Title: Runaways
Pairing: Viktuuri, Otayuri
Summary: If there's anything they have in common besides being Russians, it's that they're both good at running away.
Note: Angst. Angst everywhere. Please don't kill me. Also this is an AU in which Viktor is still the living legend of Russia but retired, Yuuri is also that late bloomer but also retired, Yurio and Otabek aren't figure skaters but normal teenagers who don't know much anything about life—instead Yurio is an aspiring photographer and Otabek is a mechanic.
Yurio was seventeen when he left and met Viktor when he is twenty.
Viktor is thirty-two, closing to thirty-three, when he left and met Yurio. Viktor married Yuuri when he was twenty-eight and Yuuri was twenty-five. They were married for three years before the accident happens.
Otabek is twenty when Yurio left.
I am weak with Math. Apologies. XD
("What do you mean?"
"I just said that I—"
"No! Just no! This wasn't… you weren't supposed to…"
"Yura…")
Waking up is a drag, Yuri thinks.
It was a reminder that he was still alive and was supposed to greet the morning and live it. He supposed that he was a little ungrateful for not wanting to live because there are people out there hoping for another tomorrow. And he was wasting his time complaining about the today he has gotten.
It's possible that along the line of a meager lifespan of twenty, he grew cynical. And he was probably okay about that. Or probably not. He can never decide because one way or another, his bones hurt all over, his body is sore, his mind is exhausted, and he can't feel his heart.
Today, he woke up to the familiar sight of whiteness. Winter in St. Petersburg is no laughing matter. He was stuck in the place for over a week now—not wanting to brave the coldness in his old car.
But that's a lie. He was Russian for goodness sake. The coldness was never a problem. He knew the problem lies within him. Because he was never supposed to come back here. It was a silly whim. It was a moment of vulnerability that made him come back.
What was he expecting?
Nothing really. It was a stupid whim. And he expected as much to come back to an empty house. Bare in its exposure, as if no one had ever lived there. Memories aren't even present. And it's making his head hurt.
He should leave this place as soon as possible. So he took his belongings and locked the door (like he did in the past). He pretended he did not crack a little bit at the sound the door made. It used to be in perfect shape. But now it creaks way too much—the sound reminding him that when he left, it would remain uncared for.
(Bleary blue eyes looked at the ceiling. It was white all over and everything is blurry. Everything is cold. Everything is unfamiliar.
"Viktor?"
He remembers.
He remembers.
Oh God, how he remembers.
"Viktor?"
"I'm sorry." He said when the first tear came sliding down his pale cheeks, "I'm so sorry."
God knows how much he is.)
In retrospect, he shouldn't have picked up a stranger. It wasn't like him to be whimsical two times in a row. He chalks it up to be being young and reckless. He was allowed to be that way, wasn't he?
Because that's him. Young and reckless. With a dream trapped in camera lenses, strapped carefully around his neck—like a loose noose he made for himself once he discovered that he can actually do something—a discovery all too late to come back down from his pride. (So he tied it around his neck to remind him what he lost searching for a dream he could be good at.)
"I'm Viktor Nikiforov." The stranger smiled at him, all hearts and colors and golden that it makes Yuri winced to even look at him. "Thank you for your generosity to make me ride your car."
He speaks like he was born a royal—made to rule the world and all the people in it. He was a little bit close to perfect. Yuri is tempted to kick him out of his car because no one should be this happy because of little things, no one should even be close to perfection.
"Ugh. Just shut up. I'm dropping you off to my next stop."
He did not. Because talking to someone like Viktor who would talk endlessly, yapping about many things that colored a little bit of his life make him realize how much he doesn't want to be alone anymore.
Loneliness wasn't supposed to kill him inside.
But it did. And he still doesn't feel his heart.
"Do you travel a lot?" Viktor asks when the lull of the conversation has been an hour already. The one thing that he knew about Viktor is that he doesn't like quiet. He constantly talks about whatever comes to mind.
Sometimes Yuri thinks it's okay. Most of the time, he wanted to run Viktor over with his car just to have a semblance of peace.
"Yes." What Yuri wants to say was he used to not but he doesn't elaborate—or care to elaborate, eyes on the road, carefully watching the horizon, car slowing down before he stops.
"Why'd you stop?" Viktor watches him as he leaves the car, following him out when he settles his equipment and catches the first ray of the morning. Sunrises in China are amazing. Beautiful. And often sad in the quietness it brings.
