Chapter Text
“Yurio is going to be so upset,” Yuuri, the light of his life, mused, watching the younger man limp off the ice. He had taken a really bad fall and they had both winced when he’d hit the ice, sympathetically rubbing their hips.
“He’s already qualified for the Prix, he’ll be fine,” Viktor assured his husband, massaging his thigh gently where it was tossed over his lap. He adjusted the cold packs stacked around his knee dotingly. If Yurio hadn’t already placed first in Skate USA, he would’ve been more motivated to go to Skate Canada with him. But when Yuuri twisted his knee the other day on the ice, he couldn’t take any chances. All the trainers told him it was nothing to worry about, but still he parked his husband on the couch and promised him he wouldn’t need to move for the next several days. Yuuri had rolled his eyes, but he’d blushed beatifically and allowed himself to be pampered.
“We should do something to cheer him up when he gets home,” Yuuri mused. “Like bring him dinner in his apartment.”
“And then try to redecorate while we’re there! He’ll hate it! You know how much he loves yelling at us,” Viktor said with a wide grin. Yuuri rolled his eyes but laughed all the same.
“We need to find ways to bond with him that don’t involve antagonizing him.”
“Are you kidding? He loves it, it’s how we interact!” Viktor grinned, eyes closed.
“We should text him, let him know we were watching.” Yuuri reached for his phone, but Viktor grabbed his hand, holding them both tightly.
“He’s about to go into interviews, Yakov hates it when we have our phones on us during interviews,” Viktor tutted at him and started removing the ice from his knee. It had been twenty minutes, they needed to transition to heat. When Viktor returned with a heating pad, the interviews were just about to begin.
Viktor settled in too quickly, accidently bumping Yuuri’s hurt knee with his elbow. He apologized as he arranged himself back under his leg, placing it back over his lap as he eagerly watched the screen.
The first few questions were typical, about his performance, about his first place in the US and if he had any concerns about the Grand Prix. Yurio answered them all with a harsh scowl on his face, ignoring the gruff presence of Yakov at his back and Otabek Altin’s gentling hand on his shoulder. Viktor perked up when he saw his reporter friend push her microphone closer to Yurio’s face.
“It is said that Viktor Nikiforov is like a father figure to you. Did your performance suffer today because he wasn’t here?”
“Oh this will be good,” he said gleefully. “He hates it when they make everything about me,” Viktor whispered to Yuuri as they watched Yurio’s chest swell with anger. “Now he’ll have a reason to say that this is all him, he’s his own skater, and he never needed my help anyway.”
“You know that’s not true,” Yuuri said, quieting down as Yurio opened his mouth and then closed it again, probably trying to thing of something suitably acidic. “He needs you.”
“He’ll never admit it,” Viktor said with a slight smile on his face. He was so proud of the young skater. His smile slid into a frown of concern when Yurio seemed to deflate, shoulders pulling into himself.
“Viktor Nikiforov is exactly like my father,” Yuri said, shocking everyone around him, and Viktor and Yuuri on their couch in St. Petersburg. “He promised me wonderful things when I was a little kid and stupid enough to believe them. And then he got bored, with his life and with our family, and he left. He went, on a whim, to an exotic land, with an exotic knew spouse to live an exciting new life and he forgot all about me.” Yurio’s face was tired and drawn, and Viktor could see Otabek’s hand flex where it held him. “Now he pretends we’re a family and tells me that I’m being the difficult one when I say I can’t trust him. Even though he jeopardized my career, my family and my entire life because he didn’t even think about how his choice might affect me. He’s selfish, he’s self-centered, and he only cares about me when it suits him. Viktor is exactly like my father, and that’s why his absence here has nothing to do with my performance today.”
The reporters were stunned, and so was Viktor.
“Where is your father today?” one of the reports asked. Yurio’s eyes were cold and dead when he answered.
“How would I know? I haven’t seen him in eight years.” Otabek’s hand fell down his arm, presumably to wrap around his hand. “And the worst part about Viktor,” Yurio said with a choked laugh. “Is that he is exactly the same and I can’t believe I fell for it twice.”
Yakov stepped forward, saying that Yurio would be happy to answer more questions after he medalled at the Grand Prix, and Otabek led him away, drawing his arm over his shoulders and helping him limp to the locker rooms. It was hard to tell, but Yurio’s shoulders looked like they might’ve been shaking. Viktor thought the camera quality was deteriorating rapidly, until he blinked and realized there was water clouding his vision.
“Oh, Viktor,” Yuuri murmured sadly, brushing his hair out of his face and Viktor realized he was crying.
