Thank you guys so so much for the lovely reviews I've received for these past couple of chapters ! I've read every single one of them, and you guys seem to like other character POV's, so I included a couple more in this chapter. But of course it still focuses mainly around Yuri/Otabek and Yuuri/Viktor.
This chapter includes some good news and a glimmer of hope, but also angst (naturally). And a huge ass cliffhanger. Oops
CW: discussion of abuse, implied sexual abuse, implied suicide attempt at the very end
Otabek felt Yuuri tense next to him and could only assume that he and Viktor were exchanging nervous glances. It didn't take a genius to figure out that shit would hit the fan as soon as Yuri realised where he was, and that they were no doubt perceiving him as vulnerable. If there was one thing Yuri Plisetsky would die protecting, it was his damn ego.
A small part of Otabek wished that someone else would deal with this; he was just so fucking tired and Yuuri's mentions of a spare bed sounded extremely inviting, especially when his head was pounding and he was beginning to feel the pain from him injuries as the adrenaline faded. And even though he cared for Yuri, would do anything for him, had risked himself to stop him from getting hurt, the boy was difficult to handle sometimes.
Still… If any of them had any hope of putting water on the fire, it wasn't going to be Yuuri or Viktor.
"I'll deal with this." Otabek mumbled somewhat reluctantly. He pushed himself up from the couch- stopping to steady himself as his head swam- and crept towards Yuri, where he slowly lowered himself so as to not jostle the boy. "Hey." He whispered, reaching out to brush a strand of hair away from his face. "How are you feeling?"
Yuri blinked up at him. "Beka? Where am I? What happened to your face?"
"Don't worry about that now." Otabek chuckled lightly (anything to keep Yuri calm) and continued stroking his friend's hair. He knew that Yuri loved having his hair played with, and now was a good time to use that weakness to his advantage. "How's your head?"
With great effort, Yuri raised a hand to rub at his eyes and his temples, checking for bumps or abrasions. The past events would come back to him, slowly. But for now all he was able to do was lie exhausted on Viktor and Yuuri's couch.
"Um… Fine, I suppose? Why are you lookin' at me like I've lost a leg?"
"Am I? Sorry." He bit his lip and made himself visibly relax; being stressed would only result in Yuri being even more agitated. At the moment he was simply putting a sticker over a puncture. Buying time, until he could… do something. Think of the right words to say.
Not that Otabek had ever been good with words.
"Is this a- why am I on a couch? My mother doesn't have comfy cushions like this."
"We… We're not at your mother's anymore, Yuri."
The blond frowned. "What? Am I dreaming?"
"No, not anymore. You slept for an hour or two but you're awake now. And you're safe."
That wasn't the right thing to say, and Otabek realised that as soon as the words left his lips. Yuri's frown deepened and he blinked hard a few times.
"Safe? From what? Where's my mother?"
"Don't worry about that. Are you, uh, sure your head is okay?"
"Otabek, cut the shit, what the fuck is going-"
Before Otabek could stop him, Yuri propped himself up on his elbows and made direct eye contact with the two men who were sitting awkwardly across from him. His words sat on the tip of his tongue, but they had frozen in place. Those green eyes turned frosty and the wall of defence built itself back up before Otabek even had a chance to let out the breath he was holding.
"Hey, Yuri." Viktor waved uncomfortably, unnerved by the steely glare he was receiving. "I know this is, uh, different, but uh… Do you remember what happened?"
Yuri just stared. And stared, and stared, until Otabek was convinced someone had pressed pause on him and he was destined to be frozen forever. At least that would avoid the ensuring argument.
Unfortunately, someone then pressed play, and he swore Yuri actually snarled.
"What the fuck! How did… Why did… No, wait, you knew about this? What the fuck is going on!"
Otabek ran his hands through his hair, evidently conflicted. "Yuri, it's okay. They just want to help. Viktor picked us up after… y'know."
"No, I've got no idea what you mean. And why the fuck is the school counsellor here? Did you call a shrink?"
He was red in the face, hands clenching and unclenching, fidgeting uncomfortably. No doubt every cell in his body was screaming for him to get far, far away from the apartment he was sat in.
