#I assure you I’m the fastest! Can’t beat these wings!

[waywardangel-suggestions]

Oh!!! A race and cocoa!! That sounds awesome!!! It'll be so fun! Oh!!! Oh maybe we could all race and see who's the fastest!!! Oh- or maybe we could all go sneakily say hi to some of those Mortals, I haven't talked much to them either! -Sunsprite

He laughs, but it sounds hollow and forced.

I wish… Mnemoria makes sure none of her angel’s talk to mortals. Especially me. She’d never let me work for Kirin again if she found out I did that under their watch…

A real smile reappears on his lips.

But we can definitely race and have cocoa!

[saintsnsinnersbdb]

Drunken Delusions: Deliverance Part 8

Written by @FmrCopBONeal and @TohrSASRP

Butch: [The nightmares of Janey had been coming for over a week. Each time she came to me in my dreams she killed me in different ways. It had been usually choking to death or slicing my throat. But this last one shook me to my soul. It wasn’t the twelve-year-old boy anymore, it was me in the present and with my dagger to my heart I just simply ash away like one of the race’s enemies. 

After this nightmare, I hit the Lag hard to the point my liver was tapping out but I was still pushing it. What is going on? It’s never been like this. Nightmares every night cause me to feel ill and tainted. It has never happened like this, in all the years I had dreamed of Janey. 

I look at the clock and curse I am late for helping with the training. Great, that is all I need to deal with is Tohr riding my ass. One for the road, hell yeah. I grab the bottle of Lag and take a huge pull or five from it. Before heading out to Tohr’s office. @TohrSASRP

Tohr: In my office, I looked over the schedules one more time, furrowing my brow as a headache was slowly developed. I was certainly in no state to do any sort of administration but I was off rotation which meant I was confined to my desk or left pacing my room or the manse in general. Hell, I wasn’t even on call for a training session with the trainees, and the gym would be filled tonight with the young ones so that was a no-go as well. Nothing sounded any more helpful than pushing paper for the training program, so that had been where I had ended up, and hence the headache was a necessary evil to not going completely crazy. 

Butch was on teaching duty tonight, paired up with Axel, a young hopeful that had shown a lot of potential in class and could use some private mentoring lessons. For tonight Butch was set to look after his hand-to-hand, polishing it up and making it more powerful. A weak punch was no good on the battlefield after all. I fish out my phone and text the Cop, since he was about to run late. The guy was probably just trying to decide what leathers went with what shitkickers in that hoarder’s nightmare he called a closet. I then open up my office door and call in Axel, hoping at least someone had made it on time.   

Butch:  I have no clue how the fuck I ended up outside of Tohr’s office from the Pit or how the fuck I was standing upright. Here we go, ladies and gentlemen, I knock like the police were about to bust down your mother fucking door and walk in there, sitting on one side of Tohr’s desk is the trainee, Axel. 

When I look at Tohr, I can see he is fucking annoyed at me. “WHAT?” Looking at the clock damn. I am twenty minutes late. Trying not to slur my speech as I talk. “Sorry, I lost track of time doing ... things.” Did I just sway, I think I just swayed. “Axel, meet you out on the mats,” not wanting to hear it from Tohr. I turn and head out leaving them both sitting there. 

Tohr: When Butch finally showed his face, I was ready to give one hell of a talk-to drill-seargent style but he blew me off faster than I anticipated. Something was off though with my Brother. He was less… Shit, was chummy the right word? Normally the Cop was laid-back and relaxed, very casual but he seemed more … well friendly, but in a less restrained way. Like he wasn’t trying to camouflage his friendly side as much as he used to. Pair that with a hint of alcohol on his breath and I’m fairly sure I hit the shit jackpot. 

Either that or I’m getting paranoid … yeah, not going down that lane. I look to Axel and offer a nod. “Best get out on the mats and start warming up. Butch won’t take long to get ready.” I assured him though I knew I had to keep an eye on Butch. My paranoid feeling seemed insistent on hanging around.  

Butch: I quickly change and head out to the mats. Rolling my shoulders, I have a plan to let the little fucker, Axel, think he is kicking my ass than BAM. I would turn the table and make him cry, uncle. 

Cracking my neck and shaking out my arms as I carry myself to the center of the mat. I get in fighting stand and beckon the young trainee to attack. He is smart, he leads me to one side and starts making me move back. I stumble over my foot and he takes me down. Sloppy on my part.  Fuck, he has me in a neck hold and the squeeze he is putting on his arm is a match for match with Rhage or V.

In my still drunk haze of trying to act normal. Something snapped as he squeezed my throat, my sleep-deprived ass watched as Axel turning into a lesser, I could smell the acidy baby powder and when I attempted to inhale the lesser  It did not work. What the living fuck. My eyes grew wide. I immediately panicked that this lesser would get up to the main house and start killing infants and shellans. I shifted my footing and was able to flip the lesser to the mat and with my strength. I came down hard on the lesser knocking the wind out of him. I start punching right and left at the lesser's face. I could feel the bones of the lessers face breaking and him yelling out to stop. 

Tohr: As soon as Butch and Axel hit the mats, I kept half an eye on them as I continued my paperwork back in the office. It was no problem leaving the door to the admin office open a bit. Somehow listening to the sparring and trainees made me feel more at ease. Perhaps it helped me shut out some of the other thoughts haunting my brain for the time being. 

I watched as Axel seemed to really put up a good fight with Butch, practically dancing around him and luring him into a pretty good chokehold. My eyes widened as I saw Butch switch around on the kid, beating the everliving shit out of him, the rest of the trainees backing off. In a dash, I beat feet towards my brother and peeled him from the poor trainee. 

“Butch! BUTCH!” I practically scream into his face, wrestling Axel from his death-hold. “Stand down!” I command and look to a few trainees. “Get Axel to the medical wing, the staff will patch him up” when no one really moved, I narrow my eyes. “NOW!” making them finally get their fingers out their arses and moving. 