“I need to call him,” Viktor said, scrambling for his phone as he wiped his cheeks dry.
“I think maybe he needs a little time,” Yuuri cautioned, pulling the phone out of his clumsy fingers. Viktor had to keep blinking to keep his vision from blurring again.
“How could he think that?” he protested, and when Yuuri hesitated, he knew.
It was the truth. Everything Yurio had said was true, and Viktor had never cared enough to think about it. And the worst part was, Yuuri knew and hadn’t told him.
“How could you have let me do that to him?” he asked, pleaded, and his husband winced as he pulled his leg out of his lap to scoot closer to his side.
“You weren’t happy,” Yuuri reminded him. “You weren’t happy in Russia, you didn’t love skating anymore. You left, you found me,” he said, blushing beautifully. “Because you needed to. To be the best version of you again. That’s not selfish, that’s taking care of yourself.”
“It’s selfish when you have a family,” Viktor said. “I would never leave you or Makkachin. But I left him.”
“People make mistakes,” Yuuri soothed, brushing his hair back, the tips of it dragging wetly over his ears. Viktor wiped his face and found he was still crying. “You can’t fix them,” Yuuri said, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “But you can make up for them.”
Viktor waited the three days it took for Yurio to return to Russia. And he didn’t exactly wait patiently. He baked a lot, stockpiling cookies, and breads and katsudon pirozhkis, of course. Finally, Yurio snapchatted a picture of Puma, circling around his feet, welcoming him home.
“Yuuri, get in the car, we have to go!” Viktor shouted, sweeping everything off the kitchen counter with a single swipe of his arm, several buns and muffins missing the bag he was holding and rolling to the floor. Makkachin pounced on one of them, and Viktor let it go, but when Makka grabbed a raisin one, he had to get on the floor and wrestle for it.
“Stop poisoning the dog and get in the car,” Yuuri groused, standing in the doorway and wrapping coat after coat around himself. Viktor stood up, brushing lint and dog hair off of himself before grabbing up his bag of baked goods and heading for Yurio’s place.
“Look at this,” he exclaimed in the car, showing a post to the side of Yuuri’s head, even though he knew he wouldn’t look while he was driving, not while he was so unused to St. Petersburg traffic patterns. “It’s like he thinks he’s a Kardashian!” The insta post showed Yurio in a tied up tshirt and underwear, his briefs hiked up high on the side, skinny ass pushed out, showcasing the massive purple bruising swelling up under his skin of his hip. “Both his hands are in this picture, that Altin boy must’ve taken it. He’s not even seventeen, this is far too suggestive!”
“Maybe he’s being promiscuous because he’s never had a stable father figure in his life,” Yuuri grumbled. Viktor’s bottom lip jutted out and his eyes shimmered.
“Why would you say that to me?” he whined and Yuuri rolled his eyes, called him a drama queen and shoved a cookie in his mouth.
As they got to the seedier side of St. Petersburg, Viktor put his phone away and looked out the window.
“I will never understand why he lives over here,” he complained. “In that small, dingy apartment. I never liked the way that landlord looked at him when we moved him in.” Viktor’s face brightened as he had the most amazing idea. He whipped around in his seat to share it with his partner. “Yurio should live with us!”
“No,” Yuuri said immediately, though he was laughing good-naturedly. “He would hate that, and you’d treat him like a child.”
“He is a child,” Viktor stressed. “He’s only sixteen.”
“And he’s been living on his own for a year now, supporting himself, paying the bills. He doesn’t want you to come barging into his life and tell him how he should be living.”
“But then how can I prove to him that I am a good father?” Viktor whined, dragging his hands down his face.
“By remembering that you’re not actually his father,” Yuuri said, quirking a brow at him saucily. “And by being there for him when he needs you, and respecting him as an independent adult. And, maybe, I don’t know, by asking him what part he wants you to play in his life.” Viktor gave him a flat expression at that and Yuuri amended. “And then when he lies and says he doesn’t want to ever see you again, you must interpret, using your many years of Yurio expertise, and then texting Mila when you inevitably fail, to figure out what he really wants but would never admit.”
“Hm,” Viktor said, tapping his chin. He considered, carefully. “As my husband and the light of my life, I will consider your opinion. However, as my husband and the light of my life, I expect you to continue to love me when I ignore it completely.”
Yuuri grumbled under his breath for the rest of the trip and Viktor was relieved when they finally pulled up to Yurio’s apartment. Viktor bounded up the steps and rang the buzzer for the sweet old lady that lived below Yurio, who he knew secretly fed the teenager about once a week. That boy gets adopted anywhere he goes, Viktor mused, even in a neighborhood as rough as this one. When he explained that he and his husband wanted to surprise Yurio, she buzzed them in with the promise that they come back for tea some time.