"We're here to look after you, Yuri. I know you don't like the idea of that, however that is what you need right now. Whether you agree with me or not." Yuuri tried to talk some sense into him, never raising his voice above its natural volume. Otabek was grateful for that- he hated shouting. And loud noises in general. They gave him a headache.
"'Look after me'? What the fuck does that mean? I'm not a god damn baby."
"We know you've been through a lot, Yuri-" Viktor was close to begging. He was too exhausted to be dealing with this. Of course, he was glad Yuri was awake and healthy (healthy enough to get characteristically angry, anyway), but being shouted at was only making his evening more stress-filled than it already was. He didn't even get to finish his sentence before he was cut off again.
"You don't know shit about me, old man. Beka, did you tell them something?"
"Can you please just listen-"
"No, fuck you! I don't know what you think you know about me, but you don't get to suddenly pull on your big boy boots and pretend you care! We're not in school, you ain't getting paid for this, so don't fucking bother."
That hurt, Viktor couldn't deny it. But he had to remind himself who they were dealing with. Yuri threw insults around like confetti, and of course he'd bring Viktor's job into this; Yuri had never received appropriate care from an adult figure so naturally he would be guarded and do whatever he could to keep his walls up. How Otabek had managed to get Yuri to let him in was a mystery. Viktor pressed his lips together and let his boyfriend try to calm him down.
"Yuri, we promise we want to help, we're worried about you! You were unconscious for a while and you must have been under significant stress-"
"Oh my God, leave me the fuck alone. I don't even know why I'm here. Otabek, we're leaving. Come on."
Yuri stood up, wobbling slightly, but paused when Otabek didn't make any move to follow. The blond raised an eyebrow at his friend. "What? We're in our fuckin' teacher's house and you're fine with that? How hard did you bash your head?"
Otabek twisted his fingers together in a way that had to be painful. As he did so, Yuri caught a glimpse of the bandages under his sleeves, and then for the first time he noticed the first aid kit that sat on the coffee table.
This entire situation was like a jigsaw puzzle and it stressed him the fuck out. So many questions sat bitterly at the back of his throat. Either his pride or his genuine confusion stopped them from erupting. Until he got answers, he was left in limbo.
"You're really not freaking out right now?" Yuri sat down again. His head was swimming, but he disguised his discomfort by throwing a glare in Yuuri's direction. The Japanese man smiled sadly in return.
Brilliant. Things were going real fucking peachy. He still had no idea why his entire body felt like shit and why they kept looking at him sadly.
"Yuri… Do you really not remember?" Viktor asked. When he was met with a blank stare, he turned to Yuuri, mumbling things about hospital and concussion.
The h-word was like a pin in his balloon of pride. Yuri groaned. "Remember what, old man? I passed out right around the time my mother's boyfriend started punching Beka. Which only happened because Beka pushed me behind him so he could take the hits rather than me. So, no, sorry for not fucking remembering what happened while I was unconscious. Next time I'll remember to put on my body cam before going to see my shit stain of a mother."
He was shouting, hand curled tightly into fists, digging his nails into the fleshy part of his hands. Otabek was on him in an instant- wrapping a strong arm around his shoulders and tapping the backs of his knuckles until Yuri relaxed. Something told Viktor that this had happened before. He was beginning to understand why they spent so much time around each other.
"Hey, it's okay." The Kazakh whispered, comforting him in a way Viktor and Yuuri would never be able to. Yuri was difficult, they all knew that. After almost five minutes he still looked ready to punch something.
"How the fuck did we even get here?" He was loud enough to be heard by all of them, however the question was aimed towards Otabek.
"Viktor was parked outside. I carried you out after he-" Otabek gestured towards his injured face "-and he called out to me, so I got in his car and he took us here. Your mother's boyfriend, I… I think he had a knife Yura. I don't think we can go back there."
Both adults were shocked to see that Otabek looked to be near tears. Saying everything out loud must have made it sink in a little more, and only now was he realising how much danger they had been in. Yuuri had to stop himself from reaching out to put a comforting hand on Otabek's arm.
