**Author(s) Note: This is a collaboration between myself and Enigmatic Insignia**

Ch. 2 – Thin Ice

From the safety of his car, Yuuri, despite his better judgement, glanced back at the entrance of the rink. He looked down at his phone, only to go right back to staring across the pavement, his eyes stuck on the door with building trepidation that he might accidentally see Yuri and his family leaving. Before he could be accused of stalking, again, Yuuri willed himself to turn himself and the car key. He plugged in his Bluetooth and dialed Viktor on his way out of the lot.

In his mind, the moment froze, stuck in anticipation of his call bouncing off satellites, reaching out for the person he needed most. A single ring hung in the air, followed by the chime of his fiancé's voice through his earpiece. "Mushy-Mushy~!"

In spite of everything, Yuuri couldn't help but to smile at the mangled attempt at greeting him with the traditional, 'moshi-moshi'. "Hi Viktor. I need an emergency cuddle session. You're never going to believe who I just ran into."

"Oh, Yu-luchik, my precious snuggle bug, you know just what to say, now, and you don't ever even try, do you?" Viktor admired, the tone of his voice practically caressing Yuuri through the phone. Viktor had been coming up with a seemingly endless cycle of nicknames for him recently. Most of them, Yuuri didn't understand in the slightest, but he could tell that while quirky, the names were heartfelt and sweet.

At first, Yuuri was so distracted by the nonsense name that it took a moment for him to notice something else. His fiancé's chipper words of concern, a simple "where are you?", echoed off Yuuri's eardrum with a measured, static sort of tapping lurking in the background. It was, however muffled, the staggered, consistent rush of running water. Suddenly, two possibilities conjured in Yuuri's head. The first was that Viktor was already back at the apartment, cleaning off after the day's exercise routine. The second, increasingly more likely scenario was that Viktor was standing - most assuredly naked - in the communal showers at the gym, happily chatting on the phone while others tried to shower in peace.

"I'll send a car. I'd send myself, of course, but I need to shower before I shower hugs. Unless you'd like to combine them, that is? I'd be happy to share the water. Like old memories we would have had if you weren't so modest, then!" The clear excitement in Viktor's voice may have drawn at least one other person to peek out of their shower stall to see what the hell was going on. Viktor, of course, failed to notice.

"I'm at the rink sitting in my car, so, no need to send anyone, love. But thank you. A shower does sound nice, but," there was no way in the world that even his total beefcake of a fiancé could convince him to share a communal gym shower. "…I prefer our shower and towels over the gym's."

However minuscule a change it had been for Yuuri to shift from tense to nearly agreeing, it was enough encouragement for Viktor to continue. He pressed the side of his hand to his cheek, tapping it in contemplation. "I prefer you without the towels. Or at least with my monogramed one. It's nice having my name on you. Why do people use the ones with their own initials when they can have each other? Are they worried they'll forget their names?"

It was such a ridiculous thought that Yuuri couldn't help let his smile blossom under it. He, too, drew a stare from a stranger or two, hunched over at a stoplight with increasingly less reluctant sputters of amusement, but he found it surprisingly difficult to care.

Comfortable in the calmer kind of silence, Viktor turned away from his now currently unused shower stall. He leaned one of his shoulders against the side, getting strangely comfortable and conversational for someone stark naked in a public shower. "What was it that happened? Tell me. If you want me to languish your absence and bathe alone, I'll wrap up my phone to take with me, too." What Viktor meant, or so Yuuri assumed, was that Viktor would go find his waterproof phone case so he could keep talking in the shower.

As absurd as the idea should have sounded, Yuuri assumed it was already too late to be considerate of everyone around Viktor. With a light, exhausted sigh, he shook his head in disbelief at what he was about to say. "Yes, please. I'd like to keep talking. This kind of news can't wait."

The apparent time sensitivity was almost as foreboding as the initial build-up had been, so, Viktor turned towards the phone accordingly. "Yes, yes. Except, is this the can't wait that can it wait twenty seconds, or literally not wait? I can stay out here?"

