Chapter Text
“Hey! I know you!” a loud voice screeched followed by the sound of blades sliding across the ice. The shaggy black haired young man with blue eyes turned to see the source of the loud voice. A magenta haired short Latino boy was making his way across the ice, finger outstretched and pointed in the young man’s direction.
“Hello! What are you? Deaf? We skated against each other at the Eastern Great Lakes Regional Competition. You’re Phoenix Aisner, right?” The shorter boy continued, having come to stop in front of the young man.
Phoenix rubbed at his arms, trying to bring warmth back into them before suddenly his face lit up in recognition. “Oh yeah, I remember you. Xavier…Fisk…right?” He said pausing awkwardly as he thought.
“Hell yeah, that’s me! Dude, you had a nasty spin combo. Sucks you flubbed those two jumps though. Totally would have given me a run for my money otherwise,” Xavier rambled on, waving his arms about animatedly as he spoke.
Suddenly, another pair of skates could be heard entering the rink and the two young men looked up to watch as a brown haired tan Italian boy solemnly made his way towards them. He gave them both a nod in greeting before turning to stand beside them in silence.
“What the hell?! Is that you Frankie?!” Xavier yelled, making his way over to the tall teenager. The boy, whose face before had been stoic and neutral, morphed into a look of pure annoyance before he unfolded his crossed arms.
“How many times have I told you?! My name is Francis! Not Frankie!” He yelled back exasperatedly, pushing up his glasses on his nose with a huff.
“Come on dude! Frankie sounds so much more chill than Francis Barbetti. Much too stuffy. Makes you sound like a fifty-year-old man who retired early and golfs regularly,” Xavier said flippantly, waving his hand about and shaking his head.
“I told you at Nationals last year and I will tell you again. Its FRANCIS. Not FRANKIE. FRANCIS. End of discussion,” Francis said back tiredly, running his hands down his face in frustration.
“Whatever you say Frankie,” Xavier retorted with his tongue stuck out before he began to move about the ring, doing random turns and loops. He began to hum “My Humps” by Fergie as he spun about the rink aimlessly.
Francis turned, looking at Phoenix for the first time. He extended his hand out and gave him a cordial smile. “Nice to meet you. As Xavier so nicely mentioned before, I am Francis Barbetti. And you are?” He left his hand extended, waiting for Phoenix to reply.
“Phoenix Aisner. I watched your performances at Nationals last year. I was disappointed when they didn’t choose you for World’s. Your form is text-book,” Phoenix replied, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake.
Francis winced slightly before awkwardly thanking him and releasing his grip. He gave him a slight nod before he too began to skate about, stretching his arms as he went. Phoenix stood off to the side, watching the other two skaters silently for a few minutes before he went to the far edge of the rink. He leaned against the wall before he began to stretch out his legs, bringing them up, one at a time, behind his head and holding them there.
The three young men went about doing their own thing for a few minutes before Xavier skated up to Phoenix, water bottle in hand.
“So, what’s the scoop on our coach? All I know is that we are gonna be taught by the head coach of this place. My parents were a bit upset when they found out Victor Nikiforov wasn’t going to be training us. But I mean, it’s not every day you get asked to be the choreographer for the US Olympic Figure Skating Team,” Xavier said off-handedly, waving his drink about between sips.
Phoenix shrugged before running his hands through his hair. “I don’t even know his name. Pretty much I got the call from Victor saying I had been chosen to be taught at his skating rink along with two other skaters and was on the next plane out of Detroit courtesy of the man himself.”
Xavier gave him a weird look, turning his head to the side. “You didn’t even talk to your parents about it? It was like a big family discussion. It’s not every day you get chosen to be taught under the tutelage of skating legend Victor Nikiforov.”
“It wasn’t like I had anybody to discuss it with. My mom passed away when I was 13 and I aged out of the foster care system six months ago when I turned 18 so,” Phoenix replied with a deadpan look before beginning to unzip his vest and throwing it over the railing.
Xavier choked on his water, spitting some out in the process and looking at Phoenix with an incredulous look. He wiped at his mouth roughly with the back of his arm before putting up both hands defensively. “Dude…I had no idea. I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, looking apologetic.
Phoenix waved him off, patting him on the shoulder lightly. “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know.”
Suddenly, the doors to the rink were pushed open as someone sauntered in. From the other side of the rink, Xavier and Phoenix watched as a man in his mid-forties made his way to stands. With a grunt, the man took off his hood and pulled off his sweatshirt, revealing a slightly chunky man of Asian descent with scruffy facial hair and slightly long, black hair pulled back into a messy bun.
Slowly the two skaters, who were soon joined by Francis, began to skate their way towards the man, who they saw was methodically putting on a pair of skates. The man stopped to yawn a few times, pushing back his bangs which hung in his face, before finishing lacing his skates and standing up. He looked down at his wrist, which held a watch and sighed. The man picked up his coffee he had brought in from where he had placed it on the seat and took a large swig from it before placing it back down and making his way to door to enter the rink.
