Preparation (M, Yuri on Ice, Victor)

[groundcontrol]

Hello all! 

In honor of Skate America starting tomorrow and my need of a pick-me-up to distract me from real world responsibilities, I wrote this. There’s more to come, and it’ll be coming in little bits and pieces, as time allows. Slowly but surely. 

(Also, pretend I know how to title things well. Or just overlook the title. That works too. And pretend I know more about figure skating than I actually do)

When Yuuri rolls over to check the time (5:45; he still has fifteen minutes before he actually needs to be awake), he notices the sliver of light pouring from underneath the bathroom door. Victor is up already, then. Still groggy with sleep, Yuuri pushes himself to a sitting position and notices that Victor has already laid out Yuuri’s warm up clothing for him on the edge of Victor’s bed. He’d been up for a while, then, and quietly at that, for Yuuri hadn’t heard a thing.

    He figures now is as good a time as any to get up and wash his face, tame his bedhead. When Yuuri gets to the bathroom door he finds it unlocked, so he pushes it open gently, so as not to scare his coach. 

    Victor is standing at the counter, oblivious to Yuuri’s presence, with a thermometer dangling from slightly parted lips. Within seconds, the device beeps, and Victor removes it, staring at the reading with a bone deep sigh. He crumples forward a bit, resting his forehead against the mirror as he coughs quietly as he can and shuts his eyes. 

    Yuuri’s heart speeds up and his limbs feel cold. “V-Victor?”

    Victor snaps back to an upright position, looking caught-out for the briefest of seconds before schooling his face back to its signature smile. “Yuuri! You didn’t have to be up for another fifteen minutes!”

    Yuuri is fumbling for a response when Victor’s nose twitches briefly, sending him crumpling to the side into his elbow. “Heh’TSSCHH’ooo! Heh’NGSSHH’ahh! Mmm… Excuse me, Yuuri!” Victor takes two tissues from the holder in the bathroom and blows his nose softly and briefly, but even then Yuuri can hear how wet it sounds.

    “A-are you sick?” is all Yuuri can bring himself to say, and he kicks himself mentally. Of course Victor is sick; he’s coughing, sneezing, sniffling, and looking generally like he could do with another couple hours in bed, if not the whole day.

    “Mmm, it’s nothing to worry about,” Victor says nonchalantly, waving Yuuri’s concern away with a hand and giving a stuffed-up sniffle. He cleared his throat with an effort. “In fact, I don’t want you worrying about anything. Not me, not your skate. You’re going to do well, Yuuri, I believe in you.”

    Yuuri felt his cheeks flush; it always felt good to hear that Victor Nikiforov believed in you, but he was changing the subject. “But Victor--”

    “Did you see I put out your warm up clothes for you?”

    Yuuri felt a pang of guilt; even sick, Victor still was looking out for him. “Yes, thank you, but--”

    Victor clapped his hands together. “Why don’t you go take a shower, get dressed, and then we’ll go have a nice breakfast, yes? Don’t worry, I washed my hands carefully before I touched your things. I suggest you do the same, and often. The last thing we need is you catching this!”

    “B-but I thought you said you weren’t sick…”

    Victor patted Yuuri’s head. “You’re already worrying too much, my cutlet.” He slipped past Yuuri and out of the bathroom, sniffling lightly and, upon closing the door, coughing. It was muffled, as if through a clenched jaw, but Yuuri could hear it all the same. Victor had seemed jovial and healthy enough, like his usual self, when he was telling Yuuri not to be concerned, but the sheer exhaustion in his body when he was taking his temperature haunted Yuuri still… 

    “I can hear you worrying all the way out here, my Yuuri!” Victor called through the door. “Stop thinking, and just take a nice, hot shower. Do the counting thing. I know it calms you.”

    Yuuri couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he shed his pajamas and stepped into the shower. Victor Nikiforov, five time World Champion, really knew him well, didn’t he?

*******

When Yuuri emerged from the bathroom, he saw Victor drinking a capful of cold medicine, and his heart sank even more. If Victor didn’t want Yuuri to worry about him, he really wasn’t making it very easy not to, especially since the fact that he even had cold medicine meant he had had to go out to get it. 

    “It’s just a little cold, Yuuri,” Victor said smoothly upon seeing his student fretting in the doorway. He put the cap back on the bottle and, so nonchalantly that Yuuri almost didn’t notice, slipped the bottle into his own bag.

    Such feigned nonchalance, when he thought Yuuri wasn’t looking, was quickly becoming Victor’s act of the day. When they went for breakfast, Victor poured himself tea instead of coffee and gave the excuse of “wanting some variety” when Yuuri expressed his concern, ignoring the fact that he couldn’t hold back a bout of harsh coughs brought on by speaking. And when Victor thought Yuuri was too consumed in his food or his phone to notice, he snuck wipes and surreptitious nose blows into fast-crumpling tissues from his pocket. His nose was rapidly turning pink around the edges, and no one in their right mind could hear past the congested rasp in his voice, and yet still, Victor waved off Yuuri’s concerns as though they were mere wisps on the wind.

*******
 

Victor’s condition was rapidly worsening the nearer Yuuri’s competition time drew. Since they had arrived at the competition rink, Victor had tucked a scarf tightly around his neck. Yuuri had witnessed him down another capful of medicine while they watched Lee Seung Gil skate, after which Victor was overcome by a coughing fit so prolonged that he had to excuse himself to go to the restroom. It took all of Yuuri’s strength not to follow him there.