"It can wait a minute, Vitya. Go get your case."

"Great. I'm keeping you, though. So my ear may ring like my finger."

"You don't have to. I can wait, really."

It only took Viktor a few moments to retrieve the proper case for his phone and soon enough Yuuri heard the 'click' of the shower door. "I'm back, with speakers! Whenever you'd like, I'm listening!" Viktor exclaimed, much too loud to be appropriate in any form of public, showers included. "Can you hear me, too? I'm here but can't hear."

Supposing it wouldn't help to hold it in any longer, Yuuri tried to drop the bomb. "I bumped into one of my old acquaintances today, at the rink…"

Assuming the context might be going in the logical direction, Viktor interjected over Yuuri. "O, yes, great. Was Phichit there?"

"No, a friend of yours..."

Viktor quieted somewhat at the clarification, giving a nod of understanding that Yuuri could imagine if not see. "Ah. No hamsters, then."

"Yeah. No hamsters." Yuuri considered, in his awkward pause, if there was a good way to explain something that ended so poorly. "I would like to say that he was happy to see me, but I don't think Yuri Plisetsky is capable of those kinds of pleasantries, even for you, Vitya."

There was an audible, palpable pause as Viktor froze, befuddled. He pressed a hand over his ear, rubbing at the water he expected must have been lodged in there. "Sorry, can you repeat that? For some reason, I thought you said Yuri Plisetsky?"

"I did. He was at the rink for the free skate. Honestly, he was the last person I'd ever thought to see skating in the center of the rink, but, he was."

Focusing on the road, Yuuri let Viktor process his words. There was no telling how he would react, considering the weight the mystery had on Viktor these past few years. From Viktor's contacts at the ISU, FFKK and the Figure Skating Federation of Saint Petersburg, no one had any answers more substantive than the same stock lines for the press. Yuri himself hadn't responded to their calls, emails, or even posted on Instagram. Yuuri recalled, specifically, a passing moment on the first day of the Rostelecom Cup two years prior. As Yuuri and Viktor walked to the front gate, past a cluster of teenage girls in black cat ears at a staged funeral for Yuri's career, Viktor had whispered under his breath that, for Yuri not to have come back, those girls may not have been wrong; Yuri may have genuinely been dying.

With that in mind, it may not have surprised Yuuri to hear Viktor practically chirp his double-check for affirmation. "Really? The free skate?" He questioned the idea as he was speaking it. " Ogogó, Yurio. Not dead and not in Russia. How strange a world! Was there a coach there, too? Or—"

"No. No one. And like an idiot, I thought he'd want to see me, so I said hi. But I was wrong, Vitya." Yuuri let some of the anger and sadness he'd been hiding leech into his tone. "He said a lot of… hurtful things, Vitya. I stayed as long as I could, but I left before he could do any more damage." Truthfully, if Yuuri had stayed any longer he would have broken down in front of Yuri, but he was certain that's exactly what the Russian punk had been aiming for. "I made sure that he knew that we come to the rink all the time, in case he decides to reach out."

Viktor did pause to process, if only for a moment. When he raised his words, they were slow, pondering, and thoughtful to the point where he seemed almost nostalgic to say them. "Sahkarok-chan, ljubimyj moj, whatever he said, you haven't seen him in years. Whatever he said and thinks, it's not you. If anyone else in the world can see you other than you, it's me. Even if you're not on the camera. And if you're an idiot, then, idiots must be kind, and kind of cute! And he is him, the angry kitten. An angry, roaring tiny kitten. Even at a free skate."

Pulling into the parking ramp outside their apartment, Yuuri set the car in park and turned the engine off. He nodded solemnly to the call screen on his phone, taking the words to heart. As simplistic as it felt, it was true. Yuri hadn't seen either of them in years. He couldn't possibly know how Yuuri had evolved, or how his and Viktor's love had bloomed, to become the core of each others' very being. It wasn't the kind of connection that could be broken with angry words from a bitter teenage boy.

