#this wasn't so much about Yuuri's anxiety as how I imagine he would be if he were in snow white's situation

[duskisnigh]

Or Just Some Human Sleep (Snow White AU)

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9914666

Rating: Teen

Word count: 2328

Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri and Victor Nikiforov, Eventual Victuuri

Warnings: minor descriptions of violence, temporary character death (magical slumber), fic mocks and discusses the problematic elements of the original tale, which includes issues concerning consent and indebtedness

Summary: 

“No, thank you,” Yuuri insisted, holding the broom in front of him like a weapon. “I may be fourteen, and I may have lived a relatively sheltered life, but I am not stupid, and I’m pretty sure you’ve drugged that apple.” 

The aftermath of the first image in this comic

“No, thank you,” Yuuri insisted, holding the broom in front of him like a weapon. “I’m think I’m good.” 

The friendly demeanor of the apple vendor had gone, replaced with something more sinister. She now stood in the way of the cabin’s only exit, face hidden under indoor shadows, an eerie figure silhouetted against the soft afternoon light.

Tension filled the tiny cabin, so palpable Yuuri imagined he felt it crackling on his sweaty skin like sparks of malevolent magic, taunting with the promise of harm. Perhaps that was what it was. Yuuri glanced over the dark-cloaked figure, her crooked nose and skeletal fingers, the folds around their eyes and the stretch of skin around her toothless grin, and he thought of a childhood’s worth of warnings against witches.

The witch lifted the apple higher, shook it in Yuuri’s direction. “But this is a magic wishing –”

“I may be fourteen,” Yuuri interrupted, every effort devoted to keeping his voice steady, “and I may have lived a relatively sheltered life, but I am not stupid, and I’m pretty sure you’ve drugged that apple.” 

Even as he tightened his grip, only slightly aware of the bark of the crude broom digging unsympathetically into his palms, Yuuri felt resignation sink heavy in his stomach. He had been petrified by the demonstration of strength when the door was forced open, torn off its hinges completely and flung across the floor.

He thought now it might have been magic, but regardless of which, he knew he had no chance of emerging victorious should a struggle arise. He continued to cling to his broom solely for some comfort in the illusion of control.

In the end, it took barely a minute.

Leo will have a hard time fixing the door, was his thought when an invisible force ripped the broom violently from his hands. Guang Hong won’t be pleased with the mess, was what came to mind when he was lifted off his feet, fingers still burning, and slammed against the wall above the fireplace. Jars and decorative mirrors atop the mantelshelf tumbled to the ground, shattering.

Phichit- Phichit’s pie will burn in the oven.

The hand around his neck was raw-boned and mercilessly cold, but most of all it was unabashedly eager. Amidst the haze of pain and breathlessness he saw the gleeful glint in the witch’s eye, but before he could wonder how he could have possibly wronged her to warrant such hatred, the red, wet heat behind his eyes reached across his field of vision in an overwhelming, suffocating black. 

Surely, he thought, as what he imagined must be a piece of apple was being shoved down his throat, there must be an easier way to kill a person.

He woke up to six teary dwarf faces surrounding him, and the smell of roses too strong under his nose.

“Phichit’s resting in bed because of a bad stomach,” Guang-Hong said, when he caught Yuuri ‘s gaze searching. His tired smile was laced with a familiar sort of exasperation. “He ate your pie anyway,” he continued, by way of explanation.

“Oh, Phichit.”

Sitting up, muscles objecting from disuse, Yuuri did not take long to realize what had happened. He observed the meticulous arrangement of white roses around him, shivering from a sense of displacement that raced cold down his spine. He tried not to think too hard about magic (more specifically, its apparent ineffectiveness), but allowed the dwarves to fuss over him, taking time instead to appreciate what had been done for him: someone had taken out the splinters in his palms, rubbed his hands in ointment and bandaged them.

More effort than necessary for a dead person, Yuuri thought, feeling tears beginning to gather.

Only after he had properly thanked each of the dwarves for their care and ushered them inside the cabin did he direct his attention to the lonely figure shifting uneasily under the big oak, a little distance away from the burial ground.

