Work Text:
My nights are broken up by the sounds of women I’ll never meet
And when my eyes are closed I can start to feel you staring at me
The right side of my bed has always left me feeling stuck in between
Everything I know and all the lies I tell myself so I can sleep
“Viktor Nikiforov, three-time consecutive world champion – huh, that’s common knowledge,” Viktor flipped through the pages of the magazine with a playful smirk on his face. He’s taken up another three-page spread in another nameless magazine, “and look, there’s another two pages dedicated to a poster from my photoshoot with them.”
He’s a big deal, as has been the case for the past ten or so years. He’s been popular since his Junior days, and as a figure skating relic, he’s still breaking world records every time his skates touch the ice, the lights shining upon him and countless lungs screaming for him.
Viktor Nikiforov is now a five-time consecutive world champion, thanks to his triumph at this year’s World Championships. The playful smirk on his face has become painful. He relaxes his facial muscles. The media attention, the hectic skating career, the lack of a social life has become tiring for Viktor. It’s been like this for twenty years – without a life and without a love to care about. Figure skating is tiring. Figure skating has become loveless. Figure skating was a dead affair to Viktor since three years ago.
Three years ago, Viktor gave up his last love. It wasn’t a love, anyway, he was a one-night stand who turned into three months of back-and-forth on Grindr. Viktor never met the man after the first night they spent in his hotel room panting, screaming, rocking the bed and soiling the sheets.
Three years ago, Viktor ended his string of one-night stands with various men, women and others in between. He never met a lover in those past five years of hotel fun, anyway. Anyway.
Anyway, late last year, Viktor met someone he’s loved since. That someone is a certain Yuuri Katsuki. He’s beautiful on the ice. Stunning, even. The blue outfit he wore for his free skate was so gorgeous. His quadruple toe loop looked simple; yet the take-off, each spin, his lone arm stretched to the sky and the landing of that jump were impeccable. Everything about that jump represented some part of Yuuri’s life. Yuuri always jokes on SNS that he never wants to revisit his ‘dark past’. Since then, Viktor has been falling down the rabbit hole, searching up every one of Yuuri’s performance and falling just that little bit more in love.
Viktor picks up his laptop from the nightstand. He places it on his lap, and types in a familiar URL. Yuuri Katsuki - 2015 GPF - FS - Lohengrin - 149.79. Viktor closes his eyes. As the music plays and the sounds of blades cutting the ice fill his ears, he goes through Yuuri’s whole routine. He knows it like he knows his Stammi Vicino routine. Before long, Yuuri’s last jump shows up on the screen. The quadruple toe loop, added to the last half of his routine for the points. It was completely impromptu. Yuuri had added it because he flubbed all his jumps prior, and he needed more points. That last quad toe loop was the best Viktor had ever seen. Viktor’s right hand moves on its own, fingers following Yuuri’s take-off, rotations and landing, as if the bedsheets were a skating rink.
The routine is over, and the judge reads out the score. 149.79. It was Yuuri Katsuki’s worst FS showing of the season. Viktor blinks. He’s tearing up. His right hand is still on the right side of the bed. The right of his bed, which has been empty for ages.
Viktor kind of wishes Yuuri Katsuki would occupy the right side of his bed.
You came around to say that you’ve been away, like I hadn’t known
As if I don’t wake up every single day not seeing you go
As if this moon of ours only shines a half to make me feel whole
As if I haven’t felt your breath in every step I take when the wind blows
Katsuki wakes up to the news.
Viktor Nikiforov is LEAVING?! Five-time world champion announces his retirement
“No way. No way is Viktor Nikiforov leaving. I won’t let him,” Yuuri mutters under his breath, shocked. Yuuri makes his rounds in the rink, skates gliding roughly against the ice. His rinkmate, Yuri Plisetsky, is tying the laces on his skates. It’s been five minutes of Yuuri saying the same thing over and over again.