"You're right, Vitya. Thank you," Yuuri agreed through another smile, albeit a far more somber one than he realized. "But I still require emergency cuddles when you get home, that's non-negotiable."

"A, well, lucky for me, you drive an easy bargain!" Viktor cheered back, relieved to take the thanks at face value. Before the end of the second, however, his point of focus couldn't help but fall away from the verbal damage, back to what had inflicted it. "In between all the, I'm guessing, very loud yells, did he mention why he was here, or was he too busy with the screaming?"

"Unfortunately, no. He was too busy trying to get into a shouting match. But his relative, Katya, did offer me her contact information and it seems to be local."

Having circled around the car, keys in hand, Yuuri opened the back seat. He reached to grab his skates, only to pause, his stomach sinking. He couldn't get the image of Yuri in those rental skates out of his mind. How many times had Yuuri's coaches stressed how important good quality gear was for skaters? How many times had he, Viktor and Yuri had to trade in perfectly good skates for brand new ones to keep an edge to their game? To see Yuri wearing those ratty things left a weight in Yuuri's chest. "I don't know what happened to him, Vitya, but, it's not good."

With a sigh and a nod to nothing, Yuuri shut the door. He circled the parking lot, into the glistening, ever-polished lobby of their apartment. "In any case, once you're home I'll give you Katya's number. I warned her that you would likely call her tonight to talk about Yuri. I have to get into the elevator, but, once I'm settled, I'm going to step into the shower. I'll be sure to use your monogramed towel once I'm done."

As easy as it might have been to get dragged down by the foreboding tone, Viktor was, admittedly, distracted by the thought of Yuuri in their shower. "If you take your time, I could help."

"You're more than welcome. Just, think about what you want to do for dinner. I know that you'll want to talk to Katya and if he's willing, to Yuri, so I'll handle the rest."

Under the rush of the unevenly pressurized water and the occasional, ignored judgmental grumble of his unwilling audience, Viktor finished rinsing off. He turned the knob, pressed his phone to his ear, and savored the sweet words between the otherwise troubling topic. "Well, then. I certainly can't back out of expectations, can I?"

"I love you, Vitya. Text me when you're headed home?"

"No need. Consider me almost there. And, solnysk-uri? I love you, too. More than anyone for anything that isn't this, I love you."

As Viktor had predicted, he'd returned home in time to catch Yuuri at the end of his shower. Granted, Yuuri had deliberately taken the time to wash his hair, condition it for five whole minutes and exfoliate practically every inch of himself to delay getting out, but that was beside the point. The emergency cuddling session contract had been successfully fulfilled, with a few extra minutes added on just because. After that, and a quick walk with Makkachin, Yuuri had headed off to cook, leaving Viktor to sit at the dinner table, cell phone at his side, fixated on the business card of a woman he had never met.

Viktor twirled the card between his fingers, blurring the image. The faintly embossed image of a wedding cake surrounded by stylized roses stared back, along with the full name Yekaterina Yolkin. In preparation or procrastination, Vikto popped her username into Etsy, only to find himself staring at pictures of custom cake toppers, invitations and fabric flower centerpieces—the sorts of things that naturally drew him to look over his shoulder towards his fiancé, hard at work in the kitchen.

"You're sure I can't taste-test? The food or the cook?" Viktor raised his phone overhead, flashing the now-oversized image of a cake topper in Yuuri's vicinity. "I'll trade you a cake topper on skates! We could do tiny lines in the fondant."

Surprised to hear anything from that direction, Yuuri turned towards the open doorframe. He wiped his hands on his apron before closing the small gap between himself and Viktor. Safely at his side, Yuuri leaned over to place a brief, loving kiss on Viktor's forehead. "No, Vitya, I can handle things in the kitchen. You can taste test once you're finished." Before Viktor could argue to the contrary, Yuuri set a second kiss on Viktor's lips, silencing him. Then, he headed back to the kitchen.

