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A blini sits on the stovetop, spots of color slowly popping up across the pale white—too slowly, in Victor’s opinion. In his time away, Victor had grown too used to bright, sunny mornings, greeting his early routines warmly. He had almost forgot what it was to wake up and not know the time of day from a quick glance out a window. The world outside Victor’s window in St. Petersburg is pitch black. Heavy gray drapes linger at either side of the window. They’re a reminder of a time not so long ago when the darkness and the cold outside were a sickly reminder of something that lingered in his chest, an oilslick feeling that he’d tried so hard to ignore.
The memory stirs up an irrational sort of fear that Victor only entertains in the most metaphorical, detached corner of his mind, and even then, never for long. The brief flash of panic passed, his lips crook into a faint slant, and laughs—a small, silent exhalation of breath that sends fragments of buckwheat flour skittering across the countertop.
It was just yesterday that Yuuri—Yuuri, here!—had squinted at moving boxes stacked to the apartment’s extravagantly tall ceiling, and, determination setting his jaw into a line that made Victor weak, strode over to that window, and huffed. “We need some light in here,” he’d said, and thrown the drapes open.
What a penchant Yuuri has for letting in the light.
God in heaven, Victor is a sap.
(He is nothing Yuuri hasn’t made him to be.)
Victor applies himself to the blinis, flipping and lifting one from the stove to a plate. He’s pouring another out to cook, thinking about what preserves Yuuri might enjoy the most, when behind him, a muffled, gravelly voice says “Vitya?” and Victor’s heart simultaneously ascends and falls out of his chest onto the floor.
The blini is an oblong, odd shape. Victor chooses not to take the blame.
“Victor? Victor! Hey, Nikiforov!”
Victor starts out of his reverie and looks up, murmuring a nondescript “Yes, yes?” in English. Then holds back an amused snort; hides it behind a slightly-more dignified cough. Yuri is flushed red with fury, standing at all his 162 and a half centimeters of intimidation, with his hair pulled back into braids that look artfully loose, but most likely have the consistency of concrete, if Victor’s memory serves him correctly. He’s clearly already been through hair and makeup—an official European Chamionships jacket the only thing covering a royal-blue costume. That’s right, Yuri’s next. He doesn’t seem to be very happy about that.
He’s also, in this moment, possibly one of the most adorable sights Victor has seen since the last time he pet Makkachin. Victor almost looks to his right to meet knowing, whisky eyes, but aborts the movement as soon it starts. Not for the first time today, Victor feels Yuuri’s absence like a knife in his gut.
“Yuri!” Victor says, falling back into Russian. “Shouldn’t you be lacing up?”
“Yes the fuck I should,” Yuuri hisses. “Where in hellfire is Yakov?”
Victor stands, throws off sentimental memories and promises himself, again, that he’ll call Yuuri as soon as he gets back to the hotel. Reaching a hand out for Yuri to take, Victor begins walking—Yuri slaps it away, but it’s the thought that counts. “I’m afraid I’m not quite sure. Would you like me to help you find him?”
Yuri snorts. “I’d like you to go to hell.” But he doesn’t say no.
The European Championships this year have a sort of hush over them that Victor doesn’t think they had before. Administrators and event staff, even fellow competitors, all seem like they’re watching him more intently, categorizing his every move—waiting for him to prove his worth all over again.
Victor isn’t bothered—the gaze of strangers has always been something exciting; a challenge. Really, that’s probably how it’s always been—he’s used to being big news; what’s probably changed is his awareness of his surroundings. Yakov had always said that he was too flighty, not so much too focused on skating as he was, just, unaware of anything else. That was what started dragging him down, in the end. When skating was all he’d had, and even that became mundane, he began to feel stifled, suffocated in the insulated world he’d made for himself, and it had taken Yuuri Katsuki putting his hands on Victor’s hips and dipping him in front of every stuffy sponsor in the business to push him out of his bubble and into a world he hadn’t even considered.
So in reality, this subdued atmosphere could only be natural, and Victor would be none the wiser.
He’s noticing the hush, though.
'Victor?’ says Yuuri, and it’s he’s called Victor in his gravitational orbit. Victor turns his head so that he can just see Yuuri in the slightly hazy focus of his peripheral, rumpled and looking like he wants nothing more than to collapse into sleep’s waiting arms again right there.
‘Yuuri, love! I thought you would still be sleeping!’
