Victor Nikiforov (
the_real_sir_prize) wrote in
legionworld2017-01-25 02:01 am
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Entry tags:
Che farò senza Euridice?
Who| Yuuri and Victor
What| Dealing with the aftermath of their respective first missions
Where| The MedBay
When| Immediately after Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| Discussions of blood and death, trauma, nudity, naked touching
Victor really, truly hopes that it's going to be hard to top this day for the worst in his life, because he doesn't want to find out what would be worse than spending an indeterminate number of hours running for his life from monsters who were trying to kill him and who were also people who were supposed to be helping save other people with him. He can still feel the blood caking his hair down, even if the Legion staffers back on the cruiser had mostly managed to clean it out with their weird humming space wands. They'd also patched him up and given him clothes to change into, which is good because everything he'd worn into that hellscape needs to be thrown into the nearest sun, right down to his underwear.
Ugh.
Still, phantom sensations of trickling blood and clammy fear-sweat aside, he's almost presentable now. Not selfie-presentable, because: no, never, not happening; but presentable enough he's not going to horrify Yuuri when he throws himself out of the Legion cruiser and into Yuuri's arms.
Except Yuuri's not waiting for him when the cruiser lands, and Victor's close enough to hear the staffers talking about something even if he's not close enough to hear everything they're saying, and...
...And someone died while they were gone. Someone died and suddenly Victor can't stick around to ask questions because he knows he's not going to be able to hear the answers until he sees Yuuri for himself. Fortunately, the halls are designed to ensure that the Legionnaires have enough room to fly overhead, and Victor is highly motivated to get to Medical as fast as he can.
What| Dealing with the aftermath of their respective first missions
Where| The MedBay
When| Immediately after Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| Discussions of blood and death, trauma, nudity, naked touching
Victor really, truly hopes that it's going to be hard to top this day for the worst in his life, because he doesn't want to find out what would be worse than spending an indeterminate number of hours running for his life from monsters who were trying to kill him and who were also people who were supposed to be helping save other people with him. He can still feel the blood caking his hair down, even if the Legion staffers back on the cruiser had mostly managed to clean it out with their weird humming space wands. They'd also patched him up and given him clothes to change into, which is good because everything he'd worn into that hellscape needs to be thrown into the nearest sun, right down to his underwear.
Ugh.
Still, phantom sensations of trickling blood and clammy fear-sweat aside, he's almost presentable now. Not selfie-presentable, because: no, never, not happening; but presentable enough he's not going to horrify Yuuri when he throws himself out of the Legion cruiser and into Yuuri's arms.
Except Yuuri's not waiting for him when the cruiser lands, and Victor's close enough to hear the staffers talking about something even if he's not close enough to hear everything they're saying, and...
...And someone died while they were gone. Someone died and suddenly Victor can't stick around to ask questions because he knows he's not going to be able to hear the answers until he sees Yuuri for himself. Fortunately, the halls are designed to ensure that the Legionnaires have enough room to fly overhead, and Victor is highly motivated to get to Medical as fast as he can.
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The reason he's still in Medbay isn't physical, it's because of how he's staring straight ahead at the wall, eyes unseeing. Dr. Ry'kerr had already talked to him earlier and planned to come again to talk to him more after making the rounds and seeing the others from the Cargg mission, but the sudden influx of severely disturbed Legionnaires from both teams means she and the rest of the psych stuff suddenly have their hands even fuller.
The nurses have at least been nice. The keep checking in on him and have been very kind, but have also given him the space he needs.
Still, he's been stuck just sitting here, stewing in his guilt, caught in a state of constant shaking anxiety as he waits to find out what happened to the other mission team.
But before the other nurses show up, Victor's there, peeking in the right doorway. And his costume is gone like something happened to it, and he looks like he's been through hell, and there's something dried and gross and horrible in the roots of his hair that might be blood. Yuuri is already off his bed and halfway to him before he even realizes these things, and starts sobbing the moment after he notices.
He's dead weight from the moment he his arms wrap around Victor, dragging him down to the floor with him, his legs shaking too much from nerves and sheer exhaustion to hold him up.
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Victor sinks to the floor without protest as Yuuri's weight starts dragging him down. He's not in much of a state to remain standing either, adrenaline and relief making his knees weak and sheer exhaustion preying on his energy. He wraps his arms around Yuuri and holds him close, letting him cry into the relative cleanliness of his borrowed shirt. It takes him a moment to realize that he's crying too, tears dribbling down his neck when they reach his jawline. He cries more quietly than Yuuri, more a hitching of breath than outright sobs, but he's clinging just as hard as he's being clung to.
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So his crying and needing to be comforted turns into him trying to comfort back, too. Tears still spill from his eyes, but the sobs stop and he kisses the tears off Victor's face, presses kisses to his cheeks, to his forehead, to everywhere.