Viktor settled back in his seat, seemingly dismayed, albeit in a way that was intentionally overblown. "If you need me, I'll be in here, neglected by Makkachin!" he called back.

Confident that Viktor could handle what was coming next, Yuuri chose not to dignify it with an answer. Instead, he tried to focus on chopping the vegetables for their salads, intentionally interpreting the chatter as white noise, if only so he could avoid cutting his fingers.

Alone with his thoughts and the card once more, Viktor dialed the number. The dial tone rang through the house twice, chiming with tension and impatience. Then, it stopped. "Hello, Something Blue Custom Accessories. How can I help you?" a slightly accented voice crackled through his iPhone.

Viktor folded his arms and huddled closer to the table, leaning over it with a natural, polite sort of smile, the sort he knew would carry through the phone whether he meant it or not. "Dohbriy vyehcheer, Katya! This is Viktor. I'm the old friend of Yuri's who he hasn't screamed at yet today."

There was a quick delay on the other side—a sort of sudden silence, as if something had gone wrong. When she spoke up again, it was with a stutter. "O-oh. Yes. This is Katya. Can you please tell me the problem with your order?"

"No, not an order. This is about Yuri Plisetsky? My fiancé said he said I would call, which, I am me, calling."

Katya, meanwhile, only sounded more intimidated while she scrambled through a canned response. "Give me a moment, I need to loop up your file."

It was such a strange answer to it that Viktor straightened up in his seat. He spoke down directly to the receiver, this time, as if he meant to command the phone's attention. "I don't have a file, just questions. We've been looking for Yurio for ages. Me, mostly, but, Yuuri succeeded so he did much better. So, where is Yurio? Still grumbling?"

Even with the limited audio reception of a phone, Viktor could hear Katya shut the door. A fan turned on in the background, white noise whirring through the connection. Only then did she dare speak. "Yes. Well. Uh. He's been staying here, with us, for now."

"How long has now been, exactly?"

What Viktor had expected was a simple timeline—something to give him a sense if Yuri's stateside presence was tourism or more permanent. Instead, he heard. "About a year and a half, then, since his dedushka passed away…" Katya paused, or, perhaps Viktor only imagined the pause, as he pictured a funeral Viktor no doubt would have attended if he had only known. "…He started college back in January."

"And skating?"

That time, the silence wasn't merely a product of Viktor's imagination. Katya answered by not saying a word.

"Is he there, now?" Viktor tried again.

This time, it didn't take more than a second for Katya to respond with a tense, almost reluctant sigh. "Listen. I know, you're coming from a good place. You and your fiancé. But, I'm not sure if any friendship you'd want to show him is something he's ready for. Please, don't be offended if he can't see you. He hasn't been out of his room since the… incident… this afternoon."

Viktor didn't exactly catch the nuance. "Of course, he doesn't have to see me, it's through a phone."

"I'm afraid to even knock, to be honest…"

Viktor pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, his fingers curling over his lips while he debated what he could try, next. He snapped his fingers with the decision, about to speak up, only for his open mouth to hang in place while someone else interjected. "Is it true?"

One might have thought that, given the change in years, that his voice would have changed, too, yet it was too distinct for Viktor not to leap straight to recognizing the source.

"Yurio? You aren't in a rotting ditch! My heart has never been so warmed by rudeness!"

Having tuned out the conversation as he cut up the tomatoes and onion for his chicken taco salad, Yuuri practically leapt upright at the sudden sound. He stared through the archway, over his shoulder to the scene, only to settle back down and shake his head in wonder as to how, exactly, Viktor thought that was the proper thing to say to someone after not having spoken to them for several years.

Behind the muffled whisper of Katya asking politely that Yuri be gentle with the phone, Yuri hadn't budged from his demand to "Answer the damn question!"

"I could, but, I don't know what you mean."