Fortunately, the threat of tears made Yuri's mouth snap shut. He was as surprised as the other two. He didn't know what to do- evidenced by his hesitant hand movements and the way he was frowning. In the end, he just blinked and chewed on his bottom lip, looking back and forth between Yuuri and Viktor.
"A… a knife?"
Viktor nodded sadly.
"Fuck." The blond laughed bitterly. "That would have been a way to go."
"Now do you understand why we brought you here? Otabek was injured, so we took care of him. He also had-" Yuuri glanced at Otabek, asking for permission to tell. Otabek nodded once. "-uh, a lot of infected wounds up his arms. We took care of that, too. And you were sleeping on our couch because Otabek explained that you were exhausted and needed the rest. That's what happened. We're here to look after you."
Yuri still didn't want to believe it. His entire life had been spent learning the hard way that you couldn't trust adults with anything. Nobody genuinely wanted to look after him, nobody actually cared about his wellbeing. If he stepped out of line he'd get his ass beat and no meals for a week. Why the fuck were these geezers any different?
He glanced at Otabek. And then stared at his bandages, at the neat strips that kept the cut above his eye closed, and remembered how impossibly hard it was to gain Otabek's trust. Only he had that trust.
But if Otabek had allowed them to touch him, let alone see his cuts (which Yuri knew were going to end up getting infected, for fucks sake), then… maybe they were telling the truth?
He still didn't believe it. But the couch was soft and no knife-wielding maniacs would find them here.
"Fine. But if you really want to look after me, then I'm fucking starving and I want to have a shower."
The park behind the school had always been disgusting, but now apparently the cleaner had died or some shit, because the trash cans were overflowing and someone had spray-painted a variety of racial slurs across the slide. Sara questioned why Mila had wanted to meet here, but only in her head. Mila wasn't the kind of person you said no to.
"It's fucked, really, ain't it?" The redhead said, black-painted lips parted from around her cigarette. If you looked closely, you could see a ring of black around the filter.
"What is?"
"Like, all this." She gestured broadly around her. "Everything. This town, this park, the people. The whole fuckin' lot. It's all fucked." Pausing to take a drag, Mila locked eyes with Sara. The wind changed direction at the exact wrong time and the smoke from the exhale blew directly into the brunette's face; though Sara didn't say a word in protest despite being asthmatic. Mila wasn't the kind of person you protested against, either.
"Yeah. Not that we've ever known anything better."
"I coulda done. If my daddy had managed to pass me off to those creepy rich guys who he brought home so they could call me beautiful, I could be far away from this shit hole. Y'know, like, lounging in a hot tub somewhere exotic."
"Prostituting yourself to weirdos who are forty years older than you." Sara rolled her eyes, used to her friend's ludicrous fantasies by now. Mila simply laughed and took another drag.
"Nah, prostituting is more your thing, ain't it honey?"
Sara stayed silent and forced a smile.
It was way, way past the kindergarten bedtime that Michele enforced on her every night. No doubt he'd be going crazy, working himself into a real state, convinced that she was dead or snorting coke somewhere or anything completely ridiculous. And when she'd try to silently slip through the door later, he'd be on her in a second. Scolding her for not following his rules. Saying how she's going to end up a junkie if she insisted on misbehaving and doing thoughtless things. Like always, she would just nod and apologise and do the exact same thing the very next night.
It wasn't his fault that he was protective. That was what their childhood therapist had told them, anyway. Brothers had a natural instinct to protect their siblings- especially if they had been through something traumatic together.
'Cause yeah, poor them, the little Crispinos sobbing because their crackhead parents had accidentally taken too much and ended up in a funeral parlour. Silly oblivious Sara crying because she didn't understand why mommy and daddy were gone. Devastated Michele who knew a little bit more, could piece some things together, left with the responsibility to be the man of the house and take care of his twin.
Sara scoffed at the memory. Protective. Maybe he had been, once upon a time, but that had long since bloomed into an obsessive ideology of possession.