He feels foolish for being so shy about it all before. Why has he been shy about any of it? What happens if he keeps hesitating until something happens to Victor and he isn't there to kiss?
The kisses he presses to his lips are short and hard and desperately needy, meant to confirm that yes, he's here, yes, they're both alive. He doesn't care if the nurses stumble in on them and see. He needs this.
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"I'm here," he says, between kisses, once the tension has unwound from around his throat. "I'm here. You're here. We're here."
I came out of Hell because of you, he doesn't say in words but tries to say with his lips and fingertips. When I was lost and alone and terrified, I thought of you and I kept walking.
He still doesn't know who died or why Yuuri is sitting in this room instead of his own, but they're both too busy reassuring themselves and each other that they're both alive to ask about it now.
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Oh, the kissing and holding each other forever, that they can do. It's mostly the floor part that's objectionable.
Yuuri finally stops, eyes closed, his forehead pressed against Victor's, and tries to catch his breath. Somehow the crying stopped in the middle there somewhere. He pulls away and wipes at his face.
Then he looks down at the floor.
"The floor's cold," he says, because there's a bed, and it'd be a lot more comfortable to comfort each other in it.
He finally lets go, but only so he can stand up shakily, hold his hand down to help Victor up, and lead him to the bed.
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"Do you want to talk about what happened?" he asks, his voice quiet as if to minimize the potential damage done by the question.
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"Blue Rose died," he says quietly. He has to draw in a deep breath and let it out before he can speak again. "We fought against a supervillain and beat him. I left her to find the police so he could be taken in, but when I got back, she was... she'd been hurt and tried to ice it over. She must not have realized how bad it was when she sent me away."
His eyes well up.
"I should've made sure, though. Before I left. I should've been more careful, paid closer attention."
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"Oh Yuuri," he says gently, "all this time I've been training you and only now you mention that you're a medical doctor too? Where did you find the time around your skating?"
Of course Yuuri blames himself, even when he has no real reason to. Victor will have to derail that train of thought as quickly as he can, before Yuuri installs a permanent track for it.
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"I didn't need to be a doctor to notice it! I just would've had to look a little bit longer."
All it would've taken was him pausing for a moment longer, and then he might've noticed what had happened to her side. Then he would've known to get medical help instead of just the police, and he would've known he had less time to stop and help people on the --
Well. It isn't like he could've not helped people, but --
But he could've done something different.
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"I should've -- I just --"
He looks for the words and can't find them.
"I should've --"
The tension in his chest winds down slightly, until he can't find any words at all. So he just butts his head into Victor's shoulder. He can't think himself out of feeling bad, not when his brain is screaming at him that it's his fault, but he can take refuge in the warmth of Victor's body. He can focus on how solid he feels, on the rise and fall of his chest.
Having something solid to hold onto, a tether to the here and now, makes it easier to get out of being stuck in his own head.
"I just should've done something different. Somehow."
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Victor raises a hand to massage the back of Yuuri's neck, sliding his fingertips beneath the collar of his costume in search of further knots of tension. There isn't much more for him to say, though they could probably go on for hours: Yuuri vomiting guilt and Victor clearing it away with logic. It isn't going to fix anything now; Blue Rose will still be dead and Yuuri will still feel that the blame is somehow his to shoulder. But, when Yuuri's had time to really rest and recover, maybe it will help him then.
And Blue Rose will still be dead.
"We're both filthy," Victor says, changing the subject before Yuuri can try to claim the blame again. "Maybe we should go get cleaned up."
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And when all is said and done, other than what happened to Blue Rose, and the horrific end of Firefly, it actually wasn't that bad. Frightening and stressful, but --
But there's no blood in his own hair.
The more he looks at Victor, the more concerned he is by what he sees. He seems frayed to a thread in a way Yuuri's never really seen before.
So he nods at Victor, immediately going into supportive boyfriend mode, slipping out of the Medbay bed and taking him by the hand, holding onto it tightly.
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Maybe if he were a less selfish person, he'd sit here and keep talking until Yuuri's finished purging his guilt. But he's not any less selfish than he is, and he wants to get clean and to have Yuuri be clean and cuddle until they can both fall asleep without seeing horrible things on the insides of their eyelids.
"Do we have to check you out with the doctors before we can leave?" he asks, since Yuuri had been in a private room rather than out where people go as soon as the doctors finished healing their bruises and scrapes.
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"I was...I was out of it. They just wanted to give me someplace quiet."
Now, though, he's not in shock. Now he holds on tight to Victor's hand and walks him towards their quarters. He's leading now, fingers tightly threaded through Victor's fingers, taking charge. He needs to make sure Victor's taken care of.
