Hi, guys! I’m excited to finally be posting my art for Chapter 1 of the YOI Big Bang collaboration I did with Adrianna99 (@iwritebetterthanispeak)! Enjoy the fluffy goodness! 🥰
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Fandom: Yuri on Ice
Pairing: Viktuuri
Summary:
Yuuri’s heart had just about given out when the apartment door in front of him opened to reveal his (definitely not a crush) favorite customer.
Whose name was Viktor.
Who, instead of the workout clothes or polo and skinny jeans he usually favored, was dressed in an overlarge sweater and pajama pants and brightly colored rainbow socks.
And who had a large, plastic medical boot on one foot.
[In which Yuuri and Viktor meet in one way, and then they meet again in another]
“With the perfect way the day had gone, Yuuri couldnt say with certainty whether the fireworks going off behind his eyes were real or simply a manifestation of his own shocked pleasure”
So glad to have been able to work with @senpaibackthefuckoff for the @yurionicebigbang - such an incredible writer, and totally brought the idea to life! These were the pieces I made to go along with the fic!
all i can say right now for sure is that if i do run another round it will not happen in 2020, unless the yoi movie miraculously comes out in the few months we have left!
as for future rounds, it’s definitely possible. if i get some interest in returning the event, i will look into doing another round.
I’m participating in this year’s @yurionicebigbang. I was fortunate enough to pair with @romancerofnecks
Thank you for such an excellent prompt, and I hope I did it justice.
Our posting date is June 13th, so stay tuned!
Victor was running on fumes. The exhibition was eight months away, plenty of time, but he could feel it slipping through his fingers.
For the past month, he had basically lived in his lab. His cook eventually gave up trying to call him from the main house to get him to come to dinner. The estate’s maid eventually gave up trying to get Victor to change into fresh clothes at least once a day. And his sole apprentice, Yuri Plisetsky, eventually gave up on trying to get a complete lesson from Victor.
Frustrated at his master’s behavior, Yuri had called in the only person who could pull Victor out of his mania.
Yakov arrived on a Monday in mid May. He blasted through the wards on Victor’s detached lab.
Victor yelped in surprise, “Yakov, is that you? What are you doing here?”
Yakov ignored Victor’s question and took in the sloppy state of Victor’s work space. With a wave of his hand, he stopped the music.
“Yakov,” Victor warned, now standing by his desk.
“Don’t try to scold me, boy. Your apprentice called me on the phone, disgusted with your behavior and insisted I come make you useful again. And I came. Mainly to tell you your boy has no manners, but neither do you.”
Victor looked down at his days old shirt, feeling the grime of his sweat on his skin.
“I have plenty of manners, Yakov,” Victor answered, “I just was ill prepared from an unannounced guest.”
Yakov gave another wave of his hand to bring the lights up all the way; Victor hissed in surprise.
“I would have been an expected guest if you had allowed anyone to see you in the past three days. I cannot believe you warded your lab against your own apprentice. It’s supposed to a shared journey, Victor.”
Yakov words, for once, had no bite, merely disappointment in his best student.
Feeling guilty, Victor picked his wand up from his primary desk. With a few movements, he had put away some of the clutter.
“That’s better,” Yakov gestured toward the door, “Shall we?”
Victor looked outside the open door, seeing sunlight for the first time in too many days.
He placed a hand on Yakov’s upper arm and gave a light squeeze, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me until you’ve had a bath, you smell terrible.”
With the new parameters of his coursework in place, Yuuri’s graduation from university came and left with a fizzle and quiet farewells. He had had more than half a mind to not walk across the stage. It felt like a humiliation rather than a celebration, to receive a degree he did not work diligently to complete.
His best friend, Phichit, getting his degree in potions and apothecary, had had none of his grumbles.
“Are you going to discount the three and a half years of working your asss off,” Phichit had thrown the dark blue robe at Yuuri after he said he was not going to the ceremony.
