Work Text:
Here’s how the story goes.
Yuuri Katsuki goes out to a place he knows he’ll hate, desperately attempts to fit in anyhow, fails spectacularly, and spends the rest of the evening in the corner, drinking himself into a state of inebriated confidence. At some point between drink two and drink seven, he meets a man who’s ridiculously handsome and otherwise just a hideous human being. Depending on his blood alcohol level and remaining stash of fucks to give, it takes Yuuri between thirty-two and ninety-four minutes to go from tipsily flirtatious to naked and writhing. Between the first and fourth second of his orgasm, Yuuri falls head over heels in love with Handsome-Yet-Hideous-Human-Being Version 6.9.0, until his heart is inevitably shattered anywhere from twenty minutes to six months later. His subsequent despair drives him out to a place he knows he’ll hate, where he desperately attempts to fit in anyhow.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Pop-up oyster bars, student film premiere nights, fundraisers held in church basements where a placidly smiling portrait of Jesus is the only witness to an under-the-table handjob—these are the places Yuuri frequents. His boyfriends are incompetent scammers, cheating husbands, sniveling trust fund kids, and selfish bastards; in the end, it’s always the same. Everyone agrees that Yuuri Katsuki is a sweet, good-natured oddball, but he has absolutely horrendous taste in men. He’s a decent catch, but there aren’t many men who can overlook the fact that Yuuri’s job sometimes involves picking brain matter out of the eyelets of his shoes, or that he has a collection of dead stuffed squirrels named after Bond girls. Or that he organizes his condiments by pH level.
Yuuri isn’t completely oblivious to these issues. He knows he’s a hard sell, which is, he suspects, part of why he ends up seeking the attention of losers. Losers come and go, in quite a literal sense. Sometimes it’s just easier to stick with what you know.
It’s this stubborn adherence to a depressing routine that has brought Yuuri to his latest haunt—that, and the fact that they’re selling bottles of wine at cost as long as you buy the baked ziti. Giovanni’s isn’t the nicest Italian restaurant in the city, but it is by far the most innocuous, and the locale has made for mildly interesting people-watching, even if no one has taken Yuuri’s increasingly tipsy bait. He pours himself another glass of Merlot and sighs the weary sigh of a man in need of a good di—
“—is this seat taken?”
Yuuri looks up and is struck by a vision of such otherworldly beauty that he chokes on his drink. The man standing in front of him is stunning: tall, platinum blonde, devastatingly handsome, wearing an impeccably tailored suit. Yuuri, by contrast, is halfway through bottle of wine and wearing an off-the-rack sport coat that makes his shoulders look like they’re embarrassed to be seen with him. In terms of red flags, the stranger’s attractiveness is “wake up in a bathtub with your kidney missing” levels of suspicious, but then he brushes the hair out of his eyes and Yuuri’s notions of self-preservation fly completely out of his head.
“I, uh,” he sputters. “I’m Yuuri. And—sure,” he gestures at the empty chair across from him.
“Hello Yuuri, I’m Victor,” comes the response, and Jesus Christ those eyelashes should be registered as a weapon. Victor sits down, his posture perfect, and nods at a waiter to bring him a wine glass. “What brings you to a place like this on such a fine Tuesday night?”
“Do you want the dignified answer or the true answer?” Yuuri blurts despite himself.
Victor grins, and Yuuri’s knees turn to mush. “Honesty, every time,” he says with a wink. “I don’t know about you, but I find dignity to be overrated.”
“I…” Yuuri draws a complete blank. He can’t remember the name of his street or the year he graduated from college. He can’t remember how to spell the word Mississippi. Nothing. Finally, with the seconds ticking and Victor’s gaze unrelenting, he shoves some sounds out of his throat: “I’m here to seduce the worst man in the room.”
Oh. Yuuri. Buddy. He winces, waiting for the sting of rejection, but instead Victor sits back with a sweetly amused smile.
“Is that so?” he replies, voice like honey. “Well, you’re in luck, because I’m the worst man in this room, so it is a genuine pleasure to meet you.”
“That’s okay, good luck wi—wait, what?”