So he leads him along, gently but firmly, until they reach their quarters. He heads for Victor's room.
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He wonders, distantly, if he might be going into shock.
The fog breaks a little when Makkachin and Phi-chan leap up to greet the two of them with doggy enthusiasm. Victor doesn't want Makkachin getting blood in his mouth either, so he checks his impulse to fling himself down on the floor and bury his face against his dog's chest. Instead he pats Makkachin's head, greeting him with a 'down, my darling, down' in Russian. It slows him down a little, but his grip on Yuuri's hand ensures that Yuuri will stop rather than pull free and leave him behind.
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When Victor is ready to move on, he draws him towards the bathroom, briefly brushing his fingers through his silver hair to get a look at the...stuff in it. There's no way he's letting him go to bed like that.
"You need a shower."
He needs to get all that gross gunk out of his hair. He knows Victor will feel disgusting until he does.
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He releases Yuuri's hand (the one he'd touched him with, not the one with their fingers twined together) and take a deep, shuddering breath. He lets it out slowly and raises his eyes to meet Yuuri's, to make sure he hasn't scared him.
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The idea of someone fixating on some minor detail during a time they're upset definitely isn't alien to him. He's done it often enough himself, focusing on some minute and tiny thing while caught in the throes of panicking over something.
He's just gentle and patient and he lets Victor look at his hand and when his gaze meets his eyes, his face is just as gentle.
"You need a shower," he repeats, trying to lead him towards the bathroom again. "Come on."
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And once he's had one, once all the blood is washed away, he will be completely safe. Yuuri and Makkachin and Phi-chan and everyone else will be too. It's motivation enough for him to actually catch up to Yuuri as he pushes open the door instead of meekly following along. It's not until he's already in the bathroom that he remembers that this is the future and the showers are still strange to him. Normally he enjoys the novelty of the sonic shower, but he'd much rather have something familiar right now. The fact he's going to have to strip down and step into a strange humming
mawspace is dismaying.no subject
Fortunately for Victor, there's a very nice draw beyond just getting clean.
"I need a shower, too," says Yuuri, and he finally lets go of Victor's hand but it's to loosen and kick off his boots, and to start divesting himself of his dirty and battered uniform.
He tries not to think about it too much. It's not as if it's the first time Victor's seen him naked, after all. They've bathed together regularly, at this point.
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It's not even that Yuuri is getting naked (well, not just that, Victor would have to be blind and in another room halfway across Legion World to not appreciate Yuuri naked and even then he'd still have his sense of touch), but that it's normal. Victor isn't shy about his body at all, hasn't been for years, but Yuuri is really only casual about nudity in the bath. Even back in the early days of Victor's time in Japan, when Yuuri had been skittish every time Victor so much as thought about getting within arm's reach of him, he'd been largely at ease with extended naked conversations in the onsen. And now he's treating it like it's the same thing, like it's just part of their normal public bathing routine, and that makes the sonic shower less strange and horrible and menacing.
Victor peels off his borrowed shirt and drops it on the floor, borrowed pants following just as quickly.
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By now he's messed with sonic shower settings enough to figure out how to make them feel the least strange, so he does that and the sonic waves start to wash over them. With two people in the shower, especially, the flow is different. It's less like being cleaned by the shower-version of a sonic toothbrush, and more like being buffeted by actual currents of water coming from all directions.
It sweeps through Yuuri's hair in a way that isn't at all unflattering, and unlike many of the times they bathed in the onsen, he does get handsy this time. He draws Victor into the currents and starts to run his hands through his hair, helping work all the gross stuff out of the silver strands.
"There," he breathes out gently, pressing his forehead against Victor's. "Much better."
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It's not at all like the onsen in here, but it's far from the worse thing Victor has had to deal with today.
"Mmm," he hums in agreement, letting his hand slide from Yuuri's hair to the back of his neck, slowly rubbing a circle over Yuuri's pulse point with his thumb. "You're right, it is."
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"I'm glad you're okay."
And then saying the words suddenly makes him feel like he's drowning, and he has to bite back tears.
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"I'm glad you're okay too," he answers, lips brushing the words against Yuuri's skin. Yuuri's gotten wound up again, there's no way for Victor not to feel it considering how close they are, and he lets one hand slide down to rub circles against Yuuri's back.
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"We should go to bed. I'm about to fall asleep on my feet."
Together, though. Sometimes they sleep in separate beds because Yuuri needs his own space, especially the nights he's thrumming with anxiety over this whole being stuck in the future thing. But other nights Victor creeps into his bed and cuddles.
Tonight, though, there's no reason for him to go all the way to his room when Victor's bed is right outside the bathroom door.
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He leads Yuuri to his room, leaving the door open for the dogs to follow, and flops facedown on his bed. Then he considers the logistics of getting Yuuri into bed without letting go of his hand and rolls over onto his back. In theory, such things should result in Yuuri being pulled down into the spot Victor had just vacated.
