Accidents Happen

Yuri stepped out onto the ice of the rink, gently setting his glasses on top of the barrier. He'd already gone through his stretches, and didn't want to wait around for his coach, Victor, any longer.

His coach.

Victor Nikiforov was his coach.

It was still all so surreal to Yuri, how his epic fail at the Grand Prix Finals last year had somehow brought his literal idol to Hasetsu. And to coach him, nonetheless.

A triple axel. He stepped out of the landing a bit, but didn't let it affect him.

A Toe loop. Perfect.

Save your energy. Yuri chided himself, falling into a step sequence.

He let his body move freely, and found himself skating the familiar routine of Victor's Stay Close to Me from last year's finals. The routine he'd been practicing since the first time he'd seen his idol perform it.

An upright spin.

Quadruple Salchow.

Yuri yelped in pain as he landed wrong, his body twisting with the momentum. The ice was unforgiving against his side as he collided sharply with the cold surface. Yuri's thoughts were fragmented, dazed from the sudden impact.

Get up. You need to get up.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, grimacing when his ankle and arm protested against the movement.

Stand up! His mind screamed at him.

Shaking slightly, Yuri forced his skates back under himself and stood. Tears blurred his already bad vision as pain shot up his leg.

"It's okay." Yuri whispered to himself. "It's not broken, at least."

Victor chose that moment to arrive, throwing the doors to Ice Castle Hasetsu open with a flourish.

"Yuri!" He called, dragging out his name the way Yuri so adored. "Are you here?"

"I'm here!" Yuri yelled back, wincing as he skated towards his coach as he neared the wall of the rink.

"Good." Victor smiled warmly at Yuri as he approached. "Have you warmed up already, are you good to skate?"

Yuri's mind blanked for a moment.

How was he going to tell Victor Nikiforov, the five time Grand Prix gold medalist, and his idol since forever, that he'd stupidly hurt himself doing a jump?

"Um, yeah, yeah I did. I'm good." He stuttered, mentally face-palming himself.

"Good." Victor repeated with another warm smile. "Just let me go get changed and we can start."

"Okay." Yuri said quietly as he watched Victor walk away toward the locker room with his bag. He found himself unconsciously putting more weight on his uninjured foot as he waited, gripping the wall for support.

Idiot. His mind repeated, over and over again. You're such an idiot.

"Yuri, are you okay? You look a bit pale."

Yuri's head snapped up, his face flushing with heat when he noticed Victor was on the ice now, not even a foot away from him.

"What? Oh yeah, I'm fine. Really."

"Okay." Victor dragged out the word, seemingly unconvinced, but skating towards the center of the rink anyway.

Yuri exhaled in relief and followed his coach, ignoring the way his body screamed in protest.

"Alright then, let's pick up where we left off, with the quads and step sequence."

Yuri almost groaned at just the thought of it. A step sequence he could probably do, but the force of pushing off the ice and landing again?

No way.

"Ready, Yuri?" Victor asked, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Yes."

The two started immediately, mirror images of each other as they danced across the ice on the thin blades of their skates. Yuri followed his coach through the movements, gritting his teeth through the gradually increasing pain. He was determined to finish this session and then get home and soak in the hot springs for at least a few hours.

Here comes the quad…

Yuri pushed off the ice, and immediately yelled. His body once again collided with the ice, sliding on the smooth surface, and he gasped, suddenly unable to inhale. He could hear Victor's movements suddenly become frantic as he fell out of the quad and turned back towards the younger skater.

"Yuri!"

The gold blades of Victor's skates stopped in Yuri's line of sight, before they were blocked by Victor's knees as he knelt beside the younger man.

"What happened?"

"My… my ankle." Yuri almost sobbed as Victor gently rolled him over so he was lying on his back.

His whole body hurt now, his leg from the knee down felt like it had been set aflame, while the rest of him felt frozen from colliding harshly with the ice again.

"I-I'm sorry, Victor, I just-" Yuri cut himself off with another gasp as his body was suddenly lifted from the ice by a pair of arms. "Oh."

Yuri's pain was momentarily forgotten as he realized that Victor was now holding Yuri bridal-style and skating them both back across the ice. He squawked, jolting sideways.

"Yuri, stop!" Victor said, tightening his grip and pulling Yuri closer to him.

Yuri's face turned red as Victor stepped off the ice and sat him down on one of the benches against the wall.

"Witch foot is it?" He asked, getting back down on his knees.

"This one." Yuri mumbled, outstretching his injured foot towards Victor and grimacing when the limb protested with a stab of pain. His just wanted the pain and humiliation to stop. He whimpered when Victor gently tugged the skate away from his foot, gritting his teeth through the pain. Long, thin fingers gently pried his sock off too, letting it drop to the ground beside his skate.

"I don't think it's broken," Victor said, tenderly running his fingers over the swollen ankle. "But it definitely looks sprained."

Yuri squeezed his eyes shut. What if his ankle was broken, and he couldn't compete in the Grand Prix because of it? He was such a failure…

"Yuri! Why are you crying? Am I hurting you?" Victor's fingers fled from the angry red skin, afraid he'd only added to Yuri's suffering.

