Chapter Text
December 3, 2023 | St. Petersburg, Russia
“Come on, Yurio! We need to pick up your Short Program costume before it gets too late. We’re heading to the airport early tomorrow morning,” Yuuri stated, ushering his skater toward the doors at Yubileynyy Sports Palace. They had remained late at the rink to make time for a last-minute practice session while Victor left early to drop their poodle, Victuuri, off at the doggy boarding spa they had booked him in while they were in Orleans, France, for the Grand Prix Final. They had agreed to go a few days early as Chris and his husband Masumi were flying in to visit with them.
“Coming, Katsudon, just relax. We have plenty of time,” Yurio rolled his eyes at his coach. They had come quite a long way from the day that Yurio had yelled at Yuuri in a bathroom in Sochi after his disastrous first attempt at the GPF.
It had been 8 years since that day and Yuuri still liked to tease Yurio about how bad of a first impression the blond skater made on others as a teenager. Now, at the age of 23, Yurio was as decorated a skater as Victor had been throughout his career, helped along by the fact that he had both Victor and Yuuri as his coaches after Yakov retired a few years previous. The other skater had come a long way from the angry blond kitten he’d been when Yuuri first met him; he was now almost like a son to both Victor and Yuuri, having moved in with them after his grandfather passed away shortly after he’d turned 16.
“You know how Vitya gets before a competition, Yurio, and traffic will be bad enough at this hour in the evening. Let’s just get everything done and get home,” Yuuri sighed as they made their way out to Yuuri’s matte black Mercedes-benz, a gift from Victor for their anniversary last year.
“The old man is lucky you married him, no one else would have put up with how dramatic he is,” Yurio muttered as he slid into the passenger seat after throwing his skate back into the trunk.
“You know you love him,” Yuuri laughed, turning on the radio and pulling out from the parking lot into traffic. “Is there anything else you need to do before we leave in the morning? You’re packed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Katsudon, everything is taken care of. This isn’t a first for either of us – I have no idea why you and the old man get so paranoid that we’re going to forget something. I mean, apart from that one time on your way to the Olympics when they lost your bag and you had nothing to wear, nothing has gone wrong for us. This time will be fine too.”
Yuuri looked over at his skater fondly, fighting the urge to ruffle his long blond locks. Yurio’s hair was now almost as long as Victor’s had been when he was younger. It had become one of their rituals that Yuuri did his skater’s hair before every competition, another thing that had brought them closer together after Yakov left them to their own devices. Yuuri already had a braided style in mind for the short program which he intended to try out with Yurio later that evening.
“Thank goodness we always fly with our costumes and skates with us,” Yuuri laughed as they stopped at a red light, recalling the anxiety he’d felt when he arrived in PyeongChang to find that his bag had gotten lost and he didn’t have any clothes with him. His first Olympics would have been entirely ruined if he hadn’t had his gear with him rather than putting it through with the rest of the luggage. Victor had made Yuuri go to the hotel while he had gone out and bought him an entirely new wardrobe and toiletries, once again showing Yuuri that he had the best husband and coach in the world.
The light turned green and Yuuri began to ease out into the intersection, the ice on the roads making it a little more slick than normal.
“Katsudon, watch out!” Yurio cried. Yuuri turned to the left just in time to see a truck fail to stop at the intersection and head right toward them. Yuuri furiously tried to spin the wheel but in the back of his mind he knew that it would be too late. He had only a second to pray that Yurio would be alright before the lights of the truck were blinding him and everything went black.