Or maybe it was just him seeing through blue colored lens—pretending to feel something out of the beautiful picture his camera captures.
"Yurio?" Yuri grimaced at the nickname he was fondly given by the older man. He twists to look at Viktor and sees the tears sliding down the bluest eyes he had ever seen.
"What the fuck!" He panics, he was never good with crying men, "What the fuck are you crying about?!"
"I miss him, Yurio." His words were faded, quieter than usual but rang loudly in the vast greens of China, "I miss him so much. I want to see him again. I want to hug him. But I can't anymore. I can't anymore. And it hurts… it hurts so much… Yurio, I miss him."
Yuri doesn't understand but there's a twinge in his chest and for the first time, he felt his heart.
(Viktor cries the whole day.)
(Everyone accused him of being mad when he left competitive skating to coach Yuuri.
He was not mad.
He was in love.
Nobody ever accused him of being in love. They were none the wiser. But he loves surprising them. So he came back a love-struck man.)
When they were in Eastbourne, England, Yuri found out about the man who shared his name and coincidentally, about Viktor.
They came to Beachy Head in his insistence to capture the 'world's edge'. It was a picturesque landscape of clouds and miles above. He almost felt like jumping down to see if he would ever reach the bottom and if he would ever go 'splat!'. He was a little bit suicidal. It's almost funny but it's not.
"We came here once before we both retired from figure skating." Viktor started as he started clicking away, voice heavy with bygones. He doesn't stop taking pictures and Viktor doesn't stop talking. It's a bit of a routine. He would click away and Viktor would waste his breath.
But this time, it was a little bit different. Viktor doesn't talk about his husband. Viktor talks about everything and nothing but never about his husband. Maybe once when he refused a girl's number to tell him he was a married man—married to another man. It was the memories that are making him, gun to his head, Yuri knew.
It was a little bit different because this time he is listening. And he learns that he was with a world-famous man who is married to another world-famous man. Explains the gaggle of girls and boys and men lining up for Viktor's attention.
It doesn't change his treatment though. An idiot is an idiot, Yuri believes.
"He heard of this place from his best friend and he wanted to come. I could never refuse him. He was my world. I would give him the moon if he asked." With his voice drenched in the past, eyes clearly seeing a ghost brought to life by a silly heart and its tendency to reminisce, Yuri would bet that Viktor would. That he would go out of Earth, tie the moon with only a rope, and drag it down to where his husband is. It's a terrifying thing. The abundance of Viktor's love—the bottomless pit where he stores his affection, multiplying by the second.
That kind of love—that pure, honest to God, undying love—should never exist. The failure of returning such kind love with the same abundance is as terrifying—because—because what if—what if that person fails?
Wouldn't it be heartbreaking?
He thinks of Otabek and his sincere love.
It is heartbreaking.
He was never completely out of love with his past, Yuri thinks as he watched Viktor from across the road. He would bet his own life that he had never fallen out of love. Viktor carries the air of a lovesick man—someone who has lost, a man who had long given up before the fight even started. It would be uncharacteristic for Viktor because he was a happy man, a laidback man, a flamboyant man—or he thinks he is until he sees Viktor stopped in front of a jewelry store and he sees the blues within the blues.
He was a mess of a man. Just like him. Yuri never told Viktor why he was running away. Nor Viktor ever told him about why he was too. It was a silent rule between the two. To each his own. Secrets weren't made for fools to gossip, after all.
But Yuri has an inkling.
And Viktor is not stupid.
In the seven months they knew each other, Viktor doesn't see Yuri cry. He would always see him angry and petulant. Sometimes, he would see him wearing apathy in his sleeve. Sometimes, he would see him brooding. Sometimes, when the morning breeds miracle, he would see Yuri with a little smile, a little laughter in his eyes.
Viktor doesn't see Yuri cry.
But he knew he does when he sometimes disappears at night and returns at the foot of dawn, eyes laden red.
(When he was seventeen, he was a time bomb waiting to explode. And every minute that his life ticks, he began to get angrier and angrier because he doesn't know what he is capable of—doesn't understand why nothing he ever does is good enough.
So when his lover, a simple mechanic who often fixed his car, told him he was the greatest thing he ever knew, he exploded with the anger that he has in stocks. He doesn't understand why he did because Otabek has always been sincere—the sincerest person he knew.
