heyyy uh sorry for the slow update (again) and thank u so much for the lovely reviews!

This chapter contains a tiny rape mention and abuse mentions

also I won't be updating Haze for a little longer because I'm not as motivated for that one:/ I'm not abandoning it tho dw

okay cool hope you enjoy

Otabek wasn't okay.

That was the first thing Yuri noticed when he regrettably regained consciousness the next morning (or was it afternoon already?) and the realisation hit him harder than he thought it would. Well, he was aware that his best friend was fucked up, like he was, like all of E2 were, but his feelings towards the subject were somewhat grey. A result of a childhood spent numbing his feelings. Or something like that.

The older teen was already awake, rummaging through the pockets of the jeans he discarded the night before, a frown on his face that was bordering on a snarl. Black denim fisted in his hand, he cursed softly before running a hand through his hair. Looking for something- something important, probably, and Yuri didn't know whether to indicate that he had awoken.

But it wasn't the scenario that raised concern. It was the way Otabek looked.

Fuck, Yuri Plisetsky could recognise a black eye from three miles away. He had certainly received far too many to count. The display of bruises across his friend's skin made a black eye look like a papercut. Reds, blues, purple smears of damaged flesh crawled from his temple down to his lip, almost zig-zagging across his face, as if someone had hit him with a baseball bat on an angle. Those perfect cheekbones looked lopsided. Yuri hoped that it was a trick of the dim light and not a fracture or even a break. And if he squinted, the blond could make out a consistent trembling of Otabek's hands, a trembling that steadily progressed into an uncontrolled shake that could only be induced by pure, undiluted fear.

In the end, Yuri didn't need to come up with a way to break the icy silence, as Otabek took the first step.

"Yuri. Yura, wake up, we need to go. Now." A hand on Yuri's shoulder shook him roughly, coming as a surprise from Otabek, who only ever touched him gently and softly (unless Yuri had specifically requested otherwise when they were fucking).

"Hmm- what? Beks, what's happened? Y'alright?"

"He knows you're here."

"What?"

"He must have woken last night, my wallet and keys are gone, he knows you're here, he knows we-" Otabek swallowed and finally made eye contact with Yuri. Brown eyes had never looked so scared. "We need to leave."

It took a few seconds. A few crucial seconds of Yuri raising an eyebrow in confusion, slight amusement, worry, annoyance at the hurried words that were making his hangover feel worse. Then his face dropped and his eye twitched in a silent question. Otabek nodded a response.

He understood.

"Okay. Okay, Beka. I'll- I'll get dressed. When will he-"

"Ten minutes. He gets back from work in ten minutes. Yuri, I'm gonna write a note and leave it under my mother's pillow, can you get, uh… That backpack," he pointed, "and just shove clothes and shit in it. Just… you know. You know what to do."

Yuri nodded. He knew exactly what to do. He had run away from home countless times before.

Otabek nodded, lightly touched Yuri's knee, and stepped out the room after snatching a chewed biro and a sheet of loose paper from his desk.

Thoughts from the night before were still clouding his mind, images of vodka bottles and smashed glass and the sound of rocks tinkering against the bedroom window. His head was screaming at him to go back to sleep, his body was demanding that he at least take a shower, for god's sake, and his eyes still burned with the all-familiar aftermath of a breakdown.

Was it still Thursday? It must be, he was out drinking until the early hours of the morning. The school day had officially started long ago. Most of his classmates would be throwing condom wrappers at Nikiforov after Chris' sex ed class by now. Nikiforov himself would be wondering where two of his students were and probably considering calling home, because he was a stupid fucking idiot with the common sense of a dying goldfish, and he would certainly be passing the absence on to that therapist who stared too hard and bit his nails like a freak.

He imagined the scene. JJ laughing obnoxiously at the back. Emil blowing up condoms and throwing them at a pissed off Michele. Guang Hong either having a panic attack or making out with Leo behind the curtains. The weird one, Seung-gil, he'd be making fucking voodoo dolls or some shit.

For the first time in his life, the idea of being at school seemed better than his current situation. Yuri grimaced at the thought.

