay for it. The NHL had auctioned off cable rights too, with the new streaming platforms and everything. There was nothing wrong with making money, but easy money made the coach uneasy. Why had all these people come out and paid jacked-up prices for a foreign team? How could there be this many Tarturs fans in Vancouver? He looked at the ice again and he could almost understand it. The Tarturs seemed to work as a perfect unit, communicating with each other in gestures and body language, anticipating each other almost like a dance. They played hockey like those once-in-a-lifetime athletes that went down in the history books.

He'd admire them if they weren't beating the crap out of some of the best players in the league right now.

The coach looked up at the stands again as the buzzer rang and the game finally, mercifully ended. There was something in the roar of the crowd he didn’t recognise, something in the sparkle of their eyes. It looked like more than the fanaticism and bloodlust of the hockey lovers he was used to.

It was worship.

---[]---

Viktor has spent the morning at the CSK championship talking Yuuri up. The local press and the JSF alike were fascinated by the strange, handsome man who'd appeared out of nowhere to turn last year’s most disappointing Japanese skater into a success. All the attention made Yuuri felt ugly, awkward and unsociable next to Viktor. That feeling only grew stronger when people whispered about them as they passed. Camera-phones appeared to subtly or not-so-subtly snap their picture. People came up to shake his hand while staring at Viktor the entire time. Yuuri didn’t know how he was going to make it through the competition with all this attention. He wished he could do his routine back at Hasetsu ice palace, with nobody watching.

"Yuuri! Hey, Yuuri! Yuu-uu-uuri!"

There was a small, brightly-coloured figure waving to him as they walked into the rink. He hunched his shoulders and resolutely ignored them. They probably just wanted him to hold the camera while they took a picture with Viktor.

Viktor elbowed him. "I think one of your competitors is trying to get your attention."

Yuuri looked over at last. The young man with the JSF jacket and the dyed hair was jogging over, still waving. "Hi, Yuuri! Hi! Are you excited about skating first?"

"Um," Yuuri looked around for an exit. "Sorry. I have to stretch for the short program."

He tried to dive for the door of the changing rooms, but Viktor grabbed his arm. "Yuuri, please introduce me to your friend."

"Oh. Uh. This is," Yuuri stared at the grinning, snaggle-toothed youngster. "Um."

"Minami," the youngster supplied, his brow furrowing. "You... you don't remember me? I was in nationals with you last year."

Yuuri couldn't keep a gulp of horror out of his throat as he flashed back to that disaster. Now he remembered Minami, who had placed well above him. "Oh, yeah. Sure. Excuse me, it’s good to see you, but I have to go."

"Okay," Minami's voice trembled a little. "I can't wait to watch your short program!"

"Bye," Yuuri said blankly. He turned and marched off in the first clear direction. He heard Viktor's long steps thumping on the mats behind him.

"What a waste!" Viktor clicked his tongue. “You could have got a buzz from him.”

Yuuri mumbled. "That kid kicked me to the curb last year."

Viktor gripped his shoulder, forcing him to stop, and turned him roughly to face his coach. "That 'kid' clearly adored you. Why did you block him out?"

"Because it was embarrassing," Yuuri shot back.

"At least have the good sense be embarrassed to his face," Viktor rolled his eyes. "Worship by mortals makes us stronger, Yuuri. You could do with the boost before a competition."

"How does that help?"

Viktor straightened up and put his hands on his hips. "Even the adoration of a single person is as good as getting a good night's sleep and drinking the most delicious coffee at breakfast. I know you're still getting the hang of being a god, but this is the perfect place to start. If you can get the audience on your side… if even a fraction of them are beginning to worship you…" he smiled dreamily. "It's like the joy of taking a new lover, but magnified into an energy that you can harness to your will. When you get the hang of being worshipped, you'll love it. I promise."

Yuuri shuddered. "I'm not, like, stealing their life-force, am I?"

"Of course not!" Viktor laughed. "Although you can sway their minds if you so wish. Create an army—"

"No! No armies, thank you," Yuuri waved his hands. "Nope. I just want to get through this competition with a decent score."

"Maybe next time," Viktor winked. "Now let's see a smile. Merriment and beauty, remember?"

---[]---

Joy. Delights.

Viktor's voice rang in Yuuri's ears as he took the ice. His blood moved thick as tar through the chambers of his heart. He could see the audience as a blur of faces, surrounding him on all sides like the fragments of coloured glass in a grand mosaic. The weight of their collective gaze was like leaden hands dragging his limbs down as he tried to raise them to meet the first notes of his short program music. Viktor had chosen the music, which was supposed to be about sexual love. It wasn't his style at all. Who was possibly going to be fooled by him? Why had he come back to this? He didn't want to be here. He should have retired. He shouldn't have let Viktor talk him into any of this—

This was wrong. Merriment was wrong.

Dionysus is a god of primordial ecstasy. The words pushed out all Viktor's poetry about merriment and beauty. Yuuri began to move to the music. He didn't want to be beautiful; that wasn't going to be enough to surprise people, that wasn't going to win him the Grand Prix. He had to be dangerous. He had to make people fall in love because of that danger.

He thought of a spray of blood across the roots of an ancient vine, the crimson arc turning black in the dusky air, and he sprung into his first jump. He could barely hear the audience clapping over the low drone in his ears, the haunting, single note of a pipe beneath the branches of the forest.

He turned and leapt and spun, and then went into a toe loop to complete the combo. There was a chorus of cheers from the crowd, their voices full of smiles, but in Yuuri's head he turned them into the wild screams of the lustful maenads in the old stories.

There is a god beneath the trees, he thought, as the choreography that he had practiced until it was stiff and overworked came back to him. His muscles remembered before his brain did, but he had to make himself forget that training and that repetition. He had to let the dance come to him as if he was skating it for the first time.

Third jump coming up, and he'd overcompensated his speed and didn't make all the rotations, but he swung onwards. He didn't pay attention to the cheering crowd crowd. He thought of Minako in the bar. "Go slow. Enjoy it."

This was why he was here.

Because skating was ecstasy. Skating was a terrible, heady madness in his blood. And he wasn't here to simply reflect that: he the only one who could create it.

Viktor saw Dionysus through the eyes of an outsider, as a worshipper and a newcomer to the cult. But Yuuri could not skate like someone seduced by Dionysus. He had to be the one in control.

Here came the quad.

Yuuri could feel the crowd's energy, moving with him, focused on him. It didn't feel like he could conjure an army. But it did feel like magic as he turned, as he pushed off and twisted in the air like a burst of flame from a roaring bonfire, and hit the ice again with only a slight tremor.

He finished, gasping for breath, and looking out at the audience as the music faded and the clapping began.

Yuuri turned his head, searching for a moment of eye contact, but the audience was too far off for him to see clearly. The cheers seemed equally blurred through the drumbeat of his pulse. He needed to get off the ice before it overwhelmed him.

As he returned to the gate, he saw Viktor at last. Viktor was waiting for him and he nodded as Yuuri approached. A smile spread across his face. "That was unexpected."

"Good unexpected?" Yuuri panted.

"Yuuri," there was a husky tone to Viktor's voice. "It was divine."

There was a squeak behind him. Yuuri turned to find Minani with his fists balled in front of his mouth. His eyes were huge and shining with tears. "That! Was! Amazing!"

"Thank you," Yuuri smiled. His cheeks were already pink from the exertion of the skate, and for once he didn't feel embarrassed to be the centre of attention. He felt good. Minami grinned at him over his balled fists.

"We better go wait for your scores," Viktor hooked his arm around Yuuri's elbow, but Yuuri held his ground for a moment.

"Hey Minani," he said. "Good luck. You were great at nationals last year, I'm sure you'll be even better now."

Minami covered his face and let out a mumbled, shrill noise that might have been, "Thank you!" Or possibly, "I love you!"

---[]---

His CSK free skate wasn't perfect, but for the first time in a long time – almost as long as he could remember – Yuuri enjoyed skating in front of a crowd. By the time he stood on the podium with the first place medal in his hand, his nerves were starting to return. He'd screwed up multiple jumps, and he was lucky his improvisation to cover the mistakes hadn't gone wrong. But he forced the smile to stay on his face as the cameras flashed. When he looked over the press scrum and saw Viktor clapping at the edge of the crowd, his back straightened up and his legs felt stronger.

"You've still got a lot of work to do, but your improving every time you put your skates on," Viktor chattered as they walked. They were heading back to the hostel to stay overnight until they could catch a train back to Hasetsu. "You're well on track to win gold at the finals. I'm sure of it."

"Thanks for believing in me," Yuuri said, tucking his chin into his scarf. "It helps."

"Did you take what I said about the crowd to heart?" Viktor asked. "Did you use their adoration?"

Yuuri smiled. "Not in the way you wanted. I don't feel like a god yet. But I wasn't scared by them, either."

"Ah, well, maybe next time," Viktor slung his arm around him and pulled him close. Yuuri felt his heart begin to race as if he was back on the ice before his short program. He could smell Viktor in the cool air. He wanted to press his face into the crook of his neck and feel the warmth of his skin through his expensive shirt. "At least you'll always have me as your number one worshipper."

Yuuri laughed. "I thought about that before the free-skate, actually. That I don't need a whole stadium praying to me and worship me. I only really needed one person. And you helped him believe in me."

"Who?" Viktor asked in an affronted tone. Yuuri laughed even harder as Viktor folded his arms. "Who's this guy who's more important than me?"

He looked more offended than Yuuri had ever seen him. Yuuri was now hugging his sides and couldn't even keep walking for laughter. He crouched on his haunches, wiping the tears from his face as Viktor's expression slowly relaxed as he realised Yuuri was talking about himself.

"Well," he sniffed. "The whole audience loved you as much as I did, so believe in that at least."

"Maybe," Yuuri scrubbed his eyes, his ribs aching, and stood up again. "But unlike you gods, I can't live on popularity alone. That can't be what drives my skating. I still feel mortal, and that means I'll still retire one day, and the fans will disappear – even the really dedicated ones, like Minami – and eventually I'll be the only one left. That's why I need me. That’s why I should only need me."

"I won't let that happen," Viktor threw his arms out. "I'll take you at your best and transform you into stars, and sew a new constellation into the velvet of the night sky. The sign of the dancer on the ice. Then everyone will admire you forever!"

Yuuri giggled. "That's very tempting. Thank you, Victory."

"Anything for you, my Revelry."

Chapter Text

It had poured in the night, and now a clear, thin sunlight drizzled through the windows of Yu-Topia. Yuuri awoke to the smell of the rain in the air and opened his windows to lean out and see it still glistening on the windows and paths. It was early on the weekend. On the road past the inn, a single bicycle wended between the puddles, with a man in a plastic poncho and a child sitting on the rack behind him, their legs dangling on either side of the back wheel. Yuuri yawned as he watched them pass into a side street and withdrew back into his room.

He’d hung his CSK medal on the back of the chair when he got home yesterday. His fingers brushed against it as he headed out the door and downstairs. He’d made it one step closer to the Grand Prix, but right now his mind was on a larger question. Something he’d made no progress towards at all.

Viktor was in the restaurant with an empty bowl and teacup in front of him. At his feet Makkachin lay on his back, dozing and kicking his legs occasionally. Viktor wasn’t sitting so much as lying stretched out beside the table with one elbow propped up on it. He was facing away from the door, so Yuuri couldn’t see his face.

Yuuri leaned against the doorframe to watch Viktor for just a moment, and his hand moved as if of its own accord to smooth down his hair and check he didn’t have his sweater on inside-out.

No one else was around. Viktor seemed watching the television at the far end of the room, though it was on mute and flashing through reruns of a children’s anime. With his free hand he was flicking a coin up into the air, catching it and slapping it down on the back of his other hand. Yuuri was close enough to see it come up heads. Toss, catch: heads. Toss, catch: heads. Toss, catch: heads, every single time. Viktor wasn’t even taking his eyes off the television.

Yuuri took a step into the room, and as Viktor tossed the coin up particularly high, Yuuri’s hand stretched over his head and caught it.

Viktor twitched as he held out his hand and the coin failed to fall into it. He turned around and just for a moment, Yuuri saw his face. It was completely blank, as if his mind had been lost into a distant world. Then his expression broke into its usual, beaming smile.

“Yuuri! You’re finally awake!”

“Sorry, were we supposed to head to the rink? I thought we were taking a day off.”

Makkachin rolled over and yawned with a mouthful of huge teeth. Viktor jumped up, leaning over Yuuri, much too close for first thing in the morning. “Not at all! I missed you while you were asleep. Sit down! Have some tea with me!” he waved at the table and rushed off to the boiler in the corner to fetch two fresh cups. Yuuri resisted echoing the voice of his father in his head telling him to reuse the one he already had.

While Viktor was pouring tea, Yuuri inspected the coin in his hand. It was roughly-minted, bulging at the edges and not quite circular. On one side was the stylised profile of a bearded man wearing a crown of leaves, and on the back was a grapevine, sprouting upwards to the sky without a support.

“Is this him?” Yuuri asked, holding up the coin as Viktor returned. “Dionysus?”

Viktor put the tea down, took the coin and placed it on the table without looking at it. “It’s just a replica. I bought it from a junk shop outside the British Museum. How did you sleep after your first win of the season?”

“Like a rock,” Yuuri blew on his tea and tried to take a small sip. It was far too hot to drink yet, so he put it down quickly. When Viktor let a moment of silence hang between them, he jumped into it. “You really miss him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“And I’m not the same.”

“Yuuri, I don’t know what you mean!” Viktor laughed. “Your company is delightful, you don’t need to measure yourself against… well, yourself. I’ve had many different friends over the millennia, mortal and immortal alike. Besides, once you win the Grand Prix and come back to the mountain, it will be just like old times.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Yuuri said, his hands tightening around his cup. “When you first dumped this whole god-thing on my lap, I got the impression that you expected me to eventually… snap out of being human.” Viktor was watching him, turned sideways and leaning against the table to face him. Yuuri glanced at him, but his expression was impassive and attentive. “Well, that hasn’t happened. Dionysus’s memories aren’t coming back to me. Does that seem… is that normal?”

“Are you asking me if that’s evidence you’re not really Dionysus?” Viktor asked, his voice as unbothered as his face. “Is that what you want to hear? That this proves you’re not really a god?”

“I just want to know what you think.”

Viktor tapped his chin. “There isn’t a normal to compare to, Yuuri. We change all the time, physically, spiritually, dimensionally. Sometimes the changes takes eons, sometimes they happen in a split second. Sometimes it’s deliberate, sometimes unexpected. If Dionysus chose to be as human as a god can be, then even he may not know what it will take to return him to his divine form. That’s the truth. It depends what exactly is keeping your memories hidden.”

“Okay,” Yuuri exhaled, disrupting the tower of steam rising from his tea. “That doesn’t answer much, but I guess the unknown is an answer in itself.”

“Do you… prefer not to be Dionysus?” Viktor asked, sounding genuinely incredulous that anyone, anywhere would have such a preference.

Yuuri swallowed. He met Viktor’s gaze at last. “I want you to like me,” he said, trying to keep a tremor out of his voice. “So if that’s what it takes, I want to be Dionysus.”

“Yuuri, I do like you!” Viktor lunged at him, throwing his arms around him and knocking him right over onto the mat. “Becoming your coach is the best choice I’ve made in decades.”

“Ow!” Yuuri jerked his hand away from the table with a hiss. Viktor had knocked his tea over in his enthusiasm and spilled it over his arm. Makkachin bounded over in concern and licked at his ear. Yuuri laughed and rubbed the fur on top of the dog's head until he backed off.

“Sorry,” Viktor sat up quickly. He waved his hand and Yuuri’s teacup righted itself. The tea was sucked backwards and crawled up the sides of the cup, every drop flying through the air to join the stream until both the table and Yuuri’s sleeve were dry. There was still an angry red patch of skin, which Yuuri blew on to soothe it.

“Let me,” Viktor smiled, holding out his hand. “It was my fault.”

Yuuri stretched his hand out and Viktor took it in his long fingers. Yuuri felt a flush rise in his neck at his touch, trying not to imagine those fingers sliding along his arm to cup his face. He tried to tell himself it was just Viktor’s godlike aura affecting him, but he wasn’t even fooling himself. He reminded himself that Viktor was his coach, and worse yet was clearly in love with a better, immortal version of him that Yuuri couldn’t even imagine ever becoming.

Viktor’s thumb stroked gently across the burn, and Yuuri felt the pain and swelling subside instantly.

“Thanks,” Yuuri smiled. “I didn’t realise you could do that. Should come in handy if I pull a muscle in training.”

Viktor was still holding his hand. “Until you no longer need me, I am at your service,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t forget that.”

But Yuuri could not helping thinking, You’re not protecting me. You’re protecting him. What happens to me if you don’t get him back?

---[]---

The next few weeks went much too fast. Yuuri was so focused on meeting his training milestones that he didn’t notice how close his first assignment was until his mother asked him when he was going to start packing for the flight to Beijing. Before he knew it, they were at the Cup of China, and his short program was over. He had beaten his personal best and was in first place, and now everyone was expecting him to pull off an equally spectacular free skate. He’d barely slept more than an hour at a time last night, waking up sick to his stomach with worry.

The corridors behind the rink were packed. Skaters, coaches and supporters intersected in all directions, rushing to prepare themselves or to get back to their seats before their favourite routines. Yuuri's free skate program was in less than an hour, and he felt like he'd been run over by a truck and then thrown into an ice-cold bath. He couldn’t stop shaking. His muscles were alternatively locked up and then too weak to even lift his arms.

It felt like a nightmare. One of those dreams where he walked up to podium and when he got there a faceless official looked at him and said "There's been a mistake. You were given the wrong points. You came last."

Viktor was chattering away beside him. "...and of course we both went to watch that Olympic match-up. How could we not? But the night before you took me out to some local dive and we got into a drinking competition against an entire biker gang. The next day, honestly, I was still so drunk could barely sit up straight in my seat. I leaned the wrong way, blew a kiss to the wrong player, and whoops! One of the most unexpected wins in hockey history. They called it a miracle, but truly, the miracle was that the bar ran out of alcohol when they did, or we'd probably still be there trying to out-drink that fellow with all the tattoos on his face."

Viktor looked at Yuuri expectantly, waiting for his reaction. Yuuri couldn't process anything that Viktor was saying. He had spent the last hour telling Yuuri stories about all his favourite victories in history, but Yuuri could not remember any of them. He wasn't sure if this particular story should be accompanied by laughter or some kind of admiration.

Viktor hummed and glanced around. "Oh, look who it is! Let's go say hello."

He seized Yuuri by the arm and dragged him towards a cluster of sports journalists near the door through to the rink itself. Phichit was standing in the centre of the circle, excitedly chatting with a tall man in a trim, pale blue suit, with a puff of blond curls. He waved at Viktor and Yuuri as they approached, and the journalists parted to let them through. Viktor threw up his arms.

"Chris! I didn't expect you!"

"Hello, darling," Chris Giacometti leaned in to kiss Viktor's cheek. His gaze glanced Yuuri over and without warning he reached out and briefly clasped Yuuri's cheek. "It's good to see you again, Homme Effréné." He winked, ignoring the journalists that had just leaned in with microphones. "I heard your short program went very well yesterday. I had to come and watch today."

"Th-thanks," Yuuri smiled weakly.

"Yeah! You're going to crush this, Yuuri!" Phichit clapped his hands. "I can't wait."

"In fact," Chris smiled. "I'd go so far as to say he's going to be supernatural."

“You’re not nervous, right?” Phichit elbowed Yuuri hard enough to make him wince. Apparently none of the gods knew their own strength. “No way a patron god of theatre gets stage fright, huh?”

Phichit and Viktor both laughed. Yuuri felt his stomach heave. He knew it was just a joke, but it seemed suddenly like there was something mocking in their tone. For a split second he was convinced they'd all been stringing him along all this time, a conspiracy of unlikely plotters with a story that was so ridiculous only a fool would believe it. Gods? Magic? What had he been thinking?

The journalists were putting microphones in between him and Chris, jumping in with questions about why the CEO of the world’s most popular dating app was friends with two figure skaters from opposite sides of the globe. There was an echoing announcement through the halls as the next skater in the competition took the ice. Yuuri's knees began to shake. He took a step back, and felt a hand on his shoulder. Viktor's voice whispered in his ear. "Maybe we should go somewhere quieter."

Yuuri nodded frantically and let Viktor lead him back down the corridor. Before he knew it, he was down in the car park under the rink. He paced between the cars, trying to wipe the sweat off his hands, zipping his jacket up and then open again.

"Yuuri," Viktor said. "You're going to be fine."

Yuuri stopped right where he stood and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He tried to swallow and couldn’t get around the dry lump in his throat. Viktor put his hands on Yuuri's shoulders and looked him right in the eyes.

"What can I do?" he asked.

Yuuri shook his head, unable to manage a single word. Viktor sighed and drew back, running his fingers through his hair.

"Maybe I made a mistake," he said. "Pushing you to skate like Dionysus."

Yuuri blinked at him. "Wh-what do you mean?"

Viktor was avoiding his eye. "I should have been sure you really were a god before I dragged you into this world. There's always a chance I was wrong. Maybe you're just a very talented human, not Dionysus himself."

Yuuri felt his lungs lock up and tears begin to spill over his cheeks. "What?"

So it was true. It had all been an illusion. There was no special destiny ordained by his birth. He was ordinary, human, mortal, and Viktor had seen it at last. He was going to leave. Yuuri was going to finish the season as he’d finished the last one, alone and a failure. The nightmare was real.

Viktor finally met his eye. His face drained of blood and he grimaced, his eyes going wide. "Yuuri—"

Yuuri scrubbed the back of his arm over his eyes, although he only succeeded in spreading the tears across the rest of his face. "Why would you say that?"

