Yuuri wakes to Victor shifting in his sheets, and opens his eyes blearily. The last memory he had was Victor giving him three bottles of water to drink to prevent dehydration and a hangover, and Yuuri’s head doesn’t hurt, but he has to go to the bathroom.

After springing out of bed like a man on the mission and finishing his business, Yuuri walks back into the bedroom to see Victor, fully awake, and naked, spread out on the bed.

Yuuri whistles. “Hey,” he says, adopting a sultry voice.

“Hey, back,” Victor runs his hands up and down the sides of his body as if to emphasize that there is nothing separating Victor’s body from Yuuri’s, if he wishes to.

“I was thinking,” Victor continues, “that even though it’s really too early to wake up, especially on your big day, that you’re awake, and I’m awake, together, and why wouldn’t we want to have some fun on our last day?”

Yuuri leans on the wall. “What do you have in mind?”

Victor springs up, as if every muscle in his body was waiting for this moment. His teeth are in Yuuri’s face, mouth travelling up to Yuuri’s ear, the folds of his body covering him, and Victor whispers, “I want you to fuck me.”

Victor puts a bottle of lube and a condom onto Yuuri’s hands and steps back.

“Well? What do you say to that?” Victor plants his feet wide and lets Yuuri take a look, openmouthed, unable to answer.

Yuuri finally meets Victor’s face again, considerably redder than before. “I’d love to oblige,” Yuuri says. “And since you’re so into asking what I want, we’re going to do this my way.”

“Oh, I love a man that knows what he wants,” Victor says with utter conviction, only betrayed by the way his bushy eyebrows spasm in hidden laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” Yuuri sighs. “But I really do want you on your hands and knees on the bed.”

“Aw, don’t want to look at my face?” Victor asks, doing just that, complying and stretching his body so that his ass is right in Yuuri’s face.

“I just want to see–other parts of you,” Yuuri smiles, feeling up a sizeable portion of Victor’s muscular ass. He shucks his clothes quickly, his own cock getting with the picture as soon as Yuuri puts on the condom and pours the lube into his hands and rolls it around his fingers to warm it up.

One finger in Victor’s white ass, and the man lets out a groan that shakes the walls, quickly directing it into a pillow. That changes the angle of Yuuri’s enveloped finger, sinking more deeply into Victor’s hot hole.

Yuuri hums, twirling a finger around while grabbing his cock with his other hand, generously kneading the lube into his length over the latex, feeling the early pangs of pleasure.

He adds another finger into Victor’s ass and the man clenches up, the muscles so tight around Yuuri’s knuckles.

“Can you do it?” Yuuri asks, pouring more lube around the rim and slicking his fingers in and out.

“It’s just cold,” Victor says, voice muffled by the pillow.

“Are you afraid of a little cold?”

Victor raises his head out of the pillow and glares at Yuuri with the most competitive glare Yuuri has ever seen. “Of course not, Katsuki. Put in another one.”

Yuuri matches the glare. “Of course, Nikiforov.” The third finger is colder than the other two, and Yuuri stretches inside of Victor, relishing the feeling of his spasming muscles as Victor tries, and fails, to stop the clenching and relax.

“Hmm,” Yuuri frowns. “It doesn’t look like you’re doing so well. I think you need a break. Does the great Victor Nikiforov not have what it takes to take a thick cock up his ass?”

“You–ahh–know I do, Yuuri, you literally did it the other day–” Victor protests, and as he twists his face into the pillow, hair sticking to his mouth, a hand skates down to pump his own cock, relieving the pressure.

Yuuri bats his hand away. “Did I say you could help yourself?”

Victor glares at him again, but Yuuri has the upper hand here, sliding three fingers in and out of him with practiced ease. “I guess not,” he mutters, grabbing the pillow with both hands and swaying his hips so the tip of his cock just brushes the bed.

“Oh, look at that,” Yuuri pouts. “You’re making a wet spot on the bed. I bet that doesn’t really let up the pressure, does it? Cloth is no substitute for a good old hand. I bet all it does is aggravate you, having a few fingers that can’t reach so far or fill you up so good, and cloth that just itches your head. Maybe you’d like another finger?”

Before Victor can respond, presumably to say, “Fuck you,” Yuuri adds a fourth finger, twisting his hand around in Victor’s ass, relishing the feeling as the muscles try to clench over the ridges of his knuckles before easing, stretching, allowing him to dig deeper and try harder.