‘So did I,’ Yuuri grouses, sliding onto a stool at the breakfast bar. ‘But I found that a little difficult with the noise from in here. Are we summoning a demon?’
Victor takes a quick look at the blini, and turns to face Yuuri, leaning against the counter. He’s not even wearing his glasses, in favor of covering his face with his hands like he can hide from the morning. ‘Oh I would have invited you along if we were doing anything fun, Yuuri, you know that. I’m just making blini.’ Victor takes a look around the kitchen, and winces. ‘Summoning an army of cutlery, maybe.’
Yuuri snorts, and half opens one dark, honeyed eye, and his hair looks like it may have gained sentient life overnight, and he’s wearing two layers of heavy sweatshirts because Yuuri claims even the temperature indoors is unbearable, and that Russians must be cold-blooded—even though Victor charmingly argues that if he were, he’d definitely be the worse off, a statement which earned him a glare Yuuri would insist was not charming—and really, in this moment, Victor is so in love with this man that his chest could cave in from the weight of it.
Things with Yuuri are never quiet. There are always small things to be done around the apartment, possible program music playing in the background, idle chatter that never quite means anything (but at the same time means everything).
From his months in Hasetsu, Victor had, after the initial whiplash of reconciling this Yuuri with his Yuuri from the banquet all those months before, grown to assume that Yuuri was always just… quiet. Their time together was marked by Victor carrying the weight of conversation, which was to be expected, given he was supposed to be coaching, and he certainly hadn’t complained—it’s just that, when Yuuri truly started to be comfortable around him, Victor realized just how wrong he’d been.
Yuuri is, when in his element, never silent. Part of it stems from his anxiety, and methods of coping with that. If he’s psyching himself up for a big activity later in the day (or week), or thinking through something even as simple as a grocery list, he’ll mumble under his breath. At first those mumbles were in Japanese, soft and blurred together, almost like a comforting, familiar drone, and Victor found himself falling asleep to it many times. But recently, after their time spent together and their use of English as a bridge language, Yuuri has been falling back on English, and suddenly, it was exponentially harder to fall asleep to.
Lacing his skates, Victor has to clutch his heart at the memory.
“And really, who needs that much fiber cereal? He doesn’t even eat cereal. I’m gonna have to talk to him about this, it’s getting ridiculous,” Yuuri mumbled to himself, standing in front of their cereal cupboard three days before Victor left, and the cuteness of it all had nearly left Victor of the time in tears.
An event staff member tells Victor that he has three minutes until he’s up.
Victor sighs, and lets himself fall back into soothing memory.
‘The counter can’t be that comfortable, love,” Victor says, and watches Yuuri shift from his position, hunched over marble countertop and making no sign of moving.
‘Yes it is,’ says Yuuri. His voice is muffled by his arms and two layers of sweatshirt. ‘This is supremely comfortable. I’m going to live here, now, thanks.’
‘Yuuri’, Victor whines, even though Yuuri sadly stopped being susceptible that two weeks into their acquaintance. ‘You’re going to make me jealous. Do I have to fight the counter for your affections?’
‘No fighting needed—the inanimate marble wins.’
‘Even if I offer you blini?’
‘Especially.’ Yuuri lifts his head just enough to send him a weak glare. ‘You and your blini woke me up in the first place. The counter is here for me in my time of need.’
Victor turns back to his oven, takes the pan off the heat and starts preparing another one. ‘You’re always so cruel when you’re tired, love.’
‘You drive me to it.’
'Why don’t you go back to bed?’
Yuuri half-sits up at that, looking slightly worried. ‘When I said I didn’t want you to offer me food, I didn’t mean it literally.’
Victor laughs, low and content. ‘Go back to bed, Yuuri. I’ll come get you when breakfast is ready.
Yuuri huffs—he ’s moving, but lethargically, like one of the cold-blooded creatures he claims Victor to be. ‘You’d better.’
Cross my heart, love!’
Yuuri only answers in a half-hearted scuffle in the direction of the bedroom, and Victor assumes that the advice has been followed. Really, with that last blini, he ’d been ready to start eating, but Yuuri had seemed so tired that he couldn’t help but give him a little time to dezombify. Besides, with the extra time, he might even be able to scrounge up some presentable sauces. Yuuri wouldn’t care, but Victor is sure that if he went through the trouble of making good blini and served it with half-hearted, store bought jam, his mama would Know.