He wasn't a bad guy, Micky. She loved him in her own way. But he was like a snake around a rat to her; choking, suffocating, never releasing his grip, never letting go, never letting her gasp for air, and so what if she went out and fucked random guys sometimes? So what if they gave her money as a thank-you for her letting them face-fuck her in a gross alleyway? To her, it was a big middle finger to the handcuffs Michele kept her in.
She wasn't ashamed of it. But Mila's tone stung a little; it was like she was making fun of Sara for doing what she did.
Of course, she didn't say anything.
Mila wasn't the kind of person you stood up to.
"I wonder where Yuri and Otabek were these past couple days." Sara muttered, explicitly changing the subject to one she knew Mila would be interested in. Sure enough, the response was immediate.
"I know, I swear I go through withdrawal when he isn't there. His face is like a drug to me."
"Jesus, you've never sounded more like a gross lovesick teenager."
Mila made a face. "What? He's hot. I bet he's great in bed. If he wasn't, like, totally gay for Yuri, I would have had that Kazakh dick a long time ago."
"That's the only thing you want from him? Dick? After you called me a whore?"
The two of them grinned at each other. Mila stubbed her cigarette out on the bench and threw it somewhere to the left of her. "Come on, it's not like he'd be good at conversation. I just wanna rip his clothes off and-"
"Spare me the details." Sara laughed, playfully nudging her friend with her shoulder, refusing to let her mind wander to what Mila was thinking of. Okay, Altin was undeniable hot- but he was also only 5 foot 6 and permanently glued to Plisetsky's side. So neither of them had any chance.
"Anyway," she begun, wanting to change the subject, "how's things at home? Your mom still abroad?"
Mila immediately rolled her eyes and reached into her pocket in search of another cigarette. When she came up empty she groaned. "Yep, still in Croatia and fucking her boy toy. Most likely completely forgot all about me since I ain't got as much as a fuckin' phone call for nearly three months." She laughed bitterly, tucking her hair behind her ears. Sara stared a little, admiring the countless piercings. She had never been able to get her ears pierced. Her parents wouldn't pay for it, and Michele would go crazy if she tried to now. But perhaps that was a reason to get them done. She'd have to ask Mila where she went for them.
"Shit, that blows. Sorry babe."
The redhead shrugged. "Bitch can choke for all I fuckin' care. Besides, daddy left his house to me so other than school I'm pretty much free. Well, until he gets out of prison that is, but that's decades into the future and by that time I'll be rich and married off to a hot Spanish guy."
Sara laughed awkwardly.
Mila was… a confusing girl. She'd had a pretty fucked up childhood- like they all had- and as a result her head wasn't in the right place a lot of the time. Last week, Sara had asked the same question, and Mila had said her mother was on a work trip in Germany and called her every weekend with updates and check-ups. Either she lied to hide the unpleasant reality, or the various stories she made up in her head had gotten so messed up that she didn't know truth from tale anymore.
Her daddy was another matter. Rumours were powerful things, and Sara quickly decided she'd rather believe Mila's rendition of the story- that he was locked up for fraud- rather than the game of Chinese whispers that spoke about possession of child pornography and assisted drug trafficking.
(But considering the 50-year sentence, not even opaque black walls could hide the reality.)
She glanced over her friend. Brown eyes locked with icy blue ones for just a second, and in that fleeting moment Sara saw an amount of pain she'd never be able to forget. Mila's mascara had smudged from the days stress and made her look ten years older. She was slumped over, idly kicking the ground below her, humming a song that Sara could probably recognise if she tried, but didn't have the energy to.
Maybe she tried to be tough, tried to start fights in the school yard and turned up drunk once a week, however her bitten nails and sleeve cuffs that had faded from being played with suggested otherwise.
Sara looked at her hair, and her makeup, and decided that she wouldn't get her ears pierced after all.
Because she had enough of her own shit to deal with. And she didn't want to look like Mila.
Mila Babicheva wasn't the kind of person you got close to.
"I've got a plan."
"A plan?"
"Yeah. It's flawed in many ways but it's better than nothing right now."