“You ready yet?” Yuuri says. His own cock is bouncing next to his hip, all slicked up and ready to go.

“I would be if I could touch my cock,” Victor says.

Yuuri takes a grip of his ass and slaps it, the sound ringing around the room. Victor moans, his cock scraping across the wet spot in the bed.

“Oh, that sounds almost painful,” Yuuri says, a half grin on his face. “So why are you still arguing with me?”

Victor laughs into his pillow. “Alright, I get it. Now fuck me, please?”

“You got it,” Yuuri says. He takes his fingers out and Victor’s entire body deflates, like it was all held up by Yuuri curling around his prostate. Yuuri takes his slick hands and clenches Victor’s reddening ass, so pert and round, and guides it down onto his cock, sighing as Victor bottoms out without a sound.

“You know,” Victor says, sounding like he’s run a marathon, “I can’t sit on you if you’re standing up. You know that, right?”

“I don’t want you to sit on me,” Yuuri says.

“But you’re not moving.”

“Okay! I’ll move! Fuck off,” Yuuri teases, rolling his hips, still sore from yesterday’s massage, and starting to fuck Victor.

Victor holds his head into the pillow, letting out a string of nonsensical syllables in any language, almost shaking from the effort it took to not touch his leaking cock.

After Yuuri establishes a smooth rhythm, nodding his head to the beat he makes with the slap of his thighs against Victor’s blushing ass, he reaches down and uses both hands to squeeze Victor’s cock.

Victor’s head drops further, and he leans into Yuuri’s lube-coated hands, the pre-come dribbling onto his fingers as he pumps up and down and holds it tightly, feeling the blood fill it out until it might burst.

“You close?” Yuuri asks.

“Take an educated guess, Katsuki,” Victor says, and Yuuri is going to take that as a yes. So he takes one hand and pulls Victor’s cheek open, the other still slamming up and down his cock, and fucks him for all he’s worth.

Victor spills onto the bed, shaking, breaths ragged, slowly coming down from his high. Yuuri follows him into oblivion, feeling his balls clench as he empties out inside him.

Yuuri can feel exhaustion sweep over him even as he can’t stop smiling, pulling out of Victor, throwing the condom away in the trash, and collapsing on the other side of the bed.

Victor clasps Yuuri’s hand in his as he rolls onto his side, pressing their bodies together. Victor leaves a lingering kiss on Yuuri’s cheek, and Yuuri can’t stop smiling.

Yuuri feels himself falling fast to sleep and he is the happiest he’s been in a while, so close to Victor.

“I love you,” Yuuri mumbles. “And I don’t know what to do when you leave.”

He curls up and falls asleep, not realizing that beside him, Victor has gone still.

*

At eleven, Yurio knocks furiously on the hotel door. Yuuri wakes up with no idea where he is or how much time has passed, just knowing that he is still slightly hungover and has many hours before he has to get to the rink for costuming, so Victor slides out of bed.

Victor’s hair is still plastered to his head sideways, and he winces as he pulls the hotel bathrobe over him and cracks open the door. “Hello?” he rasps through it.

Yuuri keeps his eyes closed, cocooned in the heavy blankets and cool air, letting the conversation wash over him.

Yurio taps his foot. “Can I come in?” he asks. “I have something I need to tell Yuuri.”

“Yuuri’s busy. Can I…take a message?”

The tapping stops. “Did I interrupt something?” Yurio says. There’s a second of silence to which Yuuri imagines Victor nodding, or waggling his eyebrows, or making a gesture with his hands, and then Yurio says, “Ew, gross. But I do need to say something to Yuuri. Just…tell him I took his advice.”

Victor turns around and hollers, “Yuuri, your copycat says he took your advice.”

It feels like something died in between Yuuri’s gums. “Thanks, Victor. I heard.”

“Oh, he’s awake?” Yurio asks. “I can elaborate if he can hear me.”

“I can hear you.” Is there going to be a falling back asleep from this? Even if he could, Yuuri just remembered what he told Victor in his embarrassing post-coital state, and he will not be able to close his eyes again without feeling the horror seize his chest up in the fear of ruining everything.