No time for pondering on maybes, he had something to do. After getting dressed Yuri emptied Otabek's school rucksack and threw the wardrobe door open.

Otabek's clothing choices consisted of black, black, leather, dark grey, the occasional scarf, heavy combat boots, black, and one of Yuri's old sweaters that had been stolen months ago. The abundance of dark material made it rather difficult to tell each fabric apart so he just grabbed a handful and began shoving as much as he could into the tattered bag. After the wardrobe came the chest of drawers, and Yuri figured they could forget about pyjamas- they'd only take up space- however he made sure to pack extra socks and underwear. A phone charger was wrapped around Otabek's pot of loose change, and, as an afterthought, Yuri grabbed a packet of paracetamol from under the bed and tucked it into the front pocket.

Yeah, he knew exactly how to make the perfect bench-sleeping survival kit.

"You good?" Otabek entered again suddenly, holding a few hygiene items in his hands, which he put into the pockets of his jacket before slipping his shoes on. Yuri nodded and followed suit. "Let's go. Out the window; he won't catch us if he leaves a bit early that way. I'll go first so I can catch you."

The Kazakh slung the back onto his back and began to lower himself out the window, a foolishly dangerous act in anyone else's eyes, but when you have a fucked-up home life and an equally fucked-up brain, you get used to that kind of stuff.

Once Otabek gave the go ahead, Yuri prayed that his body would cooperate, and his hands left the window sill at the exact same moment the front door opened.

"Go. Go, go, go, he's here, round front."

Both boys threw themselves over the garden gate and ran for their lives.

Ruslan Altin had been dubbed the male equivalent to Yuri's mother some time ago, when Otabek first described stories of his father's awful temper and violent tendencies. Not only was he arrogant, manipulative, and, quite frankly, terrifying, he was also aggressively homophobic and repeatedly told Otabek that if he would murder him if his son ever took it up the ass. His words exactly. Except sometimes he didn't say "murder", he'd think up more creative threats, each worse than the one before and all making Otabek loathe the man he had to call dad.

So Otabek could only take Yuri home when his parents were out for the night, even though both ached for more time together. Not necessarily fucking; just lying in Otabek's arms made Yuri's suicidal urges subside for just a moment. But life liked to fuck them around, and both boys were lumped with shitty abusive parents and could only find comfort in a razor blade when they weren't able to see each other.

Once, in a moment of alcohol-induced weakness, Yuri had asked about it.

"What the fuck did we even do wrong, y'know? All our lives we've been… fucking… beaten and neglected and we're just kids, dude. We're kids."

He was 14 at the time, and he had only met Otabek a couple months ago after he had been moved to E2. His new friend was 16. Both were drunk and smoking in an alleyway after a particularly bad weekend.

Otabek had shook his head at the words.

"We're not kids anymore. We never were. We got stripped of that right a long, long time ago."

Then they had fucked in the alleyway, and Yuri forgot about the entire conversation, and most of the details that followed.

Typical that he only remembered it when they were legging it down the road like lunatics away from a man who most likely craved to hurt them.

They ran until they were both panting and clutching at the stitch in their sides (which, considering Yuri's malnourished condition and Otabek's bruised body, didn't take long) and they stared around them with a lost expression across their faces. It wouldn't be safe for Otabek to go home for a few days. Not until his father had calmed down and a convincing lie was established. However neither were fond of the idea of sleeping rough- the streets of the neighbourhood were dangerous; druggies and crazy men littered the roads at the darkest hours, prostitutes would grope you without consent and breathe alcohol-stained breath in your face. If you were lucky enough on your first night to receive a simple punch in the nose rather than a knife between ribs, that luck would soon run out.

Everyone knew everyone here. Especially when you were a fuck-up.

That left one other option. And the thought of that made Yuri's gut clench almost at much.

"Beka", the blond panted, bent over with his hands planted on his knees, "you… you can stay with me. At mine." The idea was ludicrous- suicidal, even- but they didn't have any other choice.

Otabek looked shocked. "Yuri, are… are you sure? Your mother-"

"-Can go fuck herself." Yuri interrupted. "I ain't having you homeless. You're my best friend. We can sit through my mother's bullshit together."

