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Yuuri couldn’t help but smile as his skates touched down on the surface of the ice - all of his jumps were landing today, it seemed like. His eyes flicked across the ice to catch Victor, who was listening to something Yakov was yelling to him - even so, his eyes met Yuuri’s and he mirrored the grin. Yuuri bit his lip to keep himself from laughing like an idiot - Yuri was skating nearby and would call him insane, certainly, but he could barely help it. There was nothing special about the day, nothing extraordinary about the practice, and yet Yuuri was happier than he’d been in a long while, his chest free from the heaviness that sometimes weighed him down.
He woke up to his phone buzzing that morning - earlier than he’d like, but at their normal time to wake up for practice. Victor had rolled away from him in the night, but his legs were still somehow tangled up in Yuuri’s, and he groaned into his pillow at the sound of the alarm. Yuuri hit snooze and rolled over, draping himself over Victor’s back, content to breathe quietly into his ear for just a moment. He could see when the corner of Victor’s mouth quirked up in a small smile, and couldn’t help but lean forward to kiss him, morning breath be damned. Victor blinked at him, a real smile appearing, and rolled onto his back, letting Yuuri settle on his chest. Hands gently trailing up and down Yuuri’s back, Victor hummed in contentment.
“доброе утро,” he murmured. Yuuri smiled into his chest and dropped a quick kiss to his skin.
“おはようございます.”
Victor’s fingers were just beginning to trace below Yuuri’s lower back when his alarm went off again and the sound of a tail thumping frantically against the floor made itself heard. Victor groaned again, but when he met Yuuri’s eyes he was all warm smiles for him.
There was the usual morning rush - teeth brushed, coffee brewed, Makkachin walked, fruit grabbed. They held hands as they walked to the practice rink, not talking much in the punishing cold. There was time now, a few quiet weeks between the Grand Prix and the Four Continents before practice became all-consuming. When they arrived Yuuri was surprised to see the rink crowded with skaters - Victor leaned close and reminded him that many of Russia’s juniors were practicing there today and they would have to share the ice.
The pair split for morning practice, Yuuri going through some jumps he was inconsistent on and Victor going over a new routine with Yakov. For once Yurio simply nodded at Yuuri when he slid out onto the ice that morning, no insults being flung yet.
Still, for all that the morning was nothing but ordinary, Yuuri felt like he was floating on the ice, finally settling into his life in St. Petersburg, feeling for one of the first times in his life that he really belonged somewhere.
It was getting late, close to their lunch break, and Yuuri could feel his body slowing down a bit, still a little sore from practice yesterday. Still, he wanted to land a couple of quad toe loops before they broke for lunch so he could be sure he’d nail them in practice this afternoon with Victor. He looked around, mapping out an area for himself on the crowded ice, aiming next to two junior skaters working with their coach. He happened to catch Yurio’s eye before launching into the spin and gave him a genuine smile, enjoying the momentary look of surprise on the younger skater’s face.
But he was more tired than he thought, or maybe more sore, because the jump was wobbly and he knew he would fall, body tensing for the impact. On his last rotation he caught sight of a figure too close, much too close, a junior skater practicing camel spins, his leg stretched out parallel with the ice as he spun.
Then Yuuri was on the ice, and for just a moment he found himself staring down its slick surface, eyes squinting, not quite able to open all the way. Then he saw a drop, two, three, landing in front of him, crimson splashing on the ice and spreading. As if a switch was flipped the pain hit him hard, a keening sound somehow escaping his lips. A skate - the blade - it was his blood, it was coming fast now, it felt like - his face - like his face had been flayed from his skull. Yuuri dropped heavily onto the ice, into a rapidly growing pool of blood.
Victor was having trouble keeping his eyes off Yuuri this morning - there was something different about him, something beautiful. He tryed to keep some attention on Yakov, walking him through some minor changes in his routine, but could feel the lovesick expression on his face and knew not much was getting through. It’s been three weeks since Yuuri moved in with him in St. Petersburg and it finally feels like Yuuri is comfortable here, making friends with the other Russian skaters, speaking in shy, halting Russian to waiters and cashiers, letting his dirty clothes pile up on the floor of their apartment as if it’s his home. There’s nothing special about today, but Victor feels filled to the brim with love, feels like it’s spilling out of him every time he catches sight of his lover.
Yakov clears his throat and Victor snaps his eyes back to his coach, an impertinent grin on his face. Yakov goes back into his advice about the distribution of technical elements in the routine and Victor falls into an easy argument with him about how many jumps he can pull off in the second half. From the corner of his eye he can see Yuuri launching into a jump and - ah, too slow going into it, he’ll fall - and yes, Yuuri’s on the ice, already pushing up to all fours. A junior skater near him has also fallen and Victor wonders idly if he was startled by Yuuri’s jump, if he was too close. The junior skater’s coach gives a cry of alarm that seems to echo over the rink, and suddenly Victor’s world slows.
