we were together; i forget the rest

By: TG

Summary: The most beautiful boy Yuuri's ever seen is out on the rink, his hair trailing behind him like a sheet of pure silver. He moves like he was born to the ice, all fluidity and grace and artless emotion as he paints a story for the audience. Warmth creeps up Yuuri's chest, and he clutches tightly at the fabric of his hoodie, just over his heart, eyes wide as he watches. This is what skating can be.

It's so much more than he ever thought.

Disclaimer: I don't own yuri on ice

Warnings: implied anxiety disorder

AN: this is for loopyloo2610 on tumblr who requested 'counting the steps' as an imaginary fic title!

i.

Yuuri is five the first time he sets foot on the ice.

It's slippery beneath his tiny skates, the surface pocked from blades and toe picks. He spends most of his time out clinging to the wall and crying while Nishigori laughs at him. It's scary, it's terrifying. Most children are carefree but Yuuri feels trapped by the anxiety like molasses in his mind –slow-moving, weighty, sticky. He's afraid to fall and hurt himself, afraid to worry his mother, who is watching him from the sidelines with a small, knowing smile. Afraid to look bad in front of Yuuko-chan, his new friend two years his senior who is really pretty and smart and kind.

But the chill in the air is nice on his skin, and the smell is clean, almost metallic. Even while his anxiety hurls doubts and worries at him, he feels his shoulders start to relax. Before he knows it, he's off, pushing away from the wall, pushing away from his mother, and the breeze he creates with his body, the exhilaration of movement supported by nothing but thin blades and the balance of his tiny body…

He falls. His toe pick gets caught on a groove in the ice and sends him sprawling. His palms slap the ice, his knees following. He falls, but.

It feels – it feels like –

Freedom.

ii.

"Yuuri! Come on, it's time!" Yuuko-chan's voice echoes through the rink, disrupting his compulsory figures.

Yuuri grins and flies toward her, stumbling into his blade covers as they hobble into the locker room – the only place in the entire rink with a television that gets the good channels. Nishigori is already there, fiddling with the set until he finds the channel with the Junior Grand Prix Final airing. This year it's live from Sofia, Bulgaria.

Time passes them by idly as they watch skaters cycle through their routines. It's good to watch, nice to see what Yuuri's strengths and weaknesses look like on other people, and how they deal with them. It's sort of like his English teacher always says – "Watch English TV, immerse yourself in the experience, and soon you'll realize you've learned things you didn't even know you were absorbing."

It's all pretty standard, as far as skating goes – no major screw-ups, but nothing that stands out – until…

The most beautiful boy Yuuri's ever seen is out on the rink, his hair trailing behind him like a sheet of pure silver. He moves like he was born to the ice, all fluidity and grace and artless emotion as he paints a story for the audience. Warmth creeps up Yuuri's chest, and he clutches tightly at the fabric of his hoodie, just over his heart, eyes wide as he watches. This is what skating can be.

It's so much more than he ever thought.

"Yuuko-chan," he breathes. "Who is that?"

Yuuko-chan grins at him. "Viktor Nikiforov! He's Russian, fourteen years old. They say he's going to move up to seniors next year but I think he –"

Viktor Nikiforov. Viktor Nikiforov. Viktor Nikiforov.

He goes home, eats dinner, goes to sleep, dreams about pretty Russian figure skaters and podiums.

iii.

"I hope I can see you compete on the same ice someday soon!"

iv.

He gets his first silver at sixteen.

Standing on the podium is supposed to give him a sense of satisfaction, like all of his hard work has paid off. It does, in a way. Looking out at the spectators, seeing his parents and Minako-sensei in the stands with proud smiles on their faces, looking down and seeing the silver on his chest – he feels pretty good, for a moment.

But then the moment passes, and he's left with this feeling of not enough.

He knows he's not particularly talented. He works – hard, diligently, continuously. He learns new elements by imitating his idol and hoping for good results. He feels suffocated by his anxiety sometimes, and he knows that his dream of skating on the same ice as Viktor is probably just that – a dream.