The three teenage skaters sat and watched as the man slowly made his way over to them before coming to stop in front of them. He cleared his throat once before finally looking up at them with baggy eyes.
“Good morning. I am your Coach. You may call me Yuuri. Would you mind telling me your names?” He said tiredly.
“Good morning Coach Yuuri! My name is Xavier Fisk but most people call me Fish so feel free to call me that! I am excited to meet you and finally get to work with someone chosen by Victor Nikiforov himself to be the head coach of his rink!” Xavier blurted out, skating forward and taking Yuuri’s hands into his own before shaking them excitedly. Yuuri gave him a blank look before shaking back halfheartedly and releasing his hold.
“Good to meet you…Fish…And you two are?” He said, seemingly unaffected by Fish’s loudness so early in the morning.
Francis coughed once before raising his hand stiffly, “I am Francis Barbetti. It is nice to meet you Coach Yuuri.”
“But everybody calls him Frankie so you should too!” Fish spoke up, smiling brightly as he lightly punched Francis in the side.
Francis glared at him before yelling back, “You are the only one who calls me that!” Yuuri watched on in confusion as the two began to wrestle, grumbling back and forth about who was the bigger idiot before turning to look at Phoenix.
“And you are…?” Yuuri said, looking at him with slight interest.
“Phoenix Aisner, but just Nix is fine,” he said calmly, taking a quick glance to his left to see Frankie and Fish were still arguing. Yuuri nodded, muttered a quiet nice to meet you before turning away and beginning to skate.
The two arguing boys stopped and all three stood and watched as the man did a few lazy loops about, stretching his arms and doing a few simple movements. He did this for a few minutes in silence before sighing and skating back up to them. He no longer looked completely asleep and instead had a harder, rougher set to his jaw. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest before speaking much louder and more serious than he had previously.
“Your schedule will work as follows: Five days a week from 7 to 11 we will have group practice. I expect you to be already warmed up and ready to go by the time the clock strikes 7,” he pauses momentarily to point at the clock on the wall before continuing. “You will have a one-hour break before you will be expected to return to your shared apartment next door where you will be home schooled by a tutor until 5.”
“But aren’t we all in different grades? Will we all be learning the same material?” Fish questioned.
“Actually you are all in the 11th grade. Fish you skipped a grade when you were younger, as you already know, and Nix was held back for…attendance issues,” Yuuri said, the end of his statement dropping off. Fish and Frankie both turned to look at Nix, who was pointedly staring at his feet. Yuuri cleared his throat loudly, gaining back their attention.
“Two days a week from 6-9 you will have one-on-one lessons with me. Two other days of the week you will have personal ballet lessons from the on-site ballet teacher from 6 to 7:30. While you will mostly have the weekends off, one of your group’s six personal skate sessions will be on a weekend night and you will all be required to go for a one-hour job one of the two weekend days. Otherwise, you are free to explore the surrounding area,” Yuuri pauses here, his voice dropping as he gives them a stern look, “so long as you have your phones and go in at least groups of two. I will not tolerate my skaters showing up late to any session or getting lost. Now, if there are no questions, I would like to begin.”
Nix, Fish and Frankie turned to look at each other, sharing worried and slightly horrified looks before nodding and letting out a joint,” Yes coach!” and dispersing about the rink.
“Dude, I think Coach Yuuri is that teacher from The Karate Kid,” Fish moaned as he threw himself back onto his bed. The three teenagers had been told they would be staying in the apartment next door to the rink, and that the first door to the right on the second floor would be their shared room. It was oddly large for such a seemingly modest sized apartment, with a bed and drawer set for each boy as well as a shared closet.
“The what from what?” Nix groaned back, giving up his attempt to make it fully to his bed and instead crashing on the rug instead.
Fish shot Nix a horrified look as he turned onto his stomach, tucking his hair behind his ear. He typed away rapidly on his phone, looking like he was on a mission, before tossing it at Nix who was still laying on the ground. Nix let out a groan when the phone hit him in the shoulder and slowly moved to pick it up.
“The Karate Kid? Never seen it. Isn’t that movie, like, really old?” Nix asked, turning to look back at Fish with minimal effort. Frankie, who had been getting changed robotically by his bed, walked over to Nix and leaned down to stare at the phone as well.
“I haven’t seen it either. If I remember correctly, there are a few versions of this movie. Are you referring to the original or the remake?” Frankie asked, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose and leaning closer to peer at the phone in Nix’s hand.