Yuuri had stood, motionless, hardly feeling.
Phichit had sighed, “No, you’re not. You’ve been through hell, I understand that. But I’m not letting your pain win this one.”
Phichit had helped dress Yuuri the rest of the way, quietly remarking about Yuuri’s weight loss.
“That’s my next order of business, fattening you back up,” he had said with a playful pinch to Yuuri’s side.
Yuuri had given him the small satisfaction of a giggle, “It’s not so bad. If you’re the superhero best friend you’re pretending to be, you’ll find me a job first.”
With a final brush across the shoulders and a ‘ta-da’ motion before their reflections in the mirror, Phichit had answered, “We’ll comb through every listing, magic and ordinary.”
So, Yuuri had walked across the stage to receive his temporarily empty diploma folder to go along with his empty heart and empty stomach.
Yakov spent a month setting the estate right, but he could not babysit Victor forever.
One morning while having breakfast with Victor and his small staff in the kitchen, he said as much.
“You insist on running a skeleton crew here, I understand that-,” he began, but was interrupted by Victor.
“I’m not a necromancer.”
“Who taught you to interrupt others? Because I know it wasn’t me,” Yakov’s tone was scathing, but Puma Tiger Scorpion, Yuri’s familiar, purred in his lap. Which, undid some of his harshness.
“As I was saying,” Yakov resumed, passing the cat back to Yuri, who was trying to magic sugar into golems at the table. None of Yakov’s business, really.
“You think you don’t need more help in your household, but you do, Victor.”
Victor stirred his tea with intense concentration, “A maid, a groundskeeper, and a chef are more than enough help for two young men.”
Yuri, from his piles of sugar, made a mocking noise.
“See,” asked Yakov, “your apprentice agrees with me.”
“He’d sell me and you to satan for one piece of licorice, don’t think he’s on your side.”
Yuri sent up a quick, “you’re going on a tangent,” before returning the piles that were slowly beginning to resemble men.
“Yes, let’s steer back,” agreed Yakov, buttering a piece of toast, “Victor, that would be enough if you had an agent for to handle your talks, your patents, and financials, but you insist on doing that all yourself. Add that to being in charge of Yuri’s training, your own experiments, and you know Makkachin needs more attentive care now that’s she’s older!”
Victor’s teacup clattered in its saucer on the table. He turned his attention toward the aging dog with her head on his shoes. Without looking back up at the table he said, “Familiars live far longer than normal animals.”
Yakov wiped his hands on his napkin before reaching out for Victor saying, “they do, but Makka’s already 15. She has the strength and the will to keep going, but she needs the extra love. If you add just an assistant to the household, that’s extra time you can spend with her. Think about it, at least.”
Victor gave Yakov’s hand a light squeeze, before reaching down to smother his best girl in some much needed attention.
Victor conceded defeat, seeing his estate with new eyes. Requests for use of the grounds by nearby wizards had gone unanswered during his work frenzy. The roof needed reworking and a late notice with the water and power company frightened him in to complying with his master’s wishes.
Victor insisted whatever help they did hire had to be knowledgeable about magic, but not necessarily a wizard. Good with animals. Good at math. Willing to wear many hats.
The position would be paid well, room and board included. Only the final candidates would be told who their employer was to be, to make sure radical fans and upstart wizards would not find the listing.
After throwing the job listing into local papers of Embour and onto the internet, Yakov decided it was safe to take his leave.
At the door, Victor helped Yakov into his coat, saying, “When are you going to retire and move out here to the countryside with the rest of us?”
Yakov made a noise of disgust in his throat, “you’ll have to drag me out of the city, Vitya, this clean air is no good for me.”
He gave Victor goodbye kisses and wrangled Yuri into his arms.
“I expect you to better at your charms and potions when I return, little one. You can’t get by on only transformation magic.”
Yuri wiggled around like a grumpy cat, “the golems were technically a charm! Let me go old man!”