But there's a small, quiet part of him that says, so what?

So what?

He keeps working.

It's all he can do.

v.

Yuuri outgrows his coach when he turns eighteen.

Not in the sense that his talent has grown, or that he's become more successful – no, mostly because coaches tend to specialize in certain age demographics. Juniors and Seniors have different requirements, different pressures, different contracts. She recommends a new local coach to him, hesitates a moment, and then recommends another – a man named Celestino – all the way out in Detroit, in the United States.

"It's a big move," she says, "but I honestly think you have the skills to keep going in competitive figure skating. And Coach Cialdini is a good coach, a good man, I know you could do well under him."

She's overestimating him. All he has to his name are a few medals – none gold – and little competition experience. The thought of leaving the familiarity of Ice Castle – of leaving the Nishigoris, of leaving Minako-sensei, of leaving his parents – to chase down something that feels so unobtainable is absolutely terrifying.

(But still, he wants.)

Half a year later he's pulling up to his new home. He has nothing here but a pair of suitcases and his skating bag – no friends, no family. The city of Detroit is a hulking monolith of concrete and glass. He feels alone and small –

(But he didn't move thousands of miles away just to back down.)

So he steps out of a taxi in Detroit and into the warm handshake of his new coach.

vi.

It doesn't quite sink in until Phichit-kun tells him, later that night, that he's made it into the Grand Prix Final.

"Yuuri," he says, eyes wide and a little wet, "you did it. You're going to skate on the same ice as Viktor!"

Yuuri opens his mouth –

– and a sickening flood of elation and anxiety pour in, coating his mind and suffusing into his bones.

"This is what you've been working for!" Phichit-kun says, throwing his arms around Yuuri like he's proud.

And it is, it is, but god –

vii.

He failed.

He failed, and he can't look Celestino in the face, can hardly bear to listen to his mother tell him she's proud of him.

(When Viktor asks him if he wants a commemorative photo, he burns –with embarrassment, with anger, with yearning –)

He walks away.

Can't bear to look at Viktor, either.

viii.

He comes home after he graduates, because there's no point in staying there any longer. He doesn't have a coach or an education to keep him in Detroit. Gone are his excuses to stay tucked away.

He's kind of sick of staying tucked away, anyway.

He skates for Yuuko-chan, pours every last bit of him into Viktor's routine until there's nothing left but ashes, hoping that it's enough.

Enough of what, he isn't sure.

But he knows three things: one, he's tired of feeling depressed about his failure, tired of feeling sorry for himself; two, skating Viktor's routines with Yuuko-chan had been the birth of his identity as a figure skater; and three, Yuuri still wants.

(It's the most free he's felt on the ice in years.)

ix.

Viktor shows up in his life a month later, saying he's quit skating to coach Yuuri.

It takes a while to muddle through the shock, the denial, the awkwardness, and, perhaps most surprising, the anger, but he does. Eventually they become something more than just student and coach.

(Something like friends.)

(Something more than that, even.)

Viktor is real. He makes mistakes, he's sometimes completely incompetent at being a coach. He makes Yuuri mad, makes him anxious. Makes him want to pull his hair out. He works Yuuri to the bone and forgets that Yuuri won't say anything about being tired or sore because Yuuri doesn't want to upset him. He can't deal with Yuuri's anxiety, and has no idea what to do when Yuuri cries in front of him. Viktor is real, the most real thing Yuuri has ever held, has ever touched. So much more than the magazine articles he saved or the posters stuffed hastily underneath his bed. So much more than his skating.

He helps Yuuri become something real, too.

(It's beautiful.)

x.

Yuuri is twenty-four when he slides a ring onto Viktor's finger.

Viktor is looking at him like he's everything, his face soft and his gaze so incredibly gentle and loving. He loves him. He loves him.

When Yuuri counts the steps that lead him to this moment –all of the triumphs, all of the falls – he realizes that he's grateful for everything, that he wouldn't change a single thing if it means getting to belong to Viktor Nikiforov, and having Viktor belong to him in return.

And that feels like freedom, too.