“I apologize if I’m being too forward,” Victor says, pouring himself some Merlot. “But I tend to know what I want when I see it.”
Yuuri barks with cynical laughter. “I hate to break your streak, but I don’t think I’m your type,” he says, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
Victor cradles his chin in his hand. “Now why would you say that?”
Before he answers, Yuuri signals the waiter for another bottle of wine, and starts counting things off on his fingers. “Well, my married boyfriend just dumped me via a text message meant for another one of his flings. The guy before that left me stranded at a NASCAR event after I got drunk on PBR and told him I loved him. I’m a forensic analyst by day and an amateur taxidermist by night. I genuinely like pineapple on pizza, I don’t enjoy bacon as much as the Internet thinks I should, I think the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie was better than the books, and I can’t have a one night stand without falling in love. I’m kind of a human disaster,” he concludes.
Victor leans forward. “Yuuri, I’m going to tell you a secret,” he murmurs. “The men I meet are always at the ready, always coiled tight like a spring, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s no fun with them, no spontaneity, no surprises. You, though, are refreshingly real. I don’t think you have a single ulterior motive for being here, aside from getting laid, and the fact that you picked this particular restaurant tells me that no matter what happens tonight, you’ll be fine tomorrow. You’ll get up, go to work, have dinner with friends, and try another bar and another man. You may be a disaster, but you’re an honest disaster.”
Yuuri wonders if he’s having a stroke. “...you’re not freaked out by any of that?”
“Not at all,” Victor replies. “And in the interest of honesty, I like pineapple on pizza as well, and my last boyfriend left me because I sold him out to the Cubans during a mission gone bad.”
“A...mission?”
“Right! Yes. I’m a superspy and part-time assassin. On the run, though.”
Yuuri grins. “Oh,” he replies, draining the rest of his wine in one go. “Cool. Okay.”
Victors eyebrows disappear into his bangs. “You’re...not freaked out by that?”
“Nah,” Yuuri shrugs. “I mean, you gotta do what you love, right?” As he pours another glass of wine, he can’t help but chuckle to himself. The thing about having terrible taste in men is that Yuuri has been on a lot of dates with a lot of shitheads; it’s not the first time he’s been out with someone who’s obviously lying about their life, and it won’t be the last. The most creative liars tend to be really phenomenal in the sack, which certainly doesn't hurt, so Yuuri's willing to roll with it.
“You see, Yuuri, I—” Victor suddenly blanches, eyes widening and expression falling as he catches a glimpse of something over Yuuri’s shoulder.
“You...what?”
Victor sets down his wine glass with a clink. “I’m so sorry,” he says, “I have to just step outside for a moment, okay? Please don’t go anywhere. And, um, please don’t accept any drinks or food that you didn’t order.”
And with that he stands up and stalks away, towards the kitchen, without a single backward glance.
Yuuri sighs. He’s been in this position many times before; it’s 60/40 odds that Victor’s never coming back. A man with dignity would choose this moment to leave on his own terms rather than be stood up by an almost-stranger, but Yuuri is not a man of dignity, a fact he punctuates by taking a swig directly from the wine bottle. I may be a disaster, he thinks, but least this Merlot isn’t expensive.
~
It was a Saturday night at 1900 hours when Agent Victor Nikiforov, code name History Maker, officially went rogue.
He didn’t intend to do it, not really. There was no grand plan to ditch his handlers and flee the country for a nice beach in a place with no extradition treaties; he wasn’t seduced to another agency through a honeypot or a clever sting. He just...had enough. He needed something more—a life of his own. An apartment he stayed in for longer than six months. A chance to seduce men he liked instead of enemies he despised, to nurture hearts instead of breaking them in every possible sense of the term. And so he walked away mid-mission, destroying his earpiece with a satisfying crunch beneath his heel.
That was three nights and three hundred miles ago; now Victor is here, on the precipice of an actual date with an actual man who might actually be into him without the imminent threat of capture by hostile foreign sources. Giovanni’s has always been something of a safe haven for men on the very fringes of moral acceptability, and Victor thought he’d be safe there, at least for the night. But he was wrong.
