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sportsfest19_mr22019-08-11 03:08 am
Team Ice Ice Baby: the story of our lives
starriewolf (playlist + album art), cheshirecaine (fic, Detroit), lunsy (fic, St Petersburg)- Playlist: Yuri Plisetsky, Katsuki Yuuri, Jean Jack Leroy, Christophe Giacometti, Otabek Altin, Phichit Chulanont, Viktor Nikiforov (i.e. Grand Prix Final 6 + Viktor)
- Fic, Detroit: Katsuki Yuuri, Phichit Chulanont
- Fic, St Petersburg: Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri Plisetsky, Katsuki Yuuri
They may all be from different cultures and different nationalities, but skating is a language they all speak, and the ice is a home where they all belong.
Detroit was awesome. He, Yuuri Katsuki, was living the dream. He’d moved continents away, landing on his skates in the States. With a teacher, a full career in figure skating ahead of him and even a friend the minute he wheeled his luggage into his room. The friend part was probably less of his achievement. Phichit was open and fun. If an optician got him on the other side of a machine, Yuuri knew they’d see he had real stars in his eyes. Phichit leapt off his bed as soon as Yuuri closed the door behind him, already shaking his hand and offering hamster pics. The queasy feeling he’d had since the flight—anxiety flopping about his stomach like wet laundry—eased off. Detroit was maybe gonna be awesome. . . . Is what he thought. But Detroit wasn’t home. Sometimes he’d be caught off guard and forget English but this wasn’t class, he had to speak in it! When he ducked and avoided the eyes of other skaters or coaches, they’d try harder to make eye contact! Nobody could make out of pork what his mum did. They didn’t make his mum’s katsudon here. Detroit’s weather was kinda like visiting Hokkaido. But who cared?! He wasn’t from Hokkaido. Detroit wasn’t like Thailand. At all. But it didn’t bother Phichit. Nowhere in the world was like Thailand, so he didn’t carry that expectation. He was here to skate and make friends. Home was always waiting for him. He’d been worried for Yuuri at the start. Not because he recoiled a bit at their first meeting — that was classic Yuuri (he’s joking, he’s joking). But because he’d thrown himself so hard into trying to like Detroit and threw himself right back out the other end. Phichit only admitted it to himself that he was scared he might miss home with Yuuri’s level of nausea. It took him a little too long to realise this city was home too—and Yuuri a little longer. Alone, he had more to worry about. But together. . . That changed the game completely. Yuuri had lived in Detroit for five years now. It didn’t need to be Japan for Yuuri to love the place its own way, how it deserved. He’d cultivated part of his soul here. “It’s like that song, Phichit. I left my heart in De-troit!” Phichit cackled. “Detroit isn’t that long a word . . . You gotta add more warble to make it work.” “Together then!” “I left my heart in De-troi-oi-oit!”
Link to playlist with explanations
Viktor was born and raised in Russia and has been coming to the Saint Petersburg rink since he was just learning to skate.
It was always filled with bright lights and harsh, but helpful, encouragement and instructions from the coaches. The other figure skaters weren’t so snobbish as to brush off another if they needed help and helped each other with techniques to picking outrageous costumes. (More than one of Viktor’s costumes in his younger years was the byproduct of losing a bet with another skater.)
When he wasn’t skating, Viktor was exploring the streets, visiting the monuments with fellow skaters, or on his own. Trying out new recipes and meals or skipping stones from the docks into the Baltic Sea. He took to walking the corridors of the Hermitage when he was lacking the pizazz for the choreography his previous coaches set aside for him.
When Viktor was young and full of potential, the coaches would set him aside with more experienced skaters and set him to work, intent on bringing his abilities out completely, and Viktor thrived under the attention. To this day the coaches and older skaters welcomed him if he hinted at having trouble with one thing or another. But, not that many thought he needed help these days, especially by the time he entered competitions, but the thought was there, and it warms him.
(Regrettably, because of how much of his life he’s put into a figure skater, he wasn’t able to experience all the little festivals and events that so many tourists journey out to see.
But he’s made a promise to himself, and now Yuuri, to step out of training to explore his city more. He doesn’t want Yuuri to bored and feeling unwelcome, at the very least.)
Viktor knows he’s spilled blood on that ice, collapsed and almost broken bones after failed quads or from exhaustion, created his first original choreography in the dead of night after staying behind, as usual. He’s pretty sure he’s gotten his first concussion from accidentally falling into the wall when he was just starting to get used to his new growth spurt as a teenager. But through all his bumbles, his parents were home in their apartment waiting for him with smiles and blintzes.
Eventually, Viktor had travelled the world for championships and tried to find another home on ice and different towns. But his rise in popularity had seemingly alienated him to the world. Everywhere he went the people had made him feel uncomfortable in a way he’s never really had to experience before. (But he's well-versed in putting on a smile and acting for the crowd, so no one really seems to notice.)
Viktor dreaded coming back to Russia and finding Saint Petersburg more ghost town than a home. He’s glad it never really came down to that, even after he left to be a coach for Yuuri.
Out of everywhere he travelled, Viktor would always find himself returning to Saint Petersburg, where he learned to skate before he could walk. (He’s even come home in the middle of a competition to just skate in that rink, letting his mind go blank and work his way through whatever crisis that caused him to bolt.)
The start of his career was in Russia, at the Saint Petersburg rink, and after spending months in Japan with Yuuri, preparing for the competition that eventually lit a fire in both of them, it’s still the place he returns to. Only this time, Yuuri and Yuri are at his side, ready to fill the rink with their shouting (mostly Yuri) and stammers of apologies (Yuuri). Oh, let’s not forget the new roommate, though Yuuri isn’t exactly aware of this fact.
Right on cue, he hears a crash from the chasing rooms, then Yuri’s kitten-like yelling and Yuuri’s voice trying to calm the boy down. Viktor smiles and continues stretching.
It’s good to be home.
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