"Yuuri I didn't mean it!" Viktor threw his hands out. "I thought it would lift the pressure—"

"I know I don’t believe in Dionysus the way you do, Viktor, but I came this far because you believed in him," Yuuri sniffed. "If I've done something to ruin that, just tell me. Tell me I'm human and I can go back to losing on human terms."

"I don't think you're human!" Viktor’s voice cut across his. For the first time since Yuuri had met him, he actually sounded afraid. “I'm trying to wake you up, Dionysus!”

Viktor put his hand over his mouth as if to snatch back the words. Yuuri’s throat closed up. The weight of the concrete walls around them seemed to press inwards.

“Just have faith in me,” Yuuri croaked at last. “Even if that only means having faith in him.”

---[]---

Stupid Viktor. He knows how to skate but he doesn’t know how to be a coach, Yuuri thought as he took the ice. And stupid me for getting caught up in all his stories. What have I been thinking?

I don't need to be a god to win. I never did.

He eased his skates to a stop in the centre of the rink. The pulse of the audience thrummed around him, drawing down to a whisper as they waited for the music to begin.

I'll show Viktor that it doesn't matter if I'm mortal or not. I'm still the best skater on the ice today.

The first notes of the music flowed through him, as familiar now as his own heartbeat, and he began to skate. His feet felt too heavy as he fell into the routine of steps he had practiced over and over. He was exhausted from his sleepless night, drained by crying. But his lungs felt open at last, as if he had ripped off a cage from around his chest.

He was telling his story in his free skate. Not the story of Dionysus. The story of Yuuri Katsuki. He focused on to that as he sped up for the first jump, a quad toe-loop combination.

Perfect. There was applause from the crowd, though not the wild cheers of his short program yesterday. His technical execution had been fine, but he was forgetting his strengths. That was alright, he was used to that. He could tell that part of his story too, the many times he’d underestimated himself or let fear get the better of him. He ignored the audience and focused on the music, letting it draw him onwards and through the shifting story.

He could almost feel Viktor watching him as he heading into the triple salchow, and Yuuri allowed the liquid-metal element that was his coach to sweep into the story, raising his arms and dancing with the energy that this season had brought to his life. Yuuri wasn’t here as a brief tryst in Viktor’s eternal journey: Viktor had come here for him, to be part of his world. His coach could change the tone, but when he was gone Yuuri would carry on without him.

He made the salchow without a blip. The crowd was getting noisier.

He moved into the second half, pushing himself to show his ambition with each jump, to prove his need to make every skate better and more beautiful than he had before. He might not be immortal, but his stamina would carry him further than any of them expected.

The music was rising in speed as he came to his final quad. It was supposed to be a toe loop, and Yuuri was reaching the end of his strength. He knew this jump well. He could make it perfect.

Or he could go beyond his strength.

He lined up and pushed off.

As he landed, his hand hit the ice and he felt himself nearly shatter, but he dragged his body back into the final spin. His muscles were shaking and his mind ablaze as he spun to a stop in the centre of the rink.

“… A quadruple flip! And so close to the end of his program! That was the signature move of Viktor Nikiforov, the legendary Russian Olympian. Katsuki’s coach must certainly be proud today.”

Yuuri gasped for breath, the glare of the lights on the ice blinding him as soon as he stood still. He’d done it. He’d done more than even Viktor had asked of him.

He swept his gaze around the barrier, seeking Viktor’s shape somewhere among the bystanders. He spotted him at last. Yuuri raced towards the gate, trying to hold back his tears.

“Viktor, did you see me?” he called, well before his coach would even be able to hear him above the applause.

Viktor was holding out his arms. He was smiling, just as he always smiled, but it looked brighter and more beautiful than anything that Yuuri had seen before. Yuuri was elated, his blood pumping hard, the cheers ringing in his ears, the triumph of the quad flip filling him with adrenaline. He knew that he’d done something Viktor hadn’t expected, and that above all was what spurred him to do what he did next. If he could surprise Viktor, and show that even Chris and Phichit had underestimated him, then – human or not – he had proven that the gods could not control his fate.

He lunged into Viktor’s arms and kissed him.

There was a moment of electric contact and then—

Viktor stumbled backwards, breaking away from the kiss. His arms slipped around Yuuri’s waist and lifted him off the ice and onto the mat, smiling down at him. Yuuri grinned back, but felt a little disappointed that the moment hadn’t lasted longer.

The disappointment faded as they were hustled to the kiss and cry and were swept up in the announcement of the final scores. He’d beaten his personal best. When the final rankings were announced, Yuuri's name was first on the list, and soon afterwards came the shock of standing at the top of the podium with the gold in his hand. It all happened so fast. All Yuuri remembered afterwards was ecstasy, and through the lens of that joy, he forgot the abrupt and awkward end to the kiss.

---[]---

Everything was a blur after the ceremony. Yuuri shook so many hands his fingers started to hurt; competitors, fans, reporters, officials. They were almost all strangers, a myriad of faces and accents saying the same congratulatory platitudes over and over. Yuuri replied automatically, in a daze. What he wanted to say was Did you see me? I kissed him. Did you see that?

Viktor pulled him over to get photos with Chris, who had brought his own photographer and social media manager to perfectly frame "candid" moments for the Emberz twitter.

"You haven't signed the sponsorship deal I sent you yet," Chris muttered in his ear while they both smiled over Yuuri's medal. Behind them, Phichit was rushing around collecting selfies with the rest of the competitors.

"What's he bullying you about?" Viktor slipped in on Yuuri's other side to join the photo. Yuuri was suddenly squashed in by two tall, incredibly handsome men in very nice suits. He felt a flush rise from his neck to his brow and hoped it would look just like a post-exercise blush. Viktor hadn’t yet said anything about the kiss.

Chris continued to smile as he talked in a low voice. "I have a company to promote here, Viktor. I want that sponsorship deal."

"If you keep up this kind of nepotism they'll suspect us of being a satanic sect again," Viktor muttered out the corner of his mouth, and turned to laugh at something Phichit had yelled at them.

Yuuri wondered if he’d forgotten the kiss, or thought it was just Yuuri’s way of celebrating. Perhaps the gods had their own interpretation of a gesture like that. Yuuri swallowed. Maybe he should be more obvious. He might actually have to say, out loud, what his whole body was screaming internally.

Chris was drawn aside by a phone call, and Phichit was dashing around getting footage for his channel. They had been pushed close together for the photographs, but for a moment there were no cameras in their faces. Yuuri couldn’t wait a moment longer. He turned to Viktor just as Viktor turned towards him. Yuuri opened his mouth, and at the same moment Viktor raised his hand and pushed a lock of hair back behind Yuuri’s ear. Yuuri froze at the brush of his fingers across the blade of his ear. He was wracked by indecision. He could lean up now, and kiss Viktor again, but panic was beginning to take hold.

Viktor moved towards him. It was so sudden that Yuuri didn’t even react, and before he knew it, Viktor was kissing him on the forehead and pulling him into a tight hug, his cheek resting his cheek on Yuuri’s hair.

The forehead? Shit. Shit. Shit. This wasn’t good.

“I’m so proud of you,” Viktor said, his voice reverberating through Yuuri’s skin. “You’re never what I expect.”

“What you expect…?” Yuuri echoed. What had Viktor expected? Dionysus. Viktor had expected Dionysus. And instead he’d got Yuuri. Ordinary, human, mortal. Whatever was going on with him – Cupid’s ineffectual dart, the dance party at the banquet, the conviction of Ares – he was not what Viktor had expected.

Yuuri wrapped his arms around Viktor’s waist, his chest heaving once and then relaxing. It’s okay, he told himself. You’ve still got him until the end of the season. You can still win gold together. Whatever happens after that will be up to fate.

---[]---

Finally, the cameras and the crowds drained away and Yuuri felt exhaustion begin to hit him. All he wanted was to go back to the hotel and sleep for a week. He was just about to suggest this to Viktor when he was aware of someone standing just behind him.

"Hi! Can I get an autograph?"

The accent was Russian, and the red-headed girl was in her late teens, wearing a cheap but fashionable sweater-dress and black leggings. She looked like any other skating fan, albeit one who was far from home, but there was something in the intensity of her eyes that made Yuuri hesitate. She was holding out a pen, and she jabbed it closer to him. “Huh?”

"Uh, sure!" He took it delicately, trying not to touch the girl's skin. "Do you have some paper, or did you want me to sign your bag?"

He held out his hand, and the smile turned cold as her eyes locked onto his gaze. Her arm shot out and she grabbed his wrist and pulled him half a step closer. Yuuri squeaked, but she simply ran the pad of her thumb over his palm. For the briefest moment, a blue circle glowed there and then faded back into his skin.

"You’re lucky this spell is keeping you from hurting yourself, sweetie," the girl said in a low, mocking voice. She raised her eyebrows. Yuuri couldn't break her gaze as she brought her fingers up under his chin and tilted his head back to look deeper into his eyes. "Are you really the lost god they're all talking about? Poor, love-sick Viktor."

She released him, and Yuuri staggered a couple of steps backwards, rubbing his wrist. Before he could speak, there were swift footsteps and he was surrounded by a wall of strength; Chris on one side, Phichit and Viktor on the other. There was an electric energy in the air like being near power pylons, a hum in Yuuri's ears.

The red-head laughed and raised her hands. "Chill out, boys! We were just talking."

"And who are you, princess?" Chris glanced her up an down. "Not one of my fans. They dress better."

"Kids, it's me," the red-head flicked her hair over her shoulder. "I thought I'd go young, hip and Russian, since Viktor and Yuri are setting trends. Am I not homely enough?"

Phichit's eyes widened and the energy evaporated from the air with a nearly audible crack. "Hestia! Wow, look at you!"

"I knew you'd catch on first, cutie." She stretched her arms up and clicked her knuckles above her head. "Us Above, it's been so long since I left the mountain. Human bodies feel like playing on the highest difficulty setting, I swear.”

“Honourable Hestia,” Chris inclined his head and bent a little into a slight bow. “It’s been a very long time indeed since we saw you in human form. Is there something we can do for you?”

“When I need something, you’ll know about it, Cupid,” Hestia shrugged. “If you want to catch up, I'm calling myself Mila and hanging out with Yuri Plisetsky these days. He acts like he hates it, but he needs the company," she winked at Yuuri. "You know he came second in Skate Canada last month, right?"

"They had nobody decent to challenge him this year except Emil Nekola," Viktor laughed, squeezing Yuuri's shoulder. "He won't stand a chance against Yuuri at the Rostelecom Cup."

"Whatever you say, kiddo," Mila shrugged. As she turned to go, she added over her shoulder, "Oh. Just so you know, he's got Poseidon and Demeter training him."

Yuuri felt Viktor's hand tighten a little on his shoulder, but his voice stayed breezed. "Yeah?"

"Congratulations on today's win. I look forward to seeing how you skate against a real god.” She nodded at Yuuri, and then gave the briefest curtsy to Viktor. “Your majesty.”

She sauntered off and vanished into the crowd.

Yuuri glanced at Viktor. "Who was that?"

Viktor put his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, a small frown on his brow. "Vesta, Goddess of the home and the hearth. Unlike the rest of us, she rarely intervenes in the drama of the world. It's been a long time since I've seen her so... awake."

Chris turned towards them, his voice lowered. "It's strange. Why would she side with Ares? They have no friendship."

"She's waiting for something to happen," Viktor said. "And she must think Ares is going to know about it first."

Chapter Text

The Rostelecom Cup: Moscow, Russia

---[]---

White masks hung in the darkness, and there was pain, and a whisper: “o aetói apsórroos.”

Yuuri snapped awake, his fingers clenching around the starchy hotel sheets. His muscles twitched and began to relax. He rolled over, the pain from the now-familiar nightmare fading away.

The room was lit dimly by a lamp on the far side of the second twin bed. Viktor had fallen asleep sitting against the headboard, naked from the waist up with an open book on his lap, his jaw hanging slack. Yuuri suppressed a laugh at how ordinary he looked. Until now he hadn't been sure that Viktor even slept like a mortal. At the Cup of China he always stayed up late and was awake in the morning before Yuuri, and it took hours of practice before he broke a sweat. But right now he looked perfectly human.

"Viktor," Yuuri whispered. Viktor gave a sharp snort and opened his eyes, blinking and looking down at his book and then at Yuuri. Yuuri smiled. "You left the light on."

Viktor yawned and reached for the switch. The room was plunged into darkness until Yuuri's eyes adjusted to the faint glow of street-lamps that trickled between the hotel curtains.

"Viktor?"

"Yeah? Are you okay?"

Yuuri hummed in reassurance. "I was just wondering, what does o aetói apsórroos mean?"

"'s Ancient Greek," Viktor said, half asleep. "It means ‘The eagles are returning’." After a pause he grunted like he was waking up again. "Where did you hear it?"

"I… read it somewhere.”

Viktor seemed to settle again, rolling onto his side to face Yuuri. His silver hair was a pale streak like moonlight. “That makes sense.”

“It's from The Lord of the Rings, isn't it?”

Viktor mumbled, his eyes falling closed. “It’s from Homer. The eagle returning was a metaphor for the vengeful Odysseus, when he was coming to kill the suitors that had taken over his house.”

Yuuri waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. Yuuri wriggled back under the blankets. “Good night, Viktor.”

He could hear Viktor breathing deeply, already asleep.

---[]---

This, Yuuri thought, must be what having a god of victory on your side feels like.

He was in first place again after the short program, and for the first time that he could remember, he felt good about that. The scores were close right now, but he and Viktor knew that in the free skate, Yuri Plisetsky was his only real challenge. Emil and Seung-gil were good, but judging from their earlier performances this season they were already pushing at their limits. The other skaters in the draw were even younger and still finding their feet. Even if Yuri came first tonight, Yuuri would still easily qualify for the Grand Prix. He'd never felt like this before – like he was high enough in the rankings that he had room to move, room to take risks and experiment in the free skate.

He and Viktor were the first to arrive at the rink for the morning practice. There were a few officials checking the rink's equipment and going over the day's plan, but no other skaters. When Yuuri reached into his bag to get his skates, he found his phone was buzzing. It was Mari, calling from her cellphone, which must be costing her a bunch. Yuuri felt his chest tighten as he answered.

“Yuuri, I'm sorry to call in the middle of a competition.”

Yuuri could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. He paced back and forth and could only echo, “Uh-huh,” over and over as he listened to her news.

“… Makkachin is sick… we’re at the vet now… ”

Yuuri left his bag on the floor and raced to grab Viktor's arm with the phone still glued to his ear. Viktor's face drained of colour as he listened to the worried tone in Yuuri's voice. Once he'd finally hung up, he told Viktor everything. "You have to go home. Don't let Makkachin be alone.”

Viktor nodded. "Of course. Makkachin's been my closest companion since..." He didn't finished the sentence, but Yuuri knew he meant since Dionysus had vanished.

"I'll be alright at the free skate tonight. I can do this," Yuuri insisted. His heart sped up at the mere thought of skating without Viktor there to rescue him if Yuri decided to destroy another stadium, but he couldn't stand between Viktor and his beloved dog.

A weak smile twitched on Viktor's face. "I'm not going to miss your free skate!"

"But Makkachin—"

Viktor grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed his forehead. "Oh, Yuuri, you forget who I am."

There was the sound of the doors swinging open, and through them stalked three figures. Yuri Plisetsky was at the front, his eyes narrowing when he saw Yuuri. His two coaches followed. Yuuri had seen them from a distance yesterday during the short program, but had yet to be formally introduced. Lilia Baranovskaya and Yakov Feltsman were supposedly top athletes from Moscow who had been out of the public eye since the fall of the soviet union. Their credentials, however, would have seemed strangely dated to anyone who cared to dig deeper. Yakov had last been seen by the media when he had briefly accompanied Viktor Nikiforov to the Olympics in 1964, which made him well over ninety years old despite looking like a man in his forties. Lilia's records as a prima ballerina were even more patchy, and she bore a stunning resemblance to another top dancer who had been popular in London – in the 1820s. Yet here they both were, training the mysterious Yuri Plisetsky, the champion who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Yakov! Lilia!" Viktor rushed over, and Yuuri followed more cautiously, trying not to make eye contact with Yuri.

"What is it?" Yakov snapped. “Don’t run, it's undignified. You’re supposed to be a king, Viktor.”

Viktor ignored this comment and clasped his hands together. "I need help from both of you. I have to return to Japan because my dog is sick. Yakov, please supervise Yuuri with practice this morning. Lilia, I want you to come with me."

Lilia's sharp mouth managed to become even more pursed. She eyed him a moment and then drawled, "Animal husbandry is not really my domain."

"You have talents in healing all aspects of the natural world," Viktor gushed. "I know you do. Please." He leaned in closer and bowed his head. "Poseidon, Demeter, I ask this as your friend, not as your king."

Yakov sighed and glanced at Lilia. "Go if you want. I can coach both the brats for today."

"Very well." Lilia held out her arm and Viktor took it with a beaming smile. "We'll find somewhere private to teleport, and be back as soon as we can."

Viktor gave Yuuri's hand one last squeeze before they left. He gulped and looked back at Yakov.

"Well?" Yakov barked. "Put your skates on. I want to make sure both of you get all the help you need."

---[]---

Yuuri and his Russian counterpart didn't speak to each other as they practiced, alternatively skating back to talk to Yakov while – deliberately or not – never standing closer than shouting distance from each other. Yuuri had never been so glad in his life that someone was giving him the cold shoulder. He couldn’t stop thinking about the bruises on his back from the last time he’d encountered Ares in an ice rink. Yuri could have killed him that day in Hasetsu, when he turned up uninvited at the Ice Palace. He could have killed him just by accident, blowing off steam. Sure, Yuri was under the spell to keep him from using his powers to cheat, but Yuuri didn’t know how these things worked. If he really wanted to end this rivalry today, in the most final way possible, he was sure the skinny teenager with the mop of golden hair could snap Yuuri’s neck as easy as snapping his fingers.

But today Yuri Plisestsky was nothing like the raging superhuman he'd been when he crashed Hasetsu Ice Castle. He grumbled and swore to himself whenever he messed up a jump, but he was focused and obedient to Yakov as long as his instructions related to skating. Yuuri could almost have been fooled into thinking he was a real teenager, until later in the morning when Yuri’s phone went off. He'd left it sitting on the barrier right next to where Yuuri was talking to Yakov, and Yakov snarled and reached over to turn it off.

Yuri cut his step sequence short and skated over like a shot. "Don't touch that, old man!"

"You don't need distractions today," Yakov grumbled.

"I'm running a business here," Yuri snapped as he careened to a stop against the barrier and snatched up the phone. He answered in Russian, stepping off the ice and hurrying to undo his skates. He left them lying in the middle of the floor as he wandered off, his tone growing increasingly irritated as he talked.

"I can't believe that boy is several thousand years old," Yakov said, groaning as he bent down to pick up the skates and put them out of the way. He glanced over at Yuuri. "Take a rest, I haven't got much more to tell you. You know what you're doing, unlike Mr Capricious over there."

Yuuri was starting to sweat, and he didn’t want to overdo it on the day of the competition. He took off his skates, found his glasses and guzzled three glasses of water from the cooler before he took a disposable cup and came back to the rink. Yakov was sitting on the stands texting somebody on an ancient Nokia phone. Yuuri took a breath and went to sit beside him, leaning back and trying to look like this had just been the most comfortable spot.

“Do you need something?” Yakov asked, without looking up from his phone.

Yuuri choked slightly on his water. “Nope! Just trying to relax before the free skate.”

Why did he say that? Now Yakov would think he needed constant attention from his coach. Which, he supposed, was kind of true.

“Why are you helping Yuri?” Yuuri asked after a moment. “This seems like such a… petty, mortal competition. I thought you’d have better things to do.”

Yakov grunted but didn't answer. He finished his text, tucked his phone in his pocket, folded his arms and watched Emil Nekola testing his speed on the other side of the rink.

“So, Bacchus,” he said suddenly. “Why’d you really leave?”

Yuuri’s throat closed up. “I don’t know,” he said reflexively. “I don’t remember.”

Yakov nodded. “Something must have happened. You weren’t gone that long, but it's not like you to disappear. You’re not an introvert like Hephaestus or Hestia.”

“You’d know me better than me,” Yuuri sighed.

“I thought you were dead, honestly.”

Yuuri gave a nervous laugh. Yakov glanced sharply at him.

“You think that’s funny?”

“I mean… gods can’t die, right?”

Yakov snorted. “Maybe there’s no precedent in our memory, but I see no reason why not. Yuri’s running a weapons research division, isn’t he? I’m sure he could find a way to kill us if he put his scientists to the question.” He paused, perhaps because Yuuri’s entire body had just clenched up. “But you’re not dead, so that’s obviously a moot point. You really thought we couldn’t die? Is that what Viktor told you?”

“Y-yes?”

Yakov rolled his eyes. “Viktor has his eyes focused on the horizon. He's always changing, always trying to adapt to a world that moves much faster than we do. But he forgets that change is not always for the better. Even our immortality is not guaranteed in the world Viktor seeks, and he’s trying drag all of us along with him. It’s dangerous. It’s pathetic! He may have won the kingship fair and even, but he’s too fickle to lead us anywhere except into oblivion. Look at us! In the olden days, we had power beyond imagining, and I believe we can have that again. That’s why I’m helping Yuri. Yuri has the right to regain his full strength as the god of war, and you and Viktor have no right to stand in his way."

"Wait, wait," Yuuri squeaked. "I'm not standing Yuri's way. He can do what he wants. He's the one trying to beat me at skating!"

"You say that now, but I know you'll interfere on Viktor's behalf if Yuri does anything Viktor doesn't like," Yakov growled. "If Yuri beats Viktor at his own game, maybe Viktor will finally admit that he’s not suited to kingship and let someone else take the throne.”

Yuuri pretended to be drinking the last of his water, even though the cup was empty. There was a ringing noise growing in his ears. He cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice calm as he asked, “Does Viktor know you feel this way?”

