Chapter 4: Empty

Yuuri, I can't write this down because I can't move my body and I can't wake myself up. Mostly, it's just dark here, but then there are sudden, intense visions, loud noises, strong smells and sensations, and none of them are pleasant.

It's really scary.

Out of the blackness, I hear you telling me you're leaving. I hear your footsteps and the door closing between us. For a moment, I feel the closeness of your body to mine and I smell that attractive scent that's always on you. Not one you wear, but one that comes from within you. As you leave, that scent fades away.

My body aches so badly for something.

God, I know I've been neglecting myself. It's not on purpose. I've been dealing with this place that's not my home, people who don't like me, truths about myself that I don't want to know. It's not that I'm not trying, but that I'm lost in a new place and I don't know what to do to get back to you. It's not as simple as going to groups, doing chores and training myself to act the right way.

Something deep inside me has to change.

The hunger that I feel should be for food and water, for shelter, for home…and for you. But the desperate feeling coming out of my core is crying out for something that's not good for me. I have to be honest.

I do want a drink right now.

Why, you ask?

Yes, I know it's bad for me. I know that it's a crutch, like Doctor Bershov said. I know like Yakov told me a hundred times, it doesn't make things better, and it often makes them worse. But alcohol makes me feel numb. It shuts down the intense emotions I don't want to feel. I don't want to feel that Modya hated and hurt me for things I had no control over. I don't want to feel the loneliness of being the new boy at the dormitory, of hearing that my family wasn't coming to visit for my birthday, of girlfriends leaving me, of feeling lost in my career and like life is passing me by and leaving me with no one, of trying to reach the person who I finally feel is 'the one' but having him reject me repeatedly, of meaning to help him, but only hurting him…of wanting to lose myself in him, of losing him.

I can't lose him and I don't want to lose myself.

Those feelings are all too strong and too painful, and they scream in my head until I don't want to hear them anymore.

Drinking has always made things quiet in my head and it's always made my heart calm down so that I can focus on other things. If I can just not feel, then I can keep moving forward, even if I lose everything. I know it's stupid, but until now, that's how I've coped with everything life could throw at me.

What do I do now, Yuuri?

What do I do when my heart won't stop wanting to be with you, my mind knows that you're the only thing that matters, but my body has been trained for much of my life to drown out the inner voice that tells me what I need. Maybe all of the times you rejected me, and all of the times I messed up and nearly lost you are making me worried that I don't deserve you. I know I can't live without you, but I also fear I'm going to ruin things, so I just want to feel numb instead of knowing what life feels like without you.

It would be so easy to open a bottle of something strong, to feel it burn down my throat and to take a shaky, relieved breath as I feel the emotions fade away.

Emotions hurt. Emotions make my insides clench. When something hurts my emotions, I feel like I can't breathe. I feel like I can't move. I feel completely helpless.

As a competitive figure skater, I learned to manipulate my emotions. I learned that if I took the bad things I felt and made a program that captured them, I could release them in an art form that actually made them beautiful. So many times, I built my programs out of my own inner pain. I had costumes made and music composed that embraced that pain and made it so lovely that even as people watching me cried, they couldn't help loving my pain that was laid out in front of them. And they had no idea at all what they were really looking at.

Stay Close To Me

That performance, from beginning to end, was a cry for help. Every time I performed it, I radiated that longing that had grown so fierce inside my soul that I couldn't contain it anymore. The audience saw it as one of the most beautiful of my creations, but it shattered me to dance it. I was already living it every long day and every lonely night.

The only person in all of the world who heard me crying was Yuuri Katsuki.

He understood because inside, he was crying too, for the same thing.

Yuuri is what I need, but to get back to him, I have to stop being afraid of my own pain. I can't be afraid that he'll hurt me. I can't be afraid of him leaving me. I have to find the inner strength to put my love in his hands completely and to accept that it's a risk. He might hurt me. He might leave me.

But whatever happens or doesn't happen, I have to know I'm able to handle it…not by sinking into the bottom of a bottle, but by just being a stronger person.

How do I do that?

How?

It's strange.

Asking myself that question made everything around me quiet again. Another vision is coming to me, and this one is different. I can feel it.

I find myself dressed in warm clothes and sitting underneath a leafless tree beside a frozen lake. I hug Maccachin to my chest and watch as someone dances on the ice in front of me. I think it must be Yuuri, because he moves with grace, and he looks like he loves each movement he makes. Yes, dancing on the ice makes him so happy. But as he moves closer, I see his hair is too light and he's too tall to be Yuuri.

This is me, then?

It does look like me, but something is different.

What changed?

Why do I look like I'm happy to the core? Why do I look so untroubled? How did I get from here to there?

In front of me, this person who could be me comes to a stop. Someone else is on the ice now, and is moving towards him. They meet in the middle and this different me radiates a joy I only wish I could feel.

