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Viktor is running out of time before the Russian nationals, and his choreography is a mess.
Normally he would have assembled his programs long before this point, but his planned programs were Eros and Agape, and he can't perform either of those in the same season as his competitors, so he needs something new. Something that will beat Yurio and Georgi’s routines, because if he's going to do this he can’t do half-measures. Viktor Nikiforov doesn't win bronze.
Something fresh, something that will make the audience say “he’s never skated like that before!”
It's what they said after his exhibition program with Yuri, which Viktor is maybe more proud of than he is of any of his choreography. They said it was a tour de force, the strongest argument for Viktor Nikiforov’s return to skating at age 28.
But that was a love letter, and that was the easiest thing to write now.
Viktor glares at the practice ice as if he’s trying to issue it a challenge. He’d woken up early, leaving Yuri a note with four hearts drawn on the end, in hopes of beating any of the other Russian skaters. The ice is empty, and he has maybe an hour alone with his thoughts.
He should be able to write a new story with his skating, the way he always has, but there's nothing there. He's stuck in the wrong headspace, maybe. The routines he wants to choreograph require two people, two dancers.
He should practice something, so he decides on the Apage routine, the last thing he’d put together for himself, the world-record breaking version.
It's still easy, in a way, the step sequence, the first few jumps. There's nothing like the emotion there was when he'd performed it the first time, but he'll get it back, and he should be working on something new anyway, a more mature piece for an older and more worldly skater.
Viktor launches into the quad flip almost without thinking; it's second nature. One, two, three, four --
And then he loses his balance, feels the bone in his ankle twist, and lands hard on hands and knees.
"Damn it." Years of training have taught him not to respond directly to the pain, to pop back up onto his feet and get off the ice, but instead he finds himself falling back into a sitting position, tears of frustration springing to his eyes.
It had been so easy rehearsing for the exhibition. It was always easy with Yuri.
You'd better not hurt yourself trying to skate again at your age, old man, Yurio had told him crossly.
Don't worry about me, Viktor had chirped, twirling across the ice in an imitation of his part from the duet.
I don't want to see you and Japanese Yuri fighting either, Yurio scowled. I don't know why you couldn't just coach him. Don't get upset when you lose to both of us.
"Viktor!"
It's Yuri's voice, immediately concerned to the point of nearly being frantic, and Viktor can't help but smile, especially when Yuri rushes out onto the ice in tennis shoes and kneels down next to him.
"What happened? Are you alright?" He's immediately reaching for the ankle Viktor's holding, eyes wide with worry.
“It's just twisted a little,” Viktor says, “don’t worry.”
Yuri frowns at him. “What were you trying to do?”
"I fell on a quad flip." Viktor smiles weakly, brushing the hair out of his eyes. "I'm getting too old for this, Yuri. Soon I won't be able to do my signature move at all."
"Don't say that." Yuri's eyes are dark and inscrutable behind his glasses. Viktor never understands him well enough, was never good at reading people, even someone like Yuri who he wants to memorize entirely.
Yuri gets to his feet and holds out both hands. "Let's get off the ice, okay? I'll help you walk."
Viktor gets to his feet unsteadily, lets Yuri lead him off the ice, leaning on him perhaps a little more heavily than he really needs to.
Yuri shepherds him off to one of the benches, muttering about how reckless Viktor is. He lifts Viktor’s foot gently into his lap and undoes the laces, running his fingers softly over Viktor’s skin. His touch is strangely soothing, cool and soft.
“It'll bruise,” he says. “But it's nothing serious.”
"It's the ankle I broke when I was eighteen," Viktor explains apologetically. "I had just started training with Yakov, and he was so disappointed in me--"
"I remember," Yuri says quietly. "You missed Worlds. Yuuko and I were so worried you'd never skate again."
"But then I won my first Olympic gold," Viktor sighs. "Were you proud of me?"
It's a strange thought, that when he was a teenager trembling with nerves in the Olympic arena Yuri was somewhere watching, halfway around the world. How different his life would have been if he’d known that this was somewhere waiting for him, this kind of love.
"Very proud." Yuri smiles and taps his ankle gently. "You should take a day off practice. We'll go home and put some heat on it."
Home. Home is Viktor's sparse St. Petersburg apartment, which is now where Yuri keeps his clothes and his toothbrush and his silver medal, which Viktor hung above the fireplace, and his extensive collection of Viktor Nikiforov posters, because Minako had mailed every one of them from Hatsetsu. (Yuri had shoved them into a drawer, but Viktor put some of his favorites on the fridge, next to the photos he'd had printed of Yuri in his juniors costumes.)
Home, where every time Viktor sees Yuri chattering excitedly to the triplets over Skype or hears Mari complain over the phone about the time difference, he feels guilty for keeping Yuri to himself, as if he's the one stealing Yuri from the world now.
"What will Viktor Nikiforov's fans say if he falls like that in competition?" Viktor sighs, not moving. "What will his protégée and rival Yuri Katsuki say?"
Yuri’s eyebrows raise skeptically. "I'd say nothing is going to stop you from skating if you want to."
You'd better not get tired of him after two months like you do with all the rest, Yakov had told him gruffly all those months ago, when Viktor had announced he was leaving for Japan. I know you, Vitya. You can never focus.
It's different, Viktor said, meaning, he's different, meaning that there was something different about Viktor himself now, that Yuri made the loneliness lurking in the pit of his stomach the only thing he could think about. Yuri made it seem like a problem that could be solved, not just the way he would always feel.