The beach would have been a smarter plan, Victor thinks as he creeps out into the back alley of the restaurant. Or somewhere I could have a date without being interrupted.
But these are the choices he’s made, and so he’s got to live with them. It’s the same sort of impulse that got him into the spying game in the first place; depending on who you ask, Victor’s relentless need to surprise people is either a shockingly cunning way to subvert enemy expectations or a huge goddamn pain in the ass. Sometimes it’s both, but tonight Victor has to begrudgingly admit that the pain-in-the-ass framing is probably more accurate than he’s ever wanted to admit. He isn’t even sure if he’s being pursued by friends or foes right now; as soon as he veered off schedule, it’s likely that Spymaster Yakov let slip at least a few of his dogs of war, or his carrier pigeons of unethical espionage for profit. Whatever.
In hindsight it’s not super surprising that Victor’s date was interrupted almost immediately, because spies are rude. And judging by the fact that Victor can see the sharp silhouette of Georgi Popovich crouching in the path of a security floodlight, some of them aren’t the sharpest knives in the arsenal.
“I know you’re out here,” Victor calls. “I can see your shadow.”
Georgi stands, teeth almost bared in anger. “Whatever,” he spits. “I’m here to bring you back to HQ. Yakov is seriously pissed.”
“No thanks,” Victor demurs. “My resignation is in the mail.”
“That’s not how this works. I was told to use any amount of force necessary; Yakov’s burn notice said ‘dead or alive’. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood today to let you go back in one piece.”
“And I said, no thanks,” Victor repeats. “I—” he’s cut off by a brutal punch to the gut, which doubles him over.
“Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to do that, Vitya? Years.”
Victor huffs, short and heavy, and rolls his eyes. “All right, fine,” he spits, raising his hands. “Let’s dance.”
Georgi laughs, tossing his head back, and the sound echoes up the damp walls of the alley. “Really? You want to fight me hand to hand?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever will speed this up,” Victor replies. “Because I’m kind of on a date right now? So I’d rather not drag this out—” he swings and connects, hard.
Georgi staggers and looks up with a grin, blood seeping in between his teeth. “Did you really think you could abandon your duties just to get your dick wet?”
“Honestly? Kind of,” Victor admits. “I need a break from you people.”
“You’re a traitor,” Georgi growls, aiming a blow at Victor’s ribs which he narrowly avoids. “Yakov is going to absolutely destroy you.”
The dodge knocks Georgi ever so slightly off-balance; it’s just the opening Victor needs, and he feels his lips stretch into a deadly grin as his adrenaline hits the crest before descending into full-blown violence.
“Tell you what,” Victor says, grabbing the back of Georgi’s head, “let’s agree to disagree.”
If Georgi does have complaints, they’re obscured by the thud of fists, the squelch of blood, the final death rattle of bare-handed murder. Victor wipes his hands on an abandoned dish rag as he heads back into the restaurant.
Spywork isn’t that hard, really. It’s the quitting that’s a son of a bitch.
~
“A little bit of Monica in my life, a little— ”
Yuuri hits Accept and puts his phone to his ear with a tipsy sigh. “I hate your ringtone.”
“It’s a classic,” his roommate Phichit replies, as he always does. “Also, where are you?”
“I’m on a date,” Yuuri mumbles. “His name is Victor. He said he’s a spy, so he probably works in telemarketing or something.”
“Yuuri,” Phichit says, in that I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed-in-your-life-choices-you-dick-hungry-cretin voice, “I have some concerns."
"I'm sure you do," Yuuri sighs. "You always do.”
“I don’t care how good-looking he is; you shouldn’t be there unsupervised. This is Chadwick all over again.”
“He’s not that good-looking,” Yuuri protests, only to be met with judgmental silence. He sighs. “Okay, you got me, he’s hot.”
“I knew it,” Phichit crows. “And also get back here, young man. Hotness isn’t worth it.”