But he was made of anger and frustration and the icy reminder of being an orphan at the young age of ten. So he shoved everything out of his lungs, poison dripping from his tongue, irrationality raving through his mind, insecurities littering the skin he gave Otabek.
He doesn't remember his words—not even after the storm has passed, not even after three years. He does remember instead the way Otabek took a step back. The very first time the man stepped away from him because he was always the one to pull Yuri close and told him things that makes him sleep comfortably at night.
Part of him knew he fucked up really badly. And the more immature part of him screamed at Otabek to stop fucking stepping away.
It was a glass shattering moment—sharp and broken and could never be repaired completely. So the next day, he disappeared.)
Yuri and Viktor don't have a lot in common.
Viktor is the kind of man who has everything handed to him in golden platter. He was the kind of man who has it good—living the good life until he was sick of it.
Yuri is the kind of boy who got everything taken away from him a little too quickly when he was a little too young to be able to understand what happiness really is. He was the kind of boy who has it rough—living the sucky life until he was sick of it.
If there's anything they have in common besides being Russians, it's that they're both good at running away.
It's kind of shitty, Yuri thinks when his car gave up on him in the middle of the road. It's fucking karma, he added but shook the thought away because it's not god for his health—blaming himself over and over again once he run out of anger to fuel his madness.
Viktor is fast asleep in the back, bundled up and resting without a care.
He got out of the car, kick the damn thing, and lights up a cigarette. He coughs up the smoke, not used to the vice, giving up immediately and watching it burn instead.
The stick burn quicker than he thought. So he lights another one and then another one until the whole box runs out—so he burns the box and watches it become ashes.
The morning rises and Viktor wakes up to an empty car.
"You had me scared back there, Yurio!" It was like waking up in the same white room a year and a half ago, cold, empty, and the feeling of loneliness. Viktor sniffles at the memory.
"I would never leave you, you fucktard." Yuri says, turning his nose at the almost crying man-child, kicking him when he gets too close, "I was just searching for the nearest gas station. Fucking place for having a fucking gas station seven miles away."
"That's so sweet, Yurio!" Viktor's heart-shaped smile blooms prettily. Yuri turned away, disguising the warmth in his chest with the mask of apathy, "You pay the hotel rooms, food, and the fuel. Why would I leave you?"
"That's just mean!"
He doesn't turn around for fear Viktor would see him smile.
(When jealousy colored his bones, Viktor never knew how badly the consequences are. It was a blindness he wished he never experienced—a petty desperate move that almost cause him his life and Yuuri's.
There was a party. There was a man vying for Yuuri's attention. And there was him, seething in green. It was the irrational fear of losing his husband that geared its ugly head his way.
He was always sure about their love. That's why he doesn't know. He doesn't know why of all the times he was jealous, he was swayed by the green eyed monster—whispering evil things in his ears.
Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the earlier fight. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe it was simply him—selfish Viktor who doesn't want to share a perfectly beautiful person such as Yuuri. Maybe it was the terrible little things building up, accumulating through the years.
So he pulled Yuuri out and into the car. And they drove away. Fast. Faster. Faster. Until…
Until…
"Viktor?"
He doesn't want to remember.
"Viktor?"
But he remembers.
He remembers.
And oh God, how he remembers.)
Terrible little things.
They destroy people.
The evening chokes Viktor. He doesn't tell Yuri because he doesn't want him to worry. But it does. It chokes Viktor.
He writes. There weren't many things to do when in a car or sleeping in an old hotel. So he writes.
He writes to the few people he knew personally.
He writes to Yakov. He writes to him in a way that makes him sound like a son working abroad. There were many things he says to the letter—things that he knew would rile up his old coach.
He writes to Chris. He writes to him the way best friend does. His letters to Chris are full of unwanted feelings—negative feelings and asking for advices. He writes to him the unwanted memories—the dead feelings, the haunting ones—the ones he remembers.
He writes to Makkacchin. He writes to him the way a father would. It was always 'I miss you' and the longing of seeing him again.
And then he stops. He stops because he doesn't know what to say to Yuuri—lonely Yuuri left to fend for his own in Japan. He tries. He tries so hard to write the things that matter most.