I looked back to Butch, growling at him as I dragged his ass back into the office, slamming the door behind us. “What the hell was that?! Are you trying to kill our trainees?!”

Butch: I push Tohr away from me. I start pacing back and forth like a caged animal. I shake my head at what I did, I swear that he was a lesser. What the fuck is wrong with me? I continue to shake my head as I pace muttering to myself. 

Once Tohr starts to yell at me, I whipped my head around at him, I growl.  “He was a mother fucking Lesser Tohr. I was stopping him before he got to the main house.”  I get right into Tohr’s face, “I was killing what I fucking needed to.” I was fucking losing my shit. I need to get out of here, I need to go back to drink. “Fuck this, I am out.” I head to the door flinging it open taking it off it off the hinges. I head to the game room of the compound, know that is where I will find the fastest drink. I didn’t even care what it is as long as it numbs my head. I get there to see half bottle of Lag and I pick it up undoing the top before taking a huge pull from the bottle, letting the drink burned my throat down to my gut. Everything as silent for a brief fucking moment.

Tohr: I heard Butch growl at me and I growled right back, not taking any shit. As it became clear to me that the Cop was not well, I didn’t respond to his ramblings but instead let him walk off to let him cool a little. I had a good idea of where he was headed given his scotch-breath. Fuck, he really stank and I should have never let him and Axel spar at all. 

I sent the rest of the trainees to the showers and headed into the admin office, writing a log of tonight's accident before calling a doggen via the office telephone to get the bus moving well ahead of schedule. No reason for the trainees to linger too much if they didn’t need to. 

On the computer I head into the Brotherhood schedule and pull Butch from the rotation completely, attaching a note to come to talk to me about the matter, in case there were questions from my brothers. No need to air the dirty laundry given Butch was already in a bad state. After finishing my admin work, I headed back up to the manse, going straight from the secret door to the billiards room, finding Butch in the middle of a solo drinking contest. Poor sod was obviously losing his mind over something but I found it better not to pry. The Cop had already growled at me once, and given what he had done to Axel, I’d rather not go head-to-head with the guy. 

I plopped down next to him, grabbing a bottle of bourbon and took a swig. “I don’t know what’s doing your head in and I’m not about to play psychologist,” I said rather shortly. “But whatever’s going on with you means you’re off rotation. Take some time to take care of you” I continue, leaving out the ‘We can't afford liabilities and loose cannons in the field’ shit for the next trainee lesson. Butch knew it well enough anyway.  

[plotmaster]

Aria: Stammi Vicino, Non Te Ne Andare (4/9)

Summary: Yuuri is occupied for the day, so Victor decides to read.

That is, read Yuuri's journals, compiled over the course of about six hundred and fifty years. They're terrifying, and interesting, and it turns out Yuuri has... a son?

His son who apparently was the leopard that tried to attack him last night, what the fuck.

word count: 7.2k

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | read on ao3

Vorrei serrar nel gelo le mani / I wish I could seal in the ice the hands Che esprimono quei versi d'ardente passione / That portray those verses of burning passion

On the second day, Victor wakes up in a cold sweat, half-expecting the leopard from last night to be waiting for him to rip out his throat. Thankfully, it’s not.

Makkachin isn’t in the room, either. Probably still in the kennels — he had run off to play with the other dogs yesterday. Victor doesn’t dwell on it too much, choosing instead to get up and prepare to break fast with Yuuri like yesterday.

The issue of last night lurks in his mind, though. Yuuri’s reaction, the disappearance of the creature... it’s obvious to say that Yuuri is hiding something. Victor doesn’t feel offended at this, because they’ve only known each other for a short while, after all, so it’s natural that Victor doesn’t know everything yet.

He wants to, though. Someday, be able to claim that there are few secrets in between them.

He shakes his head as he dons his coat and heads out. It’s foolish to think of such far-off dreams when today is the second day, and if he wants to stay in Yuuri’s house after tomorrow he needs to figure out a gift. But what is fair payment to someone who you want to find out about? What do you give to someone in exchange for asking them to let you stay in their home so you can find solace in their heart?

Victor wants so much he aches for it. Yuuri is immortal, and even if there’s no way that they can break his curse, perhaps they’d be able to resolve each other’s loneliness-

His thoughts are cut off by a loud clanging in the kitchen, and Victor quickens his footsteps, hovering outside the kitchen door, awkwardly aware that he can’t enter. He knocks, anyways, and can barely hear muffled swearing on the other end. “Yuuri, are you okay?”

More talking, and Victor hears some scuffling before the door is swung open and he’s treated to the sight of Yuuri covered head-to-toe in flour, dressed in plain clothes and an apron around his waist that clearly did little to mitigate the mess. “Vi- Victor,” Yuuri appears flustered, cheeks pink under the dusting of flour, “Good morning!” He stands in a way that he’s blocking the view, so Victor can’t see much of the kitchen except for the window that he had a direct line of sight to above Yuuri’s head.

Victor bites the inside of his mouth to stop himself from reaching out to wipe some of the flour from the corner of Yuuri’s slightly parted lips. He crosses his arms instead, to keep them from betraying him. “Good morning, Yuuri,” he greets, keeping his voice controlled. “Is everything okay?” Victor gestures to the kitchen.

Yuuri winces, and blushes a bit, bringing up a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I would say yes, but...” he laughs sheepishly in that frightfully endearing way of his, “As you can see, it’s not.”

“Would you like help?” Victor offers.

Yuuri looks scandalized. “No! You’re my guest- thought I do have to warn you that breakfast today will be a bit later than usual, as I need to clean up this mess.”

“Don’t worry,” Victor assures him, “I can wait.” Yuuri smiles at him, relieved, but Victor quickly adds, “Are you sure you don’t want my help cleaning up? I may be a guest, but I wouldn’t mind helping you out.” The smile drops, so Victor hurriedly tacks on, “Besides, clean-up would be faster and breakfast would come sooner!”

