This was for day two of Victuuri Week
Yuuri was in love.
However, that was the least of his concerns. Mostly, what he really wanted from life had nothing to do with love, or even other people.
Other concerns he had were that he'd been wearing the same clothes for at least a week straight, hadn't showered in that time, barely slept, and just overall felt like shit. He also worried he might've picked something up.
Why exactly was all of this his problem? Oh, it was quite simple. He'd been tinkering in the lab, trying to figure out teleportation! And instead, he'd ended up in a void.
Now this wasn't a void between point a and point b of teleportation, oh no, it couldn't be that simple. No, no he was stuck in a void in time . He'd accidently achieved time travel. How did he know? Because he wasn't always in this void, it spat him out at seemingly random. He'd seen himself as a child at one point, and nearly been cut in two by a samurai who looked stunned at his appearance.
Hey, at least he was still in Japan! Probably…
So you see, being in love was the least of his concerns. He really wanted to just get out of this void.
The void itself was pretty interesting, but he'd gotten bored of it after an hour. It started out bright and colorful and loud and he thought he was seeing all of time at once or something like that, but that faded to blackness and he sat there, for time immeasurable, until the colors and sound return which was the sign he was about to be spat out to some random point in time.
It was nearly impossible to sleep in the void, either it was too loud and bright or it was too dark and silent. He did manage it, though that could've been sheer exhaustion.
Yuuri was in love with Victor Nikiforov, a man from his time thankfully, who he'd been a fan of for awhile but had never met. Until he ended up in this time void and he was spat out in front of him at one point and, rather startled, Victor had been hopefully helpful? He'd asked him to get in contact with Phichit at least but it was impossible to know if Phichit was still alive, if anyone even knew he was missing or cared, all of that kind of stuff.
So he sat and stared out into the black void. It wasn't a lightless void though, which was weird, he could see himself, perfectly fine. But it was still a black void. His brain hurt if he thought about it too much.
He had managed to snag a notebook and a pen at some point, so he wasn't going mad with loneliness. Well he was, but at least he had something to do. Which he could also see perfectly fine. He tried not to think about that either.
He had no idea what to do though, all he could do was wait for time to spit him out again, and he had long given up on trying to think his way towards a solution.
A woosh of noise assaulted his ears and he put his hands over his ears, and readied himself to be spat out in some random place and time. Now that he thought of it, what was time travel except teleportation through time? That he would move around the world at the same time maybe meant that you couldn't do one without the other? He'd have to try and remember that if he ever got out of this void.
His entire body tingled suddenly and that was his sign to be ready.
Shoosh the sound returned to 'normal' as in 'I'm on earth again' normal.
" Yuuri?! "
His eyes snapped open, "Phichit!" he cried in relief at the sight of the younger scientist. "What's the date?"
"I-it's been three months." he said quickly, looking him over. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, starving but fine." he cast his gaze around and saw a chair, and quickly sat in it, too tired to keep on his feet.
"I'll get someone to get you some food, but quickly, tell me everything you can think of that might help." Phichit headed to the door and called out several snappy orders. "Victor Nikiforov showed up at my place two months ago, telling me he'd seen you and-well I'm sure you can guess the rest. I've been trying to figure out how to get you out of this mess, it's been near impossible."
Phichit did look rather out of it now that he looked closer, hair unkempt, bags under his eyes, he looked thinner than he remembered too.
"Did he tell you I was moving through time, and space obviously? Have you-" he yawned, "-been looking at what I was doing last?"
"Of course, I started there, but I was hardly going to try and do the same thing. Nikiforov sounded half terrified, you must've looked worse than you do now."
"I'm sure he skipped some things, so I'll just-I'll just keep talking until I'm gone, yeah?" he wished he could just lay down and sleep for about a year as he rubbed at his eyes, "Don't kill yourself trying to solve this though, even if you do I might never pop up here again." it was pure luck he'd ended up somewhere half useful.
Phichit looked ready to fight him on that, mouth open and taking a deep breath, before it whooshed out of him and he just waved him on to keep talking.
And talk he did, he detailed everything he could remember about what he last did, told him everything he could remember about every time he'd been back on earth, any thoughts he'd had, he just tried to get it all out as fast as possible.
Then the food got there and he was too busy stuffing himself to keep talking. Phichit was flipping between notes he'd been taking while he was talking and other papers.
"So what ideas do you have, just in general?" he finally asked as he sat back, sipping a soda.
He huffed, a bit irritated. "I was hoping I'd be able to just pull you out of the void and maybe repeat the experiment, but that might just make everything worse. So instead I've been working on something that I hope might counter whatever the pull of the void is. It's been far from easy and impossible to know if anything about it is working properly." he sighed.
"Why don't you try sending other stuff into the void? I might be able to tell you if I get it or not."
"That's an option I'm just worried it'll try to occupy the same 'space' as you and kill you or something." Phichit mumbled.
"Honestly that might be better than the void. I haven't slept."
Phichit's gaze snapped to him, angry glare set in stone. "I'm not going to kill you."
He slouched moodily. "You'd be doing me a favor."