“We’ve had words,” Yakov grumbled, unfolding his arms and resting his hands on his knees. Without warning he suddenly leaned over and clapped Yuuri on the shoulder with a heavy, meaty hand. “I’m glad you didn’t die. But if you made a choice to leave, Viktor should have let you rest in peace. I hope you don’t regret coming back to this life.”

“Um. Me too.” Yuuri could only stare straight ahead, trying to watch the skater out on the ice, unable to make his eyes focus on the shifting movements.

Yakov got up and headed for the exit of the stadium. Yuri was just coming back in from his phone call, and he grabbed Yakov's arm as they passed. His voice was quiet, but in the echoing rink, Yuuri could just make out what he was saying.

"Why's the drunkard looking like that? Did you say something to him?"

"I didn't say anything he can't work out on his own," Yakov replied.

"You better not have freaked him out. I told you, old man, I want to win this fair and square."

Yakov snorted and pulled his elbow out of Yuri's grip. "Well, I don't want to deal with your temper tantrum if you lose. Get it together and win."

Yuuri continued to stare straight ahead, slowly crumpling the plastic cup in his hand.

---[]---

Viktor and Lilia returned an hour before the free skate was due to start. With the help of the gods, Makkachin had recovered and was being sent back to Yu-Topia safe a sound. Yuuri felt his hold body slump with relief as soon as he saw Viktor. Yuri wouldn’t dare pull any violent stunts while Viktor was around, not after how easily Viktor had subdued him at Hasetsu.

Not unless Yuri had some new weapon to get the upper hand against Viktor. At that thought, Yuuri’s legs started shaking again.

"Your sister is well." Viktor smiled at Yuuri. Yuuri spluttered, and Viktor laughed and came over to help him stretch. "It's alright. We were in disguise so she didn't know I was there. But you're going to have to tell them you're a god sometime, Yuuri."

"After the Grand Prix," Yuuri promised. He was pretty sure he was never going to have to have that bizarre conversation with his parents, but Viktor didn't need to know that.

"Are you nervous?"

"Not like last time. I'm ready."

"Good." Viktor cupped his cheek for a brief moment. "Go out there and be my Revelry."

Yuuri smiled, but he couldn't bring himself to respond in kind. How much of Yakov's dire warnings did Viktor really know? Had he hidden the truth from Yuuri, or was Viktor blind to the discontent within his pantheon, to the dangers that he was leading them into?

I really wish you could help me out here, Dionysus, Yuuri thought. Dionysus might be the only person in the world who had insight into Viktor's mind, besides Viktor himself. Sometimes Yuuri still felt like the lost god might just be hiding behind a sheer curtain of amnesia, that if he just believed in Dionysus hard enough he could uncover all the answers. But there wasn't much point in prayer when he had several divine mobile numbers in his phone.

---[]---

"...with an incredible free skate score of one-ninety-eight-point-six, Yuri Plisetsky sails into first place. A masterful performance and a new personal best for this young breakaway."

Yuuri took a deep breath as he waited at the gate onto the ice. His heart was kicking against the inside of his chest so hard if felt like an animal was trapped in there, trying to break out. He could hear Viktor's voice saying something supportive, but he totally failed to process it as he stepped onto the ice. He turned and leaned over the barrier. "Huh?"

"I said, you look beautiful," Viktor gripped his wrist. His smile calmed Yuuri's heart down to a steady, even thump.

"Thanks." Yuuri smiled. He felt a strange rush of protectiveness for Viktor. His Victory... maybe not his forever, but for now. Viktor, who saw the best in him, and in the world, perhaps too naively. Yakov believed that gods could be killed, and had implied that Yuri Plisetsky might have the means to kill them. If Yuuri beat Ares at the Grand Prix, that meant the next step in the battle for the pantheon was all-out war. Was Yuuri ready to face that?

He’d jumped into this world without any idea of the danger he was putting himself in. Everything had begun to catalyse when he'd make that rash promise to Viktor that he would come back and be Dionysus if Viktor got him the gold medal. It had seemed unreal at that time, a promise he never thought he'd have to follow through. But now he was faced with the consequences. All these tensions had boiled to the surface by Yuuri’s claim to be the lost god. He hadn’t asked for this! He’d just come here to skate.

But no, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d come here for Viktor, and he’d come here to win no matter who else took the ice. It was just like Yuri had said all those months ago: he’d sold his soul to win gold – to win Viktor – but that could mean losing everything, even his life, and igniting a war between the gods. There was only one way out.

As he skated over the ice to begin his free skate, his mind was jerked back to that day in Hasetsu when Yuri had attacked the Ice Palace. Terror swamped him at the memory of the supernatural blasts, the tons of sheet ice cracking and bending, the explosion of the barrier mere feet behind him. In his memory, Yuri’s eyes glinted with malice, and he seemed surrounded by shimmering shadows of unnatural energy, his voice booming through the corridors. Sweat slicked Yuuri’s skin and a shiver went through him. He suddenly realised the music had started.

He swore silently and began to skate, trying to catch up with the second he'd lost while he'd been distracted. The beat seemed to be too fast, and for a moment he thought somebody had screwed up the sound system and increased the tempo. But when he pulled for breath and refocused he got back on track. His first jump was coming up, and he was moving as stiff as a marionette. He had to be more elegant.

He pushed into the triple toe-loop, wobbled and touched down with both feet. It had turned into a single. There was a faint 'ah' of disappointment from the crowd. Yuuri's body tensed, but he kept moving. He wanted to be here. He loved being here. He was meant to win this. He shifted into the step sequence, feeling the rhythm of the music and letting it take hold of him.

He realised suddenly that he'd lost his pace again and was pinched for time in preparation for his first quad. It was a combination, and he didn't have the room he needed to make it. In a split second he decided to scrap the combo, add it in after his next jump, and with just barely time to spare he managed to hit the quad. He landed it without falling, but he’d been right to cut out the combo – he’d probably have slammed into the barrier if he’d tried it. He could feel the fear from the crowd in the stillness of the air.

Get it together, he told himself, gritting his teeth. This isn't practice. He'd surely already lost his chance at the gold today, but he couldn't flunk out entirely or he might not even make it to the Grand Prix.

Again he remembered the wave of force pushing him onto his back in Hasetsu, heard the shattering of thousands of glass fragments. The scrape of his skates seemed to jar up his body and right into his teeth. The lights were too bright in his eyes. It would be so easy to give up now. It would be so much safer to escape the gods and their monstrous world, to abandon it all, to fail and thus save his own life and maybe Viktor's as well—

"Hey, fatso!"

It didn't seem possible that one voice was carrying all the way across the ice, above the music and the clapping of the crowd, but the words rung clearly in Yuuri's ears. He glanced towards the sound and saw Yuri Plisetsky, leaning over the barrier, his hands cupped around his mouth.

"You're a killer too!" Yuri yelled. "Now kill it!"

Yuuri realised he was cheering him on. Yuri Plisetsky was cheering for him.

Images flashed through his mind; the enemies of Dionysus, one strangled by an anthropomorphic vine, one dismembered by their maddened mother and aunts. He thought of Dionysus leading armies of wild-women and satyrs into battle, and destroying the palaces of his captors with a wave of his hand. He had read the stories, but now the weight of them filled his blood and the screams and singing echoed in his skull. Dionysus had nothing to fear from Ares, and with Victory by his side he could not lose.

He could recover from that lost combo. He could add to the triple axel, with a single loop and a triple salchow. Then he’d adjust the last two jumps into combos as well. He had the stamina for it, he was sure of it, especially with the slow start he’d made to the program so far.

All he could hear was the music now as he executed the improvised combo perfectly, and then again and again, just touching down at the end. When he slowed and finally stopped, he raised his arms, not to the crowd or to Yuri but simply to expend the last of the energy pulsing through him.

He couldn’t focus on anything ahead of him as he skated back to the gate.

“Yuuri!”

Viktor was calling his name. Yuuri felt his head spin as Viktor’s figure came into sight. He was holding his arms out, and Yuuri went to him and collapsed into his embrace, hunching to press his face to Viktor’s chest.

“Are you alright? Are you injured?” Viktor ran his hands across Yuuri’s arms and back. Yuuri straightened up to shake his head. Viktor pulled off a glove and rested the back of his hand on Yuuri’s forehead. “You’re burning up!”

“Because I just skated my free program at the Rostelecom Cup, idiot.” Yuuri gave a choked laugh. “I’m fine. It just got too big for me.”

“You did great. You’ll qualify for the finals, no problem,” Viktor said firmly. He put his arm around Yuuri. “Let’s go sit down somewhere quiet.”

An official shadowed them as Viktor tried to turn Yuuri towards the exit. “Excuse me, sir, you need to go the kiss and cry.”

Viktor sighed. Yuuri squeezed his hand. “Rituals are important. You should know that.”

“I suppose,” Viktor grumbled.

He flinched as he saw Yuri Plisetsky and Yakov coming from the other direction. Yuri was wearing a jacket over his free-skate costume and heading to the changing rooms. So he'd stuck around this whole time to watch Yuuri skate. Their eyes met for a moment, and Yuri's face screwed up like he wanted to say something, but they passed each other silently as Yakov hustled Yuri along. Yuuri turned to watch the blond head disappear into the crowd.

Sitting on the bench, he barely heard his scores read out. He registered that he had come in third, against all odds, but well behind Yuri and Emil. That meant he had definitely made the Grand Prix with the Cup of China under his belt as well. The news settled on him slowly. He felt only and growing numbness.

He noticed Viktor’s leg bouncing beside him with frustrated energy. He reached out and put his hand on Viktor’s knee, and his coach went still.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

“Do you want to tell me?” Viktor asked.

Yuuri shook his head. He felt himself shudder when he remembered the way the fear had overtaken him at this most crucial moment. It was hard not to be angry at himself, but he knew he shouldn’t be ashamed. He was only human.

“Then I won’t ask.” Viktor put his hand over Yuuri’s, where it still rested on his knee. He leaned sideways, resting against Yuuri, his fringe brushing Yuuri’s temple. “Your recovery was incredible. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“I have a good coach,” Yuuri said.

“I can’t take credit for that.” Viktor huffed a small laugh. “That was your strength, Yuuri, all the way through.”

---[]---

Jay called her friend Klara as soon as the news hit twitter. She stuck the chat window in the corner of her screen while she typed frantically in the news forum for the Tarturs’ biggest fan site. In other tabs, links were up for various social media pages dedicated to the fandom.

“Klara, did you hear? Are you going?”

“What are you talking about?” Klara’s voice was muffled through a mouthful of noodles. It was midday in Jay’s house, but dinnertime in Madrid, where Klara was studying abroad for a year away from Munich.

“Hang on, Dom wants in.” Jay sent an invite to Dominic, at uni in the East Midlands. His image appeared beside Klara, waving frantically.

“Did you guys see the news?”

“What is going on?” Klara demanded, wiping her mouth. “Just tell me!”

“The Tarturs are going to play Moscow’s best,” Dom jumped in. “They just announced a huge game on December fifteenth.”

Jay was just finishing her spiel on the forum and clicked post before she turned towards the webcam. “They’re leaving me! They’re leaving Canada and heading to Europe. I’m gonna book flights tonight, so can I come and stay with you, Klara? I thought we could drive to the game. Road Trip!”

“Was zur Hölle?” Klara almost spat out her drink. “Bitch, I’m not driving you to Moscow.”

“It’s not in Moscow!” Dom half-shouted, running his hand through his hair, his microphone crackling. “It’s in Barcelona! They’re getting sponsored by the city to bring in the tourist dollars. It’s going to be huge! Do you think we can find a three-person room? We better book fast.”

Klara leaned in close. “Are you two fucking with me? The Taturs are going to be here, in Spain?” She exhaled slowly and massaged her chest. “Don’t joke. My heart is racing.”

“It’s all official. Go and look.” Jay shivered and gave a small squeal. “The forum is already organizing a charity PayPal to fund fans who can’t afford the trip. Get your classmates to donate, the ones who are just getting into the fandom. There’s going to be hundreds of Tarturites going. Thousands! A whole army of us.”

Klara stared at them. “Okay, book your flights, I’ll borrow my roommate’s car.” She narrowed her eyes. “Does any of this seem a little odd to you, though? A Russian and Siberian team meeting in Barcelona?”

“Who cares?” Jay and Dom chorused. “We’re gonna crush them.”

Chapter Text

Yuri leaned back in his chair, slid down and put his feet up on Alan Savage’s desk. Outside YuTech tower, the London night was lit by a million lights in a thousand different colours beneath the low, heavy clouds.

“Why’re the numbers down on the American clients?” Yuri grumbled, flicking through the tablet that rested on his chest. “I thought we had a bunch of new assault drone contracts.”

The CEO of YuTech was pouring himself a finger of whiskey from the antique cabinet in the corner of the room. “What do you mean?” he said. “They’re shifting towards more air support. They’ve dropped negotiations with us on two automated systems and are moving to Lockheed.”

Yuri raised his head. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“We discussed it all with the board while you were in Moscow. I sent you the minutes.”

Savage put his drink down beside his keyboard and propped one hand on his hip. He was tall, dark of hair and skin, graying at the temples and immaculate in Giorgio Armani. Yuuri was tiny, pale and dressed in an Arcade Fire tour hoodie from 2009 and a cheap, printed T-shirt from Hasetsu. The two of them could not have been more different, especially in private – for the rare board meetings that Yuri attended, he was usually bullied by Savage into wearing a suit and tie, and aging himself up a little. The dichotomy of their partnership had worked for decades, even as Savage had aged, shifted from a researcher to an executive, from an idealistic to a ruthless pragmatist. Yuri had not changed at all, but there was always more beneath the surface that Savage knew he was missing.

“Yeah. I think I skimmed them,” Yuri lowered the tablet. “This is serious. I didn’t realise they were accelerating their commitment to the war that fast.”

Savage tilted his head and gave Yuri a derisive look that would have sent an intern sobbing from the room. “How do you not know what the war scene is up to?”

“That’s a good question,” Yuri raised the tablet again. “We should figure it out after Barcelona.”

Savage sipped at his drink. “You’re going to the peace talks?”

“The what?” Yuri looked up at him with a snarl.

“The G8 meeting,” Savage paused with his drink half-lowered. “Christ— you! Have you not been watching the news?”

“I’ve been training!”

Savage put his drink down again with a sharp clink and leaned towards Yuri. “They’re saying that if this goes badly, it could go global. A world war.” Savage licked his lower lip, a frown forming on his brow. “Is it going to be that bad? You would know if it was, wouldn’t you?”

Yuri paused, his gaze sliding towards the empty, dark sky outside the window. There was a long moment of silence, and then Yuri said stonily, “Yes. It might be.”

“Fuck.” Savage drained the rest of his whiskey in one gulp and shook his head. “You should have told me you were chasing the conflicts this far. At least you’re going to be there to keep the ball in our court.”

Yuri was breathing heavily, the tablet resting face-down on his stomach now. “I’m not going to Barcelona for the G8. I’m going for the Grand Prix.”

Savage sighed heavily and massaged his temple with his free hand. “Ares, you have trusted me with your deepest secrets for twenty years, and I like to think I can confide to you in return. So excuse me if I tell you that your rivalry with Athena – with Victory, or whatever he calls himself now – is fucking ridiculous,” he said. His tone rose to a half-shout at the end. He rested one fist on the desk. “We had a plan. Your plan. Stop getting distracted. Put yourself on the guest list at the peace talks and make sure you are in control of the situation.”

Yuri threw the tablet aside, not watching as it skidded across the floor of the office, and jumped to his feet. “Don’t tell me what to do. I understand far better than you how serious this is.”

“Do you?” Savage said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath and his tone went back to the smooth, public-school accent. “Because things are not normal right now. Nothing is panning out like our projections. And I am starting to get the impression that you are not the one in charge of this war.”

Yuri’s mouth was a thin, flat line. Savage straightened up and folded his arms. “If you want to reopen Project Nike, tell me. I’ll even put myself back in the lab if that’s what it takes.”

“That’s not necessary.” Yuri shook his head quickly, one fist clenching at his side.

“Then figure out what is necessary,” Savage said. “Before it’s too late.”

---[]---

Barcelona had no snow on the ground, though Yuuri's breath turned foggy as it left his mouth. They had been walking since it got dark, and he was warm to the point of sweating in his coat and scarf. The lights of the city markets hung around them like gigantic fireflies. Viktor was darting around bringing him samples from every food stall they passed, insisting he try each new delicacy he'd discovered. Tomorrow was the Grand Prix, the first day of the competition that would decide everything, but tonight Yuuri felt content in the moment.

"How are there so many good flavours? I should have tasted everything in the world by my age." Viktor licked his thumb to catch a drip of custard from the paper bowl in his hand. His hair glistened with speckles of light from the strings of coloured lamps above his head. In the late-night glow his expression looked dreamily soft, nymph-like.

Yuuri smiled at him. "Maybe you change, and everything becomes different."

"You sound like a soothsayer," Viktor chuckled, quickly covering his mouthful of food. "We should probably head back and get a good night's sleep."

"Sure," Yuuri sighed. He wasn't ready for the night to end. "I feel like we're still missing something, but I don't know what."

Viktor licked the last smear of custard off his lips and looked around. "I have an idea. Do you still have your skates?"

"Yeah." He'd been lugging them around all day in a drawstring bag. "What are you thinking?"

Viktor grabbed his wrist – both of Yuuri's hands were full of shopping – and dragged him along the narrowed lanes between the market stalls. He turned off between two booths, leaping over a generator without breaking stride. Yuuri tried to go round it and almost tripped on the cord.

"Where are we going?" Yuuri yelped, ducking under the awning of the tent behind a pastry-stall and almost garrotting himself on a guyline. They were behind the market now, among the bins and the vents at the back of the food trucks.

"Somewhere private, with a view of the sky," Viktor said, glancing back at him with a wink.

Yuuri's brain accelerated in a direction he did not want it to go. While he was trying to recover from that diversion, Viktor managed to pull him down a dark, narrow alleyway. There was a steel gate at the end, but the bolt shot back with a thunk at the lightest pressure of Viktor's fingers. They tumbled through into a small courtyard surrounded by the back walls and curtained windows of narrow apartments. In the centre was a dry fountain with raised walls, which someone had filled with pots of struggling herbs and bougainvilleas. An old lamp above the nearest door flickered an orange light across them.

Viktor let go of Yuuri and tipped his head back to look up at the clouds, faintly lit by the city's glow. "This is the one thing about pretending to be human that I can't handle."

"What's that?" said Yuuri, putting the shopping down and rubbing his wrist. As usual, Viktor didn't seem to know his own strength.

Viktor smiled at him. "Put your skates on."

"I'll damage the blades."

Viktor stepped in close, his eyes turned black in the dim light, his teeth suddenly predatory in his open mouth. His voice thrummed. "Trust me."

Yuuri sat down on the edge of the dry pond and pulled off his shoes. As soon as the skate laces were tied, Viktor knelt on one knee and lifted up Yuuri's foot, kissing the heel briefly. As his lips touched the skate, the blade glowed a deep purple-blue for a moment, so quick that Yuuri almost missed it.

"Please don't do any weird magic on my skates before tomorrow," he squeaked.

Viktor looked up at him from where he was crouched at Yuuri’s feet, smiling serenely. His fingers were still around one of Yuuri’s ankles, like a siren dragging a sailor down. “Do you think I’d take you this far only to sabotage you before the finishing line?”

Yuuri swallowed. The truth was, he didn’t know what Viktor would do, now or ever. Viktor stood up, and as he did so, he slid his arms under Yuuri’s knees and around his torso and lifted him off the ground.

“Woah!” Yuuri grabbed a fistful of Viktor’s coat, but Viktor was holding him as if he weighed almost nothing.

Their faces were inches apart, and there was another flash of teeth. Viktor said softly. “Are you ready?”

“Will I ever be?”

Viktor’s crouched, and Yuuri instantly realised what he was about to do. He threw his arms around Viktor’s neck and heard his own voice croak, “No, wait—!”

The little courtyard, Yuuri’s bags of shopping, and the apartments plunged away below them. Most of Yuuri’s guts seemed to have stayed with them. He would probably have screamed if his throat hadn’t completely locked up. His hat vanished off his head. When he tried to see where it had gone, he caught a glimpse of the glowing market and the grid of streetlights growing smaller and smaller. He closed his eyes as tight as he could and buried his face against Viktor’s chest. The rush of his wind was enough to sting the exposed sting at his wrists and his neck beneath his scarf. The lapels and loose folds of his clothes were whipping like flags in a hurricane as Victor flew him higher, and higher, and higher.

At last Yuuri found his voice, though it was small and thin because his lungs seemed to have compressed into solid lumps. “Stop! Viktor, stop!”

They were slowing down at last. Yuuri’s mind immediately imagined how far he had to fall and the vertigo that swooped behind his eyeballs was nauseating.

“It’s alright,” Viktor laughed. “You can open your eyes.”

Yuuri shook his head, both arms still wrapped entirely around Viktor and gripping so tight his muscles were shaking with the exertion. The air was even colder than the wintery city below.

Viktor’s voice hummed through his body. “I’ve got you, I promise. Just take a deep breath.”

Yuuri focused on making his diaphragm unlock. Slowly, like breathing through a narrow straw, he managed to pull a lungful of air into his chest. He raised his head and slowly opened his eyes.

He had expected a sickening view of Barcelona miles below him, but the city was gone. Instead, they were floating on the upper edge of the clouds, the shifting mist flowing past just beneath Viktor’s poised legs. It was like a solid landscape of soft, bulbous turrets and canyons, spectacular glaciers and islands of slow-moving fog as large as the city below them. A gibbous moon turned the world to silver and the stars glittered across a sky that seemed larger than Yuuri had ever seen it. When he turned his head to look, he could feel the universe rotating around the earth’s axis.