“Hurry, Yuuri, we don’t want him to get away,” Viktor said, sprinting up the stairs, arms overflowing with baked goods.
“We’re here to see our friend, not catch a wild animal,” Yuuri complained, climbing the stairs at a reasonable, even cautious, pace.
“It’s Yurio,” he exclaimed. “He practically is a wild animal!”
By the time Viktor made it to the door, Yuuri was not even halfway up the stairs, but that didn’t stop him from knocking wildly. When a shirtless Otabek Altin opened the door with a baseball hat sitting backwards on his head, Viktor screamed.
“What is it?” Yuuri called up the stairs, his steps sounding awkward. Viktor suddenly remembered strapping him into a formidable knee brace this morning, against great protest.
“He’s naked!” Viktor cried. “And sweaty!”
“What the fuck?” he heard Yurio shout from the other side of the door. He appeared over Otabek’s shoulder, having outgrown him in the last year, a scowl firmly in place. “You’re not our Indian food.”
“I’m better,” Viktor assured him, raising his large bag of sweet and savory goodies.
“Ugh, fine,” Yurio complained, sinking two fingers into the waistband of Otabek’s pants and pulling him away from the door. Viktor couldn’t help but notice the man was not wearing underwear. Unwashed heathen. “Where’s your pig husband?” Yurio asked when Viktor dumped his bag of food on his small, slanted table in what he supposed might pass for a kitchen.
“He’s coming,” Viktor asked, pawing through the food until he found the katsudon pirozhkis. He shoved them into Yurio’s hands and relished in the small, huffing smile it earned him. He took a bite.
“Not as good as grandpa’s,” he declared, but he took another bite.
“Better than yours,” Viktor claimed, and when Yurio scowled at him, he knew it was true. Yuuri appeared in the doorway, red cheeked, skin glistening, looking adorably put out.
“Oi, what’s wrong with you?” Yurio asked, eyebrows raised in alarm.
“I twisted my knee,” Yuuri said, brows creasing in confusion. “You knew that.”
“I didn’t know it was serious!” Yurio exclaimed. “I thought he was just making an excuse not to come to the competition.” He glared at Viktor before pointing at the couch firmly. “Sit the fuck down before you fall over, piggy.”
Yuuri mocked him in a high-pitched voice, but did as he said.
“Why didn’t you take the elevator?” Yurio asked.
“There’s an elevator?” Yuuri cried, but Viktor ignored him.
“I was too eager to see you, I couldn’t wait,” he said, heart smile in place. “See how I put you above the health and safety of my husband? I must love you just as much as him.”
“Hey!” Yuuri complained, throwing an empty water bottle at him. Viktor dodged it and kept smiling. Yurio looked between the two of them like he was trying to figure out what sort of game they were playing. He took another bite of pirozhki before holding it out for Otabek to take a bite.
“Why is he naked?” Viktor said, pointing at Otabek without looking at him.
“He’s not naked,” Yurio said at the same time Otabek answered, “Why do you think?” Viktor chose to only listen to his son’s response.
“I saw your bruise on instagram,” Viktor said, moving on, grinning sharply when Yurio’s cheeks when pink in embarrassment. “Do you want me to look at it for you?”
“No, stay away from me,” Yurio said, repeating it louder when Viktor tried to come near him, batting his hands away.
“Come on, Yurio, you used to let me take care of all your bruises when you were little,” he said. He remembered when Yurio first started coming to the rink, just a small ball of good intentions and blond hair, his big puffy coat always making him look like a little fluff perched atop two skinny little legs. He’d fall and his lip would wobble, threatening tears until Viktor would scoop him up and skate a couple laps with the little tyke on his shoulders. Viktor smiled, remembering, and when Yurio smiled back uncertainly, he knew he was remembering it too.
“I’m not a kid anymore,” Yurio groused, but it lacked heat. He fed another bite of pirozhki to Otabek, who hovered at his shoulder.
“That doesn’t mean you stopped being a little kid to me,” Viktor said, softening his smile. Yurio rolled his eyes but his blush remained.
“Whatever, old man,” he grunted, before leading them over to the couch. It wasn’t big enough for four people, and Viktor hovered awkwardly at the arm next to Yuuri before Otabek settled on the floor, leaning his head back against Yurio’s knees. The brim of his hat pushed against his thighs, sliding the back of the hat low over Otabek’s eyes. He left it like that, presumably to look more intimidating when he glared at Viktor from underneath it. Viktor would like to say that it didn’t work. But it did. He sat down cautiously next to Yurio, keeping his limbs well away from his Kazakh guard dog.