Victor laughed, “You’re fighting him now, but you’ll miss the old man when he’s gone! You’re the one who called him here!”
Yuri stopped wiggling, and Yakov finally released him.
“I’m glad I did,” he said while stomping to his rooms, “he got you out of the barn.”
“It’s my lab!” But Victor’s shout was merely met with a click from the front door and a slam from another.
Phchit barrelled into the small flat he was renting by the month along with Yuuri. He was making good on his promise to help Yuuri find a job, but both of their resources were beginning to run low after moving out of the dorms and into this tiny excuse for a flat.
Yuuri looked up from the classified section of the day’s paper, “Phichit, did you run here from the career counseling appointment?”
“No, I ran here from the tube because I ran into Christophe Giacometti.”
Yuuri fluffed the paper, “So you ran away from your previous employer? I’d do that, too.”
Phichit threw off his shoes and flung himself to the floor, “you misunderstand me. And that internship was great! I learned a lot about the ethics of selling potions. No, anyway! I’m getting away from the point.”
Phichit sat up suddenly and Yuuri decided to finally fold the paper and give him his full attention.
“I ran into Chris on the tube, and he told me about a job opening at the Nikiforov Estate,” the words came out stuck together, as if the air in Phichit’s lungs were incompatible with the excitement.
Yuuri stood up suddenly from the couch, “What kind of position? I’m not a farmhand!”
Phichit scoffed, “Oh, please Yuuri, you’d muck the stables of the Nikiforov Estate and cry tears of joy because you’d be on the same grounds as Victor himself.”
Yuuri sat back down on the couch in huff, “Not a farmhand.”
Phichit finally left his dramatic seat on the floor and joined Yuuri on the couch.
If you had let me finish,” he paused to give Yuuri a pointed look, “I would have told you the position is more like being Victor’s in home assistant.”
Yuuri zipped his jacket all the way to his chin and played with the zipper, “Which would mean?”
“Taking care of the bills, Victor’s appearance schedules, making sure the house doesn’t fall into disrepair, and to quote Chris ‘dragging his manic ass out of the damn barn.’”
“It’s probably a very competitive position…”
Phichit drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch, still brimming with the excitement he entered the flat with.
He flashed Yuuri a wicked grin, “They only put out the ad in the town Victor lives on the outskirts of. He lives in France, out in the country. They haven’t had many acceptable applicants. Everyone in town knows what an airhead Victor is and how much of a handful both master and apprentice are.”
Yuuri put his head in his hands, groaning, “Victor is a genius, but yes, I’ve heard he can get a little… focused.”
“Obsessive. He’s a workaholic, Yuuri. But I digress! Chris asked if I knew anyone level headed and well organized with a little bit of a magic background. And I said…”
“You gave him my name?!”
“Yes! Of course I did! Two out of three is good enough for me! You can fake organization!”
“Phichit! I hate you!”
“No you don’t, you love me and you are immensely grateful that I gave Chris your number,” Phichit allowed himself to laugh at loud at Yuuri’s distress.
“Ugh, I mean, I might be. After I get over the shock,” Yuuri took off from the couch to pace in the kitchen area. He figured a cup of tea would either calm his nerves or hype him up to face this opportunity.
Phichit wandered over and planted himself on the small piece of counter Yuuri was not using. He kicked his legs excitedly, saying, “This is almost your dream come true! You get to work with Victor Nikiforov! And not just stare at him at guest lectures!”
Yuuri sighed and turned to face Phichit. He flicked the stove with the twist of his fingers in the air.
“I would not be working with him, Phichit. I’d be working for him. In a non magical capacity. Which was definitely not my dream.”
Phichit threw his hands into the air, “Which is why I said almost! I can see you talking yourself out of this, but you’re perfect for the job. So don’t sabotage yourself, okay?”
The kettle clicked and Yuuri’s low whine of frustration synchronized with its scream.
