A/N: I kinda wanted to expand on this? But it's been sitting in my drafts for a month now and I thought, "Well, fuck it, it's not like I'll find the time to properly finish this anyway." So here we are, stuck at what was 33% of my original idea (which was to entirely rewrite E12 until the GPF EX), and I'm trying to pass it off as a finished work. Oh well. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

"After the final, let's end this."

Yuuri could barely believe that he actually found the courage to say those words — words he had been keeping in his chest for so long, carefully nurtured and kept until just the right time. He had been expecting the hard weight in his chest to lessen once he said that.

It hadn't. It had almost gotten worse.

Victor (beautiful, talented Victor; how could Yuuri ever be selfish enough to keep him?) had gone still.

"Yuuri," he said, and smiled, in that painfully careful way that Victor had learned to cultivate over these past few months. "I don't understand what you mean."

It was in that moment that Yuuri's heart ached the most. Victor had been nothing but kind and patient to him. Victor had been the one to train him until he reached where he was now. Victor had been the one to never give up on him until he realized that all throughout his life, his friends and family hadn't given up on him either.

Victor had given him strength, had given him confidence. Yuuri's heart ached as he looked at Victor's soft smile, his blue eyes, his gold ring. He would be a fool to let him go.

But.

Yuuri sat straight so he could look Victor in the eye. He smiled, and ignored the pang in his chest, as he said, "Maybe it's time we part ways."

Victor had listened, patiently, as Yuuri explained. He told Victor that he was always planning on retiring after the Grand Prix was over; he just hadn't gotten around to telling Victor that. He apologized profusely for only telling him now. He recalled, with a laugh, all the articles and people who said that it was only a matter of time before Victor would return back to the ice. He told Victor that he had seen him watching the other skaters earlier that day. He told Victor that it was perfectly understandable for him to miss being a competitor. He smiled, and told Victor it was about time that he reclaimed his title.

It had been an hour since he started talking, and Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief once he was done. He hadn't dreamed of speaking so much, but he supposed that a few month's worth of pent up feelings and emotions couldn't be expressed in just a few minutes.

"What about you?" Victor asked, after a moment's silence. About halfway through Yuuri's spiel he had started staring at the floor; Yuuri feared that he had bored him to sleep. "If I go back the ice, what becomes of you?"

"Then the prince will have transformed back into a little piggy, I guess," Yuuri shrugged. "I'll go back to Hasetsu and help out at the onsen. It won't be so bad. I'll have Yuuko and Takeshi with me; maybe I'll have to babysit the triplets while they manage the rink. They're a hassle, but it can't be as stressful as skating."

"Right," Victor muttered. He was gripping the edges of his robe a little too tight. "You've thought about this a lot, I'm sure."

Yuuri let his silence speak for itself.

Victor suddenly stood up, with a huge grin on his face.

"Well!" He laughed, loud and boisterous. "I can't say I expected that. Yuuri, you are absolutely full of surprises! Now if you excuse me, I have to take my evening bath."

"But Victor," Yuuri asked, confused. "Didn't you already—?"

The bathroom door slammed shut.

It had taken all his strength not to cry in front of him.

Victor practically collapsed on the bathroom floor once he shut the door, desperate for solitude and too weak to stand.

How could Yuuri ever think he would leave?

In an instant, Victor was bombarded with images and memories and the promises they had made to each other. He thought of the way Yuuri's eyes would shine in the sunlight, the way he would tenderly rub Makkachin's belly after a good meal, the way he would hum the music of his routines whenever he thought no one was around.

He remembered a drunken dance of passion and looseness and fun; a night of pole dancing and hideous blue ties and far too much champagne. He remembered shining, big, brown eyes and staring down at this mess of a man who had effortlessly, practically accidentally, captivated Victor in the truest sense of the word.

He thought of the way Yuuri had skated his routine; not with finesse, but with beauty nonetheless. The way he flowed and swayed as if he was part of the music, like there was simply no other way to express his feelings but through gliding on the ice.

He recalled Yuuri's breakdown at the Cup of China, recalled the pain of his own heartache as he watched Yuuri cry. He had panicked, he had screwed up, and never before had he felt such regret for the result of his mistakes. It was a last ditch effort to ask for a kiss, and Yuuri (strong, beautiful Yuuri; how ever did he live without this man?) had only asked Victor to don't do anything, just stay by my side!

