Work Text:
He was skating away from the side of the rink, ignoring Yakov's raging tirade about attempting quads at his age, when it happened. A number of things went wrong, really. His takeoff wasn't strong enough and he knew he wouldn't have time to land if he put in the rotations.
He fell.
For a moment he couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything, only the chill of the ice on his back.
His vision came back, slowly. Yakov was no longer standing at the side of the rink.
"Vitya?" A panicked voice echoed in the rink. "Yurio, go get the medic."
Victor blinked. And then an angel was coming into his peripheral vision, an angel with soft, dark hair and even softer amber eyes. Oh, Victor thought, dumbly, and then he was lifted off the ice and into warm, gentle arms. He flushed as his cheek collided with a solid chest.
"Oi, Katsudon! The medic's coming--" a smaller blonde, maybe a few years younger than Victor, crunched to a stop on the ice. He stared for a moment, open-mouthed, at the scene before him. And then: "What the hell, old man? Are you going so bald you need to wear a wig to cover it up?"
"Huh?" Victor said, at the same time the angelic man beside him made a muffled "what?"
"See for yourself, Katsudon," the blonde said, reaching forward to pick at Victor's long, silver tresses. "It's like the geezer's trying to pretend he's twenty again."
The angelic man turned. He stared, for a very long moment, at Victor. Comprehension dawned in molten brown eyes. "...oh."
Victor blinked. "Is there something wrong with my hair?"
"Victor," He asked, very gently. "Do you know who I am?"
Victor shook his head.
"Do you know what year it is?"
"...2010, right? Pre-season."
The smaller blonde's eyes went as wide as dinner plates. "What the fuck--"
"Victor, don't panic," the angelic man placed a hand against Victor's shoulder as if to brace him, and Victor leaned almost instinctively into the touch. His voice was hypnotically soft. "Please don't panic, but it's 2017."
*
The man's name was Katsuki Yuuri, Japan's ace. He's twenty-four, and won silver at the last Grand Prix Final. He spoke to the other boy in hushed tones while the medic checked Victor over.
"He told me this was going to happen before he left. Said he just remembered." Yuuri said, cryptically, to the blonde whose name was apparently Yurio "I didn't think..."
"I thought it was a prank too," Yurio grunted. "It seemed like something he would do."
Yuuri blinked. "You're ridiculously calm about this."
"Well, what else are we supposed to be except calm? It happened. Victor is, somehow, twenty. And here. While the other Victor is in America."
"That's probably good," Yuuri grimaced. "I can't imagine two of them."
Yurio snickered. "You sure you didn't imagine it at least once?"
Yuuri flushed bright red. "Have you been hanging around Chris?"
Yurio stuck his tongue out. "I'm a teenager, not a baby."
"Mr. Katsuki?" The medic, an older man, interjected.
"Ah, yes?"
"The patient appears to be fine. Mild concussion, but it shouldn't cause too much of a problem."
"Thank you," Yuuri breathed out a sigh of relief. "Anything I should watch out for?"
"He'll be a little dizzy for a while. If that lasts for more than a few days, get him to a hospital."
"Thanks," Yuuri said.
Yurio, grumbling under his breath, went to walk the medic out. "I'll tell Yakov you won't be coming to practice for a couple of days."
And Victor was left alone with Yuuri.
Silence sat between them, palpable with awkwardness.
"So," the Japanese man finally began, biting his lip. "You must have a lot of questions."
He did. "You said...the other me is in the States?"
"Oh, yes. Vit--Victor went to meet with some sponsors. I've never been good at that sort of thing, and Yurio's too young."
The other man's slip up caught Victor's attention. "You called me 'Vitya.' When you thought I was him. Does this mean...?"
"You're my coach," Yuuri said, a little too quickly, looking away. "You showed up at my family inn in April and demanded to be my coach. Not that I was going to refuse. Not that anyone in their right mind would have refused."
He was a coach.
