Chapter Text
“Yuuri!”
Yuuri rubbed his eyes blearily and squinted at the clock beside the bed. “Vitya, it is four in the morning. Yakov told us to take the day off because of the study sessions. Why are you waking me up?”
“I got the music for my free skate! Listen to this!” Viktor pressed a button on his phone, and haunting string music started playing.
The song’s lyrics were in Italian. “Did you need me to translate or something? I do that better when I’m not still half-asleep although I guess this would be good practice for the actual exams…”
“No, no, just listen, I told Sara what I wanted and she wrote the lyrics, so I know what it’s saying,” Viktor promised.
Yuuri listened. “What’s your theme? Loneliness? It would be a huge surprise…”
“Something like that!” Viktor lit up in a huge smile. “This song’s about the loneliness and the search for someone to fix that problem. My short program’s going to be about losing the people closest to you.”
“So…”
“So I’m going to be telling everyone the theme is loneliness, but the real theme is parenthood. It’s kind of been on my mind a lot lately. The short program is about losing my parents so young, and the free skate’s about finding the right person to raise a family with. Not something I ever seriously had to worry about, since I have you, but if soulmates weren’t real…”
“I’d probably still be working on trying to reach you,” Yuuri finished. “What’s your exhibition?”
“If I can get it past Yakov, Britney Spears. I tried once when I was in novices, but he wouldn’t let me.” Viktor ruffled Yuuri’s hair. “What do you think, will he let me?”
“It’s an exhibition and it’s not an Olympic year, I don’t think Yakov will care.” Yuuri yawned. “Why are you even awake anyway?”
“I don’t know! I just am.” Viktor put his phone away and stretched out beside Yuuri, cuddling in. “Go back to sleep, love.”
Yuuri tried, but sleep wasn’t coming. Viktor tried to help, and then he decided to stop helping and start seducing. Yuuri was happy to let him – if he wasn’t sleeping, he might as well enjoy himself, right?
Yuuri had very little trouble coming up with his program ideas. All he had to do was open a book and try to prepare for his final exams or work on his senior project. Then all he could think about was skating. The look on Yakov’s face when Yuuri said he wanted to do a ninja short program had been hilarious, and it got even better when Viktor came over to investigate and found out the reason for it. It had been a while since Yakov had kicked Yuuri off the ice for anything but him trying to overwork himself, but Yuuri got kicked out along with Viktor after the flying tackle that nearly took out Mila too.
His free skate would be to music from Star Trek, specifically music associated with the Klingons. He blamed Phichit. After he and Seung Gil discovered they were soulmates, they spent two weeks hanging out. When not asleep or otherwise occupied, Seung Gil made Phichit bingewatch Star Trek, and Phichit had passed the hobby along to Yuuri. His exhibition skate then played with the Star Trek connection, and he was skating to “Magic Carpet Ride”.
Yuuri was prepared for the skating season, which wouldn’t start until August or September. He was nowhere near prepared for his exams, and those were coming in a month. Yakov took it easy on him as far as training time, giving Yuuri several hours a day to study, but Viktor insisted on taking regular breaks, too. “You know you can’t study effectively if you don’t give your brain a rest. Your brain is lying to you when it says that you’re wasting time, playing Assassin’s Creed with me or going for a picnic or out to a club.”
“I know that. I keep trying to tell myself that, but…”
“But if your brain lies to you how can you believe you?” Viktor guessed. Yuuri nodded, and Viktor winked at him. “That’s why I’m telling you! You can trust me!”
“But you have an ulterior motive. You want me to come play.”
“I also understand that when you’re doing something difficult, you have to work at it. I want you to be at your best. If that means sacrificing some of our playtime, then I do that, no problem. If that means reminding you to take a break and let your brain process, well, I’m good at that!”
Yuri was not looking forward to this season. He’d probably win a lot. No worries there. He’d won a lot last year and even with Klaus coming up, Yuri expected to continue winning this year. It was going to be like his last year in novices, treading water and looking ahead. At least this year, Yakov was letting him have some fun with his program, since it was a treading water season. Next year was his senior debut and he’d have to take that seriously, and then it was going to be an Olympics year. If he was going to have fun, now was the time to do it.
Superheroes were still fun, and Yuri was going to skate his short program to the theme from Superman, and then his free skate to a medley of songs from Marvel movies. His exhibition would then be music from ThunderCats – a suggestion from Leo.
At least things with Lev should be quiet, too. Until September, when Romana was due. Then there would be nonsense about Yuri not giving a damn about his flesh and blood sibling, while if Viktor and Yuuri kept their word, he’d be seeing their kid pretty quickly. At least, if his scheduling allowed. Yakov had promised that he could go if he wasn’t in a Junior Grand Prix event when they left, and he wouldn’t schedule anything at other times. He even said he’d talk to the officials and ask for Yuri to be entered early. No guarantees, but they were usually willing to work with athletes.
Yuri had tried to get Yakov to let him learn a quad from Viktor, but Yakov refused. Even when Yuri promised he wouldn’t use it in competition this year, Yakov said no. With Mila working on a triple axel, Yuri was the only one without a major project this offseason, and he was bored. Yuri was considering working on a quad on his own. He’d paid attention when Yuuri was learning them, and any time Mila asked a question about them, Yuri listened. He thought he could do it – but going against Yakov like that just might be enough for Yakov to kick him out, old family friend or not.