They shared a look, bruises and a hangover illustrating their dismay, and Otabek nodded.

It was a terrible idea, but it was the only one they had.

(line break)

Three days. 72 exact hours since Viktor last saw Yuri, and 24 since he last saw Otabek. It was no mystery that his students fucking hated school, and would skive every day if given the opportunity, but after the threat of calling home the absences had stopped. Or at least significantly declined.

So this was… Weird. The fact that he found the disappearance of two non-committed assholes weird made it even weirder, and Viktor couldn't shake the uneasy feeling deep down.

He sat at his desk, chewing a pen, surveying the state of the classroom and thanking the Lord that 3pm seemed to come quickly today. With Chris' highly inappropriate sex ed talk, a class discussion on geometry, and a spontaneous art lesson, the carpet of E2 looked worse than it ever had. Not that the standards were any higher than one inch off the ground to begin with, but the sight of new paint stains and shredded paper littering the floor didn't help the ball of stress that was manifesting in Viktor's muscles. Teaching these kids was slightly easier now than it had been when he had first started, but Christ they knocked the wind out of him.

Emil's breakdown was unexpected. Viktor hadn't been paying attention, in all fairness, the rambling of Chris talking about dental dams and pointing at a whiteboard wasn't as fascinating as it had been the first time. So he was fiddling with an origami crane he had proudly made and thinking about whether Yuuri would be free at lunch. The sob sounded staged- borderline comical, even- but then another came, and another, and the sound of a repetitive banging, and Viktor looked up.

Everyone seemed to shrink back against the walls of the classroom, as if shying away from the messy-haired boy in the middle. Emil had his hands pressed against his ears and was hitting his head against the wood of his desk. Chris looked horrified, hand frozen in a point that gestured towards the board, mouth agape. The inky black handwriting of "Date Rape Drugs" had faded out at the end, and Viktor assumed that was when Emil had begun to cry.

He didn't think much of the scene, at first, a mistake he would regret when thinking about it a few hours later.

"Emil?" The question was one of confusion. Then Viktor mentally shook himself and tried again. "Hey, Emil, can you look at me?" He was crouching now and gently murmuring, making sure no-one could hear but the boy in question. They seemed to like that- when Viktor spoke quietly and gave them privacy.

He had dealt with a surprising number of breakdowns within the classroom walls. None yet as bad as the time Yuri blacked out and carved nail-shaped cuts into his arms, but still a significant amount. Guang Hong, Minami, Sara once, Leo looked close to tears on a couple of occasions. The others were supposedly either too emotionally strong or didn't have emotions (he was certain that Otabek and Seing-gil had theirs surgically removed as children), but their time would come. And now it was Emil's.

"Look, I'm going to put my jacket under your head, okay? I don't want you to hurt yourself." He moved his hands up to shrug it off, but the words of Leo stopped him.

"Uh, I wouldn't do that, dude. The last person who touched 'Mil when he was crying left with a broken nose."

"He's right," JJ added, "why you think we all got out of our seats? He's fucking crazy. Bottles everything up 'til he emotionally explodes, or some shit, and lashes out at everyone."

Viktor looked at them both with a frown. Emil? Violent? Out of everyone, he seemed the happiest, along with a constantly-hyper Minami. Perhaps emotionally unstable, sure, though they all were. He couldn't picture Emil hurting someone for a second.

They had to be lying. Viktor dismissed their words with a shake of his head and reached his hand out again.

"Don't, you fucking moron. I know you think he's a soft baby rabbit or whatever. He's in this class for a reason, man. We all are. You seem to forget that."

"You need to get it in your head, Nikiforov, we ain't normal kids." It was Mila talking now. "You think Emil got chucked here 'coz he's irritating and hard to deal with sometimes? Nah. He used to be in B4, until he snapped at his teacher and threw a chair at her. Poor bitch was in hospital for a week."

Viktor leant back on his feet, looking between all of his students. They all wore the same expression of a sombre annoyance. Not a hint of humour anywhere. Even Minami was frowning at the floor.

Shit, they really weren't joking.

"But… why? Why did he do that? He's been relatively fine in lessons."