“No, I don’t think you understand,” Yuuri says, a hair too loudly. “This guy is outrageous. He should absolutely be a model. He probably was, in his youth. He’s got ice blue eyes and his skin is flawless and he’s sculpted for the gods and I want him to fuck me a million ways from Sunday. But I have no expectations other than that. I’ve got this under control.”
“Yeah, and I’ve never seen pornography or smoked weed behind the art wing in high school with Mr. Perry,” Phichit says. “We talked about this, Yuuri. Remember? You’re giving up hideous human beings for Lent?”
Yuuri scowls. “I know, but—oh god, shut up, shut up, he's coming back, he's so gorgeous I want to chew off his face—" he hangs up, cutting off the tinny sound of his best friend's protests just in time, and tries to compose himself as if he wasn't just gushing about his date to the point of fantasized cannibalism.
“Sorry about that,” Victor says with a sheepish grin, sliding into his seat. “I had to kill a guy outside, it took forever.” He dabs at some sweat that's collected on his brow; Yuuri crosses his legs and forces out a chuckle that he hopes sounds casual.
“Oh, sure,” he retorts, taking a sip of his drink. “Gotta make sure they don’t get back up, right?”
Victor’s grin widens, and he runs his tongue across his top teeth. “Exactly.”
~
“—and that’s how I ended up with the former assistant district attorney’s brain matter in my socks.”
Victor snorts wine up his nose. “You’re kidding.”
It’s forty-five minutes later; they’ve plowed through the baked ziti and polished off another bottle of Merlot, and have been swapping work stories—inasmuch as they can, while still remaining within the bounds of confidentiality clauses and security clearances, because being jailed for high treason would almost certainly impede on plans for a second date—and Victor can't remember the last time he laughed so genuinely or felt so free.
Yuuri shakes his head. “Nope. Like I said, I’ve got kind of a weird job. And—” he goes to lean on his elbow, misses, and nearly thunks his chin on the table. “Ow. Anyway. I gotta know. Do you want to, um...leave?”
Victor feels himself grin. “Get out of here with you? Absolutely,” he breathes, and Yuuri goes even redder.
“Oh, I—huh. Fuck.” he rubs his hand over his face. “You’ve got to be too good to be true. Do you know how much I love that ADA story? So much. Do you know how great it is that I get to tell it and not get dumped immediately? Damn.”
Victor shrugs. “Like I said: you’re kind of my type.”
Yuuri sighs, a prolonged sound that veers right over into what Victor senses is a very deep pit of loneliness and regret. “I’m no one’s type,” he mumbles. “You say you’re a spy, so either you’re a really great liar or you’re a really great professional liar.” He sighs again. “Sorry to bring the mood down, I just...sometimes I just want to buy a plane ticket to Mexico or something and start a brand new life where no one knows I’m this weird.”
Victor thinks he could fall into those charming brown eyes and never hit the ground. “I know that feeling all too well,” he says, his tone a little more vulnerable than he’d usually prefer, but somehow he doesn't really mind.
Yuuri is tracing the folds of the tablecloth with his finger. “People just get freaked out at how much death doesn’t bother me,” he says. “I can’t help it. I’m not a sociopath; I’m just...really good at my job.”
Victor hears someone exhale and realizes it’s him, because oof, that hits close to home. He reaches out and covers Yuuri’s hand with his own.
“Listen,” he murmurs, “I’m going to run to the bathroom, and then I want to go somewhere, with you, and get to know you a little better. Anywhere you want to go, okay? I have limitless funds and first-class sensibilities. If you want to go to Mexico, we can make it happen.”
Yuuri looks up, and the hope in his eyes is so achingly genuine that Victor thinks he might fall apart right then and there. “Okay,” he replies. “But...please come back.”
“I promise,” Victor nods, before heading to heed the call of nature.
All things considered, this hasn’t been a bad date, he thinks as he stares at the grime-dusted tile wall above the urinal. I mean, aside from the whole barely-survived-a-fight-in-the-alley thing.
He goes to shake himself off like a proper gentleman when he feels the unmistakable shape of a gun barrel dig into his lower back. Victor straightens his spine, raising his arms slowly.