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He lets himself be pulled onto the bed, and after briefly leaning over Victor to ghost his lips against his forehead, he climbs under the covers, ready to settle in for the night, taking off his glasses and putting them on the bedside table.
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"I hope you don't need to use the bathroom because I don't feel like moving," he tells Yuuri's shoulder, dropping another kiss there.
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There are things he wants to say but he can't find the words. He feels like his chest is going to just expand and expand until it explodes.
Since he can't find words, he opts for pressing kisses into Victor's hair and against his forehead.
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They're twined together against the mattress, and Yuuri's still pressing kisses to his head even though Victor knows that Yuuri's tired. There's something here that needs talking about before they can sleep, but Victor isn't sure how to start forming the words for it.
"I've been thinking," he says, not quite knowing what he's going to say. "I've been thinking...when we get home, after the Grand Prix."
He can't imagine leaving Yuuri after the Grand Prix, now.
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In Yuuri's mind that's always been when they'll say goodbye, but now...now he's not so sure.
Now he's not ready to let go. Ever.
"Mmm?"
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"I don't want to leave you." Even though he says the words softly, the sentence cracks in the middle, the way it usually does only when he's very sad and very drunk and alone. Except for Makkachin, of course, who whines from the edge of the bed in response.
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He still doesn't know what it is that drew Victor to him from a country away, but he knows that someone wouldn't upend their whole life unless they were searching for something, trying to fill some need or want.
The idea that he fills that need and want emboldens him. It makes him feel like he's discovered some kind of hidden power inside himself. He's the femme fatale who's charmed the playboy, wrapped him around her little finger, and now Victor is begging him with that tone in his voice to not be cast off, to have a different ending to the dance.
Hearing those words silences the little timid voice in Yuuri's mind that questions these kinds of things. There's nothing to question anymore. Victor wanting to be his boyfriend made so many things clear, and right now, the way he's wrapped around him, naked in more way than one, makes them even more clear.
Of course he doesn't want to leave him, his eros is that powerful.
There are worse things to sacrifice a career over. He's already made his choice. He'll still try for the Grand Prix Final when this is all over because he knows Victor will be heartbroken if he gives up entirely, but after that, of the two of them, only Victor has a chance of going back to form when all this is done. He's the only one that has a chance of a career after their final competition together. Yuuri's career will be over, just like Yuuri assumed would be the case when he signed up for this saving-existence thing.
He can live with that if he can still have everything that comes after, if he can cheer Victor on from the sidelines, if they can wake up safe and warm from the cold Moscow mornings because of how they're all wrapped up just. Like. This.
He could've stuttered. He could've been shy about all of this, timid, upset over his ice skating career, but no. No, after hearing those words and the crack in his voice, after understanding how much a waste of time that timidity is, he's never felt more sure of anything in his life. One of them has to stop skating and he's fine with burning what's left of his career on the altar of their relationship.
"Then don't."
It's unquestionably a command, but the harshest edge of it is softened by the way Yuuri whispers it in Victor's ear.
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But...maybe he's making it more complicated than it needs to be. He loves skating, coaching Yuuri has only reminded him of how much he loves it. But the idea of going back without Yuuri at his side makes him feel as though his insides are being pulled out of him. And maybe Yuuri's right. Maybe he just...shouldn't.
He could retire, go out at top of his game after having dominated the competitive figure skating world for over a decade. Retire and coach Yuuri to gold after gold until Yuuri retires too. He could still do ice shows, exhibition skates, and he'd have Yuuri. Where's the fun in competing anyway when everyone takes it for granted that he'll take gold?
He could do it. It's a steep price, but so was what Victor paid for his skating career in the first place. Twenty years of life and love and loneliness, spent to transform Victor Nikiforov into Victor Nikiforov, living legend.
But it's a price he can pay.
Victor takes a deep breath as the words sink from his brain down to his chest, wrapping around his heart.
"Okay," he answers Yuuri, and his voice is steady. Steady as a heartbeat. "I'll stay."
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They took out their sonic earplugs while disrobing for the shower and that makes this easier. He can't say it in English. He can't look at him while he says it either.
But he manages to find the words, knowing that Victor knows just enough Japanese to understand them, and even if he doesn't, that the tone, the way he whispers them in his ear, says enough.
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It's the first time either of them has said the words, in any language, but oh have they been just behind his teeth for months.
He pulls back away from Yuuri's neck, just enough that he can respond in kind, his accent muffing the syllables. Then he repeats himself, in French, in Russian. He presses his lips to the pulse in Yuuri's throat and whispers words they both understand in a language that neither of them speak:
"Stammi vicino, non te ne andare."