But I can't feel anything.

Why?

I know why.

Because since I was fourteen years old, I've been numbing myself to the painful things and not realizing…alcohol doesn't just take away the hurt and the bad feelings, it takes all of the good ones too. I can't be that person who is dancing so perfectly happy with Yuuri in front of me…because right now, I am in the grip of a monster worse than Modya.

I am scared.

I am alone.

And this thing that I always thought of as a safe place to turn, is slowly destroying me.

What do I do now?

XXXXXXXXXX

"Victor?" a man's voice calls.

I feel so dizzy.

Go away.

"Do you know where you are, Victor?" the voice asks.

Stefan?

Where is Yuuri?

"Y-yuuri?" I manage, still not opening my eyes.

"It's Stefan."

Oh right. I'm in rehab. It's the first week, so there is a blackout. That's why he's not here. Maybe I know why they have the blackout now. Detoxification is ugly. No one should see that.

I crack my eyes open a little so that I can see him. He looks relieved, but he still looks worried too.

"Do you know where you are?" he asks again.

"Hell?" I joke wryly, "It feels like it, anyway."

That I can make a joke takes a little more of the worry out of his eyes.

"You're in the infirmary."

The infirmary?

Why?

"How did I get here?" I ask.

That's the point at which I see the IV in my arm and feel adrenaline spike in my body, making my heart pound and blood rush in my ears. For a moment, the room I'm in disappears and I'm back in that house, tied down to a table with Modya leaning over me and cutting my arm so that he can replace my blood with his own.

"Take it out!" I shout at the Modya I see.

I reach to try to pull the damned thing out myself, but Stefan grabs one of my wrists and a male nurse grabs the one with the IV. They wrap something around my arms so that I can't move them.

"TAKE IT OUT!" I scream, blinking and squinting as the image I see shifts back and forth between Modya and Stefan.

Fuck, what is happening?

This…it's a hallucination?

Is it?

"Victor, it's just an IV," Stefan says in a calm, firm voice, "You need to have it until you are eating and drinking again."

"I don't want it. Take it out," I snap back at him.

He leans closer, looking sternly into my eyes.

"It will come out when you are eating and drinking again," he tells me, "not until."

Maybe it's because I feel cornered, or maybe I'm confused. I don't know the reason, but anger wells up in my chest and I start yelling at him, since with the restraints I can't do anything else.

"You goddamned monster! You know I can't tolerate needles. GET THAT FUCKING THING OUT OF ME, NOW!"

I'm so angry, I'm feeling dizzy again.

"Stefan," the male nurse says warningly, "his heart rate and blood pressure are getting pretty high."

Stefan remains leaned over me, looking into my enraged eyes, and suddenly I remember being little, hiding in my brother's room and Servil holding me tightly as my father's footsteps approached.

Don't let the monster in.

Don't let the monster in.

I suck in a breath that really hurts and release it again at Stefan.

"I'm not letting you into my head, you monster!"

Stefan's eyes show a hint of sadness and he gives the nurse a little nod. Out of the corner of one eye, I see the nurse inject something into the IV line. As Stefan continues to gaze steadily into my eyes, my body starts to feel numb and my heart slows down. Breathing feels harder and I start to feel sleepy, so I don't have the energy to yell at them anymore.

"Victor," Stefan says, putting his hand on mine, "listen to me. I'm not the monster. It's not me. The monster is already inside you. We're trying to help you get it out. That's all. I promise."

"Why should I t-trust you?" I whisper as I start to drop off.

Stefan lets out a breath and touches my face very gently.

"You've trusted me up to now, right?"

"Yes."

"I just really need you to trust me right now. Everything we're doing…is trying to help you."

My eyelids get so heavy, I have to close my eyes, but I manage one more word that makes him look like he wants to cry.

"Okay."

When I wake up again, Stefan and the nurse are gone, but Vasily is sitting beside the bed, resting his face on his hand and watching me. His face is really pale and he looks like he must feel awful, but he's smiling as he sees my eyes opening.

"So, you decided to stop being such a lazy ass and wake up?" he teases me, giving me one of my own cute winks.

"You look like hell warmed over," I laugh weakly, "Why are you here and not resting?"

"I'm resting," he argues, "See? Not doing anything. I just…heard you were giving Stefan and Nurse Ivkin a hard time before."

"Yeah, I was a little out of it."

That's an understatement.

God, I'm so glad that Yuuri didn't see any of that.

I look quietly at the restraints for a moment, and he reads my thoughts perfectly.

"I can't take them off," he says apologetically, "But…if you try to get some water down, maybe some gelatin, then they might take them off and take out that IV. What do you say?"

I feel too weak from being hungry for so long to argue, so I just nod and he brings a cup of cool water to my lips. I choke a little on it, because my mouth and throat are really dry, but I get a few sips down.