“I wouldn’t do this if I were you,” he says softly, in the lilting tone he always uses for luring enemies into a false sense of calm before striking with deadly force, and also at the tailor when he’s trying to negotiate a roomier inseam.
There’s an all-too-familiar snort of derision, and Victor rolls his eyes. Out of all the criminals and cutthroats that have comprised Victor’s social and professional circle, JJ Leroy has by far the largest gap between his wisdom and intelligence ability scores. Bad at adulting, good at guns—a deadly combination for JJ’s employers, but the fucking worst for absolutely everyone else.
“Well well well,” JJ drawls, clearly enjoying himself. “Isn’t this poetic. I always knew I’d get you in the end, Victor.”
“Mmhm,” Victor hums, taking note of the position of his feet relative to JJ’s.
“It’s been our destiny ever since the day we first met,” JJ continues, pushing the gun a little more into Victor’s back.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Victor replies distractedly, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet, smooth as Astroglide, so that JJ doesn’t notice.
“Our fates have been entw—oof—” the sentence disappears into a groan as Victor whirls around and stomps on JJ’s foot as hard as he can, hand already outstretched to grab the barrel of the gun, yanking it down and giving a sharp twist of his wrist at the same time. JJ squeals and lets go, and Victor doesn’t even give the man time to wince before he brings the butt of the gun down on JJ’s head as hard as he can, while simultaneously kneeing him in the groin.
JJ goes down with a wet flop, his head just barely avoiding the sharp corner of the sink. Victor ejects the clip and tosses it into the trash can, blowing his bangs out of his eye with a huff as he drags JJ’s body into the nearest stall, sits him up on the toilet, locks the door, and vaults back over to land like a cat in front of the mirrors, where he does a final appearance check before heading back towards the table.
Good job, Victor, he thinks to himself, checking his watch. But now we have to figure out how to explain a four-minute bathroom visit.
He's been a professional liar for years and years; he should be good at this. But lying for a living means knowing how to construct bulletproof alibis on the fly, and Victor can't think of a single thing that would both make sense and reassure Yuuri that he doesn't have some kind of debilitating medical issue.
The waiter has cleared their dinner plates, but Yuuri’s ordered another bottle of Merlot and refilled their glasses. The wine has brought a little bit of flush to Yuuri’s cheeks, and he’s basically looking like the greatest thing since flared bases. Victor gulps like a cartoon wolf; maybe Yuuri’s tipsy enough that he won’t have noticed the time—
“Everything okay?” Yuuri asks as Victor takes his seat. Victor blanches, grabbing for his wine glass, suddenly tongue-tied. “You look a little, um, disheveled. What happened in there?”
Come on, History Maker, think of something.
“I fought a super annoying Canadian assassin with my dick out,” he blurts. Fuck.
Yuuri bursts out giggling, wine sloshing in his glass. “That’s awesome,” he replies. “Should we get dessert?”
Victor suddenly feels a rush he hasn’t felt in literally years. It drags him back up to his feet and over to Yuuri, close enough to smell his aftershave. Victor reaches out, takes Yuuri’s hand, and pulls him away from the table and towards the back of the restaurant, where there are some small enclosed booths with spectacularly good soundproofing. They’re for private affairs—usually mob deals—and Victor hustles them both inside with a silent thanks to the machinations of capitalism that allow crime to run unchecked as long as the bills get paid. He grins, leaning in, only to be almost barreled right over as Yuuri drunkenly smashes into him.
For someone who’s had at least one entire bottle of wine to himself, Yuuri is an outstanding kisser, and Victor hears himself mewl as the kiss deepens and hands begin to wander. Yuuri pulls Victor’s suit jacket off, then his own; they hit the floor with muffled thuds, and it’s only when Yuuri drops to his knees that Victor manages to scramble back to reality.
“Hang on,” he gasps.
Yuuri looks up, eyes like horny saucers. “Do—d’you not want to?”
“Oh, god, I do,” Victor moans softly. “I just—no condoms on me. Wait here, and I’ll grab some from the bathroom, okay?”