“This isn’t even the best bit.” Viktor whispered in his ear. “I’m going to put you down.”

Yuuri turned to stare at him. “What?”

“Give me your hands.”

Viktor was lowering Yuuri’s legs as if to stand him up again, but there was nothing to stand on except empty air. The cloud on which they rested was only insubstantial mist growing thicker below them, no more solid than a warm breath on a cold morning. Yuuri gripped Viktor’s neck for as long as he could, but Viktor set him upright and then reached back and took first one of Yuuri’s hands and then the other.

Yuuri realised that he could feel a pressure beneath his feet, not quite solid ground, but a stability that gave way when he pushed with his toes but bounced back when he flattened his skates. Viktor had stepped away so their arms were outstretched, fingers knotted together. Yuuri noticed that skates had appeared on Viktor’s feet as well, the leather shining like woven silver.

Yuuri couldn’t stop turning his head to look around, his mouth hanging open, but Viktor had not taken his eyes off him since they had reached their present altitude.

“Come on,” he said with a grin. “Skate with me.”

Yuuri’s heart was still racing and his breath was rapid and shallow, but he leant into the pressure beneath his feet and pushed. Viktor matched the movement, and they slid through the empty air just as if they were on the ice, except that it was totally and utterly silent. Their shadows in the moonlight floated on the clouds below like patches of dark dust hanging in the air.

Viktor turned to face forward and let go of one of Yuuri’s hands. He stretched his arms out either side of his body as they skimmed across the clouds, his eyes closing and his smile growing even wider on his face. There were ice-crystals gathering on Viktor’s eyelashes and around the edges of his lips, his hair was pushed back from his face by the raw freezing wind, and yet his skin looked as flushed and warm as it had been under the lights of the market. He was more beautiful than everything else around them.

“You can let go,” said Yuuri.

Viktor glanced at him. Yuuri relaxed his grip on Viktor’s hand, and after a moment Viktor did the same. Yuuri had a flare of sickening panic as he soared away from Viktor. He was moving much faster than he’d ever moved on the ice. But he shifted his angle and turned himself back towards Viktor. Their paths crossed over, Viktor’s head whipping around to watch him go past.

How much resistance would the invisible surface provide? Yuuri kicked down and felt the pressure become far more solid. With a laughed he jumped and spun, the grand landscape of the clouds spinning around him, throwing his arms out to steady himself as he landed on nothingness.

“Did you see that? That was a quad flip! It was so easy!”

Viktor grinned at him and pushed off with a sharp kick, his arms curved in front of his body. As he spun again and again, he jumped higher and higher, as if touching down on unseen stages. He raised his arms as he reached a zenith and stretched his body into an arc, floating down in a slow, elegant spiral, his trench-coat billowing around him.

They skated onwards, coming together to circle each other, their fingertips brushing and then meeting long enough for Viktor to lift Yuuri and then release him, the clouds catching him and glazing his jeans with cold dew. As they gathered speed, the wind from their passing blew the mist away in their wake, into ripples and curls like sea-foam behind a boat.

Yuuri skated back towards Viktor, holding out his hands. Viktor took them and they waltzed over the edge of a cloud canyon. A gap opened up between banks of mist, and the lights of the city appeared below them in a scatter of orange and gold, and then the clouds closed in again and they were both swallowed in the thick fog of a slowly breaking wave.

“This alone would almost be worth becoming Dionysus,” Yuuri sighed, smiling at Viktor. “I don’t know how you stayed earth-bound all these months while you were training me.”

Viktor’s face shifted, his smile staying put but his eyes tightening a little. “There’s something I haven’t told you, Yuuri. About why I was looking for Dionysus.”

“What is it?”

Viktor held his gaze. “Before you left – before you were born – I asked you to become my consort. It isn’t as though there are restrictions on who we love as gods – few of us expect monogamy when we live for an eternity, you know – but there is still an expectation that our hierarchy cannot have a lone king. It’s too close to monotheism. The older gods pushed me to make a union with one of the pantheon, and I chose you.”

“You mean, you asked Dionysus to marry you,” Yuuri summarised. Inside the cloud, the grey, dewy emptiness made it feel as if the entire world had disappeared.

“In a way.” Viktor swallowed.

“Viktor, I figured that out from day two,” Yuuri laughed. They emerged from the cloud bank and skated over a sea of moonlit undulations, like ripples in milk. “You’re not subtle. Even if I hadn’t guessed, Chris and Phichit rather give it away every time we see them.”

“Oh,” Viktor blinked. He chuckled.

“Have you been trying to keep that a secret?” Yuuri squeezed his hand. “I wish I could have seen what you’re like when you’re being obvious.”

He didn’t mean it as a joke, and he couldn’t tell if Viktor took it as one. They were still pressed chest-to-chest, dancing across the ballroom of the sky. Viktor’s face was impassive now, wearing that mask-like expression that Yuuri had seen before, when he’d caught him unaware, tossing the coin in Yu-Topia. It was as if his mind had withdrawn from his body, as if he couldn’t bear to appear human for a moment.

“That’s not what I really wanted to ask,” Viktor said at last, his voice hoarse. “What I need to know is what your answer was. You never said. You just left to join a temple, and promised you’d tell me when you returned.”

Yuuri swallowed and broke his gaze. He looked over Viktor's shoulder, across the sea of clouds. “You know I don’t remember that.”

“But you’re still him. What do you think he'd have said?” Viktor’s grip on his waist grew tighter, pulling their hips together even as Yuuri tried to keep some distance between their faces. “You’re more like him than you think. I need to know… was it my fault? Was that why you left? Did I ask him to change too much?”

“Viktor, I don’t know!” Yuuri jerked out of his grasp and skated away, turning quickly to face him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, skating slowly backwards in a circle around Viktor. “And even if I did, you think I’m going to tell you that Dionysus rejected you, right now? At ten thousand feet? I don’t know what you’re capable of, but I know what gods are like in the stories. You could throw a fit and turn these blades back into ordinary, gravity-bound skates.”

“I would never!” Viktor gasped, his brow twisting.

“I don’t know what goes on in your head.” Yuuri continued to circle him, crossing his ankles and letting his momentum carry him. “You drag me into this world without warning me of the dangers. You wear a human name and face but then you throw magic about like nobody’s going to notice. You love Dionysus, but you won’t kiss me back. What am I supposed to believe? Will you even keep your promise, if I lose the Grand Prix? Will you let me go back to Hasetsu? Because the gods in the old stories don’t tend to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, none of it, but especially not the part about the kiss. He tore away from Viktor’s gaze, peeled away over the clouds with his arms lifting slowly, the wind whipping over his sleeves. There was moisture on his cheeks that was drying in the thin air and leaving tracks of salt. He blamed it on the breeze in his eyes.

“Yuuri!”

He looked over his shoulder. Viktor was skating after him, arms pumping. Yuuri turned off and ducked into a cliff of clouds, slowing down as he suddenly found himself alone and disoriented. The river of mist flowed around him. The moon had been a bright glow above him, but the cloud was moving over like an ocean swell, and soon it was too thick to even tell which direction was the sky and which was the earth.

“Yuuri?” Viktor’s voice was muffled by the cloud.

“I’m here.”

A shadow grew and resolved into the lean shape of Viktor with the tail of his trenchcoat flowing behind him. He stopped twenty feet away, both of them hanging in the air like ghosts.

“Is that really what you want?” Viktor asked quietly. “To remain human?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri choked. “I can't force myself to be a god. Maybe this is all I am.”

“If that's what you want, of course I’ll keep my promise and leave you be.” The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitched as he tried to smile. “Mortals won’t obey us no matter how hard we try, remember?”

Yuuri breath hitched in his throat as he tried to laugh. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses and blinked until they were clear.

“But you need to understand why I didn’t kiss you back.” Viktor closed his eyes for a moment, his head drooping. He raised it at last, his voice clear. “Do you know the story of Semele?”

Yuuri frowned, pushing his glasses up his nose. The question was yet another a sudden change in direction and it took him a moment to think. “She was his mother,” he said at last. “My mother. I know he went to the underworld to find her.”

“As much as gods can have a mother, yes,” Viktor spread his hands. “Dionysus existed before her, of course, by different names and in different place. But he was still born from her. She was a priestess of Zeus, pious and fanatic in worship. Her patron god fell in love with her – in his particular, fickle way – and visited her whenever she went down to the river to wash the blood of the sacrifices off her hands and face. She loved him back, because of course she did. He was her god.”

The clouds were growing thicker, and Viktor was withdrawing, his head low and his eyes glinting as wisps of vapor twisted around him.

“But when Semele fell pregnant, doubt was seeded in her mind. What if her handsome lover wasn’t really the god he said he was? If she had been tricked, she would have broken her vows and despoiled her lord’s sacraments for nothing. So one night she asked him to give her a boon, anything she wished, and Zeus swore to it. We stand by our promises, Yuuri, even to mortals. Now that he was bound to her, Semele asked her lover to reveal himself not as a man, but as the god he truly was.”

Viktor had now vanished entirely into the cloud. His voice was changing, no longer emerging from a single point but from all around Yuuri. It was lower too, neither male nor female. “Unable to break his promise, Zeus tried to show Semele the smallest fraction of his true power.”

Yuuri turned on the spot, his hands raising from his body, trying to find Viktor in the cloud. There was a flash behind him, the smell of burning ozone and a thunderous crack that reverberated in Yuuri’s bones. He spun, but now the glow was behind him again, and then to his left, and his right, and beneath him as well.

“But even that was too much.” The voice was unrecognisable, losing all trace of an accent. It came from all directions at once. Yuuri couldn’t even process if the words were in English or Japanese, or in some other universal language long forgotten from his conscious mind. “Semele was destroyed by the mere glimpse of the unconstrained god. Her body turned to ash and her spirit was flung into the underworld. But the foetus, half-divine, survived her. Zeus implanted it in his own body until Dionysus could be born a second time.”

The air around Yuuri was too thin. He stretched his arms out, as if he could snatch Viktor from the droplets of formless mist. And then Viktor's voice – Viktor's normal voice – spoke directly behind him. "Do you understand?"

Yuuri spun. Viktor stood behind him in human form once more, his hands in his pockets and his head lowered like a dog afraid of punishment. "The mortal lovers of the gods do not grow old. Ever. They die, terribly and tragically, or they become gods themselves. Psyche, Ganymede, Ariadne."

In the tone of Viktor’s voice he could hear the echoing chasm of a God staring into mortality and being terrified of it. He was terrified in the way that a spirit could only be of a peril they knew they would never have to face, the way Yuuri’s mind might recoil when learning about human atrocities. Viktor could not process the idea that other people were born into mortal lives, grew up understanding that they would one day cease to exist, chose to continue their lives in the face of such uncertainty and – worse yet – the final certainty that came when they were close to death.

For a moment Yuuri wanted to laugh, wishing he had the courage to tell Viktor that his own performance anxiety on the ice was more of a burden than thoughts of death, that he wanted to kiss Viktor much more than he wanted immortality. Humans had not survived a hundred thousand generations without evolving an unparalleled skill for blissful ignorance.

"Viktor, you only remember those stories because they’re tragic. Happy stories don’t end up echoing down the ages," Yuuri said. He skated forward, underestimating his speed and raising his arms just in time to collide with Viktor's chest. Viktor caught him and wrapped his arms loosely around him. Yuuri tried to smile at him, but for once Viktor seemed unable to smile back.

"I'm just trying to protect you," Viktor whispered. He smoothed Yuuri's fringe away from his eyes. "But if you're mortal, even I am a danger to you."

Yuuri balled his hands around Viktor's lapels. "Then I just have to win. That's what it'll take to get my memories back, right?"

Viktor sniffed, his head dropping to rest against Yuuri's hair.

"Viktor, don't cry. You'll make me cry." He reached over to pat Viktor's back. "You only have to be my smug coach for one more day." Viktor's shoulders started shaking even more. "Shit. I shouldn't have said that."

"We should be getting back," Viktor said, his voice cracking.

Viktor held them hip to hip, his arms around Yuuri's waist. Once again, Yuuri hid his face against Viktor's shoulder so he couldn't see his legs dangling a mile above Barcelona as Viktor carried them downwards. As the air grew warmer, he finally looked below. It wasn’t as frightening now that he had skated across the clouds. He slid away from Viktor, keeping a tight grip on one of Viktor’s hand as the courtyard grew from a tiny square among the city blocks and cars.

They landed together on the wall of the pond. Viktor jumped down ahead of Yuuri, his skates transforming back into the shoes he'd been wearing earlier. He turned to grasp Yuuri’s hand as Yuuri sat down on the edge of the pond, trying not to let his floating skates touch the concrete. The shopping bags were still lying where they had left them.

Yuuri began to unlace his skates. “Thank you for showing me that, Viktor. I’ll never forget it.”

“I’ll take you up again, whenever you like,” said Viktor. “As long as you live, forever or not.”

Yuuri smiled up at him. “I can’t wait.”

Chapter Text

Three days until the big hockey game. Every hotel in Barcelona was full; apparently there was some skating event and a political thing happening this week as well.

Jay, Klara and Dom were sharing a double room in a converted tenement at the edge of the city, drawing straws every night to decide who got the cot bed that the management had offered them for an extra ten euros. But the discomfort was minor, since they spent few of their waking hours in the hotel. Each day they headed out for the Tarturs fan meet-ups in the city centre, an anarchy that had become organized by the Brownian motion of an online community suddenly flowing into a single offline location. There were long lists of cafes popping up on social media every morning, along with sightseeing tours or self-guided walks, to which the Tarturs fans would assign themselves until the place or event appeared to be at full capacity. Every day the lists were longer as the headcount of the impromptu congregation grew. It didn’t matter that they were from every part of the globe, young and old, and often barely spoke a common language. They only talked about one thing: their team.

“Have we got any more clues when the Tarturs are arriving?”

“Are the Tarturs doing any autograph or interview sessions?”

“Candy Nguyen from the forums is taking donations to hire a whole club downtown for the after-party. Can we convince the Tarturs to come?”

“Do the Tarturs know how many of us are here?”

Rosters were drawn up for the volunteer lookouts at the airport, all armed with cameras ready to live-stream the first sight of the players. A few enterprising fans who could do a decent accent had called around all the big hotels pretending to be the Tarturs manager, and been given no information about where they were staying. Somebody had even hacked the Tarturs official instagram to try and find clues about where they were training – location data, GPS from phone uploads, anything – but the rink where the team was posting images of their daily routine had no defining features, visually or digitally. Discussion of the Tarturs was everywhere in Barcelona, and yet the Tarturs themselves were nowhere.

Their social media, however, was still very much alive. “We’re following our tag,” the captain retweeted to a photo was posted of forty fans clustered under the arco de triunfo. “How exciting to see everybody in one place. Our legions!” (Kiss face emoji). An hour later, two defensemen posted a selfie with their arms round each other, staring moodily into the camera. The text read: “This is going to be the biggest match-up in history. You’ve picked the right side, Tarturites.” A few hours after that, the facebook location of the Tarturites was changed to "en route", with no further information.

So the gathering grew, and the date of the big game crept nearer.

---[]---

The evening in the clouds had created a strange schism in Yuuri's mind. He found himself suspended between the clarity of his memory and the detached feeling that the skate across the clouds had happened to someone else. Even two days later, he couldn't stop thinking over everything he'd blurted out, things he would never have said if he'd been on solid ground, and wondering how it could all have been real.

But it must have been, because something had changed between him and Viktor, something they had been moving towards for a while. On the morning of the free skate, Viktor's coaching was more urgent, more anxious, and Yuuri was the confident one keeping his practice on track and suggesting they up the difficulty. As he was putting on his skates, Viktor started dropping platitudes about how whatever happened, he should be proud of himself, and they had done their best, blah, blah, blah.

“What, are you losing confidence in me?” Yuuri joked, grabbing for the water bottle that was sitting between Viktor’s knees.

“Of course not!”

“Then you should go back to asking the world of me. You’ll make me nervous otherwise.”

Yuuri didn't have words to define what this all meant, but as it went around and around in his head he felt as if he was distilling his thoughts into a clear, sweet liquor that he couldn't muse over much longer. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Viktor was – consciously or unconsciously – trying to make himself more human.

---[]---

It was now day two of the Grand Prix Final. Yuuri had nailed the short program, but so had Yuri Plisetsky. The Russian teenager had improved since the Rostelecom Cup, and was ahead by five points and change. It was now clear that he was Yuuri’s only competition. Yuuri knew he could make up those points in the free skate today, but more importantly, he was no longer afraid of Yuri. On the ice, the god looked more dangerous than ever, but the ice was Yuuri’s element.

They entered the packed lobby of the Barcelona sports centre and Yuuri saw a familiar shape slouched against a pillar. Mari gave him a slow smile and raised her hand at him with it still in the pocket of her jacket. Yuuri felt his stomach unknot a little. His sister was an anchor to home, to his mortal self. Nothing bad was going to happen after the free skate. He wasn't going to transform in a pillar of fire. He wasn't going to be whisked off to a mountain at the South Pole to live a life of gold and ambrosia. He was going to stay Katsuki Yuuri. Viktor must have accepted that by now.

"Sorry we're late," Viktor beamed as he waved both arms at Mari, nearly catching Yuuri in the face.

"There's a bunch of security diversions," Yuuri complained, touching his glasses before Viktor knocked them off. "They made us go right round the other side of the block."

“Yeah, it’s for the peace summit.”

“We should head in.” Viktor was checking his phone. “Phichit says he’s just arrived in Barcelona but the traffic’s slowed him down. Chris has a meeting but he’ll try to take a break and sneak in to watch your skate.”

"I’ll stay out here. Minako's gone to grab us a sandwich.” Mari shrugged. She leaned back on her heels. "How are you feeling, little bro?"

Yuuri shuddered. "Better than I expected."

Mari reached out and patted him on the shoulder, the closest he would get to a hug from her. It went a long way. “You’re gonna be amazing.”

"Yuuri!"

Out of nowhere, Minako launched herself on him and squeezed his face. “Are you ready? Are you excited?”

Yuuri made a non-committal noise. Minako let him go and held out her hand. "Gimme your phone."

"Why?" Yuuri asked, giving her his phone before she could answer.

"We should head inside." Viktor was tugging on Yuuri's sleeve. "We're already late."

"I'm just downloading my favourite playlist for tonight." Minako handed him back the phone. "Whatever happens, Yuuri, we're gonna party afterwards. Look forward to that, and don't think about your score until it's over, okay?"

"Okay." Yuuri gave her a weak smile. "Sounds easy enough."

As they left Mari and Minako and headed inside, Yuuri glanced at Viktor and gave him a small wink. "Maybe I'll even invite Yuri Plisetsky. As long as he doesn't try to kill me when he loses, huh?"

Viktor laughed. "He'll have to get through me."

Yuuri felt his shoulders relax. "Yeah, I'm not scared of him anymore. I just got freaked out in Moscow. You know Yakov said he was making a gun to kill gods?"

Viktor looked at him with a derisive smile. "A what now?"

"I don't know, I think Yakov was speculating. But he thought YuTech had the resources to make god-killing technology. That's not possible, right?"

"No way." Viktor rolled his eyes. "I've lived long enough to know. Someone would have tried it by now."

---[]---

In the convention centre half a block from the Barcelona Ice Rink, Torsten Schulze ducked under the gesticulating arm of a Hong Kong diplomat and slipped out into the corridor behind a staffer lugging an armful of papers. His fellow aide, Esen, was texting on her phone at the end of the hall. The window behind her looked out over Barcelona, lit by the crisp, wintery sun. She looked up at him with wide eyes as he approached her, running her finger under the edge of her headscarf as if checking for a loose hair.

"I just talked to Liisi, the intern under the Norweigian minister," Torsten panted, clutching a sudden stitch in his ribs. "They're bringing the peace talks forward to tomorrow night. They'll push through a draft before the leaders arrive."

"Are you serious?" Esen hissed. "Why?"

"Liisi said she was coordinating with the Russian, Nikolaev, about schedules, and he was all over the place. Inconsistent. Something's urgent but no one seems to know what. All the senior diplomats are acting weird."

Esen leaned in close. "What does that mean, 'weird'? Weird, how?"

Torsten pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. It's like the Americans and the Russians are both trying to get the peace talks out of the way as fast as possible, like they don't care about getting it done properly. I don't understand it. I thought that's why we were here."

Esen looked out over the rooftops. "My boss was the same. He told me to throw out all his notes because he'd make it up as he went along. It's like there's something in the water in this city that's got them all spoiling for a fight."

"Esen." Tortsten took her arm. "What did they come here for, if not for peace?"

"I don't know." She pressed the tips of her fingers to her mouth and gave a tiny shake of her head. "I don't know."

---[]---

Yuuri was skating second to last in the free skate. As he took off his blade guards, he no longer felt like his body was made of meat and blood. All his nerves were humming. It was as if his senses were no longer limited by his eyes, his ears or his skin. He could feel the lights on him from all directions, could hear the crowd in the vibrations through the barrier under his hand, was able to taste the ice in the air.

He stepped out onto the ice, took a breath, and turned back to Victor. He forced himself to pick out the silver strands of Viktor’s hair, the expansion of Viktor’s pupil’s as Yuuri met his gaze, the feel of Viktor’s hand as Yuuri entwined their fingers.

“I’m going to win this for you,” he said. “Watch me.”

“I’m watching.” Viktor lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles.

Yuuri released his hand and skated backwards onto the ice.

He was the second to last skater before Yuri Plisetsky. He knew the scores he had to beat to get to the podium, and they’d planned his program accordingly. But to reach the gold, he’d have to be more than flawless.

Yuuri took his place in the centre of the ice and the air pressure seemed to drop as the audience inhaled. When his music began, he moved through the notes as if the music was following him and not the other way around.