His upbringing would demand it be done, but Yuuri was not keen on conversing with the stranger. The stranger, whom the dwarves referred to as Prince Victor, had seen him at his most defenseless. Yuuri’s body was only placed uncovered in the clearing because these parts of the woods were meant to be hidden away from the rest of the world. Victor had unwittingly stumbled into what was supposed to be a space for private mourning.

“Your Highness,” Yuuri greeted, hoping he had kept the anxiety out of his voice. The knowledge that he had been laid completely vulnerable in front of this unfamiliar person twisted and rolled uncomfortably in Yuuri’s gut, like he imagined charcoal pastry would.

But manners were manners. “Seung Gil said I would have remained quite dead if it weren’t for you, so I understand I owe you at the very least my gratitude.”

Yuuri grimaced. The words tasted as metallic in his mouth as the wedge of poisoned apple.

“Um,” Prince Victor said, intelligently, and there was a curious pink to his cheeks. “There’s no need, really.”

“They also insisted they would rather I heard the story from you,” said Yuuri, slowly, not entirely sure he wanted to. There had been a very suspicious hint of a barely repressed grin on JJ’s face. 

“There’s honestly very little to it,” Victor mumbled. Yuuri noticed that Victor’s shoulders were visibly tense. He attempted not to derive too much satisfaction from the fact that Victor felt apparently just as unsettled by the circumstances, despite his physical and social advantage over Yuuri. 

Faced with Yuuri’s expectant silence, Victor sighed. “I was returning from my morning hunt. I took a wrong corner, got lost, and the next thing I knew I was showing up uninvited at someone’s funeral.” He had the grace to look extremely sheepish.

“I was going to leave immediately, but I recognized the royal crest on your mantle, and I’m aware Queen Mari has been sending out search parties for her missing brother – ”

“Wait, Mari is queen?” 

“She ascended to the throne a week ago,” Victor replied.

“What about my step-” Yuuri said, but something prudent within him stopped him mid-question. The sharp, icy leer of the witch pierced into the forefront of his mind, and there was an uncanny sense of familiarity there that Yuuri did not want to delve too deep into, afraid it might cut a little too close to the heart, that the chill might stay a little too permanently. “Never mind. What happened after?”

“I confirmed your identity with the dwarves, and I thought, oh well, this is really unfortunate,” Victor said, and the manner of which he phrased it might have been slightly unpolished – considered flippant, even rude, perhaps, if Yuuri were his parents – but Yuuri thought he could empathize with the need for some degree of dissociation. Discovering the dead body of a neighbouring monarch’s little sibling in your woods was a delicate, even terrifying, position to find yourself in.

“I wasn’t sure what the right course of action would be,” Victor continued, dragging a hand down his face. He looked rather drained. “So when the dwarves mentioned their suspicions of magic being involved, my mind wandered to those ancient tales of princes and princesses that discuss chivalry in a magical context, so I thought, I don’t know, should I just kiss you or something?"

“You WHAT?”

“Which, I quickly realized, was a horrible idea,” Victor hurried on, hands raised in front of him, looking more like a gesture of surrender than one of mollification, “because the old literary greats had little concept of consent, and it would be unwise to blindly adopt the then-romanticized practices formulated upon an antiquated understanding of the knightly code.”

Yuuri looked only very slightly chastened. Victor shifted from foot to foot.

He cleared his throat. “I eventually told the dwarves I wanted to take your body back to my castle -" 

“Excuse me?”

“- where your sister is, because that is also where the diplomatic meeting with my father is currently taking place!” Victor added, quickly. He appeared as though he wanted nothing but for the story to end immediately, and rather regretful that he had gone into any detail at all.

“As we were moving your coffin, I may have accidentally dropped you.” The pink in Victor’s cheeks, having mostly faded over the course of the relation, was back in full force. "The piece of fruit lodged in your throat fell out of your mouth and you woke up by yourself. You –” 

He cut himself off. Then he made a gesture with his hand, to show that he had concluded.

“When I woke up, “ Yuuri said, watching Victor’s face carefully, “I scared you, didn’t I?”

Victor bristled. “I think it’s fair to say you scared everyone.” He threaded a hand through his bangs, pushing his hair back, perhaps to disguise the real purpose of hiding part of his blushing face with his arm.

Receding hairline, Yuuri thought, rather unkindly, but then again, Victor had dropped him.