“Ah, thank you for the offer, Victor,” Yuuri is smiling thinly, in a way that Victor can’t help but feel is distant. “But I should be good.” He steps back inside the kitchen and shuts the door before Victor can get a word in edgewise.

Disappointment at the rebuffing of his offers to help eats at his hopes, but he quickly discards those thoughts and settles on mulling over more pleasant things instead.

The first time they met, Yuuri had the presence of a lord straight out of fairy-tales: drinking fine wine in a gazebo on a bright, frosty winter day, in fine clothes and awaiting the arrival of someone whose face and name he doesn’t know. That Yuuri had been enchanting, enthralling, made Victor want to reach out to seek a kind of physical intimacy that he rarely did. But that Yuuri seemed distant in his elegant nobility, businesslike in a way that Victor knows — if he had offered sex, if that Yuuri accepted, it wouldn’t have been satisfying, emotionally. As for being physically satisfying, theoretically, Victor has no doubts that it would have been fantastic.

The Yuuri he had met yesterday morning was still lordlike and noble, fencing with a rapier against a dummy, shirtless and with the body of a trained fighter. It’s a memory that makes Victor drool a little, more than his memory of their first meeting, because the Yuuri of yesterday had been closer, kinder, less distant and businesslike and their evening whiled away telling tales had been wonderful. Victor doesn’t get the opportunity to tell tales of his adventures often, and he wants Yuuri to look at him fondly, so the opportunity to tell his tales to Yuuri is a memory that he’ll treasure forever.

That, and memories of Yuuri’s laughter at bad jokes, or embarrassing encounters. Memories of Yuuri’s gentle smile, the way that his voice lilts when he’s curious-

Victor shakes his head, shifting his legs because thinking of Yuuri and intimacy makes his heart beat a little too fast.

“Now, this Yuuri...”

This morning, Yuuri didn’t have the sexual sort of thrall that the past two days had had in their nobility or nudity. Instead, he’d been covered in flour, undignified — but it’s that memory that has Victor’s lips spreading into a stupid smile the fastest, just because Yuuri-covered-in-flour was so silly and adorable. Yuuri-with-no-shirt and Yuuri-the-enigmatic-lord had made Victor want to kiss him senseless, but this one makes Victor want to roll up his sleeves and help him clean the kitchen, possibly help him cook, maybe mess around with the flour together...

“Breakfast is ready!” he hears the call.

Victor squeezes his eyes shut and breathes deeply before he stands up to head to the dining room. I want to stay, he thinks as he sits down to eat. I want to stay and find out all the facets to Yuuri’s personality.

I want to stay, if he’ll let me.

Breakfast is a quiet affair, warm porridge with various things on the side to add flavour. Victor tries to start conversation once, twice, but they’re both shut down by Yuuri’s clipped answers, as if he’s distracted from Victor and focused entirely on something else. It makes something inside Victor pout terribly. “I’m sorry,” Yuuri says as he clears the dishes. “I will be busy most of the day. You are free to explore, of course. You haven’t seen much of the house, have you?”

I would rather spend the rest of the day with you, is what Victor wants to say, but he holds his tongue. “I haven’t,” he tells him instead. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

Yuuri looks apologetic for a minute. “I do wish I could spend time with you, but I have... obligations.” He doesn’t elaborate on what sort of obligations he means. “We can take our meals together, still. Are you interested in any part of the mansion in particular?”

“I...” Victor lets his gaze wander over the books that surround them, that line the entire front lounge and dining area. “Is this your whole collection of books?” he asks.

Yuuri follows his gaze around the room. A soft, “Ah,” escapes his mouth. “No, actually. I have a small library in another room.”

Victor pastes on his most winning smile. “May I peruse your library then, Yuuri?”

There’s hesitation visible on Yuuri’s face, some kind of worry manifesting with the way that Yuuri bites his lips a little. “It’s in the West Wing,” he murmurs. “You must promise that you will not go into the other rooms.”

“I promise.”

“Follow me, then.”

The library is small, and possibly holds less books than the shelves that surround the lounge and the dining area, but it carries a sense of age, a smell of secrets. Yuuri left shortly after showing him the room, so Victor takes his time in exploring it. Bookshelves line the walls, and there are eight standing in the room. A small stepladder rests against one of them, clearly to aid in reaching higher shelves, In the center is a small table and a single cushioned chair, with what looks to be a rune-scripted lantern in the middle.

This is what I was looking for, Victor muses as he runs his hand over a collection of worn spines, an entire shelf of books of varying ages. They’re all leatherbound, and some of the older ones have splotches of ink on the edges, but Victor knows that their appearance has nothing to do with their true value.

He goes to the end of the shelf, seeking the oldest of them, and dislodges a considerable amount of dust when he pulls it out. Victor can’t help but sneeze, but he turns the aged book over in his hands, something like satisfaction curling in his chest when he sees what is blotted on the front.

4th year, Winter - 8th year, Spring

Victor breathed deeply before snagging the three books next to it and heading to the chair in the center.  

It opens with reluctance, the pages aged but with few marks of usage. The words on the parchment are messy, scrawled hastily and the lines are crooked.

Why me? It opens with, the ‘y’ jagged with the writer’s desperation. Why am I still alive? Why am I stuck here?

My name is Yuuri Katsuki, and I haven’t left my estate for four years now.

I can’t leave.

i can’t die either

Victor runs his hands over the long-dried ink, “How long ago was this?” he murmurs. He checks the other books he had picked up, but there are no mentions of dates, only of years and seasons. It’s... a saddening thought, that Yuuri had lost track of time like that, not know the dates and only keeping track of the seasons. Victor sighs before leaning back and settling in for a long reading session.

