By RegalOneByTheStream
Prompt searching! Yay!
I don't own the base idea, but a lot of it is actually my own set of brain babies. I don't own Yuri! On Ice, however, which is a shame.
Anyways. Rated T because Yurio is a brat per norm and has absolutely NO FILTER.
Enjoy!
XXXXXX
-Day 324-
-21:37 Monday 12/17, year X427 of Nea Epochi-
-Yuuri Katsuki-
-I have been working in the Metropolis Sigma Avian Detention and Research Facility for almost a year now—halfway through eleven months.-
-My rankings in the status quo of MSADRF have improved significantly. I am the only doctor that the Avians seem to enjoy, and so they send me to patch up what's left of their experiments.-
-Test subject Kappa-633713, surname Chulanont, says it's because I have the rare quality of sympathy. I hope there's more to it than that. I hope that I have built friendships with them. I hope that I'm not the only one in this facility who has even an inkling of what human behavior is supposed to be like anymor-
Backspace backspace backspace.
-quality of sympathy. Kappa-633713 is sorely mistaken. I feel nothing but contempt for these hideous abominations. They deserve this pain for killing so many of our own-
No, that was laying it on a bit too thick. Yuuri bit his lip as he entered his daily work log into his computer. The diary was supposedly private. He'd trusted that until the end of the first month, when he'd vocalized his horror at the happenings down in the dreaded block 2F and had immediately been called into the offices of both the president and the vice president. In the first month.
He saw Celestino, vice president of the corporation, first. He assured him hurriedly that they were on the same side, and then gave him strict instructions to keep a bigoted mindset, dodge or counter anything accusatory, and to lie lie lie. And then he was carted into the office of the president himself, who had questioned him thoroughly, accusing him of sympathetic behavior towards the devil creatures, had warned him of the repercussions of helping an Avian escape, had told him that he was bright, by far one of the best medical doctors there, and had told him it would be a pity to see him behind bars.
The policemen outside the office who had glared him down as he walked past made much more sense, then.
Yuuri kept his bigoted mindset. He scoffed and told the president that the dumb beasts (lie) deserved to be punished like this (lie). He dodged the accusation of sympathy through the same manner, telling the president that they deserved no sympathy (lie). They were just Avians, just these stupid, inferior creatures (lie) who he most definitely did not give an inkling about (lie) and he most certainly had no intention of allowing any of them to escape (lie). He thanked the president for his kind words, careful to seem prejudiced, to be proud of his medical abilities, to be proud that he was being taught how to hurt Avians. Yuuri told himself that he was The Shit, the coolest and the best, and let his mouth and his aura do the rest.
Unlike his hands and fingers, which had been torn apart by Minako, his first surgical instructor, and reformed into untrembling tools of medicine, and his mind, which was so weak and scared when he was intimidated, those two parts of his excelled at what they did naturally.
And he seemed to have convinced the president that he enjoyed this awful, gruesome job, because he was still working there today.
(Lies. It was all a lie. He had never wanted to hurt anyone.)
-abominations.-
(That was a lie, too. He, as a doctor who had been taught to sew and patch people together, very much wanted to hurt the doctors who ripped and tore people—Avians—apart.)
Yuuri had no more steam for any more of an intro. Clearing his throat and glancing around his quarters, he started up on his lab reports. Yuuri had been given a neat little apartment in the facility, just in case a scientist working overtime made an oopsy and accidentally did something stupid like cut a bit too deep into the Avian's leg, puncturing the artery. Then Yuuri would have to haul ass into the labs to medicate and stitch and admonish the unapologetic scientist and try to save this Avian's life while wondering why, why shouldn't he just let this Avian bleed out and save him from more torture?
-currently, recovering charges in medbay that are unavailable for further probing Yuuri hated that word, probing, but it was the correct term considering the work that went on in MSADRF -include Kappa-633713, Delta-009863, and Beta-013637. The remainder of their stay should not take more than two weeks with rest and proper medication.-
-Delta-009863, surname Plisetsky, is to reach his medical deadline at 1300 on Tuesday, 12/18. A request for an extended period of recuperation will be inquired for, as 009863 is clearly mentally- backspace -physically incapable of retaining much more before his body is compromised and made incapable of further research. Given his age, at sixteen years, his hormonal imbalances suggest that further recuperation could take anywhere from a week to a month of careful study and testing.-
Yuuri leaned back, sighing. Plisetsky was just a child when he molted—twelve years old. Just an innocent little boy. According to records, he had been on the run for three years, and had been in captivity for five months, coming into the facility at about half of Yuuri's current time there. He was a brash teenager, rude and immature, fiercely fighting his restraints despite the punishments they wrought upon him for doing so and spewing out obscene remarks and harsh expletives that made Yuuri blush and infuriated the scientists greatly. They had removed all of his unnecessary internal organs without anesthetic or any numbing agent, and had made it quite clear that Plisetsky would be Yuuri's number one patient if he kept this attitude.