"You'll never see Victor again. He pops up regularly asking about you." Phichit's voice had that proud parent note to it now.
"He does not." he muttered, blushing.
"Anyway, how about you try and catch some sleep while you're still here?" Phichit looked him over worriedly. "You've told me all you can and I'm sure you'll be doing better if you get some sleep."
Yuuri perked up immediately, "Show me a moderately soft horizontal surface." he commanded.
Phichit burst out laughing, but took him out of the lab and got him set up and covered on a plush bench outside.
He was out in seconds.
The first time Victor heard Katsuki Yuuri's name was when it was on the news. A scientist trying to figure out teleportation was missing, and had been for awhile now. He appeared to have vanished during an experiment.
People wanted to help but nobody knew where to start.
The second time was when a man popped into existence right in front of him. The man was just a tad shorter than him, had blue framed glasses that hid much of the bags under his brown eyes, and he had shaggy black hair and was overall dirty.
And there was blood splattered all over him and his torn clothes.
He was not ashamed to admit he'd screamed. It was a perfectly normal reaction to a man covered in blood appearing in front of him.
The man had been slow to react, eyes unfocused behind his glasses before he'd stuttered out his name and that was a surprise that nearly sent him to his grave. Was this man death incarnate here to take him away?
Of course that was foolish and the man was quick to explain, after asking what the date was, the basics of his time void situation, and could he please tell Phichit Chulanont because he's sure he's worried himself half to death oh and by the way I'm Katsuki Yuuri, and I'm a fan.
And then he'd gotten all flustered and blamed the last bit on his tiredness and under all the blood and dirt and exhaustion, this man was ridiculously cute. He nearly told him as much but he felt like he shouldn't flirt with the poor man.
Victor had looked him over and stated he needed a shower and fresh clothes, and shoved him into his bathroom with said clothes.
Katsuki had looked half embarrassed and half relieved. After a moment Victor had also added some hard candy to the pile, surely he could use some food as well, even if it was just candy, at least he could eat it in the shower.
He'd stuck around long enough for the shower, changing, and munching down on whatever junk food he'd managed to find in his kitchen, before he vanished in front of his very eyes.
If it weren't for the bloodied clothes he'd had he'd swear he'd imagined the whole thing. But he searched up this Phichit guy and went to him and explained everything, every detail he could remember, and he'd looked so relieved at the news he was alive. Probably. The whole time void thing was messing with his mind, personally.
He started popping up every other week to ask if he'd heard anything or if there was anything he could do to help. He was usually delegated to moving stuff around or cleaning or bringing the poor scientist some food or reminding/forcing him to sleep.
...he may or may not have set about moving from Russia to Japan.
He was making his way through the facility to Phichit, with the news and some food, when he saw a man asleep on the bench outside. He moved quieter and peeked down-it was him! Victor wanted to jump and scream like a high schooler that aced a test they thought they bombed.
Phichit had poked his head out and grinned, gesturing for him to come inside.
Victor had frowned, wanting to do something for the man that looked just about as bad as he had two months ago, but sighed and went in, forcing the food on him as he looked over pages of science babble.
"He just was suddenly there-in front of me! I've never been so relieved to think I was about to die!" Phichit was saying, eyes straight on the paper. "He's been asleep a couple hours now, thankfully. My heart's gonna break when I look out there and he's gone…" he trailed off, leaning back in his chair and glancing at Yuuri again. "But that doesn't matter, all that matters is fixing this for him." he said quickly as he sat back forward.
"I'm moved nearby. I can come in and help with like, physical stuff. Or to bounce ideas off of." Victor offered.
Phichit's eyes snapped off the page to his face. "Wha-really? You moved to Japan to try and help him?" his jaw was open.
Victor nodded, "I mean, I was already half living here as it was, might as well try to be the most help I can be, you know?"
Phichit's eyes shined with tears, "Thank you. Not many people want to work on saving one guy, I mean, I have the money from the masses but not many scientists want to try and figure it out. Not to mention how happy Yuuri will be when he hears." he grinned widely.
He waved his hands, "I-I'm not a scientist!"
"I know," he replied quickly, "But even just an extra pair of hands around will be helpful."
"Why didn't you tell me that like a month ago?" he huffed, "I could've been here sooner."
Phichit laughed, "I didn't want to ask you to do anything that over the top for a man you met once."
"Well he...left an impression."
"He does that, doesn't he?" Phichit said softly, glancing back to the bench. "He's the most wonderful person I've ever known."
Victor found himself nodding. "Do you mind if I just go out and sit with him?"
"Be my guest." he grinned, waving him towards the door. "Just don't wake him, he's dead on his feet."
He nodded and exited quietly, sitting down on the floor at the end of the bench and just resting a hand on his back, watching him. He'd bet he could set off a bomb and he'd just keep sleeping, that's how tired he looked.
Several hours later, still asleep, he vanished, just like before. Taking Victor's heart with him yet again.
Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but there was certainly a void in his heart with the absence of one Katsuki Yuuri.
Yuuri awoke in the black void.
If he ever got out of this he was giving up being any kind of scientist, he would do something else, like skate, or stream video games, or...or anything else but he never wanted to be in a situation like this again.