“So Papa, what’s the guest doing?” Yuri asks as he skates backwards on the ice of the frozen pond. “Are you sure he won’t see me?”

Papa smiles as he skates idly next to him. “The inner library doesn’t have any windows, so don’t worry, Yurochka. I can spend time with you today.”

That was not what Yuri expected. “He’s in the inner library?!” Yuri cries. “I- you keep your journals there, Papa, why would you let him-”

“Because he asked,” Papa says firmly, and he digs his toe pick in the ice to stay still. “He asked if I had any other books and asked to see them.”

“But your journals-”

Papa presses his lips together. “There’s nothing special about my journals anyways,” he mutters. “There’s nothing to worry about, Yurochka. Even if he reads about you he won’t know that you’re still staying here.”

Yuri stares at him, takes in the defensive posture of his father, the way that he’s not meeting his eyes. “You like him,” he realizes, horrified, “You want him to stay!”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Papa asks, his voice quiet. He looks at Yuri, his brown eyes unreadable. “He’s a nice person. If he wants to stay I’ll let him.”

A mage came by today. She wanted a place to stay while doing his studies, and asked for my patronage. She offered to bring heat to the house with her magic. Victor skims over the fifth volume, 20th summer - 24th fall.

“Well, that explains the magical apparatuses everywhere,” he realizes aloud, looking at the item providing illumination next to him. The lantern is fixed to the table, lit by tapping at one of the runes on top of it, and similarly treated metal strips run from the lamp down the table, all around the room, so that once the lantern is lit, the runes on the metal start shining bright enough to make the library as well-lit as a room with windows.

Every room, honestly, had clear signs of a fire mage’s work. Victor goes back to reading, noting that there were several pages dedicated to the woman - Mila was her name, apparently — and the specific things he had installed around the manor.

Mila’s name fades out shortly, but occasionally sketches of intricate runework show up in Yuuri’s journal, with notes done in someone else’s handwriting. Runes for the oven, reads one tidy note.

Eventually, the whole journal is taken over by Mila, who proceeds to ramble for the rest of the book about her work on the manor and the various minor breakthroughs she had made while treating the estate as some sort of long-term project. Victor is sure that Yakov would have found the writings thoroughly interesting, but Victor himself doesn’t do well with fire magic or rune-scripting.

Flipping through the next several volumes, Victor raises his eyebrow at Mila’s long-lasting presence. Yuuri writes of her fondly, and more than once he expresses happiness about the mage. She has brought literal warmth to my home, he writes, I will be sad to see her go.

There it is, Victor thinks grimly.

Mila leaves four volumes after she is first mentioned. I will remember the color of her hair with the fall leaves, and with all the magic she has left to me. Safe travels, my friend.

The bottom of the page is stained with long-dried tears, and there is a folded piece of paper tucked in there. Even to Victor, it hums faintly with the remnants of fire magic.

He doesn’t touch it.

“You’re saying that now but he’ll leave eventually, Papa,” Yuri snaps, skating in circles around his father. “Everyone leaves, like you say. But I’m still here, so why do you have to- to-”

Papa regards him calmly. “Are you jealous, Yurochka?” he asks. “He’s only been here for two days, you know.”

Mortification sizzles through Yuri, and he hates how he can feel himself flush in embarrassment. “I’m not!” he denies hotly. “It’s just- I don’t like him! I think he needs to go away.”

“Is that why you attacked him last night?”

Yuri falls silent.

“Yurohchka?”

Yuri huffs and looks away. “Can we just skate, Papa?” he pleads.

Papa sighs. “Very well then. But you are apologizing to him if he decides to stay.”

He won’t be staying if I have any say in it.

“Fine.”

Victor is aware that he’s making a mess, and it will be a bitch to clean up, but — Yuuri is terrifying.

Hours ago, he had shifted from the chair to sitting in front of the books filled with the other man’s journals, journals which tell in varying amounts of detail Yuuri’s solitary existence for almost six hundred years.

Six hundred years.

Six hundred and fifty-two, to be exact. Victor had managed to match historical events to ones in Yuuri’s journals - an incident of wounded soldiers trying to steal his horses when he was two hundred and seventy three happened around the same time Blies and its neighbor Arus had a series of border conflicts almost four hundred years ago. The famous time sorcerer Celestino, one of Yakov’s contemporaries, showed up in the journals too.

Famous merchants, various merchant caravans which cycle through the continent and only arrive in Blies every fifty years, famous mages, not-so-famous mages, heroes and villains that Victor has only heard of, never encountered — their meetings with Yuuri are recorded in the journals, along with the duration of their stay, Yuuri’s observations, his interactions with them.

A historian would have a field day with these books, Victor thinks with no small amount of wonder.

The accounts become more detailed as time goes on, Yuuri’s handwriting neater, the content less panicked and frenzied. But there are records of panic attacks, Yuuri’s numerous woes about being immortal and never trying to leave, his many attempts at freeing himself.

Victor is aware that his breathing has become shallow, that he had denied lunch earlier while engrossed in reading, that the way that he was sitting on the floor was terrible for his back. He closes his eyes and times his breaths, placing down the latest book and leaning lack against another bookshelf. Well, I wanted to know about Yuuri, he thinks faintly. I know so much now.

He’d read the first four journals, skimmed all the ones between the fifth and the twentieth before skipping over to what had been marked as the forty-seventh, opening that one and reading the accounts of nature mage Keepsake that had grown Yuuri a vegetable garden on the estate, skimmed up through the fifty-third before grabbing random ones and flipping through them because there was a pattern to all the interactions.

Mila, Celestino, Keepsake - all of them had stayed a significant amount of time. Merchant caravans had often used Yuuri’s estate as a temporary open market. But they all left, at some point. Some people even died on the grounds, and were apparently buried behind the mansion. That is, died of old age, or sickness. Time.