He had thought long and hard about how to push this routine to the limit. He had told Viktor some of his plans to raise the difficulty of the program, but as they’d watched the rest of the skaters, Yuuri had continued to refine it. For once, perhaps for the first time in his career, he felt no fear. It was nothing like his last Grand Prix final a year earlier. Then he had been driven by thoughts of failure, and rewarded with failure. This time, he was skating towards everything he’d sought for months or years or, if Viktor was right, his entire life.

He hit the quadruple toe loop and there was a burst of applause. He felt like he was flying. As the music soared, he reached the part of the program where he and Viktor had planned a triple flip. Yuuri had mulled this over earlier, and turned it into a quad salchow.

He flowed across the ice like blood across an altar. He was exactly where he wanted to be. On the ice, he could become anything, he could speak in a language that was beyond comprehension off the rink. Viktor understood that.

There was one thing he wanted to say today.

He built up speed for the combination – axel, toe-loop, salchow – and leapt and spun, landing perfectly with his arms outstretched. He felt himself smile with the simple joy of it. He had forgotten the crowd. He wasn’t skating for them today.

Viktor was trying to act human, but Yuuri didn’t want him to humble himself for anyone. He loved Viktor in his full glory, the Viktor who had broken all the rules in the 1960s, the Viktor who had bent reality to battle Ares, who had swept Yuuri up like a hurricane. Yuuri was in love with a god.

He was thinking about that as he headed into the final combination. In love – he’d never even thought the words before – and now that thought lifted him up as his muscles tensed and screamed with exhaustion, and carried him down as he turned and landed, skating onwards smoothly.

Viktor wanted an answer to a question he’d asked before Yuuri was even born. The question had sat at the back of Yuuri’s mind for two days, a question that wasn’t for him, that he didn’t feel qualified to even think about. But he’d done a lot of things this year that were out of his league.

Now, on the ice, he knew he had an answer for Viktor.

He didn’t remember being Dionysus. But he was convinced of what Dionysus would have said, when he was ready, if he’d come home like he had planned. There was only one thing Yuuri could say to Viktor, the same thing he’d found himself saying ever since Viktor arrived so abruptly and impossibly in his life.

Yuuri hit the quad flip with the precise speed and angle, landed perfectly and skated on, into his final spin, into the end of his program.

Yes.

The music faded, drowned out by the clapping audience. Yuuri came back to himself trembling, his arm outstretched towards Viktor. It had all happened to fast. It couldn’t be over, could it?

Viktor was waiting for him. Yuuri moved towards him like he was moving through the clouds again, sure he was going to fall a thousand feet through the ice. He barely managed to step over the lip of the gate without tripping. Viktor’s arms reached towards him.

Yuuri tumbled towards him, expecting Viktor to grab him with both arms. He almost lost his balance when Viktor caught him around the waist, slid his other hand through Yuuri’s hair, and kissed him.

It was so sudden that for a moment Yuuri was too exhausted to do anything except melt and hope Viktor was able to keep him upright. And then his blood surged, he opened his mouth and pressed into Viktor’s kiss. If it had happened at any other time and place he would probably have been too self-conscious to enjoy this moment, but his blood was pulsing with the intoxicated, thrilled rush of the skate and his joints were already shaking from exertion.

He drew away and blinked at Viktor, and Viktor just smiled.

“What about Semele?” Yuuri rasped.

“You were indestructible out there,” Viktor answered.

---[]---

Yuuri didn’t even care about winning gold anymore. There were cameras flashing and officials trying to hustle them along to the kiss-and-cry, but he felt like he’d fight anyone who tried to take him out of this moment. It was Viktor who finally tugged him along, beaming at the blurred faces that surrounded them.

“You were perfect! Perfect!” Viktor was laughing, yelling in his ear so loud it hurt, his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, rocking him back and forth with far more energy that Yuuri had left. “Beyond my wildest dreams.”

Yuuri was numb and unmoving as they sat on the bench. When they read out his world record score, he raised his head to look up at it, trying to make sense of the numbers. Viktor was staring as well, and for a moment that blankness returned, that expression of utter emptiness that Yuuri had seen twice before. Then Viktor blinked and ducked his head, hiding his face in his hands.

“Hey.” Yuuri touched his arm. “Are you alright?”

Viktor nodded, and Yuuri glimpsed a trembling smile. Yuuri had never seen him speechless before. He didn’t think gods could be overwhelmed by anything so human as emotions.

On the other side of the barrier, Yuri Plisetsky had taken the ice.

---[]---

Everything happened so quickly. Yuuri was still half-drunk with giddiness about his free skate, about Viktor’s kiss, when he went to cheer Yuri on with Viktor roaring gleefully beside him. Yuri was swift and light, still electric with a vicious energy that Yuuri knew well, but without any of the unthinking brutality of the teenager that he had first met in Hasetsu. Then they were standing at the edge of the press scrum waiting for the scores with everyone else, and then—

Yuri Plisetsky had won.

It was over. After months of training, after everything they had been through. It was finished. The crowd was cheering and stomping. The press crowded around Yuri, but a few turned back to Viktor and Yuuri while the champion was busy. They asked him for his reaction, but he didn’t know what they expected him to say.

“Of course I’m happy!” he told them, still smiling broadly. He meant it, too, but still he stumbled over bland phrases like, “look at how far I’ve come since last year.”

He’d beaten Yuri’s score in the free skate, and set a new world record. He had a lot to be happy about.

He reached back to find Viktor’s hand, pull him up to confirm to the microphones that this was a success, his best season ever. But Viktor wasn’t there. Yuuri turned to see him a few feet away, talking to none other than Chris Giacometti, who was in shirtsleeves without a jacket, perhaps having literally stepped out of a meeting in Switzerland. Yuuri waved to Viktor, and Viktor raised his hand to him with a smile, but it looked impersonal to Yuuri, like he was waving at another coach. Viktor turned back to Chris at once.

Yuuri felt his guts twist like a laundry rag.

Everything was rushing around him. There were fans waving flags and asking for selfies, officials directing him to go over to the judges, and then someone told him to hang around with the other medal-winners for what felt like hours while the sweat cooled in the hollows of his neck and his eyes began to sting from the salt and make-up. He tried to keep the smile on his face as they were directed up onto the podium. After they lowered the ribbon over Yuuri’s head, he touched the silver on his chest. It was cool, like the ice, like moonlight over the clouds. He raised it up for the cameras, the pride flooding through him again, and the smile came back on its own.

In the small, fenced-off area close to the podium he glimpsed the silver of Viktor’s hair, saw Viktor smiling back at him. But when he stepped down and went to find him, Phichit was the one who greeted him.

“I had a front row seat. You were amazing! I can’t believe you did all that without your powers. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri stammered. “Have you seen Viktor?”

Phichit shook his head. “He’s probably preening for the cameras somewhere.”

“He was talking to Chris—”

As if summoned by the sound of his name – perhaps literally – Chris appeared at their side, holding out his hand to Yuuri. “Well done. A perfect ending, especially when Viktor kissed you. We’re definitely going ahead with the campaign.”

“But I didn’t get gold,” Yuuri said, his hand feeling sweaty and numb as Chris shook it.

“Even better. That makes you a champion and an underdog all at once. I couldn’t have written a better love story myself.”

“I want to talk to Viktor,” Yuuri snapped. “Did you see where he went?”

Chris shrugged. “I thought he was looking for you.”

“Let’s get dinner. He can catch us up.” Phichit glanced between Yuuri and Chris. “Want to come eat with us, Cupid? I’m thinking Calesita off the Passeig del Born.”

“Well, I really should be getting back…” Chris checked his phone. “But I’ll find an excuse.”

“I’ll come in a bit.” Yuuri said, turning away into the crowd. “I’ve got your number.”

He hadn’t got twenty paces when he ran into Mari and Minako. Minako flung himself on him, and they both congratulated him, crying, and told him he should have won.

“I need a drink,” Minako declared. “Come on, Yuuri, we’ll hit this town so hard we’ll leave a dent.”

There was a lump growing in Yuuri’s throat. He wanted to go with them. He wanted to celebrate. This year had been so much better than last year, he deserved to take tonight for himself and spend time with the people that he’d left behind when he moved to Detroit.

“I’ll wait for Viktor and catch you up, okay?” He gave her the best smile he could manage. “I just ran into Chris Giacometti, you know who that is? And Phichit Chulanot. They’re going to this restaurant in Passeig del Born if you guys want to go stalk them.”

Minako gasped. “Do we ever!”

---[]---

Yuuri spent the next hour calling Viktor, texting Victor and wandering aimlessly around the building. Eventually he found himself in the lobby, alone, watching the cleaners at the other end of the cavernous front hall starting to unpack their equipment from the cupboards.

“Hey, fatso.”

Yuuri turned to find Yuri Plisetsky walking towards him. His hair was slicked back into a neat bun and he was dressed in a tailored suit and polished shoes. He looked five years older than he had an hour ago.

“You still looking for Viktor?”

Yuuri didn’t ask how he’d guessed. He didn’t want to know whether Yuri had been looking too, or if he had just noticed how pathetic Yuuri was, wandering about while everyone else went off to celebrate. He couldn’t even speak, so he just shrugged and shook his head.

“I’m glad you’re still here. I wanted to thank you.”

Yuuri blinked. “For what?”

“For making this worth my while. I’m beginning to realise that I may have gotten a little… obsessed… with losing to Viktor all those years ago. It’s out of my system, now.” Yuri stuck out his hand. “Thanks for the challenge.”

“Oh,” said Yuuri. What the hell was he supposed to say? Thanks for using the most important season of my career as your therapy session? He blinked at the outstretched hand. For a moment couldn’t bring himself to reach out, but then he felt suddenly sure that if he’d won, Yuri would be the one refusing to shake. At that, he knew he had to make peace despite his bitterness. He took Yuri’s hand and squeezed it.

There was a tingling in his palm. For a moment, a blue circle glowed on the backs of both their hands. Yuri nodded and drew away as the circle faded, rubbing his palms together. “Fucking finally. I’ve got my powers back.”

So that’s what he’d wanted. Not a gentlemanly gesture of reconciliation, but an end to the vow he’d made. Yuuri wrinkled his nose. “See you never, then.”

Yuri turned to go. He got two steps before he sighed, checked his watch and looked back at Yuuri. “I’ve got to be at the peace negotiations half an hour ago,” he grumbled. “My CEO is already on my case about it. He’s got spies among the interns and he knows I’m not in the conference centre.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“You still don’t know how to use your powers, do you, idiot?” Yuuri leaned back on his heels and beckoned with his whole arm. “Come on. I’ll help you find Viktor.”

They walked around the open hall that encircled the rink, neither of them speaking. Yuri turned sharply into one of the wide corridors for audience members, funneling them back to the ice rink. The doors were all locked up, but that didn’t keep the god out. He pushed on the bar and it clicked open.

"Before I go..." Yuri said, leaning on the door. He was facing away from Yuuri, and the tone of his voice was impenetrable. "I just wanted to tell you, I really enjoyed this battle against you."

"Battle?"

"The skating." He looked over. The lights above cast harsh shadows across his face, making it hard to interpret his expression. "Viktor and I, we used to spar against each other a lot… a long time ago, by human standards. Before he was king, when she still called herself Athena. And before he got snobby and sad, and started spending so much time with you. I guess I got a bit lost without him. It was good to have something to do with myself that didn't involve humans killing each other."

Yuuri struggled to find an answer to this. He’d never heard Viktor speak of the good old times with Ares, though he often told stories of his pre-twentieth-century adventures with Cupid and Mercury. Was Yuri lying? Had Viktor forgotten? Or had something poisoned their relationship in Viktor’s mind?

Yuri didn't wait for him to gather his thoughts, but pushed open the door. He jerked his head towards the rink. “I don’t know where he’s been, but he’s back now. Go on. I don’t need to get in the middle of the shit you two have to sort out.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri croaked. He stepped through, back into the cool, clean air of the ice rink.

Most of the lights had been dimmed for the night, but the lower tier of seats was still lit by banks of fluorescent bulbs ringing the ice. There was a silver-haired figure sitting on the lowest level of seats, only thirty feet from the kiss and cry. His hands hung, clasped, between his knees, and his shoulders were slumped forward, eyes staring out over the ice.

He looked over as Yuuri approached. Yuuri couldn’t make out his expression at this distance. Viktor stood up, his hands falling to his sides. “Yuuri, what’s wrong?”

Yuuri stuck his hands in his pockets and stopped several feet in front of him. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Viktor shook his head. “I just went to the ocean to get my thoughts straight. How long have I been gone?”

“Over an hour.”

“Sorry.” Viktor gave him a soft smile. “It's easy to lose time when you have too much.”

Yuuri felt dizzy, his blood fizzing red and hot. “Don’t go without at least saying goodbye.”

At his words, Viktor’s entire body wilted. Even his hair seemed to lose some luster.

Yuuri shuddered, pushed his glasses up his nose while he forced the tears back down. "Silver is enough for me, Viktor. It's more than I could have asked for." He dropped his bag on the floor and tucked his hands under his arms, hiding his chin in the collar of his jacket. "You really didn't think I'd lose, did you?"

“I wasn’t ready for it.” Viktor's voice was dulled at the edges. “But I understand what it means. I didn’t keep my half of my promise. You are released of your obligation to me, Yuuri. You don’t have to come back to the mountain by my side. You’re free to go on without me.”

It was like a blow to Yuuri's stomach. Only a couple of hours ago he had felt indestructible, and Viktor had kissed him, and he had been sure this was the beginning and not the end. "I changed my mind," he said, his muscles aching, his tongue thick in his mouth, feeling slow and stupid and human. "I want to go back to Hasetsu."

He realised at once that Viktor would read this the wrong way, and raised his hand to explain. What he meant was back to the day we met, back to when Viktor had naïvely believed he was the lost god and had asked Yuuri to run away with him. Yuuri wanted to say ‘yes’ this time.

Viktor had opened his mouth, his brow wrinkling, and then his gaze slid over Yuuri's shoulder and his expression went hard and cold. "You!"

Yuuri turned. Yuri was lurking in the archway across the rink, but when he realised he'd been spotted he kicked the door fully open and strode inside. "Me, what?"

"This is all your fault." Viktor shoved past Yuuri, his eyes locked on the god of war. He stopped just short of arm's reach of Yuri, his fists balled by his side. "You had to get Dionysus out of your way, no matter the cost. You wanted him to stay human so he couldn't interfere with your plans."

"That was explicitly the reason I did this, yes," Yuri rolled his eyes. "I told you that months ago, in that shitty little town in Japan."

There was a hum in the air like electricity. Yuuri stepped up beside Viktor. "It's done, Viktor. Don't start a fight." He reached out and touched Viktor's arm, and a jolt went through his hand like a shock from a live fence-wire. He hissed and took a step backwards, shaking out his numbed fingers.

Viktor didn't even seem to have heard him. All his focus was on Yuri. "Are you planning to start a war so that you'll be strong enough to fight me?"

Yuri folded his arms. "Please. I'm already strong enough. And after the peace talks fail tonight, I’ll be so powerful that it'll take the whole pantheon to stop me. But they won't, because they've turned themselves into rivers, or they want to see you overthrown, or they're too apathetic to care. This is your legacy, Viktor. We’re scattered and aimless. This is the leader you've been."

"Leader of what?" Viktor threw his arms out. "We're not in charge of the world anymore, Yuri! We haven't been for thousands of years! You and Demeter and Poseidon, you're always obsessing about the past. But we are never, ever, going to be what we used to be! Give it up and find something to live for!"

"We’d be in charge if I was king," Yuri spat. "I’ll prove it to you."

"Well, you didn't have to take him away to prove it," Viktor snapped, pointing at Yuuri. "Now I'm going to lose them both, Dionysus and Yuuri, because you don't think of anyone except yourself!"

The pressure grew inside Yuuri's ears, and his eyes couldn't seem to focus on Viktor properly. Viktor’s skin was pulsing with energy, ripples running down his neck and hands as if his body was losing solidity. Yuri took a step away from him, but his voice remained defiant. “You lost, Viktor. The god of victory lost. Do you understand now the dangers of not upholding the old ways? Without them, we lose our selves. What will you become, if you can’t even achieve victory for your precious Dionysus?”

Viktor's aura shrunk suddenly into a sharp, concentrated glow around the edges of his body. "Is it true that you have a weapon that can kill a god?"

Yuri balked, actually taking a step back, his eyes widening. "Who told you that?"

"Yakov figured you out. Is it true?"

"No, it's not true!" Yuri snarled.

"You're a liar. Killing is all you know how to do."

Yuri licked his lower lip, looking at Yuuri as if for a corroborating witness. He spread his hands. "Look, I did put my R&D sector on it in the nineties. That much is true. I even gave them small pieces of myself to test the technology. We determined it was theoretically possible, but we never got it to work. You can stop being paranoid."

"I don't believe you," Viktor's lips were pulled back from his teeth. "Why would you need something like that?"

Yuri didn't answer, his mouth a thin line and his eyes shadowed.

"Why?"

Still Yuri said nothing. He seemed to have shrunk over the last few minutes, back into a teenager, his suit changing proportions to fit his adolescent body.

"Tell me," Viktor's voice boomed, and a hot, dry wind flowed around him. "Tell me. I command you, as your king."

Yuri's mouth moved in a silent stammer and then he broke his silence. "Because of you!" he cried, jabbing a finger at Viktor. "Because you don't know how to do war!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You gave them the bomb!" Yuri croaked. "You changed everything!"

Viktor inhaled sharply, his features going blank. "That was one mistake."

"Two mistakes!" Yuri threw up two fingers, not coincidentally turning the back of his hand to Viktor. "I could have ended that conflict slowly and carefully. I know how to win wars like a professional. But you were so impatient, so obsessed with victory, with adapting as fast as possible to the human world, that you didn't care about the consequences. I had to slip the Russians an atomic dossier just to make sure the balance was maintained."

Viktor's fists were shaking by his side. Yuri continued, "Yakov is right. You're not suited to be king. And after you drove Dionysus away, you went from being an absent king obsessed with your skating to an absent king looking for an obsession, and that was so much more dangerous. Of course I started taking precautions. I would never have acted without the approval of the rest of the pantheon, but I had to be ready to take charge. To take you down if you ever tried to solve the world's problems like that again. Look at what's happening right now – there is a war coming, Viktor. Haven't you sensed it? Tensions all over the globe are accelerating or building towards breaking point much faster than they should be. I'm trying to play all sides, keep the humans under my thumb, while you'd be just as happy to cut the Gordian knot and wipe half of them out—"

"That's bullshit!" Viktor cut in. "You're driving this war to make yourself stronger!"

"No I'm not!" Yuri sounded on the urge of hysteria now, his eyes wide. "I'm trying to keep it from turning into the end of everything!"

"It's all been part of your plan," Viktor's voice echoed around the rink, and there was a pressure in the air like the hum of electricity beneath a power pylon. "You never accepted my rule. You've undermined me at every point. You're the one who benefits most from this festering conflict. And you murdered Dionysus because he's the only one who could stop you!"

Yuri choked, his arms falling to his side. It took him a moment to answer, in a simmering, crimson tone. "I did not murder Dionysus. Why would you think that?"

"Because he's dead!" Viktor's voice cracked, and tears were spilling over his eyes. "He's been dead for twenty-five years and you hid it from me. You didn't even have the decency to face me and admit what you'd done. You let me wait and search and hope when all along you knew it was pointless."

"He can't be dead," Yuuri shook his head. "Who would do that? Everybody loved him."

"Stop lying! Just tell me the truth! Tell me…" Viktor scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "Tell me it was quick."

Yuri took his eyes off Viktor at last, to look at Yuuri as if for the first time. "But you're right here," he said to Yuuri. "I know you, Bacchus."

"Don't talk to him! " Viktor lunged forward. "Don't you ever touch him again!"

He grabbed the collar of Yuri's jacket, drawing back his fist. Yuri still seemed to be processing this new accusation and stepped back, grabbing Viktor's wrist with both hands to try and free himself. Yuuri jumped up, wanting to intervene, but he could see the air itself warping in front of Viktor's fist and he didn't know what kind of danger he was throwing himself into.

A wild wind whipped around all three of them, dragging Yuuri's hair out of its careful bun, wrapping Viktor's coat around him. In the distance came a growing rumble.

Yuuri took a step away from the gods. The rumble was getting louder. It wasn't coming from Viktor and Yuri, but outside the rink. It sounded like a spluttering engine, raising in pitch as it accelerated.

There was a bang that made Yuuri flinch and the doors on the far side of the rink crashed off their hinges and bounced away a clang, warped into almost ninety-degree angles. A large, white van slammed through the empty doorframe, the engine spluttering, its windows tinted to obscurity. It veered sharply as it hit the mat around the rink and braked so hard that it ended up on two wheels as its side slammed into the barrier. The wood splintered and shattered against the steel door. The vehicle skidded onto the ice and came to a stop on the far side of the rink, leaving black tyre-marks behind it.

The tension had been broken between Viktor and Yuri. They stood each with a hand still clutching a fistful of the others' clothing, but both turned towards the ice, staring at the van.

"What the hell...?" whispered Yuri.

The decal on side of the van showed a stylised silhouette of an eagle, clutching in its claws the word TARTURS. The eagle appeared not to be standing on the letters, but tearing them asunder; its claws were crushing the U almost beyond recognition, and there was a gap between the R and S as if it had already ripped a letter out of the sequence.

The door of the van slid open with a clatter, and out poured a stream of large, padded figures in a blue and white uniform. Some wore helmets, and some carried long, polished hockey sticks that had a metallic glint in the harsh, fluorescent lighting. They were all wearing ice skates. Without a word, except for the occasional grunt, they arranged themselves into a crescent in front of the van. Their faces were of different shades and shapes, and though at first they had all appeared to be men, Yuuri now realised that several were women. Three of them were tapping their hockey sticks against ice. One of them spat to the side, and in the echoing room, Yuuri heard it hiss like boiling oil hitting a cold sink.