In seven years, he would be a coach. He didn't want to ask what forced him into retirement. Twenty-seven was practically ancient, in the world of figure-skating. It could be anything. Maybe he landed something wrong and got injured. He should be grateful. Most people doing what he did at his age didn't get another seven years out of their careers. Still, he couldn't help but feel a little pang of pain, transforming into an insistent sting behind his eyes.
"Hey," Yuuri reached out, hesitantly, to brush Victor's hair back. "You ok?"
"I'll be fine." He swallowed, looking up with a smile. Yuuri wouldn’t notice his watery eyes. Nobody ever seemed to.
Yuuri's hand did not leave his hair. "Oh, Victor."
His voice, tender with something like understanding, made Victor want to cry.
Oh, he thought, for the second time that day.
It would be the first time Yuuri surprised him.
*
It was decided that Victor would stay with Yuuri for the foreseeable time he would spend in the future.
Makkachin was a great comfort. Older now, but still the same as always.
The flat was nice, something that Victor would perhaps like to own, one day, and did, apparently. It was strangely, how quickly things could change, how quickly Victor began to think of it as home, with Makkachin tucked under his arm, and Yuuri just one room over. He did find the place curiously devoid of personal memorabilia, but he supposed it made sense if the two of them were roommates and sharing a living space. Yuuri seemed to be a private person.
Well. Not entirely. Well.
It was a mystery. Katsuki Yuuri was an absolute mystery.
Yuuri brought Victor to the rink every time, per his requests. Whenever Victor got back to his own time, the Grand Prix series would still be happening, and Victor was still going to win. There was no reason to stop practicing just because he was in a different time stream.
Since they couldn’t tell Yakov (“I don’t think he can handle it, at his age.”), Yuuri became an almost stand-in coach. A good one, at that. Victor had the quad flip basically worked out, but Yuuri’s comments helped him refine it. Though it was, according to Yuuri, technically from himself, in the future. In any case, Yuuri was infinitely less strict than Yakov, especially when it came to diet, and possessed a similar presentational style. Not to mention, infinitely nicer to look at.
(Victor’s a teenager. He was allowed to be a little shallow. It didn’t exactly help that they lived together, either.)
After practice they went out to eat, or Yuuri cooked. Victor decided his new favorite food was katsudon—but the katsudon piroshky that Yurio brought around some nights was a very close second. It felt more like home than…anything else he’d had, really, in that other life, where the ice was the only thing that mattered and Makkachin was his only family.
Victor pestered the two of them ceaselessly over the dinner table about what happened in the future. Yuuri was always very tight-lipped, while Yurio dropped hints here and there. Never enough to go on, but enough to make him wonder.
More than once, he wondered exactly how future him fit into this odd, affectionate group. He caught himself thinking about the future a lot, during the days when Yuuri had to train with the Russian skating team and Victor was alone at home with Makkachin. He wondered exactly what happened to bring him to this point.
From what they told him, future him seemed happy. The other Victor appeared to have a life, apart from the ice, when Victor himself had never even considered that. The other Victor appeared to be loved, not just through a screen, not just admired and hated and distant from younger skaters, but truly beloved.
The joke amongst younger skaters had always been that they would all die before they were thirty just to escape the inevitability of old age, but, if this was what his life was going to be like…
He caught himself staring at Yuuri, a lot, too, though he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. He’d noticed the ring, simple gold around Yuuri’s fourth finger, long before he’d allowed himself to notice anything else about Yuuri. More than once, he’d allowed himself to wonder, who he was to Yuuri, aside from a coach, wonder if they were…but if they were, Yuuri would tell him.
Every time he caught himself staring, he told himself it wasn’t meant to happen. Let it go.
But, it was Yuuri. It was nigh impossible not to notice. The first time Victor decided he’s in too deep was when he’d hid under the bleachers during morning practice and watched Yuuri run his free skate.
Yuuri on Ice was special. It was different than anything he’d ever witnessed before. This wasn’t just a presentation score. It was pure, raw feeling. The order of the jumps. The step sequence. The flip at the end took his breath away, left him reeling, in a good way. Yuuri ended, at the center of the ice, arms outstretched, pointed his direction, like Yuuri could find him even though he was hiding, and his heart skipped several beats all at once.