What terrifies Victor is that while Yuuri had welcomed them all with open arms and an open door, he pushes them away.

Celestino had stayed for ten years, three of which had been studying Yuuri’s immortality, apparently. Eventually though, he had left. What was telling though, was that Yuuri never records any attempt at making people stay. Sometimes there are whole conversations transcribed, or described, but Yuuri never asks people to stay. He leaves the door open for them, to stay if they wish, but the door is always open for them to leave as well.

There’s never an option for people to stay in Yuuri’s life. Whether they stay for three days, or a week, or a year, or even more than a decade, Yuuri pushes them away, to leave.

For someone so terribly lonely, he pushes people away consistently, and that is terrifying. How can one continue to impose such solitude on themself for so long?

A little girl from Metzrin came by today, began one passage. Her name is Yuuko. She followed Vic here, as she was curious about the animals. She wanted to stay and play, but I sent her home.

Yuuko from Metzrin, the innkeeper. Victor had laughed upon reading that entry. “No wonder she calls you the lonely man!” he cried.

Ten years later, another entry.

The little girl from ten years ago visited me today, Yuuko. She’s older now, and is getting married! She brought her to-be-husband with her. Takeshi is a nice boy, and he was wary of me, but he is good for her.

I asked her why she had come, and she demanded that we all eat dinner. I allowed them, of course, but on the condition that they return to town immediately after. Metzrin town does not like me, and it is a miracle that they have not called on the royal army to do something about me. I know that they would not have taken kindly to two of their young ones disappearing to my manor.

Six months later- Yuuko came to visit again. Yuuri wrote, sounding puzzled. She brought a basket with her, and insisted we eat together. She has started an inn, and told me that her husband was covering for her, that people believed that she was ill, so that she could eat with me...

Yuuko is a good person, I think. She has offered to send me things, and to watch out for the exorcists or witch-hunters that may be targeting me. I refused, at first, because messing with those sorts are dangerous, but she told me she would anyway, and waas just telling me of her decision.

I asked her why. She said that I deserved to have someone watch my back. Silly child, I am centuries older than you.

Yuuko appeared in the journals every two or three months from that point on, without fail, except for one time that she didn’t visit for roughly seven months, only for her next visit to include her husband and her newly-born children.

She asked me to give them a blessing, for a long life.

I hope Axel, Lutz, and Loop live long lives, happy ones, but certainly not as long as mine. God forbid.

There is a deep sense of self-deprecation in Yuuri’s tone as time goes on, anxiety that bubbles in his mind and burst on the tip of his pen on the journals. He talks about his reluctance in being acquainted with Yuuko’s children, of the possible calamities that could befall the family if the rest of the town’s inhabitants found out about their relationship. He tends towards the negative, even in his fierce and very clear caring of the family.

And then... there was the incident of the Plisetskys. Victor flicks his eyes to the most recent volumes. Nikolai and Yuri Plisetsky, a grandfather and grandson pair from Arus that had stumbled upon the manor during a fierce blizzard, and ended up staying for a long time. Nikolai had died early though, about a year into their stay, and little Yuri was supposed to go with Yuuko to be adopted in Metzrin, or at least taken care of by the town. But instead, the child had dug in his heels and decided to stay with Yuuri.

He’d be eighteen now, Victor muses as he lifts up the second-to-last volume to begin, the first volume of Yuri and Yuuri’s life together. He hadn’t read through the last two books yet, having collapsed after reading about Yuuri’s conflicting feelings on adopting the little Yuri. On another note, the katsudon pirozhki recipe had apparently been from Nikolai, his gift for staying. I wonder where the boy is now? He’d hadn’t seen any evidence to a second occupant in the house.

Before he can begin the next journal though, there’s a knock on the door, and Yuuri enters the library. “Vic-” he freezes upon seeing Victor on the floor, surrounded by his journals, “-tor... Victor.”

“Is it dinnertime already?” Victor wipes mental fatigue off his face and beams. “I’ll be right there once I’m done cleaning up my mess!”

Yuuri steps in hesitantly. “I...”

“Don’t worry, nothing’s damaged!” Victor jumps to his feet to usher Yuuri out of the room. “I’ll be down in a minute or so, just leave the food for me!”

Yuuri’s stricken face is some mixture of uncertainty and absolute terror, his gaze switching between Victor and the journals on the ground. “I-”

“Go on, go on!”  Victor gently pushes him out of the library, giving him a little wave before closing the door and quickly gathering the scattered journals into his arms before sorting them properly back onto the bookshelf. I wonder why he looked so shocked? I mean, he did give me access to this room.

Dinner was a quiet affair, Yuuri in some awkward self-conscious state fiddling with his sleeves in between bites and never really looking Victor in the eye. Attempts at conversation were shut down, and Yuuri absconded as quickly as possible after clearing the dishes, his cheeks burning with mortification that Victor does not understand.

“I’m going to go take a walk outside,” Victor calls to Yuuri’s retreating back. Yuuri gives no sign that he heard, but Victor sighs and stands up to get his coat anyways.

The air is crisp and the moon reflects on the snow on the ground, making the twilight brighter than usual. Victor whistles once, a low, drawn-out sound, and in minutes Makkachin comes bounding towards him, his faithful companion almost tackling him over in greeting. “There you are, Makkachin!” Victor explains as he bends down to give the poodle a good scratch behind the ears. “You’ve been having fun with the other dogs, haven’t you?” Makkachin barks, running around Victor’s heels, and he takes this as an agreement. “Come with me for a walk, okay boy?”

He sets off towards the treeline, planning on circling around the grounds a few times. It’s a new experience, now, to explore with the knowledge of the journals.

Now he knows that the kennels and the stables had been expanded by various carpenters that had stayed for awhile. The saddlebags used by the horses were a gift from a merchant caravan, the curious vegetable garden made by a nature mage- the greenhouse surrounding the garden also made by her, on a later visit accompanied by her uncle and her best friend, an earth and fire mage respectively. It makes Victor chuckle, to think that so many mages that Yuuri has encountered were known to him, known to the entire continent as ones great and powerful.

