Chapter Text
Yuuri Katsuki did not like flying. He also did not like borscht or how Makkachin smelled after an afternoon at the beach or that Viktor sometimes left his towel on the bathroom floor after he showered.
Yuuri did not like all of these things. And yet he still took Makkachin to Lake Ladoga in the summer. And yet the morning he had left for Japan, he’d stepped on Viktor’s still damp towel as he’d gotten out of the shower. And, well, he tried to avoid borscht as much as possible. But the first two were mere inconveniences in the face of his affections for his dog and his fiancé. Flying was a little bit like that for Yuuri. If it took two days, four layovers, three security checks, and a lot of boredom to get back to Viktor Nikiforov, then Yuuri would do it. Every single time. To be honest, there weren't a whole lot of things Yuuri Katsuki wouldn't do for Viktor Nikiforov.
He reminded himself of this as both of his seat partners’ heads dropped onto his shoulders on the seventeenth hour of the flight (Viktor always admonished him for flying economy, but Yuuri suspected he needed to maintain some of his sensibility so they could afford Viktor’s mostly endearing, and somewhat expensive, tastes). He reminded himself of it as his stomach staged a revolted when things got a little turbulent in a storm over Southeastern Russia. He almost forgot it as he lugged his carry-on off the plane at the St. Petersburg airport at 3:14 am feeling like he had been shot with a horse tranquilizer. Still, somehow he managed. After collecting his luggage and disembarking the plane with the efficiency of a seasoned traveler, Yuuri paused in his power walk through the vacant airport to text Viktor. He tried his best to smother his grin at the last few texts.
Vitya: Yuuriiiiiiii!
Vitya: hurry up!!! < (>. <)> i miss you
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: I’m trying
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: :)
Vitya: how can you calmly send smiley faces while im in pain? The audacity
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: ok :(
Vitya: thats not what i meant darling
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: So hard to please
Vitya: only for u ;)
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: I’ve noticed
Vitya: Yuuri’s gotten so mean! Is someone grumpy? do you need kisses to make you feel better ;););)
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: That would be great except I’m currently in Ufa :( its really coming down...
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: I'm worried my flight will be delayed
Vitya: noooooo :(
Vitya: it's okay ill be sure to shower my Yuuri with all the love u deserve when u get home :)
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: I miss you so much
Vitya: me too
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: Oh it looks like we're boarding now! I'll let you know when I land
Vitya: you sure u dont want me pick u up from the airport?
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: no, it’s alright, I’ll be okay getting home
Vitya: if you say so :/
Vitya: I love you Yuuri
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: love you too
Read 11:32 pm
Sometimes, seemingly at random, it occurred to Yuuri just how very much in love he had fallen with Vitkor and just how very much he had stayed that way. Yuuri hadn’t ever spent much time envisioning what love might be like before he met Viktor. He hadn’t ever thought he’d have it, but it was so much different, so much better than anything he could have ever conjured up. And right now the one thing Yuuri wanted the most in the world was to curl up with Viktor in their bed and feel the other man’s warm breath rasp over the shell of his ear and his solid chest rise and fall against Yuuri’s. Just the thought of it caused Yuuri so much joy he could feel it tinglingl in the tips of his fingers and within his ribcage. He sent Viktor a message,
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: Just got in, should be home in maybe fifteen minutes?
Then after a moment,
The Tastiest Pork Cutlet: can’t wait to see you again :)
Yuuri was working on expressing his feelings better. Yuuri hadn’t directly told Viktor he loved him for two years after they started dating. He hadn’t realized he needed to. Each day, from the very start, he and Viktor had been learning the cultural differences between the Japanese and Russians. In the wake of many incidents like this one, they learned slowly of how to compromise in order to bridge that gap.
As Yuuri left the airport he noticed it was snowing softly. It really shouldn’t have struck him that much. It was December in Russia. Yuuri had only been in Japan for a week and a half, but the contrast was so drastic compared to the mild weather in Hatetsu that he found himself pausing for a moment. It wasn't long before his face started going a little numb and he hailed a taxi to take him home.
The gentle snow was rapidly working itself into a flurry. By the time he was dropped off in front of their complex, the windshield wipers were beating furiously in a fruitless effort to repel the drift. Yuuri checked his phone once more as the driver pulled up along the curb. It was a little strange. Viktor hadn’t even read his texts yet. Yuuri figured it didn’t matter much either way, he would be seeing the man in less than five minutes. As Yuuri pulled his carry-on from the cab, he felt pinpricks of snowflakes dance across his face only to settle and melt against the warmth of his cheeks. His nose had already begun to get runny and he sniffled a bit as he waved to the driver and began to trudge up to the stately building.
