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Chapter Text

The music faded away to nothing and Yuuri stood, final pose locked into place as his chest heaved from exertion, cheeks flushed and eyes bright.  The lights above his head shimmered, bright and unforgiving as the crowd roared in delight.

He had nailed it.

The song that had been written for him, the sequence that spoke of his story, his life.  Yet, until that point he had never once managed to produce a flawless skate of the programme Victor had choreographed for him.   Eros had always been his strong point, the performance that brought in the most points, with Yuuri on Ice lagging behind somewhat.

It wasn’t that the routine was over-difficult, not more than he could handle certainly, but for some reason he hadn’t yet truly felt it.  The free skate had been designed solely for him , was about him , and yet Yuuri could not place either why or how it felt, somehow, wrong.

And yet, under the heavy pressure of the Grand Prix Final, and the watchful gaze of Victor, he had somehow - somehow - managed to find ‘it’.  He had found himself .   Perfection .

It was a bittersweet sensation.

The ice seemed too loud beneath the blades of his skates as Yuuri made his way to the exit.  Not into the waiting arms of Victor as he might have done only weeks before, but to an empty gap between the boards that felt altogether too cavernous without the larger than life presence of his coach, his something .  Yuuri ached.

They arrived at the kiss and cry together, though exactly how Yuuri was not certain, and Victor did not look at him as they sat an arm’s-width apart.  There was no firm hand gripping his shoulder, no elbow resting delicately down his spine, and the icy tendrils of cold were sneaking their way inch by inch towards his heart.

“And Katsuki Yuuri’s scores are in…”  He could barely hear the announcer over the sound of his own heart thundering in his ears, clenching painfully within his chest at the distance he himself had caused.   “...first place!  Katsuki Yuuri takes gold!”

There was to be no wedding.  Gold rested around Yuuri’s neck, as it did on his finger, yet his smile was empty and his eyes as dead as they had been a year ago, after the disaster of the last Grand Prix Final.  He had gone from last to first, gained and then lost everything, and all Yuuri wanted to do was curl into himself in a bathroom stall somewhere and sob.

Victor wasn’t there when the reporters bombarded him with questions, and Yuuri wasn’t entirely certain he heard most of his own answers, much less the questions themselves.  Eventually, mercifully, Chris and Phichit muscled their way in to drag him away from the microphones and cameras.

After the final, we should end this.

There was a clink of metal as something fell from his jacket pocket when he pushed his arm into the sleeve.  Gold glinted up at him from where it lay, discarded, beside the scuffed black of his skates.

He had lost.  Yuuri’s glass heart shattered.

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Yuuri was perfection on ice.  Victor could not have taken his eyes from the lithe form of the younger skater had he even wanted to.  And that was the thing; he didn’t want to.  Hadn’t wanted to look away from the bright star that was Katsuki Yuuri ever since they had first met.  Ever since Yuuri had spun Victor around that dance floor as if it was nothing at all, had dipped him, leaning close enough for a kiss he hadn’t known he had wanted quite so much at the time.

He wanted it, now.  Wanted more of what he had been denied, and he still couldn’t really understand why .

Not the why of his wanting Yuuri.  Rather, the why of Yuuri’s sudden and unexpected rejection.  They had been good together, or he at least assumed they had - perhaps he had read it all wrong?  Yuuri had been receptive, certainly, but Victor knew his own habit of forging ahead without paying full attention to the wants and needs of others.  This was, likely, more of the same.

Not that it mattered.  Yuuri had made himself perfectly clear, in their hotel room.

After the final, we should end this.

Flawless .  Victor tore himself away before Yuuri’s final pose, liquid in motion until the very last.  His chest ached and his eyes burned, yet he kept his face the perfect mask of neutrality, smiling - or close to it, at least - for the cameras that pointed his way as he passed.  The vision of Victor Nikiforov was firmly in place and would be, until he could allow it to slip.

When Yuuri’s shoulder brushed against his arm, the mask almost crumbled.

The space between them in the kiss and cry was near enough painful.  Close enough to touch, yet he couldn’t , couldn’t reach out to the man he had hoped to spend the rest of his days with.  Couldn’t, because no matter what he himself wanted, Yuuri had made his own decision on the matter.  It had been less than a day, since he had looped his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and held on tight as they sat in that self same spot, as though afraid that if he let go, Yuuri might be lost to him together.  The fear wasn’t unfounded, it seemed.