    Now, Victor was helping Yuuri stretch, all the while giving him last-minute pointers on his routine. It sounded like every word was an effort to squeeze past a swollen throat, and Victor was too congested to even sniffle, though he kept trying to. “Rebbeber to… sdff!... to keep your… sdff! SNFF!... leg…” Victor pushed himself away from Yuuri, and crumpled forward, his bangs flapping into his face, “heh’ ihh’ HNGSHH! NGSSH! Ihhh’ hehhh’ NGSHH’uhh! Sdff!” 

    Victor withdrew another tissue from his pocket and gave his nose a productive blow before coughing wetly a few times. “Sdff! You cad finish this stretch on your own, can’t you, Yuuri?” he said, the tired ghost of his usual winning smile on his lips. Whatever advice he had been giving was lost as he continued rubbing at his nose, watching Yuuri with an (adorably, under any other circumstances) absent look on his face, his chapped lips parted so he could breathe.

    Yuuri finished his stretches and moved on to an off-ice run-through of his routine, as he always did, but his concentration was shot. Victor was obviously trying his best to keep quiet, but Yuuri’s ears picked up every sneeze, sniffle, cough, or even pained swallow above all the other sounds of the busy rink. Besides that, Victor looked dead on his feet and was too tired and sick to do anything but give him a perfunctory twitch of the lips and an encouragement to keep going whenever Yuuri shot a look his way. When Victor had first become his coach, his very hands-on approach served to make Yuuri even more anxious (after all, how could he focus with Victor Nikiforov’s hands all over him?), but he’d become used to it, and now yearned for Victor’s touch to calm him. But his coach was keeping his distance, for hygiene’s sake, and Yuuri felt his hands going jittery.

    Yuuri jumped, practicing a quad toe-loop, but pulled out after a double, and was shaky on the landing. He tried his flip, but the same thing happened, a double. That wouldn’t do at all. Yuuri looked over at Victor helplessly, only to find his coach burying his nose in a handful of tissues.

    “Heh’KMPPF! Ihh’hihh’KMPFF! Snf! Snf!” Victor emerged from the tissues to find Yuuri’s gaze upon him, and stuffed the wad back in his pocket. “What’s the matter, Yuuri?” His voice, gravelly and low and creaky, did nothing to assuage Yuuri’s fears. He needed to put on a good show for Victor to make it worth his being there instead of back at the hotel room resting, and so far it wasn’t looking promising.

    “M-my jumps,” Yuuri stammered. “I can’t get them. I keep under-rotating.”

    Victor sniffled. “It’s okay, just show me again.”

    Yuuri tried his toe-loop again, managing to over-rotate a double and nearly fall. Frustrated tears sprung up in his eyes, which he wiped at viciously with his jacket sleeve. “I-I can’t do it.”

    Yuuri felt Victor’s hand on his shoulder, smelled the menthol cough drop on his breath, and his heart beat faster. “You’re hesitating on the take-off, Yuuri. Once more.”

    Victor coughed softly, muffled into his glove, and Yuuri couldn’t move. His tears were streaming freely down his face now. “I can’t do it,” Yuuri hiccuped. “I can’t--I--I don’t know why I thought I could--”

    “Yuuri, calm down, it’s just a little issue with the take-off. You’re not even on the ice yet.”

    Yuuri shook his head vigorously, all but sobbing and hyperventilating now. “I’ll just be worse out there. I can’t do it, I can’t go, I--”

“Yuuri, stop panicking and focus on what I’m saying, alright? You’ll never win anything if you keep acting like this!” Victor snapped. 

    Yuuri’s hiccuping sobs stopped instantly, and his heart felt cold in his chest. Victor had never yelled at him before, and though it was well within his right as a coach, he told himself rationally, Yuuri never did do well when people yelled at him. He felt his breathing growing ever quicker and more erratic. 

    But then Victor’s hand was cupping his chin, tipping Yuuri’s face to look up at his and bringing him out of his writhing mind. His face was strained and tired, but contrite. “I’m sorry, Yuuri. I didn’t mean that at all, I’m just…” Victor hesitated, running his hand through his fringe and sniffling a bit, looking physically pained at his own admission. “...not feeling well, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Can you forgive me?”

      “Y-yes, Victor. Of course, you’re sick. I knew that—I’m so sorry you’re sick and I’m a mess and—“

      “Shhh, Yuuri. Take a deep breath, okay? Tell me what’s bothering you.”

      “It’s just… I know you’re really sick and I feel bad enough that you have to be here in the cold rink with me all day and so I thought I’d better make it worth it to you by giving a really good performance only nothing is going right and at this rate you’ll regret not staying in bed today and ever deciding to be my coach in the first place—“

       Victor cut him off with a laugh that quickly turned into a wheezing cough. When he caught his breath, he said, in as light and airy a voice as his sore throat could manage, “Yuuri, you know nothing could make me regret the decision to be your coach. I love every second of it. I could have the plague and that wouldn’t keep me from coming to the rink with you!”

        When Yuuri didn’t laugh, Victor bopped him lightly on the nose. “That was supposed to be a joke, my cutlet.”

        “Victor, you sound so sick.”

        “I don’t want you worrying over me, Yuuri. You already worry far too much about yourself. Any more and your head might explode, and that’s not what we mean when we talk about a headless spin, eh?”

      Try as he might to remain dour and serious, Victor’s charm and dumb humor was getting to him as usual, and Yuuri couldn’t help but laugh. Victor smiled too, and though it was exhausted-looking it was genuine. 

       “No matter what, watching you skate always makes me feel better, but who knows, a first place finish might just cure me.”

TBC

 

[Reader]

You’re such a wonderful writer!! 

[queenie]

This is so charming and in-character!

[Zane]

This is really well written and I am so looking forward to more. Thank you for writing this! 😍😍😍🥰