That wasn't what Viktor worried about, losing his focus. He wouldn't ever want to stop focusing on Yuri, wouldn't ever get tired of him.
Yuri, though, Yuri could get tired. He could want someone else, someone younger or less difficult or a rival in skating who had the passion for competing that Viktor just didn't anymore. He could wake up one day and look at Viktor and not see the man he'd idolized anymore, just an aging former legend who never remembered where he'd left his phone and couldn't do a quad flip like he used to.
"Hey." Yuri's hand was touching his cheek, making Viktor look into his eyes. "Does it hurt that badly? You look like you're somewhere else."
His hand is still on Viktor’s ankle, holding it carefully, like it might really snap if he lets go.
“You're so good to me,” Viktor sighs, and Yuri blushes, pleased with himself. “Yuri?”
“Hmm?”
You're really competing in the same bracket as him? Christophe had said at the banquet, with a look that was almost a sneer. That's not going to turn out well.
It will be fine, Viktor demurred, sipping his champagne and avoiding eye contact. It will make us both better skaters.
You really think you won't end up resenting each other? Chris said, arms crossed.
You don't resent me, Viktor said lightly.
Chris shot him a look of disbelief. Are you serious? Of course I do.
“What would you think if I didn't want to go back to competing?” Viktor says.
Yuri’s mouth falls open in an expression of shock, and Viktor feels guilty immediately. He shouldn't have said anything at all.
“You -- you don't?”
Yuri’s voice is a little sad, but mostly confused, and Viktor pulls his leg away from Yuri’s hands, folds in on himself.
Sorry, I take it back, just forget it, he wants to say, but Yuri deserves better than that. They're supposed to tell each other everything, because that's what you do when you love someone. They're trying to get better at it.
“I thought you might retire if I didn't,” Viktor says. “I couldn't let that happen, because that's not what you want, Yuri, and you deserve -- you deserve so many medals --”
“You could win gold again next year,” Yuri says. “So you fell once, that doesn't mean you can't compete…”
“I don't want another gold medal,” Viktor says. He hangs his head low, avoiding Yuri’s eyes, his bangs falling over his face.
He's blinking back tears again, and Yuri sees it, and both of his hands come up to hold Viktor’s face, to make him look. Yuri bites his lip.
“What do you want, Viktor?” he says.
Viktor thinks that he doesn't remember the last time someone asked him that and really meant it.
He wants to be everything Yuri could ever want, his inspiration to be the best skater he can, and if that means competing against him, he’ll do it. He wants Yuri to know exactly how brilliant he is.
But he also wants to stop fighting with his body to achieve something that only came naturally ten years ago; he wants to wake up someday without every joint in his body hurting. He wants the freedom he's had over the last eight months, to make decisions without his first concerns being his career, to not care what the Russian press thinks of him. He wants an apartment in St. Petersburg that belongs to him and to Yuri equally, and another one in Hasetsu, and maybe another dog that Viktor has time to take care of himself.
He wants to look at the ring on his finger and know it means Yuri is his, really, in a way that has nothing to do with skating competitions.
He wants to stop feeling the way he did at his last Grand Prix, like he had to keep spinning to stay in the air, like if he stopped he might fall further than he ever had.
He wants the freedom to want things.
And all of that is too hard to say.
“I want to be your coach,” Viktor says, “until you retire because you're ready to, and not for me… I want to keep skating together, and I don't care if we win medals for it or not.” Yuri looks like he wants to say something, but Viktor shakes his head. “And I want to get married. We don't have to wait until you win a Grand Prix final for that. Unless you want to! But I was going to take you to Paris for our honeymoon, and I want to do that soon, so…”
Yuri laughs a little at that, and Viktor wants to be offended, but there's so much warmth in his eyes, and he brings Viktor’s hand up to his mouth to kiss his engagement ring, and then his palm, careful and soft like he always is.
“Paris?” Yuri says, almost disbelieving.
“You'd love Paris,” Viktor says, defensive, but Yuri’s not letting go of his hand and he's not reacting with the shock and unhappiness that Viktor had half expected. Viktor curls their fingers together. He wishes he never had to let go.
“I just thought you wouldn't be happy unless you were competing,” Yuri says. “I thought… I watched you on the podium all those years, I thought it was what you loved.”
Viktor smiles sadly. “You don't know how alone I was before I met you.”
He sees his own sadness reflected in Yuri’s eyes, but it's replaced by a look of determination, and Yuri squares his shoulders like he's bracing for a fight.
“So what will you think if I don't compete?” Viktor says.
“I just want you to be you,” Yuri says, and Viktor can't resist kissing him, throwing his arms around his neck.
“I love you,” Viktor says. Yuri never looks like he believes him, when he says it, so Viktor has to keep saying it as often as possible until he does. “So, so much.”
Yuri grins, red-faced, and slips an arm around Viktor’s waist, pulling him closer. “I love you, too,” he says, shyly, like it’s still a confession every time.
Viktor hides his smile in the shoulder of Yuri’s fleece parka, holding on tight. “Yuri, I think I'm really hurt,” he says. “You'll have to carry me home.”
He can feel Yuri laugh. “Alright, I get it. Next time we skate together, I'll do the lifts.”
“I have a lot of good ideas for ice dancing choreography,” Viktor says dreamily. “We’ll worry about your championships first, though. You still owe me a gold medal.”
“Anything you want,” Yuri says, and Viktor feels exactly the same.