Yuuri stared at the assortment of documents spread out on the coffee table before him, one hand massaging his temples and the other holding his third mug of tea of the evening. Some sheets had been pulled from long-forgotten storage boxes, cupboards containing files from his uni days- even a decade-old phonebook sat proudly in the centre of the brown oak. The printer had been connected only so he could print conversation screenshots from his phone, as well as a few contact details. His plan was rocky, required a little bit of luck, and was nowhere near guaranteed to work. But it was something.
Viktor sat opposite him, smiling encouragingly in his direction. "Well? What is it? And what's with all this paper?"
Yuuri shuffled a few sheets around. "Most of them are old uni documents, training notes, that sort of thing." He picked up one in particular and handed it to his boyfriend. "That's an old friend of mine. Phichit Chulanont. We roomed together in uni, and he moved back to Thailand after he got his social working degree."
"He's cute." Viktor smiled politely, but then frowned. "What has he got to do with our situation, exactly?"
"Because," Yuuri smirked, evidently proud of himself, "he works in child protection. Specifically with teenagers who come from rough backgrounds, and he did a minor course in housing and business. So…"
He watched as it gradually dawned on Viktor. First the man maintained his confused frown, which then softened into a slight crease between his eyebrows. Then, like a lightbulb being switched on, his entire face lit up and he stared at Yuuri with wide eyes.
"Y-you mean…? Really? Get them their own place to live?"
Yuuri giggled, amused at his boyfriend's adorable surprise. "Well, we can both agree that Yuri cannot go back to living at home, what with his mother and the obvious danger there. The town council isn't going to want to deal with another kid potentially going into foster care. He is sixteen, so it's perfectly legal for him to have his own place. And it isn't like Otabek is going to turn down the offer."
"That's- oh, baby, you're a genius! I'm dating a genius." Viktor leaned over the table to press a kiss against Yuuri's nose. "When can we get started? Does he speak English? What's the time zone in Thailand?"
"Ah, well, that's the problem." Yuuri deflated slightly. He pulled the phone book over to him, plus the phone contact print-offs, and jabbed a finger at them. "I lost contact with him after he moved, and his old numbers redirect me so some dodgy Thai phone company. Finding him again is going to be a challenge. Besides, even if I can track him down, I have no idea if he'd be willing to fly out here and help us with this shit. There's going to be legal documents, paperwork to sign, the full nine yards, and there's the issue with Yuri's mother potentially putting up a fight, and oh fuck his sick grandfather needs help too, and-"
"Hey, calm down. We've got a starting point, da? We'll find him. I'm a master of social media stalking: just you watch me." Viktor winked, tapping the bump in his jacket pocket where his phone was kept. "Judging by Yuri's description of her, his mother is too drunk to notice him half the time, so there will be no legal fight. This is gonna be okay. You did good, baby, real good."
He kissed him again, deeply this time. Feeling the heat of his lips against his own. Viktor was tempted to grab the front of his shirt to deepen their embrace- but then the bathroom door unlocked and they sprang apart. Yuri and Otabek were finished in the shower (either joint or separate; Viktor didn't really want to know) and they were both probably exhausted and wanted to be shown to their room.
"Let's tell them after we get more information." Viktor suggested. Yuuri nodded, pushed himself up, and left to direct the teenagers to their bed for the night.
From his seat on the couch he could hear Yuuri's concerned questions regarding how they were feeling. Did they need any more ice, painkillers, anything else to eat before they went to bed? Naturally, Yuri responded with a crass "we're just tired, stop fretting like a mother hen" but Viktor was pleased to hear Otabek mumble a quiet "everything is fine, thank you, sir". The hallway went silent as Yuuri showed them to their room.
Viktor closed his eyes, succumbing to the heaviness of his eyelids. It had been a long, stressful day. He thought back to when he had been parked in a random driveway on Yuri's street, contemplating leaving and giving up, and was so fucking glad he had decided to hang on for just ten more minutes. Even if the prospect of a warm meal and cuddling his boyfriend was calling him. If he had decided to leave… fuck. His class may have become even smaller. He would never have forgiven himself.