“Personally I prefer the remake. Jaden Smith is like, my idol. I wish to one day obtain his level of what-the-fuckery but for the sake of you uncultured swine, I would suggest the original,” Fish said off-handedly, reaching down beside his bed to pull out his laptop from his suitcase. He began to type away at it before grunting in frustration. “Ugh! I can’t figure out the stupid Wi-Fi password. How am I supposed to live without my access to shitty memes!” Fish moaned, flailing back and forth on his bed and whining loudly.
Nix grunted before pushing himself off the rug and making his way over to Fish’s bed. “Here,” Nix said, reaching for Fish’s laptop and beginning to type. It took him only a few moments before he handed it back. “There you go. For some reason, the password is ‘Phichit was here’. Not exactly sure why or who that is, but I saw it written down on a sticky note in the kitchen downstairs.”
Fish shrugged and muttered a thanks before going back to typing away on his laptop. After a few minutes, he let out a low “found ya bastard” before popping up from his bed and making his way over to where Nix had laid down on his.
“Alright, time for you losers to get cultured. Frankie, get your ass over here. Movie night, starting right now!” Fish said, proceeding to make himself comfy almost immediately against the wall of Nix’s bed.
“You are really weird. You know that right? Most people don’t just throw themselves on someone else’s bed and demand they watch a movie with them the first day they meet them,” Nix retorted, shooting Fish a judging look.
“Most people didn’t move across the country away from their family to live in a room with two other strangers and be taught at Victor Nikiforov’s rink,” Fish retorted haughtily, pulling a package of Oreos from his sweatpants pocket. He shot Nix a side-eyed look before lifting the package up and offering it to him.
“Touché Mr.Fish. Touché,” Nix replied before reaching down to grab an Oreo from the package. “Hey, Frankie, get over here. What is it you family people call it? Forced family fun?” Nix called out to Frankie, who was sitting on the edge of his bed and arranging his sock drawer (no, really, by length and everything).
Frankie shot them a tired look before begrudgingly making his way over and standing at the edge of Nix’s bed. He looked at the limited amount of space, seeing as two teenage boys were already occupying the twin bed, and sighed before slipping in at the end and settling down. Fish let out a triumphant cry before throwing his arms around the two other boys shoulders and pulling them together.
“Forced family fun time is a go!”
The next morning, Fish, Frankie and Nix scrambled out of the same bed after having fallen asleep near the end of the movie. None of them had set an alarm and together in a group panic they managed to get dressed and each grab a random power bar and water from the kitchen before running next door to the rink. By the time they got their skates on and began to warm up, it was already 6:57, leaving them with only three minutes before Coach Yuuri would show up and expect them to already be ready to start.
At exactly 7:00, Yuuri came into the rink, coffee in hand and looking only slightly less tired than the day before. At least today he didn’t look to be completely dead and he soon made his way onto the ice. The three boys scrambled over, moving to stand in a line before him and looking oddly guilty. Yuuri shot them all a suspicious look before immediately moving on to the training for the day.
It took only two minutes before Yuuri realized none of them had properly warmed up and sighed before calling for them all to stop. “Okay, what did I say yesterday about being warmed up and ready by 7 when I got here? And why do you all look so tired?”
The three teenagers remained stone-faced proceeding to look everywhere but at Yuuri. He glared at them, rubbing at his face tiredly before sighing loudly. “I will give you all one free pass seeing as yesterday was your first night away from home. But I expect you to be ready from every day now on,” Yuuri said sternly, giving them a steely look.
Frankie nodded frantically before replying, “Yes Coach Yuuri, won’t happen again!”
Yuuri shot them all a curt nod before motioning to the rink with his chin as a sign to finish warming up. The three boys relaxed from their previous tense state and began to skate around. Fish began to do long, fast loops about the rink, and every time he passed either Frankie or Nix, he would whisper, “Wax on, wax off.”
By his fourth circuit around, Nix and Fish were struggling to keep in their chuckles. Eventually, even Frankie began to chuckle, after Fish had annoyingly pestered him numerous times in a row with the stupid line, which didn’t go unnoticed by Coach Yuuri. The entire time, Yuuri had been moving about himself, observing the boys and making small comments on better ways to stretch out and had noticed the weird way they were acting.
Eventually, Yuuri managed to catch was Fish said when he repeated it a little too loud on one of his passes by Frankie and Yuuri let out a small chuckle of his own. All three boys stopped, slightly horrified, turning to look at Yuuri who had stopped and was rubbing at his temples gently.
“You boys know I’m Japanese right?” Yuuri said after chuckling again, shaking his head and smiling slightly. “I didn’t even think kids your age would know what that movie is anyway.” He half-whispered afterwards, looking almost fond. He nodded one last time to himself before his face went back to neutral and he looked at the group of now embarrassed boys.
“Alright, enough messing around. You should all be ready by now. Today I’m gonna evaluate you all on your current jumping abilities and how well you can perform each of the jumps you have learnt. Only then will I be able to train you to improve your current jumps and teach you new ones.” He stopped here, releasing his hands from where he had crossed them against his chest and placed them on his hips.