Which was why Yuuri intended to hold him in the infirmaries for an extra month. The rest of the facility was marked territory, harsh and unforgiving, but the medical wing was Yuuri's domain, and he had made it as comforting as possible, painting the walls a light, calming blue and ordering the softest beds and best instruments and medicines. Little ornaments decorated his office, which connected both to his quarters and to his medical wing, and there were several framed pictures on the walls of the infirmary: a copy of his medical certificate, a painting by an Avian artist he knew back in Hasetsu who had died in this very institute, a stained glass frame of an Alpha Avian in flight.
Alphas were the best and most beautiful Avians, the greatest soldiers, with the longest wingspan and unending stamina. From that letter on it travelled down the greek alphabet until Omega, the weakest and scrawniest of the bunch, who never seemed to survive long enough to make it into Yuuri's medical wing. But those Alphas were something else, and every scientist in every block vied for one of their own.
Yuuri hoped to any and all the gods, old and new, known and unknown, that the facility never got its greedy hands on an Alpha.
They would tear it to shreds.
Shivering, Yuuri changed subjects. -Beta-013637 is also to be released tomorrow. There are no contrapositions to this claim.-
The beta, surname Giacometti, was strong. He had assured Yuuri that he would be fine. He had also been a fan of fondling Yuuri's behind under his lab coat and laughing as the doctor squeaked and scurried away. But all the same, Yuuri did not want to send him back—did not want to send any of his patients back.
But the board members minus Celestino, his boss and friend, were already suspicious of his political standings. He was playing a dangerous game, now, with very few allies and very little leeway.
And so back Giacometti went, and the next day Yuuri braved the cage of hangry lions and met with Plisetsky.
The teen glared at him as he entered, and Yuuri stifled the urge to stammer apologies and throw himself out the door. Sitting down on the end of the bed, thoroughly out of reach, he smiled tentatively at the boy as he attempted to stare Yuuri down. "Hi," Yuuri ventured.
"Your beds don't have restraints on them," Plisetsky immediately countered, "I could throttle you, throw myself out that window, and fly away."
Yuuri smiled at him sadly. "The...the first action any personnel is supposed to make is to clip the wings of the captive. You'd...fall to your death."
Plisetsky scowled and turned away. "As if that would deter me," he muttered.
"Plisetsky," Yuuri tried again, "I'm not going to send you back to them today."
The boy's head snapped back to Yuuri's, wide eyes reading the truth behind the sentence written on the face of the deliverer, and faint relief filled his eyes even as his mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. "Tomorrow, then?" he growled, his eyes flicking to the wall and resting on the painting of a male blade-dancer on the ice, eyes filled with triumph and delight and a gold medal resting on his sternum. "Why fucking put it off then, piggy?"
"Not tomorrow, either," Yuuri told him, "or the day after that. With luck, I bought you at least a month."
The teen's head whipped back around, his gaze meeting Yuuri's with barely concealed hope written on his face. "Really?" he said, eyes narrowed, barely daring to hope. Yuuri nodded, and then drew closer to the boy and whispered, minding the bugs he knew were behind the painting of the hummingbird just outside, in the hallway, "I know a relatively harmful herb that, when mixed with a few other ingredients, causes the symptoms of severe illness for several hours. If you'd like I could give them to you at the end of the month and buy you at least a week more."
The boy looked ready to pounce on the offer, but halted in his tracks. "What's in it for you?" he asked, eyes back to glaring, mouth already pinched into his angry scowl. Yuuri smiled shakily. "I don't like seeing people in pain—it gives me more anxiety than I already have—and anyways, it isn't like you all aren't basically human, with a slightly altered genetic function pertaining more closely to fowled creatures...a study 2F conducted once..."