Viktor had infamously expensive taste and their living situation certainly reflected that. Yuuri had managed to talk him down a smaller, early 20th-century affair on a quiet street somewhat close to both the airport and the rink. It was still a far cry from what Yuuri might have chosen for himself. Even so, history had proven that decisions Yuuri made with Viktor were infinitely superior to decisions made without. Somewhere between waking up to each other’s warmth and poor, well-intentioned attempts at homemade miso, this had become home.
Suddenly, Yuuri found himself on the ground. He laid flat on his back for a moment or two, confounded as to how he ended up here in the first place with fresh snow quickly melting to wet the seat of his jeans and a weight pressing in on his chest. Then he realized it was Makkachin. Makkachin was on top of him, barking at him. Yuuri tried to pet her as he sat up, grinning, but Makkachin scrambled off his chest, biting his pant leg and pulling. Hard. Even once Yuuri had stood, she didn’t let up. It was odd. He looked around, half expecting Viktor to be there, but the sidewalk was abandoned aside from himself. Something shifted uncomfortably inside him,
“Makkachin? What…” It didn’t make sense. Yuuri abandoned his carry on, on the sidewalk as he let the dog lead him into the building.
She bolted up the stairs and Yuuri pursued, close on her heels. When they arrived at the door of Yuuri and Viktor’s apartment it hung ominously, ajar. That thing in Yuuri churned again painfully, growing infinitely more uncomfortable by the second, like bile rising up in his throat to choke him. Makkachin was barking at the door but made no move to enter. Yuuri pushed it open instead.
“Viktor?” Yuuri called, resenting the obvious tremble in his voice. He knew he was probably being unreasonable. Yuuri was known for being unreasonable at times, too anxious. In this moment he prayed he was just being unreasonable. No response. Makkachin hung back in the doorway, silhouetted against the hallway lights. All of a sudden, Yuuri was hyper aware of how dark it was. Not a single light was on in the entrance of the apartment.
“Viktor?” Yuuri tried again, a little less calmly as he made his way to the living room. Yuuri immediately knew something was wrong. He knew it in the way that he knew he wasn’t in his own bed before he ever opened his eyes while staying at a hotel. He knew it in the way he knew when Viktor entered the room even if Yuuri had his back to the door. He knew it in the way he knew the exact moment when he was going to flub a jump as he was suspended in the air with one inevitable direction, earthward. He felt it in that twisted mass quickly coming to life in his stomach.
The living room was dark, even the curtains were drawn. Only thin, orange slivers of light escaped between their edges. Even suspended within the darkness he could see something shining murkily, reluctantly. He could smell something metallic like a one-hundred-yen coin and a little bit sweet. It lurked, wrong and unwelcome beneath the familiar lavender air freshener and laundry detergent. He didn’t even feel it as he reached out and flicked the lights on.
Viktor was on the floor.
Viktor was on the floor and there was blood.
A lot of blood.
More blood than Yuuri had ever seen in his entire life.
Viktor was on the floor and there was blood and it looked like his.
Viktor was bleeding on the rug they’d picked out together the day they moved in.
Viktor's eyes were closed.
Yuuri’s mind recoiled as his body sprung into action. In a matter seconds he had traversed the room to kneel over Viktor,
“Okay, okay, okay, okay” he began rambling all at once, too loudly. “Viktor?” this came out as barely a breath.
Remotely, he recognized that he was already crying. His heart beating as if emancipated from the responsibility of keeping him alive and his breath rasping desperately, so loud in his own ears, to keep up. Yuuri searched Viktor’s body. Oh, there was so much blood. Way too much. Did one person usually have this much blood in their body? How much could a person bleed before they had bled too much? Oh God. Through this flurry of thoughts Yuuri noticed that the blood seemed to be coming from Viktor’s chest. Near his heart. Or over his heart? Oh God. Numbly Yuuri unwrapped his scarf from his neck and with violently shaking hands pressed it over Viktor’s heart.
“Okay,” Yuuri said almost like a reminder as his mind scrambled for his first aid training and then floundered to place all the steps in the correct order. Yuuri was breathing way too fast. Breathing.
“Okay, okay” Yuuri repeated. He had to check if Viktor was breathing. Keeping his palms pressed over the scarf on Viktor’s chest Yuuri leant over the unconscious man, one ear close to the other man’s mouth. He prayed to every single god he knew the name of and probably the ones he didn’t too. For a second Yuuri thought he couldn’t hear anything, and a sob almost tore its way out of his rib cage.
Then faintly, he heard a slow breath, felt it barely even there, against the shell of his ear. His whole body shook with the force of the unvoiced sob as he took one hand off of Viktor to fumble for his phone in his pocket. He knew he had it, remembered checking for Viktor’s texts in the cab….
“Okay. Viktor, it’s okay Viktor. I’ll call the ambulance. I’m gonna call… okay” he rambled as he searched for his phone. He finally found it and somehow in spite of the tremors wracking his hands, Yuuri managed to dial 112,
“Hello, this is 112, what’s your emergency?” Crackled a woman’s voice in Russian, Yuuri had never understood the language with more clarity in his entire life,
“Um, uh, my, uh, my roommate. I came home and he – he’s bleeding. Um, he’s bleeding a lot. I think he was, stabbed?” The words sounded wrong coming out of his mouth, like they were just words and not something that had happened to Viktor.