Because Yuuri did just ruin everything, by one slip of the tongue, without knowing it at the time. Has Victor been awake the entire time, thinking about what Yuuri said?

“Remember what you said about getting over Otabek?” Yurio hollers brightly.

Yuuri makes a non-committal noise. “Please tell me you didn’t like–propose to him, or something.”

“Nope!” Yurio sounds too awake from it still being before noon. “I am prepared to forget about him entirely. Do you know why?”

“Tell me why,” Yuuri sighs.

“I got a Grindr account!”

Yurio now has Yuuri’s full attention. He croaks, “You did what?”

*

As soon as Yuuri walks out of the shower, steam trailing behind him, scruffy hair wrapped in a towel, he confronts Yurio again. “You did what?”

Yurio, who has been sitting across from the slightly-more-dressed-than-before Victor for the past fifteen minutes in an awkward silence, both skaters absorbed on their phones, looks up. “I decided to get over my unrequited crush and join the world at large in casual hookups. Like you two.”

Victor almost spits out his Coke. Yuuri fastidiously ignores it.

“But you made yourself an account on Grindr,” Yuuri says. “You. A fifteen-year-old.”

Yurio shrugs with petulance. “The internet doesn’t know I’m fifteen. I’m using someone else’s photos.”

“So now not only are you breaking the law by making an account, you’re catfishing people, too.” A small voice in Yuuri’s head says: Hey, remember when you thought you could make a good impression on the angry boy by giving him well thought-out advice? Yeah, you suck.

“I’m not going to actually use it to meet anyone in real life,” Yurio says. “I just want to admire them. Not in person.”

Victor’s face looks peculiarly like someone who has just chomped down on an especially tart lemon and returns to staring at his phone like it holds all the answers in the world. What a wonderful father figure.

“Yurio,” Yuuri starts the voice still screaming YOU SUCK on a loop in his brain, “I’m glad you’re being proactive in making the decision that’s best for you and Otabek. But this is not a good idea. You’re playing everyone you might meet there, which is not only illegal, but unethical.”

“Well, you’re no fun. Glad I’m leaving this fucking place tonight.”

Yuuri glances at Victor. “Tonight? I thought you left tomorrow.”

Victor tries to meet him in the eyes and fails. Just hours ago, they were happy, melding together as one, and now Yuuri has fucked everything up by bringing feelings into the mix. “It was tomorrow,” Victor says softly. “Our plans changed.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. His voice is so small in the echo of the spacious hotel room. “I see.”

“We can stay through your performance, but only just,” Victor says.

The voice in Yuuri’s ear now says: How long has he known? Why has he waited to tell me?

Yuuri looks at the carpet. He is so thankful that there are no tears in his eyes. He couldn’t handle an outburst of emotion, not after this morning.

“Do whatever you want,” Yuuri says quickly, standing up and gathering his things he threw across the room so haphazardly last night. “I could care less. After all, you’re leaving, and you won’t be my problem any more.”

Yurio doesn’t respond as Yuuri pockets his phone and wallet, tearing the towel from his hair and launching it across the room.

Victor just watches Yuuri with his unknowable eyes.

“I’m leaving,” Yuuri says curtly. “I will see you at the performance. Or not. You may want to get to your flight tonight early.”

As he walks out of the hotel room with his head high, he hears Yurio scoff, “You’re just going to let him leave?”

As Yuuri presses the button for the elevator half a million times, he thinks he can hear Victor’s voice faintly, saying, “I don’t let Yuuri do anything. He can leave if he wants.”

“You’re damn right I can leave if I want,” Yuuri growls, stalking into the empty elevator. “You’re damn fucking right.”

But as the doors close around him and it begins the quick descent to the ground floor, Yuuri just looks at his feet and sighs, all fight draining out of him. All he wants is Victor, and he told him so, too. Does Victor really not care at all for him, after that?

*

Yuuri is on the third commercial break on an episode of the unknown Thai drama on TV when there’s a knock on his apartment door. He checks his watch: still three hours before he has to be at costuming.

He stands and wades through the mess of his apartment: dishes spread out over the couch and floor, books and newspapers and CDs and souvenirs stacked in rough piles, evidence of a month spent mostly at the Shangri-La and a disinterest in the normal routine of his home. Yuuri has lived the last few weeks in a stupor, a trance, where he hasn’t been able to discern that real life doesn’t involve wild romantic flings, but now he thinks he can see the end of the tunnel.

