aiko's otter den

from a compass rose - Katsuki Yuuri is never checking his phone again. He likes his past right where it is. Too bad it doesn’t give a hoot.

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4. Invitation

Date: 02/26/2013 — Time: 15:27

Yuuri returned to their hotel with an empty bladder and more shaking bones than he knew what to do with. He parked his bike with fumbling fingers. His gloves were just not cutting it today, he’d have to try something else.

He also had promised to explain everything to Viktor and god, where was he going to even start? Where was he going to go to explain this to his… fiancee? Husband? They hadn’t made anything official… ahhgh. He pressed his heels into his eyes.

If Yuuri felt like being honest with himself, he had never wanted to talk about it, period. Takeshi and Yuuko, damn them, didn’t have to. (Except they did, of course they did, with the terrible intimacy of the other not being able to forget.

He hiccupped before he could stop himself, rubbing his eyes and swallowing the inevitable deluge. At least crying in front of Viktor was getting better. He was starting to mind it less and less and so was Viktor himself, who didn’t seem to understand how to deal with tears all together. He wanted to ask him about that, talk to him about that. But now they had to talk about this.

Yuuri stepped into the hotel and the anxiety of what anyone would term as the tragic backstory™ faded into the general “I am not worthy of being here” anxiety. Which wasn’t much better. He could pacify it though, because this was Viktor’s choice and his, and the two of them talked about these choices and Yuuri had decided he’d liked it here than the last luxurious hotel they’d been shoved into. So it was also his choice, which meant no matter what anyone else said he belonged here all the same. It only helped so much, but it was enough to keep his feet moving forward.

If he was getting Hawkmon back, he probably couldn’t bring him here. Russia had a very low Digimon population, he realized. They were all scattered into rural areas, few of them close enough for communication. Unlike Japan, which loved packing most of its population in dense areas, it would only make sense they appeared more in that city life. More electricity, more technology, just more in general.

Not that Russia didn’t have these things. It was just, it had started in metropolitan areas, it would take time for it to expand further out.

But Hime had said that they –Chosen— were all over the world and had been since 1999, since Apocalymon. Which Yuuri had apparently slept through. Not on purpose, but nevertheless he had slept through it. There just weren’t enough of them yet for it to matter. Not enough adults, not enough connections.

And that was starting to change.

Which meant at some point, Yuuri was going to have to watch his loved ones get their own digimon and with none of the baggage. None of the “you have to save the world’ baggage because no one needed that. And there was now something like, something like a support system, surely, being made and—

Yuuri stopped and almost stumbled as he did, grappling with the unbelievable stab of envy right in his stomach. He couldn’t imagine having Hawkmon and not having to fight behind him, not have to flee for his life or climb sharp, sheer cliffs and eat gross berries—

But would the Hawkmon he had be the one who had done all of that with him? Who had tried so hard to be there for him? Or was that digimon gone forever?

Yuuri pushed himself forward and away from those thoughts as he leaned back onto the elevator wall. The first time he had been in this elevator he had stared all the way up to the top, trying very hard not to feel nauseous or overwhelmed by the sheer amount of unknown lights below. Now it was a normal occurrence. He just had to remind himself that all cities were the same in the end, as offensive as that would likely sound.

Either way, he thought to himself. I dunno if I want the news freaking out at my giant bird friend. As if Viktor and I don’t get enough publicity.

Finally, he reached his floor and exited the elevator. The halls were surprisingly empty. Then again, most people were leaving for work or going home. It was too soon to hear the children about in the halls, ready for another day at the pool. So he entered the room without being accosted. He was surprised no one had tried to ask him for an autograph. That had been last year, and the year before.

Now he felt normal again. Whatever normal was.

Yuuri fumbled through his cards for the room key and managed to get it after the third or fourth try. He stopped counting, it only made things more difficult to look away from.

Of course, when the door swung open it was to a still messy hotel, the happy tail waggings of Makkachin, Viktor, Yurio and Phichit sitting in the mess… and three giant, multicolored eggs on the nearby sofa.

Viktor smiled at him, unabashed. “Yuuri! Welcome back!”

Yuuri was proud of himself for not fainting.

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Let us travel back in time a moment, or to be more precise, a few hours.

Viktor Nikiforov was a man with a headstrong sentiment. If he wanted it deep in his bones, he chased after it, never mind if it was a good idea or not. Even the most negative of actions could be spun into a positive action.

So, when Yuuri did his shutting people out thing again, Viktor had decided to call his husband’s friends. Well, friend and Yurio. Yurio was terrible at being friends with people, bless his cat soul. He was however, impacted by Yuuri, so if anyone could get a few extra lines out about things that bothered him, it was Yurio. Because he had a tendency to get under the skin and be pissed off he got there instead of something else.

