The walk home was silent. Not a comfortable silence, like before when Viktor and Yuuri would just lay on the couch together and exist. It was an apprehensive, thick feeling silence, tension rolling off of Yuuri and crashing into Viktor, keeping them at opposite ends of the sidewalk. Yuuri stared at the ground, not breaking eye contact with the cracked pavement and occasional blade of grass. Viktor kept glancing at Yuuri, wishing for his fiancé's tears to stop, and wishing to know why they were still falling. Or why they'd begun falling in the first place.

"How'd it go?" Yurio was in the foyer almost before Yuuri and Viktor had crossed the threshold, Phichit not far behind. Otabek stayed slightly back, still not completely comfortable with the whole situation. "Yuuri, what's…" Yurio was cut off by a tear-filled death glare, a look he'd never received from Yuuri.

"You guys okay…?" Phichit took a step back as he asked, wanting a head start if he needed it.

"Yeah." Viktor nodded, not quite believing his own response. "Why don't you go shower, I'll be up soon." Viktor suggested. Yuuri didn't even nod, just turned on his heel and stalked slowly upstairs, feeling four pairs of eyes staring after him.

"Viktor…?" Phichit asked, once Yuuri was out of earshot and the water was running upstairs.

He ran a hand through his silver hair with a sigh before answering. "I don't know what happened. Well… maybe I know part of it? We were skating, his free program music from last year came on, and he started performing it. He wasn't thinking about it, went for the quad flip and bailed. He didn't seem hurt, but I made him sit for the rest of the time while I practiced. When I got off the ice, he was crying and wouldn't tell me why. He said it was nothing but…"

"Damn…" Phichit sighed, chewing on his lower lip. "Not this again…"

"What?" Yurio perked up, demanding an answer in the simple word. "Not what again?"

"He did this sometimes in Detroit." Phichit partially collapsed into the wall, breathing heavily. "I'd walk past him in the kitchen or something and he'd be staring at the wall, an hour or so later I'd come back and he would be in the same position, still just staring. Sometimes he would be crying. When he came out of it, he'd tell me it was nothing at first and get really defensive about it; later he would tell me what was bothering him, and it was always really bad."

"Like what?" Viktor demanded, immediately fearing the worst.

Phichit pinched the bridge of his nose, all of his usual chipper cheer gone. "Usually he was picturing hurting himself, or thinking about… suicide…" His voice was barely a whisper, but in Viktor's ears it sounded like a steamboat's horn. Deafening. Too close for comfort. "He never did any of that stuff, I didn't let him. Just… we need to keep an eye on him. All of us."

Everyone nodded, mostly too shocked to do anything. To hear that Yuuri had had these thoughts made Viktor feel like someone was tearing his insides apart, shredding them into spaghetti, devouring them along with any remanence of Viktor's happiness as the sauce. A deep, dull ache settled somewhere in his torso, reaching out to every edge of his skin, making him feel nauseated.

"What would you do, when he did that?" Otabek seemed to be the only one capable of forming a coherent thought. "To snap him out of it?"

"Usually just talking to him would work. If not then making a loud sound like clapping in his face. That was only when he was really lost in his own head, though."

"Yurio?" Viktor caught a glimpse of the sparkle that fell from the younger boy's chin to the ground at his feet. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Yurio kept his face to the ground, but his defiant voice cracked under the pressure.

"Yura." Otabek pressed. "People don't cry over nothing."

"Sometimes they do."

Viktor felt as though the words had physically punched him in the stomach. The same words he and Yuuri had exchanged at the rink earlier.

"Yeah, but you don't." Otabek opened his arms and Yurio nuzzled into his chest, heaving a shaking sigh.

"I'm scared." The words tumbled past his lips with no permission from his brain. He hadn't even been sure what the problem was until he voiced it aloud. But once he said it, it was undoubtedly true. He was terrified.

"What are you scared of?" Viktor reached out a hand and rested it on Yurio's shoulder, assuming it was probably the same thing he was afraid of.

"I don't want to… no… no I can't lose him." Yurio sunk deeper into Otabek, letting the tears flow more freely.

"Hey." Phichit snapped. "We're not losing him. If I managed to keep both of us alive in Detroit, the four of us together can manage it no problem."

"Viktor, I think you should look into getting a therapist." Otabek suggested.

"How is he going to see a therapist if he can't even speak?" Yurio piped up from Otabek's t-shirt, not bothering to lift his head.

"I meant for Viktor." Otabek clarified. "You too. It's been rough on you, Yura."

"I'm fine." Yuri lifted his face, revealing just how not fine he was.

"You're not." Otabek shook his head. "It will do you some good. And you might get some new ideas on how to help Yuuri."

"I'll look into it." Viktor nodded. "For you too, Yuri."

Yurio just nodded, staying latched onto Otabek like a koala, while the rest of them stood in silence. A mutual feeling of anxiety emanated from everyone, settling somewhere in the centre of their blob-like circle, as all of them feared for what the future may have held.