Maybe it was his childhood dreams of being a superhero that were resurfacing, but Viktor could admit that he felt slightly proud of himself. He was the first to acknowledge that he wasn't great at controlling his emotions some of the time, yet he had managed to keep it together long enough to help the kids. And so what if he was planning on having a little stress cry on Yuuri's chest later- he deserved it, and no-one needed to know. Their trash can was full of blood stained tissues and bandage wrappers and he hadn't even shed a tear yet.
His intentions of wresting his eyes for a second apparently got out of hand. Viktor awoke to Yuuri carding his fingers through his silver hair, smiling sweetly, looking just as beautiful as he had when he first set eyes on him.
"Hey, lovely." He whispered. Voice like silk. "The boys passed out almost immediately. Let's go to bed now, yeah?"
Viktor sighed in relief, his hand reaching out to clasp Yuuri's. "Yeah. It's been crazy today, huh?"
A small laugh, and Yuuri helped Viktor to his feet. He nodded in agreement as the two of them made their way to the bathroom.
"You think they'll be okay?" Viktor asked through a mouthful of toothpaste foam. Anyone else would have found it gross, but to Yuuri it was endearing.
"Yeah. We can try to find Phichit tomorrow, and also get some groceries 'cause I suppose they're going to be staying with us until we can figure something out."
"Oh, fuck, yeah, I didn't even think of that. Is that even… legal?" A lawsuit for kidnapping was the last thing Viktor wanted to deal with. He rinsed his mouth out and splashed his face with warm water.
"You shouldn't rinse after brushing. It gets rid of the fluoride on your teeth."
"Yes, sir."
"And we don't really have any other choice but to house them here, do we? We're lucky they're both 16 or over, otherwise we might have had a couple issues. We'll be fine."
Viktor recognised that tone: Yuuri used it whenever he was trying to convince himself of something, rather than reassuring someone else. Still, his words sounded accurate, and the comforts were better than nothing, so Viktor decided that it'd be fine. Too late to think about all that, anyway. It was too late and they were too tired.
"Goodnight, my love." Yuuri whispered when they were finally swathed in their duvet.
"Goodnight. Thank you for today, for everything."
"Always. You did the right thing."
Viktor smiled. For once, he agreed.
The boy was sat outside on the cool concrete steps that led to an old building. Perhaps it was an abandoned town hall, or an ancient block of flats that fell into disrepair years ago. It didn't matter either way; it was too dark for him to be seen, too dangerous to come close, too irrelevant for anyone to care.
Trash littered the pavement. Rats crawled around by the overturned cans, searching for scraps, making a mess that would never be cleaned up. He couldn't see them, but he could hear them fighting and running over each other. The thought made his skin crawl.
(Most of his thoughts lately made his skin crawl.)
His vision was becoming blurry. After-effects of having the shit beaten out of him, just because he had said no to the sick games his father had wanted to play, but it was whatever. He wouldn't have to worry about all that soon. Soon, the guilt would fall off his shoulders, and he would no longer have to carry years of self-disgust that clung like chains tied to his ankles. Soon.
How he got to the building was a mystery- the hours he had spent walking in any direction had been lost in a dissociated blur, a gust of wind that blew over him and carried away the echo of the pain in his head. He might have been five miles away from his home. No, ten. Twenty? Distance was irrelevant. It was all in the past, everything that had happened, no point in worrying about it now.
He didn't want to do this. Truly, he just wanted things to get better, he didn't want to take drastic action. But his mind was a cesspit and his father was a monster and 'better' was a foreign language to him.
Sometimes, you had to do the opposite of what you wanted.
He sighed.
The concrete steps were cold and the building was abandoned and Emil was grateful for the spot he had chosen because here, no kids would find him, no innocent old ladies would be traumatised. Only druggies and gangs hung out where the rats played.
Emil held the blade against his wrist and pressed as hard as he could.
Thanks for reading, and please take 20 secs to leave a review if you can! It really helps me keep writing because I rely solely on positive reinforcement and attention from others lmao (tbh this fic is at least partially a vent fic)
Special thanks to those who let me know what they think of each chapter. I really appreciate all of you so much and I will make sure to thank you personally when I post the final chapter (tho I'm not too sure when that's gonna be)
lov yall