When it hits, it hits him hard.
It’s not that it’s unexpected at this point, but that doesn’t make it any easier to wade through. Like a thunderstorm, heavy black clouds surround him and blur his vision with icy rain and blinding shocks of lightning.
His entire body trembles with the chill and his lungs fill with water.
The rain falls harder around him, soaking him to the bone and he curls tighter on himself, as if trying to protect himself from the leaden cold that slowly cloaks his body.
Aching thoughts swirl around his body in gales, pushing him harder against the wall as he sinks down to sit. He lifts his hands, trying to stop the pressure, trying to protect himself from the crushing weight of his self-doubt, the lingering suspicion that he won’t ever be good enough to deserve his place at Viktor’s side.
The rain falls harder, rushing air cutting his skin like falling icicles and leaving numb bruises in their wake. Water fills his lungs until there’s no more room and he can’t breathe. Everything spins around him as he drowns in every doubt he has and every mistake he’s ever made, gasping for any breathe he can steal through the torrential downpour.
Lightning cuts across his skin like slicing reminders of his shortcomings, tensing his body with jolting electric currents, spurred on by the rain that drenches him so effortlessly. The world surrounding him is so dark and cold, he doesn’t think the storm will ever end.
Thunder shatters his thoughts with crackling roars through his head, deafening screams through the clouds that leave his body shaking. The lightnings strikes his skin again, leaving violent, messy scars across his flesh, wrapping him tight in confusion and disappointment, using each frigid raindrops that soaks him to grip tighter around him until the thunder rips him apart again.
He can’t break free of the chokehold the rain has on him, an arctic deluge slowly pulling him underneath crushing pressure and crashing waves.
His lungs are full, tight and heavy with water and freezing as each gust bites at his exposed skin until he’s shivering.
His joints ache with each cutting raindrop, each icy breeze and he can’t get his body to move anymore, tense and frozen in a never ending sea of lightning and waves like tsunami’s over his head.
Suddenly there’s a voice beside him, all warm tones and comforting, flickering flames. It breaks through the black clouds like a warm summer breeze and breathes into his lungs until there’s enough empty space for air to fill them. They’re still weighed down by the choppy water but there’s room to steal gasps of air.
Lightning crackles across his skin again, painful reminders that he’s still not good enough, that he still needs to work harder. Viktor’s light warmth starts to fade again as thunder resonates through his mind, deafening booms leaving him shaking and disoriented. He has so much more work to do.
He still doesn’t believe in himself sometimes.
He’s letting Viktor down.
How can Viktor have so much faith in him when he can’t even believe him sometimes? When he still lets storms consume him and leave him cold and restless and scarred? How can he deserve Viktor’s unrelenting confidence with stormclouds and lightning lingering in the back of his mind, threatening to spill out and douse him at any moment?
The water pulls him under again, threatening to fill his lungs with the same freezing doubt again when the voice returns, breaking through the clouds again, more earnestly.
Warm flames lick at his skin, heat his tight, frigid flesh until it stops turning blue.
“Yuuri, can you hear me?” Viktor asks, and his voice is soft, like sunlight on a spring morning, and Yuuri wants to reach out to it, to beg him to break through his clouds again. But he only has so much air in his lungs, battling with churning water so he nods. “You’re doing so well, солнышко,” he says. “You’ve done this before, you’re so strong.”
Viktor has gotten so much better at helping Yuuri through these storms. Yuuri wants so badly to touch him, but he knows that Viktor can’t fight the rain for him, he can only stand by Yuuri’s side, but Yuuri thinks that’s enough. “Yuuri, can I touch you?” he asks.
Yuuri wants to say yes, wants badly to feel Viktor’s hot skin on his, to warm his shaking body, but he doesn’t want Viktor to feel how cold he is, to touch his icy skin. He doesn’t want to risk putting Viktor’s flames out, so he shakes his head.
Yuuri forces himself to breathe, forces himself to take in any air that his lungs will allow no matter how hard the rain falls. He feels it digging into his back like hail, leaving bruises and blue skin behind.
Lightning grips him again, his body tensing with each pulse of doubt and regret. Thunder claps around him but he breathes. He focuses on the warm flames circling him, catching on his skin as if asking for permission. He focuses on the heat he feels from them, on the way they dance and flicker, but never too close. Just close enough to brush against him, enough to draw color to his skin.
He focuses on how resistant Viktor’s flames are to raindrops, as if determination alone keeps them burning, as if Vikor’s desire to help Yuuri is stronger than Yuuri’s relentless rain. “You’re so strong, моё золотце.”
Viktor’s voice brings another breath of air to Yuuri’s chilly lungs and he takes it greedily.
It’s hard for Yuuri to believe him, to believe anyone. It’s hard to put aside the reservations that bury him under heavy rainfall. But he tries.
His clouds linger heavily for long minutes before they begin to disperse, to break apart and leave him sore and aching and cold, leaning against a wall in his and Viktor’s hotel room.
Viktor is beside him, kneeling down and watching him carefully, but there’s so much love in his gaze that Yuuri’s heart stutters.
“Viktor,” he breathes, voice a zephyr in their quiet room.
Viktor smiles, and reaches his hands up, but stops himself just before they brush Yuuri’s skin.
“Sorry,” he says, drawing back slightly and Yuuri’s body shivers, as if reminding him of the heat Viktor provides. Before Viktor can ask again to touch Yuuri, Yuuri grabs his hands and pulls them to his own face. He sighs, heat spreading through his frozen joints and across his skin like butterfly wings.
He leans forward, wrapping his arms around Viktor’s shoulders and pressing his face into Viktor’s neck.
His body is still trembling, but Viktor’s hands wrap around his back, a comfortable tightness tugging him into the flames as they surround him and he pulls himself even closer. His lips brush over Viktor’s heated skin and a wave of warmth settles over his body.
Viktor holds him a little tighter, as if trying to pull Yuuri’s chills from his body with sheer force of will. Yuuri smiles.
“Thank you,” he says, words like a prayer whispered against Viktor’s skin.
Viktor’s flames engulf him and he smiles, his body relaxing against the safety of Viktor’s chest. Storm clouds still rage in his periphery, lightning striking down like a warning, a threat. But for now he’s safe, and he has Viktor, and his body has finally stopped shaking. Viktor believes in him, and loves him, with all his flaws and shortcomings, and sits by Yuuri’s side when his storms blind him. He is warm, and bright, and cuts through clouds when Yuuri needs him.
companion to this fic, and title from Say You Won’t Let Go by James Arthur