“Why are you here?” Yurio asked, picked the hat up off of his partner’s head and dropping it onto his own, handing him the pirozhki. Viktor wanted to be relieved, but then his fingers were spearing through the older boy’s dark hair and the casual intimacy of it was so great that Viktor had to look away.
“We just wanted to see you, see how you were doing,” Viktor said, faking casual disinterest. Yurio snorted and Viktor shot him a grin. “What, I can’t check up on my favorite young protégé?”
“I’m not your protégé,” Yurio bit out, and finally there was some real anger there.
“Of course you are!” he insisted. “I’m molding you.”
“You might’ve been,” Yurio spat at him, and Viktor noticed that when his knuckled went white in Otabek’s hair, gripping to the point of obvious pain, the older boy just closed his eyes and didn’t say a word. “But then you left, and I got better, so I never needed you anyway!”
“You’re right,” Viktor said, dropping the false grin and staring at him honestly. “I’m sorry I hurt you when I left, but you never needed me to become the skater you are today. If I had stayed, you would’ve just become a new me. You needed to find yourself.”
Yurio reared back, sputtering, he was so angry.
“You almost cost me the Grand Prix,” he shrieked, throwing his hands up in the air, and Viktor winced sympathetically when he saw dark hairs dangling from his fingers. He looked at Otabek only to see him glaring at him levelly.
“You still won, and I still gave you a routine,” Viktor defended. “Besides, didn’t you want the competition? Someone to fight against?”
“I wanted to win,” he stressed, high flags of color painting his cheeks.
“Where’s the fun of winning if you don’t have anyone to beat?’
“It wasn’t about fun, it was about money!” Yurio screamed. “And my career! It was about my grandpa’s heart surgery! Which you would’ve known, if you’d stayed around. If you would’ve coached me, instead of giving me a routine, working with me for a week and then sending me home, as a loser.” He sat back heavily in his seat, eyes shining, and Otabek quickly stood up. He curled one arm under Yurio’s legs and lifted him, sliding underneath and settling him in his lap with smooth, practices movements. Viktor just stared, gaping. He looked at Yuuri and found him with his arms crossed, shaking his head disapprovingly, like this wasn’t entirely his fault, for tempting him away from Russia with his charming smile, mischievous wit and gorgeous thighs. He looked back at Yurio, still speechless, and found him slouched against the older boy’s chest, brim of the douchey hat pulled low over his eyes. “So fuck you, old man. I may be the skater I am today because of you, but you don’t get to take credit for that. I do, for surviving you, and the shit you put me through.” He sniffed, wetly, and Viktor’s heart broke.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I’m sorry.” Yurio regarded him carefully, waiting for the joke, the jab, the trick. But Viktor didn’t have any. Yurio was right, and even if Viktor wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t risk the amazing life he’d found in Yuuri for him, he was still sorry. “I’m sorry I left you when I did, like I did.” He looked at his husband and held out a hand. Yuuri grabbed it without question. “But I was in love,” he said, turning back to Yurio beseechingly “You—might—understand that?” he asked, unsure, looking between Yurio and the boy wrapped around his back. Otabek murmured something in his ear, keeping his eyes on Viktor the whole time. He didn’t know what it was, but Yurio deflated, lingering anger draining out of him. He shoved his hands into the front pocket of his Otabek-sized sweatshirt and sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of his face.
“Whatever, old man,” he grumbled, looking annoyed, but when Otabek brushed his hair over his shoulder and dropped a peck against his cheek, he softened. “I’ll think of some terrible way you can make it up to me.”
“And in the meantime?” Viktor asked, smile perking back up on his cheeks. Yuuri squeezed his hand, and his grin widened.
“In the meantime, you can keep baking for us, I guess,” Yurio said, with a very tiny grin.
“Us?” he asked, eyebrows raising, looking between the two younger skaters. “How long is he staying?”
“For a while,” Yuri said, jutting out his chin combatively. “You can try talking to him, if you want, he’s going to be around, you might as well get used to it.”
“Hm,” Viktor said, an eyebrow raised in only very slight condescension as the Kazakh stared at him blankly. He turned back to Yurio. “What would you say if I asked you to move in with us?” Yurio’s jaw dropped and Yuuri sighed defeatedly next to him. Viktor quickly pointed at Otabek. “He can’t come.”
Yurio shrieked in indignant anger, Otabek bared his teeth at Viktor like an actual bear, and Yuuri stood up on his hurt knee and walked back to the kitchen, complaining that he needed a snack and was getting too old for this bullshit. Viktor just grinned, happy to be with family.