He wonders if there’s any correlation between their reputation and their stay at Yuuri’s estate, but drops the thought upon coming across a series of tall, unnaturally placed stones. These must be the graves, he realizes.

Victor approaches them carefully, snow crunching under his feet. Even Makkachin is more sedate.

There are a dozen in all, and each grave marker has a name roughly hewn on them, possibly by Yuuri himself. A plant grows in front of each one - Ji Guang-Hong’s has a stately willow on it, and Leo de Iglesia next to that grave has a lemon tree. A few of them are unmarked, each with yew trees all at similar points of growth.

Nikolai Plisetsky’s grave has a small rosebush, red buds curled tightly closed. It feels right to stand for a few moments in front of it, with his head bowed respectfully. “I wonder how your grandson turned out? A child raised by an immortal.” I want to meet him someday, and ask what Yuuri was like as a parent.

There’s the sound of muffled footsteps behind him, and Makkachin jumps, barking wildly. “Now, now, Makkachin, don’t bark at Yuu-” Victor says as he turns around, only to see that what had been creeping up behind him is most definitely not Yuuri.

The leopard from last night grins at him, haunches digging into the ground, and Victor turns around and takes off a dead sprint.

He hits the trees without thinking, but Makkachin’s barking makes him quickly realize that it’s a bad idea, leaves rustling above him. Victor changes course to head back to the mansion, back to the safety of Yuuri, but the leopard leaps in front of him and snarls, causing Victor to twist on his heel and continue through the woods.

Makkachin continues barking wildly, and Victor’s blood pumps in his ears, adrenaline filling his bones at the sound of something heavy landing on the trees above him. He barely dodges out of the way of another attack, the leopard leaping past him with its maw wide open, ready to rip his throat out.

Its eyes are bright green and venomous, and it’s constantly snarling at him, stalking intimidatingly every time that Victor slows his pace, leaping every time Victor stops running-

Its eyes are surprisingly intelligent.

A thought occurs to him — the “little leopard” that he had encountered in Metzrin — and this time Victor ducks under the next attack, lashing out with a kick as it passes by him. His foot lands solidly on its side, and the leopard is sent to the ground, barely landing on its feet, a promise of violence shimmering in its eyes. It stays between him and the manor, teeth bared, and feints to the left before lunging towards him once again.

This time, Victor tries for the manor again, but it blocks his way. The snarling gets louder, the intimidation fiercer, and Victor-

Victor laughs.

“You’re a shapeshifter, aren’t you?” he calls out, “You must be Yuri Plisetsky.”

The leopard freezes for a second, but that’s all the confirmation Victor needs. “Snow leopards are extremely rare in Blies,” he points out, “And Yuuri was surprised when I told him about you last night, but he believed me. And he said that he’d take care of the problem!”

It’s coming together faster now. “People on the Safir Plains are capable of using leopardskins to shapeshift in order to hunt for food easier, and one of the merchant caravans that Yuuri mentioned in his journals travels to there, so he must have bought it for you!”

The leopard hunches down, tail swishing, clearly about to attack him again, but Victor knows. “I saw you talking with Yuuko, and she said that you were a boy that runs errands for his father, and Yuuri can’t leave his estate, and I have no idea why you detest me so but-”

Victor is silenced by a hundred pounds of angry cat jumping at him, claws bared and barely missing his face, bouncing off a tree to pounce on Victor; claws are digging into his shoulders, and Victor hits the ground in pain, at the claws and the tree root that he landed on. “You’re Yuri Plisetsky, the boy that Yuuri took in,” Victor rasps to the leopard’s face. “You can’t hurt me or else Yuuri will-”

“YURI!” the name bellows throughout the estate, and from the corner of his eye Victor can make out Yuuri running towards them, Makkachin at his heels. “YURI, GET OFF OF HIM!” The leopard goes from angry to shamefaced in an instant, crawling off Victor and turning to to trees. “Stay right there and take off your leopardskin!” Yuuri demands, no longer yelling now that he was closer to the pair.

“Victor, are you okay?” he asks desperately, rushing to kneel at Victor’s side. He takes in the claw-marks with wide eyes, and reaches a hand to Victor’s cheek.

Oh, it got me, Victor realizes as Yuuri’s thumb wipes his cheek, something blood smearing from a cut. “I’m okay,” is what he says though, and Yuuri stands up and hauls him to his feet before turning his gaze on the leopard.

Which is not a leopard anymore, but rather a sulky-looking youth with blond hair and green eyes wrapped in a leopardskin. An ugly bruise crawls up the left side of his face, and he’s clutching his side, where Victor had kicked the leopard.

Yuri Plisetsky is stone-faced and sullen as he stands up, fists clenched and hands trembling as he dips his head to Yuuri.

Yuuri stares at both of them before sighing deeply. “Back to the house, both of you. I’m going to get the medical kit,” he says. “Victor do you need help?” he asks before trudging back.

Victor rolls his shoulders experimentally, and winces. “I should be good, but I need some treatment.” The claws had dug into his skin a bit, piercing holes in his coat and shirts.

Yuuri bites his lip before nodding and heading back to the mansion, leaving Victor and Yuri to go back on their own. Victor threads a head through Makkachin’s fur to ground himself as he follows.

“I hate you,” the little Yuri spits, tugging his cloak tightly around himself as he passes Victor.

The vehemence in the statement surprises Victor. “What did I ever do to you?” he challenges.

He gets no reply.

“I’m disappointed in you,” Papa says once they’ve all sat down around the fireplace, mugs of hot cocoa in hand and Victor’s have been wounds treated, healing paste applied to Yuri’s face and ribs.

Yuri scoffs, and turns to avoid his father’s gaze.

