Ink Scribe

The funny thing about being told something over, and over, is that you don't always believe it until the truth is staring you in the face.

Yakov is old; tired, and ... fading. Victor watches the rise and fall of his chest, the painfully slow beep of the heart rate machine, the way Lilia dozes in the spare, uncomfortable chair, one hand clenched in Yakov's free one. Victor isn't good with feelings; he's awkward and terrible about the whole thing. This is Yakov, though; the only real family that Victor has, and he's slowly slipping away from them.

It doesn't matter that he's been stuck on an airplane for four hours, as he sinks to his knees beside the old man's bed, his breath hitches. Lilia is all but asleep; there's no one but Yakov to witness his shame, if he can even hear Victor. "Please don't go," Victor begs, quietly, "Don't leave me, dada. We need you. We all need you." He doesn't know how to tell Yakov that he's who he is because of this man. The words stick in his throat, shamefully. 

It could have happened to anyone. Skating is a dangerous sport, after all. The ice was meant to have been smoothed over, and no one expected Yuri to go out so early to practice. So they say. But when Victor finds him, curled up in the middle of the ice, a smear of red trailing where he has evidently struggled to pull himself away, he wonders.

Prompt 23: Forced to Hurt

Emotions were not useful, that was what Yakov always told him. They were not constructive, did not help one's performance, did not help oneself. But things are different in Japan. Yuuri's coach barks orders at them, keeps telling Victor to feel; to try and understand himself, to look within. 

Whatever that means. In the evenings, Victor will take his time stretching out all of the stress that appeared during training, and is grateful that Yakov isn't there to see how his training has been decimated by this strange thinking.

Victor's brain feels confused and pulled in so many directions - part of him wonders if Yuuri's coach is doing it on purpose, to give Yuuri an edge... but he never voices it; it seems too petty. Yuuri is the one who wanted him to continue competing after all.

But Victor is getting old; at least by skating standards, and his body is a fine tuned instrument that is used to working a certain way. It doesn't understand this new method where pain is not physical but is meant to be emotional, How is he supposed to push past a thing he doesn't even feel? One morning, he sneaks into the rink early - much earlier than Yuuri or his coach wakes - and plugs in his headphones, pressing on the randomiser of his music. It feels... good to skate without thinking, just to let the music guide him. He was the best in the world - he is the best in the world... for a reason. When the piece finishes, Victor is out of breath, shaking and when he turns, Yuuri's coach is staring at him from the edge of the rink, arms folded. 

Trigger Warning: Implied Non-Consensual He can still feel the slide of fingers over his skin; the locker door rattling as he tried to struggle, the gasp of breath that had left his ears - the way he'd slid to the floor afterward, shaking and -- distant. How it had taken both Yuuri Katsuki and Otabek to get him up and away from there, how even now, he's had to ask for a different locker because the thought of it makes him feel ill.

Let it be know that Yuri makes the worst patient. He's Russian, a skater, and being sick is just.... Unacceptable. He will slink onto the ice in the early hours of the morning to avoid Lilia's hard stare, despite the fact that the world swirls around him, despite Yakov's rolling of the eyes. Even Victor's narrowed gaze doesn't stop him as he lands a triple axel - not his best, but not bad by any means.

But when Yuri attempts a cannonball spin, the whole world rather alarmingly tilts --- and suddenly, Otabek is there. Catching him, pulling him into his arms. Everyone else would simply pick him up because he's small but not Otabek. Otabek wraps his arm around Yuri's waist, and nudges him off the ice, murmuring about fevers and -- oh, that makes sense. 

"I'll tell Yakov you kidnapped me," Yuri Plisetsky is fifteen, fearless, and staring death in the face. Alright, maybe that's a bit dramatic and really it's only Victor Nikiforov, but it feels like death; stuck in this purgatory that is Japan, having to watch Victor and Yuuri make google eyes at each other every five seconds. He knows Victor - knows him inside out, and this is not good. 

Victor rolls his eyes and flips his hair so Yuri can see both of his eyes - neither looking impressed. "Yakov already knows you came of your own will, Yuri." 

"Well... I'll tell Lilia! We both know she likes me much more than she likes you!" It's actually quite a strong argument, and Victor has to stop himself from snickering. Lilia hates him. She adores Yuri. "Go ahead, da? Tell her. Of course, then I'll never be able to choreograph for you."

The thing that Yuuri Katsuki never really seems to understand about skating, is that it requires sacrifice. Victor gets aggravated when Yuuri turns up late to training, when he starts putting weight back on because he can't stick to any of the thousands of diets they've tried. Yuuri thinks that Victor's previous regime was madness; he talks about how Russian skaters have hearts of stone, and how he doesn't understand how Victor survived it with so much of himself left still intact. 

Victor doesn't know how to explain to him that its love of the sport; of the ice -because that's something that Yuuri will never understand. Yuuri has told him that he started skating because of Victor, not because of the sport itself. Victor had idols growing up, for sure, but that doesn't mean that they were his everything. They couldn't be. 

Its the Olympics - in Beijing… and Yuri is freaking out. Whilst he had always been working toward this goal, that didn’t mean that he’d ever expected to get there. Otabek finds him, gasping for breath, one hand against the wall, another against his stomach, trying desperately not to vomit or worse, because he has to be on the ice in less than ten minutes and God how is he supposed to do this?

They called it “chase and catch”. It was harmless, or so his mother told him, with a roll of her eyes. Victor would watch as, outside, the young men would cat-call at the women and tease them; his thoughts conflicted. What would it be like to be chased like that? What would it be like to be caught? Was it a good thing? He didn’t really know.

He had never expected to find out, but as Victor stared into Christophe’s eyes, a little breathless and wide eyed, he could only recognise that he had been both chased and caught… and it was rather nice.

—

Its always been easy to get hold of -ehem - frowned upon - substance in skating. Hell, the Federation will even give it to you, wrapped in pretty food parcels, if they think you need it. Even if they don't. Yuri, and Victor, have learned to avoid food that isn't given to them by Lilia and Yakov - directly. Even the painkillers could be laced; they trade between themselves, but never, never with anyone else. Victor is in his final year (29 and still skating, it feels insane) and Yuri is seventeen; struggling with muscle pains, his body still growing in ways he hates. Victor counts out Yuri's pills, and they've an agreement; he can only have as much as he's given, no more, no less, because he knows that Victor won't short change him if he needs them, but he won't put him at risk, either.

Every skater - especially Russian Skaters - learns to work through the pain. It's just a fact; if you want to gain a title, if you want to win (and who among them doesn't?) then pain is part of the process. Whether it's avoiding glass in your skates because people can be cutthroat as hell, or whether it's long hours on the ice, when your body and mind are too tired to do anything but the same mindless routine over, and over again.

Victor loves skating - truly. He doesn't know, though, when it became mindless and meaningless; the carefree smiles tossed at the media mongrels seem to be becoming more and more a part of him every day, and he hates it. this place, the ice, where he always thought he could be safe... has become tainted with his hate, and Victor wants to pull away before he can do any more damage, but he can't.

Yuri lives by rules. Usually Lilia's, not that he'd tell anyone that if they asked. She dictates his diet, his sleeping schedule, his practice time, but it works so he doesn't complain. Yuri has his own set of rules, of course. Get on with the work, don't complain, and don't, whatever you do, run off to a foreign country to chase someone for breaking a promise they don't even remember.