"Tartarus," Viktor said, even though that wasn't what Yuuri was reading. And then Viktor half-whispered a word that was more familiar. "The Titans."

"No fucking way," Yuri hissed.

Viktor took half a step backwards and put his hand in the middle of Yuuri's chest. "Run."

But Yuuri couldn't move, his mind paralysed by a flood of memories.

He remembered.

He remembered how he had died.

Chapter Text

The kannushi was the only person at the shrine that night, in the spring of 1992.

He had joined two years earlier, arriving suddenly during the retirement of the old priest. Despite his lack of referrals there was something about him that put the administrators of the shrine at ease. They wanted someone with brewing experience, to carry on the tradition of sake on site for ceremonies. The job also required overseeing the small, modern brewery down the hill, whose profits supplemented the maintenance of the building and its extensive grounds. Shojo Aizen had proved himself capable in every regard.

It was a spring night, but this far south the cherry blossoms that ringed the shrine had blossomed and finished their season. Aizen walked under the branches of the keyaki, never stumbling even though the path was lit only by the stars. When he reached the sando he turned up the path towards the shrine, and then stopped.

"Konbanwa?" he called into the trees, which had become suddenly quiet, absent the bird calls and the rustling of mice in the undergrowth. "Can I help you?"

Solid, dark shapes began to peel off from the shadows, and when Aizen turned he found himself faced with a white, mouthless mask.

He could not see anything behind the eyes of the mask, but he recognised it: a hockey mask, the type goalies sometimes wore. He had been a fan of hockey, over the last few decades. Aizen had always enjoyed the energy of sports events and their legions of devoted fans, but never cared about sport itself (rules of any kind were against his nature). He hadn’t started watching hockey and other sports until recently, when he had found someone to share the experience.

He was not afraid of the mask. There was very little that had ever frightened him, not even the question that had sent him to this shrine, to enjoy one last shot at bachelorhood.

But still, he was made uneasy by the apparition. He took a step back, and found there was another mask behind him, and another, and another. A dozen in total, closing in on the tall kannushi, who still wore his traditional dress from the day's work. The shapes behind the masks were silent, breathless and formless but for the vaguest hint of too-long limbs, and bulging oversized heads squatting neckless on broad shoulders. They were moving slowly. And then they moved very, very fast.

It was over in less time than it took an owl to snatch up a mouse. Aizen never even made a sound as he was torn apart. There was efficiency in the chaos, without even bones left afterwards. There was only a red stain on the cobblestones which hissed and smoked as the figures crouched to lick it up, shoving and jostling each other for a last taste. In the end even the blood was gone, and there was nothing left at all to see. The figures shivered and seemed to evaporate back into the trees as if they had been only shadows all along.

Nothing left to see – but a spark remained, on the damp cobbles where the stain had been. It was too small for the human eye, so small that under a microscope it would have been dwarfed by a human skin cell. As the hours went by it flickered and shrank like a flame burning down at the end of a match.

An assistant opened the shrine the next morning, and called around to the brewery and to his colleagues, asking for Shojo Aizen. Nobody had seen him. But visitors came anyway, newlyweds on a tour of the country, gum-chewing tourists with cameras, hunch-backed grandmothers who had lived near the shrine for their entire lives. One of the visitors was a woman with her husband, on a day trip with their six year old daughter. They were visiting a superstitious aunt who had insisted that they pay their respects to the shrine and they would be granted a wish: a second child.

The spark trembled. It was mindless and wordless now, but it still yearned. Its need was as simple as the most basic creatures: to survive. As the woman walked over the cobbles where the bloody stain had been, the spark floated upwards and slipped between the threads of her summer shirt. It sunk into the skin of her belly. Deep inside, there were all the components for granting the wish that she had come here to pray for, but the gametes were separate and unfused; one of those unhappy quirks of cell-surface proteins and random genetic assortment.

This was no obstacle for the spark, small and weak though it was. It drew the ingredients together and opened them to each other and filled in the gaps like mortar between bricks, made tweaks and snips and additions to the cell until it felt it belonged, settled itself like a battery under the surface of the membrane, and began to divide.

The woman went home with her husband and daughter. The spark grew and grew, and in late November that year, Yuuri Katsuki was born wailing and bloody and (to the eyes of the doctor and his parents and anyone else who cared to look) human.

The only thing perhaps more unsettling than remembering your own death was remembering your own conception.

---[]---

In the store-room of the conference centre behind the kitchens, the head caterer was shouting at a young woman in a wait-staff uniform.

“What do you mean you don’t have it?” he growled. “You texted this morning to say you’d found a bottle. One of the ministers has ordered it specially for his dinner.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman grovelled. “My friend snuck me in to watch the skating competition across the block before my shift started. I must have left it behind. I can run over and look for the bag—”

“No. We don’t have enough staff. Negotiations are going late tonight,” her boss grumbled. “We’ll just have to tell the minister they don’t sell his favourite champagne around here.”

---[]---

"Yuuri!"

He realised that Viktor's hand was heavy against his chest. Yuuri hadn't his taken his eyes off the Titans, but at last he heard Viktor’s voice. He couldn’t breathe: his ribs were jammed as if he’d been winded and his vision was going black at the edges. He closed his eyes for a moment to break the spell. At last his muscles unlocked and he sucked in deep breaths until his head stopped spinning.

Viktor pushed him again. “Run. Please!”

Yuuri’s thoughts were white noise. He turned and stumbled towards the exit hall, into the shadows beneath the stands. As he reached the door he stopped. He could still hear the tapping of the Titans’ hockey sticks on the ice. He couldn’t make himself turn around and go back in there. His body was shivering and his heart beating heavy and fast. He’d died at their hands once before: he remembered every excruciating detail. And he had thought himself immortal then. Not any longer. He finally understood why Viktor found mortality so terrifying, now that he had stood on both sides of the threshold. To be human was to be as fragile and weightless as rice-paper.

Almost all of his memories were still a void, an empty chasm stretching back thousands of years. He grasped flashes of the last century, and the vague impression of the centuries before it, but it was like remembering bits and pieces of a late night on the town. They didn’t feel like someone else’s life. They were him, at a different stage of his life, a stage that until five minutes ago he’d never realised had existed. He had memories of his life at a shrine, of his arrival in Japan almost three years before he was born. He remembered a face in the mirror that was his face but not Yuuri Katsuki’s face, of dressing himself in clothes that Yuuri Katsuki had never worn, of watching Viktor’s face when he came, which Yuuri Katsuki had definitely never instigated.

At that, Yuuri’s mind went into freefall. Each memory led to another, and another, days to months to decades, and he didn’t notice that his limbs had gone slack and spittle had begun to pool in his mouth until his lungs began to burn and realised he wasn’t breathing again. His body had begun to shut down just as he had when he’d remembered his death.

He pressed his hands to the concrete and forced himself to count to ten until the world was back in focus. He knew, without remembering how he knew, that his human mind would go mad if he tried to hold onto all that history. He had to remain Yuuri Katsuki, and he had to protect this frail and short-lived body.

But he couldn’t leave Viktor and Yuri behind.

Yuuri shook his head and pressed the heels of his hands to temples. There was a second stairwell to the side, leading up to the back of the stands. Before he could doubt himself, Yuuri scrambled up it and ducked low as he reached the stands, crawling behind the seats and peering out over the rink.

Viktor and Yuri were standing on the ice, on the near side of the rink, while the Titans were still arrayed on the far side. Viktor had taken his coat off and tossed it over the barrier, rolling up his shirtsleeves. The captain of the team, who had neither helmet nor stick, skated forward a couple of feet. He was tall and muscled, with a face that looked like he had taken a survey across humanity and chosen the average measurement for every feature. The only exception were his eyes, an intensely pale blue.

Yuuri pulled out his phone and found Phichit’s number.

“So you’re king of the pantheon now, Athena?” the Captain asked. His voice wasn’t loud, yet it rippled into every corner of the cavernous room like a swarm of insects across the ground. “What’s left of it.”

Yuuri was texting Phichit in a flurry, COME NOW!! NEED HELP!!!

“A lot has changed,” Viktor answered, voice cool and collected. He put his hands on his hips. “It’s good to see you, cousins.”

There was rumble from one of the titans, a growl from another. The Captain only sniggered. On Yuuri’s phone, Phichit responded with two question marks. Yuuri thumbed the keyboard as fast as he could. At the rink with Yuri and Viktor, call everyone, all of you are in danger, the Titans are here????

“Do you want to talk?” Viktor asked, with a note of optimism.

The Captain raised his hand, turning away. “There is no talk to be had with usurpers.” He looked at his team. They were clicking their necks, switching their sticks from hand to hand, rolling their shoulders. “Kill the king. The rest will scatter.”

Yuuri’s whole body went numb and his blood felt like concrete in his veins. Even as the Captain spoke, Yuri was stepping in front of Viktor, bending his forward knee. At the Captain’s order, he threw his hands out. Yuuri heard the whoomph of the concussion force that blasted from the teenager’s fingers. It shattered the barrier on the far side of the rink, sending the splinters flying through the air to bury themselves in the concrete wall beyond. The Tarturs’ van rolled and bounced away until it struck a row of seats where it lay on its side with its wheels spinning. But the Titans themselves hunched down and turned their skates, and moved less than an inch.

Yuri lowered his hands. Yuuri couldn’t see his face from here, but his pose had become defensive and he shifted back half a step.

The Captain straightened up and pushed his mussed hair out of his eyes. “Please,” he chuckled. “Let’s just have at it as we are. No point making a mess.”

Yuuri gripped the back of the seat, his ears ringing. Suddenly there was a figure crouched beside him; he jumped so hard his jaw clacked painfully on the back of the plastic chair. It was only Phichit, his expression stony as he gazed over the rink. He glanced at Yuuri and mouthed, “You okay?”

Yuuri nodded. Phichit vanished again, and reappeared on the ice behind Viktor and Yuri. Chris appeared beside Viktor a half-second later. The Titans didn’t even flinch. They grinned, white teeth flickering like little flags across their ranks.

Yuri snarled, his fists flexing, and without even looking at the others or waiting for permission he threw himself at the Captain.

The trigger had been pulled. The Titans roared, each voice yelling their own war cry, and surged forward in a line. Viktor, Chris and Phichit followed Yuri, each of them now wearing skates from nowhere. As Yuri leaped right onto the Captain like a predatory cat digging its claws into a wildebeest, more figures appeared on the near side of the rink, blinking into existence and immediately launching themselves into the fray. Yakov and Lilia were first, and then a tall, dark-haired man in a lab coat who Yuuri recognized at Hephaestus, calling himself Otabek; he had a flashback to visiting him in the eighties with Viktor, sharing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and later convincing him to go skinny-dipping off the beach on Long Island. Otabek was followed closely by two siblings, Apollo and Artemis, or Michele and Sara these days. Finally there came Mila, whom Yuuri had met at the Cup of China, and a pale, tall man with heavy eye-makeup – Hades, or Georgi, the name surfaced in Yuuri’s mind. One by one, without pause or question to clarify the situation, they threw themselves into the fight.

There was no strategy to it, no attempt on either side to constrain their opponents or outflank them, just fists, teeth and rage. Wounds on both sides healed within seconds of being struck, and within less than a minute, there was not a square meter of the pristine ice that wasn’t splattered with blood. Yuuri watched Viktor dodge a Titan’s punch, leap and slice open the throat of the Titan as he passed, only to be tackled by the same man a moment later. Mila threw herself on the Titan’s back, screaming and clawing at his eyes, freeing Viktor, but was immediately dragged off by a huge woman with a long plait of hair, who slammed Mila down—

Yuuri couldn’t watch. He crouched down behind the seats, trembling, wanting to be sick. He looked along the rows towards the stairs where he might still be able to escape, if he was willing to leave his friends. His family. But what could he possibly do?

His gaze was caught by a shining, red plastic bag standing upright at the far end of the row. Yuuri stared at it, trying to ignore the hideous noises from the rink below. He was overwhelmed with a single, irrational need to know what was inside that bag. Crawling on his hands and knees, he made his way along the row until he reached it and slid his hand inside.

He pulled out a heavy, unopened bottle of champagne.

---[]---

In the streets of Barcelona, the Tarturs fans emerged from cafes and hotels and buses and began to walk. The call had gone out over twitter, from the team’s official account, that there was going to be a gathering at the ice rink. With only the briefest discussion, hundreds of fans formed groups and began to march. They waved their scarves and carried the signs they had made for the hockey game, covered in bright paint and glitter and lewd messages of devotion, but their expressions were blank and their steps synchronised like soldiers. The groups of fans congealed into crowds on the streets surrounding the ice rink. They filled the pavements and then spilled into the street, blocking the traffic. Horns and curses followed them everywhere, police sirens beginning to wail in the distance, but the fans pushed onwards without responding. They barely spoke at all, eyes locked on the distant summons of their team.

---[]---

Yuuri cradled the champagne in his hands like an archaeologist unearthing the greatest treasure of his career, turning it slowly. He thought of the video that Viktor had shown him, months ago, when he was trying to convince Yuuri of his divine nature.

Dionysus still had a few weapons at his command.

Yuuri licked his bottom lip and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He thumbed through to the playlist that Minako had loaded onto it that morning. They were all bands he knew the names of but could not have identified by ear. What mattered was that Minako had said it was party music.

Yuuri looked up at the sound-booth at the end of the row of seats. He crawled towards it, trying to block from his mind the screams and the wet, ripping noises from the rink below. He reached the door and turned the handle. It was unlocked. Of course it was – everything a god did was part of mythology, and in the old myths, everything happened just as the story wanted it to.

Inside, there was a huge soundboard with hundreds of switches and dials, and racks of equipment above that, covered in tangled wires and flickering LEDs. Yuuri’s heart sank.

Then he saw the post-its tacked to the equipment. “Mikel,” it read, in English. “Plug aux cord in here.” There was a trail of notes leading him through each step of the way.

“Thank you for not knowing how to do your job, Mikel,” Yuuri muttered to himself, dragging over the cord and connecting it to his phone and then to the stereo. He flicked on a labeled switch and there was a low hum. Yuuri glanced out through the glass window of the booth. The sounds were muffled in here, but the visuals were as terrifying as ever.

There seemed to be fewer of the pantheon upright than there had been before. Mila and Yakov were lying facedown on the ice, both motionless. Phichit and Sara were each pinned by a burly Titan, struggling weakly. Georgi was curled against the barrier, raising his hand in supplication, with a skate pressed to his neck.

Yuuri’s heart ached. He looked away, and as he did so, he saw that somebody had left their tie hanging on the back of the chair behind him. His eyes wide, he picked it up.

“You can do this,” he said to himself. “Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.”

He tied the tie around his head, just as it had been at the Grand Prix banquet a year ago, and flicked the last switch.

The music was a quiet, rapid beat. That was fine. He didn’t know this song, but he knew it was the right song, and that the introduction of the music would last as long as he needed. He took of his glasses and laid them next to his cellphone. He slid his arms out of his tracksuit jacket, picked up the microphone that lay enticingly on the windowsill, and left the booth with the champagne in one hand and the microphone in the other. With the tips of his fingers he pried at the wire cage around the cork of the bottle.

The battle raged oblivious to him as he walked down the stairs. Chris and Michele were down now. Yuuri wasn’t sure he’d have been able to identify their remains in a morgue. He knew they would heal, but this fight was going to be well over by then. As he watched, Lilia was pinned and beheaded with the slice of a razor-edged hockey stick.

Yuuri reached the bottom of the stands and pushed through the gate onto the floor. Yuri and Otabek were holding a writhing Titan between them, but then a hockey stick swept down and Yuri was suddenly trying to hold on by himself. He staggered back, staring at what was left of Otabek, his young face haggard with shock. One of the Titan’s grabbed for him, but he ducked and slid as swiftly as he’d skated his free program today, leapt right over another attacker, and landed by Viktor with the scrape of his blades.

Yuuri twisted the champagne cork until it popped. The sound went unnoticed above the yells and grunts. Yuuri swigged deeply from the bottle, and felt the alcohol fizzing in his bloodstream within seconds.

Viktor and Yuri were standing back to back now, turning in sync to protect each other. But there was no offensive option left to them. They were trapped in a tightening circle of enemies. Before Yuuri could do anything, one of the Titans made a feint towards Yuri, and Yuri broke away to try and strike him. At once, four of the largest Titans were on top of him, pressing him down into the ice. It clearly took all of their strength to keep the tiny teenage body in place.

Viktor was the last one standing. He backed up, turning on the spot. The Captain edged towards him, a smile on his face, lunging in and pulling away just to taunt him. Viktor backed up to keep of his range, but two titans seized his arms from behind, and a third grabbing a fistful of his hair. Viktor strained against their fingers and then sagged between them.

Yuuri was the only one left that could help. He took another long gulp of the champagne. Two of the Titans had glanced in his direction, tilting their heads quizzically, but it was unclear if they recognized him. They were too filled with bloodlust to care about one small, increasingly drunk human watching the fight. He climbed up onto the edge of the barrier. It was just wide enough to stand upright without wobbling too much.

“You’re out of your depth, Kronos,” Viktor said quietly, a pained edge to his voice, his eyes following the Captain as he paced around him. “The world has changed while you’ve been gone.”

“You mean while we’ve been imprisoned,” the Captain spat.

Viktor gritted his teeth. “Gods don’t rule men anymore.”

“You don’t rule men. But we will.” The Captain grabbed Viktor around the throat with both hands and lifted him off the ice. “You let the world go to seed. Once the humans burn it all down with their foolish war, we can rebuild it in our image. The rest of the usurpers we’ll let stay in the cold, dark places even deeper than Tartarus, just as your predecessor abandoned us. But let’s make sure to break the line of succession before then.”

Viktor tried to speak, but the Captain tightened his grip on his throat. He grinned. “There was one thing we did during our long imprisonment, Athena, with only ourselves for company. And that was learn how to eat our own kind.”

He opened his mouth, his jaw stretching wider and wider until it gaped inhumanly. Each of the Titans followed suit. The inside of their mouths were sprouting teeth, sharp as a shark’s, dozens and dozens of teeth stretching down their gullets. The teeth were moving, twisting like the blades of a circular saw turned inwards. Viktor stared him down, his feet dangling helplessly, trying to pry the Captain’s hands from his throat.

Yuuri flicked on the microphone, tapped it and brought it to his lips. With the champagne bubbling in his stomach, his skin was already warm and his head beginning to lighten.

“Excuse me,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Uh.”

A spotlight went on with a thump all by itself, squarely above Yuuri. A dozen saw-mouthed faces and Viktor turned towards him. The music was still growing louder throughout the rink. Yuuri began to tap his foot along to it in anticipation. Despite the scene of gore and terror in front of him, he found himself smiling. He took another swig from the bottle.

“Do you really want to fight?” he asked, leaning precariously forward from his position on the railing of the barrier. He put his thumb over the top of the champagne bottle and shook it up. Yuuri knew he’d drunk a decent amount, but it still seemed to be full and under pressure. The music was growing more urgent.

“Or do you want to dance?”

He turned bottle on the rink and sprayed a shining arc of champagne over the bewildered Titans.

---[]---

It would have been an understatement of international proportions to say that the peace talks were going badly.

On the debating floor, the Russian was on his feet, yelling every insult in his vocabulary across the table, and the top American diplomat jumped out of her seat and launched herself across the table at him, right for his throat. The Turkish minister yelled and jumped on the Russian’s back, pulling his hair. A gasp went through the room. Emissaries, aides and interns sprinted forward, but as they touched the brawling diplomats, their expressions transformed from alarm to rage and they turned on each other, slapping their neighbours and tripping up those who tried to flee, screaming at their colleagues when they were dragged away. The fury spread like a contagion as more and more people rushed in to help.

The Norwegian minister, his heart racing, took a sip from the water glass as he watched the debate grow more heated. At once he spat it out, splattering the papers in front of him, and stared at the glass. It didn’t taste like water. It tasted like vodka.

On the back of the room, Torsten grabbed Esen’s hand. His mouth hung open and all the blood had left his cheeks. Esen turned her head away from the sight of the brawl. There was a rumbling that she could feel through her feet, growing louder and louder in her ears. She gripped Torsten’s hand and dragged him around the edges of the growing scrum. “Come with me. Something terrible is coming.”

“How… why is this happening? How can they…?” Torsten sounded on the verge of tears.

Esen was much smaller than him, but she hauled him bodily towards the door. “We have to get out of here!”

They made it through the door. Security guards and conference centre staff were pouring through the corridors towards the debating chamber. The rumbling was getting louder, emanating both from the walls and echoing through the windows. As they ran across the air-bridge towards the front of the conference centre, Torsten pointed out the window.

There was a crowd outside, hundreds of people, pouring through the barricades towards the building. Even from a distance, there was a madness in their movement that Esen had never seen before, except perhaps on a Saturday night in downtown Berlin.

---[]---

In the ice rink, Yuuri smiled. It should not have been possible to hear anything over the music that boomed through the speakers louder and louder, yet Yuuri’s voice carried across the rink. And this time when he spoke, his voice was low, and strange, and almost genderless.

“Thank you for bringing me an army.”

And the beat dropped.

BOOM.

---[]---

Every radio in the conference centre turned on at once. Every smartphone began to blare, every laptop sung. The music was different in every room: contemporary electronica in the board rooms, the excited plucking of aulos and kithara in the corridors, and classic rock and roll filling the debate chamber, “Oh my, but that little country boy could play!” Even the emergency intercom crackled to life. For a moment it wailed, the recorded voice growing slurred and changing within seconds, “Evacuate. Evacuate. Eva…cu… ance. Dance! Dance! Dance!”

In the manager’s office upstairs and the media backrooms, a few people picked up the landlines to call for help, but heard only music, and found themselves tapping their feet and then dropping the headsets and throwing their arms up, swaying and wriggling to the beat.

