To @pierrotguru From @zoneofrevale
Of Unintentional Cat Filters and Birthdays
Summary: It’s Victor’s birthday but unfortunately, they’re snowed in. Fortunately, Yuuri has other plans.
The bright light passing through the curtains wakes Yuuri, who has his arms and legs comfortably wrapped around Victor. He buries his head into Victor’s chest and groans, if he could only close the curtains himself and sleep in— but there was nothing worth exchanging being wrapped under the woolen blankets together with Makkachin sprawled at their feet.
Yuuri closes his eyes and buries his head even deeper into Victor’s chest, he smells of cinnamon with wisps of pine. You smell good Vitya, he thinks. He takes a deep breath and clears his mind.
But that doesn’t work either, he lays there, wide awake. As he comes to his senses, he suddenly realizes something that almost sends him scrambling out of their bed.
It’s Victor’s birthday.
Scrambling out of bed might be an exaggeration, but the sentiment remains. Yuuri hurriedly reaches for his glasses on the bedside table. It hurts to pull away from Victor’s grasp, but Yuuri’s will firmly resolves itself. He was going to give Victor a warm, happy and enjoyable birthday in his own home.
For the first time in years, they were back in St.Petersburg, they had been away the last few years, traveling for competitions, grand pines—while they celebrated his birthday in other countries— least to say, Milan was something. But it wasn’t the same as being in the comfort of their own home, together.
Makkachin’s perks up, Yuuri gently pets her head. “Good morning, Makkachin,” he softly whispers, nuzzling her chin.
It seems that it had woken Victor. “Yuuuri,” he says, weakly grabbing his arm. “Where are you going?”
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” Yuuri responds. “I’ll be right back.” Well, he’ll be right back after he makes Victor breakfast.
“Mrhmhm,” Victor responds and again he’s asleep, Yuuri can hear his little snores, along with Makkachin’s breathing. The two seem to have something in common— falling asleep as fast as Victor’s folding laundry skills— Yuuri admits that he was surprised at the discovery.
Yuuri quietly shuts the door and heads towards the kitchen. Humming, he opens the cupboard and takes the bowls and measuring cups and then the frying pan left on the side of the sink.
He notices a note left on their messy refrigerator filled with old receipts, pictures and magnets from their trips. It was from two weeks ago, when Victor was away for a few days. It said: “Good morning solnyshko, I’m sad that I won’t be able to see you today but don’t forget to stay, drink water and rest well after practice. Have a good day! I’ll call you later~”
Their refrigerator was filled with notes like that, both from himself and Victor, a mini-conversation spread out in the span of days.
He smiles at the memory, taking out the eggs and butter. He pours flour into the mixing bowl then cracks an egg, he almost drops the shell in the bowl once he looks outside the window. It was certainly a winter wonderland, with the snow falling and the sun making its ascent but the major snow banks accumulating on the roads with the less-than visible air didn’t make it any less viable to go outside.
Even more so when Yuuri opens the weather app on his phone and sees a whooping -16 degrees with a windchill of -25 degrees at 20km/h. Winters in Hasetsu were cold, but never this cold.
Yuuri opens his phone and quickly checks the group chat he made a couple weeks ago over the phone, made of friends from near and afar.
Victor Surprise Birthday Party
Mila Babicheva (09:27): Have you guys seen the snow outside??? It’s crazy. We haven’t seen this much snow in years.
Yuri Plisetsky (09:30): Yeah, I’ve been helping my grandpa shovel the driveway all morning
Yuuri Katsuki (09:33): Guys… I’m really sorry to announce this but I’m afraid we might have to cancel the party. It’s too cold and dangerous to drive outside. Victor and I don’t want anyone getting to an accident of any sort.
Yuri Plisetsky (09:34) That sucks. I’ll just call him later and tell the old man happy birthday then
Yuuri sighs and puts down the phone. “Crap…” he curses as he puts in the butter. “I can’t go out in this weather… There's too much snow. How am I gonna get his cake… what about Vitya’s surprise party?” He begins to mix everything and grimly dumps the mixed dough in the frying pan, a funny metaphor for his thoughts.