"N-no!" Yuri sputtered, his eyes popping open to see the worried expression on his coach's face, blurred by a mix of Yuri's tears and his lack of glasses.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I-I got hurt and I was afraid I'd disappoint you, and now you're mad at me..." Yuri rambled, trying desperately to make Victor understand.

"Yuri!" Victor halted his babbling, "You didn't disappoint me, and I'm not mad either."

"You're not?" Yuri asked, noticing that Victor was now sorting through a med kit on the floor.

'Of course not! I'm just curious as to why you didn't tell me you were hurt earlier."

"I don't know…" Yuri trailed off as Victor gently took hold of his foot again and began smearing some kind of gel over the swelled flesh. It felt good, the coolness of the balm and Victor's nimble fingers soothing him as he worked. "I guess I was just… embarrassed."

'You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Yuri." Victor replied firmly, his fingers leaving Yuri's ankle again. "I've hurt myself skating plenty of times."

"You have?" Yuri sounded surprised.

"Sure." Victor's fingers returned to Yuri's ankle, this time with a bandage. "Even broke my wrist once."

"Your wrist?" Yuri asked, now genuinely curious. "How?"

"A bad quad landing." Victor started wrapping the bandage around Yuri's ankle, taking great care to be gentle. "Yakov was furious, as he'd specifically told me not to do any."

"Which quad?"

"A flip, actually. I tried to break my fall with my hand, but the ice twisted it under me and I fell flat on my face."

Despite himself, Yuri giggled at the image of a young Victor, with his long silver hair, face-planting onto the ice, a fuming Yakov yelling in the background.

"Hey, don't laugh at me." Victor said, a small pout evident on his lips as he poked Yuri's opposite calf.

This only made Yuri laugh louder, his body shaking as Victor tried to cut the bandage without stabbing Yuri in the leg.

Victor took off Yuri's other skate and slipped his sneaker on before trading his own skates for sneakers too. Yuri tried to stand up, lifting his injured foot of the ground and balancing there, wobbling slightly.

"I can walk." Yuri insisted when Victor came nearer, just to nearly topple over with his first step. He was caught by a pair of strong, familiar, arms.

"There is no way I'm letting you walk all the way back to Yu-topia with a sprained ankle." Victor said, picking Yuri back up. 'Not when I can help it."

"But…" Yuri stuttered, his face turning red again.

"No buts. I'm carrying you."

Victor's statement just made it all the more real.

Makkachin greeted them as they left the rink, his tail wagging happily as he fell into step beside them. Yuri's face felt warmer than the rest of him, and he realized he was probably blushing furiously. The rest of his body felt cold, probably from slamming into the ice repeatedly. And Victor was so warm…

He was snuggling closer to his heat, curling towards the older man's chest and closing his eyes.

XXX

Yuri awoke with a quiet groan, shifting among the soft silk sheets of the bed he was in. Why was his body so sore?

Oh, right.

He tried to sit up, but was held back when an arm he hadn't noticed was there before tightened around his waist, keeping him where he was. He didn't even have to look to know who it was.

He glanced to his right anyway, not surprised to find Victor on his side, his head resting on the bottom of the pillow near Yuri's shoulder, with one of his arms draped across Yuri's stomach and holding him there, fast asleep. His platinum-colored hair ticked at the base of Yuri's neck, and his warm breath fanned evenly down Yuri's arm.

A warm blush slowly spread across his face at the way the older man was protectively curled against him, and he forced himself to look away. He chose instead to gaze around the room, which he recognized as the one Victor was staying in at the onsen. Yuri glanced down at his ankle, which had been propped aside on a pillow so he didn't injure it even more by tossing in his sleep. The bandage was covered in different doodles and words, all done in black marker. Was that… Russian?

Yuri let out a soft gasp at the image that suddenly popped into his head, one he guessed was very similar to what had actually happened. Victor sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, Makkachin curled up next to him as he slowly left little drawings and words over the bandage, pausing every time Yuri stirred in his sleep. The ink had bled, blurring the words and pictures, but Yuri still appreciated the gesture.

"Yuri?" A sleep-slurred voice broke him from his thought, the heavy Russian accent causing a flutter in his stomach. Yuri looked down to see that Victor's eyes had opened slightly, but the older skater was still on the verge of sleep.

"It's okay, Vitya." Yuri said quietly, reaching his free arm over to gently tangle in the soft silver locks. "Go back to sleep."

The Russian man hummed at the use of his nickname, his body shifting into a more comfortable position against Yuri's before immediately drifting back into oblivion. Yuri followed soon after, the warm body beside him lulling him back into a peaceful slumber.

A/N: Another Victuri oneshot for you guys. I was planning on posting a WonderBat one before this one, but it's kinda a mess yet and I happened to finish this one first. And please review, it helps keep me writing when I'm in a slump. :)

Also I think I'm going to keep an updated list of what writings I'm currently working on and at what point in progress they're in on my profile, if you want to check that out.

~Uni