“Yuri,” Papa says sharply, reprimand in his voice. “We talked about this last night.” Victor makes a noise of wonderment.

Yuri scowls and pins the guest with his worst glare. “I’m sorry,” he snarls. “I didn’t really try to kill you, I just want you to go away.”

Silence. Papa holds his hand out. “Leopardskin, Yurohchka,” he says. “We talked last night, and I’m very, very disappointed in you right now.”

“Papa-”

“Victor is a guest and he hasn’t violated any of my rules,” Papa reminds him. “And you did not give a proper apology, Yurohchka.”  

Rage festers like a wound. “I’m sorry,” he snarls, staring at the guest, ripping off his cloak and casting it on the chair. “I’m going to bed now, Papa.”

“Yuri, huh?” the guest says as Yuri heads for the stairs. “Doesn’t it get confusing? Both of your names sound the same.” Yuri pauses in confusion, at the lack of anger on the guest’s part, and chances a look at him. Silver hair hiding one eye (like a shady person, his mind supplies) and his eyes are a really annoying shade of blue, like the summer sky on bright mornings that Yuri hates waking up to.

“What’s it to you?” Yuri snaps. “It’s not like you’re staying long enough for it for inconvenience you.”

“But I want to stay for awhile,” the guest says, smiling. Yuri wants to punch it off his face.

“Well you’re not-”

“Yuri,” Papa’s voice cuts into the argument swiftly. “Victor may stay if he wants to, and if he gives me an appropriate gift. Do not be rude to him, please. Has he done something to you?”

He’s turning you against me, Yuri wants to scream. “No,” he says instead, “It’s just that he looks like some creepy old man with that bald spot of his and weird grey hair.”

The guest sputters indignantly, and Papa gapes in disbelief, and Yuri takes that opportunity to walk back to his room as fast as possible. He clenches his fists so hard that crescents are left in his palm, and Yuri changes into his sleeping-clothes as quickly as possible.

“Both of your names sound the same,” he remembers the guest saying. The words burn in Yuri’s brain. Is there something wrong with that?

While Papa has asked him if he wanted a different name many times before, Yuri always refuses. He likes to think that their names tie them together where blood does not. Likes to think that he carries a piece of Papa in his name.

On some mornings, Yuri dreams wistfully about a world where his name had actually come from Yuuri’s.

“I’m sorry,” is all Yuuri can’t think of saying. He stares at the cloak that Yurohchka left behind in his whirlwind of anger. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He normally doesn’t get along with the guests, but it’s the first time that...”

“That he’s attacked one?” Victor fills in.

“Yes.” Yuuri pauses, uncertain whether to continue, but for someone who had just been nearly mauled by an angry leopard, Victor’s body language remains calm, open. “Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

Victor ponders for a moment before patting the spot next to himself. “Come sit closer here!” he says, “And tell me about yourself.”

Yuuri can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that, gingerly moving to sit next to Victor. He left some space between them, uncomfortable to the closeness, but Victor frowns. “What do you want to hear?” Yuuri asks.

Suddenly there is a weight in his lap. “Anything you’ll be willing to tell me!” Victor replies, staring up at him and grinning from his new position draped on the couch and on Yuuri’s lap. Yuuri can’t help the flustered squeak that flies out of his throat.

“What-”

“I’m an injured man,” Victor says, practically pouting. “And your lap is more comfortable than the couch. Do I have to move?”

A million different thoughts fly through Yuuri’s head as he stares down at Victor, and Victor’s smile, and the way bandages have been applied to his shoulders. His relaxed posture, the fact that he’s read through Yuuri’s journals and is still behaving like an over-affectionate poodle. Yuuri doesn’t know exactly which ones Victor read, but he does vaguely remember what he’s written, and it’s... strange. To be treated like a person, still.

So Yuuri doesn’t tell him to move, merely letting his hands fall to his lap as he musters up centuries of practice hiding his feelings to smile down at Victor. “I don’t know how to rid myself of my immortality,” he says.

“Oh?”

A memory is summoned to the forefront of Yuuri’s mind, unbidden. “I know that my immortality has to do with my estate, though. A time mage came by centuries ago, to study here for the sake of peace and quiet and possibly hiding from his guild.”

“Celestino?” Victor asks.

Yuuri hums. “That might have been his name, yes. It was a very long time ago.” He looks away from Victor and his impossibly blue eyes to watch the dancing flames of the fireplace, idly carding his hand through something soft. “He told me that my entire estate is removed from time. My horses will never age, nor my dogs. Everything that existed on the estate at the time this whole... thing started, is under the same curse as I.”

“But the animals can leave,” Victor says.

“They can,” Yuuri sighs, and stills his hand. “I don’t know why; the time mage said that they’re tethered to me. As long as I am immortal, they are too. But things that do not belong to this estate will age, like food.”

Victor makes a discontented sound, and a hand covers Yuuri’s and tugs it through something soft. He looks down, and his mask of calm shatters upon realizing- “Oh- I’m sorry-”

“No, no, continue,” Victor says insistently, “Continue talking, and doing this. I don’t mind it.”

Yuuri takes a shuddering breath, going back to looking at anywhere other than Victor, whose hair he had been playing with like an utter fool. He hopes that Victor can’t see his blush from this angle. His hair is very nice, Yuuri allows himself to think for a moment. “I... don’t know what you want me to talk about. There’s nothing interesting about a man who’s been frozen in time.”

“I think differently,” Victor rebuts. Then, in a softer voice, “Do you remember your family?”

Yuuri can’t help but look up to the covered painting in the middle of the stairs. “I try not to,” he hears himself say, something old and fragile cracking in his heart. “It’s best to not.”

“You miss them.”

“Of course I do.” He barely remembers them, anymore — their memories are like ghosts, transparent and flickering and barely-there. His mother’s smile, sometimes when he’s cooking. The smoke of his sister’s tobacco, when he walks to the kennels. His father’s warm expressions, when he sits in the study. “They died before I became immortal, I think.”