“Will you shut up? Viktor Nikiforov is leaving, whatever. He’s 27, give him a break, for goodness’ sake. Stop it, Yuuri, he’s not coming back, okay? YUURI!” Yuri gives his rinkmate a violent shoulder shake. Yuuri, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to faint five minutes into practice.
“I’ll show him, Yuri. I’ll make him stay.”
Yuuri Katsuki, 6th place winner in the 2015 Grand Prix Final, didn’t make it past the Japan National Skating Championships. He didn’t make it to the World Championships. He missed his last chance to compete with Viktor Nikiforov on the same ice. He missed his last chance to show Viktor Nikiforov what an inspiration he was to younger skaters. Viktor Nikiforov who is getting older every passing year, who has been the victim of tabloids speculating his retirement every year since the 2010 Four Continents Championships.
Yuuri isn’t going to miss this chance. He has lived and breathed for Viktor Nikiforov’s skating, and there is no chance in hell Yuuri is going to let him stop now. Not when Viktor has reached his prime with his Stammi Vicino routine smashing a world record.
Pick apart the pieces you left
Don’t you worry about it, don’t you worry about it
Try and give yourself some rest
And let me worry about it, let me worry about it
When Yuuri Katsuki is in the skating rink for the 2016 Grand Prix Final, he thinks of Viktor Nikiforov. He thinks of how much Viktor Nikiforov loves skating. He thinks of how much he loves skating because of Viktor Nikiforov. He thinks of how proud Viktor Nikiforov would be if he broke the world record for the free skate with another version of Stammi Vicino. He thinks of how much he wants Viktor Nikiforov to return to skating. He thinks of how lonely he’s been. He thinks of how much he wants Viktor Nikiforov to be his friend, heck, even his lover.
Yuuri Katsuki scores a PB for his Eros routine, based on sexual love. Viktor Nikiforov watches Yuuri Katsuki from the stands. It is Yuuri’s innocent sexuality Viktor praises him for at interviews with the press, not the eros of his fiercest rival Christophe Giacometti. Christophe Giacometti is bitter, as anyone would be as a victim of preferential treatment.
“Oh, Viktor, so you know about Yuuri Katsuki? He came in last place at the Grand Prix Final, though, so what are your thoughts about him?” a reporter asks. She doesn’t know better.
Viktor Nikiforov says something that would change Yuuri’s life forever.
“I’m in love with Yuuri Katsuki’s skating.”
When Yuuri Katsuki is in the skating rink for the free skate, he thinks about that one sentence. Viktor Nikiforov is in love with my skating. “I won’t let him down,” Yuuri mutters under his breath, a beat before the music starts playing. Viktor Nikiforov watches Yuuri Katsuki skate to Duetto: Stammi Vicino, Non Te Ne Andare from the stands. He’s watching intently. His step sequence is perfect. I wonder who choreographed his step sequence, he thinks. His spins are amazing. That donut spin is the most refined I’ve seen in a while. And the jumps. Wait, did he replace the quadruple toe loop at the end of his routine with a quad flip? The flip was incredible. It was technically perfect, but Viktor knew what it meant.
Yuuri Katsuki’s FS has the same technical difficulty as Viktor Nikiforov’s.
“It’s a new world record for Yuuri Katsuki! His free skate score is 224.68! His improvement in the past season has been impressive, but this is unprecedented! He’s crushed Viktor Nikiforov’s long-held world record in the free skate!”
“Viktor Nikiforov has to come back now to demolish my world record.” Yuuri couldn’t be happier.
That evening, Viktor Nikiforov invites himself to the GPF Banquet. It was an unnecessary intrusion, really, since he had not a single purpose there. There was one thing he needed to do, however. He searched the banquet hall for a, thankfully, still-sober Yuuri Katsuki. They had a good, long talk about figure skating, which turned into a conversation about music, which turned into an exchange of phone numbers.
The rest is history.