Victor shudders. Best get cooking.
When Victor looks up, another aide is there, shaking with nerves that remind him of Yuuri, waiting to lead him to the ice, which reminds him of Yuuri, and the missing him is a constant ache in the back of his mind, ever-present and unrelenting—Victor knows he could get used to it, but the thought also makes him feel vaguely ill.
They’re right outside the rink, now. Taking off his skate-guards, Victor falls back on a feeling that he has no name for, easily as breathing. The ice is smooth, lined with hairline scars, barely visible but for proximity, and the familiarity is like a breath of fresh air. Thoughts and memories of Yuuri are simultaneously pushed away and brought to the forefront—if he feels grounded on the ice, and Yuuri is his foundation, then it’s logical, really.
He steps out onto the ice.
Here goes, love, Victor thinks, as the first notes of a familiar melody start to play.
The press are unrelenting. When Victor won gold, 279.37 points under his belt, all that ‘hush’ that he’d been so concerned with earlier simply evaporated, and he felt as though there hadn’t been a lull in the roar in his ears since.
“Mr. Nikiforov!” they say, and ask the same questions over and over until the sound of them becomes something like a background noise. He’d handled the official press release, the medaling—all official expectations until the gala later this evening—and still they were surrounding him, each trying to make their voice heard over the crowd, effectively drowning themselves out in the process.
Victor used to think of the press fondly, with a sort of excitement that only a ‘narcissist,’ as Yuri insists on calling him, could. He still does, really. They’re a remarkable outlet for Victor to connect with his fans, who have grown exponentially since his relationship with Yuuri went public, and have been hungrier than ever for every word he’ll give them.
It’s just that now, in this moment, Victor is very tired, and very lonely—can you really be lonely for one person?—and quite ready to be back at his hotel.
He catches one journalist, while the majority of the others are presumably taking a breath, say “Mr. Nikiforov, how has your return to competitive skating changed your relationship with Yuuri Katsuki?”
Victor stops, tries to find that journalist in the crowd for a moment, and mentally sighs.
The hotel can stand to wait a little longer.
When Victor flops onto his provided hotel bed, he lets out a groan that Phichit would no doubt classify as ‘extra’. He thinks he’s allowed—he just won the gold at a competition that, nearly a year ago, he didn’t think he’d even be a competitor in. He doesn’t even bother getting under the sheets; just lays there on the scratchy material of the comforter, and hopes for oblivion.
He remembers a bed much more comfortable than this—worn with exercise and the laziness that has manifested in its continual, seven years of use. He remembers walking into his bedroom, the smell of fresh blini and varenye hot on his heels, seeing Yuuri there, curled into a ball under the covers, and wondering what he had ever done to deserve this man, ever, in his life.
To crawl into bed he has to navigate around Makkachin, who is fast asleep, and obviously not moving anytime soon. It takes doing, but he manages to wrap himself around his dog and fiance at the same time, and, mission accomplished, begins to comb his fingers through Yuuri’s hair—it might run away at any moment, he has to make the most of what time he has.
Yuuri groans, clearly beyond human speech at the moment, but one of the utterings that might be an attempt at human language sounds like blini, so Victor assumes he’s asking about breakfast’s progress.
‘It’s ready and waiting for you, love,’ he says in a low voice, and Yuuri hums approvingly.
‘Th’nk you,’ he mumbles.
‘Anything for you, Yuuri,’ says Victor, and isn’t even surprised anymore by how much he means it.
The bed is so warm, the bodyheat of two humans and a dog melting through the covers, and all of a sudden, Makkachin ’s fur soft against his forearm, and one hand at Yuuri’s waist, the other in his hair, Victor feels that he doesn’t want to get up.
Blini can always be heated up, after all.
Despite the discomfort, Victor’s nearly fallen asleep when somewhere, deep within the hotel room, his phone starts to ring, and any progress that he’d made toward drifting off was cruelly wrenched from his grasp.
The ringtone is the same for everyone who calls him, the most default option there is, and every time it rings Yuri winces, claiming that he’s ashamed to even be seen with him.
Out of spite, Victor lets it ring.
Then it occurs to him that it might be Yuuri calling, and he leaps out of bed. Frantically sifting through luggage and clothing that has just… accumulated in the couple days he’s been here, is nothing short of impossible. He finally finds it on the last ring, with no time to answer. Victor curses, unlocking with ease and checking his missed calls.