Everything seems to happen all at once, time falling all over itself, but later Victor will remember snapshots, has the feeling that these pictures will stay with him forever. His feet are already moving as he looks to the juniors coach, sees the color draining from his face. When he looks back at Yuuri he has collapsed on the ground, arms unable to hold himself up, and he can see Yuri approaching from behind with a furrowed brow. Yuri gets there first, crouching in front of Yuuri and - Victor doesn’t know if the rink is silent or if he is just laser focused, but all he can hear is the whoosh of breath that leaves Yuri, the whimper that escapes him after. Then Victor is there, standing over Yuuri’s crumpled form, and Yuri turns his face to look at him. Yuri is scared, terrified, and young young young and it feels like it takes decades for Victor’s eyes to track from him to Yuuri. He is awake, breathing roughly, a tiny animal noise escaping with every breath, face held barely off the ice by his arms beneath him.
There’s blood.
There’s a pool of - and finally Victor can see, can see what the coach saw, what Yuri saw, that Yuuri’s face is nothing but blood, is a horror movie, is not Yuuri at all. The breath catches in Victor’s chest and his first thought, unstoppable, is that Yuuri is already dead, that there’s no way this is survivable. By some miracle his eyes are still open, glazed over with pain, and then - then there is a long gash, starting above his left eyebrow and running over the bridge of his nose, across to his cheek. His nose, his mouth are completely obscured by the gush of blood - Victor kissed that mouth this morning, rubbed noses with Yuuri before the left the apartment that morning.
“Victor, Victor,” Yuri is saying over and over again, but Victor is frozen, his hands outstretched but not touching - what can he do? He can’t stop that blood, it’s too much, he can’t take it back - rewind time to when they were lying under the covers together, to when they were walking hand in hand.
The sharp sound of plain shoes slapping against the ice approaches Victor, and in a moment Yakov’s face is above him. Incongruously, Victor remembers watching the Rostelecom Cup, remembers Yuuri leaning in to hug Yakov. Then he is being slapped, a shock of cold air to his face, and Yakov is screaming at him -
“ - off the ice! We must get him off the ice, Victor!”
The breath returns to Victor in an instant, and his hands are on Yuuri’s shoulders - still breathing, still alive, not dead - and he is breathing hard, shouting at Yuri to take the other shoulder. Yuri starts as if he’d been slapped too and stand next to Victor over Yuuri, both of them reaching down, lifting him up and he’s dead weight in their hands. Yuri and Victor maneuver until they are each under one of Yuuri’s limp arms and skate to rinkside, lying him down there on a bench. Without Yuuri’s weight against him Victor shakes hard, shakes like he’s going to fall apart.
“Wake up, Victor!” Yuri screams, and Victor finds it hard to look at him, to move at all. “What do I do?”
It’s the crack in Yuri’s voice that spurs Victor to movement again, and he finds himself holding a towel from a nearby bench, finds himself kneeling next to Yuuri.
And finally it begins to sink in, this is his Yuuri, he is scared, he is hurt, he needs him.
“Shhhhh,” Victor’s shaking voice soothes as he begins to pat the towel around Yuuri’s mouth, terrified to hurt him further but unable to keep listening to the choking sounds he keeps making as blood flows into his mouth. “It’s okay my love. It’s going to be okay you’re going to be okay everything’s fine -” Victor’s voice chokes on a sob and he gently presses the towel directly on the gash, feeling bile rising in his throat. Yuuri jerks on the bench and Yuri presses him down, eyes wide, but then -
“Vic-” Yuuri chokes, and the sob escapes Victor, shaking him.
“I’m here, солнечный. I love you, I’m here.”
Later he understands that someone called an ambulance, that eventually paramedics are the ones having to bodily move him away, that Yakov and Yuri are saying words to him, that somehow he is sitting in the back of the ambulance, Yuri’s stricken face outside as the doors close, watching frantic movement, hearing a jumble of noise.
But for now he can’t take his eyes off Yuuri. Can’t look away.
Yuuri wakes slowly, groggily. He can feel there’s something off and it’s hard to open his eyes - he raises his hand to touch them but finds it stopped by a gentle weight.
“Yuuri,” a soft voice says near his ear. Yuuri tries to smile, finds it hard.
“Victor, he murmurs. Slowly he can squint his eyes open - his right eye opening completely but his left stopping at half mast. With the dim light of the room comes a bubbling undercurrent of pain, not sharp but pervasive, slowly spreading a burning feeling across his face. Again he tries to lift his hands, but one is tangled in an IV tube, the other being held tightly. His tired eyes find Victor’s face.