As Esen and Torsten sprinted for the exits, the rumbling in the walls rose to a crescendo and with a screech, every tap in the building began to stream. From bathroom taps on the first floor poured dark red cabernets and merlots, with citrusy rosés on the second floor and pale chardonnays and Gewürztraminers filling the third floor sinks. Hoppy ales welled up in the toilet cisterns and poured over the seats, flooding every cubicle in minutes, while the drinking fountains in the corridors sprayed hissing arcs of vodka, gin and white rum across the hallways. Oaky porters, dry ciders and fragrant elderflower wine gushed from the pumps behind the restaurant bars, and the dishwashers in the kitchen suddenly burst open from the internal pressure of the millet beer that poured across the shoes of the chefs and waiters inside. Every bottle of soda, water or juice in the building was transformed, each one a surprise – sake, whisky, chicha, tequila, soju, absinth, arak, ouzo, brandy, kumis or limoncello.

Then the maenads arrived.

The Tarturs fans marching on the ice rink had turned aside and headed towards the conference centre. They were beginning to dance as they went, ripping up their signs and rolling them into batons to strike a beat against every street lamp and fire hydrant they passed. They poured over the security barriers at the edge of the block, smiling and howling with joy as the shining glass of the building came into view. The bodyguards on the streets were overwhelmed in moments, struck dumb by the sight of the oncoming hordes until the Tarturites grabbed their hands and swept them up in their festivities.

They hit the front doors of the conference centre at a run, and a wave of singing, yelling, dancing hockey fans surged through into the lobby and began to spread into the rest of the building.

Some fans ripped their clothes off as they ran, others climbed up onto every piece of furniture they could find and sung a multitude of joyful, off-key songs in every language that they knew. They broke into the restaurant, emptied the fridges full of bottles, ripped the doors off the bathrooms, and began to distribute the liquids pouring from the taps, filling every glass, every bowl, every mug, then even pots, buckets and plastic crates from the kitchen. They passed these vessels from hand to hand, out into the conference centre, and with sudden thirst each person who touched them sipped and passed them on.

Jay, Klara and Dom split off from the throng and headed for the stairs. They collided with Torsten and Esen come down the other way. Klara grabbed Torsten, bent him over backwards and pressed her lips to his, and Jay wrapped her arms around Esen and kissed her in turn. Dom, who had no interest in kissing, climbed up onto the banister and leapt out over the crowd, grabbing the art-deco chandelier above their heads and swung, whooping and hollering.

In the debating chamber, the security guards tried valiantly to hold back the throngs of maenads who were trying to bring their cups and bottles from downstairs, but they had no hope. They rhythm of the music was too infectious and they, too, began to dance. The maenads broke into the great hall, slopping their drinks as they went.

The brawl was still going on in earnest. Screaming and curses filling the air and almost drowned out the crooning of “Down by the riverside, I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield…”

But as the maenads rushed in, clapping and singing, heads began to turn towards them. The diplomats in the centre of the room were sporting bloody noses and black eyes, the buttons popped off their shirts, ties wrapped around their knuckles, but the maenads flowed into their midst and pushed bottles and cups into their hands. They threw their arms around them and yelled in their ears, “Oh my god, don’t you just love this song? Dance with me!”

The beat began to pick up, slipping into a rapid hip hop chorus, and then into a techno trance. The lights were flickering in time with the music. The crowd – middle-aged emissaries with their suit-jackets ripped at the sleeves, young interns with their spectacles crushed somewhere underfoot – had started swaying, raising their hands, grinding against each other.

Editors across the globe were trying to regain contact with their journalists inside the building, but the phones simply rang and rang. One of the top political reporters at the AP finally got through.

“Hello? Stephen?” she snapped. “What’s going on? The feed’s gone completely dead. Has something happened?”

“Everything’s fine,” came the familiar, radio-honed accent at the other end. It was strangely slurred, and there was a pumping beat behind it and the occasional holler. “In fact, it’s just fantastic. I’ll call you later!”

The line went dead.

---[]---

In the ice rink, the Titans had put down their hockey sticks and taken off their helmets. The teeth had disappeared from their mouths. The Captain lowered Viktor back onto his feet, his fingers still gripping the collar of Viktor’s shirt.

“I love this song,” the Captain said numbly. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of a cloying dust. He blinked at Viktor. “Now don’t… don’t think you’re getting away…”

He twitched as Yuuri Katsuki appeared beside him, as if out of thin air. He was holding a huge glass in one hand and the champagne bottle in the other.

“What’s your poison?” he asked. His pupils were blown huge and dark, and his cheeks flushed pink. “I’m thinking a nice lager. How about it?”

He upended the bottle. What came out was not champagne but an amber-coloured, liquorice-and-yeast scented liquid. He filled the glass and handed it to the Captain of the Titans, who released Viktor and took it with both hands. Viktor stumbled backwards, rubbing his neck, gaping at Yuuri from under his fringe.

Yuuri turned and spread his arms. “How about the rest of you?” he called above the pumping music. “Drinks for everybody! On the house!”

There was a crash as every door in the rink was thrown open and maenads poured inside, holding bowls and tea-mugs from the ice rink’s canteen, all full to the brim. They stumbled onto the ice, slipping in the blood, whooping and laughing. The Titans stared at them as the vessels were pushed into their hands. Those who were pinning the pantheon gods down got up and released them without a word.

Yuri jumped up first, fists raised and snarling, but Yuuri skated over to him and kissed his cheek, shoving the champagne bottle at him. Yuri glared at him but took a sip anyway. Yakov was helping Lilia’s body to her feet, holding her arm and the small of her back. One of the female Titans bent down and picked up Lilia’s severed head and placed it back on her neck, steadying the ballerina as she straightened up and clicked her vertebrae back into place.

Humming in time to the pounding dance music, Yuuri skated over to the Captain and grabbed his hands. They let the now-empty lager glass fall to the ice with a clatter. He swung him into a wobbly waltz, leading the dance even though he was far tinier than the bulky hockey player.

“You can’t be here,” the Captain yelled above the deafening music. No one’s voice seemed able to carry except for Yuuri’s. Everybody had to lean in intimately close to be heard. “We killed you. There was a reason…” he groaned and closed his eyes, struggling to think through the haze of alcohol. “…I think it was to stop you doing this.”

“Ah, bygones be bygones. Let’s talk about it in the morning,” Yuuri beamed at him. “Relax! Loosen up! Go wild!”

He spun the Captain around and sent him twisting into Viktor’s waiting arms. Viktor was pink-cheeked and heavy-lidded and he grabbed the Captain’s hands and began to sway back and forth with him.

And all the gods and Titans began to dance together.

Chapter Text

Dawn broke across a sunny and peaceful Barcelona.

It was very quiet in the conference centre, by the unspoken agreement of several hundred people with very bad headaches. They lay on the floors, on the stairs, slumped in chairs and on tables in every boardroom and across the gigantic debating chamber. Most were still clutching their glasses and bottles from the night before and many were snuggled together, some with maenads and some with fellow diplomats from opposing countries.

The news of the negotiations’ success was just beginning to leak out.

“Uh, yes, that’s correct,” Stephen, the journalist, told his editor from the AP. He was one of the few people up and walking around, holding a bag of frozen corn to his neck that he’d found in the trashed kitchen. “Three new trade deals, nine significant peace treaties and fourteen temporary ceasefires. Some between countries I didn’t even know were angry at each other. It’s hard to explain the details. Don’t worry, it’s all above board, there’s just non-disclosure over the… confidentiality clauses… from the party… I mean, the negotiations. Look, honestly, just trust me when I say we all had a very good night.”

Esen awoke lying on Torsten’s chest. He had his arm around Klara on the other side. Dom and Jay sat against the wall with their heads together, both snoring quietly. Esen raised her head, rubbing her eyes.

She looked down at her arms. Her suit jacket was missing and the sleeves of her best blouse were rolled up past the elbows. Her forearms were covered in handwriting from at least three different people. None of it made a lot of sense – ‘Magic’, ‘Panthers in the hallways’, ‘Don’t forget’ and then in her own hand, ‘start dating again’.

She rubbed her forehead to ease the pounding headache. She was sure she hadn’t done anything she’d regretted, but she was also sure that she didn’t want any evidence of the night to leave this building. Slowly, her joints aching from dancing, discovering new bruises on her shins as she went, she began to collect up every phone she could find and delete the photographs from the night before.

---[]---

Yuri Plisetsky sat against the edge of the barrier and wished his was dead.

Maybe that was in bad taste. But all he wanted to do was crawl into a warm, dark room with a comfortable bed and a big bottle of water and sleep for a year. His head felt like it was going to split in two. He’d never skated so much in his life as he had last night. Yuuri had kept inviting him to dance-offs, and then several of the pantheon and three of the Titans had demanded he teach them a quadruple salchow (they all failed repeatedly), and the music was just too good not to keep going later and later into the night. Once the last of the alcohol left his body he’d heal up much faster than a human, of course, but right now he still felt worse than he had after most wars.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled into the phone. “I was at a party and couldn’t hear my phone.”

“For fourteen hours?” Savage cried. “Nobody was picking up at the peace negotiations either. I was on the verge of flying over to find you. I kept thinking about Project Nike and world war three and wondering if one of the other gods had gotten the same idea as us.”

Yuri tipped his head back and covered his eyes from the painful lights of the rink. “Were you… worried about me, Savage?”

Savage made a non-committal noise. Yuri smirked. After a moment, his CEO sighed. “Anyway. I’m glad you’re alive. It’s a pity about the news this morning. We’re going to take a bad hit in defence sales if this turn-around in global conflict holds up.”

Yuri swallowed. He didn’t need the morning broadcast to tell him that. He could feel it in the air, the evaporation of the war that was to come. The power that it had awakened in him had faded. It wouldn’t last, he suspected – the conflicts that the Titans had exploited had been real, as pervasive and tenacious as humans themselves – but Dionysus had pulled the emergency brakes. What the Titans had done, the lost god had undone.

“We’ll survive,” Yuri told Savage. “We might have to adapt, that’s all.”

He hung up and got gingerly to his feet, clutching the barrier. He stood on the outside looking across the ice, his chin propped on his hand. The last of the maenads were trickling out of the room, complaining about how hungry they were and asking if anyone had seen their keys.

Yuri sniggered to himself as he surveyed the gods and Titans strewn around the rink. Georgi and two of their erstwhile enemies were up in the stands somewhere, draped across the seats and snoring. Mila and Sara sat on the edge of the ice, commiserating about how awful they felt, while catching up three of the Titans on some of the supernatural gossip from the last few millennia. Otabek was sitting cross-legged nearby, and, like Yuri, had gone straight to his phone, checking his email through bleary eyes. Phichit was videoing himself and two of the largest Titans having a deep conversation about the nature of reality (all three of them were still slightly drunk). Lilia and Yakov had just walked in, each clutching a coffee and a bag of churros, both of them wearing dark sunglasses and Lilia without any makeup.

Chris and Yuuri were the only two who looked like they still had any energy, though their hair was askew and their shirts were each missing several buttons. They were silently skating a relatively proficient tango around the rest of the gods, hands clasped and chests pressed together.

Yuri stepped back onto the ice, his legs wobbling, and skated over to where Viktor was sitting in front the Captain of the Titans. They two of them had spread out a handful of napkins from the rink’s canteen and were arguing with each other about what to write on them. They each had a pint glass beside them from which they would occasionally sip, and their speech was still slurred.

“I think we should be allowed a patron polis each,” the Captain was saying. “That’s only fair.”

“Humans don’t have poleis anymore,” Viktor insisted. “They have nations and the European Union and things like that. And some of them are secular.”

“Bah!” The Captain threw up his arms. “How can you all live like this? Without worship?”

Viktor made a so-so gesture with his hand. “We got mellow in our old age. How about we agree that if you lot want to restart your respective religions, you’re welcome to it, but you have to do it the old-fashioned way. No mind control. Just charisma and a few minor miracles, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Captain grumbled. “That’s where we all started, I suppose.”

“Good.” Viktor scribbled on the nearest napkin and arranged it in sequence with the rest of the contract, sticking them together with chewing gum. “Do you want us to make you your own Olympus? We moved ours to Antarctica to avoid the tourists, but you can have one next door.”

“No way. Not in the South Pole,” the Captain shook his head. “We’ve been stuck in the permafrost under Siberia for far too long. I hate the cold.”

“Okay, that’s fine.” Viktor tapped the pen against his lips. “How about we raise a new volcano in the South Pacific? We’ll make it active enough to keep the humans at bay, but you can shape your Olympus there.”

The Captain stroked his chin. “I like it. I like it.” He took another long swig of the pint glass beside him. For the first time all night, the glass didn’t refill itself.

Yuri leaned over Viktor’s shoulder, propping his hands on his knees. “Don’t you think the rest of us should have a say in this?”

“Nope.” Viktor reached up without looking and pushed Yuri’s face away. “I’m king. Go blow something up if you don’t agree.”

Yuri found himself chuckling. It wasn’t loud, but he didn’t think he’d laughed with another god in decades. They hadn’t been all together like this for so long. They should keep in touch.

“I still think we should get more than just an island,” the Captain muttered. “You lot imprisoned us for three thousand years. That deserves some compensation.”

“You tried to destroy the world,” Viktor shot back, gesticulating broadly. “And you murdered my boyfriend! I think that deserves some compensation!”

“It wasn’t personal,” the Captain said sheepishly.

“Well, we might have left you in Tartarus for too long.” Viktor tugged at his collar. “I’m going to be honest. I think we forgot you were still there.” He cleared his throat. “The point is, we’ll never be satisfied unless we both compromise and put that all in the past. Okay?”

“Okay,” the Captain grumbled.

“Fabulous. Then let’s make it official.” Viktor bent forward and signed the bottom of the final napkin with a flourish that ripped the paper. He handed the pen to the Captain, who sighed and scrawled a series of runes next to Viktor’s signature.

Viktor raised his glass. “To the future.”

“To the future.” The Captain clicked his own pint against Viktor’s and they both drained the last dregs.

Viktor wiped his mouth and smiled. He looked up at last, blinking as if he’d only just realised where they were. Yuuri and Chris danced past a few feet away. Viktor raised his hand and gave Yuuri a small wave, blushing.

Yuri rolled his eyes as Yuuri let go of one of Chris’ hands to blow Viktor a kiss. He shoved the back of Viktor’s head. “Gross.”

He wanted to point out to Viktor that there was a lot more to deal with when they sobered up. In the haze of the after-party and the urgency of the war situation, Viktor might have been willing to forgive the Titans for what they had done to Dionysus. Yuri wasn’t so magnanimous. The rules of immortality had been broken, even if the death hadn’t stuck. It was a threat they couldn’t ignore. The Titans now had a weapon of immense power, and they had to redress that balance. Yuri was already planning to restart project Nike as soon as he got back to YuTech tower. He was sure that this time he could convince Otabek to help, and that they would be successful, but the thought of having such power at his own command made Yuri a little queasy. Whatever fragile peace they had established today, it would take work to maintain, and Yuri knew in his heart – and knew that the others would agree with him – that Viktor would have to step up his game and take kingship seriously from now on.

Yuri narrowed his eyes as he watched the Captain stand up, quite wobbly, and skate over to talk to one of his lieutenants. They were all friends for now, but they had eternity to watch it go sour. He was going to be ready for that.

He was jerked out of these dark thoughts by a yell. It was Chris, halfway across the rink.

“Viktor! Viktor!”

Yuri looked over. Chris was kneeling on the ice over a prone body that was on its back, motionless.

Yuuri.

Viktor was up like a shot, with Yuri following close behind. Their skates scraped on the ice as they raced over the rough, cracked surface of the rink, damaged by the fight and the frenzy of the party the night before. As they reached Chris, Viktor slid elegantly to one knee.

Yuri watched Viktor lean over, squeezing Yuuri’s shoulders. Yuuri’s eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, a faint smile on his lips. The tie around his head had slipped off and lay in a puddle beside his head.

“What happened?” Viktor panted.

“He just went down.” Chris was gripping Yuuri’s hand absently, as if he hadn’t realised yet that the dance was over. “He didn’t say anything.”

“He’s not breathing.” Viktor pressed his ear to Yuuri’s chest. “Fuck. Fuck.” He leaned right over to stare into Yuuri’s eyes. “I can’t see any brain activity in there. Michele! Apollo, help me!”

The other gods and some of the Titans had begun to cluster around them. Michele – the closest they had to god of healing right now – pushed to the front and got on his knees to touch Yuuri’s forehead. He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“Then figure it out!”

“This isn’t a natural illness,” Michele snapped back. “I can’t do anything, Viktor.”

Mila was standing over them, the blood drained from her face. “Why did you lift the spell to suppress his powers?”

Viktor looked up at her. “What spell?”

“Our vow,” Yuri cut in, turning to Mila. “It was just part of our stupid bet. No powers until after the Grand Prix.”

“I thought it was there to protect him.” Mila shivered. “Viktor, he’s human. The full powers of a god are not meant to be wielded by mortals. Of course he burned out.”

“But he’s not mortal. He’s Dionysus.” Viktor squeezed his eyes shut again, his breath quickening. He hauled Yuuri into his arms and cradled Yuuri’s head to his chest, stroking his hair. “He’s one of us. He’ll be fine. He just needs time to recover.”

Yuri looked around at the circle, all of them silent, Sara with her hands pressed to her mouth, Otabek staring grimly at the ice, Yakov wrapping his arm around a shuddering Phichit. The Titans stayed back a couple of paces, passing a few mutters between them. A few of them were drawing away from the group, looking rapidly more sober in the face of these events. Perhaps it was beginning to dawn on them that their peace treaty was literally written on a wet napkin.

“We just have to get him back,” Viktor was saying, gripping Yuuri’s body even tighter. “His spirit can’t have gone far. It probably hasn’t even reached the underworld yet. Somebody wake up Georgi. If we hurry, we won’t even be breaking any rules—”

Yakov cleared his throat. “You know gods don’t have spirits, Viktor. Our bodies and souls are one and the same thing. If human meat and blood were all Dionysus could use to rebuild himself, there won’t be anything to retrieve.”

Viktor looked up at him, his face aghast. The rest of the pantheon were all edging closer and closer until they were shoulder to shoulder, ten super-human and uber-powerful beings who could remake reality itself with a wave of their hand, whose eternal and omnipotent focus were now honed on one small, fragile human. Yuuri Katsuki was a stranger to them, really; but Viktor was their kin, and their king, and all they wanted was not to be so helpless in the face of his despair.

Lilia clicked her fingers, pushing her sunglasses up onto her forehead. “His sanctuary,” she said dryly. “Viktor, there will be shrines to Dionysus left in the world – in museums, in forgotten houses, buried in the sand. Dionysus may be able to restore himself there.”

“Yes!” Mila clapped her hands. “That could work!”

Phichit was already on his phone. “Pompeii is probably our best bet, there’s that villa with frescos in situ…”

One of the Titans stepped forward – the woman with the long braid who had completely wrecked Mila the night before. She said in a low voice, “There’s a holy brewery where we found him. Where… well, if you think that’s the best place, we could take you there.”

There was a palpable hum in the air as Phichit, Yakov, Mila and Yuri all turned towards her at once. Yuri clenched his fist, feeling the heat rise as the pressure increased in front of his knuckles. Phichit said sharply, “I’d call that more of a tomb than a sanctuary, wouldn’t you?” His voice was loud enough that Yuri winced through his own headache.

“Hush.” Yakov squeezed Phichit’s shoulder. “She’s trying to help.”

Into the tense silence, Viktor’s throat made a small, hiccoughing noise. Yuri glanced back at him. Viktor was brushing the hair off Yuuri’s face. Yuuri’s pallor was already growing sallow as the blood drained from his cooling skin. “I’m taking him to Hasetsu. To Yu-Topia.” He looked up at them, his eyes widening. “Hot springs are always sacred places. And that town adores Yuuri, they’ve got posters of him up all over the city. They practically worship him. That’s the closest we’ll get.”

“Not for Dionysus,” Yakov rumbled.

Viktor took a deep, shuddering breath. “Hasetsu it is.”

Yakov spoke as if he thought Viktor was misunderstand him. “He needs somewhere properly rooted to his cult. If we can draw the divine essence out of his human body, it may bring him back as a proper god, however weakened.”

Viktor’s tone had become very cold and sharp. “I’m going to Hasetsu.”

Nobody spoke for two, three seconds as the implications of this sunk in. Viktor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ugh, I’m still too drunk to teleport! Us, curse it all! Hermes – help me—”

Phichit knelt and grabbed his shoulder. “I can do accuracy, but I’m not in any state to add horsepower, so to speak. Someone else, give us a hand.”

“I’ll do it,” Yuri said, lurching forward at the exact moment that Chris leaned in and said, “Let me help.”

“I said can do it!” Yuri snarled, shouldering Chris aside.

“You’re out of practice,” Chris snapped back, reaching towards Viktor.

An argument immediately broke out. Yuri was annoyed at Chris but also acutely aware that this was the very reason they didn’t all get together in groups very often. “Let Chris go, bratik,” Yakov told Yuri, at which Mila put her arm across Yakov’s chest. “Yuri’s been there before, let him go.”

“For all of our sake, will one of you take my hand!” Viktor roared. It echoed around the rink, and a tremor spread outwards from where he knelt, cracking the ice in all directions. He was holding out his arm, his gaze unfocused, his breath coming fast and shallow. Everybody went silent.

This was, and always had been, the main reason they needed a king: to shut them the hell up when they were bickering.

Chris and Yuri blinked, and then nodded at each other and each laid a hand on Viktor’s and Yuuri’s shoulders. Phichit counted them down.

“Three. Two. One.”