A notification pops up on his phone:
Christophe Giacometti (09:40)aWhy don’t you guys just do a video call? I mean… that’s what I was going to do with Victor later. We can invite more people that way.
Yuuri Katsuki (09:45): Good idea Chris! I have all the decorations ready, but I’ll set one up later. I’ll send the link here once the part starts.
Christophe Giacometti (09:47): Cheers to that. Can’t wait to bring my own wine.
Christophe Giacometti (09:49): Also,Yuuri dear, do you have a spare pole at home?
Yuuri Katsuki (09:50): Chris!
Yuuri breathed relievedly, he didn’t think of that, as for the cake—well, he doesn’t know how good bakers they both were, but he was going to suggest that they try baking it themselves. He quickly finishes making both Victor’s and his own pancakes and places it on the table. He then begins to prepare a warm cup of hot cocoa.
He’s pulled out of his thoughts once he feels a heavy pressure on his shoulder as he mixes the powder with the milk. “Yuuri,” Victor groggily says, pecking his neck. “You said you’d only be gone for one moment. Where did you go?”
“Good morning, Vitya,” Yuuri responds, kissing his forehead. “I was making breakfast for you honey. It’s your special day today.”
“Special day…?” Victor mumbles., still clearly half-asleep. “What special day? Did you finally fold the laundry faster than I did?”
Yuuri hands a cup of hot chocolate to Victor“It’s your birthday, you dum dum,” he fondly says. “Happy birthday.” He sets down his cup and kisses Victor a kiss on the cheek.
Victor nods, smiling. “Mhm, thank you Yuuri.”
Yuuri bends down to pet Makkachin, who comes out of their room, her tail wagging. He takes out her bowl and places it just beneath their kitchen counter. He then sits down on their dinner table, and they both begin to eat.
Victor’s eyes sparkle. “Yuuri!” he exclaims, hastily eating the pancakes. “You’re the best at making pancakes, you know that? It’s been five years and you still haven’t told me your secret to making your pancakes.”
Yuuri blushes. “Anything for you Vitya.” He then again glances out the window, tapping his hand fingers on the table.
Victor pours an unhealthy amount of syrup to his pancakes. “Yuuri, is there anything wrong?”
“Ah— there’s nothing… it’s just that… never mind.” Yuuri shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”
Victor raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure solnyshko? You can tell me anything.”
Yuuri gives in and Victor gives him his puppy. “It’s your birthday today and I wanted to make a special day for you… but I’m just disappointed that the weather sucks right now.”
Victor nods thoughtfully. “You being with me today is special enough, it’s okay,” he says.
“But still…”
Victor’s eyes widen, and Yuuri realizes something— it was either going to be one of Victor’s genius ideas or an idea that was going to end very, very terribly. “Ah! I just thought of something.”
Yuuri looks at him suspiciously.
“Why don’t we try baking everything ourselves? It’ll be fun!”
Yuuri sighs.
There’s two things that are wrong with that plan:
1. Neither of them know how to bake.
2. But they’re going to try anyway.
And that was how their kitchen ended up being turned into its own winter wonderland.
***
Victor knows that it was his suggestion to bake the cake themselves, but he didn’t anticipate the mess that it would create. Okay, maybe he did have a little idea of what their kitchen was going to look like, but he didn’t expect it to have it full blown covered in flour.
Even sweet Makkachin was covered from flour head to tail.
But there was something sweet, something sweet about baking together, baking his cake, together with Yuuri, who was as well, also covered in flour from head to toe.
Of course, he wasn’t excluded from the equation as well.
They try their best, really. Luckily, they have all the ingredients (to Yuuri’s surprise), they even find Victor’s vanilla, hidden in the farthest corner of the cupboards. In the end, despite the mess that they created, by some miracle of Yuuri, they had managed to bake a cake with an extremely detailed top, with an attempt to himself, Yuuri and Makkachin.
(Victor does most of the icing).