The ice was his first love, so it was only fitting that Yuuri got past his defenses first there too, as well.
But it began to slip through the cracks after that.
Small things made him blush. Yuuri, poking him awake in the morning, or, on the rare occasion, still dozing on the couch, wrapped around Makkachin. Cooking breakfast in the kitchenette, hair sticking up in the back and apron tied around his waist. The way he said Victor’s name, consonants and vowels clear and crisp and different. His fingers in Victor’s hair, brushing and sectioning and braiding. Turning, and smiling, soft and gentle and warm, like Victor was the only thing in the world.
It always happened like this: one second, Yuuri would be perfectly at ease, and the next, he would be pulling away, distancing himself, again. It was like a constant tug of war, one that Victor wanted, more and more, to win.
The glimpses of Yuuri, the Yuuri that future him must have known, tugged, at the corners of his heart.
But.
But.
Late at night, he could hear Yuuri speaking through the wall of the apartment sometimes, English, mixed in with a little Japanese. Not on purpose.
He wondered, maybe a little wistfully, who Yuuri talked to.
*
“Yurio—“ He cornered the other boy in the locker room that day and swore to himself he was going to get answers.
The blond boy turned to glare at him. He’d long since given up trying to get Victor to call him by his given name. “What?”
Victor swallowed. “Yurio, is Yuuri married?”
Yurio stared, for the longest time. “…why do you ask?”
Self-consciousness crept into Victor’s entire being. God, Yurio must think he’s a weirdo stalker. “He’s wearing a ring on his finger…and I just thought…” he admitted, sheepishly, looking anywhere but at the boy he was supposedly cornering.
Yurio gaped.
Victor cringed. Yeah, ok, so it was—
“Stupid,” Yurio groaned, throwing a hand over his eyes as if the sheer stupidity of it all physically pained him, “Both of you are idiots, my god. I’m gonna go skype Otabek and flush some of this stupid out of my system.”
“Wait!”
Yurio half-turned. “What?”
Victor hated how squeaky he sounded. “Well, is he?”
Yurio shook his head, incredulously, looking for the world like he wanted to slam his head repeatedly into a wall. “Yes, dumbass.”
“Oh.” A pause, as Victor tried to gather himself. “To whom?”
Maybe it was the vulnerability of his voice. Yurio visibly softened. “I’ll give you a hint. He’s overseas right now.”
“Oh.” Victor’s heart plummeted to his feet, remembering the late night talks. Oh.
*
“Ah! Stop bringing that up, Phichit, you’re making me blush!”
It was the first time Victor had actually been in the room when Yuuri made a call. His eyes wandered to the screen, to the amiable looking young man on the other side. His teeth worried at his lip.
Don’t.
Stop.
He curled in on himself, on his side of the couch. It was a crush. Just a silly crush. He would get over it.
Would he?
He tried to imagine—him in the future, did that Victor just move on? Because he knew, future him must have endured the exact same thing. It was impossible to be there, with Yuuri, and not fall, hard and fast
Makkachin seemed to sense his despondency, padding over to lick at his cheek.
“…Victor?”
He turned his face further into Makkachin’s body.
“You must be tired,” Yuuri sounded tired too, but affection was seeping from his very pores. “Want me to braid your hair for bed?”
In the end, he conceded. He couldn’t bring himself to deny Yuuri anything. He wondered, if it would be the same, in the future.
Still, when Yuuri was gone, and Victor was left alone with no one but Makkachin, again, he pressed his cheek into the dog’s fur and cried.
*
When he woke up it was just a few hours later, in the middle of the night. He didn’t want to check. Didn’t have the energy to check. His eyes hurt, and his throat was dry.
Lethargically, Victor picked himself up. Makkachin was already at the edge of his bed, wagging his tail insistently. Victor smiled, and bent, rubbing his old friend’s head.
Makkachin seemed agitated somehow. Insistent on something. Late night walk, maybe?
He was already up. Might as well get a glass of water, and see what Makkachin wanted.