"How long have I been here?"

"Two days."

"I was passed out for two days?" I ask.

That just doesn't seem possible.

"Mostly, when you weren't having flashbacks and screaming at Stefan and the nurses."

"I didn't yell at you, did I?" I ask.

"Nope. I wasn't here until just about an hour ago. I was too messed up. Sorry, I didn't get here faster."

"It's okay. I would feel bad if I was shitty to someone who wasn't at least being paid to take my crap. It would suck if my only friend here left me."

"Are you kidding me?" Vasily laughs, "I'm not going anywhere."

He gives me another little wink.

"I'm an inmate, just like you!" he giggles, setting me off.

"Oh, it hurts to laugh," I groan.

"You're a mess, Victor," he says, shaking his head.

"This, coming from you? That's funny."

I try a little of the gelatin, and I want to eat more, but my stomach quails and a few minutes later, I throw it back up.

"Damn it! I want to be out of here. I hate hospitals, needles, restraints."

"They're just doing it so you won't rip out a vein while you're detoxing and kill yourself," he sighs, "Been there, done that."

"I'm trying," I groan, "I can't help it if my stupid body won't let me eat. I don't know what's wrong with me!"

"Stress," Stefan says as he and Nurse Ivkin appear in the doorway behind Vasily, "turbulent emotions, exhaustion, going pretty much without eating solid food for three days now. Detoxification. It's tough. You have to take it slowly."

"Stefan," I plead more softly, "I promise I won't pull out the IV. Just, at least let me have my hands free so I can feed myself and go to the bathroom. This is humiliating!"

"I know."

He doesn't have to explain to me how he knows. He's been here. He's done this. He knows better than I do, exactly what I need right now. Even though I hate it, I understand.

"Victor," he says, sitting down beside Vasily, "when you came here, you essentially put your life in my hands."

"Yes, but…"

"I will not do anything that will put your life at risk."

"But, I promised you I wouldn't…"

"I don't know that," he says quietly, "and right now? You don't know that either. It's just until we get you able to eat and drink and we can take the IV out."

If it wasn't humiliating enough to not be able to eat, drink or go to the bathroom on my own, it's a hundred times worse when tears start leaking out of my eyes and down my face and I can't hide them or wipe them away.

"I am trying as hard as I can to eat and drink," I tell him in a shaking voice, "I can't help it if I keep throwing it back up. I'm not doing that on purpose!"

"I know," Stefan reassures me, "Don't worry. The IV fluids are keeping your body stable. We'll get you eating and drinking again. You just have to try and keep on trying. If you throw it back up, then wait a little while and try again. Victor, for the next few days, this is your only task. It's all I'm going to ask of you. Try and keep on trying."

I want to scream at him, but I already know it's not going to change anything. I have no choice but to trust him and do what he says.

"Can you bring Maccachin?" I ask as Vasily washes my face with a damp cloth.

"I'm sorry," the nurse interjects, "animals aren't allowed in the infirmary."

Stefan's head tilts slightly as he looks at me.

"Service animals are," he says quietly.

Nurse Ivkin's eyes narrow.

"His dog is not a trained service animal," he says firmly.

"No," Stefan agrees, "I am Victor's recovery specialist and I am classifying Maccachin as a comfort animal. That means he receives the same consideration as any other service animal."

He gives Vasily a little nod.

"Will you please bring Maccachin?" he asks.

I can see Nurse Ivkin is skeptical, but he sighs and shakes his head, frowning as though I'm a naughty child who has just gotten away with something.

As soon as I feel Macca's tongue lick my restrained hand and his soft fur touch my skin, I feel a weight taken off, and I relax and focus on what my counselor advised me to do. It takes another full day, but I start to eat and drink soft foods, and finally the restraints come off and the IV comes out. I have to spend a last night in the infirmary, but Maccachin sleeps with me. It's the first time in a long time I sleep so deeply, or for such a long time.

When I wake again, I'm released, and Vasily walks Maccachin and me back to my room.

"Thanks for staying with me," I say, hugging him.

"Thanks for staying with me," he answers, hugging me back, "I'll see you for breakfast. Stefan excused us from chores for a couple of days, so we'll have plenty of time and no bullshit."

"Sounds good. I'll see you then."

I turn into my room and collapse onto my creaky bed, just glad to not be in the infirmary anymore. I find my journal sitting on the nightstand and open it to make an entry, but as I do, a picture falls out, and I feel my insides turn to ice.

It's a photo of me in the infirmary, the restraints moved so that my hands are bound above my head. My clothes have been removed so that I'm naked and sensuously posed. On the back is a message.

Your blood is red, your eyes turquoise blue

Your skin petal soft, and sweet fragrant too

Your lips rosy pink as they exhale each breath

Be careful of your words, lest they summon death