(But he is also the one who tries to eat all of the icing right after it finishes baking).
As they wait for the cake to finish, Victor opens his phone and smiles. There’s a bunch of unopened messages.
Yura (Sent 20 Mins ago): Happy birthday Victor, ur old now
Chris (Sent 2 hrs ago): Happy birthday Victor~
Mila (Sent 11 minutes ago): Happy birthday Victor!
“Vitya!” Yuuri yells from the living room, buried beneath a fort of blankets. “The movie’s about to start!”
“Coming!” Victor replies. “I’ll be right there!” He turns off his phone and makes a run for the couch, he topples the pillow fort and the effort that took a grand twenty minutes goes down the drain.
Yuuri groans. “Vitya!”
Victor wraps his arms around his husband as tight as he can. “Yuuuuuuri~” he says. “Moy miliy, I love you, you know that?” He drops kisses along his neck and shoulders.
Yuuri hugs him back tighter, burying his face in his hair. “I love you too, Vitya.”
It turns out that Makkachin had also wanted to join in as Victor notices her stretching her legs, with a determined look on her face.
“We love you too Makkachin,” they both say at the same time, laughing as Makkachin jumps on them. They
***
Later that afternoon, Yuuri’s eyes darted from the desktop to their bedroom door . “Is everyone in yet?” he whispers. “Victor’s just finishing being on the phone with Chris in our bedroom.”
Phichit unmutes himself. “Nope, Yuuri,” he wheezes. “Look at that state that this call is in, not any time soon.” He mutes himself and Yuuri watches him descend into a fit of laughter.
“Yakov!” Mila cries, there’s tears in her eyes. “Turn on your mic! Press the button that says ‘mute’!”
Yakov clearly is having a difficult time as he attempts expressing himself through a cat filter, unable to switch. Only his eyes and lips move, creating a pseudo-image of an adorable kitten mixed with Yakov’s frustrated expressions.
“Yuuri!” Yuuri hears Victor yell from across the hall. “Is your surprise ready yet?”
“Almost!” he replies. Yuuri unmutes himself once last time. “He’s coming, everybody please get ready!”
Mila’s laughter echoes in the background.
“Shut up!” Yurio bites his lip, trying not to laugh. “It’s about to start!”
Yakov is still mutedly in the background, trying to figure out how to return to humanity.
Yuuri gets up from his chair and lights the candle of their homemade cake, placing it on their dinner table just in front of the laptop.``Victor,” he opens the door. “The surprise is ready!” He holds up a makeshift blindfold made from a towel in their bathroom.
“I wonder what it is~” Victor hums as Yuuri guides him down the hallway.
“You’ll see,” he replies.
Yuuri eyes the camera and nods with vigor. At least everybody had gotten themselves muted, but Yakov was still a cat, unfortunately.
“You can take it off now, Vitya,” he says.
Victor slowly takes off the blindfold, a flurry of mixed emotions on his face as he sees the laptop—happy, surprised, shocked. He puts his hand over his mouth. “What—“
Yuuri leans in. “Happy birthday, Vitya,” he says sweetly. He kisses his cheeks.
Yuuri looks at the camera and nods, holding the cake.
All at once, they all unmute:
“Happy birthday Victor!”
“Happy birthday to you~” they all begin to sing.
***
Victor watches, Yuuri sings, and Makkachin excitedly dances. He listens to the familiar voices of his friends, of his family.
He’s happy.
Birthdays were usually lonely, usually spent in a foreign city in a hotel room alone. Occasionally, there was the birthday dinner with Yakov or other skaters— but it wasn’t the same.
Wasn’t the same as this.
“Make a wish!” Chris shouts from the other end of the camera. “Don’t forget to make a wish!”
Victor closes his eyes and thinks carefully— did he really believe in birthday wishes? He doesn’t know. But whether they could come true or not, he still wishes.
Wishes that things could stay the same— here with Yuuri, together with Makkachin just the way things are. He knows that nothing lasts forever— but if things could just stay the same as they are now—peaceful, then he was okay with that.
Victor smiles.
He blows the candle.