Yuuri stands up and comes close, his nose almost grazing Victor’s. “You should know,” he breathes, “I have no gag reflex and I’ve been wearing a plug all night.”
Jesus take the wheel. Victor kisses Yuuri back as hard as he can, and then slips out of the booth with no small amount of reluctance.
JJ is snoring away in the stall in the bathroom, and Victor grins to himself as he fishes in his pocket for a quarter to use at the machine. He plunks in the coin, only to feel a gun barrel press into his back.
“Victor Nikiforov.”
Victor freezes, his blood going cold in his veins. He knows that voice. He hates that voice. Worst of all, he’s afraid of that voice.
“Mickey,” he says, and his assailant growls.
“It’s Michele. Or, in your case, you can address me as the last face you’ll ever see. Now, walk with me. Outside. Let me see your hands.”
Victor has no choice but to obey, and they creep through the busy restaurant and back out to the alley where Georgi’s body is still lying beneath some trash bags. Victor swallows a wave of nauseous dread; he left his suit jacket in the booth with Yuuri, and thus has no gun. As Mickey’s pistol digs into Victor’s flesh, he closes his eyes and tries to chase the taste of Yuuri still on his lips. The last kiss he’ll ever have.
Michele Crispino is merciless. Everyone knows that.
“On your knees,” Mickey barks, and Victor winces as his kneecaps hit the pavement.
“Is there any way we can negotiate on this?” Victor offers, but he receives only a crowing of sardonic laughter in response.
“Never,” he says, and Victor suppresses a shudder at the loud click of the gun being cocked, pressed against the back of his head. “Yakov’s burn notice said he wanted you dead or alive. I prefer the former, and no one you know will care, so—”
Victor squeezes his eyes shut as a gunshot rings through the alley. The milliseconds stretch out for what seems like forever as he waits for the bullet to shatter his skull, but he keeps breathing—once, twice, three times. Four. Finally the curiosity gets the better of him and he opens one eye.
He’s alive. He’s alive, and—and Yuuri is standing there, holding his gun, his face white as a sheet.
“Fuck,” he gasps. “Oh, fuck. Fuck. I’m so sorry, Victor, I followed you to the bathroom and then you swerved and left, and I decided that for once in my life I was going to chase down what I wanted and now I shot someone, I—” he leans over, head between his knees.
Victor blinks, and hears a groan from behind him. He turns to see Mickey on the ground, clutching his leg, trying to keep the blood from spurting out of a bullet hole in his thigh. Victor turns back to Yuuri.
“...You just saved my life,” he says. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
Yuuri looks up, face flushed from adrenaline. “I mean...I played Goldeneye as a kid?”
Victor cracks up. “Excellent answer.”
“Wait, so...you’re actually a spy?” Yuuri asks, and when Victor nods he smacks his forehead with his palm. “Holy shit, I thought you were kidding. You must have thought I was nuts this whole time.”
Victor is laughing loudly now, the heady cackle of feeling every breath and knowing how close he just came to not taking it. “I thought you were just an exceptionally cool guy about it,” he says. “Which, I mean, you are. But...yeah. This is what I’ve done with my life. Only I don’t think I want to do it anymore. Hence the assassins out to get me.”
Yuuri’s hands aren’t shaking anymore, and he looks dementedly calm. “So, um. Does this mean our date is over? What do we do with him?”
Victor cocks an eyebrow. “What do you think we should do?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
Yuuri exhales through pursed lips. “If you leave him here is he going to bleed out?”
Victor surveys the widening pool of blood with a professional’s eye. “Probably.”
“And you were serious about getting to know be better?”
“Deadly serious.”
“And you’re not going to steal one of my kidneys in the hotel room?”
“Not unless you want me to.”
“And you’re really actually into this gay disaster?” he gestures to himself.
“I wouldn’t call you a disaster so much as an eclectic bunch of quirks wearing a suit that would look much better on my floor.”
Yuuri grins, bright as the sun. “Cool, then let’s go to Mexico. I hear Cancun is nice this time of year.”
Victor laughs as he gathers Yuuri in his arms. “Fuck, you’re perfect,” he murmurs. “You’re just my type.”
