A/N: I blame the The Place Promised in Our Early Days for this, though Yuri on Ice caused plenty of plunnies to be born. For those of you who haven't watched The Place Promised in Our Early Days, just note that Viktor's daydreaming is actually plot-significant and the science-fiction genre comes from that as well. I wont say any more because spoilers, but feel free to look up the summary (wikipedia's one is pretty thorough) if you're curious as to the movie - or watch the movie itself if it appeals to you. XD But you don't need background knowledge of The Place Promised in Our Early Days to enjoy this (hence why I didn't put it in the crossover section; it'd sit all by its lonesome over there). As for the Yuri on Ice part... well, we all have to write a post-banquet/season 1 AT at some point, right?
Written for the
Small Multichap Competition
Diversity Writing Challenge, j9 - a multichap with a prologue and an epilogue
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a duet for us
prologue
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Twelve years ago, he breaks the junior world record.
Looking back, it seems like such an insignificant thing: he's broken countless records since then, and won countless golds. But looking back, he thinks it's that first record, that first gold, that matters most of all.
Each one after that grew a little duller till the one he holds now seems more a dull bronze than gold. There's no new record, this time. Nothing new at all, really; a perfect replica of his performance in the qualifiers, and no doubt he'll go to repeat similar replicas at Nationals, the Europeans and the World Championships… and then what? A new routine. A new year of golds that didn't sparkle like gold aught to, that didn't sparkle like the eyes of his competitors aiming for the holy grail he holds over their heads.
That's nothing, though, compared to the sparkle at the banquet: champagne-dunked eyes flitting from one skater to another like a mischievous pixie, setting them all alight. He sees Yuri Plisetsky partake in a dance battle and ungraciously lose. He sees Chris take to the pole like a pro. He sees Katsuki Yuuri do both of those and more, eyes wet but bright all through the night, like a disco light in the banquet hall or, perhaps, a gleaming star in the sky.
But that's not quite true, he realises at this Grand Prix Final. The boy who walks away from him has dull eyes too similar to his own. It was just the champagne, he realises, and it hurts. He saw a flicker of something beyond the ice, but he blinked and it was gone.
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He dreams of other things: intangible things. Most of him wishes he knows what he dreams of, because then he'll have some aspiration to chase after the ice. Or even now: the ice is the ice, after all, but competing has become a chore. These routines he dances year by year… when was the last time he unravelled his heart for them?
His PCS scores are always eye, but that speaks more to his acting ability than the truth. His smiles that bewitch the world are likewise fabrications few ever see through. Who looks close enough, he wonders? What voices manage not to be drowned out by the whole? There's Yakov, of course, who always knows when he's not doing his best and pushes harder… But Yakov can't fix his wandering his mind, his dwindling passion, his lack of desire and drive…
He still lives for the ice, but he twirls on it without direction.
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He's wrong, he realises later. The Katsuki Yuuri skating at his own Nationals is, for all intents and purposes, a complete basket case – but there is something in his eyes. They're not flat, dull, staring at something else entirely. They're trying to grasp something slipping out of reach – or perhaps it's already out of reach.
He's aiming for something attainable as well. Something sad. Something he's lost along the way and can't get back. And maybe there's a pinch of aiming for gold as well because what skater on the international stage doesn't aim for gold?
But regardless, Katsuki Yuuri is reaching for something. He just can't touch it.
Viktor Nikiforov isn't reaching for anything at all.
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What's a good vacation place, he wonders? Somewhere with no ice, probably, but he can't imagine that. Ice is everywhere: in cold Russian winters, in every rink he's ever skated in… As much as he feels colourless in front of the crowds, ice is home.
The North Pole perhaps, then. He laughs to himself. There'll be plenty of ice to himself in a place like that. Glaciers creating dimension. Seals popping up through water holes. Dark swirling water beneath the ice. Polar bears crawling along and him with his ice skates, skating wherever the ice bids him to skate.
It'll be lonely there, yes, but at least there won't be the weight of expectations crushing his wings. They call him a free spirit but they're blind jeers: he was a free spirit, perhaps, when he skated to the Lilac Fairy, but even then there were rules: timing, composition, and the eyes of the audience he hadn't realised, then, were spiderwebs holding him in place. A free spirit would be skating for as long as he liked, how he liked, and without having to worry about coaching or sponsors or competitors or rules or surprising the audience or keeping himself alive in a sport that's become his livelihood but won't truly let him live.