Finally, he felt the phantom warmth of Yuuri's ring finger on his lips — a promise and a confession all hidden in the words: "I wish you would never retire."

Memories were brought to his mind like a blur; the church and the rings and everything that happened these past few months.

Stay by my side, and never leave.

Victor couldn't help but sob.

Yuuri had all but kicked the door down.

He had been trying to open it since he first heard the aching sobs coming from the bathroom, and though he had a few seconds of denial (There was no reason why Victor would be crying, right?), it was quickly erased once the sobs became louder and significantly more distressed.

"Victor! Victor, please open the door!" He begged. Because if there was anything Yuuri had learned until it had haunted almost every waking moment of his life, it was the cries of someone in an emotional breakdown. He had never dreamed (and had never, ever wished) that he would see Victor in such a state. And though he had never once felt that it would be enough, Yuuri had loved this man with all his aching soul.

Since when it did it turn into love? Yuuri wondered. But he didn't need an answer; what he needed was for Victor to be happy. For that, he would give everything.

He knelt, dogeza style, and prayed for the gods' kindness — for their forgiveness, as he let himself be selfish for one last time.

"Victor, please," He murmured softly. "Let me help you."

Slowly, the door creaked open. Yuuri lifted his head to see Victor, shaking and crying and looking for all the world like a lost puppy. It was the first time he had seen Victor look so ugly and so overwhelmed with emotion. Maybe it was the first time Victor had ever cried this hard — though he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why. Still, he opened his arms wide, and Victor crawled to him, hiccuping and sobbing.

Victor pressed their foreheads together, shakily whispering, "Never leave."

They stayed like that for what could have been hours — just holding on to each other for as tight as they could. It had taken a long time before Victor's crying had evened out to steady breathing, and Yuuri stroked his hair until he did. He did not understand why Victor had broke down, and certainly not why he had done it so destructively; but what he did understand was that Victor had needed him, if only for that night.

Later, once they had both settled on their adjoined beds, Victor spooned him. Reveling in his warmth and the feeling of being wanted, Yuuri almost hated himself.

Ah, he thought, the weight in his chest getting heavier. If only I deserved you.

"I want to smile for my last time on the ice," Yuuri murmured, gripping his fingers with his own.

Victor, who had by now internalized his fiancé's penchance for metaphor and double meanings and saying so much by talking so little, felt something like a sword stab him through the heart. He barely held back from saying, But I wanted to watch you skate forever.

So Victor quietly asked him why he hadn't won a gold medal yet. Why, in all his months of tutelage and trying to give him all the things he's learned in his twenty years of skating, never once has Yuuri been crowned champion on an international level. Why, for some reason, Yuuri had never shown his full potential yet.

Yuuri stared at him, wide-eyed, and all Victor could think was, I have been waiting so long for you to bloom.

If that night had gone much more different, if he hadn't broken down as much as he did, if perhaps this Victor had any unspoken and undiscovered yearning to experience skating in a better and much more loving light than he did before, then maybe Yuuri would've ended up much more determined and confidently sure than he did.

But the truth was that this Victor was tired. He had already given so much to skating. It was time to give his life and love to someone else.

And he had decided, long ago, to whom he was going to dedicate it to now.

Yuuri gripped his hand all the more tighter, not meeting his eyes. "Right," he murmured. "Or else all of your effort will have gone to waste."

Because the only reason you stay is because you've just randomly decided I need to win gold at the GPF, right? went unsaid, but Victor could see it in his eyes. And just when Victor thought, God, can he break my heart even more than he already has—

Yuuri smiled at him, eyes shining and far more bittersweet than they should be, and let go.

Before Yuuri headed off to the ice for his free skate, Victor grabbed his hand.

He stared, startled, at his coach. Victor stared back, every bit as determined and serious as he usually tried to hide. His ice blue gaze was piercing and strangely desperate.

Yet his voice was soft when he spoke.

"Yuuri," he started, and paused. He seemed surprised at his own actions, but he took a deep breath and continued. "I know that we've had our fair share of misunderstandings but—"

He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he spared a glance at the cheering crowd calling Yuuri's name. He suddenly seemed to remember that the Grand Prix was not necessarily the right place for a lengthy heart-to-heart. The announcer was already introducing him when Victor gave an angry, impatient huff and pulled him closer.