At the mention of the feared block, Plisetsky shivered, glaring at Yuuri when he noticed that the doctor had caught the reflexive motion. Yuuri flinched as he realized that he had to tread lightly; after all, the poor kid had just come from 2F. The missing kidney, spleen, and pinky finger on his left hand were proof enough of that.
Plisetsky looked rather relaxed at that answer, but his scowl was intact. "...Okay," he said after a while. "Fine." Yuuri's anxiety was sated by this reply, and it backed down. He could feel his shoulders relaxing.
"We're going to be doing mental stuff while we wait," Yuuri said into the growing silence, "It's something I do with most of my patients...which is usually every Avian in the facility, but all the same, it's good information to...to know."
"What the fuck, mental stuff? You know I went to school, right, piggy?"
"I'm going to be teaching you how to make the scientists as happy as possible."
Plisetsky shot him a look. "Really?" he ground from between his teeth. Yuuri nodded. "I learned from one of my first patients...Takeshi was his name. I knew him from my home sect, Hasetsu."
Plisetsky nodded. "The one with the castle at the end of the street."
Yuuri smiled. "Yeah. He was my best friend's husband, with kids and everything, and they took him as soon as he molted. I was fresh out of medical school and came to...make sure he stayed alive." Yuuri paused, wondering if Plisetsky was bored, but the teen seemed interested, even saying, "Get on with the fucking story, piggy."
"Er, yeah. He...passed from one of the experiments in the fourth area blocks." Yuuri shuddered. "I...don't want to talk about it. But before that, he told me that he'd learned the timings for screaming and when to talk and when not to, what to say and when to say it, and he told me everything he learned about that and other things…" trailing off, Yuuri looked down at his folded hands, resting so innocently in his lap even though they had been drenched with the blood of dying Avians so many times he'd lost count, and clenched, hard, hoping to carve crescents into his knuckles, hoping to atone for what had been done to these poor beings…
"Teach me," Plisetsky commanded. Yuuri looked up. "Not today, you look like a fucking train wreck. Work on that, and maybe lose the glasses, they make you look like a fucking dork. But teach me."
Yuuri smiled shakily.
He hadn't told Yuri the other thing Takeshi had learned, and he didn't intend to. Because that was the reason Takeshi had been killed, the reason Yuuri had been summoned to a meeting with the president despite never having been to one before and not even saying anything in it but being unable to leave.
He'd found a way out. He'd found another Sympathizer. And he needed Yuuri's help to get there.
Yuuri's name was never found, but the other persons' was, and so was Takeshi's. The sympathizer was publicly shamed and executed for his crimes. Takeshi was sent to 4, where the lack of medical control was publicly known, both with Avians and scientists.
Just like that, Takeshi was gone, and Yuuri was knee-deep in this organization, unable to escape.
He wouldn't tell Plisetsky anything about that escape until he was certain that there was another Sympathizer, someone who cared and understood—
"Piggy? Are you fucking serious? Listen when people talk to you, dammit!"
"Ah, sorry," Yuuri squeaked, "what did you ask?"
Plisetsky made a face. "I told you to call me Yuri," he mumbled.
Yuuri laughed nervously. "But...that's my name." 'Yuri' scowled. "No, it's mine!" he retorted, "don't steal my name!"
"I was born first."
"I'm more awesome!"
Holding up his hands in surrender, Yuuri conceded, "I have to call you by your code when there are other people around, but...just between us...I'll be Katsuki and you're Yuri. Does that sound fair?"
Yuri broke into a grin, opening his mouth probably to make some sort of witty comment, but at that moment the intercom on the wall crackled to life and howled, "Doctor Katsuki, we need you down at Grand Bay, ASAP, with strong tranquilizers! I repeat, Grand Bay, ASAP, tranquilizers!"
Without another word, with Yuri shouting questions after him, Yuuri sprinted out of Yuri's private quarters and into the main infirmary, snatching his lab coat off of a chair and rifling in the cabinets frantically before settling on a metal box, his tranquilizer case for when situations like these arose, usually when a Delta or above was brought into the bay and was too strong for human handlers to control. That was when Yuuri was brought in, with his sweet face and quick anesthesia, to calm the Avian and then stick it in the neck. It was one of his least favorite jobs, mostly because last time had been Giacometti, and he had broken two of Yuuri's ribs.