“Well, thank you, regardless,” Yuuri said finally, and the stretch of silence that preceded wasn’t as long or as uncomfortable as it could have been. The dwarves were right; it was still the direct result of Victor’s actions that he could be standing and talking right now. Had Phichit been there instead of Victor, Yuuri doubted he would have let any of his brothers send him tumbling to the ground.

Then Victor made an aborted movement, like he had wanted to reach out to Yuuri, and all of a sudden Yuuri was remembering too clearly his lessons about royal indebtedness and obligation, an overlapping of voices of teachers, instructors, advisors, all grim with warning, warning against being a prince and beholden.

“What are you going to do now?” Yuuri asked uncertainly, throat dry.

What do I owe you now?

It was surely just the cause of his anxiety, the demon that too often took his thoughts on a voyage through rough uncharted waters and stranded him with no means of return, the demon he had tried all his life to exorcise. But he could hear his father’s voice, ringing, admonishing.

Death before dishonor, it said.

“Yes, what are you going to do now?” a voice cut in, loudly, before Victor could open his mouth. It was Chris, the oldest of the dwarf brothers, making his way over and situating himself between the two of them lazily, like he had always belonged within the conversation. “Yuuri’s quite beautiful, isn’t he?”

Flushed with embarrassment, Yuuri was about to protest, to ask what his appearance had to do with anything, when he felt the small but firm tug at the back of his trousers, behind his knee right above his boot, where he found Chris’s hand gripping him.  

Chris’s eyes, like always, were smiling, and as usual, the edges of his mouth were curled upwards in a non-committal way, but Yuuri stared in wonder at the newfound tightness of Chris’s jaw, a kind of rigidity alarmingly incongruous to the rest of his body, character and way of life as Yuuri knew.

It registered, then, that Chris’s strange way of holding himself in front of Yuuri was not unlike how he had held Yurio behind him when Yuuri first arrived at the cabin, giant and foreign and begging for shelter. Chris gripped him now as he had gripped Yurio, with all the caution and preparedness born from an older sibling’s protective instinct. Chris, who may have lived longer than Yuuri and Victor combined, who must have witnessed things and heard things and whose wariness surely must mean –

“Uh”, Victor said, looking completely lost. He had the panicked air of a person knowing he was being tested, but hadn’t the slightest idea what on. 

“Uh,” he said again, circumspect, eyes darting from Chris to Yuuri, as if they would somehow spare him and surrender the answer.

“Well?” said Chris, unrelenting, lifting an impatient eyebrow.

“I suppose? He’s…cute,” Victor eventually decided. He hastily turned to address Yuuri directly, so as to avoid further discourtesy. “You’re cute?” he said, bemusement still evident, all ungainly limbs and fidgeting, and Yuuri understood that when Victor looked at him, he saw someone with eyes still too big, a face still too round, and a heart too willing to open itself to the world.

He sees me as a child, Yuuri thought.

The feeling in his chest, Yuuri realized, was relief. 

“I’d like to give you a ride back to my place, where you can reunite with Queen Mari.” Victor paused. He was still eying Chris nervously. For all that he was three times the height of a dwarf, he appeared to be extremely intimidated. “If that’s what you want.” 

“It is,” Yuuri said. Chris’s grip on him had loosened. “Thank you.” 

 And for the first time since he had awoken, Yuuri smiled at Victor, a gesture Victor hesitantly returned. The warmth that blossomed beneath Yuuri’s ribs was gratitude, and it was genuine.

Fifteen years later, Victor Nikiforov would look back to that time he accidentally brought Katsuki Yuuri back to life as one of the most stressful experiences in his life, and he would laugh.

And then he would tell anyone who would listen that their falling in love had nothing to do how he saved Yuuri from his enchanted sleep, for the two of them would not find love in each other until years later, when Yuuri’s kind and open heart became less of something to nostalgically envy and more of something to wonder at and admire.

No, their marriage – when it eventually happened – had little to do with duty or obligation (and here, Victor would make a face) or even gratefulness, but instead everything to do with how Victor won the heart of his beautiful, headstrong prince over bit by bit, one diplomatic meeting at a time, one romantic gesture after another, until seduction lost its purpose.

End