Victor took a deep breath, in a shaky way that was reminiscent of his breakdown just the night before. "Please understand, it was never about the gold medal for me," he whispered, and Yuuri's eyes widened.

He pulled away. "Victor..."

Victor just gripped his shoulders tighter. His eyes were shining, and Yuuri knew that his were too. He murmured, almost quiet enough to go unheard, "Prove to me that the gold rings we're wearing mean something. They mean so much to me."

I love you, Yuuri's furious and aching heart seemed to say. Of course, of course Victor would choose now of all moments to make Yuuri cry. It must be some sort of twisted revenge for what happened last night — now that he realized, if Victor was saying a sliver of what he thought he was saying, he wouldn't have to give up skating after all.

It was like the weight he'd been carrying in his chest had suddenly been lifted.

Shakily, carefully, he echoed the words out loud.

Victor, his beautiful and talented Victor, had the softest look on his face — and he laughed, like Yuuri had just made him the happiest man in the world. He placed a chaste kiss to Yuuri's forehead, to the elated roars of the crowd. He whispered, for their ears only, as their golden rings glistened in the light: "I know."

And with that, Yuuri was pushed to the ice.

Eros was always Victor's invention.

It was him who chose the song, who choreographed it, who wrote its story. It was designed to get Victor another gold, not Yuuri. But for better or for worse, the piece went to Yuuri instead - skating how Victor wanted him to skate, skating how Victor would have skated it himself. This is what Victor wants, he thinks, and it had always been easier to follow someone else instead of exposing himself to the world.

And Yuri On Ice has always focused on showcasing the latter.

The lonely piano played in the empty rink, and Yuuri closed his eyes — once again imagining himself engulfed in the fear that had shadowed him for years.

When he first practiced the routine, the beginning was by far the easiest part to emulate; despite that, it was the hardest part to accept. Yuuri knew it should've been easy to act like he was skating alone, because at some point in his life that had been his only truth. But at the same time, it was too easy to regress and to slip into that line of thinking again — too easy to forget the love that he had just learned, too easy to remember the lonely ache that had always accompanied him. It had taken him so long to realize that the pain was temporary.

I'm past that now, Yuuri thought as he executed another step sequence to the rising crescendo of the music. I can be better and I will be.

He thought that Victor couldn't possibly stay happy with him; that some unspoken longing to go back to the ice will always exist within Victor no matter what he did. He says stay with me until I retire and he thinks I'll retire after the GPF and he reasons That's just enough time; I'll let myself be selfish until I gather up the strength to let him go.

This is something that Yuuri had always assumed: that Victor would never be a permanent fixture of his life. And the confusing and overwhelming swirl of emotions in his heart, emotions he had decided to call love, had never let him forget that for a second.

He cries, when Victor says I wish you'd never retire at the airport. He thinks you don't know what you're saying and he thinks you'll get bored of me someday and, perhaps most importantly, he thinks once again, you meet me where I am.

Something he had never wanted to acknowledge was the fact that, damned be the risks and the consequences and previous experiences gone sour — he wanted Victor to stay. He wanted to do everything in his power to prove his right to stand by Victor's side. He wanted to do anything in his life that would ensure that Victor would smile at him. He wanted to be something, someone to Victor, more than a gold medal and definitely more than a bittersweet almost.

Yuuri cast a single look at Victor's face; his meticulously groomed hair, his shining blue eyes, his tears that threatened to fall just from watching Yuuri skate. He felt his heart move in that moment — the music was soaring, the crowd was watching with bated breath, the ice seemed warmer somehow. In that one moment, he felt like he could do anything.

Ah, so this is what love feels like, he thought, and he jumped.

The crowd did a standing ovation as Yuuri Katsuki landed his quadruple flip. Around the world, there were people cheering for him — be they watching on television or a horrible livestream or right there in Barcelona. These people were strangers, competitors, friends; people who may or may not know him or his story, but do know that he has created a work of art with nothing but the way he glides upon frozen water.

Not that he ever notices; not that he can ever comprehend just how many of the seven billion souls in the world has he ever touched with his earnest, glass heart. He only cared for just the one.

When he opened his eyes, he only looked at Victor Nikiforov.

And Victor, as always, stared back — smiling and crying and golden ring shining on the hand he has put over his ever-beating heart.