He got no further than three steps toward the door when Makkachin slipped between his legs, and even though he was a supposedly graceful figure skater, he knocked over a small, dusty cabinet in the corner of the room, and then landed on his back on the floor.
“Ow.”
When he was able to unscrew his eyes and look again, there was a pile of photographs on the floor next to the drawer, which he must have bumped open.
And…that silver-haired man in the photo…wasn’t that…him?
He was...wearing a yukata…for some reason. Was he in Japan?
Almost irresistibly, like a moth drawn to the flame, he reached for the photos.
Japan. China. Russia. Barcelona. Japan again. Russia again. Barcelona again.
Oh.
Barcelona again.
If anyone told Victor Nikiforov a month ago that in seven years he would be married to the most amazing, beautiful, perfect person on the fact of the earth, he wouldn’t have believed them.
But now. Well. Now there was proof, wasn’t there?
This was how Yuuri found him, a few minutes later, when he came rushing in at the sound of Victor falling. The younger man was sitting haphazardly in a pile of photographs, brows drawn tight across his forehead.
The soft intake of breath alerted Victor to the other man’s presence, and he looked up, gesturing wildly.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
The pause between them was electric, mesmerizing, stole Victor’s breath all over again.
"I didn't think it mattered." Yuuri was honest. "You're not going to remember this anyway."
Victor’s heart was twisting in his chest. "Of course it matters."
The ring on Yuuri's hand. He would be the one to put it there. To think, for weeks he’d tried to talk himself into giving up because there was no way something like this could be his, because Yuuri’s life was good and he didn’t want to mess it up, no matter what. To think, it was him, all along, him, that was so beloved, him, that could make Yuuri this happy.
Yuuri’s thumb swiped across his cheek and oh, he’s crying, wasn’t he?
“Hey. Hey. Shhh. Don’t cry, please—Oh god, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. You’re overwhelmed.”
“No,” he managed, between hiccups. “I’m just…I’m happy.”
Yuuri was buzzing around nervously now. “Um, should I get you a tissue? Or? I haven’t—um, I’m not really good at—you don’t cry a lot. I mean. It’s usually me doing the crying.”
Victor cracked a wet smile, rubbing at his eyes.
“Victor,” Yuuri said, again, helplessly, in that soft, soft way of his that broke Victor’s glass heart every time and then taped it back together all over again, sealing the cracks. “What do you need?”
“Nothing. Just…stay with me?”
Yuuri blinked.
Stammi vicino. A song, from the past, from the present, to the future, stretching and unwinding and never ending.
Victor put his arms hesitantly around Yuuri’s neck.
“Ok,” Yuuri whispered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together.
*
When Victor woke up, Yakov was standing over him, looking impressively angry. The medic, a woman with blonde hair drawn tightly in a ponytail, was telling him to follow her finger with his eyes.
He blinked.
Something echoed in the back of his mind, like a song.
Non ne te andare.
“—And if you ever do that again, not only will I—Are you listening to me, boy?“
He wasn’t. He was dreaming of…something. Someone. Someone he would become in the future.
When he went to the locker room later, and looked at his own reflection, it felt as though something was…off.
Maybe…maybe it was time for a change.
Maybe, if he cut his hair as short as the him he remembered from his dreams…he would be equally happy.
*
“Yuuri!”
Makkachin yipped happily and raced outside.
Yuuri blinked. The door behind him was thrown open, and then cold, long arms were wrapping around his waist.
“Ah! Vitya! You’re cold!”
His husband laughed, deep and throaty from the cold and the lateness, burying his (equally cold) nose into Yuuri’s (warm) shoulder. “Did you miss me?”
“…It was like you never left.”
“Yuuri! I’m offended.”
Yuuri turned to kiss the tip of that offending nose. “But I did miss you. You you. Proper you.”
“…You’re not making any sense, lyubov moya.”
“Mmm. It’s late.”
“So it is.”
“…Let’s go to bed.”
And so they did. Curled up, under the blanket, next to each other, no more waiting, no more tears, no more distance or years between them.
It wasn’t happily ever after. But it was a future to be proud of.