Phichit was hard at work, once he threw the word time travel out there more scientists were willing to at least throw him a bone or a few calculations that might be helpful, so he was making progress.
Actually, he was asleep at his desk.
So he fell backwards onto the floor when there was a thump and a scream and oh my god there's so much blood .
Oh wait that was him screaming.
"Phichit! Phichit calm down! Phichit! It's not my blood!" Yuuri was waving his arms frantically, sending droplets of blood everywhere. "Wait shit-don't touch the blood and then anything-I don't know what's in there it could be the black plague or something!"
Phichit snapped his mouth closed and just stared at his best friend, now missing for six months total, before he pulled him into a tight hug. "Yuuri!"
"Phichit be careful I don't know what time period this blood is from you could get infected by something horrible!" Yuuri objected, but didn't push him away.
"Shhhh." he hushed him, "Shhhh Yuuri shhhh." he was just to happy that he was there to care about any of that, black plague? Who cared. His best friend was still alive that's all that matters.
"Phichit please, I won't be able to live with myself if I accidently kill you."
Phichit pulled away finally, looking him over. He actually looked better than the last time he saw him, no bags under his eyes, not half starved, except for the blood he looked pretty good honestly. "I have something for you!" he said instead.
"Oh?" Yuuri couldn't help but follow him across the room, trailing blood.
"Yeah! Look!" he held up a big bulky...something that started to glow after a moment. "I think this might be able to keep you here."
"Wha-already?" his eyes bugged out as he stared at it.
"Well it's been another three months." he shrugged.
"Oh? It has?" he frowned, "Sure hasn't been that long for me."
"Lucky you. Here…" he handed it off to him. "If this keeps you here for like a day we'll assume it works and move from there. That's the only real way to test it." he shrugged a bit.
"Sounds good to me, can I get new clothes?"
"Yep, let me just text my assistant…" he pulled out his phone and asked for a change of clothes from Victor, who would be on his way here pretty soon.
"Assistant? Look who's going up in the world while I'm gone." he nudged him playfully.
Phichit just laughed loudly and refrained from commenting on the fact the guy was only here for Yuuri.
He was allowed his small amusements.
Victor showed up twenty minutes later with a bag that he was looking into as he opened the door. "I just brought you a change of clothes yesterday I can't believe you already want-want mo…" he trailed off as he looked up and caught sight of Yuuri.
Phichit slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his grin and laughter. Victor looked so whipped , stars in his eyes, mouth hanging open, staring at his best friend like he was an angel.
Yuuri was turning ever more red as the silence went on as Victor Nikiforov stood there staring at him with awe plain on his face.
"Yuuri! You're here!" Victor cried, pulling him into a hug. "It's been ages! Why are you covered in blood?!" he pulled back looking him over in horror. "That's not yours right? I didn't just make it worse did I?"
"No its not mine." he shook his head, still in shock.
Victor Nikiforov blushed- blushed as he held out the bag. "I guess this is for you then."
Yuuri wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming as he took the bag from him. "T-thanks…"
"Victor, take him to the shower for me." Phichit grinned, "I'm gonna check some stuff." he gestured to the table covered in an inch of papers.
"Sure thing." Victor didn't take his eyes off of Yuuri as he guided him through to where the showers were, with only mild staring at all the blood from people they walked by.
"You should-uh-be careful about that blood. I didn't get a good look at what was going on, it could have some disease from centuries ago." Yuuri offered as he ducked into the stall. "Maybe go home and change?" he added louder after he started the water.
"I'll wait outside if that's what you're worried about."
"Well-I-yes thank you, but I'm not kidding about the blood."
Victor looked down at the blood and nodded, "I'll figure it out, toss out your clothes too."
He quickly found the carefully bunched up to keep as much of the blood on the inside as possible clothes on the floor in front of him.
"I'll be right back, don't vanish on me!" Victor called as he headed out.
Yuuri did not vanish on him, by the time he was back he was dressed and looking much better. Victor internally cursed that he'd brought Phichit's clothes and not his own, but that was a matter for when they knew for sure Yuuri was going to stick around. He wasn't going to bother him with his not-so-secret crush while he was still popping in and out of time and had other things to worry about.
He couldn't stop himself from staring though.
As 24 hours passed and Yuuri was still there, Phichit's prototype was deemed a success, though Yuuri was supposed to stick nearby him for fixes while Phichit worked towards something a bit more long term. It wasn't exactly super durable, and had a very short estimated range it had to be near Yuuri for it to keep him there, and it was bulky.
However, for all intents and purposes, they were in the clear.
The last thing Victor was expecting at this news, was for Yuuri Katsuki to grab him and pull him down into a kiss.
He was just getting over his shock when Yuuri pulled back, face a bright red and apologising, and Victor just grabbed him and pulled him into another kiss.
You may think this is similar to Tracer from Overwatch. You would be right. My notes included Yuuri = Tracer hehe
This is one of those things that is complete as is but I might be open to another chapter. Definitely a universe I'm open to writing more in but not anything I'm burning to do.