He starts with I love you but he ended up pulling back. Because what if Yuuri doesn't anymore and is appalled to see something so lovesick? So he erased them and restart and tries to say I miss you but it sounded the same to his ears, look the same to his eyes—all the lovesickness, all the affections, as if he has a right to be in love with the man—as if… as if.
So he crumples the paper. And pulled a new one. He starts with I'm sorry. And ends with I want to come back. Forgive me. Please. Please.
The tone doesn't changes. He pretends not to notice.
(It was all over the news. Viktor Nikiforov-Katsuki and Katsuki-Nikiforov Yuuri were both brought in to the ER after a horrible car crash. Everyone held their breath and lit candles—praying for them to survive.
One did.
One didn't.)
It was in Barcelona when Yuri saw Viktor crumbles.
Viktor was a strong man—airheaded at most. But he has that torn sense of happiness—a taste, a smell, a sight of joy. Assumingly, he was a mad man that when the coin is flip, Yuri always wonder what side would fall—was it happiness? Sadness? Whatever it is, it wasn't the case this time.
Sadness pale in comparison to what Viktor is now.
Viktor just sort of crumbles away, crippling, falling into ruins. Painted in his tears, rolled up in blue devils, stretched until he broke. Gravity sort of did its job—pulled the floating man down and anchored him there.
"I want to… I want to see him again so much, Yurio." He was beyond comforting words. He was beyond what Yurio can handle. So he stayed silent—listened.
"I miss him so much. I miss my Yuuri." Viktor says, trembling, "I love him so much. What if he doesn't love me back anymore? I left him because I am a coward. I can't get things right. I always make mistakes when it comes to him. I didn't mean to ruin him, Yurio. I didn't mean to trap him with me. But I'm so selfish. I'm so greedy and envious. I just want to love him forever and ever. I didn't mean to… God, I didn't mean to. Forgive me. Forgive me. Please forgive me Yuuri. Please. Please. Please."
His words clattered to the ground everywhere. He was a mess, blabbering and stuttering—crying helplessly.
Yuri wondered if he would cry so bravely in front of everyone if he could feel his heart.
"You know… you know… Yurio… this is the place where we exchange rings… and… and… I just couldn't help myself." Viktor wasn't stopping and Yuri doesn't care if he doesn't because he is listening until the end, "I just remembered. I just remembered how much I actually love him. I keep trying to forget because… because I know I am not allowed to anymore… I mean… who would love me back after that? But he was the only good thing in my life. He was my Yuuri. And I… I just… I just really, really, really love him."
Ah.
What a cruel kind of love.
It was reminding him how to really, really feel his heart without denying much.
And how much he loves Otabek.
Damn.
Damn it.
Damn it all.
(After the accident, although they were both rescued, Viktor never survived the idea of almost killing his husband because of his selfishness.
It's a sick sensation filling his lungs until he couldn't breathe. The earth tilted away from its axis and Viktor felt the world on his shoulder, heavy in his mistake. And he couldn't hold it anymore—he couldn't make the same mistake.
He inhales. And inhales. But it's never enough. Not anymore. He felt like drowning and he couldn't reach the surface too fast to make a break for air. His chest is filled with ashes and he couldn't—shouldn't breathe.
Broken, recovering, and alone in his hospital bed, he knew had to let Yuuri go before he hurt him again.
(When Yuuri wakes up, it was to the news that Viktor is nowhere to be seen. He doesn't cry. He doesn't weep.
He just doesn't talk.
And doesn't leave the house.))
When Yuri was fourteen, he knew that it was love.
It wasn't some kind of cliché feeling of blushing and stuttering, it was a comfortable feeling—too comfortable that scared him away.
The kind of love he knew was of maroon in color. It smelt of abandonment and always changing—fleeting. He doesn't trust his heart enough to shape it into the comfortable love he felt for Otabek.
So he threw it away, stomped on it, and gave his skin to Otabek instead. Hearts are fragile things. If it breaks, you would die. Skin breaks but they repair.
Otabek gets his metaphor.
Still, he gives Yuri his heart but covered it in skin for measure.
(He doesn't deserve Otabek. But it doesn't stop him from falling more and more.)
"Do you ever think of going back home? Back to Yuuri?"
"I do. Every time I step out the car and we arrived somewhere else, something kept pulling me back. And I almost always let it pull me."
"What do you think that is?"
"It's nothing complicated, Yurio. It's called love."