For now though, he's got a routine to skate to perfection: sharp and crisp lest he loses its edge before the Russian Nationals… and then the Europeans and the World Championships. He skates until the sound of Yakov's booming voice fades away along with the boards.
He slows to a stop and blinks. For a moment, all he can see is ice slanting away from him and then the rink is back: strangely muted still, but back. A slow and thoughtful loop around the ice later, he can hear voices again: Yakov's in particular, yelling at him to get his head out of the clouds and back onto the ice.
His head is already on the ice, though: apparently the rough empty ice on the North Pole.
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'Living, breathing and dreaming ice?' Chris teases when they meet up at the European Championships, but there's an undercurrent of worry in his tone. 'I know we skaters live for the ice but we do have off-seasons to take care of all our other needs. Deviances from diet, time with friends and family and significant others…' The last lilts off into a question, but Viktor just shrugs.
'I see all the important during the season anyway,' he points out. 'Makkachin, Yakov, my rinkmates, you…'
'I'm flattered.' Chris' tone is a little dry. 'But surely I'm not your only international skating friend. Granted, there aren't too many left of our era, but what about Yuuri?'
The irony of Chris asking about Katsuki Yuuri… 'He walked away from me,' Viktor laments. 'After that banquet…'
'That was one for the history books,' Chris agrees. 'But Yuuri isn't really the type to drown himself in champagne except in extenuating circumstances. His birthday tales are quite interesting, as embellished by his roommate –'
'You've met Katsuki's roommate?' Viktor blinks, not having expected Yuuri and Chris to be so close.
'Chulanout,' Chris laughs. 'The Thai skater.'
Ah. That makes sense. And shows how little Viktor has kept up with the younger skaters.
Chris' smile slides away. Viktor has been quiet too long, apparently. 'You go off into your own world,' he laments. 'Am I not interesting enough company?'
'You're the life of the party,' Viktor counters.
'Katsuki was the life of the party,' Chris corrects, 'though sad it was because of the death of his beloved dog.'
Viktor starts at that – and things click together: the despondency, the way his performance crumbled like a house of cards at the Grand Prix final, how he'd scrambled so desperately at Nationals only to crumble again under the pressure, how he's reaching for something he lost along the way but can't regain…
Viktor can only imagine how it would be like to lose Makkachin while he's away from home.
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His performance reaches new heights of melancholy and he gains a new record from it. Yakov is suitably impressed, and Chris is a mix of disappointed and appreciative and a little apologetic. He's rightly guessed, in part, the reason behind the sobriety. And it's true: animals won't live forever, much like humans.
And humans won't last forever on the either, either. He's twenty-seven, now. The oldest males singles skater still competitive on the international circuit and he's got a bunch of fancy gold medals to show for it and maybe his body can go for another few season, barring injury, but his mind? His mind is drifting to quieter ice rinks where there are no boards or seats or fans – or rinkmates or coaches, either. This skate, he thinks, was done on that sort of ice: he'd blocked them all out, somehow, but it's pointless because he's been thinking about Makkachin and so Makkachin should have been able to watch him. But she's not there either. The ice is no place for dogs.
Just for him. An ice rink just for him. And it's lonely, and maybe that's why the noise of the world is able to pull him back.
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He wins his fifth consecutive World Championship title with more fanfare than it deserves. His scores are below his new world record – but still higher than his Grand Prix final gold. Chris is again wearing silver but the difference is Otabek Altin from Kazakhstan in third.
It's his emoting, he knows, that has cost him the PCS. He's chosen a sombre, lonely song and it's fitting for him: the so-called lone king of the ice but when the barriers fell away during his free skate, his found himself instead dancing with a phantom on the ice. And his heart cheers as he tries to grab them, tries to find some tangibility in the phantom whose sharing his ice with him. Whoever or whatever they are skate his program to perfection and with emotions not dissimilar to his own…
No, that's wrong, he realises later, after he's tried and failed to reach out to this phantom before the music ends and the spell is broken. It's not like him: instead of yearning for something intangible, they're mourning for something else.
It reminds him of Katsuki Yuuri, almost… but why should he think of Katsuki in the middle of a World Championship the other didn't even qualify for?
Later, he sees the recording and wonders if they were skating together, separated by distance but united by the ice, after all. And he falls asleep with Makkachin slumped over him, imagining it: the lonely Aria they've skated uniting into a Duetto that unites their souls.