Yuuri opens the door to see Phichit.

“Why do you have a poncho on?” Yuuri squints, opening it up to let his friend in.

Phichit tears off the bright pink poncho. “It’s been raining outside for the last hour, didn’t you notice?”

Yuuri gestures to his curtains: down.

Phichit looks around his place. “Wow, this is more terrible than I thought.”

“Than you thought? What did you think? And why did you think? Why are you here, Phichit?”

“I’m here because Victor texted me. He sounded pretty concerned for a Russian whose English spelling is limited. He wrote: Take Care of Yuuri At His Place. Now, what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”

“A smart one,” Yuuri folds his arms. “I’m fine. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

“That’s what I told him,” Phichit winks, “but I said I would come over here and check anyways. The performance is tonight–is it anxiety?”

“No.” The last few times he thought about the performance, it’s only in passing, and he hasn’t thought about his triple axel in a week. “It’s not that.”

Phichit helps himself to a Coke from Yuuri’s mini fridge, and that is such an American move that Yuuri is floored–all at once he remembers Detroit, the smog that covered the city, looking at the conglomeration of towers in the skyline with his roommate, the man who lounges across from him now.

They are both members of multiple cultures, having travelled across the great expanse of the Motor City and beyond. They both adapted to another language with difficulty, giving up the ease of living at home to develop the skill needed to propel them to a larger goal.

Yuuri has laughed and cried with Phichit, studied and practiced with him, watched movies and played games. He has spent more time with Phichit than anyone else, and Phichit is here with him right now, in his apartment, because Phichit cares about him.

So Yuuri confesses.

“It’s Victor. I told him that I was interested in more than just a casual hookup, that I don’t want him to leave, and he hasn’t really spoken to me since.”

On the TV behind Phichit, the soap opera star gasps at something in utter shock, and Phichit’s expression mirrors her perfectly. “He’s giving you the cold shoulder?”

“No, I think he just didn’t know and he’s trying to get out quick. Which he can, because he’s leaving tonight instead of tomorrow.” Yuuri sinks back onto his couch in despair. “This is why I didn’t tell him earlier.”

“You didn’t tell him because you were afraid he’d react like this, but at least now you know,” Phichit says. “I’m so proud of you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri smiles. “Thanks, Phichit.”

“And if Victor doesn’t come around, I’ll yell at him myself,” Phichit confides in him.

“You? Yell?”

Phichit puffs up his chest in mock arrogance. “I’m more American than you think, Katsuki. I can handle one Russian skater, even if he is the world champion and I asked him over here in the first place.”

“So technically, the troubles of my love life are all your fault,” Yuuri says, and there’s a weird sensation on his face for the first time in several hours. He may be smiling.

“Keep thinking that,” Phichit laughs in return. “Now, is this rejection going to affect your performance tonight?”

“Of course not,” Yuuri assures him. “Our performance is about the unbreakable bond of friendship, which is strengthened in such times of need. I will be ready.”

“Wow, Katsuki, the fount of all wisdom,” Phichit nods. “I like it. See you at four thirty?”

Yuuri glances at the wall. It’s only one p.m., and Phichit is the only thing he can lean on right now. “Actually, do you want to watch a soap opera with me until we have to leave?”

He’s never seen Phichit more excited. It may be the sugar rush.

“I would love to.”

*

Four thirty on the dot, and the locker rooms of the skating rink are full of skaters in lavish red and orange outfits, trailing lace and feathers from their bodies. Yuuri can’t go a foot without someone bumping razor-sharp blades into him. Phichit emerges from the communal showers behind him, finishing his in-depth reflection on the soap opera he has been telling Yuuri since they left his house an hour ago.

“In short, I think I know who’s going to be murdered–Yuuri? Yuuri, are you listening to me?”

Yuuri stops dead in his tracks, clutching the towel around his waist so it doesn’t fall off. At the end of the locker room, like an angel descended from heaven, stands Victor Nikiforov, bathed in a golden glow, with Yurio standing right behind him like a snarky sidekick.

Yuuri looks around the room. Did Victor come for Phichit? Is Phichit about to yell at him like he promised?

But all Phichit does is stop in the middle of his explanation, as if he could care less who the foreshadowing pointed to being killed, and smiles at Yuuri. He winks at him too, like his eyebrows are trying to communicate something in sign language, and gives him two thumbs ups.