"What katsudon said. Don't play moron, pizdabolishe," Yuri cursed, in essence, calling Viktor a huge liar in such an overblown way that most people would've meant it as a joke. Yuri, meanwhile, had bafflingly managed the feat of using it as if it were serious. "I know he told you. Is it true?"

It was such a relief to hear Yuri at all that even him being an angry, caustic brat was strangely comforting. Viktor chuckled at the seemingly-bitter but otherwise innocuous question. "O? That I worry? Of course, I meant every wo—"

Before he could finish the words he supposedly meant, the signal spiked with an audible thud. Then, it cut off entirely, redirecting to a loud, alarming dial tone. Viktor choked on what he'd meant to say, replaced with the simple, baffled stumble over the name "Yurio?"

Viktor craned his neck down to stare at the disconnected call. He poked through his call list to dial back. In place of the dial tone, the number redirected to the mail box. "I'm sorry, but the person you are calling does not have a voice mail box open at this time—"

Before the stock answering machine could keep on taunting him, Viktor pressed the end call button. Overtaken by the aftershock, he looked towards the kitchen. "Yuuri! He killed her phone!"

Setting the flame of the skillet back to simmer, Yuuri exited the kitchen once more. He paced out to the dining room table, until he was close enough to Viktor that he could wrap his arms around him in a backwards embrace. He frowned into Viktor's shoulder with sympathy. "I'm sorry, Vitya. I know how much you wanted to talk to him." He set a hand on Viktor's back and ran it up and down for comfort, the repetition numbing his own brain somewhat, too. "I made that shredded chicken you like, with the taco seasoning. Want to come taste test it for me?"

As predicted, Viktor perked at the suggestion. With the phone discarded, Viktor followed Yuuri into the kitchen to help him assemble the salads. After a lovely meal, a few drinks and dessert, the couple spent a leisurely evening together simply enjoying one another's company, followed by a steamy night filled with cuddles, kisses and so much more.

Meanwhile, in the Yolkin house, a teenage boy had just set a new speed record for how quickly a mobile phone could pass from one side of the living room into a fireplace. Thankfully for the phone, it was the middle of summer, so it merely smacked into a protective grate before clattering to the floor, disconnected by the force of impact but otherwise intact.

What should have been a much longer conversation had been left relatively still, the sole witness mostly just gaping in astonishment that they had even seen what just happened. Hardly thirty seconds ago, Katya had been trying to sit down at her workstation for a civilized if terse and tense conversation. Then, as if he had some sort of radar sense or had been screening her calls, Yuri emerged out of nowhere, grabbed the phone from her, and had taken over, only to stomp out of the room in a huff.

Katya tried to stand up after Yuri. Her foot knocked against one of the many storage bins of fabric scraps, which she stumbled over on her way towards the door. "Yura? Come here! What's wrong?" She extended a hand, at least trying to catch his arm or his attention. Yuri hardly even blinked. Instead, he pushed his headphones back over his ears, both symbolically and literally blocking out anything but the noise in his own head. "Can I at least bring you dinner?"

At the same second as she had spoken, Yuri yanked on a cord attached to the ceiling, pulling down a hidden staircase. He took a step up, then another, until he paused to yell back. "No! He'll eat enough dick for both of us! Čórt s nim, pork cutlet bowl!" Before Katya had a chance to explain, Yuri slammed the door, shutting himself back into the attic.

"Uh. Okay, then." Katya stared up at the outline of the now hidden attic door, unsure of what, if anything, she could do. She raised her chin to the ceiling, calling upwards. "There's still pizza, if you change your mind. And we're baking cookies!"

The head of an older child, wearing a backwards baseball cap, a flour-covered hoodie, and the sort of disgust one could only wear if they were a teenager being forced to make cookies against their will, poked out of the kitchen. "Did he just imply he also eats dicks?"

Katya's eyes widened in a silent sort of gasp, her focus pulled from scolding one grumpy teenage boy to another. "For heaven's sake, Misha!"