“Alright, who here can do a quad and if so, which ones?” Yuuri says, waiting for a response.
The three boys look awkwardly at each other and are silent before Fish awkwardly raises his hand. “By able to do a quad do you mean landing one in competition or having managed to at least do it once in practice? Because I mean, that’s a big difference.”
Yuuri’s eyebrow raised at this, not having thought he would need to distinguish. Being able to do a quad at their age was not required by any means nor expected, but was something which would greatly increase their overall scores. He hoped to be able to have each of them go into the season with at least one quad under their belt to use in conjunction with crisper, cleaner triples.
“Let me rephrase this: have any of you managed to land, in practice or competition, any quad jumps?”
Slowly, all three boys raised their hands. Yuuri looked pleasantly surprised for a moment before pointing to Frankie.
“I’ve managed to land a Quad Salchow a few times in practice but never in competition. I somehow always manage to not have enough speed and don’t get enough rotations,” Frankie said quietly, fidgeting with his glasses as he spoke.
Yuuri nodded his head before replying, “That’s something we can definitely work on. Chris had a habit of not getting enough rotations in competition too if he wasn’t focused enough.”
“Chris?” Frankie asked confused. Yuuri looked surprised for a moment before replying.
“Oh! I was talking about Christophe Giacometti, the skater from Switzerland. He could be brilliant when motivated enough but when he wasn’t, sometimes in competition he would mess up a planned quad and end up doing a triple and even sometimes a double,” Yuuri explained, moving his hands about animatedly. The three shot him an odd look, having yet to see Yuuri look so passionate about something before Yuuri moved on and pointed to Fish.
“And you?”
Fish rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly before answering, “Well I landed a Quad Toe Loop at the Eastern Great Lakes Competition but messed up my landing at the Midwestern Sectionals. I was working on doing a Quad Toe Loop, against my coaches wishes because I had just gotten over a sprained ankle, at Nationals last year when I fell and broke two of my toes and re-sprained my ankle.” He finished in a mumble, looking down at his skates and refusing to look up.
Yuuri shot him a glare before grunting out, “Well that was a bad idea. You could have seriously hurt yourself. And I mean, out of this year’s season too. In the future, if a coach tells you not to try something? Its most likely for your own good.” Yuuri gave him a stern look, waiting for Fish to meet his eyes.
Fish finally looked up and pouted. “But my last coach was so mean! I wasn’t even supposed to do the Quad in the first place! He never let me try, kept telling me I was too young or something.”
“Fish, he wasn’t trying to be mean. He was looking out for you and your body. You are still growing. A serious injury now could lead to lifelong consequences,” he groaned into his hands before continuing. “I will make a deal with you. I am willing to teach you how to properly land a Quad Toe Loop on one condition…Don’t ever question what I say. Do we have a deal?” Fish looked over Coach Yuuri for a moment before looking dejected and nodding miserably. Yuuri murmured a quiet good under his breathe before motioning for Nix to go last.
“I can land a Quad Salchow and a Quad Toe Loop most of the time in practice. I landed a Quad Salchow at the same regional competition as Fish but I fell on two other jumps and completely messed up my routine,” Nix rubbed at his arm aimlessly as he spoke, pausing to think for a moment before continuing, quieter, “I’ve landed a Quad Flip. Twice. But it was during practice and it was just me messing around. My form was abysmal.”
Yuuri stared at Nix with wide eyes before squinting at him with an annoyed expression. “You can’t land a Quad Flip with bad form. You would fall on your ass and wipe out. You would have had to at least have done it half-decently to even land it. I’m impressed. Not many skaters can do a Quad Flip, even some of the greats were never able to.”
Nix put up his hands, waving them frantically before replying, “No no no! I’m not trying to boast or anything! Really, trust me, they were horrible. I was just telling you everything I’ve tried in the past so you can coach me best.” He looked panicked as he finished, eyes wide and afraid. Yuuri shot him a calculating and searing look before turning and beginning to skate.
“Alright, time to show me what you can do. Start with doubles and move up through triples. I want to see you at least try every type of jump. I’ll evaluate each one and afterwards tell each of you which jumps you need to focus on. Once that’s done, I want you to attempt the quads you mentioned and whatever other ones you think you might be able to do. I would rather you switch to a triple than fall, so stay alert. Okay, be cautious of each other, go,” Yuuri finished with a dismissive way, moving to lean against the wall of the rink and watch the skaters.
Fish moaned and skated up to Nix, patting him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Screw the wax on, wax off shit. I’ve changed my mind. He was raised by monks in the mountains of japan and beaten with sticks. Only explanation dude.”
Nix shot him a half-exasperated, half-understanding look before going to move across the ice himself.