Rare talks under quiet moons.
They don't last long before they fade.
But Yuri always learns and tries to learn from them.
When Viktor was asleep, Yuri savors the silence. It was the silence that made him act mature—away from prying eyes and in too deep in his own world. Yuri thinks of the last four years he was away and how much he thinks he had gone—how many people he had met and forgotten, how many times he wanted to go home but decided not to. He thinks of his dream—clicking away with his camera and being the rising artist everyone said he would be—he thinks of the pressure of expectations and the regret of what he lost pursuing his dream.
Little thoughts that make him mature. They're always there to keep him from hitting rock bottom.
"It's time, I guess."
He was going full circle. They both are.
It was a year and a month when they found themselves in Japan.
Viktor is too much for him to handle so he's giving him back to Yuuri. Viktor protests the whole ride but it fell to deaf ears. There were several times when the older man tries to escape, stubborn, defiant, crying in regrets.
Yuri would have none of it.
Hasetsu is a nice place. Pretty and quiet—just like St. Petersburg. Or was his memories jumbled?
"What if…" Viktor sighs, chest heaving, "What if you're wrong, Yurio?"
This is what scares Viktor more than anything.
Yuri, unpleasant ungrateful little brat that he is, builds his hopes up—created scenarios upon scenarios that ended up with Yuuri taking him back. Hope—it's a terrifying thing.
"What if you're wrong, you mean." Yuri hisses, voice coated with a deep irritation that pulls at his heartstring. This is goodbye. This is to the old Yuri who doesn't know anything about life and love. This is to the silly old man who got scared away. This is to Yuuri who, if he interpreted right, loves the man-child next to him more than anything. And this is to Otabek who deserve someone better. "What if you're wrong and you stayed instead, you mean."
It's time to go back home.
So he pushes Viktor to the door, rang the bell, and rushes to his car.
The door opens immediately to a soft face of a brown eyed beautiful little thing. That must have been Yuuri.
He doesn't hear anything but he sees the way Viktor trembles and the way Yuuri doesn't get angry, doesn't get mad, doesn't turn away.
It was a terrifying thing—Viktor's kind of love. Bottomless in stocks, multiplying by the second. And what if you don't match it up? What then?
But Yuri doesn't need to worry—as if he does. (He does.)
Yuuri pulled Viktor to his arms as if the man never suddenly left—never got scared away. He never meant to, Yuuri knew, he never meant to but it hurts all the same. But he's back and he is tired of drama, so he skips it and kissed his husband.
("Everything's going to be okay."
"But what if it won't?"
"It will be."
"But…"
"I love you.")
Viktor crumbles in his arms and wailed—all of the things he refuses to write came back and he says them shamelessly—all the lovesickness, the I miss you's, and the apologies.
("I love you too. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you. God, Yuuri, I love you so much it hurts. I'm so sorry.")
And Yuri believes that the other Yuuri must have been an angel sent to take care of the reckless man because he is too kind to be true.
"Welcome home."
Yuri reads before turning away.
He pulled his phone and dialed a familiar number—the one he almost always does dial when he gets heftily drunk and stupid and lonely.
"Hey." He said when it was answered.
It was silent for a second before Otabek responded, "I miss you."
And it was all it takes for him to crumble the way Viktor did in Barcelona—bare in feelings and goddamn honest. He felt his heart acting up—his chest ballooning with millions of emotions—and oh God, he doesn't deserve this man.
(He does. He does. He just doesn't believe it.)
"I'm sorry."
He finally said what he was meant to say the morning after the fight—broken glasses, ruined curtains, bleeding hands and all.
"I'm so sorry." He repeated for good measure and Otabek only repeated what he first said—over and over, like a broken record, carving words to his mind, putting words to his lungs, pouring feelings out of his tongue.
When Yuri was twenty one, he returned to the new home Otabek built when he left. (In the off chance, he did return.)
And gave his heart to Otabek—naked in the raw feeling of love.
The runaways are finally home.
Fin.
Would I kill Yuuri? No. No, I won't. Would I offer a sad ending? After many ones that ended in them and people hating me for it, I would but I just can't with Viktuuri and Otayuri.
The plot has holes but I had focused on the feelings ? ? ? XD I don't even. Sorry for the grammatical errors. :3 and I'm proud of this story. I like the level of angst here. xD
Anyway, review?