“Okay, sir. We’re sending first responders to your location now. Is he responsive?”
“No, uh, he’s unconscious. I, uh, put my scarf on his chest. I mean over where he’s bleeding.”
“Okay, that’s good, continue to apply as much pressure as you can. Can you check if he’s breathing for me, sir?”
“I did before I called you, but um, I can check again…” Yuuri leant in once more. He listened for a moment. He couldn’t make anything, somehow his heartbeat became even wilder.
Yuuri might be dying too.
He could hear nothing. He looked at Viktor’s chest for a moment with blurred vision, confused. It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t see any movement. This time the sob really did manage to break free from him. For a long moment he thought he might faint. Reality was swimming dangerously. He dropped the phone to floor,
“Oh, oh my god, he’s not breathing anymore. He’s not breathing.”
Apparently, the dispatcher heard,
“Okay, sir. I need you to remain calm. Do you know how to perform CPR?” Yuuri nodded his head, immediately lacing his fingers together and pressing his palm over the center of Viktor’s chest before realizing she couldn't see him,
“Yes, I know. I know it.”
“Alright, that’s great. If he’s not breathing, you can begin CPR. I’m going to help you count, okay?” Yuuri nodded again, but corrected himself more quickly this time,
“Okay, okay, yeah. Go ahead. Hurry.” As she began counting Yuuri’s world narrowed down to her voice and the pressure of his hands against Viktor’s unmoving chest. It narrowed down to thirty chest compressions followed immediately by two resuscitative breathes. Thirty. Two. Thirty. Two. Thirty. Two. Thirty. Two. Thirty-
Then there was noise. A lot of noise and people’s hands on him and people standing all around Viktor and he was being pulled away and he didn’t understand what was going on. He didn’t understand what was going on because he was being led out of his own apartment by strangers. His carry on was still sitting on the sidewalk where he had left it, covered in snow. There were too many people and lights everywhere and he didn’t know where Makkachin was and Viktor had been bleeding and Viktor hadn’t been breathing and that made the least sense out of all of it.
It occurred to some small, hidden part of Yuuri that his life might be falling irrevocably apart right now.
Yuuri felt something cool press against his palm. He looked down to see that it was Makkachin pressing her snout into his hand. He was sitting on the bumper of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket. The dog looked stressed, her whole body shaking violently. Yuuri desperately wanted to comfort her, but he quickly found that he was unable to. This was primarily because Yuuri currently couldn’t breathe.
He realized it all at once and the knowledge of it made no difference. Yuuri's whole body seized up, fighting for air, and he could do nothing but endure it. He could barely see, but his eyes were glued to the entrance of the building. Viktor still hadn’t come out. After a minute, Yuuri tried to pet Makkachin, but the most he could manage was to put a hand on her head.
She was warm and that helped a little bit.
Through the panic attack Yuuri was vaguely aware of EMTs coming to check up on him, he wanted to ask them why they were checking on him. He was fine. He hadn’t been there when Viktor got hurt. He didn’t even know why Viktor was hurt. He just wanted them to fix Viktor.
Finally, more EMTs emerged from the building. There seemed to be thousands of them, like swarming ants, surrounding the building. It made him dizzy, at least more dizzy than he already was, to watch them as they moved about. As a gurney was rolled out of the building, Yuuri caught a glimpse of Viktor's silver hair and it immediately wretched his heart in two. Yuuri didn’t know when they had even brought the gurney in. Abruptly, even though Yuuri felt as if his body was being smashed apart into smaller and smaller pieces with each passing moment, he had the presence of mind to turn to the closest EMT and ask,
“Can I go with him? Can I ride in the ambulance? otherwise,” he tried desperately to explain, the adrenaline-enhanced expertise he had possessed with the Russian language earlier was quickly deteriorating, “otherwise, they’ll take him and I won’t know where he is.” It seemed like a silly thing to say once it had left his mouth, but Yuuri didn’t have any other words right now. The idea of Viktor, not breathing, in some hospital somewhere and Yuuri unable to find him was all-consuming. It tore up his insides with fresh vengeance. He didn’t know what he would do if they didn’t let him go with Viktor. Then he was following the EMT to the ambulance Viktor was being loaded into. She said something to the driver, the driver looked at Yuuri and said something else. They went back and forth for far too long and then finally the EMT turned to Yuuri, she seemed to be saying a lot, but all he understood was,
“You can ride in the front.” Yuuri didn’t waste any time scrambling around the vehicle and clambering up into the passenger seat. It seemed like as soon as he was in the sirens began blaring, altogether too much, too loud. Then they were racing entirely too fast to a destination Yuuri didn’t understand.