Toting the box, Yuuri sprinted out, taking a moment to lock the doors, and his patient, in. He'd had one too many occurrences when the psychotic scientists decided that they would intrude on the medical wing and finish what they had started—because nearly all of the injuries in his infirmary were from screwups, and some scientists just couldn't comprehend failure. Then he sprinted down to Grand Bay.
His bay was one of the smaller ones, meaning it was closer to the front, where Grand Bay was. And Grand bay certainly was grand: the size of two school gymnasiums, cages from floor to ceiling, where the weaker, hissier Avians were locked away. It was also where the groomers worked once a month, stripping the Avians of their primitive garb and renewing it, since the budget for MSADRF was high considering all the breakthroughs in Avian science they had come across: a blue shirt that was completely open in the back, tied only with a string at the nape of the neck, and scrub pants the same blue as the shirt. It was the groomers who cleaned off the bloodstains and grime, dried sweat and vomit, and who clipped the Avians' wings, once a month, exactly at 1700 on the tenth day.
He passed by several people on his way there, running through the hallways which had looked all the same his first month there. He'd learned the layout, of course, but not without complication. The silver-white walls and pale tile flooring was everywhere, had even been in his medical bay before he'd had it repainted, and it was awfully easy to turn the wrong way and lose yourself. The conversation between the people he passed followed him, and their words spurred him on, because in the fray of his feet slapping on the ground and his breathy pants as he forced his body to sprint and the blood pounding in his head, he could hear one word:
Alpha. Over and over, Alpha Alpha Alpha, and then pairing with words until a phrase was born: there's an alpha in Grand...
Please, please, no, he begged the gods, please don't let them have an Alpha, please, please…
He burst into the bay, the slamming of the door startling everyone in the room. Upon seeing that it was him, almost everyone in the room almost wilted with relief. Even the Avian, who struggled in the center of the atrium, seemed relieved to see that it was not what he considered backup, or in other words, several large, muscled men.
Ha. The chubby, scrawny, four-eyed doctorwas the backup.
The workers roared and fought with new fervor, crushing the Avian to its knees as Yuuri started tentatively forward, and the Avian screeched, a noise that humans couldn't make, and he vaguely remembered a few months ago when they had studied that and Yuuri had had an increase in patients who had come dangerously close to having their jugular sliced open or had been permanently silenced, the scientists having accidentally cut through their vocal cords and then running to Yuuri to save the creature before it died by choking on its own blood.
Smiling softly, Yuuri knelt beside him and said, "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you."
The Avians in the cages halted in their hissing, recognizing his voice. The Alpha glanced up at them, but then turned back to stare at Yuuri. "I don't trust you," he growled, and Yuuri's smile dropped. He leaned in closer to the Avian, out of biting distance but close enough that their words were theirs alone.
"I like your wings," he murmured, "and I'm sorry that this happened to you."
"I don't need your pity," the Avian snapped, and Yuuri grimaced. "All the same, I apologize. For everything. If you hear them talking about sending you to the medical bay, to Doctor Yuuri Katsuki, try everything you can to get there. I'll—he'll do something to help."
"What are you talking about?" the Avian breathed. Yuuri ran a hand through his hair, tugging it away from his face and looked back at the Avian. He was a pretty creature, it was certain. Silver hair, long, long silver hair, which the groomers would no doubt cut off and give to the DNA Recorders, the branch that collected data on all known Avians, living and deceased. Royal blue eyes swimming with emotion, fear and intrigue and something else blooming in his gaze as their eyes met, and Yuuri felt a blush touch his cheeks as his eyes traveled across defined cheekbones and pale cheeks to a strong jawline and a heart shaped mouth, which scowled not unlike that of Pli—Yuri. It was the usual expression of an Avian in captivity. But these two were really good at it.
And those wings. He must have a wingspan of at least ten to twelve feet, the feathers a shimmering, glossy white. Beautiful, strong, regal.
Alpha.
Yuuri leaned in, hearing the Alpha's breath hitch as Yuuri murmured, "Survival."
Before the Avian could react, Yuuri pushed the syringe into the side of his throat and pressed the plunger.