“What…” he starts, can’t seem to string words together.
Victor brushes a stray hair behind Yuuri’s ear, so gentle he can barely feel it.
“Yuuri my love, there was… there was an accident. Do you remember anything?”
Yuuri remembers this morning, remembers smiling at Victor as they separated on the ice, remembers the little look of surprise on Yurio’s face, then -
He can hear the beep of a heart monitor speeding up, can feel his heart thumping heavy in his chest. He remembers a pool of blood beneath him on the ice. Remembers pain.
Victor presses his hand against Yuuri’s chest, eyes squinting, whispering reassurances.
“It’s okay Yuuri, you’re going to be okay. It was an accident but you’re going to be okay. You were falling out of a jump and you caught-” Yuuri watched as Victor’s mouth closed, his lips pressed firmly together for a moment.
“As you were falling someone else was doing a spin, and the blade of his skate caught you across the face.”
Yuuri’s breath stopped, and it was as if the description of the accident brought back the pain for a moment, that burning sear of pain across his face. A moan escaped his throat before he could stop it, eyes closing.
A freak accident. Of course Yuuri had heard of this happening, but it was about as far from a worry as anything could be for him - it’s something that happens to hockey players, and once in a blue moon to pair skaters. Not something that could happen to him.
When he can open his eyes again Victor has his closed, Yuuri’s hand held up against his lips, forehead furrowed.
“How bad?” Yuuri manages, and Victor’s eyes snap open, a shaky smile appearing on his lips.
“Not so bad, I promise my love. 80 stitches, and the doctor says it’s a miracle it missed both of your eyes. It will scar, but we should be able to minimize that. You just need to stay here a little while, until they can get your blood pressure back up and make sure the stitches are okay. They’ll give us some of the good stuff and I can take care of you at home.”
“80-” Yuuri starts, good eye widening and hand convulsively tightening. Victor was trying to keep a smile on his face but failing miserably and Yuuri could feel a fine tremble working its way up from where their hands were joined. He gathered what strength he could and scooted over on the bed. Victor seemed startled, letting go of his hand to reach out, try and stop or help him.
“Victor, please,” Yuuri whispered, looking down at the narrow empty spot on the bed. A loud breath left Victor and he scrambled onto the bed. Yuuri could feel the frame shuddering with the shakes working their way through Victor’s body and he opened his arms, feeling his heart slamming against his ribcage, feeling like he was sitting in the middle of a dream, like he might still be hunched on the ice above a pool of his own blood.
Victor let out a sob and pressed his face against Yuuri’s middle, his arms wrapping around him tightly. Yuuri let one hand rest on his hair, petting it lazily, movements slow with pain medication.
“Shhhh,” he whispered, “I’m okay Vitya. Here I am.”
The sobs subsided quickly, but Victor kept his face pressed against Yuuri.
“Your eyes closed,” he whispered against the thin hospital robe. Yuuri stilled his hand, curling it around the back of Victor’s head.
“We were in the ambulance and your eyes closed. There was so much blood - on the ice and on you and it kept coming -”
He stopped and Yuuri pressed closer.
“You passed out and I thought that you would never open your eyes again. I thought that was it, right after we’d begun, right when everything was perfect.”
“I’m here,” Yuuri said again quietly. “I’m here, Victor.”
They lay quietly for a few minutes, Yuuri drifting in and out of a medicated doze, still stroking the back of Victor’s head.
A thought finally struck him - “The other skater?” Yuuri asked.
“Everyone else is fine. Yakov says he’s really shaken up but not hurt. Yuri was with me in the waiting room, but I sent him home - you scared the shit out of him, Yuuri.”
“Only him?” Yuuri said quietly. Victor finally pulled away from his chest and met his eyes.
“Me too. Yuuri, I can’t-” Victor paused, moving up on the bed so that he was eye to eye with Yuuri. “Don’t do that again. Without you - I don’t know what I would do. I’m nothing without you.”
Yuuri pressed his hand against Victor’s chest.
“Five-time Grand Prix gold medalist, living legend,” he said with a small smile. Victor didn’t smile back, his eyes not leaving Yuuri’s.
“Nothing,” he repeated, and dropped a light kiss on Yuuri’s lips. Yuuri’s eyes fluttered shut, content to lie quietly and breathe the same air as Victor for as long as he could.
“Are you okay?” Victor asked after a long pause. “In pain? You want me to get the doctor?”
“No,” Yuuri breathed. “Just stay - stay close to me. Don’t leave.”
“Never.” Victor answered, and another kiss ghosted across his lips. “Never.”