"Yeah. Ninety-nine percent of the time he's chill, pretty fun to be around. Entertaining. A good guy. Then something sets him off and you have to wait for the wave to pass." Leo gestured towards Michele- the person who Emil seemed to spend the most time with. Viktor turned to him.

"Michele?"

The Italian boy simply nodded.

So that was what prompted the spontaneous art lesson. Chris had taken them next door to E1 and watched over them as they had free reign of the poster paints, and gosh, Viktor had never witnessed teenagers acting like such children. He had left his jacket on Emil's table and popped his head around the door every few minutes to check on him. After a while, the head banging had stopped, and Viktor was pleased to see that his jacket was being made use of. Maybe it was now tear-stained, but that was better than nothing. When Emil had mustered the strength to put an obviously-fake smile back on his face, the other students returned, and the day carried on as normal. As if nothing had happened.

They may have not thought it was a big deal, but Viktor did. He was completely exhausted from head to toe, yet his brain wouldn't stop other-thinking everything. Why had Emil gotten so upset? Where had Yuri been for 3 days? Why did Otabek mysteriously disappear, too?

His life had become looking after these shitbags, a confusing realisation since they treated him like trash and didn't thank him for anything, but he couldn't help it and he couldn't stop himself. All of their other teachers had left. Viktor wouldn't follow in those coward's footsteps.

Logically, he knew that there wasn't anything to do but wait. Wait for them to talk to him or wait until he had enough evidence to take action. A teacher legally couldn't interfere with students' personal lives unless they were in perceived danger, and his kids were probably not about to off themselves regardless of how angry they were.

Still, those reassurances didn't stop him from attacking the situation from every angle, looking for the slightest clue.

A chime from his phone pulled him from his darkening thoughts, and a glance at the screen told him that Yuuri had to stay behind for a couple hours to catch up on paperwork. Leaving Viktor even more alone than he had felt before. E2 was a haunting room- not in the sense that ghosts screamed through walls or blinds moved without wind, it just held an air of… solemnity. When it was full of students, the space felt tiny and loud and often occupied extreme emotions. Emptiness stripped that illusion away and the contrast was chilling.

A flash of white on the floor caught his attention, and with a roll of his eyes Viktor pushed himself up to go and put the piece of crumpled paper hiding behind Otabek's desk in the bin. Cleaners didn't venture to the E block so Viktor had to take care of that job himself, too, but the alternative was to live in the mess that was made and the mere thought of that made him anxious.

When he picked it up, something inside him stopped him from putting it in the bin immediately. Instead, he leaned against the wall, and began to uncrumple it with curious fingers. A smirk was beginning to form on his face- most likely Emil had drawn something dumb, or Mila was passing notes to Sara about how much of an ass JJ was. That had become the norm in letters that were frequently confiscated. Viktor was beginning to create a stack of small tokens that had been confiscated from the students, and one day he would pin them to a cork board. Maybe when he was old and retired and could laugh back at the now-stressful times.

The scribbles inside were not a picture, or the familiar loop of Mila's handwriting. In fact, they weren't even in English.

Viktor was Russian bred and Russian born; he hid his accent fairly well and his English was good enough, and no-one had asked him if he could speak other languages, so why tell? Why tell them that he was fluent in Russian and French, when they wouldn't care?

Now, he was grateful he had kept those facts to himself. Yuri and Otabek had no idea that he could understand the hastily-scrawled Russian characters and decipher their hidden meaning.

"Beka", he read aloud, translating to English as his eyes scanned over the slip, "don't text or call me. Mother is angry. Don't know if I'm safe or not. Check on me if I'm not in school for a few days. -Yura".

Yuri must have given this to Otabek the day before he disappeared, and it must have slipped out of Otabek's pocket accidentally. These facts combined with Otabek skipping classes today sparked a fire of concern, fear, and curiosity in his stomach.

He made up his mind then. Pulling his jacket on and jotting down the address he quickly found from the computer systems, Viktor decided to say 'fuck it' to the rules and do what his heart was telling him to. He had a couple of hours until Yuuri finished for the day. He had time.

He was paying the Plisetsky household a visit.

The next chapter will be very angsty you're welcome

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