Grabbing the Avian's shoulders, ignoring the new emotion, betrayal, that filled the Avian's blue eyes, Yuuri pulled their chests together and whispered, "Doctor Yuuri Katsuki, remember Doctor Katsuki, Doctor Katsuki, Doctor Yuuri Katsuki—"
The Avian Alpha slumped, and Yuuri fixed his bigoted, dodgy, liar mask on as he turned to the other men. "Congratulations, gentlemen," he said to them drily, "you've caught yourselves a goddamn Beta."
They would eat an Alpha alive.
But not if they thought he was a Beta.
The men whooped, patting each other and Yuuri on the back, and Yuuri took part only for as long as necessary. When his presence was no longer as required, Yuuri slunk away, up to his wing, unlocking and relocking the infirmary behind him, checking in briefly on Yuri—sleeping soundly; good, it was late—and falling into his quarters, prying his scrubs off and pulling on sweatpants, ignoring a shirt and setting an alarm for 0600 the next morning.
He dreamed about Takeshi's molt.
XXXXXX
Even though Yuuri knew from questionings that Molts hurt, Takeshi didn't even scream as the sickening cracks filled the silence, as Yuuko's chest heaved and she wept, shoving her girls out and breathlessly saying, "Monster," and Takeshi refused to scream, even as he looked up at Yuuri and saw that his eyes were revolted, he refused to scream, but now the world was blurry, for his eyes were tearing up and spilling over, and 'I'm still your best friend!' he wanted to yell, 'I'm still Nishigori Takeshi!' but how could he when all he could see were stars and his jaw would not unclench, for there was a fire in his vocal cords and an uncomfortable sensation on his back, and he blinked away the tears and looked up at Yuuri and mouthed, "Please."
His best friend blinked, and to Takeshi's relief, the revolt faded into something else: horror. "Takeshi? Are you still...Takeshi?"
Of course, who else would he be, but he nodded, whimpering, and Yuuri miraculously unfroze from his pre-hyperventilative state and reached for something behind him. Takeshi gasped for breath. Scissors. Was Yuuri going to hurt him? He knew how his best friend felt about Avians—they had had so many talks about going into the war together when they were small, going to kill all of the Avians and take back their land. But now he was one of those Avians, and—
Yuuri whispered, "I'm going to cut off your shirt; your wings are trapped beneath it. Then I'm going to go get Yuuko."
And Yuuri did exactly as he said, careful to be gentle and not to poke Takeshi with the point, not even jokingly, which was nice because his back was tender, unbelievably tender, and he had no clue how any Avians could possibly know how to retract their wings because they were so damn uncomfortable.
"Your molt is really late," Yuuri said softly, "You're almost thirty."
"Twenty-seven is not almost thirty!" Takeshi croaked. His vocal cords felt weird, heavier, somehow, but they weren't necessarily painful or irritating, just different. Yuuri giggled nervously, and Takeshi groaned. "Go get Yuuko. I'll try to explain. My parents weren't Avian, so I don't know how…"
Yuuri nodded and ran from the room. A few minutes passed, and then—
"YUUKO, NO!"
It was too late.
XXXXXX
Viktor's mind began to spin the second he awoke, the words Doctor Yuuri Katsuki ringing in his ears as the sweet, cute, betraying man's chocolate eyes bored into his, filled with an urgency, a kind seriousness. He could feel how it pained the man to plunge that syringe into his neck, saw the pain on his face as he shouted to the other men about his being a Beta and such. It was a painful symphony thrumming in his ears, and as his eyes slid sedatedly around the room, taking in information without processing any of it, he decided that he forgave the man anyways.
Viktor was an Alpha. But if the man had thought that there was a need to conceal that, then so be it, he was a Beta.
Doctor Yuuri Katsuki.
Viktor moved to sit up, but didn't even move a millimeter before he was held down by thick straps, on his neck, his chest, his forearms, his biceps, his midsection and thighs and knees and calves and ankles. His fingers were strapped down too, just the second knuckles because his fingers could wrap around the armrest things so that was okay.
But he was getting bad vibes.
"Hello, Beta-834756," a cold, cackling voice said next to his ear, "Welcome to lab 2F."
Viktor had never screamed louder in his entire life.
XXXXXX
Bwhahaha, fin.
If anyone knows me, I suck at regular updates. You've been warned.
I also gave Yuuri a bit more confidence. He's still a muffin, but you know. Tamped down. And although Plisetsky shenanigans is the BEST, none this time. Definitely when he and Viktor meet. Definitely.
Anyways, thanks for reading!
~RegalOneByTheStream