There was the familiar feeling of the world crunching together and speeding past, and then Yuri’s stomach dropped and the air cooled several degrees. He was kneeling in an inch of fresh snow, instantly soaking through his good trousers that he’d put on for his interrupted trip to the peace talks last night. The clouds were low and heavy above them. There was a faint smell of sulphur in the air, and in front of them steam rose from a large, shallow pool lined with stones. They were hemmed in by trailing wicker fences, marking out an intimate space despite the clatter of someone moving bins on the far side of the barriers. Otherwise, everything around was quiet and still, with the weight of a winter evening.

Yuri let out a long breath and watched it merge with the steam. He and Chris turned at the sound of a door sliding open.

“Excuse me, the baths are closed for today.” A small, bespectacled mortal stood there with an armful of towels balanced in the crook of her elbow. “Who let you in?”

Chris took a step towards her, his most charming smile already growing on his face. “Mrs Katsuki, I can explain, if you’ll just follow me back inside—”

“Yuuri?” the woman’s gaze had moved to the figure cradled in Viktor’s lap. Her voice rose to a shriek as the towels poured onto the snowy threshold. “Yuuri!”

Chris’ smile vanished and he caught Yuuri’s mother around the waist as she ran forward.

“Viktor, what happened?” she dug her heels into the snow, straining towards her son. “Why aren’t you in Spain? What’s wrong with him?”

“Ma’am, we need to go inside so I can talk to you.” Phichit’s voice had taken on an authoritative tone. He was suddenly looking cleaner and more sober, his hair smoothed back and his clothes suddenly arranged into a formal but unidentifiable uniform. He gently grasped the woman’s arm and turned her away from the sight of Yuuri’s body. “Let me make you a cup of tea.”

Chris let Phichit take Yuuri’s mother out of his arms, and this time she went where she was directed, her hand gripping a fistful of cloth at her breast. Chris turned to Viktor. “I’m going back to make sure no one picks a fight with the Titans while you’re gone.”

Viktor didn’t seem to have heard him, nor had he reacted to Yuuri’s mother with more than a cursory glance. He gathered Yuuri up in his arms and stood up, his eyes locked on Yuuri’s face the whole time. He toed off his owns shoes as if in deference to a temple. Chris put his hand on Yuri’s shoulder.

“Don’t watch.”

“I’m staying,” Yuri muttered.

“It’s not your place.”

“I need to see.” Yuri twitched out of his grip. Chris sighed and vanished back to Barcelona. Phichit was sliding the door shut behind Yuuri’s mother. The three of them were alone: the king, the god of war, and the dead human.

Viktor stepped into the pool in his rumpled suit-pants and shirt, the cloth turning dark as it soaked through, clinging to his muscles like a second skin. Yuri squatted on the edge of the pool, gargoyle-like, folding his arms on his knees. He watched Viktor wade deeper into the centre, and then kneel so that the pool was up to his waist. Viktor lowered Yuuri’s body into the warm water until it was completely submerged except for his face, still cradling him under his shoulders and knees. Yuuri’s hair drifted around his head, his empty eyes staring over Viktor’s shoulder. Viktor bent his neck to press his forehead to Yuuri’s.

“Come back to me,” he whispered, over and over like a religious mantra. “Come back to me. Come back to me.”

Yuri rested his chin on his folded arms, tucking his mouth against his sleeve to warm his breath in the chill of dusk. The clouds were too thick for the sun to be visible, but the light was dimming around them as it set. Lamps above the pools glowed yellow and orange, summoning insects that danced like sparks around them. Every few seconds, Viktor sucked in a short, sharp gasp as if the air was too thin. His breaths seemed to be getting farther and farther apart, as if he was no longer keeping up the pretence of humanity. They waited, and they waited, as Viktor’s chanting became softer. A few fresh snowflakes began to trickle down around them, forcing the insects around the lamps to cluster closer to the heat.

Yuri’s gaze had become unfocused as his concentration drifted. The steam was thicker than ever as the air grew colder, turning Viktor and Yuuri’s shapes indistinct behind its twisting shroud. The sky was on the cusp of night when a dark shadow began to grow in the pool around Viktor and Yuuri, spreading outwards in the water like a spill of ink.

Yuri lifted his chin. He tipped forward onto his hands and knees, leaning over the water. The shadow was growing in all directions around Yuuri’s body, and it was tinged a deep red, like venous blood. Fingers of it crept towards the stones and seeped up Viktor’s shirt, turning the white cloth to soft crimson. There was a smell rising in air, over the sulphur, a heady, tannin scent that hit the back of Yuri’s throat and turned to spiced fruit on his tongue.

The smell of hot wine.

The steam parted. Viktor had raised his head and was staring down at Yuuri, his shoulders trembling. Yuuri’s sightless eyes blinked, moved until his gaze found Viktor’s face. His limbs moved sluggishly beneath the pool, sloshing the liquid further up Viktor’s sleeves. The colour was coming back into his skin.

“Hello, Revelry,” Viktor breathed. “Welcome back.”

Yuuri’s eyelids lowered, half shut, and a smile flickered on his mouth. And then he grimaced and let out a low groan. “Oh my god, Viktor. I’m so hungover.”

Chapter Text

The Yu-Topia hot springs had turned to mulled wine.

Yuuri stayed in bed for three days with the curtains pulled, drinking cordial and cursing alcohol with all the strength he had left (which was very little). Makkachin stood at his door scratching and huffing in concern, but Yuuri kept him outside for the first day because he was too dizzy to let the dog jump on him. He couldn’t even eat the huge bowl of katsudon his father brought him. All he could do was lie on his side and feel sorry for himself.

By the second day he was ravenously consuming all the food his parents put on his bedside table. He felt sick again afterwards, but he managed to keep it all down. He let Makkachin in and the dog settled himself on the end of the bed, occasionally getting up and nosing his way out the door to pee in the melting snow outside.

Mari and Minako flew home that day, though Yuuri hid under the blankets and begged them not to shout so much when they came in to gush with worry over how he’d simply disappeared from the city. They’d spent the night partying with a bunch of other skater fans, and not realised anything was wrong until they went to the hotel and found out Yuuri and Vitkor had failed to return the night before.

After Yuuri had come back from the dead (again), Viktor had handed him off to his parents without saying much, both of them dripping wine all over the wooden floors of the hotel. Yuuri had been so sick he just shivered and threw up whenever he tried to do anything under his own initiative. Yuuri’s parents had put him in an empty bath and washed him with water from the kitchen boiler (nobody could get water out of the taps connected to the hot spring) and then put him into bed to sleep. Sometime during the process, Viktor, Phichit and Yuri had vanished. As far as Yuuri could gather, Mari, Minako and his parents mostly accepted the story – it was unclear who had planted it – that he’d caught an early flight home and gone drinking with his coach and some friends in Hasetsu, and they’d carried him back to Yu-Topia and snuck him in through the bathhouse door.

Yuuri could tell that his mother, at least, had her doubts about the explanation the family had been fed. But while he was still recovering, she had yet to ask him for the truth. He wanted to tell her everything, but he didn’t know how much damage that truth could do.

---[]---

Yuuri texted Viktor once every morning, but Viktor did not reply.

There was something Viktor hadn’t told Yuuri. It was something to do with his disappearance during the medal ceremony, the night of the Grand Prix. Now he was missing again, and a part of Yuuri was convinced he would never return. But he also understood that Viktor didn’t experience time in quite the same way as a human. Yuuri had to be patient. Besides, Viktor would come back for Makkachin.

Yuuri’s bags from the rink and the hotel appeared on the doorstep on the third morning, in boxes labelled “Mercury Express”. His glasses, which he remembered leaving in the sound booth at the ice rink, had not resurfaced, so he dug out an old, scratched pair from his drawers and wore them instead. His mother draped the silver medal on the back of his desk chair, where it hung in the shadows of the curtained room like an eye, judging him for getting so drunk.

“Thanks for the delivery,” Yuuri texted Phichit. His phone had been in his bag. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s very happy to hear you’re alright :)” Phichit replied. “We’re just sorting out some god stuff, but we want you to come visit the mountain as soon as you’re out of bed!!! We’ll set up the atmosphere so you don’t get too cold!”

Yuuri put his phone down, resting his hands on his chest. So they already understood what he was still trying to come to terms with. He could feel his heart beating through his sweater, his ribs expanding and contracting with each breath, his muscles aching when he rolled over in his human body. He could remember the feeling of being Dionysus before Yuuri Katsuki was born. He could remember the idea that he had memories stretching back thousands of years. But the memories themselves eluded him no matter how he cautiously probed at their borders. Even the twentieth-century Viktor was nothing more than a tumultuous, happy glow in the thick fog of his mind, the shape of it informed only by the things he’d learned since Viktor came back into his life a year ago. It was like knowing there was a grand library in the back of his brain, the doors locked tight and the windows barred.

On the surface he regretted that in a drunken haze he had thrown the key to that library into a deep well. But he had left himself just enough understanding about why it was necessary.

He realised he no longer thought of Dionysus in the third person.

Yu-Topia had to close its baths and hot springs for three days, during which the springs continuously gushed wine. But on the end of the third day, when Yuuri finally crawled out of bed and came downstairs with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, the water finally began to clear.

---[]---

The pantheon sat in a circle on their mountaintop, the sun shining on the hewn, glacial columns that surrounded them, and glinting through the lattice of ice that formed an intricate dome above their heads. The gods were clothed in light and the plasma of the sun, their bodies shifting and fluid. They had loosened their mortal forms in this sacred space, like kicking off their shoes at the end of a long day. They were still eleven – Hestia and Hades had taken the spaces vacated when Zeus and Hera had walked away, and the throne beside Athena remained empty, as it had since Dionysus had been murdered. But they had not gathered all together in such numbers for many years.

There was an ordinary phone sitting on a carven, ice table at the edge of the room. It was a direct line to another mountain rising from the ocean, in the remotest, emptiest section of the Pacific. It had not rung yet, but if the Titans had any more problems they wanted to talk through, it would be there.

Viktor stood up. He raised his arm in a gesture of welcome to them all. “Thank you for gathering today. I know you all have your own lives to attend to, so I’ll make this quick.”

He stepped forward and put his hand on his chest. “I am abdicating the throne. I will rescind any claim to the kingship.”

A low whisper rippled around the circle. Michele, Sara and Georgi looked surprised. Yakov glowered suspiciously, his eyes flicking between Yuri and Viktor as if preparing to intervene. Phichit’s mouth opened in shock.

Viktor lifted his hands, palms out. “I know you all will be very upset. But I’ve been considering my choices for a long time, and my decision is final.”

“Viktor,” Mila’s voice rung out. “You cannot go back on this once it is done.”

“I know.” Viktor ducked his head. “And I can’t risk a war between any of you if my absence leaves a void. My final act as king will be to name my successor, one who I believe has the strength and experience to lead you all into the unknown. ”

All eyes turned to Yuri, who was gripping the arms of his chair very tight.

Viktor continued, speaking the air as if reciting a well-prepared monologue. “You deserve someone who has adapted well to this new world and made himself a god in the only way that people can be gods anymore: by controlling a business that spans continents and controls the fate of millions. And yet you need a king who understands the way we once were, who is still committed to the role he has played for thousands of years. And most of all you need a king who keeps a clear head in good times and in bad. Who only a day ago stepped in to uphold the peace when I, in my grief, was focused only on Dionysus.”

Viktor spread his arms. “If you will accept it, I give the mantle to you…” Viktor took a breath and folded his hands on his breast, turning towards one particular chair and bending into a shallow bow. “Chris.”

There was a strangled splutter from Yuri. He looked towards Chris, whose face was implacable. Yuri remembered suddenly that he had seen Viktor talking to Chris the night of the Grand Prix Final, before the medal ceremony. So the bastard had decided this at least a few days ago.

Viktor beamed, looking around at them all. “Are there any objections?”

Yakov looked at Lilia and she nodded. Yakov cleared his throat. “My king, as your elders and betters, we think this may be your finest moment as our leader.”

Yuri turned on them, gaping. The rest of the pantheon were nodding as well.

Chris stood up and bowed to Viktor in return. “Then I accept.”

“Great!” Viktor put his hands on his hips. His body has resolved into a solid, human form they all recognised. “Well, I’m off. Take care of them, Chris.”

He turned and headed for one of the six grand, luminescent-blue ice doors, beyond which the magical boundaries of the mountain would allow him to teleport.

“Wait, wait, where are you going?” Yuri jumped up. He had returned to human form as well, his shoulder-length hair flying around him. “I want to talk to you, Athena. Don’t walk away from me!”

“Sorry, I’m off duty!” Viktor waved at him over his shoulder. “Bye!”

And without another word, he slipped out the door and vanished.

---[]---

On the fourth day after the Grand Prix, Yuuri felt strong enough to go for a walk. What he really wanted was to head up to the Ice Palace to skate. His muscles were still sore from the Grand Prix and the after-party, and he wanted to get them moving to ease the tension. But his head still spun if he moved too fast or was exposed to anything louder than quiet conversation, so he knew he wasn’t ready for the rink yet.

The snow had melted, but the winter winds were bitter on the beach. They cut against his cheeks even when he pulled his scarf right up to his nose and dragged his hat over his ears. Only a few rugged-up dog-walkers had come down to the tide line. The air smelled of salt and brine, and foam fluttered on the sand at the edge of the waves. Yuuri stood and watched the sun struggle through the clouds to cast a few glints on the choppy water.

Oinops pontos, Yuuri thought. Wine-dark sea. He had realised yesterday, while browsing the internet for news about the recent peace treaties, that he could now read Ancient Greek fluently. One of many small surprises that he would no doubt uncover as he untangled the mess he’d left of his own mind and body.

He remembered all the details of this death better than the last one. Thankfully, the hot pools of Hasetsu had kept him stable and cognisant until he could fix the damage he’d done to himself. He had only been dead for about twenty minutes: but they had been a terrifying twenty minutes, in which he had all the powers of a god but was trapped and senseless in a corpse. It had been like a carpenter trying to fix a ship wrecked on a sandbar, and rebuild the keel for shallow waters, all while a storm loomed on the horizon. Not only did he have to heal his body but rearrange the channels and networks of his brain until they were functionally human, and he had to do it as fast as possible. It had been a frantic race against death to cram his Dionysian powers and memories into boxes and basements, shut up the divine doors and nail them closed, lock away the secrets of his pre-Yuuri life. He had successfully fixed up the vessel that was his body, shored it against the oncoming hurricane, sailed it straight into the wind and come out the other side alive. But when you patched a sail over and over until no thread from the original remained, did you really have the same sail at the end?

He had rebuilt himself in the model of Yuuri Katsuki, but he would never be quite the same Yuuri Katsuki he was before the Grand Prix.

He wrapped his arms around his chest and turned towards home. As he raised his head, he saw a shape coming along the beach towards him. The figure was tall and graceful, his scarf trailing behind him and his pale hair shining in the grey light.

Yuuri began to walk, and then despite his aches and pains he ran, his arms pumping by his sides.

“Viktor!”

Viktor opened his arms and Yuuri threw himself into his embrace. Yuuri pressed into him, arms trapped between their chests, his nose squished into the hinge of Viktor’s jaw. He felt Viktor’s chest expand with a deep breath and then release slowly. They separated, but Yuuri gripped both Viktor’s hands as if afraid he’d blow away in the wind.

He looked at Viktor, who had the same smile that Yuuri had fallen in love with in a grainy, black-and-white video from fifty years ago, now all in colour. Although maybe it was the winter light, but there was a softness to Viktor’s colour that Yuuri hadn’t seen before.

“Are you alright?” Yuuri asked, putting his hand to Viktor’s neck to check he didn’t have a chill, his thumb brushing against Viktor’s jaw. “You look a little… fragile.”

Viktor laughed. “I’m fine. I’m not the one who’s still coming back from the brink of death! I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I couldn’t reply to your texts while I was out of range—”

Yuuri smiled, leaned up and kissed him. Until now, every other kiss between them had been snatched in the heat of the moment, rough and excited. At last, on the empty beach, he could kiss Viktor softly, for as long as he wanted.

After a while they drew apart again. “You taste different,” Yuuri said. “Good, but… different.”

Viktor took his hand with a low huff. “Walk with me.”

They wandered along the edge of the water hand in hand, kicking at the piles of foam. For a couple of minutes they walked in silence. Yuuri broke it at last, “You’re human now, aren’t you?”

“As close as I can be,” Viktor answered. “It was a bit complicated – I had to go into a deepwater trench and find a decent magma vein, talk to some very old earth-spirits, do some rituals – you know how it is.”

Yuuri stopped and turned to him, his grip tightening around Viktor’s gloved fingers. “Viktor, you’re not… you didn’t give up immortality for me, did you?”

Viktor laughed, eyes crinkling. “Oh, me forbid, no! But I’ve given up my powers, and my divinity is hidden deep. So I won’t be a danger to those I love.” He touched Yuuri’s cheek. “I’ll go back to being a god when this body dies, whether by accident or old age.”

“You’re planning to stick around that long?”

“If you’ll have me. I wanted to ask you if I could stay with you, the night after the Grand Prix, before everything went to hell.”

Yuuri sighed, leaning into Viktor’s palm. “I said ‘yes’ already. I never meant to make you wait for an answer, all those years ago. You know that, don’t you?” he smiled. “I didn’t even realise it was even a question. It was obvious we were heading in that direction. I only ran away to the shrine so that I could decide how the wild-man Dionysus would be a consort without losing my traditions. I would have been back just like I promised, if our cousins hadn’t interrupted me.”

“I understand. We’ve both been at cross purposes a lot recently,” Viktor sniffed, ducking his head. He wiped his eyes quickly and smiled again, giving an exaggerated shiver. “By Tartarus, it’s cold out here. How do humans deal with this all day, every day?”

Yuuri snorted. “Let’s head back. You have a lot to get used to. You’re going to have to get a job, probably.”

“No! That’s horrible! I’ll just ask Chris for money.”

Yuuri burst into laughter. “You’re shameless.”

Back at Yu-Topia, Yuuri’s mother greeted them with a cautious eye on Viktor. She had evidently decided that he might be a good skating coach, but he was a terrible influence on her son. Yuuri resolved that he would sit her down with Dad and explain everything as soon as he could. He’d have to, if they were going to accept Viktor as part of the family.

They sat in the paper-walled private dining room at the front of the building. The sun had burned away the clouds a little and was letting light through in intermittent bursts, the walls alternating between gold and grey as the shadows of the clouds passed across the sky. Makkachin bounded around Viktor, thrilled to have him back and doing his best to goad him into a proper tussle on the floor. Yuuri brought in a tray with a big pot of tea and bowls of beef broth and noodles. His stomach was still a little queasy, and he didn’t want to ruin his taste for katsudon by eating too much and making himself sick again.

“So,” Viktor said through a mouthful of noodles. “When do we start training for the Japanese Nationals? You don’t want to push yourself after all you’ve been through, but you don’t want to get out of shape either. At least you won’t be up against Yuri again, so we can focus on an easier routine than the Grand Prix.”

Makkachin padded around the table and rested his chin on Yuuri’s thigh. Yuuri stroked his ears. “I’ll have to see how I go on the ice. Dying can’t have been good for my muscle tone.”

Viktor swallowed and let his hand rest against the side of his bowl for a moment. “I still don’t know how you did it the first time,” he said quietly. “I saw what the Titans were capable of. You should never have survived.”

Yuuri glanced up at him with a smile. “They forgot who I am. Dionysus has always been a god of rebirth. The twice-born, who even went to the underworld to bring his mother back to life without consequence. In some stories, this isn’t even the first time the Titans have tried to consume me. Of all of us in the pantheon, they picked the most difficult by far to assassinate. It’s not in my nature to follow the rules.” He stirred his noodles around his bowl with the tip of his chopsticks and added, a little quieter now. “Wasn’t in my nature, I suppose. I’m not sure quite what my nature is, now.” He straightened up a little, smiling. “Perhaps I’ll be the god of something new. Like clinical anxiety. Or viral content.”

Viktor looked a little hopeful. “Really? You think you’ll turn back into a god again?”

Yuuri shook his head. “My divinity was growing stronger and stronger, before the after-party awoke me prematurely. Now, I’m not sure… I might be like you, once this body dies of old age, and rejoin the pantheon then. Or this might be the last life I have left.”

Viktor was silent for a moment, staring into the shifting depths of his noodles.

“It’s alright, Viktor. As a human, I wasn’t expecting more than one life.”

Viktor reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Then I’m glad to share it with you, as humans together.”

“Well, mostly human.” Yuuri gripped his hand in return and then went back to his meal, winding a large knot of noodles around his chopsticks and stuffing them into his mouth. Viktor stared at him with a small frown. Yuuri winked at him over the string of noodles hanging from his mouth.

“Yuuri, what do you mean?”

Yuuri sucked up the last of the noodles and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced around and reached for the empty soy sauce dish from the edge of the table. He picked up the teapot and filled the dish, then held it out to Viktor with both hands.

Viktor frowned and took the dish. He sniffed it and his eyes widened before he put it to his mouth and drank it all down. Coughing, he dropped the dish with a clatter, thumping himself on the chest. “It’s sake!”

Yuuri rested his chin on one hand. “It seems to work on any liquid I wish, so far.”

“Vkusno!” Viktor’s eyes widened. “What a party trick!”

“Pity I don’t ever want to drink again.” Yuuri clutched his head.

“Ah, that won’t last until New Year’s. Minako and I will take you out all night!”

Yuuri laughed. “No. No. I want to stay in and watch television. No more parties. I literally died at the last one.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! This is what you were born for. We’re going to have so much fun!”

Viktor seemed to have forgotten about his food. He began to tell some new, absurd story about the wildest antics that he and Dionysus had gotten up to in the sixties, with explicit details about nudity and how much furniture they had broken, and how they’d escaped the state police through the desert, and ended up drunk and lost with only one shirt and one pairs of pants between them, somewhere in the wilderness…

Yuuri shook his head, still laughing, wondering how much he was going to have to teach Viktor about how to be human, and how much Viktor still had to teach him about everything else.

They might not have eternity, but they still had plenty of time to learn.