Yuuri turns to Victor. “Just a second, I’m going to put on some clothes for my conversation.”

Victor leans on the locker next to his as Yuuri tears off his towel and methodically puts on his costume. He intentionally doesn’t look at Victor, doesn’t care where roaming eyes wander.

Victor doesn’t say anything, and Yuuri notices that he’s actually gotten dressed since this morning. Has it really only been less than a day since they’ve been apart? To Yuuri, it’s felt like–well, not ages, but at least two days.

Yuuri pulls on the last of his outfit and nods to Victor. “Okay, we can go talk.”

They end up standing by the vending machine, ice cold drinks staring at them as Yuuri looks everywhere but Victor.

“I don’t want this to be awkward,” Yuuri says. “But I understand.”

“Really? What do you understand, Yuuri?”

“I understand that you just came here to help on a whim, and you didn’t sign up for anything more than just helping me, and you had a bit of fun, and now you’re done. I get it. I don’t want to ruin that. I’m sorry I said anything.”

Yuuri tries to disappear into the vending machine. He feels Victor’s ice-cold hand on his shoulder and finally looks the man in the eye.

“That’s not what I think at all,” Victor says. “I like you too, Yuuri.”

“Really? Because that’s not the feeling I got this morning.”

“I didn’t know what to say this morning. I was thinking about the logistics of everything. I’m leaving tonight, Yuuri, and I’m going back to train Yurio for the Grand Prix. I have a life that’s separate from you and the Phichit! On Ice show, and I didn’t expect to get entangled in this life, that’s true. I’ll admit it. But I’m so open to staying entangled in this life because I care about you. I’ve never done a long distance relationship before, and I needed time to make a plan. But I realized that I never actually told you any of this, and I rushed over here after Phichit made it abundantly clear over the phone that I fucked up.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what his face is doing. It might be a laugh. It might be a cry. “Phichit convinced you to come, huh.”

“No. Phichit just reminded me that I’m not the only one with feelings at stake here, and I decided to come and share my feelings with you. At just the right time, I see.”

Yuuri feels his cheek with the palm of his hand: burning up.

“Well,” he says, “I thought I lost you forever. I thought you didn’t want to see me again. I’m glad I’m wrong.”

“I’m glad you’re wrong, too.” Victor pulls him in for a hug, and Yuuri stays like that, enveloped in the smell of Victor’s cologne.

Phichit’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker. “Final dress rehearsal starts in five minutes. All skaters, in your positions please.”

Yuuri pulls away from Victor. “I’m not going to see you again here,” he says. “I have rehearsal and then a performance and then you leave.”

“I’ll call you when I land,” Victor assures him.

“But how are we going to sustain a relationship when you’re in Russia and I’m in Thailand?”

“We’ll figure it out. I made up diagrams. Several complicated diagrams.”

Yuuri smiles. “I need to see them.”

“It involves Skyping to talk and also just to exist with each other nearby,” Victor says in a rush. “I read online that people sometimes just go about their day while being connected to someone else, so that they can just coexist, and Katsuki Yuuri, I would love to coexist with you.”

Even though it is less than five minutes until Yuuri’s dress rehearsal and the premiere performance of the biggest event of his lifetime, Yuuri pulls Victor in for one last kiss–sloppy and impassioned and the best he’s ever had.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Yuuri says. “But I know that you have to, and I think we can work through this.”

Victor squeezes his hands. “I’ll raise you one: I know that we can get through this. You’re going to do amazingly, Yuuri. And I’ll watch you, and I’ll applaud for you, and I’ll even get Yurio to acknowledge how good you are, too.”

“Take care of him,” Yuuri says. “Seriously. He needs a good role model.”

Victor might be crying, too. “I will,” he says. “Now, Yuuri. Go off to your rehearsal, and make it the best one you’ve ever had.”

Yuuri nods, grabs his skates in his hand, and lines up by the entrance to the rink. He turns, and takes a second to study Victor for possibly the last time now.

Victor stands, leaning on the vending machine, studying Yuuri with that same look, like he’s so hungry he needs to commit every aspect about him to memory.

They will work through this, because they believe in each other, no matter what comes.

“Victor?” Yuuri grins. “See you on the other side.”