And Phichit was… nonchalant. Ever so much. He had the confidence Viktor had been faking since he was a small child. He had a very solid, well-thought out goal and he was willing to work towards it one day at a time. So he was the soothing one, the steady buoy in the water.

Viktor didn’t pretend he had a specialty in either of those. He kept his doubts in his mask. Careful and careless. No matter how steady he was, he was as mercurial as the water and the frozen lake. Spring would always come, so a person learned to adapt. But someday in turn, summer would also end.

As a result of that, trees would always bloom and thus he would always be around. Or something, he’d lost himself in the overwhelming absurdity of his own metaphor. It happened sometimes. Couldn’t be helped.

That said they were also good with Makkachin, no matter how much Yurio stated he hated dogs. Then again, his dog was special.

Hence why he came out of the bathroom to find Makkachin planted on Phichit like a curly blanket and Yurio as far away from them as possible on the spare bed (Viktor did kick in his sleep sometimes, he knew this, and some nights that was just not doable.) on his phone.

“You didn’t even punch each other,” he said before he could stop himself. He was smiling a bit too wide but maybe that was normal. Everything was surreal. Hours ago, he and Yuuri had skated for the world to see, without shame nor fear. And they had gotten to this place within a year and a half. It had taken a lot of string pulling, some he could never get again no matter how much he begged.

Now they were… like this, a jumble like the first week they had met, the first days and hours of panic, only muted and less tenuous.

“Course not,” Phichit said from his place on the bed. “Yurio and I are best friends too!”

Yurio grumbled disagreement but actually did nothing so Viktor chuckled at them and released them from the prison hold that was his best friend in whole world. The poodle made his way to rest on Viktor. Phichit sat up and grabbed his own phone and they were left waiting again.

“You said he was going to the library or somethin’,” Yurio said in a grumble after a few minutes. “Where did he go?”

“He said that he was going on a video call,” Viktor replied as carelessly he could manage. He had no reason to be concerned. “Across time zones.”

Phichit let out a mild hum of understanding and the companionable silence resumed.

Then, Yurio started swearing about five minutes later.

Not too surprising, honestly. He often started cursing the longer he was on instagram. But then he threw his phone, which he never did because he paid his own phone plan and replacing on his plan was grounds for a physical execution.

The reason for this became clear about four seconds later when his phone started glowing.

His bed was very hot for some reason, and it wasn’t the comfortable heat of Makkachin either. He splayed his hand about for his own phone and wrapped around it. Then he yanked it away and Makkachin barked in distress.

Phichit’s phone also hit the floor and all of them ended up covering their eyes from the sheer light covering the room. For a moment, Viktor wondered if the curtains could block a light bright as the fluorescent lamps from dingy locker rooms combined.

There was a sudden, pointed weight on his chest, big and burly and smooth. He coughed for a moment as it rolled and settled. With it came something small, light, resting on his shoulder before sliding down and smacking his arm.

Then the light faded and each of them had an egg and a toy in their presence.

There was a moment of silence. Then Phichit said, rather matter-of-factually, all things considered,

“We need to keep these warm.”

And that was how they ended up the way they were now, with Yuuri staring at the room in absolute horror, and monster eggs on their hotel sofa.

“Dear fuck,” Yuuri wheezed, and he really did look like he was about to faint.

“Strong tea!” Phichit announced without delay as he ran over to their unnecessary kitchenette with the electric kettle they all scoffed at. “Bit of whiskey in it too! Usually a British thing, super good American thing sometimes. Coach put us on it.”

He said it all casually as he poured these cups. Four on a tea tray. He was very relaxed about the whole thing, chattering on to Yuuri as Viktor settled him on the bed and dried him off from the snow in the nice heat of their suite.

Yurio watched in front of the eggs, arms crossed, eyes fierce in their hunger for… something.

“So, Yuuri.” For a moment, Phichit’s tone took on something sly, like the boy raised hunting dogs for foxes instead of fifty hamsters. “Is this why your friends refuse to let me have Christmas dinner at their house?”

For a moment Yuuri seemed fully prepared to laugh until it dissolved into hopeless tears. Instead what they got was a weak little snort. “No Phichit, I told them about your inability to not break a plate after too many times with it and it just stuck.”

Phichit stuck out his tongue. Yuuri squinted through his glasses.

Then Makkachin bounded up and demanded a greeting, forcing everyone to hide their careful china of paper cups for tea. And Yuuri, bound to the whims of a giant poodle, obeyed.

This silence was thoughtful. But Yurio, being himself, had to break it. “What the fuck is going on and what do you know?”

Yuuri looked at him, listened to the strange, hollow silence in his voice. Then he sighed out loud. “It all started in June, back in 1995. At least for me. That was when I first met Digimon. When my friends and I met Digimon. It was.” His lips twitched, like he wanted to smiled. ’It was like an adventure.”

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