It was only Yakov—probably to yell at him for a while, and eventually give him congratulations on the gold.
It isn’t his most recent missed call that catches his attention, but the 52 others.
52.
From Yuuri Katsuki.
Victor blinks; wonders if he’s seeing things.
Then, horrified, he wonders if something’s happened while he’s not there, oh god, Yuuri could be dying—
Accompanying those 52 missed calls are 52 voicemails. Victor frantically starts playing them from the beginning, his heart located somewhere in his esophagus.
The Yuuri in his phone says “Hi, Victor!” and suddenly, days worth of pent-up affection breaks through the floodgates, and if tears linger in the corner of his eyes, well then, he’s too alone—so alone—for anyone to call him out on it. “I—I know you aren’t going to answer, that was… kind of the point, really. You’re probably off to the rink already, you masochist, and I know you never bring your phone to competitions. That always worries me—what if something happens to you? Yeah, yeah, you’re probably all ‘Oh but Yu-uri,’” Victor assumes that that deep, swooning tone is supposed to be an imitation of him, and he can’t even be offended. “’Do you really think so little of me?’ Whatever, I worry. That’s… sort of my thing. Anyway! I just wanted to call and say good morning! And good luck! I know you’ll win, but hey, you shouldn’t ever get complacent, yeah? Oh god, I think I’m running out of time—bye!”
Victor blinks.
That was—
possibly the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. There’re 56 more of these?
There are, in fact, 51 more. Victor should know. He listens to them all, hugging three hotel pillows and smiling like the love-struck fool that he is while he listens to Yuuri’s hesitant, adorable rambles. Yuuri’s always had trouble with talking over the phone, much less sounding almost comfortable doing it! Victor’s chest might cave in with pride.
Most are just things that Yuuri’s observed that he’s wanted to tell him about over the past few days, or at least that’s what Yuuri says. “Lucky you, you get all the boring stories. Did I tell the one about Mila and her ‘friend who might be a lesbian?’ I think I have. I’ll tell it again anyway.”
“I should probably get out of bed, huh,” says one. Victor says “Yes, yes you should, love,” at the same time Yuuri huffs and mumbles “Yeah, I probably should. That’s one good thing about you being gone—I don’t have my own personal trainer pulling me out of bed at the crack of dawn.”
The next message is very subdued, just some meaningless gossip from the St. Petersburg rink and a pause. After that pause, Yuuri whispers, barely audible, “I miss you.”
The next says, “I’ve heard your ridiculous answering machine so many times now that I should just be flat-out annoyed by it, but you’ve broken me, Victor. I hear your voice, and I’m…” Over the tinny recording and shitty speakers, Victor hears Yuuri take in a shuddering breath, and the voicemail ends.
And then, around two thirds in, Yuuri’s messages are just, excited laughter? Victor is quite confused, until Yuuri manages, around four messages of pure joy, to say “Congratulations, Vitya!” Victor checks the timestamp. At the time of the message, he’d just barely finished skating—the winner hadn’t even been announced yet. But Yuuri hadn’t even needed to hear the judges’ score.
Around message 48, Victor has to take a break, clutching his phone to his chest and wheezing.
When he finally comes to the end of them, message 52, Victor finds himself brought close to tears again—he doesn’t want them to be over. Yuuri says “I think I’m going to stop now—you’ll be getting back to the hotel, soon, and I wouldn’t want to disturb your victory nap. Okay. I just wanted to tell you not to skip the banquet tonight, alright? I’ve heard some heavy-hitting sponsors are going to be there just for you; and I know you hate those boring parties, but maybe just… Maybe just imagine I’m there with you, yeah? With how often you go on about that godforsaken Sochi banquet, it shouldn’t be that hard. I’ll see you soon, Victor. I love y—”
The message times out before Yuuri can finish his sentence. That’s alright—Victor’s pretty sure he knows.
A few more minutes are spent mourning Yuuri Katsuki’s perfection, and Yuuri Katsuki’s perfection existing so, so many miles away. But a peek at his phone’s lockscreen brings Victor out of his stage of mourning, and finally sitting up on the bed. He has a banquet to get ready for.
But first—
Yes we were born to make hi—!
Yuuri looks up from his book, surprised to be getting a call this late at night. Blindly, he reaches for his phone, and slides to answer. “Hello?”
“Yuuri, love! Oh how I've missed you!”