Victor shifts in his lap. “You think?”

Yuuri laughs dryly. “It’s been a very long time, Victor. I don’t remember their passing.” But he does remember fire, and the march of soldiers’ boots, his mother’s screaming.

For a while, there’s silence as Victor ruminates and Yuuri stares at the fire, playing with Victor’s hair in some strange imitation of domesticity. “Tell me about your son. The other Yuri,” Victor says eventually. “I never saw him around the estate before.”

“I love him very much.” The easiest thing to say about Yurohchka. Remembering the scene in the forest, though... “He can be a bit of a handful sometimes. He doesn’t like guests, usually, and stays out of sight as much as possible, unless they plan to stay for a long time. That’s why you weren’t allowed in the kitchen or the West Wing,” he explains. “You would have seen him.”

“Do you know why he hates me?” Victor’s voice is so very quiet, the words mumbled into Yuuri’s thigh like a lover asking the answer to a dreaded secret.

Yuuri’s heart stutters, and he pulls his hand away from Victor’s hair. “I... I’m sorry about-”

“So you don’t know?” Victor cuts in.

“I don’t.”

Yuuri’s heart feels heavy, and he closes his eyes to card his hand through Victor’s hair one last time, before the beautiful traveller decides that he is unwelcome, and should leave, because of Yurohchka’s hostility.

“Can I stay anyways? I’ve been planning your gift for it, but if he thinks I don’t belong here...”

Yuuri barely controls his knee-jerk response, mindful of Victor’s head on his lap. “You want to stay?” he asks, unable to process the words. “Still?” He chances a look downwards.

“As long as you’ll allow me to,” Victor says, and his smile is faintly heart-shaped as he kisses one of Yuuri’s thighs. He laughs when Yuuri squeaks. “You’re adorable.”

“I- what?” Yuuri knows that he’s beetroot red, and the room feels warmer than usual all of a sudden.

“You’re adorable, I said.” And suddenly, Victor is sitting up, twisting so that his mouth speaks hotly of Yuuri’s ear. “Everyone called you mysterious, or lonely, so I was completely unprepared for how cute you are.”

Is he flirting with me?! Victor’s hand has somehow found its way to Yuuri’s thigh. Oh my god he is-

“What are you doing?” Yuuri injects as much composure into his voice as humanly possible.

Victor draws back, and the light from the fireplace makes him seem to glow at the edges, silver hair tinging with warm colors from the flames, eyes dark with something that, even after centuries, makes Yuuri’s heart quaver. “So it seems that I don’t need to embody eros to seduce you,” he says cheerfully, even though his face is still shadowed. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met, Yuuri, immortal or not. Is it so bad that I want to get to know you better?”

For a moment-

For that moment, Yuuri forgets that Victor will leave someday, to travel to other places, and he lets his masks fall as Victor takes his hand in a kiss and presses him into the couch.

Forgets his mantra of everyone leaves, and doesn’t push Victor away when he looks at him with his eyes half-mast, intent clear on his face.

“Is this okay?” Victor murmurs into the crook of his neck, lips pressed to taste Yuuri’s pulse.

Yuuri forgets everything for that moment, and whispers, “Yes.”

Everything is dark after that, from Victor looming over him and Yuuri arching up so that their bodies are flush together, “How?” he whispers, right before Victor presses their lips together, soft and and warm and present.

“How what?” Victor asks after they disconnect, before leaning in again. His hand goes up to cradle Yuuri’s head, and Yuuri finds himself tugging at Victor’s shirt to ground himself from the unfamiliar sensation.

Yuuri gasps to compose himself several kisses afterwards, Victor tugging at his hair a little to expose his neck, tracing the curve of his Adam’s apple with his tongue and lips. “How can you- treat me like a normal person.”

Victor chuckles, and this close together Yuuri feels it rather than hears it, a rumble in his chest that transfers to Yuuri’s hands. “Because we’re the same, Yuuri,” he bites an earlobe, and Yuuri’s mouth involuntarily lets out a whimper.

“The same?”

“We’re both lonely, and...” Victor murmurs, pulling away slightly to gaze down at Yuuri, shifting his legs so that he’s straddling him. “How can I treat you any differently?”

Yuuri stares back up at him for a moment. “I like that answer,” he says as he pulls Victor back towards him.

Forgetting has never been so sweet.

Notes:

1. Yuuri figured that Yuri was pissed bc Yuuri normally doesn't spend so much time with guests, so he told Victor he was busy so he could spend time with his son. Also, they were cooking in the kitchen together, hence the mess and Victor not being allowed in.

2. Yuuri started keeping journals because one merchant had a bunch of blank books that he decided to take as payment for letting them stay. Someone suggested that he write to occupy his time, and it's been kind of therapeutic for him. Also, he's 675, not 652, because he was 23 when it kicked in.

3. How did Victor know that Yuuri kept journals? Lucky guess.

4. Yuri sort of has cat-senses from being a leopard-shifter, which is part of the reason he's so hostile to Victor. As for why, I can't say because spoiler afkljdafjds

5. *bangs fist on table* Yuuri keeps pushing people away!! But he's lonely!! It's a vicious cycle!! He reads really fast into any clue that person wants to leave, and never convinces them to stay. This is one of the reasons he and Yuri are a bit at odds right now, because he's subconsciously pushing Yuri away and Yuri hates it.

6. Last scene- Yuuri is super weak to intimacy, he fucking craves it, so when Victor offers it to him even after reading Yuuri's journals which are filled with his most personal thoughts, treats Yuuri the same as usual, Yuuri manages to forget his usual reaction to intimacy (pushing people away) and decides to reciprocate instead.

7. How the fuck do you write kiss scenes.

Hope you all enjoyed!!