The scores, when they came in, were higher than Victor could have ever dreamed they would be.  Yet what should have been a happy moment, something Yuuri had wished for since long before Victor had even known his name, something Victor had wanted for him just as much, remained hollow.  He had achieved what he had set out to do, and that should have been enough, really.

Except, it wasn’t.  It never would be, not as long as his heart beat only for the Japanese skater with a fluctuating waistline, an odd sense of humour and anxiety severe enough it almost hurt at times to witness.  He loved Yuuri, and Victor was almost certain he had not known love until then, yet it didn’t matter.   None of it mattered .

Yuuri didn’t want him.

Victor slipped away when it all became too much, the gold band seeming to burn around his finger, a memory of something precious that had been within his grasp.  He had let it trickle through his fingers, water sliding from his palms until it ran away into nothing and he was left scrabbling in the dirt for the splendour of ice he had tried to hold on to just that bit too tightly.

No one saw when the burning became tears, trickling unheeded down pale cheeks as he dragged the ring from his finger.  It scraped against his skin as it came loose, leaving an ache that seemed to penetrate his very bones, cold and heavy against his hand as he slipped it into the pocket of Yuuri’s jacket before vanishing into the night.

As the stadium door slid shut behind him, Victor rubbed one numb palm over his chest, the cracks of his heart spreading outwards in an invisible spiderweb.

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It might have been funny, if not for the fat tears that slid down his face and misted his glasses, or the cut of metal against his palms as he held onto his medal entirely too tightly.  A bathroom stall had been where it had all started, and somehow it was where it would end as well, it seemed.

Yuri’s kick near enough blasted the fragile door off its hinges, breaking the lock and sending the latch skittering across the linoleum floor.  He looked furious, livid , and a year ago Yuuri might have flinched back from the noise, from the intimidating glower of the boy a full head shorter and almost a decade younger than he.  Now though, he simply sat and stared, uncaring even as the tears continued to fall.

“The fuck are you doing?”  Yuri seemed, if anything, surprised at Yuuri’s lack of reaction.  It was clear that the boy had expected more of the same, a repeat of the cowering failure that he had sought out the last time.  Instead, he was met with resignation, a despair that was near enough palpable.  “Do you like hanging out in bathrooms crying or something, pig?  You fucking won , what the hell? ”

“Yurio-”  His breath hitched from too long spent crying over something he himself had caused, and which he knew he could not change.  Yuri grew silent, waiting, silently fuming as Yuuri pushed himself up onto unsteady feet.  His eyes were blotched and puffy, cheeks red, and any satisfaction that he might once have felt at Yuri’s reaction as he pushed the gold medal into the hands of the young skater was lost to the folds of despair.  “I don’t want it.”

It was the only explanation he was willing to give, sliding past the shorter boy and making his way towards the exit.  A slender hand, knuckles reddened from where they had brushed against the ice, shot out to grab at Yuuri’s sleeve, stopping him in his tracks.  “Why?”  The question seemed small, and perhaps a little bit conflicted, as though Yuri wasn’t certain whether to tuck the medal away or to perhaps use it to hit Yuuri with.

“Because it isn’t important.  Because I’ve lost something far more valuable than any gold medal could ever be.”  Because without Victor, what was the point?

Yet, there were so many other skaters out there that Victor could mentor.  Younger skaters, more talented skaters.  Skaters like Yuri, who had so much potential at such a young age, that it might destroy the boy if those around him weren’t careful.  He had seen as such, sitting with Victor after his short program.  Had seen the sparkle in Victor’s eyes, heard the layers of praise and longing in his voice as one after the other skaters took to the ice and amazed the crowd with talents that Yuuri could never hope to match.

They hadn’t spoken of his short program.  Hadn’t mentioned his mistake, the touch of ice that had cost him enough points to place him in fourth.  Yuuri berated himself for it at the time, had expected Victor to do the same, and yet somehow...nothing.

That was worse than any sort of lecture.  The silence, the way Victor had outright ignored the elephant in the room, had been unbearable.  No praise, no admonishment, just a disinterested sort of distance that only seemed to grow as time passed until Victor was simply gone .

“Where’s Victor?”  Yuri growled from behind him, fist tightening around his sleeve.  There wasn’t an answer Yuuri could give; he simply did not know, and it was perhaps better that way.  Victor could move on now, in a way he never would with Yuuri holding him back.  Together, Victor would stagnate, but apart?  Apart, he could truly flourish, create something spectacular.

How had Yuuri ever thought he had the right to keep such perfection from the world for so long?